6

I woke to the sound of running water. I was in my own bed, my head resting on my own pillows, covered with a thick quilt that smelled like lavender. I didn’t look at the clock, but from the darkness outside the window I knew it had to be late. We had missed the chance to go out for dinner.

I listened to Tom moving around in the bathroom. He hummed a happy tune as the tub filled up.

Having him in my house was a comforting thing. Heaven only knew how long he had been wandering around while I slept, but I knew he was just as curious about my life as I was about his. He had probably peeked in cabinets and peered into a drawer or two. I didn’t mind because I had nothing to hide. In less than a week I had told Tom more about my life than most people had learned about me in years. It felt good to be so open with someone.

My medicine cabinet opened. Tom’s hum changed tune for a moment, then started up again. The cabinet closed.

I thought again about the prescription Valium I had seen in his cabinet. Then I thought about David. I was starting to see how something like that might come in handy.

I carefully rolled to one side. My whole body protested. I was sore and tender in places that hadn’t been touched in years. I stifled a cry of surprise when I finally settled on my back. Everything hurt, and some things hurt much more than others.

There was a thin line of light coming from the bathroom door. I studied it like a child studies a crystal on a windowsill. Tom was in there, in my bathroom, doing heaven-knows-what, and I loved having him there. I loved the sound of a man in my space. That hadn’t happened in so very long, but I remembered how it felt.

I remembered sitting on the lid of the toilet in the bathroom, watching Michael as he shaved. He thought it was amusing that I would be so enthralled by something so simple as a man with a razor, but it was much more than a daily ritual happening in my bathroom. It was something profoundly intimate, something he allowed me to share by opening the door and letting me watch. The thrill was not in the act, but in the fact that he was willing to share that act with me.

Tom swirled the water in the tub. There was the snap of a towel, and then the unmistakable sound of a match scraping to light. I smiled in the darkness of the bedroom. He was running that bathwater for me. Or better yet, for both of us.

A flicker of light touched my closed eyelids, and then I heard the linen closet open. He was getting more towels. He turned off the water and the faucet made that usual drip-drip, as if it wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. Soon he settled on the bed beside me.

‘Baby,’ he whispered.

I could have opened my eyes and looked at him, but I was too curious about what he might do next.

His fingertips trailed over my arm. He traced the line of the quilt where it crossed my chest. He pulled it down slowly. Goosebumps covered me and my nipples grew hard in the cool night air. He brushed my hair away from my face and touched my nose with one finger. He bent to kiss my forehead, and not only could I smell my shampoo in his hair, I could feel the smoothness of his cheek. I hadn’t seen – or felt – Tom clean-shaven before.

He lingered over me for a long moment, his lips pressed against my forehead, breathing deeply of my skin. Then he kissed his way down my nose, skipped over my lips and planted a kiss on my chin. He licked a sensual trail down my throat. He traced my collarbone with his fingertips, even as his lips delved between my breasts.

He found both nipples with his fingertips and gently squeezed. He kissed all around my belly button and gently pushed one of my legs to the side for better access to what lay aching and waiting there between them.

He looked up at me and, in the dim light coming from the bathroom, we could barely see each other. He smiled that wicked smile.

‘You didn’t come with me earlier,’ he murmured.

‘No.’

‘I have to make up for that.’

His hands were gentle as he spread my legs wide. He licked all over my mound until he found the slickness of my lips. His tongue ran over each of them, tasting every inch, then he slowly delved inside, licking his way into me. I spread my legs wider, and he murmured in approval. His tongue dropped lower, until he found that small bruised spot that he had taken so roughly hours before. I jerked in surprise when his tongue flickered over it.

‘Easy,’ he whispered.

No one had ever done that to me. Tom massaged my thighs until I relaxed under him. His tongue touched me again and this time I gave myself over to it. The sensation was exquisite. By the time he pressed his tongue against my ass and gently pushed, I was beyond coherent thought. I gripped the headboard and stretched into him, lifting my knees to allow him better access. All the while his hands were moving, wandering between my wet lips, smoothing my thighs, even massaging my feet.

