“Hey, Andy,” I say, slowing to a stop beside the young man who works for me as he heads out of the shop. I haven’t seen him for a couple of months because his wife just had a baby and he’s been on paternity leave—something I’m always insistent my employees take full advantage of. “How’s it going, man?”
“Lucas! It’s great, man. So cool. Looking forward to coming back next month, but man it’s great to have this time together, you know?”
I don’t know. But I hope I will someday soon, now that I’ve met Wren.
“Awesome,” I say. And then I notice Wren across the main street, talking to some dude around the same age as her. He’s tall and skinny with tattoos all over his scrawny arms, and his head is shaved on one side. I don’t like the way he’s looming over her.
“Take care, man,” says Andy. I bump the fist he offers, half-distracted, and just as I do I see the scrawny guy shove Wren’s shoulder and make her stumble.
“HEY!” I scream, and I’m off running toward them in an instant, as fast as my legs will carry me, leaving Andy standing there looking bemused. The rage I feel at the fact that the asshole shoved Wren like that is like nothing I’ve ever felt, even if I do get a little glow of satisfaction when I see her shove him right back. I slide over a car hood beside them.
He doesn’t see me coming until I’m well inside his peripheral vision, and the shock on his face when I grab the front of his shirt and lift him from his feet is almost comical.
“Who the fuck are you?” I demand through gritted teeth, my voice dangerously low as I slam his back against the wall. Without taking my eyes off him, I ask, “You okay, Wren?”
Wren
“Hey, it’s alright,” I say. I keep my voice gentle and rest my hand on Lucas’s bulging bicep.
“No, Wren, it’s not alright for anyone to shove you like that,” he says. It’s weird, he is obviously furious, but he’s so controlled. I don’t have any fear of him at all, nor any fear that he will lose control and do something stupid.
“Well, true,” I concede. And honestly? I’m glad to see him. I’ve traveled the world solo, so it’s not like I haven’t been in my fair share of sticky spots, but they’re always that little bit easier to handle when you have someone with you, on your side. And I have no doubt at all that Lucas is on my side. In more ways than just this one.
“Look, man,” says the guy Lucas has up against the wall. It’s Bret. I almost didn’t recognize my ex at first. Much more ink, much less muscle. He looks gaunt and his skin is covered in little lesions and pimples. He looks like he’s managed to nurture the fledgling drug habit that broke us up into a full-blown meth addiction.
He’s holding his hands up and pleading with Lucas to release him, and it couldn’t be more obvious that there’s more chance of a nun opening a brothel than there is of this guy ever giving me back my lost rent money.
“Just let him go,” I sigh to Lucas, shaking my head. “It’s Bret.”
“Your ex?” he asks. I nod, and I feel my cheeks burn bright red when I notice Lucas giving Bret another, longer look over. He lets him go, but jabs a finger at his chest. “Stay,” he says, and then he takes my hand and pulls me off to the side, lowering his voice.
“Was he like that when you two were together?” I ask.
I wish for Lucas’ sake I could keep the sadness out of my eyes, but I can’t. I frown and shake my head. “No. He was smoking a little weed and occasionally taking amphetamine. This is… not the Bret I knew.”
Lucas nods, looking back over to where Bret is standing, dutifully staying put. “You care about him?” he asks.
I hesitate, glancing to Bret, then look to Lucas and nod. “Not as a boyfriend. But we were friends for years before that. I’ve known him since we were kids and seeing him like this is awful.” I look back to Lucas. “I’m sorry.”
“Little bird,” says Lucas, pulling me to him and holding me. He plants a kiss on top of my head. “Never apologize for being compassionate. There are enough soulless assholes in this world. Stay just the way you are, okay?”
I wrap my arms around him and nod, bathing in his warmth.
“Listen,” says Lucas. “I’m going to send a message to get you a car. Are you alright to drive?” he asks.
I nod, a slight frown of confusion on my face.
“Okay, go over to the shop and ask for Jimmy. He’ll get you a car. And don’t look at me like that. I’m going to try and get your friend some help and then I’ll meet you at home, alright?”
The fact that he says “home” and I instantly think of the mansion rather than my little cottage probably means something, but I’m too surprised that he’s planning to help Bret to dwell on it.
“Thanks, Lucas,” I say, and reach up to kiss his cheek. He turns his head and bites a kiss from my lips, and I can feel his eyes on me all the way across the street to the auto shop.
Chapter Six
Lucas
By the time I pull up outside the house it’s been five hours since I saw Wren in town. I’m exhausted, but when the sound of wheels on gravel brings her out to greet me, I’m elated. I could get used to that.
“Hey!” she smiles, and hands me a cold beer as I get out of the car.
