Uninterrupted hours stretched, sensual and expectant, ahead of him. When Annalisa offered to fly down with Andres on Sunday instead of his driving up on Saturday, he’d outright lied to everyone at Elixir about the change. As soon as he put the accounts to rights, he was out of there. His detailed plan involved cooking, then cleaning, then fulfilling Rachel’s every desire until his son’s plane glided across the tarmac in Houston.
He checked the time. Again. Banished the image of half-asleep pre-dawn sex. Of waking beside her. Of cajoling her into naked pool time. Clearly his brain needed focus.
Finish checking the payroll. Follow up with the Houston Greek Festival committee. Spot-check the POS. Engage with social media. Text Rachel. Anticipate holding Rachel. Input the inventory numbers. Add coconut chocolates to his shopping list. And a candle. Were candles cliché, or romantic? Not too many, not one of those movie scene spreads of candles on every windowsill and countertop. Only one, with a nice scent. Nothing too floral. A spice, maybe.
Damn, he was a disaster. Two weeks since they’d last slept together, and no work task had a hope of claiming his attention. He prioritized everything with a hard deadline, wrote up a longer-than-it-should-be list for himself for Monday, then shut down his computer. Time to go bury his nose in various jars of wax.
Almost out the door, his cell rang. “Boss?”
“Yeah?”
“Stop right there.”
He turned, and spotted Marti wedged between the bar and a party of twelve. She tilted her head at the man at the end of the table: slick suit, thinning hair, flashy watch. Mr. Low Tips was back. Theo heaved a sigh, pasting on his ‘good to see you’ smile as he approached. The guy was in the process of making himself a regular, showing up with a few different groups over the last month. Sergei was off charming a table of well-liked regulars, which left Theo to navigate the man who demanded lunch menu quickness during his weekend dinner party lifestyle.
And, as it turned out, who combined racism with sexism while harassing his favorite front of house employee. He sent Marti away before playing the ‘Sir, I’m afraid we can’t serve you anymore, yes, I’m the owner, no, please enjoy your meals, I’m sorry to hear that, I’m afraid if you consume the alcohol already at the table we will have to clear everyone’s drinks, that’s certainly your right, no, it’s a final decision, we will not be serving you in future, I understand, and who’s responsible for tonight’s check?’ rodeo.
He staggered home, nerves too tight to deal with laundry or dusting. Some days were more of a waste than others, but with any luck, the hours ahead with Rachel and the weeks ahead with his son would help him track down the reasons he put up with it all.
Giddy. What a thing to be. She shoved the gearstick into park and flipped the visor for a quick check. Quick and embarrassing. Flushed cheeks, bright eyes, grin not at all contained.
Well, and so what if he saw her eagerness for their weekend on her face? His expression when he suggested it hadn’t put her off, for all that it glowed with lustful anticipation. They had time to be adults with each other, before their focuses both split for their children. Nothing wrong with a little bounce in her step as she landed herself at his front door. Nothing wrong with her playful rap and the little hitch in her breathing when she heard his approach.
She dropped her duffle next to his mop bucket and wrapped herself around Theo. His cleaning glove-clad hands squeezed her once, then he backed away. He disentangled and shut the door, apologizing.
“For what?”
“Wet floor. Sweaty self. Not finishing up all this before you got here.”
She grinned wider. “Oh, no, a sweaty man. I guess I have to lure you into the water to cool you down.” She kicked off her sandals and pulled the sundress over her head, revealing a green checked bikini she’d last worn before she started spending her pool time with a kid all too ready to yank at the various straps and ties preserving her modesty.
“Fuck.”
“Well, that, too, if you like. But not underwater. I looked it up, condoms won’t work in pools.”
He brought a hand to his neck, jerked it away, and yanked off the gloves. “Give me two minutes to put all this away.”
As he moved to pick up the bucket, she pivoted and, deliberate as could be, bent from the waist to collect her bag and dress. She glanced over her shoulder at the mess he’d made sloshing water across the floor. “Two minutes and counting, Theo.”
She deposited her stuff on the sofa, and left the sliding door open, the better to relish his laughing curse when she tossed the bikini top over her shoulder before diving into the pool.
She flipped over underwater and popped up like a naiad, sun glinting in the wet curls she scooped back over her head. She began a lazy backstroke away from him, thighs flashing open and closed, water lapping against the peaks of her bare breasts. Singing an off-key pop song.
He shook off his frozen-statue state, stripped, and strode towards the far end of the pool, his cock the only part of him still marble-hard. He reached the far deck just as she did, and was about to plunge in beside her when she stopped him.
“Stand there a minute.”
He met her gaze. Her eyes, a brighter blue than the water, were wide with hunger. She pulled herself to the edge, then grasped his ankles.
“Kneel down.”
His toes curled over the edge. His squat trapped her hands under his thighs, which seemed to be all the anchor she needed to pull herself up. The slide of her wet thumbs along his shins made him shiver, but not as much as the vision of her dripping torso rising out of the water.
“Did you bring out a condom?”
He sucked in a breath at her question, at the way she whispered it into his inner thigh, at the biting kiss she planted near his knee before sinking back down. At the playful, sexy, lusty aggression of her.
When he tipped his chin to the opposite deck in answer, she tugged to release her hands. “Come make me come, then,” she said, and kicked off the side of the pool.
