by Anna Durand
I came. The breath locked in my lungs exploded out on a whimper, my body pulsating around his cock, and just when I thought my climax would subside, he captured my mouth and plunged his tongue deep, and I came harder. He swallowed the strangled cry that erupted out of me, devouring my mouth while his shaft consumed my sex. The muscles inside milked him powerfully, and he grunted into my mouth, still pounding into me.
When he ripped his mouth away, I threw my head back and shouted wordlessly, until one coherent word spilled from my lips.
"Iain!"
His entire body went stiff, and with one punishing thrust, he came inside me. He roared and thrust again, twice, three times, before he went still above me, gasping for air. Sweat beaded on his forehead, a drop trickling down his temple to fall onto my chest. He was still inside me, still slightly firm. He shrugged one shoulder, then the other, to let my legs fall away from him.
I lay there, my legs straddling him, in shock from what we'd just done. Iain had never taken me like that before. But me…holy shit, I'd made noise. I'd shouted. I'd virtually screamed his name. The last time we'd been together, the only time before tonight, I had moaned and gasped but nothing else. He had made love to me slowly and tenderly, several times, but it had been nothing like this. We'd both turned into rutting animals.
And I've loved it.
No man had ever touched me the way he did or pushed me to the highest peaks of pleasure. No one else could make me feel so…decadent and wild. But always, he made me feel cherished.
Iain pulled out my body, divesting himself of the condom. He lay on his side next to me, one hand on my belly, and kissed me sweetly.
"Wow," I said, "you didn't do it like that before."
"Thirteen years has changed us both." He fanned his fingers over my belly. "How do you feel about this version of me?"
"I like it. Couldn't you tell? I've never made that much noise for anybody else."
"My fault. I denied you an orgasm, which made you crazed with lust." He kissed my breast. "Do you forgive me?"
"Forgive you?" I exhaled a throaty, breathy laugh. "I loved everything you did to me. Everything. You gave me the best orgasm ever. I should be down on my knees offering thanks and worshiping you in any way you want."
He arched a brow. "Any way I want?"
"Yes, anything." I plowed my fingers into his hair, pulling his face closer. "So, if you'd like me to finish what I started in the bathroom…"
"Not sure I could be, ah, up for that anytime soon."
"I can help with that." I pushed against his chest. "On your back, Dr. MacT, professor of fuckology."
One side of his mouth kinked upward. He rolled onto his back and linked his hands under his head.
I climbed astride him with my knees at either side of his thighs. His cock had softened but wasn't quite flaccid. I took it between my palms and stroked up and down his length.
A breath gusted out of him.
"Getting stiffer already," I said, and moved one hand to massage his inner thigh while my other hand pumped his shaft. "Want me to suck your dick?"
He choked on a laugh. "Never dreamed I'd hear those words come out of your mouth."
"Not twenty-two anymore, Iain." I dragged my thumb over the slit on the underside of his head. When he hissed in a breath, I smiled. "You're at my mercy."
"I am." He slapped his hands down on the bed, grunting each time I frisked my hand up and down his cock. "Have a little mercy, sunshine. Ahm only a man."
"Are you saying women can handle orgasm denial, but men can't?" I gave him an impish grin. "That would mean women are tougher."
His cock had gone hard again, and I gave his balls a swift tug.
"Christ, woman," he growled. "Yer turning me into a bampot."
"A what?"
"Lunatic." A breath burst out of him when I bent to rake my tongue over the tip of his penis. "Yer driving me mad."
"Good. I like you off balance." I scooted backward and ducked my head to take him into my mouth. With one hand, I gripped the base of his shaft. I balanced myself with the other hand on his thigh as I licked and sucked, whisking my mouth up and down his length.
He grunted and gasped, his hands fisting in the sheets, his teeth gritted.
My breasts grazed his thighs while I worked him, making my nipples go hard.
"Rae!" he shouted at the instant he came in my mouth.
