by Mia Carson
“You poor man,” I murmured, smiling at him as I caressed his face. “It’s like being with a virgin, except a virgin who knows what he’s doing.”
“Oh my God!” he gasped as he slid into me, his face twisting like he was in pain.
Fear washed over me. “What?”
He looked down at me, his face relaxed, and he smiled. “You feel so fucking good.”
I couldn’t stop the giggle that escaped me. “You ass! You scared me.”
He took my lips and made them his. “Let me see if I can make it better,” he murmured as he began to move.
We moved together in a slow, easy love-making session. Sex was supposed to be fun and I enjoyed his gentle teasing. After many long moments, my second orgasm was stalking me, and I could sense his rising need. He was getting close.
“Come with me,” I murmured so he wouldn’t stop or change positions.
This was our first time having sex after spending the night together. Having his weight lightly on me, his lips dancing over my face and lips, his gaze soft as he held my eyes, was the perfect way to start the day.
He began to thrust with more urgency, drawing my climax closer, his face hardening and his eyes more intense as his breathing became heavier.
“Shit,” he growled. “You’re going to make me come.”
“Don’t stop,” I purred, his words stoking my fire. I was getting close.
“I’m going to come,” he repeated, his voice tight and strained.
His tone got to me. “I’m going to come,” I said, announcing my impending climax.
He groaned hard and deep as he splashed into me. The sudden wetness and his deep, sexy groan opened the gate and allowed my orgasm to wash over me. I added my soft moan to his, our sounds of pleasure mingling in the between us.
We lay still for a long moment as I basked in the joy of our orgasms, their simultaneous arrival and the sharing of them making the moment that much better. I sighed in contentment, my eyes getting heavy again. I wished he could spend the entire day in bed with me. I looked at the clock and smiled. We still had more than two hours before he had to even consider getting up. Perfect.
-oOo-
While Thom worked, meeting with whomever he flew all the way across the country to see, I went shopping. I wasn’t one of those women that lived to shop, but I was as far from North Carolina as I could get and still be in the continental United States, and I had nothing else to do.
Despite my protests, he’d left me a hundred dollars to cover fares and lunch with the argument he’d promised all-expense paid. I didn’t want his money, but since he’d left the Franklin lying on the bed when he left, I had little choice but to take it so it wouldn’t disappear into room service’s pocket. He could certainly afford it, and I hadn’t minded taking money from Rock, but somehow this felt different.
I spent the entire morning and afternoon wandering into shops, enjoying myself even though I bought only one thing, which was as much for Thom as it was for me. I’d found it in a high-end lingerie shop, Mata Hari, and spent over an hour browsing their selection. The place had everything from leather bondage gear to maternity lingerie. I didn’t want to go too bold, at least until I knew Thom better, so I steered away from the really over the top selections that included things like masks, crotchless panties, and exposed nipples.
I finally selected something that was sexy without being slutty and revealing while still leaving something for the imagination. I chose a silk chemise available in red, black, white, and my choice, a rich cobalt blue. It had a deeply plunging back that showed off the curve of my lower back, along with a deep plunge in front with plenty of lace that played peekaboo with my breasts and stomach, before stopping just above my V.
After my purchase, I wandered for a time, bag in hand, before ordering an Uber and making my way back to the hotel. I was waiting on Thom when he arrived. I’d thought about greeting him at the door wearing our present but had decided against it.
“How was it?” I asked.
He grimaced. “Amazing. You put their paper into their printer, and it prints. No ink, no toner, no ribbons, no nothing.”
“But…” I said, drawing the word out in questioning.
“But,” he replied, drawing the word as I had, “I’m concerned about the price of the paper. They’re well aware that’s going to be the real challenge, getting the paper cost low enough that it can compete with regular printers. They’re working on getting the cost out, but they admit it’s going to be a major hurdle.”
“So are you going to invest?”
He pursed his lips and waggled his head. “I don’t know yet. It’s damned amazing. If you’ve got paper, you’ve got everything you need to print. Can you imagine never running out of ink or toner?” He paused. “The flip side is, how much do people print anymore? I need to go home and put a sharp pencil to the idea and try to decide the next step.”
“You sound impressed, though.”
“Oh, I am. Their ace in the hole might be the cost of the printer. It’s dirt cheap, like cost of a cheap inkjet cheap.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because there’s nothing to it. A mechanism to feed the paper, a laser, and that’s it. It can be tiny, too. They have a mockup of their second-generation printer, and it’s not much bigger than the paper it holds. You can easily pick it up and carry it in one hand.”
“Sound like something a salesman needs.”
He looked at me oddly. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “We have salesmen come into the shop all the time, wanting to sell us one thing or another. If they need to print something, like an invoice, they have to go back to their office first because they can’t use our printers. If the printer is that small, they could carry it in with their laptop.”
He stared at me with wide eyes for a moment before he grabbed my face and kissed me. “Why didn’t I think of that? Hang on a minute, then I’m taking you out for dinner.”
