I watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall. He dipped a fry in ketchup and took a bite. Then he signaled for the bill.

Up I went, landing on the laminate counter between a tiny fridge and a tinier stove, his lean torso wedged between my thighs. Off came my T-shirt. Then he grabbed my sneakers by the heels, pulling them off too, one then the other, tossing them over his shoulders. My jeans came off next, leaving me in a black lace bra and thong. It wasn’t planned. These were lucky picks.

“Fuck you’re hot,” he whispered, liberating one of my nipples, which instantly hardened in his cool mouth.

“I told you, no talking.” I leaned back into the metal upper cabinets. This was how I’d do it, how I’d get over Will, how I’d shove images of him and Tracina out of my head. I’d make new memories, with new men to think about when I needed relief or release. Starting with this one.

Over his shoulder I took in the dim, masculine room, a British flag for curtains, a small fat-backed TV perched on a hope chest across from a high double bed with drawers beneath. It was tidy, but it had a second-hand, temporary feel. No one would be here long, least of all a girl.

While he took my other nipple in his mouth, going slowly back and forth, slicking it down, I worked my fingers through his hair, and gathered up his T-shirt in my fists. Off it came, his smooth skin surprisingly free of tattoos. Both of his hands now clutched my thighs, spreading them a little wider. His palms felt hot against my gusset, which grew damp from the way his knuckle teased along my groove.

“Ohh, you’re wet,” he crooned, biting my bottom lip as a finger eased aside the elastic. Inflamed, he kissed me back into the cupboards, his finger now frantic, freeing more of my moisture.

My hands were now ripping the buttons of his jeans, pulling one, two, three of them open, digging down the front of his pants.

“Oh sweet Jesus,” I muttered, folding my hand firmly around his erection, pulsing in my hand.

“For me?” I couldn’t believe I’d said it, but it felt so good. He felt so good. I stroked him, making him harder still.

“Holy fuck,” he moaned, lifting me off the counter, easily carrying me into the living area and dropping me backwards onto the bed with a bounce. His erection was apparent over his splayed jeans. My hands had measured correctly; he was definitely blessed, like the cliché of a rock star, and by the look on his pleased face he knew it. As he yanked his jeans all the way down, I lay there in my bra and underwear, feeling so sexy, so dirty, so right. I watched him stumble out of his boxer shorts.

“Oh my,” he said, standing next to me on his bed, talking like a British TV detective. “What have we here? I think we have evidence of a very horny girl in my bed. Let’s see what’s under this bra and these panties, shall we?”

He slid a hand under my back to undo my bra, removing it and discarding it over his shoulder. It landed on a guitar in the corner, looking like a still life that might be called Sex with a Musician. Then I arched as his hand slid down the front of my panties, my hips bucking slightly to keep his fingers out of reach, to make him work to find me, enjoying the tease. Impatient, he grabbed the waistband and pulled them all the way down, leaving them roped around an ankle.

“That’s better.”

He moved to the foot of the bed and lifted one of my bare feet to his mouth. That mouth—his singing mouth, his humming and moaning mouth. His lips tickled my smaller toes, before completely enveloping my big toe, sending sweet agony snaking up my legs. Then he reached into a nearby end table and opened the top drawer, taking out a condom and rolling it on.

“Spread your legs, Cassie,” he said.

“Say please,” I teased, stretching my arms over my head and closing my knees. I froze the scene in my head. Click. A year ago, this would have been unthinkable. Something that only happened to other women. Yet here I was, a pleasure seeker, a pleasure giver, a pleasure taker.

He slipped his hands between my thighs, slowly opening them, and I lay there splayed and glistening, turned on by the determined look on his face. Either three months without sex had tightened me or his size was exceptional, because despite my soaking wetness, his first thrust split me with the most perfect kind of pain imaginable. My thighs clutched around his lean hips. My hand grabbed his tense forearm. Oh jeez. I gasped as he thrust again, this time harder.

“Am I hurting you?” he asked, sweetly.

“Yes, but it’s good, it’s so good.”

“It is good,” he murmured, savoring the slow, deep thrusts, which began to quicken as he felt me clench around him, taking the whole of him in, finally.

“Oh yeah, you’re so fucking tight.”

I watched him sink into me, faster and fiercer. Yes. I can come like this! I thought, lifting my knees higher, feeling him reach the very end of me.

Then he slowed to a stop. No! And pulled himself out, leaving me hungry, gasping. I almost screamed, Don’t stop!—until I realized he had no intention of stopping anything. I felt his tongue swimming in my belly button, releasing another rush of wetness below. He opened me wider still, pressing my knees up and apart, holding me down, his face exploring me, kissing my thighs, the inner groves, nibbling greedily along my folds until he found my tiny, tight clitoris—fully engorged now—nosing it, lapping at it. He surrounded it fully with his mouth, sucking my lips and swirling his tongue around my tender, throbbing clit, making me utterly delirious.

“Ohh yeah,” I sighed. This is for you. Let him. My hand clutched a fistful of his hair, while he cupped my butt, his thumb pressing into me, his tongue carving mad circles, pulling everything into focus.

“You like that?” he murmured between flickering tongue strokes. “Yeah?”

I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t. I gave way to an orgasm so intense I screamed into the ceiling as his fingers thrust and his tongue continued to circle and flutter through my cries. Oh god oh god oh god, I’m coming, yes! I had one hand on his headboard, the other clenching his hair, and I was bucking and gasping as it shot straight through my middle and out all four limbs. My eyes squeezed shut to hold on to the intensity of it all before it finally, cruelly subsided.

He inched his way up my weakened body, kissing my stomach, rubbing his wet lips across my nipples, then pushing himself back into me; he was so hard, so fucking hard. I had barely caught my breath when our bodies came crashing together, my hands clutching his hips, my knees bracketing him tight, the friction making me dizzy. My pleasure mounted again. What the hell? And then like lightning I came again, throwing my head back. “Oh my god … Will! Yes! Oh, Will, oh …” I cried out, just as he came, saying my name, groaning into my hair, grinding into my body …

Fuck.

I covered my mouth and shut my eyes, both at the intensity of the pleasure and at my stupid, stupid gaffe. When he gently pulled out and rolled off me, I hoped, prayed he hadn’t quite heard what I had said. I mean, we were both so loud, and it was all so intense and so, so good … Why did I have to fuck it up?

“So … yeah. Will. That’s your ex?” he asked the ceiling, while tugging off the condom.

Damn.

He looked at me and I nodded.

“Why aren’t you with him?”

“It’s complicated.”

“It always is.”

“I’m sorry. That was … an accident. And not worth discussing.”

“If you say so.” He sounded sincere.

Whew.

“But you know what is worth discussing?” I said, rolling onto my elbow to face him. I tried to offer a coy grin, something to signal a change not just in subject, but in mood. “Your captain’s bed.”

He bit.

“Just because it’s got storage underneath doesn’t mean it’s a captain’s bed. It’s a small apartment. You have to conserve space.”

My fingers moved up and down his firm stomach, following the soft line of dark hair that led to a neat thatch surrounding his penis, now spent and resting heavy on his thigh. This man was especially sexy when he wasn’t talking.

“You are … amazing,” I said.