When the fourth or fifth woman approaches me at the bar, lays a bony hand on my arm, looks soulfully into my eyes and says, ‘That speech of yours made me cry,’ I know it’s time to get the hell out of here.
At least this fucking place doesn’t have a two-drink minimum. And I’m doing a pretty great job of trying to hit my maximum.
Maximum: unknown.
I hate these things. They mean well, and they’re crucial for bolstering the coffers of cancer research, but they’re brutal. Mindless small talk and a turgid meal followed by a few handpicked speakers (like yours truly) to get both the waterworks and the cheques flowing.
I started out fine.
I managed to smile and chit-chat and play the game.
But when you’ve been subtly reminded that your speech should be crafted to tug at the heartstrings as effectively as possible, and you stand there and tell a roomful of strangers and well-meaning friends how you lost your thirty-four-year-old wife within weeks of her diagnosis, and you tear your fucking heart open up there on the stage, it takes a toll. You know?
To make things a million times worse, not one member of my sympathetic audience knows what I got up to last night. Knows that the heartbroken guy making the impassioned speech about his dead wife and his devastated daughters spent last night on his knees at a sex club, devouring the greedy pussy of the twenty-three-year-old temptress he can’t seem to stop thinking about.
I’m a fucking mess.
I down a shot of whisky, then put away another one before stumbling outside.
Ahhh. That’s better. Relative silence. Solitude. Air.
Room to breathe.
I hail a black cab and collapse in the back. ‘Lansdowne Crescent,’ I tell the driver before letting my head roll back.
Fuck.
The cab is spinning.
I jerk my head upright so I don’t puke.
Maddy’s in my house.
She’s watching my daughters—the most important people in my life—and she’s hanging out in the home Claire and I made together, and she’s probably got that legging-clad pussy on one of my sofas, and Jeeeesus.
Fuck my life.
‘Can’t believe I did that,’ I mutter aloud to my wife.
Silence.
Sometimes she talks back, but not tonight.
She must be royally pissed off with me.
‘Do you hate me?’ I ask. ‘For eating her?’
The driver flicks on the intercom light. ‘What was that, mate?’ he shouts.
I jolt. Shit. ‘Nothing,’ I tell him, and flick the switch off.
I went down on my young colleague less than eighteen months after the love of my life died, and I’m less disgusted with myself than completely gobsmacked that I had the balls to do it.
She must have put a spell on me. It’s the only feasible explanation and an excuse men have leaned on for millennia. You know, female sorcery.
Fuck, she looked pretty today. Those jeans. The way they curved over her bottom.
Her bottom that I spanked.
I close my eyes, risking nausea, and groan. Her skin pinked up just as prettily as I’d known it would. And fuck did she smell delicious. Taste delicious.
I was like a truffle hound last night. A truffle hound who’d been fasting.
Is that a thing?
Mmm. There are truffles, and then there’s Maddy’s pussy.
And she doesn’t know.
Not sure I feel more guilty about cheating on my dead wife or making a colleague come with my tongue and keeping quiet about it. It felt fucking weird today at work. She must think I’m losing the plot.
I miss Claire so much it feels like I could split open from the pain.
Yet my brain is full of the sensory heaven that was Maddy last night.
What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
The taxi spits me out in front of my house. I look up. Everything’s quiet. My bedroom blinds are up, which hopefully means the girls are still asleep in their own beds.
For now.
Unless they’ve snuck into my bed without Maddy realising, which is entirely possible.
I know I should be more concerned about trying to get them to sleep the night in their own beds, but the bereavement counsellor assures me the most important thing is for them to feel safe.
So, whatever it takes for them to feel that way is fine by me.
One step at a time.
Shit. I nearly tripped there. Literally one step at a time, mate.
I fumble in my pocket for my keys and squint as I attempt to get the key in the lock of the front door. Whoops. Let’s try again.
And again.
The hallway is dim. The house is quiet. There’s zero reaction from our not-a-guard-dog. He must be dead to the world. I bend to untie my shoes and come up too quickly. Woah. I have a horrible feeling a TC—tactical chunder —could be a good call before bed.
Where is Maddy?
Living room? Nope.
Kitchen. No, sir. Although not one but two half-full mugs of tea lie abandoned on the island, so she can’t be far off.
Ahh. There she is. She’s curled up on the sofa in the den, her face illuminated by her phone light. Her legs are pulled up, the curve of her arse fucking perfect in those leggings. She’s humming something like she always is, but it’s too low for me to identify it. Probably something from a musical, as usual.