He launched himself towards her.
As soon as they were within his depth, he caught hold of her calf and reeled her in, wrapping hand over hand up her leg until he’d stroked every inch. Tucking that leg behind his back, he pressed her crotch into his belly and drew her body up into his arms. His erection stiffened, straining up towards her ass, but all his urgency was focused further up. He needed to tongue her nipples, to swirl the tight peaks and suck and nibble and taste until she moaned his name.
Rachel bucked her pelvis against him. Her arms clasped his head tight to her chest. He feasted on the sweet, slick mounds. Buried his nose in the valley between them, nipped the undersides and then, as she cried out yes, groaned out his name, rubbed her increasingly frantic crotch against his body, he left her to hold herself up and trapped each nipple under his thrumming thumbs.
Such a goddamn goddess, half-submerged and all wet, breasts thrust high and tight into his hands, mouth wide on a demand for more.
He would give her more. He would give her everything she ever wanted.
Banish the thought. It opened the door to the problems. Not the right time to resurrect pledges he’d promised to stop making, the emotions she wasn’t sure about accepting. Not the right time to daydream about the future.
That was the past.
In the now, he held Rachel Groff’s every wet, luscious curve, and only a scrap of fabric separated him from the wettest part of her.
He tugged the knot at her hip, working his hand under the fabric. Her palms cupped his jaw, and the kiss made it clear she was pleased with the ways his fingers explored. Her tongue thrust into his mouth, and he returned the favor. With tongue and with fingers. She writhed. Her slick breasts slid and pressed against his chest. His thumb circled her clit, and it was all he could do to keep his feet planted so she could anchor to his body while the water and her undulations sent her flashing, swirling around him.
“Jesus, Theo, I need more.”
In the now, in the future. It didn’t matter when. He’d give her everything.
Pushing off, he drew her to the edge of the pool and eased her up so her ass perched there, cushioned by a towel he’d dropped on his way outside. He ducked long enough to slide his shoulders beneath her thighs. She laughed when he shook his head and water flew from his hair to land on her belly, but gasped when he dug his fingers into her hips and plunged his tongue into her pussy.
She tasted like chlorine and salt and a tang that was all her, all Rachel, all sex. He took his time, as much as he possibly could, considering the way she used her heels and thighs to lock his lips at her entrance. It was the only place he wanted to be.
Her clit swelled in his mouth. Each flick of his tongue, each little suck and graze of his teeth, drove her higher. She’d given up on words, nothing so coherent as a full syllable echoed around them as he focused, intent, on the quivering message of her every movement.
As soon as she shook her way through orgasm, he moved. The buoyancy of the water, the propulsive need of his throbbing dick, the way the dappled sunshine painted patterns he needed to touch all over her body: something or everything made him urgent. Hard and fast and urgent.
The condom was on the lounger and he swiped a towel across his face and hands and cock so he could roll it on with maybe a tenth of the urgency he felt. She’d followed him, pressed him into the cushion, and straddled him. “Fuck. Rachel.”
“That’s the general idea.” Laconic words, but she fitted them together and slid down with all the heat and haste he needed. One thrust, his body and hers working together, and he was in, deep, planted inside her warmth. He braced his feet on the ground and pushed and pulsed and pulled her hips to match their rhythms.
“Too much?”
“Hell no. Faster is good. Faster, harder.”
“Rachel.” He couldn’t get enough of the way she leaned over him, the way she palmed her breasts, the way she panted.
“More.”
“Serious?”
She toyed with her nipples, groaned. He pressed a thumb to her clit, and she moved faster, wilder. Louder.
“Serious, then.” And then his hands gripped her ass and she braced against his chest and he drove and dove and plunged and thrust and his cock felt so right inside her, and somewhere in there he noticed the tight pulses of her orgasm but he was so lost in the wonder and primal joy of his own he could only moan, and come, and shudder alongside her.
So, the sex was great.
It wasn’t on her list, but odds were everyone took that as given. And she’d long since confirmed to the gals that Theo matched several of her rolls from Serena’s romance prediction game. So no one would be surprised by how he met every promise of the ‘sexytimes’ column’s lightning bolt icon.
But it was her list, and she could put anything she craved on it. And ‘great sex’ didn’t beat out ‘good with kids’ or even ‘honest about emotions’ but it was up there. Because she craved it, and because she deserved it. Deserved a partner who cared about her desires. Who was passionate about their physical connection, and who responded to her overtures, and who was damn adept at it. She deserved all that.
Deserved ... him. Theo. And sure, she was supposed to make a general list, not just name good things about him. She had an idea there were one or two things about him she would never have searched out in a partner. But no dwelling on potential faults when they were collapsed together in the warmth of summer sun and post-orgasmic endorphins.
The day flew forward in delightful ways. He’d put together a spread of hummus and salads and his homemade pitas for lunch, which they followed up with a movie cuddled together on the couch. Making out, talking about life, bragging about their children, a little complaining about their children, making out some more. Narrowly avoiding a permanent rift over pizza toppings before going out for tacos and dancing instead. Rumpling up his cool crisp sheets, and drifting off to sleep as his fingers drifted up and down her spine.
And waking him up later, to find him all too ready to indulge her desires.
So. Yes. Great sex was staying on her list.