Once his cock had pulsed for the last time, I sat up and wiped my mouth. "I love doing that to you."
Chest heaving, he managed only a lopsided half grin. "You did it for me, liebchen. For me."
"You make it sound like a did you a huge favor."
He held out a hand, beckoning me to him with wriggling fingers.
I waddled forward and stretched out atop his warm, firm body with my chin on his chest, my hands folded under my chin.
"You did do me a favor," he said, caressing my hair with one hand. "No other woman has given me that gift with such enthusiasm."
"Never did that to anyone else."
His hand in my hair stilled. "Never? You knew exactly how to make me doolally for it."
"Well, I sort of…researched it."
Both his brows shot up. "Researched it? When?"
"Not long after we met. I was completely smitten with you and hoped we'd have sex sometime very soon." I sighed with mock wistfulness. "But I had no idea you'd take so damn long to seduce me. In the meantime, I read all the sex ed books in the Nackington library and bought raunchier ones over the Internet. When we finally had sex, I was too nervous to try any of the things I'd learned about."
He clasped his hands over my back. "Didn't you try them out with the men you've been with since?"
I shrugged. "A few times, but I didn't enjoy it, and they never reciprocated."
"You mean you gifted them with fantastic blow jobs and they refused to go down on you in return."
"Exactly."
He snorted. "Bloody eejits. They had a bonnie, sensual, amazing woman in their arms and let her slip away."
"You should thank them. If I'd married one of those guys, we wouldn't be here together."
"We would." He whisked his hands down to my bottom. "I would've seduced you away from whatever scunner you'd married."
"Hmm." I eyed him with mock suspicion. "You would seduce a married woman? I don't believe it."
The upward curve of his lips flattened out, and the lighthearted tone of our banter abruptly shifted. Somberly, he said, "Your faith in my moral character is misplaced."
Like a hammer slammed down on my head, his statement left me stunned and confused. I stared at him for a moment, struggling to sort out what had just happened. Flirtatious banter. Quips about my former lovers. He joked about luring me away from another man, and I joked about him seducing married women. Now, he told me in a grim voice I shouldn't have faith in his "moral character."
I pushed up on my elbows to gaze down at him, searching his stoic face. "Why do you keep hinting you're a bad person?"
"Because I am."
Lips puckered, I kept studying his expression but found no clues to guide me. "That's bullshit. You're the best man I've ever known."
He winced ever so slightly, and his hands dropped away from my body. "No, Rae, I'm not."
I rolled off him and sat up. "Explain, Iain. Right now. A little mystery can be sexy, but this enigma does not fall in that category. We're sleeping together, and you're determined to make me love you again. I need the facts. I deserve that much."
"Aye, you do." He pushed up into a sitting position, groaning, and swung his legs off the bed. His feet on the floor, his back to me, he slumped forward and grasped the bed's edge. "May I ask you a question first?"
"Okay."
"How many men have you been with in your life?"
"My whole life? Eight." I inched a little closer but refrained from reaching out to touch him. He seemed way too agitated for that. So, I focused on
the back of his head when I said, "Two before you, my high school boyfriend and another guy sophomore year of college. Five more after you, including the douchebag taxi driver last year."
Iain slumped further forward, elbows on his knees, and shoved both hands into his hair. "My lovers have been…more numerous."
Okay, where the hell was he going with this? "You're fifteen years older than I am. I didn't expect you were a monk before you met me, or for all the years since."
He groaned again, his head sinking lower, his fingers lacing together at his nape. "Ye donnae understand. The number is…significant."
The number of what? His lovers? I scooted a little closer still, moving to the side in hopes of catching a glimpse of his expression, but his face was concealed by his arms. What was he trying to tell me? He'd been with a lot of women? Fine, I could deal with that. He was, as I'd just pointed out, much older than I was. I expected he'd had more than eight lovers in his life.
When he stayed silent for a minute, maybe longer, I had no choice. I had to ask.
"Okay, how many women have you slept with?" I asked.
