by Mia Madison
“It’s just different. I’m older. I haven’t told them anything for years.”
“It’s the same for me. I don’t tell them anything that matters. They don’t care what I do, only how it looks or if it makes money. If you were a billionaire, you could be sixty, and they wouldn’t care how old you were.”
“I’m sure they care more than you think.”
“I’m sure you’re wrong.”
I don’t want him to take me home, but I don’t know how to convince him to start the car and get back on the road to Oak Ridge.
I put my hand on his arm. The strength of his muscles, the feel of his warm skin and smattering of dark hair under my fingers make me want him all the more. “Please. Just take me today. I’ll not bother you again.”
“You’re not bothering me. I don’t mind taking you anywhere. But kissing you, telling you take off your dress—that was totally out of line. I just wanted to get that thing off you where it didn’t belong.”
“And there was me thinking you just wanted to look at my body.”
“Well, there was that too. Oh fuck, okay then. Just today. Probably a big mistake, but what the hell.”
He starts the car. I don’t dare say anything else in case he changes his mind.
I got up so early to be ready for our trip that I fall asleep, and when I wake up we are in the middle of nowhere, parked along the edge of a forest.
CHAPTER 8
Luke
“Why have you stopped here?” Olivia asks.
“This is where we’re going, through these trees. We’re just a few miles on the other side of Oak Ridge. Bring your sketchbook.” I get out and open the car door for her, grabbing the bag I brought and her hand. It’s so small in mine.
“Where are we going?”
“To visit my wife’s grandmother.”
“What? You’re married?”
“I was. Divorced now. Long story.”
“Where’s your wife?”
“Not here, in case that’s what you’re worried about. She’s in Vegas pursuing her dream of stardom and hell knows what else. I keep in touch with the old lady, Beatrice, because she has no other family as close as I am, and I like her. I always did.”
I thought telling Olivia about my past was all I had to worry about, but the age thing suddenly hit me in the car. I haven’t thought with my dick for years, not since I was in my twenties and got married. And now it’s squashing every rational thought out of my brain, making me want to possess this girl, not just have her for a night, even a few nights. She makes me want to look after her.
Fucking stupid. I need to learn from the last time. But here she is. I brought her here, so I have to suck it up for today and deal with the situation I created.
We make our way through the forest, twigs cracking underfoot. The thick canopy of leaves above us blocks out the sun.
Olivia shivers.
“Are you cold?”
“A bit, but I’m okay.”
I should have thought and brought the blanket from the car or tossed in a sweater before we left. I forgot how dark it gets under the trees.
“We’ll be back in the sun soon.”
She forces a smile. I suspect she wants me to hold her. But I can’t.
“Here, you can have my shirt.”
I take it off and put it around her shoulders. I’m only wearing a white cotton undershirt under it, but I don’t feel the cold. I never have.
“Thanks, it smells of you,” she says. “Your cologne, whatever it is.”
“Must be the body wash I picked up at the store. I’ve no idea what it is, but I’ll be sure to buy more of it when I find out.”
“You’ll never keep me away, then.”
“I’ll have to keep you away. Sorry Olivia, but that’s just the way it is.”
“You don’t have the body of a thirty-five-year-old guy,” she says as if she hasn’t heard a word I’m saying.
“And what does the body of a thirty-five-year-old man look like?”
“I don’t know any others, but probably softer, podgier, no muscles.”
“Maybe we are all the same, and I’m just the first one you noticed.”
“I couldn’t exactly miss you, seeing as you carried me out of a burning building. Thirty-five-year-olds who are capable of doing that are few and far between, I expect.”
“It goes with the territory, being in the fire department. We have to stay in shape to carry the heftiest guy out, or at least drag him out holding him under his arms. It was just easier to carry you down the ladder.”
“Did you have to yell at me after you got me out? Do you get training for that too?”
“No. That was pure gut reaction. If the chief had heard me, I’d have been in trouble, because in general we’re not supposed to yell at those we rescue.”
“I like that you did that. Not at the time. But now. It was as if you cared, then.”
“And you think I don’t care now?”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“I do, and that’s exactly why we are not going against your mom and dad’s wishes. You want to go out with me, you tell them and get their permission.”
She humphs at that, but I know it will make no difference whether she tells them or not. I won’t be able to take her out again. No parent is going to be happy about their eighteen-year-old dating a man of thirty-five.
As we get out of the trees, I say, “You’d better give me my shirt back. I’ll need to be respectable for Beatrice. She doesn’t miss a thing. Do you want to come in with me or find something to sketch? I’ll only be an hour or so. Just enough to have a cup of tea with her.”
“I’ll stay out here.” She sits down on a fallen tree trunk and opens up her sketch book.
“If you go through the trees over there, you’ll see a lake with a lot of wildlife. I’ll find you there,” I say.
*
Beatrice is in good form. She’s heard from my ex and fills me in on the news. Eve has a job as a dealer in a casino and is getting married again.
“You don’t seem at all upset by that. Do you have someone else?”
“No,” but maybe I hesitate too long in my response.
“Who was that you sent off through the trees, then?”