‘Tom,’ I said, and it sounded absolutely right, so I said it over and over.

His tongue stayed right where it was, now delving as deep as he could reach. His fingertips found my clit and he pinched it gently, then massaged it up and down, around and around, pulling me deeper into the vortex of pleasure. I reached down to help him, showed him how best to move his hand, let him feel me do it to myself while his hand rested on top of mine.

‘I’m going to come,’ I whispered.

Tom held me down. His tongue never left me. The feeling of his hands on my thighs, holding me open, the thrill of his tongue, the way he moaned right along with me when I came, all served to make the orgasm so much harder. I suddenly understood what it meant when a woman said she had seen stars. I saw whole nebula.

I was trembling and on the verge of tears when Tom crawled up beside me. He gently ran his fingertips over the insides of my thighs.

‘You’re shaking,’ he murmured into my ear.

‘I can’t handle much more,’ I admitted. ‘These last few hours . . . they’ve been . . .’

‘I know.’

Tom pulled me close to him and kissed my nose. I could smell my own arousal all over him. His face was baby smooth when I touched his jaw. He slowly pulled me to a sitting position, and both of us winced when the discomfort set in through my hips.

‘Bathtime, sweetheart,’ he murmured. ‘We’ve got to make amends for that pounding you took.’

I laughed out loud. Amends was the last thing I wanted. It had been the kind of experience that made me feel like a completely different person. I felt liberated and somehow more mature for the moments I had spent in complete submission there on our bed.

Our bed? The words, and the ease with which they had popped to mind, surprised me. I was already comfortable with Tom being in my home, in my bed and in my life.

‘I’m yours,’ I said to him as we walked towards the bathroom.

The way Tom’s arm tightened around me was answer enough for both of us.

The bathtub was surrounded by candles. There were candles on the window ledge, on every corner, and on every shelf in the bathroom. The water was piled high with bubbles, fragrant with my favorite lavender. Big fluffy towels were in stacks everywhere.

‘Climb in,’ he encouraged.

The water was hot, almost steaming, and perfect for my sore muscles. The bubbles came up over the side of the tub as I sank down into the water. My long hair tumbled down, the ends of it instantly wet. The bubbles came up to my chin.

Tom squeezed the water out of the sponge and ran it over my shoulders, my neck, and my chest. I sat up to let him do the same thing to my back and there he lingered for a very long time, cascading water down my skin in long sheets, rubbing my spine with the softness of the sponge and following that with his wet fingertips. I laid my head on my knees and blew bubbles away from my face with every breath. Tom’s ministrations were like nothing I had known before, and I told him so.

‘No one has ever done this for you?’

‘No. I like it. It makes me feel safe.’

‘You put a lot of emphasis on feeling safe. Why?’

That was a good question. I played with the bubbles while I thought about my answer. Tom was running his hand over my lower back, massaging me with an expert hand. My whole body felt as though it were melting from the inside out.

‘Feeling safe is something I haven’t had that often,’ I said. ‘I’ve been hurt so many times.’

‘Physically?’

‘No. Emotionally.’

Tom pondered this while he worked the sponge over my belly. He wrung it out and a cascade of bubbles slid off my chest. ‘We’ve got plenty of time to talk about all of it,’ he said, as if a serious decision had been made. ‘Right now, I want you to lie back and get comfortable.’

The aches and pains of my body were easing, and I was a bit saddened by that. The rough-and-tumble sex we had been having made me feel more like myself than anything else I had done in the years past, and feeling the marks of Tom’s hands was a delicious reminder of naughty things that made me blush with the thrill of new experience every time I thought of them. The soreness was welcome.

I mentioned this to Tom and he laughed, the sound bouncing around loudly in the little bathroom. ‘Oh, you think you like it, wait until the morning!’ he teased.

‘Are you going to fuck me again before then?’

Tom froze with the sponge in mid-air. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Baby,’ he stumbled, searching for the proper words. ‘There’s only so much a man can do.’

‘Are you at your limit?’

