??You know, I think you're not honest with yourself.”
“What on earth would make you say that? You don’t know me. We haven’t been in each other’s presence for a decade now, and I’ve changed, Alex. I’ve changed a lot. Don’t presume to know me.”
He reached across the table and put his hand on mine.
“Tell me you haven’t thought about us getting back together since you’ve been in town. Tell me the truth about that and if you haven’t, fine then. That’s that. But I think you have thought about us together. What it would be like if we started seeing each other again. Because I think you know there is something between us that draws us together and it’s impossible for either of us to resist it.”
My hand felt hot under his, but I didn’t move it. He was right of course, and he had seen right through the facade I was trying to maintain. Maybe it was only physical. It had been several months since I had been with anyone and my last relationship, while brief, had ended over a year ago. There was no one else in my life right now, and I definitely wasn’t getting the kind of physical release that I wanted on a regular basis.
“I’ve thought about us.”
Alex grinned. “Tell me what you’ve thought.”
I looked down at the table and then back up at him again. “Not about us being in a relationship. You know that can’t happen. It would be too much. Too much for my father to handle and there’s no way I’m going to put any additional stress on him. But I’ve thought about it. There’s no way around it when I run into people who used to know us when we were together. I was in the diner today, and there were women talking about us. You know, the grandmother type. How cute we are and how nice it was to see that I was back in town and that you could really use someone to help you settle down. That it just makes so much sense for us to get back together again after all this time.”
He chuckled. “And what would be so bad about that?”
I tried to pull my hand away then, and his grasp tightened. It wasn’t squeezing, but he was holding onto me firmly, letting me know that he had no intention of letting me go. My body temperature was rising, and I wanted some fresh air.
“I’ve told you why. So it’s off the table, and that’s not even what I’ve been thinking about.”
The words were out before I realized how they sounded and what they revealed.
“What have you been thinking about then?”
I pursed my lips and thought for a moment. I was a grown woman, a little different from the girl Alex had known. I had needs and desires, and I knew how to ask for what I wanted. There were limits I could put on things. If I wanted to be in some kind of friends with benefits situation, then I could have that. The idea of having it with him seemed a little precarious, given our history. But the point was that I was old enough to know what I wanted out of life, and I wasn’t making any excuses about my sexuality. If I wanted to have sex with a man and call it a day, then I could. And if it was Alex Killarny I slept with…well then. We knew a little about each other and had some experience together. I was playing with fire if I thought I could get into bed with the first man I’d ever slept with and not have some feelings bubble to the surface, but maybe I could deal with those and let them float away with the passing breeze.
“I’ve been thinking about fucking you.”
He smirked. “Funny enough, I’ve been thinking about the same thing.”
Alex’s finger was tracing a circle on the top of my hand and the flesh there was so awake and alive, like he was kindling a fire and it was starting right there, just waiting for the spark to catch and the tinder to go up in flames.
“Let’s face it, Maddy. There is something here between us. You can deny it all you want, but I know that inside there you’ve got some kind of internal war going on. We won’t even deal with the relationship talk right now. That’s not what this is about. You are a grown woman who deserves to be treated well, and you know that I’m capable of doing that.”
He turned my hand over and started rubbing the same circular pattern on the soft, fleshy part of my palm. My breathing was coming a little faster, and I squirmed in my chair absently. There was an electric current running from where his finger touched me, straight to my clit. I was surprised because I had never experienced anything like this before with another man. Sure, guys could turn me on with a touch, but this was something slow and simmering, building up in the deepest parts of me, and I was savoring every second of the attention he was giving me.
“Do you want me to fuck you, Madison?”
There was something about the way he said my full name that made me shiver with delight. How to answer him though. I knew I didn’t need to overthink it. It was a problem I always had, but right now at this moment…I knew exactly what I wanted.
“Yes.”
“Tell me then. Say it.”
“I want you to fuck me, Alex.”
His chair scraped against the wood floor of his dining room, and he came around to my side of the table, reaching out a hand for me. I placed my hand in his and stood, and he swept me up into a kiss, one I had been waiting for since the moment I saw him in the hardware store. He could have done it there—pulled me close and kissed me full on the lips in the middle of McCall’s Hardware, and I would have been his again. I realized that now.
But here, in the solitude of his home at the back of the ranch, we had the privacy that he never could afford when we were dating, and he took advantage of it without any hesitation. Breaking the kiss and moving his lips up the line of my jaw I could feel the scrape of his stubble against my cheek and the musky scent of aftershave, but still somewhere, maybe on his clothes, the sweet smell of hay. I held back a smile and instead let my body follow his lead.
He kissed a trail up to my ear and said, “I’ve wanted this for a long time.” Not wasting a second, he picked me up, startling me as he carried me up the stairs and into his bedroom, leaving the door open behind us. He put me back on my feet in front of the bed and stepped back, undressing with the kind of intent that showed me he had one thing on his mind.
“Take off your clothes,” he said, a gruff tone in his voice now.
Slowly I unzipped the dress I was wearing and let it fall to the floor. I stepped out of my shoes and unhooked my bra, freeing my breasts and baring them to him. I heard him breath in deeply and watched him take a single step closer, hooking his thumbs in the sides of my panties and pulling them down as he sank to the floor, spreading my legs slightly and leaning in to breathe in the scent of me.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he said as he spread my lips and dipped his tongue in for a taste, pushing me back on the bed and pressing my legs apart.