by Emme Burton
“Here.”
“Over my head.”
“Just pull the end of belt.”
It would be comical if we weren’t so desperate with want.
Finally down to the last scraps of clothing, we stand face to face, millimeters apart, and everything slows. The air we breathe is thick and moves between us languidly. Mitch drags down the straps of my bra with deliberate movements of his fingers. Fingers, deft at coaxing music from a stringed instrument, are now playing me. Making the cells in my skin sing. He unhooks the bra and my breasts tumble out. And just as quickly, he catches them, cupping them. He rakes his thumbs across each nipple and I arch into him.
Mitch bends down and trails deep, suckling kisses down the side of my neck and across my collarbone. He moves further down and brings my cupped breast to his mouth. His breath on it causes my nipple to tighten painfully. The pleasant discomfort builds when he pulls the whole of my nipple between his lips, tugging and laving it. Flames shoot to my core. I arch into him, only my panties and his boxer briefs separating us.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, Posey,” Mitch husks deeply, moving from one breast to another. “Have mercy.”
With my head in a swirl but needing more, I cup Mitch’s relentless stiffness and massage his balls. He moans, and I moan with him as he powers his suckling of my breast.
I stroke him up and down and with each one, I ache to feel all of him. With that I slide my fingers inside the elastic of his briefs and push them down. Mitch moans again. His lips leave my body. He stands upright, takes his briefs off and spins me around so my back is to his naked front. His erection presses and pulses on my lower back.
Mitch slides a hand around my front and inside my panties. His fingers walk downward until they find my clit. He strokes left, right and circles and circles. My lower abs contract and I pitch forward, sure I’m about to come.
Mitch stops, retreats and whispers, “Shh, not yet. I got you.”
He hooks his fingers onto my panties and drags them down my legs as he kneels and artfully trails kisses down my back, ending at the top of my ass. I step out of my panties pooling around my feet.
Half kneeling behind me, Mitch spins me so I’m facing him, but he is facing my most sensitive of areas. He kisses my thigh, and with just his breath that close to where I want all of him causes me to grasp his shoulder to steady myself.
Mitch looks up at me and I look down. There is no mistaking the message we’re giving each other.
“Posey?” I’ve never heard Mitch’s voice deeper, more penetrating.
“Mitch.” I say his name instead of yes.
“I need you in my bed, right now.”
“I need to be there.”
In a swift well-orchestrated move, Mitch scoops me up, cradles me against him, walks to the bed and gently places me on it. I’m so caught up, I didn’t take notice of anything around us. This could be a bed anywhere. I couldn’t care less as long as I’m in it with him.
I expect Mitch to slip in next to me, but he doesn’t. He’s over me. All of him over all of me, kissing me long, slow with his tongue sweeping across mine. I try to rock my needy core against his hardness, but he shifts and kisses down my body, stopping briefly to draw my nipple into his mouth and kiss between my lower abdomen and hip bones.
Then he reaches his target, he Heexhales and my clit pulses. It’s already vibrating and ready. His tongue touches it lightly.
“Oh my God,” I moan.
Again, the left, right, circle, circle, left, right… just like he did with his fingers, but now it’s his hot, wet tongue. A slow building, warm tingling overtakes me. I reach down and grasp his hair.
He stops and I cry out, “Please!”
I know what he’s doing. He’s edging me. Closer and closer. Stopping my orgasm just as I’m about to let go, but I need this release.
Blessedly, Mitch continues. As his tongue works his magic below, he reaches up and pinches and releases my nipples in synchrony. I lose my mind. I can’t continue. He licks me up and down and then circles deeply and powerfully, sucking my burning clit. I arch as every muscle in my body contracts, stiffening until I’m unable to move. He flattens his tongue and holds it firm against me and I come. Hard. Panting with each wave. He stays where he is, drinking me in. Humming with pleasure.
Descending my climax, I’m breathing hard but want more. I tug on his hair and shoulders. When he brings his face up to mine, I roll him on his back.
