by Leah Ashton
Until Trent had said, after he’d received the official all clear, that he wanted a divorce.
Because – and these words were etched permanently in Beth’s brain – he now knew life was too short to be in a loveless marriage.
A loveless marriage.
This had been news to Beth.
Except, also, it hadn’t. No doubt the romantic glow had diminished in their relationship – or more accurately, had never shone that bright to begin with. Yet, she’d loved Trent. She still loved him, really – in a way. But not like the love in the movies she’d been watching or the books she’d been reading. It was a comfortable, familiar love she’d had with Trent, and now, more than a year later she could understand what he’d meant when he’d said those words.
Although, at the time it had sucked. It had hurt. Bad. More pain and upheaval after a year of worry and fear for Trent.
Plus, it was pretty galling for a man’s brush with death to lead to him realising he didn’t want to be with you. Beth had taken to doing unhealthy things like paraphrasing Trent’s words, such as—
I realised I was wasting my life with you, Beth.
Or—
I could’ve died, and I realised I didn’t want the last woman I slept with to be you.
So, tonight, while watching the classic final romantic scene in her movie, Trent had called her.
He’d called her to let her know he’d been dating someone for a few months now, and it was serious. He thought it was the right thing to do to let her know, so she didn’t find out from someone else.
And that was so damn considerate and typical Trent that it sent her into some sort of furious frenzy which saw her dress in her sexiest outfit – a pretty patterned silk skirt with a ’60s feel, and a black button-up blouse. She’d curled her hair, painted her toe nails, and worn her good lacy underwear, then caught an Uber to Northbridge to …
Well, to meet a man.
Beth made herself down the rest of her drink in one gulp.
Jesus Christ, she couldn’t even admit to herself why she was here.
She’d come out at ten o’clock at night to get laid.
Because – to paraphrase her imaginary paraphrasing of Trent – she didn’t want the last man she slept with to be her ex-husband.
It had begun to feel like a terrible idea once the first bar she’d walked into had been full of people her age – but in pairs. A fancy wine bar with couples having a night out.
Nope, not her demographic.
So, she’d walked into the next place she found – a night club. That had been even worse. She was at least a decade older than anyone there and had exited quick smart.
Finally, she’d arrived at this bar with its gig posters and all. Beth had watched groups of women and men in their early twenties come and go proving it still wasn’t the right place to be. She felt old and invisible, and it was all just a very, very, bad idea.
What she needed to do was go home and download a dating app the way her sister had told her to.
She pushed her glass away.
It was time to leave.
But as she shifted on her bar stool, just about to slide off and onto her feet, a shape materialised beside her.
Like, right beside her, and she needed to crane her neck up to see the person’s face. To see his face, it turned out, as it was unquestionably a man beside her. A tall man, a broad man. A man with dark hair, a few days-worth of stubble on his jaw, and tattoos winding all the way up both his arms below the sleeves of his snug black T-shirt.
“You leaving?” he asked.
His voice was deep, and he didn’t speak loudly. He’d met her gaze with golden hazel eyes beneath dark, slash-like eyebrows and didn’t look away. He just held her gaze, steady and intense for long, long seconds.
Oh, my.
He was gorgeous. No – not gorgeous. That was totally the wrong word for a man covered in tatts and with a slightly crooked nose, a fine white scar beside one eye, and not a hint of softness to his body.
Hot.
Yes. That was the word. This man was hot. Deliciously hot. The type of hot that made Beth’s belly go liquid and heat creep into her cheeks. The type of hot that made her want to press herself against the body so conveniently outlined by the fit of his shirt – the pecs, the shoulders, the biceps. How would it feel to be beneath a body like that? On top of it? Or to have him inside her?
Maybe that was the thought that should have snapped her out of the almost-trance she found herself in, but it wasn’t. It was the thought that came straight after.
I’ve never felt this way before. Never, ever.
She blinked. Then closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
What was she doing!
Coming out tonight was a terrible idea, she already knew that. But even if it hadn’t been, even if it had gone exactly to her haphazard plan, this man was not the type she’d been looking for. He was wrong in every way. Too big, too rough – he had tattoos for goodness sake! – and he was just simply too young.
Because she doubted this guy was even thirty.
He was all wrong for her.
She opened her eyes.
The man was still there. Still looking at her. Intensely. He had one strong hand resting on the bar, the other shoved into the front pocket of his jeans.
“Yes,” Beth said crisply in her best teacher voice. “I am leaving. You can have this seat.”
She slid onto her feet and turned slightly as she hooked her bag onto her shoulder. When she turned again to leave, he hadn’t moved.
But now he was looking beyond her. “There are plenty of chairs here, honey,” he said. “I didn’t want your chair.”
Damnit. She wasn’t supposed to like a total stranger calling her honey but she did.
His gaze flicked back to her. Again, it did all those things to her insides that a man like this wasn’t supposed to do.