Beatrice doesn’t miss a trick. I should have known.
“My neighbor’s daughter, Olivia. She’s looking for places to sketch.”
“Seems a long way to bring someone just to sketch. Are you sure there’s no more to it than that?”
“I like her, but she’s too young for me.”
“How old is she?”
“Eighteen going on nineteen. Just out of school. Even if her parents approved, I don’t see how she’d want to be tied to me rather than someone her own age.”
“You know, I had fifty happy years with my Sam. He was twenty years older than me. My parents tried to tell me that was inappropriate too, but I never regretted it one bit.”
“I never met Sam. I wish I had.”
“Why not just live for the moment? See how it goes. If it’s going anywhere, you’ll know. I was always sorry it didn’t work out between you and Eve, but she was never going to settle, that one, no matter what you did. She learned that from her mother. Go to your friend,” Beatrice says. “Don’t waste your time hanging around here.”
CHAPTER 9
Olivia
Luke is out sooner than I expect. It’s so peaceful here by the lake I could sit here sketching all day. Beatrice has given him a simple picnic for later.
“Let me watch you draw for a while, and then we’ll find a spot to eat. I’ll go back and have a longer visit with Beatrice another time. She sent me out to you,” he says, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.
“She sounds nice. She didn’t mind you bringing me then?”
“Not at all. She says we should ignore the age gap. She did that with her husband Sam apparently, and they were very happy according to her. She’s quite artistic too, you know. I remember she used to ha
ve a loom in her living room. I don’t know what happened to that. We can pop in and say hello before we have lunch if you like.”
I feel nervous about meeting his ex-wife’s grandmother, but I agree to go. I hope Beatrice is not too intimidating.
I’ve drawn a sketch of a kingfisher by the lake, but I wish I had my easel and paints too and a lot longer to do the whole scene justice. I’ll make a painting from this sketch eventually, though, and I take some pictures with my phone. And then Luke uses my phone and takes a selfie of us and sends it to himself.
“There now, I’ve got you captured for posterity,” he says.
I hope he’s not taking my picture so he remembers the girl he took out once and then never again.
“Look,” he says, showing me the picture. “You’re beautiful.”
No one ever called me beautiful before. The guys at high school insult girls to get their attention, and Jed was never generous with compliments, or anything else really. He always wanted something from me.
My parents like him, though. The fact that we split up is just another thing for them to hold against me, as if I set out to get dumped deliberately. They go on about him being a good college boy. Good college boy or not, he wanted to be free for the summer so he could sleep with other girls. What a tool he is, and they like him!
Luke is a perfect gentleman in comparison. Even when he told me to take off my dress, I only did it because I wanted to. I felt safe with him. He wasn’t rushing me, not pushy at all, even though I could tell how much the situation affected him. I heard his breathing, saw the evidence, the hard length of him in his shorts.
Is he as large and strong there as he is everywhere else? I’m pretty sure, from what I noticed, he is. In any case, I’m convinced being with Luke will be nothing like I experienced with the boys at high school. They were always fumbling, pushing their luck, not caring about how I felt.
But I have to pull myself back from those thoughts, because I see Luke watching me curiously. I gather up my sketchbook and pencils, trying to hide my blushes.
*
When we go to see Beatrice before lunch, she’s left a note on the door of her cottage:
GONE TO THE STORE. WHY NOT TAKE THE BOAT AND ROW OUT TO THE ISLAND? B
“Do you want to see the island?” Luke asks. “It’s not too far.”
“Yes, I’d love to.”
He helps me into the boat. The sun is so hot I can’t believe I was shivering in the forest earlier. I watch him push away from the side, steering the boat toward the island in the center of the lake. He peels off his shirt again in the hot summer sun and catches me admiring his arms. I could watch them all day as he powers the oars through the water.
When we get there, he ties the boat up, and lifts me out without blinking an eyelid. I remember the last time he picked me up. That night could have easily gone another way. I’m alive today because of him, in more ways than one.
“Let’s find some shade for our picnic,” he says, taking my hand.
I squeeze his fingers, and he smiles at me. “How about over there?”
“Looks good to me.”
He lays out the blanket Beatrice lent him under the shade of a tree. It’s just a little way from the water’s edge though the cottage is out of sight, and we sit leaning against the tree sharing the delicious picnic food—homemade chicken pie and apples, bread and cheese and a couple of slices of banana cake. Lemonade too.
I must have crumbs of banana cake on my lips, and Luke brushes them away with his fingers, and then he kisses me so gently I melt, my heart pounding.
Has he forgotten his objections? It seems like it, and I’m not going to bring them up.
He pulls me to him again, a much deeper kiss this time, hard and insistent, capturing my mouth, and what feels like every brain cell. I give myself to that kiss and forget everything else, my blood turning to warm syrup and flooding my body with an aching heat.
When we pause, he looks at me, and we both smile like we know that was something more than just a kiss, but neither of us says anything. I just know I want him, here in this place. It’s idyllic, nothing but the hot sky and the rustling of the leaves in the gentle breeze, and no one else around for what feels like miles.
