by Megan Hart
It had been so, so long. Since she’d felt this way. Since someone had treated her like this. So long since she had desired and been desired in return, for anything beyond a simple getting off. Her own fault, that, and she knew it. She’d closed herself away, denying even the most basic of pleasures, and why? Because her heart had been broken? Because she had allowed someone to wound her so deeply that the thought of touching another man had physically sickened her. Because of fear, she forced herself to once more admit.
He ordered lamb chops, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, a wedge salad. Everything exactly right and what she would have ordered for herself. The basket of rolls contained some flatbread, and he discarded that in order to butter a poppy seed twist for her; that was perfect, too.
By the time dessert was served, a thick slab of chocolate cake on one plate with two forks, they’d moved in the booth to be sitting next to each other. Thighs touching. Whispers in each other’s ears. More wine, the bottle finished, Madeline a little tipsy but not too much.
After dinner, Eric took her to the arboretum. A surprise. She recalled mentioning once, offhandedly, how much she preferred living flowers to cut bouquets. He’d purchased them passes to the light display, thousands of tiny shimmering LEDs lighting the seasonal plant and flower displays. Soft music played, some of it in time to the changing lights.
He held her hand.
They strolled through the softly lit paths, their conversation flowing easily from topic to topic. The event was a little more crowded than Madeline might have preferred, but Eric steered them neatly through the pockets of overcrowding, his hand on the small of her back or his fingers linked with hers as he pushed forward to make room for them to get by. He did this naturally and efficiently. Protecting her.
“Let’s sit for a moment,” she suggested when they’d reached a particularly dark part of the park. She indicated a bench overlooking the pond, upon which scattered lights reflected, but all from the opposite bank. They had a good view of the pretty lights, but the bench stayed in the shadows.
They sat, holding hands. Thighs touching. After a moment, she rested her head on his shoulder.
“This is lovely, Eric. Thank you. What an amazing night.”
He put his other hand over theirs. “I’ve always wanted to come for this event. Never had the time or, I guess, the right person to take.”
She let out a single, small chuckle at that and fell silent. In front of them the rippling water shimmered. A fountain splashed. Every so often the faint waft of music reached them, but for the most part, they sat in comfortable silence.
She had tied him up. Beaten him hard enough to bruise. She’d brought him to the edge of orgasm, had tasted his sweat and his precome; she had smelled him and grown giddy from the scent. She had allowed him to make her come, over and over, and each time she’d waited for him to demand his own climax, but so far, he never had.
When she sat up and faced him, he was already waiting to press his mouth to hers. The kiss didn’t linger overlong, but the sweetness of it more than made up for the shortness. When it broke, they didn’t pull away. The heat of his breath on her mouth sent an answering warmth all through her. Her hand slid up his thigh and beneath her touch, his muscles tensed.
“Kiss me again,” Madeline breathed.
He did.
Harder this time. Mouths open. Tongues searching, seeking. Their teeth bumped a little, and they both pulled apart only long enough to reorient themselves.
The sound of footsteps coming toward them pushed them apart, finally. She kept her hand on his thigh. As the sound of voices drew closer, Madeline cupped Eric’s hard cock. He gave a muffled groan. She stroked, squeezing. He rocked into her grip.
She released him just before the small group rounded the corner and moved past them without stopping. If any noticed them on the bench, none acknowledged them. They went out of sight behind the bushes within moments.
Eric let out a breath. “Phew.”
“I’m going to take out your cock now,” she murmured into his ear.
“Oh…but….” His words edged into a mutter.
“I’m going to stroke this pretty cock until someone comes by. We might have a minute. We might have twenty minutes. The moment I hear someone on the path, I stop, but I want you to come for me. Can you come for me, sweetheart?” Arousal surged through her at the way he responded, tensing muscles. A shudder. Her fingers dug into the meat of his thigh, and he bucked.
“I’ll try.” His reply came in a strangled, eager voice.
She unzipped him. His cock throbbed in her grip. When she slid the thickness from the constraint of his briefs, he was already slick on the head. She moved her palm over that sweet, sticky fluid and used it to lube her stroking.
“Kiss me,” Madeline ordered.
He kissed her. Sloppily this time, but she didn’t mind. The fact he could barely concentrate on keeping the kissing steady flattered her. Turned her on. So did his hardening cock, getting impossibly thicker in her fist.
It would have been easier and faster to get him off if she’d at least spit into her palm, but they both understood that easy was not the point. Eric strained into her embrace, his kisses faltering as he moved, trying to get off before they were interrupted. She slowed the pace. He groaned, frustrated. Her free hand went to the back of his neck, gripping. She kept her nails short, but they were still long enough to dig into his skin. He hissed at that small pain. His cock throbbed. Swelled. She slowed her stroking even more.
Eric let out a low, thwarted growl, and another wave of desire flooded her. Her pussy felt slick, her clit tight and hard and throbbing nearly as much as his cock in her fist. Madeline clenched her inner muscles, teasing herself. She moved her hand faster, but barely.
“I thought you were going to come for me,” she teased.