He called someone, probably the guys he was talking to, and had a five-minute animated discussion about printers before he hung up.
“That was a really good idea. Maybe I should bring you with me on all my business trips.”
“I’ll send you a bill,” I teased.
“Do,” he said, and I wasn’t sure he was kidding.
“Maybe we can work it out in trade,” I suggested.
He smiled. “Even better. Come on, let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“Someplace call Oceanside. It’s supposed to be the best seafood in San Diego. We have a reservation.”
Oceanside was quite a bit more upscale than most of the seafood places I’d ever eaten and proved wrong my firm belief that the best seafood came from the worst looking places. Thom was a more adventuresome eater than I was and insisted we try barnacles when he saw them on the menu. I didn’t know barnacles were edible, and when the critters came out, they were just as ugly as I expected. After some instruction on how to open them up, and a little practice, we ate them all. As ugly as they were, they were unbelievably scrumptious. I’d never seen them offered before and would have turned my nose up at them even if I had, but now I was going to seek them out.
After dinner we had another stroll, this time barefoot on the sandy beach beyond Oceanside. The beach was crowded with people, but with the moon hanging low over the ocean on one side and brightly lit San Diego on the other, it was as if we were the only two people in the world. I’d walked on the beaches in North Carolina plenty of times, but I’d never enjoyed it as much as I did that walk.
We were leaving in the morning, flying back to North Carolina, which left us plenty of time to enjoy our last evening together in San Diego.
When we finally returned to our room, we showered. I’d shower again in the morning because I was planning on working up a sweat tonight, but I wanted to get the sand off my feet before I went to bed. I went first, and I think I hurt Thom’s feelings when I didn’t want him to join me
. I only felt slightly bad about it because I was going to slip into my surprise while he was in the shower, and he could join me for some soapy, slippery, fun in the morning.
I was lounging on the bed in my new nighty when he stepped out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. “Wow!” he said, his face breaking into a broad smile.
“I bought this for you today.”
“Do you think it’ll fit?”
His comment so caught me off-guard I burst into laughter, my carefully planned seduction shattered by his wit. “I don’t know. Want to try it on?”
“Sure.”
I thought he was kidding, but he held out his hand. I slipped the nighty off and handed it to him. He held it up in front of himself.
“No way,” he said before tossing it carelessly over his shoulder and crawling into bed with me. The towel got in his way and was discarded with equal promptness.
“That was nothing but a dirty trick to get me out of my nighty,” I complained.
“You’re onto me,” he agreed as he hovered over me.
I tried to look mad, but my smile gave me away. “Not yet I’m not,” I said as I nudged him to his back and began kissing my way down his body. I had something I’d wanted to do since this morning.
Thom
“Dad!” Bailey called as he rushed into the garage.
We went wheels up at nine this morning in San Diego, noon here in Charlotte, and it was now almost 11:00 pm, which was an hour past Bailey’s normal bedtime. I relaxed the rules a little on Friday and Saturday, especially when I’d been out of town.
“How are ya?” I drawled as I crawled out of the car and stretched. The little jet beat flying commercial by leagues, but I was still stuck in a seat for almost eight hours.
We hugged, and I smiled as I held him close. Every day I wondered how much longer it would be before he was too big and cool to want to hug his dear, old dad.
“Good. I got an ‘A’ on my math test.”
“That’s great!” I said as I pulled my bag out of the back of the car.
“Yeah. Me and Parker Hoyles were the only two to make hundreds. Ms. Cabelera put a smiley on our papers.”
I grinned. He said it like getting a smiley was no big thing to him, but I knew better. I liked Ms. Cabelera. She was good with the kids and gave out the coveted ‘smiley’ on perfect papers. The little yellow sticker was a source of great pride for those that got one and point of jealousy for those who didn’t. Bailey usually got one if anyone did, but when he didn’t, he was disappointed, which motivated him to work harder. Mission accomplished, Ms. Cabelera.
“That’s awesome. I knew you could do it.”
“Yeah, but I still hate division. It’s hard. Why do I have to learn that stuff when they have calculators?”
“Somebody has to teach the calculators how to do it, right?”
“Yeah, but not me.”
I chuckled as I tossed clothes into the hamper for washing and hung my jacket so I could take it to the cleaner. “Okay, you got me there. How about this then. You have to learn it because Ms. Cabelera said so.”
“You always say that.”
“And I’m always right.”
“Yeah, I know. Bláithín wants to ask you something.”
“What?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s been waiting for you to get home.”
I finished unpacking and placed my suitcase in the closet. “I guess I better go find out what she wants, huh?”
Bláithín was waiting in the family room. Like I never entered her bedroom, she never entered mine. She had complete run of the house, but she tended to keep to her room most of the time when she wasn’t working. The fact she was waiting to speak to me rather than waiting for me to come knock on her door told me whatever she wanted, it was important to her.
“Bailey said you had something to ask me?”
