“Haven’t seen you around much.”
Ryn turned, an instant smile graced her face. “Drew. How have you been?”
He smiled that crooked smile that eased the stress from her asshole of an ex-husband and her young, naive daughter.
“I’m good, thank you.” His expression sobered. “I know we don’t have an official neighborhood watch, but I’ve noticed someone snooping around your place on more than one occasion. It’s always been when you’re not home and he never got that close to the house thanks to Gunner. I said something to him when he went through your mail the other day.”
She fought to keep her panic hidden. “And?”
“He said he was your brother. When I told him your brother died, he told me to mind my own fucking business, got in his black Escalade, and I haven’t seen him around since.”
“Thank you.” She gripped her keys.
“Do you know who it could have been?”
“Preston,” she whispered.
“Your ex with a restraining order against him?”
“Copper blond hair mixed with a little gray, always in an expensive suit, gold Rolex?”
Drew nodded. “What’s he want?”
“Me always on edge, looking over my shoulder, shunned by my own daughter, and completely miserable.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m going to practice some self-defense, have dinner, and then …” With a shrug she bit her lips together. Drew didn’t need to know about the “fucking.”
“Be safe. I’ll keep an eye out and call the police if I see him again.”
Ryn nodded. “Thanks, Drew.”
Somehow her car made it to Jackson’s, even if she couldn’t remember a single turn or stoplight. The question was whether or not to say anything to Jackson about the information Drew shared. Their first meeting ended in Preston going to the hospital via an ambulance. She could only imagine what Jackson might try to do if he knew Preston had been snooping around her place. He had his own issues with his peculiar and suspect piano student.
“That’s a big bag,” Jackson smirked as she stepped inside the front door. “You moving in?”
“Oh … um, no, it’s just a change of clothes…” she stammered her words “…to wear to dinner.”
He grabbed her bag and tossed it in his bedroom then kissed her so hard she questioned the whereabouts of her tonsils. “I’m just messing with you. My future wife can stay with me for as long as she wants. Forever would be ideal.”
Her heart needed to know why he kept doing that. It was fun until she actually wanted him to mean every word. Even in that moment she shocked herself by thinking that. Did she want him to mean every word?
His smile faltered, perhaps because of the way her jaw hung to her feet. “Ready to kick my ass?”
Regaining control of her mandibular function, she nodded. Ryn assumed he’d teach her more moves, life-saving skills. Instead he had her demonstrate her pathetic endurance through a cardio and strength-training workout. People spent hundreds of dollars on fancy equipment and gym memberships and he brought her to his mercy with a jump rope and pull-up bar. Everything else didn’t require anything: squats, pushups, dips, planks, burpees. The pinnacle of her embarrassment came when she couldn’t even do one pull-up without him helping her by lifting up on her hips. Val would get an ass-chewing for letting Ryn think she was in good shape.
Sagging in the corner, sucking down water like oxygen, she watched him do one-arm pull-ups. Admiring his firm planes of muscles flex in waves along his back, arms, and legs, she became primed and so very ready for their post dinner plans. The chances of him feeling the same way after watching her die before his eyes seemed unlikely. Sweaty old lady nose-planting after seven pushups had to have been anti-climatic for his sex drive.
“Ready to shower, hot pants?” Jackson wiped his face and chest with a white towel.
“Just be honest with me. Am I your beard?”
He chuckled. “My beard?”
“Yes, as in you’re gay but you don’t want people to know so you have a woman with whom—”
“I know what the term beard means. You think I’m gay?”
“No. I think you could be having sex with women so hot even I’d consider a night of lesbian love if they offered. Instead you’re with me and I’m certain I don’t look like those fitness models after a workout. I can just feel how my hair surely resembles a drowned rat, and my face beams with heat so I know I must still be red even after twenty minutes of recovery.”
Jackson hooked his towel around her neck and pulled her against him. “Are you done?”
Ryn gave it another moment of thought then nodded once.
“Good. So let’s take my penis and your vagina upstairs and see what trouble they can get into in the shower.”
Ryn rolled her eyes. “When you say it like that it sounds ridiculous.”
“You think?” He lifted her over his shoulder and carried her upstairs. “In that case, maybe I’ll just bury my cock so deep in your pussy you’ll be tasting me every time you swallow. Better?”
“Yes, utterly poetic.”
*
Withholding pleasure as a form of torture? Ryn found out the hard way it’s a real thing. They monkey fucked in the shower in every position possible, stopping each time to find a new position a breath before Ryn climaxed. At first it seemed like a coincidence, after all he couldn’t have known that she was about to orgasm.
Wrong.
By the fourth time she really began to suspect something, but before she could get the words out he whispered in her ear, buried balls deep from behind, “I’ll let you come if you promise to never mention our age difference and always … and I mean always act like the fucking goddess you are, making me barely worthy of even looking at you.”
“Jackson … please.” She reached behind her head and clawed at his hair as he trapped her earlobe between his teeth.
“Tell me you’re a fucking goddess,” he growled, pumping into her a few more times just to keep her on the brink.
Sliding one hand from his hair she moved it toward her clitoris.
“No.” He grabbed both of her hands and pressed them flat to the tile wall beneath his. “Say. It.”
“Yes.” She ground back against him.
“Yes what?”
“I’m … I’m a goddess,” she whispered.
He covered her clitoris with two fingers but didn’t press down or move them a millimeter. “So close … last chance.” His hips rammed into her, pushing the slight ebb right back to the very edge.
“I’m a fucking goddess!” With the slip of his hand, she saw stars behind her eyes explode so bright she couldn’t see anything else, but she felt absolutely everything.
“Damn right you are.” He pulled out and guided her to sit on the bench in the corner. She happily sat down, her orgasm had turned her legs into Jell-O.
Jackson pumped himself a couple of times and then he spewed his semen all over her breasts—chin down, eyes hooded. Ryn stared at him wide eyed and then at her breasts dripping with water and semen. Admittedly, watching him grasping his penis turned her on more than she ever could have imagined. The unexpected mess left her confused. If his fascination with older women had anything to do with their experience, then she had to be a huge disappointment. He was clearly the more sexually experienced one in their relationship.