it’s on his tongue.
I’m so caught up in figuring out how to jerk him off, I don’t notice at first that Vic’s got his hand down the front of my shorts. But when his fingers stroke over the front of my panties I discover exactly why he shuddered. His hand moves. One fingertip circles slowly, slowly, pressing against me through the cotton. Then faster, until I gasp into his mouth.
I know about sex, but I don’t know about this. All I know now is that the hot, thick feeling I get when I watch Vic work with his shirt off is building up between my legs, in my nipples. Crazily, in the soles of my feet.
We’re not even naked. We don’t even get that far. Vic and I kiss and kiss and kiss. My grip stutters on his dick, but his doesn’t falter against me. When he slips his fingers inside my panties, directly on my skin, I think I might die. A couple minutes later, when he pushes one finger down inside me, then up again, when it moves in slippery circles on my clit, I do.
Or at least I explode, which I imagine might feel the same. It feels so good I shake and push my hips against him, needing something but not sure exactly what. Vic knows. His fingers move a little faster. Then faster still.
And I … I am surging along on this wave of pleasure that’s so strong I can’t decide if I never want it to end or if I can’t stand another second of it.
When it’s over and I can focus again, when I can breathe, I blink up at him. My hand is sticky, lying flat on his hard belly. His fingers have stilled between my legs, though my clit is thumping with the beat of my heart. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I know that whatever it was, I can’t wait to do it again. Looking down at me, Vic licks his lips and smiles. Despite my earlier fears, he doesn’t laugh.
But I do.
Chapter 5
I woke up laughing and coming at the same time. I hiccupped, my eyes flying open, my fingers clutching the tangled mess of my sheets that told me I’d had a rough night. I cut off the laughter by sealing my lips together, but nothing stopped the surge of pleasure that ripped through me, not entirely unwelcome.
A wave of guilt followed it.
I hadn’t thought of Vic in that way for a long time. Now everything was turning upside down and sideways. My body ached from being twisted in the sheets, and it was still a few hours before I had to get up and take care of some things before it was time for work.
I’d only just closed my eyes and started to drift when the two small bodies pounced on me. It wasn’t unexpected, but it was alarming. I shouted before I could hold it back, then fell onto my pillow with a groan and a hand clapped over my eyes.
“Guys, please,” I begged. “Go away.”
“Turn on ‘toons? Peeze,” said Max, who had good manners only when it suited him.
His sister, who fancied herself far more mature at four than any baby two-year-old could ever be, poked him. “Please and thankyouverymuch!”
“Thankyouverymuch,” her brother said. He smelled of wet diaper, a stench that reminded me too much of crèche duty at The Compound. “‘Toons?”
I shifted, bunching the cushions and pillows so I could sit up. “How is it that the two of you can operate every electronic device in this house, but not the television set?”
“The memote,” Max explained patiently. “Mama says don’t touch the memote.”
Of course their mother didn’t want them messing around with the remote—it was a complicated and expensive thing that operated all their dad’s complicated and expensive audiovisual equipment, including the television, the TiVo, the sound system and the Wii. It was supposed to make everything easier because you needed only one piece of equipment to operate everything in the rec room, but it was for adult use only. And since I was the closest adult, I was the one the kids came to.
“What’s Mama and Daddy doing?” I was afraid to look at the clock, but the light shining through my window meant it was at least past six. “Getting ready for work?”
“Mama’s in bed,” Simone said, self-important with this knowledge. “Daddy said to leave her alone so she can sleep.”
Max had something to say about this, too, accompanied by a sour look that said exactly what he thought of the situation. “Baby.”
“Just give me a few minutes, okay?” I begged as they bounced on me. “I’ll turn on the cartoons in a minute. Can’t you play with your toys or something?”
They had plenty of them, spread all over the floor in the very places I usually wanted to walk in my bare feet when the lights were off. I’d been lamed by Legos so often I’d taken to shuffling along the floor with each step, much the way they tell you to walk along the sand where there are stingrays so you can push them out of the way rather than step on them. That was what my life had become—shuffling to avoid the sting.
They could play with their toys, but it turned out the screeching that went along with the game was worse than the mindless blather of cartoons. No more sleep for me, then. I scrubbed at my face and turned everything on for them, settled the remote high on the shelf where they couldn’t be tempted to reach for it, and made my careful, shuffling way up the steep and uncarpeted stairs to the kitchen.
Which was bright. Too bright. I flung a hand up against the glare and blinked fast, but tears still burned in my eyes, so I had to rub them again. My vision blurred and cleared.
“Rough night?” Vic asked from his place at the stove, where he was cooking what I assumed to be eggs, since that was what he had every morning. “You look like shit.”
“Feel like it.” I slumped in one of the hard wooden kitchen chairs and put my head in my hands. The ends of my hair tickled my nose until I pushed them back, and I looked up to see him laughing at me. “Fuck you, Vic.”
He turned back to the skillet. “Want some eggs? I’m making toast for Elaine. You can have some.”
He shoveled scrambled eggs onto a couple plates and added toast as it sprang up from the toaster, then put both on the table and took a seat across from me. He’d forgotten forks, which was typical Vic, so I got up to grab them. It was my turn not to look at him.
He didn’t ask me any questions, and I offered no answers. We ate in companionable silence broken only by the ticking of the wall clock and an occasional burst of excited laughter from the rec room downstairs. Vic finished and took his plate to the dishwasher, then spread the extra toast with a thin layer of butter. He added a can of ginger ale and a straw to the plate, but I stopped him before he could leave the kitchen.
“You go ahead. I’ll take it to her.”
He looked again at the clock. Though he has a couple of good guys working for him, he still does a lot of the mechanic work himself. He likes to be open for people who need to get in before work, and he likes to leave early to spend time with his wife and kids before bedtime. Vic is an awesome husband and dad.
“Thanks.” He grabbed his jacket and shouted a goodbye down to the rec room, waited the few minutes while his kids pounded up the stairs to grab him around the knees and burrow against him. He tousled their hair, squeezed and kissed them, then pried loose their clinging fingers and sent them back down to rot their brains with animated mayhem.