It seems I’m doomed to be haunted forever by beautiful women who, for some godawful reason, love musical theatre.
She looks up at me and smiles.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Hi.’ I drop down heavily next to her—oops, right next to her—and bury my head in my hands.
‘You okay?’ she asks.
‘Drank too much.’ I turn my head and give her a grin that I intend as adorable but probably comes off dopey as fuck.
‘How was it?’
‘Bloody awful. Girls okay?’
‘They were great. They’re so sweet.’ She hesitates before putting a hand on my shoulder. It feels nice. ‘Being here just… really brought it all home for me. What you three have been through. I’m so sorry, Zach.’
Pressure fills my head. ‘Thanks.’
We’re silent for a minute, and I stare at her. ‘Christ, you’re pretty.’
Her eyes widen. ‘Thank you.’
‘So pretty,’ I repeat dumbly. I really need her to know how true it is. ‘Last night you looked so fucking beautiful.’ I cup her knee with my hand and slide it down her soft legging to that slender ankle of hers. My mind is whisky-addled, but I know that when I touch Maddy, everything feels far clearer.
And clarity is a rare treasure in this life of mine.
She’s staring at me, speechless for once. As my fingers slide around her ankle, caressing the skin there, her lips part.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks. I’m not drunk enough to miss the slight tremble in her voice. This girl flirts with me and Cal and everyone else every day. She usually needs no encouragement. But tonight I’ve thrown her, and that little tremor of uncertainty has my damaged heart singing.
‘I dunno.’ I keep hold of her ankle and twist my upper body so I can bend my head and rub my forehead against her knee. ‘Just—will you come here?’
She’s frozen.
‘Please.’
‘Zach.’ The hand that was on my shoulder slides to my neck, and I feel the soft skin of her palm against my jaw.
‘Oh. You don’t want to.’
Fuck, I am such a dickhead. She has no idea that guy was me last night. Nothing’s changed for her, and given she’s the biggest flirt I’ve ever encountered, her coquettish behaviour means absolutely nothing. I’ve heard her tease Belle enough for having fallen for her ‘old’ boyfriend. She probably thinks I’m ancient.
‘I do want to,’ she says quietly.
‘Then what’s the problem?’
‘I don’t think Sober Zach would approve of what you’re doing,’ she says. ‘I think he’d be mortified, actually.’
I scoff. ‘Sober Zach is a miserable dickhead.’
She giggles, then stops. ‘Sober Zach has a lot going on. I’m glad you relaxed and had a few drinks tonight. But I don’t think he’d want you touching me like this.’
I gaze at her. So, so pretty. Look at that plump lower lip of hers. I reach over and press down on it with my fingertip. God, it’s soft. Imagine that against my cock.
I freeze. Wait.
Nope, I didn’t say that out loud, thank fuck.
‘Touching you is the only thing he wants to do,’ I say. ‘It’s the only fucking thing on this planet that will stop me from feeling like utter fucking shit. Seriously, Mads.’
I’m kind of losing my ability to speak now, but she has to know it’s true.
And it seems she does. Her big grey-green eyes go even bigger, and she pulls herself up and closes the gap between us on her knees. I watch in disbelief and extreme gratification as she throws a leg over and straddles me. I allow my head to fall to the back of the sofa with a thump and my grin to grow dopier as I survey the vision before me.
Maddy’s on top of me, staring down at me. This couldn’t be more different from last night’s situation, but somehow it’s even better. This feels really, really great. We stare at each other in silence as I run my palms up her smooth thighs, around the curve of those seriously excellent arse cheeks, and up under her sweater.
Above the waistline of her silly little leggings lie a few inches of bare back, which I stroke shamelessly. Above that is what feels like a sports bra. Hmm. Those can be tricky at the best of times. I palm the skin of her back and pull her towards me, letting my head fall heavily between her breasts. They were incredible last night. Even more incredible now. And comfortable. I groan in happiness.
‘I’m a Swiftie, too,’ I mutter against her sweatshirt.
She laughs softly. ‘Believe me, I’ve heard.’
Her fingers drag through my hair. They feel like heaven on my scalp. She tilts my head backwards and lowers it to the sofa again, cradling my skull in her hands.
Okay. That also feels quite good.
‘Your hair’s very sexy tonight,’ she tells me, and I attempt to raise a sardonic eyebrow, but I’m not clear on whether it works.
‘Really?’
‘Really. And this really does it for me, too.’
