When Meg returned, she flashed a condom in front of his eyes and tore the packet open without further pleasantries. Rolling the rubber onto him, she said, “The gift shop’s clerk gave me a hard time about those.”
“Why?”
“I asked for the bigger size, and I guess she didn’t believe I’d need it.”
“If I get funny looks from the staff, I’ll know why,” he said with a chuckle.
“Yeah. If you’re going to keep letting me have my way with you, I’m…uh, we’re going to have to get tested for STDs. I’d like to feel you once without the latex.”
Yet another statement no woman had ever made to him before. No one had ever hinted that there’d be a next time.
“Okay. I’ll go after work on Monday.”
Pushing his knees closer together, she furrowed her brow, and her confusion was evident.
“What?” he asked as she climbed onto his lap, cowgirl-style, tits to chest, so her knees pressed into the mattress. He scooted back a bit to help her balance.
“So, just like that, huh? I suggest it, and you’ll do it without a grumble?”
He raised his shoulders as much as he could with her arms draped over them and pressed his nose into the warm crook of her neck.
She settled herself over his erection.
“It’s such a minor thing to get defensive about, Megan.”
“I’m glad you agree.” Easing down onto his shaft, she blew out a ragged breath and dragged her hands down his naked back. “Lend me a hand, big boy,” she whispered in his ear. “My thighs may look great, but they’re not strong enough for me to stay in this position long.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” he murmured, but moved his hands down to cup her ass, assisting her enthusiastic movements, and even slowing her a bit.
She punished him for that by clamping her muscles hard around him.
“Witch.”
“Yep. Gonna ride you like a broom, and when I get off you, I’ll make you clean up the mess.”
He paused her there at half-mast, and the joke settled into his brain in pieces. Laughing, he helped stabilize her already-broken rhythm and swiveled his pelvis us to meet her halfway. “Gonna prop me up in a dark corner until the next time you need me for some dirty work, too?”
“Mm-hmm.” She swiveled her hips in a circular pattern while gliding up and down with his aid, her breaths becoming shorter with audible rasps. “But…I won’t…leave you there…long!”
Her voice trilled upward into a breathy shout at the end as she came, hugging him tighter, and rubbing her cheek against his like the cat he’d called her earlier.
The name seemed apt now, because just like one of those mysterious pets, he couldn’t understand a damned thing about why she did what she did. She may as well have been from another planet. Women had always been a mystery to him, but this one took the cake.
Gratefully, he lifted that mental floodgate—that divide keeping his body in check as much as a man could—and he came too, pushing her down forcefully so the tip of him met the very end of her.
“God, you’re going to fucking break me,” she panted as he lay on his back, taking her down with him.
And there it went. That thing they all feared. “I’m sorry…I can—”
“Shush.” She pressed an index finger over his lips briefly and let it fall to the side of his face as she relaxed on top of him, seeming unable to catch her breath. “I don’t think you get it.”
“That’s nothing new.”
He listened to her breaths as they steadied, then quieted to mere whispers over the course of minutes. Rubbing his hand up her spine, he said, “Megan?”
No response came from her beyond an involuntary sigh.
He decided to let the cat sleep. She was sure to race away soon enough.
Chapter 7
“So, let me get this straight.” Carla topped off Meg’s Dr Pepper and returned the bottle to the nearly empty refrigerator. The Fennells were still unpacking, and the moment Meg’s plane touched down in Raleigh, she’d parted ways with Seth and made a beeline for her friends’ new home.
Carla stole a peek into the restored Victorian house’s living room to see what Meg stared at from her position at the end of the paper-strewn dining room table. The children were playing raucously, hiding in boxes and scattering packing peanuts all over the floor.
Meg had already tried to mitigate the mess once, striding into the room with a giant trash bag, but Carla drew her back, scolding, “Coping strategy, my dear. Clean up once, not fifteen times while the destruction ensues.”
Now the maternal brunette leaned against the closed refrigerator door, arms crossed over her small breasts, studying Meg.