“Do… do you have protection?” My turn to make him lose himself.
“Yes, in the drawer.” He points to the nightstand on the right.
I reach in and feel around. My hand lands on the familiar foil-wrapped shape. I rip it open with my teeth.
He laughs, but stops and groans when I sit back, grasp his cock and stroke it up and down a few times while grazing my thumb across its plush pink head. I roll the condom on with care.
“You’re killing me, babe,” he groans.
In answer to his plea, I straddle him and encircle the base of his erection in my palm and guide him into the wetness he evoked. I moan as he stretches and fills me. I gasp at the familiar but long denied sensation. I believed I would never make love again. I stifle a sob that sneaks up on me.
Mitch cups my face in his hands. “Are you OK?”
I swipe at my eyes. “Yes, oh, yes, I’m just…” I was going to say overwhelmed, but instead I say, “happy.” I am happy. I never thought I’d be really, truly happy again, either.
We rock into each other, sighing and humming, in perfect rhythm. As it builds, we begin thrusting into crescendo, harder, faster. So intense, our kisses end, but our mouths open still millimeters apart.
The build reaches its peak and I contract around him. He in turn arches his head back, his mouth opens wide and his eyes close tight. He falls apart beneath me and comes a moment after I do. I’m flooded with his warmth and pleasure crashes and crashes inside me until it devolves into tiny waves lapping at the shore.
Chapter 12
Mitch must be exhausted.
I’ve gotten up, found his button-up and put it on, gone into the kitchen and made some coffee, and am now watching the sunrise from the doorway of the balcony off his room. He hasn’t moved an inch.
I take a sip of coffee and watch the world wake up across the intercoastal. Birds launch themselves into the sky. The seagulls are being especially noisy, diving and fighting over fish. I wonder if it will wake Mitch up. I take another sip and rub my hand on my opposite arm and my foot against my leg when a breeze blows in.
I can’t stop my mind from going back to what that guy in the bar said. Cougar. I look over my shoulder at Mitch. Sound asleep, lips pursed and pouty, one arm over his face, the other resting across his rippled abs.
Am I a cougar? I guess I am, because I’m older than Mitch, but the word cougar connotes that I only see him as fresh meat. My latest kill. I don’t feel that way about Mitch at all. I like him. Really like him and his heart. Being around Mitch, and now being with him, I’m calmer than I’ve been since… well, since I lost Donnie.
Donnie. I’ll never stop loving him. I’ll never stop missing him. I see him every day in the faces of Van and Shane. But he left me.
Maybe it’s not right, but it doesn’t feel wrong.
Mitch’s arm slips down from his face, and he reaches out to my side of the bed. His eyes open suddenly, and he searches the room until he sees me looking over my shoulder at him.
“Hey, you,” he says, his voice all warm, rough and bedroomy.
“Hey,” I say back, trying to match his tone.
He pats the bed. “I think you are much too far away.”
I turn toward him. “Do you?”
“Yes. I require you to come back here.”
“Require me?”
“I think that’s the best way to put it.”
I saunter toward the bed, stand next to it and look down at him. I take another sip of coffee and then hand it to him.
He
takes a sip. “Hmmm, warm, creamy and just a little bit sweet. Just the way I like it.” He takes one more sip, places the coffee cup on the nightstand, and takes my hand and gently tugs me down to him.
I cuddle against his chest, and he strokes my arm. I reflexively make a purring, humming sound. Like a cat.
A cat.
A cougar.
I slide a hand across Mitch’s firm and hairless chest, and turn my head slightly to look into his face.
He gazes down at me.
I bite my lip and then press my lips into a line.
“What’s up, Posey? You’re thinking too hard. What’s going on in that head?”
“How did you know I was thinking about something?”
“You were up before dawn. You have a look on your face like you want to ask me something. And there is this little look of… pain, almost, in your eyes.”
I swallow a couple of times. “I hope this isn’t… I… last night, at the bar. I heard one of the guys you were talking to call me a cougar.”