I want him, but I don’t know how to make him mine. In the little experience I’ve had with men, or boys really, they make all the moves, pushing for the next step. I’m always stopping them, rather than enticing them to go further.
But it’s different with Luke. He could do anything, and I would let him, but he’s not pushing me even if he wants to, and I’m pretty sure he does from that kiss and the way he looks at me.
So I look him in the eye, and then slowly, without taking my eyes away in case I lose my nerve, I peel off my t-shirt, crossing my arms and pulling it up over my head. I have never been as bold as this in my entire life. I don’t know what’s happening to me.
He groans. “Olivia, what are you doing to me?” And still with my eyes on him, though I know I’m blushing bright red, I unclip my bra and take that off too. I don’t believe I’m doing this. But I feel the warm heat of the sun on my bare breasts, and somehow it feels right.
He grabs me and pulls me close, folding me in his arms, and I kneel between his thighs, the hard length of him against my stomach, my breasts against the fabric of his under shirt, feeling the muscular planes of his chest through the cotton.
My nipples pebble up, sending a signal of hot desire, of raw, naked need right through my body. I rise up on my knees, pulling his undershirt up and over his arms and head with a giggle. I’m undressing this grown man, getting him ready for me. I feel like a temptress. I kneel back down, running my bare breasts over his skin, and he moans.
“Too much,” he says, but he takes my breast in his mouth, gorging on the flesh, my nipples painfully tight.
I feel wanton and alive, more than I have in forever. Everything was just the same old same old before, and this is new, something I’ve never felt previously, not with anyone.
He lays me down on the blanket then and kisses my stomach, unbuttoning my shorts and pulling down the zipper. I wriggle out of them as he pulls them down my legs.
“We’ll leave these on for now,” he says. “I love these little boy shorts.” He runs his finger inside the leg of my panties.
“So wet,” he says. “I can’t wait to taste you.”
Taste me? That’s so hot, I just about convulse on the blanket. He pulls the crotch of my panties to one side so I’m open to his mouth, and he licks me with the tip of his tongue, softly at first and then with more pressure. I watch him feast on me, holding my breath, as he makes me squirm.
“So sweet,” he says, and he works me even harder with his mouth, licking and sucking and probing until I’m on fire, arching my back, calling out, into the warm air.
He watches me as I come, his eyes crinkling into a smile, yet it’s not all tenderness. He groans along with me. There’s lust and need there too. He pulls down my panties and opens my legs looking at me.
“I’d like to make you come all day like that,” he says. “But I want to… Fuck!”
“What is it?”
“My phone. I have it on vibrate.”
I resist the urge to giggle. It’s not really funny.
“I’d better get this.” He pulls the phone out of his pocket and answers it. “What time? Okay. I think I can make it back. I’m at Oak Ridge. Yes, will do.”
“They need me back at the station. Adam’s son has been taken into the hospital. He’s injured himself playing football. I said I’d cover for him. I’m sorry we’ll have to go back pretty much right away. They’ll be a man short otherwise.”
“I’m sorry, too. But another time?”
“Another time,” he agrees. At least he’s not saying I have to tell my mother first—that’s another hurdle to climb. I can’t even imagine telling her about Luke. I just can’t.
I get dressed while he packs up the picnic things and puts them in the
boat, then he helps me in and sets off from the bank, pushing away with the oar.
I’m pretty much floating on air, watching him watching me. I don’t think our eyes separate until he rows right to the other side and is tying up the boat for Beatrice and lifting me out.
I say hello to Beatrice as Luke returns the picnic basket and blanket.
“Thanks, Beatrice,” he says. “This is Olivia. Sorry we have to rush off. I’m needed back at the fire station.”
She smiles at me. “Pleased to meet you, Olivia. Come back with Luke next time he visits, won’t you?”
“I’d love to,” I tell her, but I don’t know how things will work out if my parents find out about this. Who knows if I’ll ever go back?
CHAPTER 10
Luke
After coming to my senses on the way to Oak Ridge, I meant to just take Olivia sketching, but after Beatrice said what she did, that plan was shot. Then I meant to hold back and not take things too far too fast, but then that idea went west, too. There was no way I was going to be able to do that, not with Olivia offering herself to me as she did.
It was just as well Saul called from the station about Adam’s son, no matter how unwelcome the interruption. I’m glad he called, but I’ve got a severe case of blue balls now.
“Maybe I can help you with that,” Olivia says.
“With what?”
She touches my erection and my cock jerks.
“I don’t think so, babe. Not when I’m driving. Later. Tomorrow, but not now. I’m getting you home safely, before your mom and dad really do have something to worry about.”
She scowls at me. But if she’d ever cut anyone out of wreckage on the highway she’d wouldn’t think about tempting me. I need to distract her from doing anything like that.
“How come your parents don’t like you painting?”
“They like it well enough as a hobby, but they say it’s not a real job. What they mean is it’s not a job like theirs that pays big bucks unless you’re well-known and recognized as having talent by the big art critics. But I really don’t care. Who wants money if you have to work twenty-four seven like they do? They’re always running about to some pointless meeting or other.”