After the Climb (River Rain 0.50)

He dipped his hand under my sweater and went right for my breast.

His thumb rubbing hard over my nipple meant I sucked his tongue deep into my mouth and pushed my hips into his.

He ground his hard crotch into mine in return and rolled me to my back.

“Duncan,” I gasped when he released my mouth so he could work at my neck.

“Fuck, Genny,” he growled, pulling the cup of my bra down and pinching my nipple.

Oh yes.

I had it back.

I arched into him, turning my head, nipping his ear and pulling my hand out of his jeans to round him, cupping his package.

“Fuck, Genny,” he grunted, surging into my hand.

He took my mouth and thrust into my hand and I caught his hair in a fist, rounding his thigh with one of my calves, pushing up in his rhythm with my hips.

Yes, like a sense coming back.

Essential.

My God.

How I’d missed this.

My phone chimed with a text, and maybe a second later, Duncan’s did too.

He broke our kiss, pressed his forehead to the side of my neck and covered my hand at his crotch, pulling it around his back, muttering, “Fuck, shit, fuck, shit.”

Both our breathing was labored.

But a double text indicated Chloe was on her way back.

He lifted his head. “I’m now sensing you don’t need to take at least that part slow.”

And again, I was giggling.

He held his weight in a forearm and used his other hand to stroke a line from the area under my eye down to the corner of my mouth.

“Times I knew I was good enough for you, whenever I made you laugh,” he murmured.

I stopped giggling.

“You were always good enough for me,” I murmured back.

“I know, baby. But you get it, yeah?”

I got it.

I didn’t like it.

But I got it.

“I try not to hate. It’s such an ugly emotion. And it says even more about the hater than it does about the hate-ee. But I hate your father, Bowie. I did then, and even dead, I do now.”

“He’s not worth that emotion, Genny. And understanding that was when I could let it go.”

“I’m not there yet.”

“We’ll get you there.”

“I’m not hopeful about that,” I muttered.

He smiled at me. “You wanna know what I was thinking when you and Coco walked back into the entry earlier?”

I tipped my head to the side on his toss pillow. “Coco?”

“This morning, I got that she wants me to call her Coco. She got the Bowie story.”

Oh boy.

“No wonder she’s lost to you, if you gave her that,” I remarked.

“I needed her to get who I was and who she was shovin’ in her mother’s path. I also needed to get why she was workin’ so hard on that. I fear it’ll affect my ami status, givin’ you this, and it’s somethin’ else we gotta go over, both ways, how our exes became exes, though you know the bones of mine, but heads up. She’s not over the divorce.”

My heart hurt.

But I said, “I know.”

He didn’t ask me to expound on that.

He took us back. “So you wanna know what I was thinking?”

I nodded. “Please.”

“I was seeing my home through your eyes and realizing, even though, for the most part, he’s in my past in a way I get that’s all he gets of me anymore. And don’t mistake me, I built this for me and my boys and the work I hope they eventually do to make my brood bigger. Still, I also get that this house was a massive fuck-you to my father.”

I smiled hugely at him. “It’s a really impressive fuck-you, Bowie. Especially the master. And the master bath.”

He smiled hugely in return. “I was noticing you had a thing for my room.”

“You noticed correctly.”

He kept smiling.

And then he said, “I also built it for you.”

I felt my smile fade and I blinked.

“Sorry?”

“Left Dora in the house we raised the boys in and it’s a nice house. Thirty-five hundred square feet. Great neighborhood up in the mountains. But it’s not this. Not close. Now, I cannot say I did all I did in my life for you. I didn’t. It was for me. And then it was for my family. But I can’t deny, with this house, there was some part of me still striving to be the man for you, and you becoming Imogen Swan, famous actress. Well…”

He flung out an arm to indicate that gorgeous fireplace, the great room, the house, and beyond.

“Well, thank you, I accept that compliment as the grave tribute it was meant to be.”

His body moved on mine with his deep chuckle. “You’re totally welcome.”

In all seriousness, I said, “And it really is a beautiful house, Bowie.”

“Thank you, baby,” he whispered.

“Now, do I have dry-humping-on-the-couch hair?” I asked.

“No idea, but you probably wanna make sure you don’t before Coco gets back.”