“So?”
“Exactly how old are you?”
He sighs. “I knew this would come up at some point. Posey, I’m twenty-five, twenty-six in a few months.”
Jesus, he was thirteen when I gave birth to Van!
I start to shift away, but Mitch holds me tighter, not letting me. He pins me with his eyes, all sincerity. “You know that doesn’t matter to me.”
I wonder why it matters to me. Why I’m so worried it’s wrong.
“It doesn’t? But what about…?” I’m about to ask him about what others think and kids and the future, but I don’t get a chance because Mitch shakes his head no. He cups my face in one of his hands, rubs his thumb along my jawline and kisses me deeply. It scrambles my thoughts.
When he stops kissing me, he leans his forehead against mine. “I’ve always liked cats,” he whispers with a smirk in his voice. Again, I purr. He has a way of taming my anxiety.
Mitch fingers the collar of the button-up I’m currently wearing.
“Let’s stop talking about cougars and other people.”
“OK.”
“I’d rather talk about how good my shirt looks on you and how much better it would look off you.”
I sink down into the bed and giggle as he unbuttons my shirt, delivering a tiny kiss behind each button that’s freed.
No more talk right now.
Chapter 13
Mitch and I are parked down the street and around the corner from Juniper Court. We look like detectives staking out a suspect as we stare at my house.
“So how are we going to do this?” Mitch questions me.
I had planned to go home last night. I had planned to be in my own bedroom this morning when the boys woke up. Those plans went deliciously sideways, but now I must get back in without them knowing. I texted my mother and father last night and told them to go to sleep, that I’d be home very late. It’s not uncommon for them to spend the night in the guest room when they come over. My mom texted me a “Sure” and a smiley emoji. Damn those kids for showing her emojis!
“I’ll sneak in. Go to my room and change.”
Mitch moans in frustration before reaching over and pulling me to him. “Now I’m thinking of you changing clothes.”
“Stop.” I press my hands against his chest, but with little resistance.
I kiss him quickly and then scramble out the door. “Wait about fifteen, twenty minutes and then come over.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mitch salutes me as I get out and trot down the street.
As I approach the door, I can’t hear a thing from the house. Not unusual for this early on a Sunday morning.
After punching in the code to turn off the alarm to the house, I creep in. I’m able to sneak down the hall and into my room undetected. I change into some soft, gray jersey sweatpants, a #coolNerd baseball shirt and slouchy socks. A quick glance in the mirror reveals my mussed hair and smudged makeup. Yep, I pretty much look like I do every Sunday. Except the mussing and smudging are from a night of amazing sex. I catch myself smiling. Better calm that down or I’ll give myself away.
As I open my bedroom door to go to the kitchen and start coffee and breakfast, I startle. My mother is standing directly in front of me. Completely dressed. Hair perfect.
“Posey? Did you have a good evening?”
I smile. “Yes, I had a really good time.” Better than you know, Mom.
“I thought so, you must have gotten in really late. I went to bed a little after midnight.” She’s totally digging for information.
I turn and head down the hall to stop the inquisition.
“Yeah, it was a couple hours after that.” Technically, I’m not lying. Sure, it was more than a couple hours, but it was after she went to bed.
No sooner do I get the water and coffee in the coffee maker—all the while avoiding my mother’s gaze—than the kids rush in.
“Hey, Grandma. Hey, Mom. Where’s Mitch?”
“He’ll be here soon.”
“We thought he’d be here already,” Van says.
I look over my shoulder. My mother’s jaw drops. I guess she wasn’t prepared for the kids to be expecting him to be here. Or that we’d all be so familiar and accustomed to him being in our house.
“Is Mitch here a lot?”
Shane pipes up, completely innocently. “Yeah, almost all the time.”
My mother opens her mouth and I know she’s about to ask more questions, but there’s a loud knock at the front door.
I jump slightly.
Van and Shane rush to the door and greet Mitch. They escort him, or more accurately pull him, into the kitchen.
