“Oh, God, Josie,” he said behind her, the tension palpable in the wet air, his voice like gravel. And then—both tightened, hard, and she exploded into a million tiny fragments, slamming her backside against him, wanting to take in as much as possible, needing him to fill her and touch that thin line of flesh inside her that made everything whole and disintegrated everything, all at once.
Face down, she inhaled ragged breaths, the water pooling at her lips and dripping down, all senses focused on the muscle contractions that fueled a supernova of need and release. Slowly, Alex’s deep thrusts receded, his hand on her cl*t at a standstill, the sandpapery shift of his cheek against her shoulder blade a sign that both were done.
Sometimes it felt good to just be f**ked. A quickie could reset her entire mood and make the world make sense. Bright eyed, she lowered her leg and he pulled out, taking the hint, as she leaned back against him, and the two stood, silent, in the downpour. Ear against his chest, she waited through each breath to hear the pounding go to normal, Alex peppering the top of her head with kisses.
Josie took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, through sputtering lips overcome with shower spray, “We should actually shower.”
“I’ll soap you up,” he said, reaching for the bar.
“I’ll end up against the wall again if you do that,” she answered, dodging his hand as it traveled down between her legs.
“And the problem is…?”
Laughter poured out of them both, but, as if they were old hands at doing this, each split off to a separate section of the tiny shower and did a quick wash and shampoo, trading places under the spray to rinse off. Weak and completely wrung out, Josie climbed out and toweled off, enjoying the view as Alex did the same as he walked to the bedroom. He must have dispensed with the condom at some point, though she had no idea when. The man was a condom Houdini.
He returned to the bathroom dressed. She pouted. He shrugged and walked into the kitchen. The beep of a microwave was her soundtrack as she dressed, too, choosing a simple white button-down and khakis for work.
“I heated our coffees,” he said as she waltzed into the kitchen. Coffee. Ahhhh. She used to say it was better than sex, but she couldn’t say that anymore. Grateful, she sat across from him, playing footsie.
“You working today?” she asked.
“No. I need to catch up on sleep. My shift starts tonight. Twenty-four hours.”
Awkwardness set in. Avoiding his eyes, she wondered what she could say next without sounding too needy. Part of her wanted to see him every day possible, to schedule their next date so that it was set in her mind, a firm joining that would allay her insecurities.
Another part wanted to fade out and avoid. Already at the brink of what she could handle emotionally, she felt fragile inside and ready to snap.
Living with both feelings was like an interminable sentence.
A quick check of the clock told her he needed to go—now. How could she ask him to leave? It felt rude. Wrong. Abrupt. And yet this was the longest she’d ever let a man spend in her apartment. He didn’t know that, of course. Whatever was stirred up inside her would settle down eventually, she reminded herself.
The particles of chaos suspended in her every molecule right this moment, though, showed no signs of settling any time soon.
Alex stood, putting his mug in the sink. “You need to go, so walk me to the door and make love on the porch and I’ll let you.”
She stood, too. “I must have Stockholm Syndrome, because that sounds appealing.”
“If anyone is the abductor here, it’s you.”
She snorted. “Right. Because someone who aims the shower nozzle at dachshund level could totally kidnap you.” They reached the front door. Crackhead appeared out of nowhere, nuzzling Alex’s legs.
Alex looked down at the cat. “Crackhead?”
Josie nodded.
“He? She?”
“It.”
“It likes me.” Tugging on her ass, he pulled her close.
“It’s not the only one,” she said against his neck as they embraced.
One last long, slow kiss from him and she nudged him out the door, needing the last few minutes to get ready and clear her head. While her body was back in alignment and utterly sated, her brain needed to refocus in the idea of work, that there was a life and a structure outside of her and Alex’s gen**als, tongues, hands, and mouths.
Unfortunately.
He turned the corner and she sighed, restraining an impulse to run to the window that paralleled the road he walked on now. Coffee. A quick blow dry and another giant mug of coffee would get her on her way to work, where what she faced was about as diametrically opposed to the past twelve hours as could be.
Relief and disappointment flooded her simultaneously as Alex’s absence sank in. A quick march to the bathroom and she plugged in the hair dryer, snapping it on and furiously tousling her wet, brown mop of hair, the white noise of the machine helping to clear her thoughts. Inhaling deeply, she felt the air leave her body, as if it contained Alex and now he were being purged from her body.
No. Impossible. Her skin burned with his touch, her nether regions completely fulfilled with the last few hours of sex, and her h*ps carried her with a jaunty saunter that felt mature and primed, as if she were somehow more a woman now for having found a partner so fine. The Josie she had become in the past day had stumbled into a secret society; she as a full-fledged member of a group with a single requirement—being yourself.
He hadn’t flinched, had he? Finishing up her hair and dragging a comb through it, she let the relaxed waves frame her face. No makeup. She rarely wore it to work anyhow, so if she did today, people would tease.
Melting into the background of her ho-hum job was what she wanted most for this day.
Any more excitement and she would implode.
Two days had gone by and she’d texted with Alex, who was finishing up a grueling twenty-four-hour shift. As her phone beeped, she hoped it was him.
Nope. The phone number showing on Josie’s screen made her stomach drop into a hole in the floor. If she had balls they would have crawled up into her abdominal cavity and pressed against her throat.
It was her mother.
A phone call from Marlene meant only one thing. She wanted money. Money for her alcohol, money for her drugs, money for cigarettes, and money for her men. Josie had ignored the last two calls she’d had, abrupt and perfunctory voicemails Marlene always left when she was determined to get something. “Josie, it’s your mom. Call me. Click,” had been the sum total of each. She knew that Marlene would persist, though, so against her better judgment she pressed the answer button and said, “Hello?”