“Yes.” She smiled and shuffled her feet a bit. She was clearly anxious about something. “If you’re not busy this weekend, I’d like the weekend off.”
“The whole weekend?”
“Yes, sir, if that’s okay.”
I shrugged. “Sure, I don’t have a problem with that. Will you be home for meals?”
Her face lit up with her smile. “I don’t know. Don’t worry about me. Do you mind if I use the car?”
I wave my hand dismissively. “Not at all.”
I opened my wallet and pulled out a hundred and handed it to her. I paid her ten dollars an hour for forty hours, regardless of how many hours she actually worked. Some weeks, like this one, she was over forty hours since I was gone for three days and she was on her own with Bailey, but most weeks she worked only ten to fifteen hours. I also covered all her living expenses. The only thing I didn’t cover was her ‘spending money’ and what she spent on clothes. Her salary went directly into her bank account each week, but I slipped her another hundred bucks a week in cash, under the table, to give her some walking around money. The system worked for both of us, and what the government didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
She took the bill and smiled again. “Thank you, sir.”
I looked at Bailey. “I guess we’re on our own this weekend.”
-oOo-
Saturday, after lunch, Bláithín disappeared. She was clearly going out on date and had dressed to impress. I called Carolyn and asked if she wanted to join us for a run in the park. She sounded less than thrilled but said she’d join us.
Bailey and I were waiting by our car as Carolyn pulled into the spot beside us. She was smiling as she stepped out of her car, wearing the same black stretchy pants and clingy blue shirt she wore the last time I saw her here. Now that I knew what was under those form fitting garments, she looked even sexier than before.
“Glad you could join us,” I said, pulling her in and giving her a quick kiss. I chuckled when I noticed Bailey watching us with wide eyes. I realized he probably had never seen me kiss a woman before. “Trust me, your time’s coming,” I teased.
“Yeah, right,” he grunted as he pedaled off.
We began by walking to loosen up. I didn’t need it, but it would help her to warm and stretch a little. “How was work?” I asked to open the conversation.
“Same as always. If it were fun, they wouldn’t call it work.” She looked at me and smiled. “It’s kind of like running in that way.”
“Running is fun!”
She leaned into me. “I can think of at least one way I’d rather get my exercise.”
“Yeah, but you can’t do that in public.”
“Who cares?”
We walked for a bit longer. “Ready to run?” I asked.
“No, but let’s go,” she grumbled.
I sat a very relaxed pace. We trotted for about a quarter of a mile before I slowed to a walk again. She was breathing hard but wasn’t struggling for breath.
“I could keep going,” she panted as she fell in step beside me.
“And you will, but I’m pacing you.”
We alternately ran and walked over the next two hours. By the time we finished she was dripping with sweat.
“That’s enough for today,” I said as we slowed one last time. We were about a mile from the cars and I was going to walk her the rest of the way.
“Oh, thank God,” she gasped, her hands on her hips as she puffed. “How far do you think?”
“About eight miles, running and walking.”
She groaned. “You’re a sadistic bastard, you know that?”
I smiled at her teasing. “Let me make it up to you.”
“I’m too tired to even think about that right now.”
I chuckled. “Why don’t you come to our house. I’ll cook for you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
“I need to go home and change first.”
I shrugged. “I haven’t even started dinner, so that’s no problem.”
“I’d like that. What are w
e having, and do you want me to bring anything?”
“It’s a plan then, I don’t know, and no.”
She took my hand. “You’re going to spoil me.”
I smiled, liking the way that sounded. “Good.”
-oOo-
Dinner was running a little late. I’d decided to make coddle, a dish I’d discovered when Bláithín was homesick and I was trying to help her feel better. McDowell sounded very Irish to me, and I thought Carolyn might enjoy it. I didn’t have all the ingredients on hand, so I’d had to make a run to the store.
The bell rang and I heard Bailey romping across the room to the door. He was the appointed door greeter when I was home.
“Ms. Carolyn’s here!” he yelled from the front. “Hi! Come in! Dad’s in the kitchen.”
“Hey,” I said as I met her, pulling her into a quick kiss. Finished, I glanced at Bailey as he again watched us. “What? You want a kiss too?” I asked, holding out my arms, puckering my lips, and moving toward him.
“No!” he cried before he ran from the room.
“He doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Carolyn murmured.
“He’ll figure it out.” I paused. “Now that we’re alone,” I whispered before I kissed her more thoroughly.
“Much better,” she sighed. “What’s for dinner? It smells good.”
“Coddle. It’ll be ready in about an hour.”
“Coddle? What’s that?”
“An Irish dish made with sausage, bacon, and potatoes and served with hard rolls.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
I shrugged. “Considering your last name, I thought you might like it.” I turned to the fridge. “And to make it even more authentic…” I pulled out a bottle of dark beer and held it up for her see. “Ever had a Guinness?”
“Never. Have you?”
“Nope.” I opened the bottle and offered it to her.
She accepted it and took a long pull. “Whoa!” she cried, drawing the word out. “That’s got some kick!”