“I want to…oh, fuck….”
She added a small twist to her stroking. The bench was now rocking, creaking, as Eric moved.
“Oh, God, please…please, Ma’am…!”
She’d never given him permission to call her such a thing, had in fact told him more than once it was not what she wanted to be called. She hadn’t given him a title with which he could honor her, and she regretted that now, as it was clear he wanted and needed to give her one. At the sound of it, the sound of his rasping, desperate voice, her hand squeezed. Her nails dug deeper.
“Come for me,” she told him. “Come for your Ma’am.”
He came in slow, heated spurts over the back of her hand just as the sound of footsteps sounded once more on the path. Both of them went still, although she could hear his harsh breathing and feel him shaking as though he were trying to keep from moving. It was dark enough that with her hand covering him, nobody was likely to see anything but how close they were sitting, but you could never tell what people might be able to see and that, Madeline knew, was part of the reason why Eric had come so fast for her. So hard.
When the group passed them, he let out a sigh and sagged on the bench. “Oh, my God.”
She leaned closed to nuzzle at his ear. “Thank you.”
Fourteen
“I should thank you,” Eric managed to say. His cock was still out, his lap awkwardly damp, and he was sure they were going to get arrested any second for indecent exposure.
The orgasm had taken his breath away, not only because of how long he’d been denied before it, but because of the public aspect. Because of the command in Madeline’s voice, but also the sweetness. Because of the entire evening.
He was going to fall in love with her, and that was going to be bad, because she’d made it so clear already that she was not interested in more than this. Eric himself was in no good place to be pursuing a committed relationship. None of that would matter. He knew it. Felt it. He was falling for her, hard, and there was no way to stop it. It was going to end up bad for him.
But wouldn’t it be worth it, before that happened?
Madeline opened her handbag and pul
led out a small package of personal wipes. She used one for herself and handed him the other. “Here.”
“Thanks.”
They sat in silence for a moment or so after that, but when he ventured to put an arm around her shoulders, she snuggled against him with what sounded like a contented sigh. Her hand rested just above his knee, and every so often she’d squeeze lightly. When he turned to press a light kiss to her hair, she finally straightened and looked at him.
“We should see the rest of the exhibit before it closes,” Madeline said.
Following the winding paths, sometimes through shadowy places much like the bench in which they’d been sitting, Eric wondered if any of the other couples were doing anything like what they’d done. He made sure not to linger in any dark spots, and Madeline giggled when he stepped up the pace to get out of one particularly dense pocket of shadow.
“Just trying to make sure they have their privacy,” he told her.
She’d been holding his hand and now used the other to grip his bicep as she leaned against his shoulder for a moment while they walked. “Such a gentleman.”
They paused in front of a fountain lit by swirling paths of color. The garden had cleared out, nearly empty now. A quick glance at his watch told Eric it was nearly nine, time for the event to end. He was trying to think of a suave way to see if Madeline wanted to end their date as well, without sounding too eager, too forward, too pushy.
“Yes,” she said.
Eric laughed. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You want me to come back with you to your apartment,” Madeline told him with an arch smile that nearly knocked the feet from under him.
“I do. Please.”
“Yes,” she repeated. “Let’s go.”
She was breaking her own rules, but Madeline supposed she was allowed to, if she wanted. And she most definitely did want to break all of them with Eric. The scene on the bench had been hot, wanton, fervent and furtive, all of her favorite things. More than that, every encounter they’d had until this point had been, on his part, respectful. Intimate. She’d had to think about that a lot before agreeing to tonight’s date, that feeling of intimacy that had grown so swiftly between them with little to no reason for it.
In his apartment, she settled herself onto his somewhat worn but comfortable sofa and accepted the glass of sparkling water he’d offered. Eric took a seat beside her with his own drink. They clinked glasses, each with a laugh.
“To shadowy corners,” he said.
Madeline sipped. “Indeed.”
She adored the tension between them. For a man who by all accounts would turn the head of most any woman, Eric maintained a level of reticence she found utterly charming. Not that he wasn’t confident. She’d learned that already, and she liked that very much as well. It was something else.
“You’ve had a lot of girlfriends,” she said after another sip and put her glass onto the coaster he’d provided on the coffee table.
Eric’s mouth twisted. “I’m not sure I’d say that. I’ve dated a lot. But had a lot of girlfriends…I don’t know.”
“Not for their lack of trying, I’m sure.”
“I guess so.” He shrugged and drained his glass before sitting back against the couch. “I’m not that great at relationships. My job doesn’t allow it, really, and before that, I was doing my residencies, med school, all that. Relationships take a lot of work and attention, and I haven’t always been the best about figuring out how to balance things.”
“But you’ve had at least one significant relationship.” This was not a question.
Did she detect a flinch? If so, Eric hid it well. He nodded. “Yes.”
“You loved her.” Curious at his reaction, Madeline tilted her head to try and see his face.
He didn’t look at her. “Yes. I mean…yes. I loved her.”
“You still love her.”
He turned his face toward her, those dark eyes shadowed. “Not like that. What about you? You have someone from your past?”