Tom blinked at the challenge and slowly nodded. ‘Well . . . yes.’

It was my turn to laugh. ‘I love a man who is man enough to admit that.’

He blushed in the light of the candles. The bubbles made their light crinkling sounds and the candle flames sputtered. A knock came at the front door, and Tom grinned at me while he rose from the floor.

‘Dinner,’ he said.

We hadn’t eaten anything since lunch and, at that one simple word, my stomach started growling. Being with Tom made me forget about everything but the two of us.

Tom swept into the bathroom with a tall glass of wine in one hand and a pizza box in the other. I had already seen his cooking skills, which were more than up to par; now I was seeing his ordering skills, which were just as good. It was a super supreme pizza with everything but the anchovies. I was suddenly starving. I snatched a piece of pizza as soon as he opened the box, wet hands or not.

Tom drank the wine and watched me while he picked peppers from the pizza and slowly ate them, one at a time. I put away three slices and lay back in the tub with a contented sigh. Tom smiled.

‘That’s the most I’ve seen you eat since we’ve been together,’ he said.

‘You had better eat some before I finish the whole thing.’

The water grew cool. Tom and I drank the wine and he went to pour more. Somehow he poured it over the edge of the glass onto my bare shoulders, and then found that the perfect excuse to lick it off my skin. We fed each other pizza and he avoided the onions while I avoided the peppers.

A long while later Tom pulled the plug in the bathtub and we both watched the bubbles swirl down the drain. The shower made its usual loud roar as he turned it on, hotter than I was accustomed to, and he climbed under the water with me. His hands were immediately in my hair and he was kissing me, his lips sliding wetly against mine.

‘Onion breath,’ he whispered.

‘It’s better than peppers,’ I whispered back.

When he reached out of the shower curtain and grabbed my toothbrush and the tube of Crest, I laughed out loud. I had laughed more in the last week than I had in the last six months. Everything about Tom seemed to make me happy.

Brushing my teeth in the shower was yet another new experience in a whole host of recent ones. Then Tom found the shampoo and started working it through my long locks. He hummed a low tune as he combed his fingers through my hair. He whispered every now and then, but mostly just let me enjoy the feeling of what he was doing. I leaned my forehead against his chest and let my hands settle around his waist. Together we stood under the water, steeped in the newness of each other.

‘I think I could fall in love with you,’ I said.

Tom’s hands stopped moving for a moment. He chuckled, the sound low and deep in his throat.

‘I want you to fall in love with me,’ he whispered.

He took two steps and then my head was under the water. I took a deep breath and looked up into the spray, while the shampoo rinsed away down the drain. Tom’s hands followed the bubbles all the way down my body, running his hands down my torso, down my legs, down to my toes. He worked his way back up and cupped my breasts in his hands. The motion was not sensual; rather, it was a touch of reverence. I lifted my hands to cover his, and together we rocked under the water until it became too cold to stand.

Minutes later we were in the bedroom, tangled in towels and sheets and covered with a quilt, snuggled up together. The candles had been moved from the bathroom and now sat on top of the dresser, reflecting in the mirror and casting a lovely light across the room.

‘Tell me your fantasies,’ Tom murmured.

‘We’ve fulfilled a lot of them.’

‘Tell me about the ones you are afraid to tell me about.’

I thought for a long while about things that I might be frightened to tell him. I hadn’t shared my fantasies with other partners. Most of them had been too jealous to handle the things I harbored in my secret heart, even if those were simple fantasies that I would never try to make a reality. Tom didn’t seem like that kind of man. But were there fantasies in my head that were too extreme? I thought about the things that always worked to get me off when I was alone, the things that seemed too unrealistic to ever become my reality. Someone else’s, maybe, but not mine.

I decided to start with something relatively safe.

‘I like the thought of having more than one man in bed with me,’ I said.

‘Tell me more.’

‘I think about two men, most of the time. About them taking turns with me, or taking turns with my mouth while the other had whichever hole he wanted. And sometimes I think about more than two men. Sometimes I think about a whole room of them.’

