“Something tells me Tyler wasn’t a Christian. Something else tells me Tyler was a dick.”
“You’re right. He was a dick. I had the surgery, anyway, and he dumped me right after. Said I’d mutilated myself.”
“Such a dick.” Erick dropped his chin to his chest. “Men suck.”
“You all really do suck. Really, really suck.”
“Keep it coming. I’ll go flog myself in the street in penance later. I want to hear it all.”
“There’s not much more. I started the nursery and got too busy to date. That was my twenties—back pain, humiliation, and very short, very crappy relationships. The nursery made me happy and dating made me miserable so I put all my attention on one and let the other kind of fall by the wayside. Meanwhile my older brother and his wife started having kids and my younger sister got married and started having kids. And I finally found someone I really liked abou three years ago and then I told him I’d never had sex before and...well...that was that. But we did fool around a lot. I’m not completely inexperienced. And I hate the word virgin. I’m a grown woman with sexual experience. Just not a lot of it.”
“You do give very good hand jobs. Excellent. I give it five fingers out of five.”
“I tried.”
“You succeeded. I guess considering your history I can’t blame you for not telling me you’d never had sex before. Men can get squirrelly about that stuff.”
“You don’t seem squirrelly.”
“I might have been if you’d told me before. It wouldn’t have stopped me from fucking you. I might have just waited a few days and gone a lot slower.”
“Then I’m glad I didn’t tell you. Ruthie calls it my ‘little problem.’ That’s why she was joking about hiring me a male escort. At least I think she was joking about Sven.”
“Oh, Sven.”
“Good ole Sven.”
“So my seventeen-year-old daughter has been trying to get her thirty-year-old boss laid? And to think I thought all she did at the nursery was water plants and answer the phone.”
“I promise, hiring me male escorts was not in the job description. That was all her idea.”
“The only bad downside of us sleeping together is that I can’t call my parenting book Kids Are Such Cock Blocks anymore. Damn. It was going to be a bestseller.”
“Sorry.”
“Are you?”
“Not at all,” she said. “That was...amazing.”
“I like that word. Amazing. It implies that you were, you know, amazed.” He waggled his eyebrows at her to make her laugh.
“I was amazed. I was lying there and thinking, ‘Wow. I didn’t think this would be worth all the trouble.’ And you know what? It was worth all the trouble.”
“I hope there’s no trouble. You did say you were on the pill, right?”
She nodded. “I take it every day. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“When I had the sex talk with you know who, I said condoms all the time, every time. I love being a hypocrite. Not the best part of being a parent but definitely in the top five.”
“In all fairness to you—and we must be fair to you,” she said.
“We must.”
“I wasn’t kidding about the latex allergy. I got hives in the hospital after surgery because the doctor was wearing latex gloves. Although maybe I mentioned that so you’d think I’d had sex. I didn’t want to freak you out.”
“Not freaked out,” he said. “You? It was your first time, after all. Feeling okay about it?”
“I feel pretty good,” she said. “Very good, really.”
“Good enough to go another round?”
“Hmm... I’m a little sore inside but we can try.”
Erick shrugged. “We’ll wait until you’re ready. We had sex once and it’s already more than I’ve had all year.”
“We can keep kissing, though,” she said. “I’d like that.”
“Can I ask you something personal?”
“Isn’t that all you’ve been doing for the last four hours?”
“Good point,” he said. “Although I did ask where you got your brushed copper towel rack in the downstairs bathroom, and I don’t think that’s personal, right?”
“What’s your personal question?”
“Are you comfortable with me kissing your nipples? Or are they off-limits?”
“Not off-limits. If the scars don’t bother you...”
He shook his head and slid under the covers again, on top of her.
“They don’t...” He pulled her shirt up to her neck. “Bother me.” He flicked his tongue over her right nipple. “One bit.” He flicked his tongue over her left nipple.
“I like you,” she said as he gently sucked her nipple into his mouth and kneaded it with his tongue. “I like you very much, Erick Fields.”
