“A real man would have torn them off,” I tease.
“I like them too much for that.” He seems to have a thing for my throat, spending long minutes nipping and licking before he moves down to my breasts.
Then he's flipping me over so I'm on my back, his body tensing above me, muscles taut and defined. His hips lower until he's brushing against me, and like a reflex action, I open my legs.
He fits perfectly.
I wrap my thighs around him, squeezing my eyes shut as I feel him come even closer. He stills, reaching for his trouser pocket and grabbing a condom from his wallet.
There’s a tear as he extracts the latex, and I quietly watch him roll on the condom. Then he's lying on me, skin to skin, and I'm aching from the inside out.
“Callum,” I whisper. He flexes his arse, dimpling beneath my palms, and the movement sends shots of delight through my body.
“Mmm?” he mumbles into my throat.
“Please...” I'm almost too sensitive. Raw and exposed beneath this hulk of a man. I'm aching for him to fill me, needy for his touch, my body arching and circling. He flexes again, hips pressed to mine, and I can feel him nudging against me. The next moment he's inside me, all of him. Any thoughts in my mind are replaced by the primal need to be taken. When he pulls out, the emptiness makes me sigh, and I look up for reassurance. There's something indecipherable in his eyes, something deep and expressive that I'm trying to decode, but then he pushes again and I'm all sensation and desire.
* * *
An hour later I'm laying on my side, my head nestled into the crook of his arm. I can feel the insistent beat of his heart beneath my cheek and the thin sheen of perspiration that's coating his skin. He breathes in, his chest expanding, and I snuggle in closer, inhaling him.
“Are you okay?” He kisses the top of my head.
“Mmm.” I'm anaesthetised by pleasure, my whole body leaden. My eyes are closed and I'm more relaxed than I've been in a long time. As if I'm safe here.
I don't want the feeling to end.
“I'm sorry if I hurt you,” he says. There's a tone of regret in his voice that makes me look at him in alarm.
“You didn't hurt me. That was... that was... amazing.”
He laughs. “I didn't mean that, although thank you for the compliment. I meant earlier, outside the pub.”
I shift in his arms, resting my chin on his chest. We're looking right into each other's eyes. “You didn't
hurt me, well not much. I was shocked more than anything.” I frown. “I understand why you were so upset when you saw the coke.”
Callum closes his eyes, and I miss the green. “I've seen what drugs can do.”
I stare at him, seeing the pain in his face. “You mean what they did to your wife?”
He won't look at me, and I hate the lack of connection.
“She died too young, and it was avoidable and I—” His voice cracks. “I hate the thought of you risking yourself like that.”
“I've never taken coke. I think I've had a smoke of something twice. I'm not like that.”
“I know,” he says, his voice low. “And that's why I'm sorry. I shouldn't have accused you of that.”
“It's okay.” I let my head drop again. The need to feel his skin against mine is too compelling. I could get used to this feeling.
We lay there for a while, and I think about his wife. There's a twinge of jealousy when I remember how happy he looked in his wedding photo. I feel like an interloper, a magpie. Stealing shiny baubles from somebody else’s nest.
This shouldn't have happened. I shouldn't be here in my ex-boss's bed. I shouldn't be aching whenever he touches me. The intense happiness of a few moments ago dissolves, replaced by the nagging fear that I've done something spectacularly naïve.
Whatever happened to get my degree, get a job and get the hell away from home? I seem to have forsaken it at the first flash of bicep, and my traitorous body is still humming in contentment at that trade.
My mind, though, is reeling.