“My ex-husband passed on some number of years ago and was ill for a short time before he died, but we had divorced quite unamicably before he got sick.” She curled her hands into fists in her lap, remembering. She had not answered his question. Not really.
“Did you see him or talk to him once you found out? That he was sick, I mean.”
Madeline shook her head and closed her eyes briefly against the memories. She opened them to find a blur of unexpected tears making the sight of him hazy. She blinked rapidly to dash them away. There was nothing she could weep about any longer, not for that situation, anyway.
“Izumi would not have seen me, even if I’d tried. I had most of his money, which to him was worse than if I’d broken his heart. And I’d behaved terribly,” she said.
“According to him,” Eric replied.
Madeline pressed her lips together for a second before deciding to tell the truth. “According to anyone, I would say. I was unfaithful.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve shocked you.” She moved an inch or so away, but Eric shook his head and put out a hand to stop her from retreating.
“No,” he said. “I mean, it’s not really any of my business. I’m not judging you.”
“You ought to. It was not my best decision.” She hesitated, the old pain rising once again. Some wounds never truly healed.
“You don’t have to talk to me about it,” he said.”
She shook her head. “I think I do. What happened defined me for a long time. I wouldn’t be here now if not for that. And if we are to move forward, you should know.”
“Are we moving forward?” His voice was carefully neutral, but she didn’t miss the light in his eyes.
“I should think so. Yes. We’re going to try, at any rate, which is all anyone can ever do.” She took up her glass to draw in a large gulp of cool liquid, then returned it to the coaster. She twisted on the couch to face him. “I married my husband when I was quite young. He was a friend of my father’s business partner, although he and my father had never worked together. My parents approved of the match because they believed he would take care of me, and they, bless them, could never quite understand that I didn’t need taken care of.”
Eric’s expression tightened seriously. “You deserve to be taken care of.”
“Well,” Madeline replied lightly, “that’s hardly the same thing, isn’t it?”
“I’m not sure,” he said after a hesitation.
“They wanted me to be financially secure without encouraging me to learn a skill or focus my talents on being able to do that for myself. They wanted me to have children —”
“Do you?” Eric interrupted.
Her brow furrowed at the realization that she’d never mentioned her children. “I do. A daughter and a son. Both are grown. They might have children of their own, sooner rather than later.”
“You’re not old enough to be a grandma,” he scoffed.
Madeline gave a rueful chuckle. “I told you, I married young. I assure you, Eric, I am old enough to be a grandmother, and I expect that when I become one, I shall pass out candies and spoil them as my grandmother did with me. Does that change your views about me?”
“No. God, no. Of course not. I like older women.”
“I’m not a fetish,” she said, perhaps too sharply, because he looked chastened.
“Of course not. I just meant that…well. I guess it doesn’t matter what I meant.”
“If I’m not old enough to be your mother, I am, at the very least, old enough to be your beloved auntie, Eric.”
“But you’re not my auntie,” he said.
“Thank goodness.” She laughed before getting serious again, thinking of how she had mentioned him to Mitsoku. “At any rate, I don’t speak of my children to people I’m not close to.”
“We’re close now?” he asked in a low voice.
She leaned to kiss him, soft and sweet and slow. “Yes, sweetheart. At the very least, I think
we are getting close enough.”
“Good.”
The kiss deepened. He pulled her onto his lap, and she allowed him to. She settled there, her lips and teeth and tongue working against his. She took his face in her hands and broke the kiss, looking into his eyes.
“I married at seventeen. My husband was fifty.”
“Oh, ugh,” he began, amending. “I’m sorry. That was rude.”
“No. It was ugh. My parents were wonderful people, but my God, yes. Who believes their seventeen-year-old daughter should be married off to a man literally older than her own father? I could say they meant well, I suppose. And at the time, I wanted nothing more than to get out of their reach. It seemed like a good choice. Not the first bad decision of my life.” She laughed. “I’m sure far from the last.”
His hands curved beneath her bottom. “I hope you won’t consider this to be a bad decision.”
She kissed him again. “The problem with bad decisions is that you never know if they were bad until after you’ve made them. I’ve made so many, you’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now. But don’t fret. I haven’t.”
Her teasing was meant to lighten the mood, but Eric still looked serious. “I don’t want either of us to be making a bad decision. But I get what you’re saying. Sometimes you go with something because in the moment, you want it more than you worry about the consequences.”
“A lovely way to put it,” she told him.
She let her forehead rest on his. Both closed their eyes. They breathed in sync. The warmth of his breath on her face was a comfort she intended to enjoy for as long as she could, and not simply in this moment with her on his lap.
Madeline opened her eyes. She didn’t want to move from his embrace, but she did. She got up from the couch. She needed to move while she told him her story.
“My husband had been married several times before me. Once as a very young man, to a woman his wealthy family had decided was not good enough for him. He divorced her. He married his second wife, who gave him two children before he divorced her. His third wife was closer to his own age, and I believe he loved her more than either of the first two. Certainly, he’d loved her more than he ever loved me. She died almost a year to the day we married.”