With his arms around her he pulled them onto their sides. He kissed her nipples for a long time, as long as she’d let him, which was thankfully a long time. He enjoyed it, definitely. She had beautiful breasts, perfectly symmetrical, and from the way her nipples hardened in his mouth, the way she moaned as he sucked her, he knew she’d retained all her sensitivity. But he didn’t kiss her breasts solely because he enjoyed it. He wanted her to get over her self-consciousness. First she’d hidden her body under her clothes because of the size of her breasts, then hid herself because of the surgical scars. He didn’t want her to hide herself anymore, not from him. He wanted her to see herself as desirable and as beautiful as he saw her. Desirable and beautiful and smart and she ran her own business and she was amazing with his daughter... The list of everything wonderful about Clover went on and on. He better be very careful or he was going to end up falling in love with her.
“Erick?”
He kissed a freckle on the swell of her right breast.
“Yes?”
“Now my nipples are getting sore.”
He sighed. Heavily.
“I’ll stop. If I must.”
“Just for a little while. My body’s not used to all this attention.”
He slid up the bed and they lay face-to-face on her pillow. He took her leg in his hand and laid it over his hip. He could have slid his cock right into her but he didn’t. He just wanted to be as close to her as possible.
“It’ll need to get used to it—fast,” he said. “I think I’m already addicted to your body.” He ran his hand down her naked back. Such soft skin...he couldn’t get enough of her.
“So do you want to keep doing this?” she asked. Her eyes were searching his face, and he saw the old nervousness back in those pretty blues.
“Having sex with you?”
“That.”
“Yes, yes and yes. I want to have all the sex with you.”
“What constitutes ‘all’ the sex?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Well...there’s all kinds of sex. Oral. Anal—don’t worry, it’s not a deal breaker with me. Vaginal, which we’ve had and I’d love to have again a few thousand times. But you know, there’s sweet sex, gentle sex, rough sex, dirty sex, sex in different positions, sex in different places, like cars, hotels, swimming pools—not recommended.”
“No pool sex?”
“I’ve tried it and it’s like pushing a tennis ball inside a coin slot. The lack of lubrication does not work. Maybe in books and movies but not in the real world. But hey, if you want to try it, we’ll try it. You bring the coin slot and I’ll bring the tennis ball.”
“Not a fantasy. I’ve thought about sex by the lake but it’s late November now. This is not outdoor sex season.”
“There’s always next summer.”
“Next summer? Planning ahead?” she asked.
“I’m a very busy man in the summers. If you want lakeside sex, you have to book in advance.”
She laughed and nodded. “I’ll check my calendar.”
“Let’s see...there’s also couch sex and kitchen-table sex. These sexings are a little overrated unless it’s a really big co
uch and the fabric is Scotchgarded. Shower sex can be very good if there’s lube handy.”
“What’s your favorite kind of sex?”
“Before tonight I would have said ‘doggy style in the bed of a pickup’ sex. My marriage fell apart pretty fast but we had a good honeymoon, that’s for sure. But that was before tonight.”
She raised her eyebrow at him.
“And after tonight?”
“After tonight I would say my favorite kind of sex is what you and I had. Surprise sex. Good-surprise sex. Didn’t think I’d have sex with anybody today. And then I did and it was with you, who I’ve been trying not to like for a whole year. And not only that, you’ve never had sex before me and finding out I’m your first makes me feel really...well, it was a good surprise, let’s just call it that. That’s my new favorite kind of sex. Good-surprise sex.”
“Weird,” she said as she rested her head on his chest.
“Why’s that weird?”
“That’s my favorite kind of sex, too.”
6
CLOVER WOKE UP alone in her bed. Nothing unusual there. She’d been waking up alone in her bed for thirty years.
But she also woke up naked in her bed, which was new. New and not at all unpleasant especially since she had no idea where her panties were, no idea where her T-shirt was and no care in the world to find them. She lay there for a while simply basking in the sense of victory she felt at finally having had sex last night. Mentally she patted herself on the back, shook her own hand and gave herself a high five. Good job, Clo, she told herself as visions from last night ran through her head. Erick was so sexy in bed. She’d always found him handsome but last night she learned the difference between attractive and sexy. The things he said to her...well, if he were here right now, they’d go for it again. But he wasn’t here. Where was that man, anyway?
As she climbed out of bed she groaned a little, glad Erick wasn’t here to see her wince. She was sore all over, inside and out. But such a good kind of sore. It wasn’t painful, really. No, she was just aware of her body like she hadn’t been aware of it before. Her nipples were a little swollen and her vagina felt tender and a little raw. She felt like a woman who’d had good hard sex last night and the best part of it was...she was and she had.