I finish pouring the cup of coffee I turned away from my mother to get, then set it down in front of her. She thanks me, all the while assessing the interactions between Mitch, the boys and myself. I can see in her eyes she’s trying to figure out how attached we all are.
“Good morning, Mrs. Spence.”
“Good morning, Mitch. Nice to see you again.”
I’ve turned back to the coffee maker, sure I won’t be able to keep a telling smile off my face.
Not looking at him, I ask, “Mitch? Coffee?”
Mitch enthusiastically answers, “Yes!” He makes his way over to me, stands right next to me and slips his arm around my waist, cupping my hip.
Mitch leans in and kisses me on the head. “Good morning. Again,” he whispers.
“Shh!” I point a thumb behind me at my mother.
My father pads out from the guest room, dressed in an open bathrobe, white T-shirt, plaid boxers and black socks.
“What’s all the noise? Oh, I didn’t know we had company!” He quickly closes his bathrobe and ties the belt.
Mitch pours and delivers a cup of coffee to him as he sits at the kitchen counter next to Mom.
“Good morning, sir. How are you?”
My still sleepy and somewhat baffled dad rubs his eyes, like he’s not quite sure he’s seeing what he’s seeing, “Uh, good morning, Mitch.”
Mitch takes control of breakfast before I can even get started.
“I’m thinking waffles, scrambled eggs and bacon. Van and Shane, can you set the table?”
“Yup,” they answer. Without complaint the boys gather plates and silverware and get on the task.
Mom volunteers to help and is soon behind the counter with Mitch. Mitch hands me a cup of coffee and shoos me out, directing me to sit with my dad. Mitch and my mother act as a well-oiled machine, preparing breakfast. They chatter as if they’d known each other for years. Mom tells him to stop calling them Mr. and Mrs. Spence and call them Charles and Caroline. My heart goes a bit mushy.
My slow-to-rise-in-the-morning father attends to all the breakfast making impassively as he sips his coffee.
But he finally speaks. “How was your evening?”
“Uh, good. It was really good.” Really, really good!
“What did you do?”
I tell him about dinner and M
itch’s gig, but stop there.
In all actuality, I can’t stop thinking about spending the night in Mitch’s arms. In Mitch’s bed.
Chapter 14
Tuesday and Thursday lessons have turned into Friday and Saturday dates with Sunday brunches and Mitch at the house all the time. I’m surprised how perfectly fine with it, thrilled with it, I am. My kids expect him to be at the house and are disappointed when he isn’t. I think he even got my parents’ phone number after we all had breakfast together.
He spends the night.
His toothbrush is in my bathroom.
I think we need to talk.
Van and Mitch have finished their Thursday lesson, and they are coming downstairs. I’m in my studio, putting the last touches on the #coolNerd album cover and associated ads, when Valley calls and asks if Shane and Van can spend the night because there’s no school tomorrow.
She must have been reading my mind. I love my children, but I desperately need to talk to Mitch alone. We’re moving at a pretty rapid rate and I’m anxious. Are we on the same page?
“Really, Valley? They can spend the night?”
“Posey, I’ll even feed them dinner. It’s clear you need to have an evening alone with Mitch.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, he’s been over at your house almost every night, but I know all too well how hard it is to let loose with kids in the house.”
I visualize her winking at me.
“More than you know. Plus, I think Mitch and I need to talk.”
“Uh-oh.”
“It’s nothing bad. I don’t think…”
“But?”
“But… Mitch is a lot younger than I am.”
“Oh, I know.” She draws out each one of the words and once again I visualize a wink with a seductive pucker of Valley’s lips this time.
“Annnnd… I just wonder if we want the same things. Long-term.”
“I don’t know about that, but short-term it appears you’re both getting what you want.”
“VAL-ley!”
“Just send the kids over.”
The boys pack up in nanoseconds and fly out the door and over to Valley’s house. Mitch and I stand in the doorway waving. I remind them to behave and mind Valley.