Caveman (Wild Men 1)

It’s just me and this girl, our bodies locked into one, breathing together, moving in tandem, milking the last drops of our pleasure.

Can’t remember the last time I’ve held a girl after sex. And that’s because the last time was—

“Matt…” Her soft voice jerks my mind back before it wanders down that path again, that dark path that leads back to the past and all the pain I’m struggling to keep locked down.

She’s shaking underneath me, and a fierce wave of protectiveness washes over me.

“Okay?” I ask her. I need to hold her against me, erect a wall around her. Shield her from the world.

She nods, a slight dip of her head I barely feel.

The warmth spilling in my chest makes no sense. Unless… unless somehow the need for her has shifted, migrated from my brain to my heart. Turned from hot and urgent to warm and deep.

And the realization turns my blood to ice.

Shit. Shit! How do I fight this? Where do I go from here?

I’m not fucking ready for this.

Not yet.

Not again.

“You haven’t explained yet,” she mutters as she pulls her panties back on, and fuck, I wish I could smoke a cig watching her do that in the faint light from the small window of the bathroom.

Watching as she pulls her dainty little panties up her long, pale legs.

Fucking beautiful.

“Explained what?” I’ve stuffed my dick inside my jeans already, zipped up. I know I reek of sex, and I don’t give a damn.

“Why you told me not to wear dresses, if you like them.”

I lift my gaze to her face. “You really don’t know?”

She shakes her head, eyes bright over her flushed cheeks.

She has to know. I wave a hand between us. “This.”

Didn’t want to fuck the nanny of my kids during her interview, dammit.

“That’s not the real reason,” she whispers, low but defiant, and damn if the challenge in her eyes doesn’t have my cock thickening again in my pants.

Plus, she’s right.

It’s not the only reason.

Suddenly I wanna tell her the truth. “Emma… she used to wear dresses. Those pin-up little things with the cut waist and off-the-shoulder straps, like yours.” I reach out, straighten a plait in the skirt of her dress. “She was really thin. A lifetime of malnourishment does that to you, apparently, and she never gained much weight, not even when she was pregnant with the kids. Said the dresses made her feel sexier. More feminine.” I scoff. “She was always feminine, and sexy, and she couldn’t…”

Couldn’t see it. Couldn’t believe it. No matter how tough she was, she was scarred deep in her soul.

But my throat has closed up with a boulder the size of the fucking planet, and I can’t swallow or breathe, let alone talk.

Gotta get out of here.

So I slam my fist into the door as I stagger out and stalk into my bedroom, the walls breathing, the floor moving.