She’s stroking my chest. I look down and find my bowtie hanging loose around my neck. How is that still there?
‘Huh,’ I say, impressed with myself. ‘Assumed I’d lost that.’
‘Nope. And this whole, you know, slightly undone tux thing’—she waves a hand around—‘is a very hot look.’
You learn something new every day. I smile to myself and let my eyes drift closed.
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘You need to get to bed, and I need to get home.’
‘I don’t want to go to bed,’ I tell her, sliding my hands down to her arse again and yanking her to me, hard. I register the heat of her core probably around the same time she registers that I am rock fucking hard, because her jaw falls open and she grips my shoulders.
‘Zach.’
‘This is what you do to me,’ I tell her.
Her eyes don’t leave mine, searching my face as if she’s trying to figure out what the fuck my game is. Good luck to her, because I have no fucking clue what I’m playing at either. All I know is I really, really like having Maddy sitting on my cock, even with too many layers of clothing between us.
I grip her hips and shift her against me, and her eyelids flutter closed for a second. God, she’s beautiful. I extricate one hand so I can cup that slender neck of hers and pull her mouth down to mine.
Our lips crash together, mainly because I’m a little light on spatial awareness right now and I think I slightly overestimated the necessary force, but neither of us cares, because my mouth is on hers, hard and hungry, exactly the way it was when I ate her pussy last night. Except this time it’s her sexy little mouth I’m claiming, her lips opening wide for me, and her sweet little tongue dancing with mine as I invade her mouth, and hungry whimpers coming from her throat as she drags one hand over my chest and claws at my hair with the other in a way that feels otherworldly good.
And don’t get me started with what she’s doing with her hips right now, because this is like a lap dance on steroids and she’s grinding that warm, legging-clad pussy against my cock in a way that’s so fucking hypnotic I may disgrace myself and come in my pants.
Or I would if I were less under the influence, anyway.
I grab at her hair, which was in a ponytail earlier and is now loose and gorgeous and extremely grabbable. ‘So fucking gorgeous,’ I hiss into her mouth, and she reciprocates by sighing into mine.
‘You’re a lot more fun when you’re drunk,’ she purrs.
‘Definitely,’ I agree. I nip at that irresistible lower lip of hers, then slur, ‘But Sober Zach was pretty fun last night.’
‘I don’t remember him being fun in the slightest,’ she says between kisses.
I tighten my grip on her hip and thrust up into her. Dry humping is the best pastime on the planet.
‘That’s not very nice,’ I croon. ‘Sober Zach made you come very fucking hard by licking that delicious pussy of yours. I’d call that pretty fun.’
She stiffens and pulls away. Faint alarm bells ring in my head. What the—? Oh, bollocks.
‘What do you mean?’ she asks. She’s frowning as she searches my face. Her breath is coming fast from our frenzied kissing, and I wish I’d taken care of that fucking sweatshirt so I could see her tits heaving in whatever little sports bra she’s got on underneath.
I have a sudden, extremely clear understanding that I should say absolutely nothing else from this point. I press my lips together and shake my head.
‘Zach.’ She’s shuffled right back up my thighs now, and my cock feels bereft. ‘Talk to me. Were you in The Playroom last night?’
‘Maybe,’ I concede, because that’s vague enough to be safe, isn’t it?
‘Oh my God.’ Her hand flies to her mouth. Her eyes are wide with shock as she clambers off me and stands up. ‘Was that you? Did you—did you go down on me last night?’ She hisses the last part out in a whisper, like she’s worried someone will hear.
I really hope Claire’s not wafting around right now. It would be spectacularly unfortunate if she ignored me all the way home and has now turned up.
I gaze at Maddy. Soooo pretty. She raises an eyebrow and leans forward, putting her palms on her thighs.
‘Zach. Did. You. Go. Down. On. Me. Yes or no?’
‘I saw you,’ I say, ‘and you looked so beautiful. All those tassels. That twat was feeling you up, but then he said it was my turn, and…’ I swallow. I’m pretty sure this isn’t coming out how I’d like it to. ‘And I couldn’t resist. And fuck me, sweetheart. You were fucking everything. All day today, all I could think about was how good you tasted.’
She straightens up, her face frozen in a mask of outrage and disbelief. ‘Jesus Christ. Do not say another word. I’m leaving before I give in to my very intense urge to kick you in the fucking balls.’
With that, she flounces out of the room.
Seconds later, my front door closes with a soft click.
I drop my head to my hands.
