It blasted through her, throwing Rox backward on the couch. Waves rocked her, driving thought from her mind and shattering her body.
For many, long minutes.
The pulses faded, and she was limp, gasping. Cash had gathered her into his arms, holding her against his shoulder, murmuring to her that she was beautiful, and damn, he loved seeing that.
Rox's head cleared, and she pushed herself back.
Cash smoothed a hank of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. His mischievous smile was more like him. "You okay?"
"Oh, heck, yeah. You?"
He shrugged.
"Did you?" she asked.
One of his eyebrows rose as if she had said something pretty dumb. "No. I liked seeing you come, but no."
Even though she was boneless and limp from the orgasm, she didn't want this moment to end. She craved touching him, his mouth, his body.
Rox slid off the couch, between his legs, until she was kneeling on the deep carpeting. She unbuckled his belt.
"No," he said, catching her elbow. "Don't."
"Quid pro quo." The legal term meant something for something, a fair trade. She unzipped his fly and tugged at the denim and his underwear.
"You shouldn't." He wasn't stopping her.
"I want to." A happy trail of fine hair led from his belly button down to his pants. She brushed her hand down the soft hair and hard ridges of muscle underneath and pulled down his underwear.
His cock nudged out, a long, hard stalk and thick head.
Wow, the women at the office hadn't been kidding. That thing was huge.
She licked up his shaft to the ridge.
"I can't argue anymore," he said.
"It's not often you hear a lawyer say that." She pressed her lips around the head of him, slowly parting her lips as if he was pushing into her.
His breath caught, and his burly chest rose under his snug tee shirt.
"You can plead insanity later." She laid her lips on it again and felt his hands touch her hair lightly, carefully, just the smallest caress.
His voice was deeper, growling in his throat. "Non compos mentis," not of sound mind, "only works if the act itself is legal. I think any halfway decent prosecutor could prove mens rea." A guilty mind.
She ran her hands up the hard ridges on his stomach, and her fingers trailed down the crevices that made a vee, pointing down. "How is this different than what you just did to me?"
"Because it is. Tomorrow, the guilt will crush me. But tonight, the wine, and you, and how beautiful you are-"
Rox sucked his cock into her mouth to get him to shut up about that, and it worked. Cash groaned and reached for her, weaving his fingers into her hair.
She rubbed her tongue on the velvety top of him, swirling the blunt tip before she took him farther into her mouth, tasting a hint of salt. As she worked her way closer to him, his cock filling her mouth and nudging her throat, the remnant of his cologne and the faint earthiness of his natural scent filled her nose.
He groaned again, rubbing his fingers over her scalp, and whispered, "I'm close. Seeing you get off has me close."
Rox licked him harder inside her mouth and pumped down on him. She let up for just a minute and caught him staring down at her. His green eyes were intense with hunger. He looked at her lips, still at the tip of his cock, and down to her breasts because she hadn't put her clothes back on.
A liquid bead touched her tongue.
She licked him more, feeling his soft skin over the hardness of him, and sucked down the length of him. God, he really was thick and long, just like all the giggling in the office had suggested. She pushed down until he hit the back of her throat and wrapped her hand around the part below her lips that she couldn't take in.
He arched under her, and his breath quickened. "If you don't want me to come, stop now."
She rose up for better leverage and went down on him farther. His cock filled her mouth with his male taste, and she rubbed her tongue down the front while she swallowed over him.
His hands tightened in her hair, his fists tight to her head, and he thrust up into her throat. His body arched hard under her hands. Rox braced her hands on his strong legs, his thigh muscles straining under the denim. His groan turned to a grunt, became a wordless shout, and warm saltiness flooded her mouth.
Cash held her head on him while he panted, his fingers flexing in her hair.
The tension in his body released, and he collapsed back against the sofa.
Rox sucked as she let go of him, earning one last groan and clutch at her hair as she backed off.
As she stood, Cash leaned and grabbed her around her waist, pulling her to his side. He closed his pants fast and then wrapped both his arms around her, pulling her to him. His unbandaged cheek pressed hers.
His grip was so tight, so desperate, that Rox held onto him, too. He wasn't shaking or anything, just holding her, so she let herself melt against him. He adjusted his arms, molding her naked skin to his muscled body.
"You okay?" she whispered.
His voice was hoarse near her ear. "I'm going to hate myself tomorrow, but for right now, let me pretend that this was the start of something."
He kept his arms wrapped around her for far too long, until Rox was about ready to wiggle to get free, until he loosened his grip and let her lean backward.
Rox said, "Let's not talk now."
"No. Not now." He bent, grabbing her clothes off the floor, and waited while she slipped them back on.
Then he held her hand, walked her to the door of her guest bedroom, and kissed her gently good night.
All three cats followed Rox into her room in a little furry herd, but Speedbump looked longingly after Cash as he strolled down the hall toward his own room before he sauntered in and she closed the door.
The next morning, Rox found Cash out on the deck, leaning on the wooden railing that overlooked a long, long fall to the boulders and tall weeds far below.
MIRROR
After Casimir left Rox at the door to her room, he stood in the shower, letting the warm water sluice over his body, and tried to not regret what had happened with Rox in the media room.
Visions of her soft skin, his hands full of her plump breasts and luxurious ass, and then her mouth on his cock, came to him as he washed the saliva and sex sweat off his skin.
Every minute of it had been Heaven, especially holding her in his arms afterward, sated, that mindless bliss as he cradled her, holding her feminine curves against himself and inhaling her faint scent.
"Mindless" was right. Damn him, the woman was married.
His friends' parents, even his own parents, were all estranged, those who hadn't just divorced. His parents lived separate lives, only seeing each other at official functions, and briefly, and without looking at each other. He believed that his mother had had the first affair, but his father had definitely had more of them. They hated each other so virulently that, surely, they must have been in love at one time.
Casimir and his siblings and most of his friends had been shuffled between their respective parents during breaks from school and had watched the anger between their parents, wanting it to stop.
It never did, though. With every affair, every vindictive one-night-stand, the rage between them grew.
Casimir didn't do that to people. He wasn't going to be the reason that relationships were destroyed or that children couldn't have supper with both their parents at the same time.
He might be all those things that they said about him-heartbreaker, skirtchaser, womanizer-but no one had ever called him a homewrecker.
Casimir got out of the shower, toweled off, and walked over to the sink. Above the basin, a still life painting of fruit was framed under thick glass that kept the bathroom's humidity away from the paint. The luscious peaches and apples, painted in glowing hues of gold and amber, seemed too much like her skin.
He set the stand mirror that he used for shaving over to his right. A quick glance showed only his unblemished cheek on that side. He brushed his teeth, keeping his gaze on the painting or the copper sink. He peeled gauze off a roll, taped it up, and pressed the patch to his left cheek, catching a glimpse of pink, twisted skin in the mirror.
Monster.
He shouldn't have done it. He shouldn't have held her, tasted her, seen how wild she was in the throes of an orgasm.
Now, he knew what he couldn't have.
And he'd probably only allowed it because that damn, disgusting scar was clinging to his face. It mocked him, twisting him inside.
Monster.
Plus, he had started the clock. Being around her those last three years had been sweet suspense, but every day, he had known that they could go on like that. They weren't involved. He hadn't imposed himself on her. Their time had no limit.
But now, things had happened.
Now, soon, she would see what he was, and it would all fall apart. Beyond the fact that she was married, she wouldn't stay with him anyway, not a spineless man who had molested her and then practically shoved his dick in her mouth.