A man who could still crawl to shore if he tried, but didn’t have the willpower to do anything except sink.
With a burst of outrage—outrage at myself for being so foolish, outrage at her for being so potently irresistible—I flipped her so she was bent over the bed, lined myself at her entrance, and drove all the way into her cunt with one blunt thrust. She cried out at the force, her body trying to jolt forward, but I dug my fingers into her hips and kept her steady and in place, ready for me to pound into her again and again. She squeaked and wriggled and grew wetter until she adjusted. Then she moaned and leaned back into the slap, slap, slap of my thighs against hers.
I wished I could watch her, wished I could scrutinize each wrinkle in her face while I stretched her and filled her and punished her pussy for being so perfect, so tight, so inexperienced. But I couldn’t face her right now, couldn’t look into her guileless expression while I fucked her like a well-used whore.
Because that was exactly how I fucked her—like I’d paid for the hour. Apropos since I had a feeling, when this was all said and done, there would be a price to pay. I just hoped I could afford the cost.
She was a good girl for me. She told me what she wanted with her sounds, with the rhythm of her breathing, with the way her cunt clutched at my violent stabs. She obeyed me when I demanded that she played with herself, and she stayed with the effort even as she shattered around my cock, her body convulsing with the force of her orgasm.
And I wasn’t yet finished with her.
I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her to sit on my lap. I let her ride me reverse-cowgirl style while I licked the back of her neck and pulled at her nipples. When she tired, I spanked her upper thigh then gripped her hips and moved her body for her. She came again, stuttering my name, a sound that made me wild with lust.
I couldn’t resist anymore—I had to watch her face.
Again, I shifted her, laying her back onto the bed. I knelt in front of her, my knees driven wide. With my hands gripping her ankles, I spread her legs apart. She was completely on display now—the twist of her facial features, her tits as they bounced to my unrelenting tempo, her pussy as it swallowed each and every one of my cock’s thrusts. This time I didn’t have to tell her to touch herself, she just did, her eyes locked on me as she stroked horizontally across her clit—she was a quick learner. The best of students.
“This,” she said, her gaze glossy. “I really like this. Watching you like this.”
“You’ve had sex face-to-face before.” I was always quick to anchor things in reality.
“I have. But never like this.” Her thighs tightened with her oncoming climax. “I’ve never watched anyone watch me like you’re watching me now.” Her words strangled as she threw her head back and surrendered to the pleasure, but I understood them well enough.
Well enough to undo me.
I shoved in, slipping past the grip of her pussy until I was planted as deep as possible, and with a rumble of curse words, I let my orgasm wash over me, bathing me like the cold immersion of baptism, leaving me drenched and soul-stirred and new and convinced that nothing, nothing would ever be the same.
But hormones have that effect.
When I was calm and thinking straight, after we’d stroked each other’s skin and bantered back and forth, after we’d each showered and washed up, I recognized the folly of the notion. Of course everything would be the same again. She was just a pretty girl—sweet and too young and sinfully wicked with her naivety. She was one of a million girls of the same mold. Maybe she was one of only a handful that would look twice at a forty-plus-year-old man, but she wasn’t unique in any way.
I’d put her on a train, she’d ride off, and in a week she’d be nothing but a sordid memory to pull out when I jerked off in the shower.
“I do hope this was somewhat educational,” I said when we’d reached the top of the escalators at Grand Central Station. It was as far as I intended to go. Watching her train take off from the platform was entirely too romantic for a curmudgeon like me.
“So educational.” Her cheeks pinked, and I wondered exactly what it was she was remembering. “You’re a very thorough teacher.”
She was being kind with her flattery. Yet, I smiled and accepted the compliment all the same.
“Is anyone meeting you at the station?”
“My roommate.”
She had a roommate. She had friends. She had a whole life that I knew nothing about. Didn’t it feel like she knew every important thing about me? Every dull detail of my lame existence. Anything I hadn’t said out loud in our brief time together could be guessed at and pieced together while she was an enigma. A puzzle I was never meant to solve.
I stopped trying. I let the cloud of mystery settle back around her and didn’t ask her anything else. And when it was time for us to part, I resisted the gut-deep instinct to pull her into my arms and kiss the hell out of her, and instead, pulled her in for a polite hug.
“I suppose I have to believe in kismet now,” I said, because she deserved the sentiment.
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
Wonderful. Yes. It was some kind of wonderful.
Then I walked away, refusing to look back, even once. Refusing to do anything but move on.
I flew home to London the following day despite Weston’s emphatic request that I stay for his upcoming nuptials.
“Lose another week in the States to attend your fake wedding?” I chortled. “I think not.”
“What if it’s not so fake?”
“Even more reason not to stay.” I sounded as bitter as usual. Things did return to normal, then. As I knew they would.
A week passed. Ten days. A fortnight. Every day my thoughts turned to Audrey. Her smile haunted my dreams. Her cute quips replayed unbidden at the oddest of times. The light soprano of her voice sounded in the chorus of every Christmas carol.
I missed her. I ached for her presence. I was…
Oh, fuck.
I was pining.
I’d most likely never see her again, and that was best. For both of us.
But if our paths did cross in the future, if fortune deemed that we’d once more come face to face, I’d have to believe in kismet, wouldn’t I? Would I believe in more, too?
Would I be ready to believe again in love?
Only fate alone could know.
Dylan and Audrey’s story concludes in Sweet Fate (Dirty Sweet #2).