Erick took the phone out of her hand.
“I will teach you one of Ruthie’s secrets for keeping her parents out of her life. It’s a very simple secret and you will benefit from it greatly.”
“What are you doing with my phone?”
“I am...” Erick pushed the button on the top. “Turning it off. Now no one can call you or text you. Or they can but you can’t see the messages until you turn the phone back on again in say...twenty-four hours?”
“That’s brilliant. Why did I never think of that?”
“Because you are a kind and thoughtful daughter who would never ignore your parents’ phone calls. Unlike Ruthie, who once threw her phone into the Zigzag River after her mother called her one too many times that week.”
“You know, the Zigzag isn’t that far from here. You’ll pass right over it on the way to Welches, won’t you?” Clover entertained a brief and lovely vision of Erick throwing her phone out of his truck window and into the white-capped river as he drove over the bridge.
“Lost Lake is closer. But I don’t think you need to do something that drastic. You just need to put this phone up here...” He put the phone on top of her kitchen cabinet where she wouldn’t be able to reach it without a stepladder. “Out of sight, out of mind. No Xanax necessary.”
“I feel better already. Want some breakfast?”
“I do want to eat. Definitely.”
“You sit. I’ll get the waffles out of the toaster.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean I wanted to eat breakfast,” he said.
“Then what—”
Erick wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her off her feet.
“Erick...” she said. “What the hell are you—”
“Kitchen-table sex,” he said. “You need it.”
“I need it?”
“Well...don’t you?” he asked. “I would if I were you. Correct me if I’m wrong, but after that phone call and that text message, I’m pretty sure you need your pussy eaten.”
He set her on the edge of the kitchen table and stood between her knees. His hands stroked her thighs and her hips and his mouth massaged her neck.
“Am I wrong?” he asked. “I’ve been wrong before.”
Clover liked this table. It was solid oak and came with two leaves that turned it into a table that could seat eight to ten people. The kids would have their own table, but on Thanksgiving Day all the adults in the family would assemble around this table. This very table Erick had set her on. And he wanted to do that to her on this table? The Thanksgiving table?
Clover grinned.
“No,” she said. “You aren’t wrong.”
“Didn’t think so.”
Erick kissed her on the mouth as he untied her bathrobe cord and pushed the robe off her shoulders. She inhaled sharply as the cool air touched her bare skin. Once more she was aware of her body. As Erick gently caressed her back with his rough fingertips, goose bumps popped up all over her and she shivered the most delicious shivers in his arms. He hadn’t touched her breasts yet and her nipples were already hard. She felt so wicked and wanton leaning back on her hands as Erick kissed her naked neck, her naked shoulders, her naked breasts and stomach and thighs.
“Anyone ever do this to you before?” he asked as he gently put her flat on her back.
“Oral sex? Yes,” she said. “But I was young and too nervous to come. Or maybe I could have and he just quit too soon.”
“I’m not going to quit on you until you tell me to stop. Please...do not tell me to stop.” Erick pressed a long deep kiss into the center of her stomach.
“I won’t,” she said. “I want it.”
“My three favorite words to hear from a woman,” he said while pushing her thighs open. He sat in a chair and pulled her hips closer to the edge of the table. “Tell me what feels good and what doesn’t. Can you do that for me?”
“I can do that,” she said. “For you.”
“Good.” Using his fingers Erick opened her labia wide. “So fucking good...”
She flinched a little as he flicked his tongue over her clitoris. It was such a sudden shock of sensation. He seemed to sense it was too much all at once. He licked her instead the next time, a long slow motion that made her fingers bunch up into fists. His mouth was hot on her and she could feel his warm breath on her most intimate parts, relaxing her, making her hot, making her writhe all at once. She sensed his tongue moving in a sort of spiraling motion, making circles around her clitoris and then dipping inside her. He had her thighs in his large strong hands and she opened her legs wider for him because it felt so good to do it. She realized as she did it that she wanted him to see her, all of her. She couldn’t recall a time she wanted to be looked at by a man. Self-consciousness had kept her closed off and bundled up for her entire adult life. How freeing it felt to simply be naked and unafraid, naked and unashamed.
“You make me feel so good,” she said, and she heard and felt Erick’s soft laugh.
“That’s what I like to hear when my head’s between your thighs.”
She smiled up at the ceiling as he kissed her clitoris again. She knew he thought she just meant he made her body feel good. But that wasn’t all. He made her feel wanted, sexy, adored.
A wave of tenderness washed over her and Clover reached between her legs and put her hand on the back of Erick’s head. His hair was soft and streaked with a few strands of gray. A grown man with life experience. A mature adult man. Scars didn’t bother him. Her lack of experience didn’t bother him. All he cared about was her and her pleasure. Now she knew what she’d been doing wrong in her dating life before Erick. It wasn’t that she’d been dating the wrong men. She hadn’t dated any men at all, only boys. She liked having a real man in her life.
He seemed to sense her need to touch him, to connect. He took her hand and twined their fingers together and rested their joined hands on her bare stomach. Clover relaxed again against the kitchen table and let the pleasure of his mouth on her flow over her and into her and through her. The intensely pleasurable tension built quickly. Clover moved her hips in small pulses against and into Erick’s mouth. He made a sound of approval as if her movements aroused him as much as they aroused her. He released her hand and grabbed her by both thighs, pushing them wider, pushing his tongue deeper into her. Clover found the edge of the table with her fingers and gripped it hard. Inside her stomach and hips, muscles twitched and flinched and tightened. She inhaled and couldn’t exhale. Her head spun and her lungs burned. At last it hit her, her climax, deep inside her. She exhaled, arching on the table, stars dancing in front of her eyes. Somewhere far away she heard Erick chuckling and she knew he was laughing at the intensity of her orgasm. Let him laugh. She’d laugh, too, when she had the energy for it.
Slowly Clover lifted her head off the table and saw Erick wipe his mouth on the back of his hand. He smiled at her and it was the sexiest smile she’d ever seen on any man’s face, and the best part was, she’d caused it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Mind if I...?”
“I want you to,” she said. She laid back flat on the table as Erick opened his pants and slid the tip of his cock up and down the wet, throbbing seam of her body.
“Fuck, that feels good...” Erick said, his eyes closed as he slowly pushed into her. “Are you sore?”
“Only a little.”
“I can be quick.”
“Don’t rush on my account.”
“I might on my account, though.” He took her breasts into his hands and lightly massaged them. She was too spent to do much more than lie there as he thrust into her, but she could watch. Had she ever seen anything this erotic? Erick with his lips parted and his eyes half-closed and his hands cupping and squeezing her breasts as his hips hammered into her. The table creaked under her and she was glad she’d shelled out the money for good solid oak.
Erick lowered his head and licked and bit her neck. He whispered things in her ear again, things like, “Fuck, your pussy feels so good wrapped around my cock,” and various other wildly erotic musings. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and let him pull her into a sitting position at the edge of the table. With his hands on her hips and her hands on his shoulders, he let go, fucking her with long deep strokes as she held her legs up and open for him. It was dirty. That’s the only word she could think of to describe how it felt, how it must have looked. It was dirty and she loved it. He squeezed her hips hard and practically lifted her off the table when he came with a grunt. She dug her fingernails into the backs of his shoulders as he released inside her.
“That...” he said when he regained his breath. “Was...whew.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
Erick laughed again and she loved that he laughed before sex, during sex and after sex. It made her feel so comfortable. He cupped her breast in his hand and kissed her on the mouth again. She tasted herself for the first time and was surprised by how sexy it was to know herself like that.
Slowly he pulled out of her and Clover clamped her legs shut tight while he grabbed a towel to clean them both off.