Southern Gentleman (Charleston Heat 3)

I’m lost in her.

Her hips surge again. She cries out. My balls tighten.

She comes. Clamping down on my cock, squeeze after squeeze that has me growling so loud I bet they can hear me on the next farm over, twenty minutes away. Her body arches hungrily upward, hands clawing at my shirt. Like she’s desperate for something only I can give her.

I lean down and cover her body with mine. Holding her against me as best as I can while she rides out her orgasm, cheek to cheek. My nose in her hair, strands of it fluttering as I let out one hot breath after another.

I want to kiss her mouth. My chest aches with the desire to turn my head to the side and capture her lips with mine. I want to soothe her. Taste her. Drink her in.

I thrust once, twice.

And then I’m coming, too. So hard it hurts. I empty myself in a handful of hot spurts. I suck in a breath through my teeth, my heart hammering against my breastbone. I can’t breathe. Can’t see.

Julia’s hands are clutched in my shirt at my sides.

I want to keep holding her. But I can’t.

Just a fuck.

Propping myself up on my hands, I pull out of her. The motion makes cum leak out of the condom onto her thigh.

I pause. Heart still hammering.

Her hands are still holding me tight.

I reach down. Smear a little cum across her skin with my thumb.

Julia watches me do it. I wait for her to call me out. It’s weird. Wrong. Possessive in a way I have no right to be.

But she doesn’t say a word. Just wiggles out from under me, reaching for her panties and pulling her dress down over her hips.

I fall back onto the seat. Feeling equal parts sated and fucking flattened by a new, searing sense of hunger.

I’d hoped—foolishly—that having sex with Julia would satisfy my need for her. Make this inconvenient crush go away.

Now I see it’s only made me want her more. Again. Right now.

I’m hungrier than I was before.

My hand trembles as I tie off the condom.

Whatever. It doesn’t mean anything. Probably just need some nicotine.

“Cigarette?” I say, grabbing a napkin from the center console.

Julia smoothes back her hair. “Yeah. Sure.”

We stand in front of my car, the late afternoon light catching on Julia’s hair. Her eyelashes. I light her cigarette. Light mine. For several heartbeats, we smoke in silence.

“Why did you do that?” She brings the cigarette to her lips and looks at me. Inhales. “Mark me. With your…you know.”

“I didn’t mark you.”

I take a long pull. Feel the tension in my muscles releasing.

Smoking is a shit habit. But I took it up after my divorce to help deal with…well, everything. I’ve been hooked ever since. It’s the only thing that relaxes me anymore.

That, and brown liquor.

“What was it, then?” she asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Felt like doing it. So I did.”

“Do you have other kinks? Or is that the only one?”

Glancing at her, my pulse skips. Of course she wouldn’t call what I did weird or wrong or disgusting.

She’d call it a kink. And be totally nonjudgmental about it.

I drop my cigarette on the ground and tamp it out with the toe of my shoe.

“I should get going.”

“Let me guess. Meetings.” She tamps out her cigarette, too. “Did I make you late?”

“I’m never late. Unlike some of us.”

She grins. “Hey. I’m juggling one and a half jobs. Cut me some slack, will you?”

We meet eyes. Hers are lit up. Lips curled into that pretty grin. Cheeks still pink.

What should I do here? Hug her? Kiss her cheek? We just fucked in the back seat of my car, for Christ’s sake. In front of a barn. What’s the post-coital protocol for that?

I don’t want to be a dick. But I also don’t want to give her the wrong idea by pulling her close when I should be keeping my distance.

I need to keep boundaries clear.

Awkward silence stretches between us.

“Welp,” Julia says at last, crossing her arms. “Guess I’ll see you around, then.”

I’m rooted to the spot. Afraid if I move I’ll just throw her over my shoulder and toss her back into my car.

“Yeah,” I say. “See you around.”

She moves past me. I hear her car door closing, her engine start.

Dust billows behind her car as she drives away.

I smoke another cigarette—doesn’t make me feel any more relaxed—and head to my meetings.Chapter FourJuliaThree Months Later

At first I think it’s just a bad hangover.

But hangovers don’t last a week, even in your thirties. They definitely don’t make your boobs hurt.

The inkling that something isn’t right hits me mid-week. I bury myself in my work, hoping the weird moods, nauseous bloating, and overwhelming exhaustion will go away.

It takes me nearly face planting into my laptop, narcoleptic style, on Friday afternoon for me to finally Google my symptoms.