He mumbled something.
I wriggled around on the bed until I sat cross-legged behind and the to right of him. His arms still hid his face. I dared to touch his shoulder, but he flinched. "Iain, just tell me. How many? Twenty?"
He lowered his arms but stayed slouched forward. "More."
"Thirty?"
A shake of his head. He pointed one finger toward the ceiling.
"More?" I asked. "Come on, stop making me guess."
He sighed heavily. "Fifty, give or take."
Shock belted me in the face. "Give or take what? Another fifty?"
"No." He flashed me an irritated look. "Not another fifty."
Air rushed into my gaping mouth, which hadn't shut since he'd spoken the word fifty. I'd told myself I could handle whatever number he threw at me, yet here I was acting like he'd committed a heinous crime. He was a man. A fifty-year-old man. An intensely sexual fifty-year-old man. If he'd started having sex as a teenager, fifty women in thirty years or so wasn't all that shocking.
Why, then, did I feel like he'd belted me in the face with a forty-pound grain sack?
"Um," I began, striving for a calm tone, "fifty in your whole life doesn't sound all that…excessive."
Jaw tight, he stared straight ahead at the wall. "I fucked thirty or so of them in seven months."
I did the mental math. "Well, that's not about four a month. It's hardly—"
He whipped his head around to glare at me. "Stop making bloody excuses for me. I fucked dozens of women. Married women, engaged women, women with boyfriends, young women, older women. I didnae care about them or their situations. A lass's body was all I wanted, her name didnae even matter to me."
The words he hurled at me left me reeling, but a horrible thought bobbed to the surface. "Did you sleep with underage girls?"
"What?" His brows lowered, and his mouth gaped. "No. Even I wouldnae stoop to that."
"Even you?" I shook my head, suddenly cold inside as I looked at the man I'd just had sex with in this bed. In my bed. In my house. The house where I'd raised our daughter. "Are you trying to make me hate you? After all the seduction, all the things you said about wanting me back, about needing me and—" I swallowed hard, my throat dry and thick. "You said you love me. Was that bullshit?"
His chin dropped to his chest. He snarled a string of curses in various languages, then sucked in a deep breath. Shutting his eyes, he exhaled slowly. When he looked at me again, a bleakness had replaced the anger. "Nothing I told you was bullshit, gràidh. I love you. I don't deserve you, but I need you in my life. I've always needed you. But I've done things I'm not proud of, and you need to understand that."
"Everyone makes mistakes. So you're not perfect. Neither am I." Far from it. I'd slept with him, let him say he loved me, and still I hadn't told him about Malina. Maybe I should tell him, but after his behavior a minute ago, now didn't seem like the time. Or maybe I was a coward.
"How much do you want to know?" he asked.
Good question. If this was sex, nothing more, then I didn't need to hear about his conquests. I kept insisting he had to leave next weekend, but I couldn't deny I'd developed a fondness for him. Sure, I'd grown fond of him only in the past few days. Ugh. I'd fallen for him thirteen years, fallen hard, and those old feelings kept creeping back into my heart. Try as I might to ignore it, to pretend I could screw him and say goodbye, I had to be pragmatic about this. Since I felt…something for him, I ought to know the details about his past. But not the sexual details. I really did not need to hear about all the ways he fucked other women.
I sat up straighter, hands on my knees. "Tell me everything."
Chapter Twelve
Iain
How had this happened? I sat naked on Rae's bed, with her huddled naked beside me, discussing my less-than-admirable past with women. Moments ago, I'd made love to her. We'd forged a new bond, deeper and more meaningful than anything we'd had before. She trusted me with her body, which for most women meant she trusted me, full stop. Instead of basking in the afterglow of our first time together in thirteen years, I was struggling to explain why I'd fucked so many women.
When she'd asked if I slept with underage girls, I'd realized how much I'd shocked her. Now, she wanted to know "everything."