“Well,” Beth said, irritated – with herself, mostly. And unfairly, at him, for not being the man she’d needed to meet tonight. “What do you want then?”
Something shifted in the man’s gaze, and there was a hint – a hint – of a curve to his lips. Nothing more – she couldn’t imagine this man being the type to smile easily.
Immediately she realised her mistake.
Whoops.
“That’s easy, honey,” he said and stepped closer.
Which was actually really close, because they were both standing in the space between two bar stools. If she took a deep breath, her breasts would touch the cotton of his shirt.
Beth held her breath. To avoid touching him? Or in anticipation of what he was going to say?
“I want you,” he said, his voice a pitch lower now. Rough and intimate. “I want you, and I think you might want me too.” Another pause. “Do you?”
How had he known to ask that?
How had he known if he’d told her she wanted him, she would’ve been out the door and into an Uber before he could blink?
But he hadn’t told her anything. He’d asked.
She was falling into his gaze again. His sexy, confident gaze. Oh, he knew. He did. He was cocky, and he had swagger. He had all of that, and he possibly – probably – used this line on a new girl each week. Maybe each night.
But did it matter?
He’d asked and given her control, and damn if that didn’t make this even sexier.
Because it was sexy, to stand here beneath the appreciative gaze of this man. To feel his heat so close. To be drawn to him by the zing of physical attraction, and to just know deep down inside her that he wanted her. More than that, he wanted her bad. His gaze had moved from her eyes now to explore her face, then down, down, to explore what he could see of her body, given how close they stood together.
Which was pretty much just her breasts, although only now did she realise how conservative her outfit actually was. Would it have killed her to have popped open a few more buttons? To flash a bit of cleavage?
Not that this
man seemed to care.
She didn’t even care that he didn’t want her for her intellect, or her personality, or all those things that should matter – did matter – most of the time. All of the time, actually, for Beth. Except tonight. Except now.
She didn’t even know his name, he didn’t know hers, and she honestly didn’t care. He was all wrong in every possible way, but then all of tonight had turned out wrong – and the way this man was making her feel felt so good. Felt so right.
Like despite what she’d told herself, he was exactly what she needed.
But, she realised, it was still hard to actually say the words she needed to say.
She swallowed, then licked her lips.
That snapped his attention back to her face, specifically to her mouth.
Oh, wow. The way he was looking at her, the way he wanted her, it was impossible to resist.
She leant forward, deliberately letting her body brush against his, her nipples tight and hard behind the lace of her bra. She stood on tiptoes so she could murmur in his ear.
“Yes,” she said.
He turned his head, and now they were so close they were practically kissing – their lips almost perfectly aligned. “Yes, what?” he prompted, as if he had to be sure.
She closed her eyes. She needed to be sure, too.
Did he know that? How could he?
“I want you,” she said, barely more than a whisper.
But clearly, it was enough. It was all he needed.
Suddenly, his hand was at the small of her back, guiding her out of the bar. A few patrons still dotted the venue, but no one paid attention to their exit. Which of course they wouldn’t, but somehow it seemed surprising. Couldn’t they feel how momentous this was? That Bethwyn Banfield was walking out of a bar with a total stranger. A total stranger with tattoos.
Outside, the man flagged down a taxi, and a moment later she sat beside him on the vinyl back seat.
“Your place or mine?” he murmured against her ear, and Beth took a minute to work out what he was asking. Having him so close to her – his breath against her neck – was … was intoxicating.
She looked up at him, and with the taxi lit only by the street lights, his face was in shadow: strong jaw, not quite straight nose, full lips. It was odd, but there was something almost familiar about him, which was crazy. She’d never have forgotten meeting this man. Ever.
“Uh—” she began, but honestly had nothing else to say. What was the etiquette here? What was safer? A stranger in her house? Her in a stranger’s house?
Both sounded impossible.
The man turned and gave an address to the driver and then they were moving, albeit slowly to avoid contact with regular groups of stumbling men and women wading their way through the traffic. All tipsy or drunk, all looking highly likely to make bad decisions.
Just like tipsy Beth was making one now.
She was. Of course she was. She was a thirty-five-year-old divorced teacher who had never had a one-night stand in her life.
This was ludicrous. Nonsensical.
Tempting.
Beth forced herself to slide away from the man beside her, inching herself closer towards the window. What was she doing?
She’d barely heard the address they were going to, but it was in East Perth – not far. She’d order an Uber when she got there and go home. End this moment of madness.
Her gaze flicked back to the man, who was studying her with his seemingly trademark intensity.
As she watched, he shifted in his seat and then pulled a small wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. “Here,” he said, handing her his driver’s license.
She had to blink a few times to make her eyes focus on the words printed on the plastic card.
The address matched the one she’d half heard earlier. And his name …
Todd Frawley.
She looked at him, somehow surprised by his name. Her gaze travelled again over the strong angles and planes of his face, then slid down to the tattoo encircling his bulging bicep. He did not look like a Todd to her.
“Todd?” she asked.
