This may have been a terrible idea.
I turned onto my street and weighed the lesser of two evils. Decision made, I opened the garage door but parked on the far left side of my driveway, risking the thirty-second walk of shame in a fairy-tale gown from the car to the front door. Once inside I dug out my phone and texted Mitch.
I’ll leave the garage door open for you, if you can park in there.
The message was marked Read almost right away, but it was a couple minutes before he texted back.
Okay. But do me a favor. Don’t order dinner yet.
As requests went, that was pretty innocuous. Sure. Still deciding what you want?
I know what I want. Food can wait. Even through the screen his innuendo was clear, and I felt my blood heat up in response. I dropped my phone to the counter like it had burned me.
A few minutes later I heard the rumble of a truck engine, loud in my garage. As the engine cut off I slipped through the door in the kitchen, hitting the button to close the garage door as Mitch got out of his truck. The garage door rattled down, and we were sealed in the semidarkness, safe from prying eyes.
Mitch’s eyes met mine across the hood of his truck in the dim light of the garage, and I caught my breath. He looked . . . predatory, and with each step he took toward me I stepped back, until we were both in the kitchen and he’d closed the door behind us. His approach continued; I was backed up against the kitchen island and his eyes darkened as he closed the space between us. He reached out and traced his fingertips down my loosened bodice.
“You unlaced this.” His voice flowed, low and warm between us, with a slight rumble that made my chest grow tight. “I’ve been thinking about doing that all afternoon.”
Untying my bodice hadn’t helped; I could barely breathe with how much I wanted him. “Sorry. Couldn’t drive otherwise.” My voice was a mere rush of breath. His touch was hot, even through the layers of fabric I still wore, and when he stroked back up my chest to the neckline of my underdress I braced myself against the island to hold myself upright.
But two could play at this. I reached out, bunching the wool of his kilt between two fingers and twitching it upward, slipping my hand underneath to flirt with the hem. My fingers skidded against a well-toned thigh, solid and warm and very, very bare. “Hold up,” I said. “You had bike shorts under this today.”
“I did. Stopped by home on the way here.” He dug in his sporran as he talked, and he produced a fistful of condoms, slapping them down on the counter beside me like a winning hand of poker.
“Ah. Someone’s got plans for tonight.” Even though my heart pounded in my throat, I tried to keep my voice, my touch teasing. But I made my intentions clear as I stroked up his thigh, over painfully defined quadriceps to his hip. I itched to move those few inches inward, to touch him, to curl my fist around him, but this anticipation was delicious torture, and I couldn’t let it end quite yet.
But Mitch was done with teasing. With waiting. “Fuck yeah I do,” he growled. That growl was the only warning I had before his mouth was on mine and oh, I’d forgotten how good it felt to kiss him. To be claimed by him. He lifted me like I was nothing, sitting me on the kitchen island before he got to work unlacing my dress the rest of the way. Freed from its confines, the chemise underneath slipped down over one shoulder, and his mouth was there, kissing the bared skin in a trail up to my throat. I clutched at his shoulders, trying to pull him closer, and our kisses grew more and more frantic. Layers of fabric between us were moved aside as we tried to get to each other. He shoved my skirts up, over my knees and higher, stepping between my legs while he spread them with his large hands. He peeled my underwear down my legs to the floor while I groped blindly for a condom, ripping it open before my hands were back under his kilt, getting it the hell out of my way. He wasn’t gentle as he pulled my hips to the edge of the counter, and I wasn’t gentle as I dug my fingernails into his shoulders when he pushed into me.
There was nothing slow about this. Nothing sweet. It was hard, quick, intense. With every thrust we pulled at each other, trying to get closer, deeper, trying to consume each other.
“God, I’ve missed this.” He hitched one of my legs higher, driving deeper, and the change in sensation sent a shiver through me.
“You feel . . . I need you . . .” Closer. I needed him closer. I needed more.
“I’ve missed this,” he said again. “I’ve missed you, April. Missed you so much.” Then his mouth was on mine and one hand was pushing under my skirts, finding where we were joined, stroking hard, and I felt the sparks everywhere. I chased them, rode him, shuddered under his touch when my climax shook me, and swallowed his shout when it was his turn to shudder hard into me.
It took long, long moments for our bodies to calm. Mitch pressed his forehead to mine and our breaths mingled as our heartbeats slowed, syncopated. This close, I studied his face, ran a hand down his cheek, traced the shell of his ear. “I’ve missed you too.” My confession hung between us in the quiet of my kitchen, and Mitch’s smile lit up everything inside me as he moved that fraction forward to kiss me again.
“Now?” I asked when he’d disposed of the condom and I could speak again. “Now can I order dinner?”
“Nope,” he said cheerfully. He reached out a hand, helping me down off the island, and I tried to stand on legs that shook. “Now it’s time for that important Ren Faire tradition. The post-Faire shower.”
My laugh was a huff as I let him lead me into my bedroom and to the master bathroom. “I’ve done that before, you know. I always take a shower when I get back from my volunteer shifts.”
“Ahhh, this is different. You walked the lanes with me today. You don’t realize it, but you’re covered in dirt. Probably in places you haven’t thought about in years.” He turned on my shower like he’d been there a million times before coming back into the bedroom to unhook his boots. Boots were followed by socks, and I sat on the edge of my bed, enjoying the show as he unbuckled his kilt.
“You could charge tickets for this, you know,” I said as the plaid fabric fell to the floor.
He snorted. “Nah. Let’s keep this a private show.” Unselfconsciously naked, he held out a hand and I took it, letting him pull me to my feet before peeling away the layers of my now-disheveled costume.
I stepped under the spray, letting the hot water pound between my shoulder blades, loosening muscles I didn’t realize were tense. But a different, happier tension crept into my body as Mitch joined me in the shower. He reached for my body wash and a loofah, turning me this way and that as he rubbed me down with suds-covered hands. I returned the favor, covering his skin in swirls of soap, urging him to turn so I could explore those back muscles one by one.
“God.” I glanced at my feet, where water swirled down the drain. It was dark at first as the evidence of the day spent in the woods sloughed off our bodies. “We’re disgusting.”
His laugh was a rumble. “We’re authentic. Or something.” He reclaimed the loofah and scrubbed my back gently. “One of the kids said to me a couple years ago, if your boogers aren’t black you’re doing Faire wrong.”