Page 50 of Summer with the Single Dad

His grin and accompanying laugh winded her. “Yeah. I did.” He took a step forward, shrinking the space between their bodies.

Her heart rate ramped up as she watched his pupils dilate, his lids drop to half-mast, and his nostrils flare.

She swallowed. The lump in her throat was smaller now, the tightness in her chest less constricting. Her breath stuttered on its way out right before he swooped in, wrapped both arms around her, and took her mouth with his.

Less than a second passed before she fell into the kiss with as much enthusiasm as Bennett. Her arms made their way around his neck and she opened her mouth for him, meeting his tongue with hers, and grinding her pelvis against his.

It was shameless, and she should have been embarrassed riding his leg that way, but after her dreams last night and the way he came at her, like he was drowning and she was air, she felt very little shame. All she felt was good. All she felt was the burning need to have this man on her, around her, and inside her.

He must have read her mind because before she could think, he was backing her up, off the road and into the trees, ripping off his headlamp and tossing it aimlessly to the earth. Her butt hit the trunk of a towering alder and his hands found the hem of her shirt.

Dear god, could she have chosen a worse outfit for this moment? Tight everything. His hand made its way up her shirt, but it hit her sports bra and stopped. They both growled and their lips parted.

Locking eyes, and speaking with just their bodies, no words, they went to the fervent work of peeling away clothing. Her shoe came off one foot and her leggings hung on her right leg at the ankle. For some reason, she kept her underwear on though, but he was no unskilled lover and knew how to push a scrap of fabric to the side.

Of course, men had everything easier, and Bennett simply dropped his shorts enough to get his cock out. She glanced down at it in his palm, thick, and roped with veins.

“I don’t have a condom,” he breathed, his chest heaving. “But I’m clean.”

“I’m … I’m barren,” she replied, ignoring that all-too-familiar stab of pain in her hostile uterus and petulant ovaries.

His eyes widened, and a soft sadness entered his heated blue gaze.

“It’s fine,” she dismissed. “I’ve come to terms with it. I also got checked after my ex …”

He nodded, understanding and not making her say the rest.

Then he helped her hop up on his hips and he was inside her in two thunderous heartbeats. How she managed to get so wet and turned on by their last conversation eluded her, but she was. She was slick and ready when he notched himself at her center and slid home. Their collective sighs of relief made her smile as she clung to him and he began to hammer her into the tree.

Nothing about this was conventional, or romantic, or sweet.

But holy hell, was it ever hot.

She’d never had sex anywhere but a bed before, let alone outside, on the side of the road with somewhat of a stranger.

And yet, no part of her—not even the voice of her mother, which sat permanently in the back of her brain criticizing her—told her this was a bad idea. Her mother’s voice would later. It was probably still asleep, that was all.

So since nothing was telling her to stop, and everything was telling her to take, to soak up the dopamine and oxytocin, and find some joy, she tilted her face skyward until her head hit the trunk, allowing his teeth to rake her neck and jaw, for his kisses and his thrusts to push her deeper into euphoria. She smiled at the pink and blue sky as the morning sun shot streaks of light through the clouds. She smiled at how incredible it was to feel joy without guilt and to be with someone who understood what it was like to want to run from joy because they didn’t feel they deserved it.

Bennett’s grunts and groans brought her back to reality, and she tightened her hold around his neck while locking her legs behind his back and tilting her hips. That made him groan, and she followed it with a moan of her own, because now his pubic bone was hitting her clit just right and she could see the edge she wanted to leap from. She ran toward it, met him thrust for thrust as best she could, clawed at his back, and dropped her mouth to his neck and nipped him.

“Christ,” he growled, holding the backs of her thighs and increasing everything: his speed, his effort, and even his vocalization. He was grunting more and louder as he hammered her harder and harder into the tree. If she wasn’t full of endorphins and dopamine the bark might have hurt, but everything—even the pain—felt good. It felt better than good, it felt incredible.

His fingers dug into the backs of her thighs, and his cadence began to wane. He was getting closer. Thank god, because so was she.

One more rake of his teeth across her jaw, mixed with that perfectly trimmed stubble that hurt but in the best kind of way, and she was gone. She broke with a sharp cry, tipped her face back up to the clouds and let the climax consume her.

Every follicle of her hair tingled, her fingertips throbbed as they dug half-moon trenches into his back, and wave after glorious wave radiated through her in a hypnotic rhythm, spreading out from her core into the rest of her body.

He stilled his thrusts, and his muscles around her went rigid. A moment later, he grunted, harsh and masculine, almost feral and definitely possessive. Then his cock began to pulse inside her, and he exhaled low and guttural next to her ear.

She smiled as he found his release, as he poured himself into her, as he lost himself to their connection, to their attraction.

When the pleasure receded back into her center, she let out a long, slow breath. Things still tingled, but her muscles were quickly going lax and her head, full of all the best neurotransmitters, felt a little fuzzy. Almost like she’d taken a few too many shots of tequila too close together.

He finished out his orgasm and exhaled low and deep, burying his face in her neck. She could feel him smile against her skin and he kissed that spot where her neck met her shoulder, before pulling away and carefully helping her to her feet.

They dressed quickly and, without saying anything or even looking at each other, wandered back out to the road. He easily found the headlamp on the ground since it was still on, illuminating a freaked-out salamander half-hidden beneath a log.

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