She took a long shower that did a lot to ease her full-body soreness, pulled on her bathrobe and brushed her teeth. When she reached for her ponytail holder and hairbrush she stopped and left her long hair down and damp around her shoulders. With a little makeup on, even she found herself kind of...sexy. A glance at the clock told her it was eight forty and that gave her a very good idea where to find Erick.
Sure enough, there he was on her deck, already at work replacing the rotted boards. She stood at the kitchen window with her coffee cup in hand watching him work. It was the first time she’d seen him doing what he did for a living. With Ruthie he was always laid-back, casual, easygoing as any man raising that smart-ass kid would have to be. But Erick at work was a different man than Erick at rest. His eyes were narrowed in concentration and everything he did was with precision and purpose. He looked good out there on her deck in his jeans and work boots with his hair slicked back from his forehead from the little bit of mist in the air. When he finished nailing down the last board, he stood up and jumped on the deck hard enough the dishes in the cabinets rattled. He moved a foot and jumped again. She smiled. He was testing her entire deck to make sure he hadn’t missed a single rotted or loose board. Thorough. She liked that.
She poured a second cup of coffee, slipped her feet into her boots and walked out the back door to the deck.
“Morning, Mr. Fields,” she said as she held out the cup.
“Morning, Ms. Greene. Hope I didn’t wake you with all my banging,” he said as he took the cup from her hand.
“I think I’d remember if I was woken up with a banging. Too bad I wasn’t.”
He grinned and leaned in to kiss her.
“I taste like coffee,” she said.
“Why do you think I want to kiss you?” he asked.
“Oh, good point.” She let him kiss her and it was so natural and comfortable she could almost forget for a second that last night had been her first time with this man or any man. With Erick it seemed like she’d done this all her life. A good feeling. The opposite of awkward.
“How’s the deck?” she asked.
“Hanging in there,” he said. “Eager to get you back in bed.”
“My deck wants to get me in bed?”
“Oh...you said ‘deck.’”
She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and kissed him again.
“You,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him. “You make me happy.”
“And you...make me coffee. And if that’s not another word for happy we need to change the thesaurus.” He pulled her even closer and she was grateful for the sudden influx of male body warmth. It couldn’t have been more than fifty out this morning, which was great jeans-and-sweater weather and terrible “nothing but a bathrobe and boots” weather.
“So...” she said. “How is the dick this morning?”
“Needs a good rub down with sandpaper and a fresh coat of wax.”
“That sounds painful.”
“Oh...you didn’t say ‘deck,’ did you?”
“You’re ri-deck-ulous,” she said. Erick groaned and buried his head against her shoulder.
“I fucked a woman last night who makes puns.” He sighed. “What was I thinking?”
“Hmm...if you were thinking what I was thinking, you weren’t thinking.”
He lifted his head and her heart caught in her chest at the sight of his grin.
“Oh, yeah...that is what I wasn’t thinking.”
“I’m going to go in and make a little breakfast. Can you stay and eat or do you have to get to another job?”
“I’m due in Welches at ten but I can probably eat something quick. Do you cook?”
“Not much, but I can do eggs and frozen waffles. And yes, I know to unfreeze them.”
“Sounds perfect. I’ll teach you how to fry buffalo bacon this week. We can have it at Thanksgiving.”
Her head fell back and she exhaled a moan.
“I forgot. I am hosting Thanksgiving this week. Why do I let my family talk me into this stuff?”
“Because you’re too nice for your own good. But don’t worry. After a few days with me, you’ll be as ornery as I am. Or better—as ornery as Ruthie.”
“I would kill to have half her spirit and guts.”
“You seduced me in three hours. You have more spirit than you realize.”
“I seduced you?”
“Completely. And you’re doing it again.” He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her with a warm coffee kiss. She loved the taste of his tongue and the heat of his mouth. Part of her wished she’d been doing this sort of thing for years. A bigger part of her was glad that she’d waited until Erick to find out how much fun it was to make out in the morning because you just can’t wait until dark.
“Breakfast,” she said, pulling back from the kiss. “Ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes,” he said with a little salute. “I’ll just be over here minding my deck.”
“It’s my deck,” she reminded him as she walked back toward the house.
“This week it sure as hell is,” he called after her.
Clover felt good. Good enough to whistle as she cracked eggs into a bowl, put waffles in her toaster, poured orange juice into glasses. If this was how good she felt after having sex once, how good would she feel after the second time? The third time? Surely there was some law of diminishing returns, otherwise after ten