The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

“And put a delicate part of your anatomy at risk of me biting it off.”

He winced, which made what he said absolute bluster. “Isn’t it my coupon, my decision?”

And that was about as real as this position was practical. The coupons were his gift, but Flick’s permission-granting device. They were the beautiful bridge between Tom’s reluctance and his desire, between Flick’s generosity and the end point to this affair. She’d knowingly created the excuse he needed to live in the moment for once, at a time when his life plan had disappointed him, and he loved her for that.

He loved her.

She was all he could think about. Gravitron spinout, eight ball to the heart. Game over. But she was leaving and this had temporary stamped on it from the word go. Fourteen remaining coupons said so.

She took the tablet out of his hands. “Oh, Tom, honey, that’s so sweet—you think it’s your decision.”

Yep. She’d stuck a ring through his nose and she was leading him around with it. She had ever since she crashed into him at the hacks-and-flacks mixer and made herself his roommate. It was the most fun he’d had in a very long time and it would take some adjusting to get back to normal.

“Let me sell you a few positions I think you might like,” she said, and then tried to convince him he wanted to do a position called the Grasshopper, a kind of crisscross backward kneeling doggy that he noped out of on account of not being made of bendable plastic.

He noped out of the next five or six positions she suggested. The Pile Driver; if someone’s neck didn’t get broken it was a miracle. The Hourglass, in which he was supposed to roll up on his shoulders with his knees around his ears so she could sit on the back of his thighs and dick, and then bounce. Dear God. And the Candle, where he was supposed to do a headstand while she knelt and gave him a blow job. Since he’d never done a headstand in his life, it looked about equivalent to giving yourself brain damage.

“Bring on the Scorpion.” He thought she’d made these names up to amuse him, but there was a drawing of the Scorpion on the screen. It was doggy style, all the stimulations possible, with touch including kissing. It required the woman to lie facedown but propped up on a big cushion, ass high so the man could penetrate her while in a push-up position.

“You’re thinking about it,” she said. “Can you do that?”

Well, hell, now he could. He pulled her to her feet, and then took the big cushion from the sectional back and threw it on the floor. Her mouth flapped, no words came out. “What?”

“You just put a cushion on the floor. The floor. The cushion.” She pointed back and forth. “You want to do it using a cushion from your pristine designer sectional, on the floor.”

He grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt, under which he knew she wasn’t wearing a bra, and dragged her toward him, put his mouth to her neck, his hand to her breast, and between kisses said, “I. Want. To. Rock. Your. World.” She didn’t laugh till he added, “Scorpion-style.”

That’s all it took to go from their clinical assessment of the Twister of sex positions to becoming aroused. Flick’s laughter, her scent in his nose, her body pressed against him.

She pulled at his shirt. “What have I done to Tom who doesn’t like things messy?”

“Commercial break.” That’s what this was, a short and priceless vacation from his usual routine. It made the blood run to his head like he was upside down. “Now lose the pants and get on the cushion.”

The Scorpion was a success. It was a slow rocking off the balls of his feet, toward Flick’s orgasm, which became his own pleasure. They tried the Reverse Mermaid, and the Butterfly, but his favorite part of the evening didn’t have a name or a difficulty rating, it was when Flick curled up on his lap and they simply kissed without any need or expectation, as if time had no meaning.

Late the next afternoon it had plenty of meaning as they got ready to have Wren and Josh over. Josh was in town for an office leaders’ meeting that Tom would’ve been attending if things had gone to plan.

They split the chores up. Tom shopped, Flick cleaned the condo. He prepared dessert, she set the table on the balcony. She came into the kitchen reluctantly when she’d run out of household tasks.

“What do you need me to do?”

He handed her the wooden spoon. “Stir—it needs to simmer until it’s syrupy.”

“Tell me about Josh. I know Wren. Great girl. Amazing shoes. Quick study. She should’ve been promoted long before this, but Rendel’s is a boys’ club, so you and Josh got ahead and Wren is still waiting for her shot.”

“No, that—” Yeah, he hated admitting it. He went back to prepping the duck. “It’s true. I’d have promoted Wren into my old job. We both lost when Harry’s retirement didn’t happen. You know, she never complained about it.”

“What would be the point of that? It’s what happens. Women do the same work and often get paid less, need to be twice as good as the nearest average male to be promoted and rarely ever get a shot at a job we’re not already qualified for.”

“Keep stirring.”

“I thought I was. Women get promoted on actual merits and proven capability. Nothing wrong with that, but men get promoted on potential. We have to fit a job, fill out all its corners, have solid experience in all its highs and lows. Men get to grow into it.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you.”

“You’ve gone all granite boulder.”

“I’ve been the beneficiary of the way the system works, Josh too, and Wren has been the victim and yeah, it makes me tense. I can’t single-handedly