‘Doing what to you?’

‘Anything. Everything. Mostly fucking me, one after the other. I like the thought of being filled up by them, one at a time, and letting them all come inside me. I’m not sure I could ever do it, though.’

‘Why not?’

I shifted under the blanket and Tom’s hand drifted down between my legs. I spread my legs for him, and his hand slipped between them.

‘I don’t think I could do that,’ I said. ‘I’m a one-man woman. I’m not the kind who shares well. But the thought of having more than one man, and pleasuring all of them, makes me feel wanton. The very thought makes me feel like a sexual vixen.’

‘I like that you are like this,’ he said.

‘Like what?’

‘That you like to be used. But, at the same time, you are a one-man woman, like you said you are. I like knowing what a slut you can be.’

The whispered words were like lighting a match. My body went all wet and supple. Tom sensed the change and took advantage of it. He slipped two fingers deep into my pussy.

‘I’ve never felt comfortable enough to be like this before,’ I said.

‘You trust me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you trust me if I said I wanted to see you with another man?’

My whole body responded to the words he had uttered. My nipples grew hard, my pussy got even wetter, and my heart sped up. Anticipation lit a fire in my belly.

‘Do you?’

‘I’ve always wanted to see a woman of mine take on other men. To watch her enjoy it. And then to punish her for enjoying it, even while I know that we are both getting off on every last second.’

‘Punish her?’

‘Imagine,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘Imagine being on top of one of my friends. Riding his hard cock. Rocking back and forth on him. Letting him suck your tits. Letting him kiss you. Feeling his dick throb inside your cunt. And then imagine me behind you, spanking your ass with that paddle and making you count each and every time. Spanking you for fucking him.’

Tom slid his fingers deeper. I spread my legs wider. I turned my face towards him but he held me steady, whispering in my ear. ‘Imagine doing that. You would, wouldn’t you?’

I nodded, my hips moving up against his hand.

‘You would let him come inside you. You get off on it.’

‘God, yes.’

‘And then you would climb off and start to suck him until he was hard again. Maybe I would pull out the riding crop and let you have it while you worked him over. And you know what?’

‘What?’

‘I would fuck you. I would ram my cock into your snatch so hard you would taste us both. I would fuck you after he had come inside you. I would feel how hot his cream was. That would turn me on and it would make me jealous and it would make me want to punish you some more. Would you like that? Would you like to turn me on and make me jealous?’

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

‘I think you just like to be punished. I think you like to be a bad girl. Good girls always have that desire deep down, don’t they? And you have been a good girl way too long.’

It was my naughty conscience talking, a little devil sitting on my shoulder and whispering into my ear. I had always been so predictable. I wanted to be unpredictable.

‘Would you want to watch me fuck another woman?’ I asked.

Tom went silent. His hand was still moving, but slowly, exploring every last inch of me.

‘Yes,’ he finally said.

‘Is that a fantasy of yours?’

He nodded against my shoulder. I was surprised at his reaction. He seemed shy, suddenly uncertain, and that was not a side of Tom I had seen that often. And it was one I hadn’t seen when it came to sex, not since that night on his weight bench, when he was the one who needed reassurance. But I knew from the way his breathing had changed, from the urgency in his body, that it was a fantasy he had harbored for a long, long time.

‘Have you ever done that before?’

‘Yes,’ he said promptly. ‘But not with someone who was my woman.’

‘You’ve done it with women while you were on the road, you mean?’

‘Yeah. It’s different now, though.’

‘Why?’

His fingers moved smoothly into me. He pushed as deep as he could, until his fingertips swept over my cervix. He knew I loved that. It took my breath away.

‘Because you are mine,’ he said.

And I was. I knew it just as surely as I knew the sun would rise in the morning. It would find both of us here on my bed with some part of us touching, even if it was simply our hands linked together or my leg thrown over his. Part of my heart was still aching over Michael, and a small part of me wished things were different – but I knew they weren’t, and never would be.

And I knew, if things did happen for a reason, Tom was the reason.