Rae laid a hand on my arm. "I don't want to know the sexual details. I want to know about you. Were you sleeping around before we met? While we were together?"
"Neither." Resigned to my fate, I met her gaze. "Once upon a time, I was a perfect gentleman. I got to know a woman before I slept with her, and frankly, I didn't date much. My work consumed me, or rather, my need to use my work as an excuse to escape my home."
"To get away from your father, the bumbling burglar."
"Aye." A sigh groaned out of me. "I'd been with ten women before you. The moment I met you, I lost all interest in other women. When I lost you, I tried to pretend I was fine. Then Da got in trouble again, and sorting out his mess compounded the strain until I cracked. Not proud of it, always thought I was stronger than that, but apparently I'm weak. I gave in to the grief and self-loathing." I scrubbed my face with both hands. "I became an expert in self-destruction."
"I don't understand."
How could she? I still couldn't fathom why I'd done the things I'd done.
"Drowning my sorrows became my favorite pastime," I said. "Tried drink, but after three instances of getting jaked at the local pub, and getting into two brawls, I gave up that method. I couldn't drown myself in work since I was unemployed. The only thing I could think of that might numb me for a while was sex. They might've called me notorious at Nackington, but I earned the title back home. Turns out lasses love a man who acts like he doesn't give a shit about anything and seduces them with assurances the liaison will lead nowhere. I didn't care where we did it. Alleys, car parks, back rooms of shops, wherever. Quieting my conscience was all that mattered, and sex is excellent for eradicating thoughts."
She said nothing. Her face betrayed no hint of her feelings about what I'd confessed. Still in shock, no doubt. I'd been callous and selfish. How could she want me now that she knew the truth? I should've stayed away from her, but I'd pinned my hopes of redemption on earning the right to a future with her.
Rae had a child. How could she introduce her daughter to a man like me?
I'd fought too hard to recover from my mistakes, to become a man worthy of a woman like Rae. I couldn't give up now. I'd stay until she gave me the boot.
She chewed the inside of her lip. "Do you still sleep around?"
"No, not like I did then. I've been with nine women since, but only one in the past five years."
"Were you, um, dating these women?"
Her tone was hopeful. Ah God, she wanted to believe in me. It might've been sweet if I hadn't behaved like such a bastard all those years ago.
She jumped as if I'd blown a foghorn in her face. "You were married?"
"Unfortunately." A sudden weariness overtook me, and I dropped back onto the bed, jostling it. Lying there on my back, I stared at the tiny acoustic balls on the ceiling. "Julia was a sweet lass, but I had no right to marry her when I was still in love with you. I tried to be a good husband, tried to love her, but I failed. I cared for her, but not the way a husband should. We were married for three years but separated for all but seven months. She left me after I said your name during sex."
Rae winced. "Poor girl."
All rights to sympathy in the matter belonged to Julia, as it should be. I'd entered into a marriage, promising to love and honor her, all the while knowing I could never follow through on those vows. No woman could fill the hole left behind by the only one I'd ever loved. Expecting Julia to save me from my own past had been unfair, to say the least.
"At first," I said, "Julia thought I was gay and shouting the man's name Ray. I told her the truth, but I think she would've preferred to keep thinking I liked men."
"I can see how that might be easier for her to handle. At least then she wouldn't have been rejected for not being good enough."
"She was good enough. The perfect wife." I glared at those bloody balls on the ceiling. "I was the unworthy one. The bastard who made false vows."
"You didn't lie, Iain. You made a mistake."
I cast her a sidelong glance. "Shouldn't you take my ex-wife's side? Female solidarity and all?"
"Who says I'm not on her side?" Rae laid down next to me, on her side, her head propped up with one hand. "I see both sides, that's all. And I know you. Whatever mistakes you've made, I will never believe you treated women callously. You wanted to love your wife and make those vows true. I believe you tried the best you could."
Surprise flashed over her face. Her gaze turned distant, her eyes widening a wee bit, and her lips parted.