He nodded sharply. “You take a photo of that if you like. Send it to a friend so they know where you are and who you’re with.”
She looked back down at the card, turning it over in her hands. It was clearly a genuine license – with all the fancy hologram stuff and all. And the photo was unquestionably of the man beside her. Todd.
And according to the license, he was thirty-two years old.
Of all things, that made her release the breath she didn’t realise she was holding.
“You’re only three years younger than me,” she exclaimed, and she sounded so happy about it she blushed.
The man moved closer – honestly, the name Todd still didn’t fit and Beth found it impossible to associate it with him. “Honey,” he said, his lips brushing against the skin of her neck as he spoke. “I don’t give a fuck how old you are.”
But the moment before his lips could press against her heated skin – the taxi stopped.
As he paid the driver, Beth took a deep breath. Then another.
Then, quite calmly, and with hands that shook only a teensy bit – she took a photo of the man’s license, then sent it to her sister with the briefest of messages before putting her phone on silent.
A minute later, she was standing on the footpath in front of a modern two-storey villa, sandwiched between several that were just the same. She held out the license as the taxi drove away.
“Here,” she said.
His fingers deliberately brushed hers, sending currents of electricity across her skin.
He didn’t say anything, but a question was in his gaze.
“Yes,” she said.
And then without hesitation, he kissed her.
Chapter Two
Oh my God.
The man’s mouth on Beth’s was delicious and determined. He kissed her with confidence – and why wouldn’t he? He knew how to kiss. Oh, how he knew how to kiss.
Beth reached up to grab at his shoulders, as much to steady her suddenly weak knees as to touch him. She was desperate to touch him. Everywhere. Now.
She kissed him back with equal determination, welcoming the touch of his tongue and loving how he deepened their kiss. She also kissed him with impatience, pushing herself closer as her fingers slid into his hair, then gasping into his mouth when he gripped her hips and pulled her roughly against him, so she could feel him hard against her belly.
Such clear evidence of his arousal – of how much he wanted her, Bethwyn Banfield – seemed to do something to her, and she rapidly moved right past being simply impatient to demanding.
She was doing this, this raw, amazing thing that was this kiss, beneath a street light, on a public street, in the middle of the night, and she didn’t care. In fact, she was revelling in it. It felt so good to have his huge hands cup her hips, it felt so good to have his lips against hers, his tongue inside her mouth.
She was liquid everywhere – every muscle in her body, inside her belly, and between her legs.
His mouth moved from hers to kiss and nip against her jaw, then beneath her ear and then her neck. Everywhere he touched, she shivered and then as his hands moved from her hips to grab her backside, to shove her against him, to rub her body against the front of his jeans, he bit her.
No – not a bite. Not really. But the sting of his teeth, and then suction – a love bite. He’d branded her.
And she didn’t care. It felt right – almost primal. It fitted. This whole night, this connection between them, it wasn’t based on logic or the meeting of minds. It was based on chemistry. Pheromones. It was sex stripped down to its most simple. He was a man, she was a woman, and nothing, nothing else mattered.
Now she was impatient again, impatient for his mouth on hers, but he’d stepped away, wrapping her hand in his as he tugged her towards his front door. She had to force herself not to touch him as he opened the door, only so he
could complete the task, as she was beyond caring how obvious it was how badly she wanted this. Needed this.
She stood there as her heart beat almost out of her chest, her whole body humming with anticipation.
Then they were inside. He didn’t bother turning on a light, and Beth’s bag thudded randomly to the tiled floor.
He pressed her up against a wall, and kissed her again, but this time his hands were beneath her skirt as he gripped her bottom, the satiny fabric bunching up around her waist as he slid his fingers beneath the lace that edged her knickers.
His body was huge and hard against her, and she loved how overwhelmed she felt by his size and how small and delicate she felt in contrast. Not that he treated her delicately, and she liked that too. She hadn’t known until right this moment that she wanted to be treated like this, to be held so firmly and for the man she was with to be so certain about what he was doing - or for that to give her confidence too.
Her fingers slid under his T-shirt, pushing it upwards as much as she could, her hands greedily exploring every solid line and dip of his body, and always pulling him closer, wanting him closer, needing him closer.
Now his hand slid to the front of her knickers, finding her clit immediately and rubbing it hard through the satin fabric. She gasped, groaned, sighed – everything all at once. “More,” she whispered. And then his hand was inside her underwear, touching and circling right where she needed him to, and she closed her eyes as he began to trail kisses down her neck and then lower, making his way to her breasts.
“I always knew you’d be this hot,” he murmured against her skin. “So, so fucking hot.”
Beth’s brain wasn’t capable of understanding much of anything, and the chance to question what he meant was lost entirely to her when his mouth reached the swell of her breasts and then his spare hand reached for the buttons of her blouse. He cupped her exposed breast in its white lace, rubbing his thumb across her nipple just as the clever fingers of his other hand took her right to the very, very edge.