I take it and lean in to kiss her. She melts into me the way butter melts into hot steak, and I live in the kiss for a moment, revelling in the sudden, unwavering knowledge that she is it, for me. Whether I can convince her to stay or not, there will never be another woman who can make me feel the things that Wren can make me feel with a simple smile or a goofy joke.
“Hey yourself,” I say, and we move into the house.
“So,” she says, licking her lips nervously.
“He’s alright,” I say, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “He’s checked into a rehab center and he voluntarily signed to give permission for them to restrain him there for ninety days.”
“Wow. That was fast. I didn’t even know there was a rehab center nearby.”
“There’s not. I flew him to New York.”
“Flew…?”
I take a swig of my beer and place it down, and take Wren by the hand, pulling her with me.
“Helicopter,” I say. “It’s not only mine. We share it.”
“We?”
“I used to be a miner,” I say. “My team got a bonus and invested it in crypto and—”
“Oh my god! You’re one of the Brookshore Billionaires!”
I laugh out loud at the look on her face, and roll my eyes.
“I thought it was weird for a mechanic to live in a mansion but I didn’t want to ask.”
“Very polite,” I say, as I open the door to my bedroom and pull her inside.
“Well I’m a good girl,” she tells me, her voice a bit huskier.
I turn to face her, reaching down to start undoing the buttons down the front of her blouse. “Not all the time, I hope?”
“Not all the time,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“Good,” I say, pulling her shirt open. I can see the outline of her hardened nipples on her bra and I’m already straining my pants.
“You know, I wanted you the first day I saw you,” I tell her, while I slowly undo the button and zipper on her denim shorts. “When you were standing in my old neighborhood, stomping your little foot in frustration.”
“Is that right?” she whispers. She’s distracted and barely focused on what I’m saying, and I realize I could spend hours and days of my life teasing this woman.
“Yup,” I nod, and drop down to my knees, pulling her shorts down as I go. I pull the laces of her sandals and unwrap them from around her ankles, then pull them off along with her shorts. She lifts her feet to help me.
“But I thought, I want that girl for more than just a fun night at the mansion. More than a fling or a casual experience.”
“You did?” she asks, and she sucks in an audible gasp as I peel her panties down her legs and expose her sex.
“I did,” I say, and
I know I’m close enough that my breath will be felt on her mons.
“Oh my god,” she whispers.
“So will you stay?” I ask, and my fingers dance up her inner thighs, and my thumbs press against her petals and pull apart to reveal her glistening, deep pink core.
“Yes,” she says, nodding. She pushes her hips forward a little, and I pull back, looking up to her face. She’s flushed in the cheeks and biting her bottom lip, and it’s taking every shred of restraint I possess to keep this up.
Some people would call it unfair of me to hold her here like this, needy and wanting, and extract promises of lifelong commitment. Me? I call it a mutual exchange of needs.
“Forever?” I whisper, my lips grazing her mound, a vibration no doubt reverberating through her most sensitive, exposed parts.
“Forev—OH SHIT!” she shouts, as I clamp my lips around that sensitive little bud and suckle.
Wren
The pleasure of his mouth on my most intimate parts is so intense that when I close my eyes I can see it as an array of colors, all reds and deep purples and tiny bursts of white-yellow that swirl around each other like a tumultuous ocean. His tongue is like nothing I’ve ever felt, and I moan until my throat is hoarse. Every time I’m very nearly there at my peak, he stops and kisses my inner thighs or the round of my belly before continuing. Except this time.
This time, he pauses only to say “Come for me, little bird. Let me feel you.”
Within moments I am doing just that, roll after roll of pleasure rumbling through me, my hips bucking at his still-sucking lips, my throat hoarse and dry, my inner walls clenching.
And then they’re clenching at him. My orgasm has barely begun to ebb away when he is suddenly inside me, on top of me, thrusting into the rhythm of my lingering pleasure and studying my face with intensity.
“Promise,” he says, as he reaches down to roll his thumb around the little bud that’s still twitching and sensitive from his tongue. He thrusts his hips rhythmically and I can feel the pleasure start to build again, instantly. “Promise you’ll stay forever.”
“How are…” I stutter over my question because he undoes the front clasp of my bra and lets my breasts fall free, then leans down and circles his tongue around one pebbled nipple. “How are you so sure?” I ask. It’s more curiosity than anything. I want to know if he can pinpoint how he knows, because I can’t—but I definitely know.
“I just know,” he says. “I’ve known since I met you.”
“I’ve known since I met you,” I say, and it seems to be all the reason he needs to stop talking and kiss me. He keeps his lips on mine and runs his hands under my head on both sides to hold me in place, and then his hips jackhammer into me, fast, hard and desperate, as though he could never feel enough of me.
The pleasure that had been building is suddenly back near the precipice and I gasp aloud, moan into his mouth, and shatter into a million little pieces, every one of them its own little speck of pleasure.
I feel him slam harder, faster, and then he lets out a loud groan beside my ear and holds still, deep inside me, and I feel him twitch as he fills me.
“I love you,” he whispers, once his release is done. He doesn’t move to get out of me yet.
“I love you, too,” I whisper, grinning up at him.
When he’s done peppering my face with kisses—which takes at least a few minutes—he gets up from the bed and walks across the room. I haven’t had much chance to look around yet, but now that I do? The bedroom is huge.
Lucas hits a button on the wall and I hear a strange hum, and then the sound of water. A moment later, the floor opens up in the corner, beside the window, and I realize it’s a freaking hot tub sunk into the floor.
“You have a hot tub in your bedroom?” I ask, laughing.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. He pulls off the remnants of clothing he’s wearing—which are not that many—and climbs into the slightly steaming tub. “We have a hot tub in our bedroom,” he corrects me.
I grin at him, rolling over onto my belly, completely butt naked and more comfortable with it than I’ve ever been.
“We also have this,” he says, reaching out and opening a cupboard beside the hot tub. Inside I see that it’s a fridge, full of bottles of water, wine, sodas and juices.
“A mini bar.” I say.
“A mini bar,” he says, waggling his brows at me and beckoning.
I laugh and shake my head, but a moment later I’m slipping into the warm water with him, settling myself between his legs where he’s pulled me. He presses a button on the side of the tub and it begins to bubble.
“Well I could get used to this,” I say, closing my eyes.
Lucas pulls my mop of curls away from my neck and leans in to kiss me.
“You’d better. Because I’ve never been so sure about anything as I am that you are meant to be here with me, forever, making a home, a family, a life together. I thought I was crazy at first.”
“You are crazy,” I tell him, looking up over my shoulder. “But that makes two of us.”
He leans down and kisses me deeply, and after an hour in the tub he takes me by the hand and leads me back to his bed. I could definitely get used to this.
Epilogue
8 Months Later
Wren
I did get used to it. But not so much that I don’t still love it when we take time to lounge together in the tub, drinking bubbly wine or green smoothies, depending what time of day it is and what plans we have. I never dreamed I could be this happy.
When I first agreed to stick around here my family and friends were concerned. And so was I, if I’m honest. While they worried about the age gap, or worried that we were rushing things, I worried that the fact that Lucas was so wealthy already would lead him to dismiss my desire to make my own living and continue my travel writing. Instead, he’s dived in head first. He had one of the spare rooms turned into a studio for me to record my Vlogs in and he’s sat and brainstormed with me about places we can go so that I can keep making original content. We’ve already taken a few trips, and I have to tell you—traveling with Lucas is way, way more fun than traveling solo.
As soon as my family and friends met Lucas they loved him. He’s the son my dad never had, despite not being that much younger than him, and my mother keeps telling me how much of a catch he is. All of my friends keep trying to get me to introduce them to Lucas’s friends—except June, who wears a smug “told you so” smile for the duration of all her visits.
Even Bret loves Lucas. He got out after his three months in rehab looking much more like the guy I was friends with before our brief, ill-fated relationship. Lucas gave him a job in the shop and he’s slowly paying me back the rent money I lost because of him. I tried to tell him I didn’t want it, but he said he needed to make amends for the things he did while he was using, and Lucas said I should let him. So I donate the payments to the rehab center he was at and it makes me feel a bit less bad for taking the money.
I’m sitting on the porch when Lucas arrives home, fanning myself with a booklet. I don’t get up to greet him.
“I’m too fat to get up and greet you!” I call, and he strides over and kisses me on the mouth, deep and passionate as the very first time.
“You’re beautiful,” he says. “You hear that?” He gets to his knees and places both his hands on my massively expanded tummy. “Your mommy is the most beautiful, wonderful, amazing woman in the world, you hear?”
I reach out to muss Lucas’s hair and grin. It’s so cute the way he talks to the bump. And it’s not only now that the bump is huge and cumbersome. He’s been doing it since a few weeks after I moved in, when we found out I was pregnant.
“And your daddy is a charmer,” I say.
“Better believe it, little bird,” says Lucas. Every time he calls me that I go a bit gooey. “And you agreed to marry me. But I guess I have that kind of woman, huh? Any man alive who wouldn’t work his ass off every day to charm someon
e as beautiful as you would be a fool.”
“My feet look like balloons,” I say, deadpan.
“I love balloons,” he says, and he gets on his hands and knees to try and kiss my bare feet. I squeal and giggle and try to bat him away, and soon we’re both in fits of laughter. He scoops me up from my chair as though I were light as a feather, and starts to carries me inside.
About the Author
Leigh Loveday is an author of short, light-hearted instalove novelettes that are written to bring an hour of escape into your day. If you love older alpha men falling head over heels for younger, curvy women, these books are for you.
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