No Regrets (8 page)

With a few more thrusts and wriggles, the tension in me shattered. I swallowed over my shout of release, humming out stifled sounds as the pleasure pulsed through my body.

Josh was right behind me—pushing into me with a few last jerks and then freezing with a twisted look of pained concentration.

He let out a rough, lingering groan as he came too.

We were both panting when he collapsed over me after taking care of the condom, giving me his whole weight for just a minute as he pressed little kisses against my throat.

I stroked his back and butt—where I’d clawed ragged lines down his skin—and squirmed contentedly until he became too heavy for me to remain comfortable.

“Josh,” I whispered, pulling on his hair.

“Yeah. I’m moving.” He sounded wiped out. And he didn’t move.

Giggling a little, I tried again. “Josh. You’re not exactly light, you know.”

He gave an agonized groan and managed to roll off me, stretching out on his back in a debauched sprawl. I immediately rolled over and draped myself over him, resting my cheek against his shoulder.

Josh chuckled. “I guess I’m not supposed to complain about this new position.”

“You sure as hell better not say I’m not light,” I said with a scowl.

“I might occasionally be clueless, but I’m not that stupid.”

I was smiling, and it felt like he was smiling too.

“So is this just a birthday thing, or do you think you’d want to do it again?”

“The spankings, you mean?”

“No. I mean the sex.”

I looked up at his face and saw a question in his eyes. It wasn’t an urgent or a needy or a pushy question, though. Just pleasantly curious.

I wondered what it would be like to be so laidback about sex, about relationships. I wondered if I had it in me to approach it in the same way.

Then I decided I might as well try, since it meant great sex and no complications.

I could be that person, if I wanted to.

“I might just want to do it again, if you’re still interested.”

He gave a soft huff of amusement. “I’m definitely interested. I think I could fuck you forever and keep finding new things to appreciate.”

And, I’ve got to say, those words, on top of the sex we’d just had, were the perfect way to end my thirty-ninth birthday.

For the next two months, we got together for sex. At first, I had to call him, since he’d made it clear the ball was entirely in my court. But I found that situation awkward and uncomfortable, and I felt weird about calling more than once a week.

Maybe it says something about my nature, but having that kind of hot sex only once a week didn’t feel like quite enough. I kept thinking about it in between times. Fantasizing about what we’d do when next we got together. But Josh was very careful about always keeping it casual, so I wasn’t about to make him think that I was getting too clingy with him.

Then, after we’d gotten together once a week for a month, I had the bright idea of asking about our next date as I was leaving his place. In conversation, it was easier, less like I was arranging for services. Since he seemed to like the idea of getting together sooner¸ we made a date for just three days later.

I’m calling them dates, but they weren’t really dates. I’d go over to his place. We’d chat for a while and have sex.

Then I happened to mention that I needed to start running again, and I was going to try to get back into shape, and he said I could come run with him, if I wanted.

So that was why, on a Thursday at about five-thirty in the evening, we were both running on the track at the park where we’d first started talking.

He was keeping pace with me, but I knew he could go faster. I’d been slowly building back my endurance in the last few weeks, but I wasn’t nearly in the condition I’d been a few years ago, when I’d been running regularly.

After a few circles around the park, I had to slow down. I was drenched in sweat, my breathing was ragged, and my entire body burned.

“Pretty good,” Josh said, slowing down with me. “You did even better than last time.”

“Yeah. It was just great.” My tone would have been sarcastic, but the breathlessness got in the way. “Damn, I’m out of shape.”

“You’re doing fine.” He’d broken out in a sweat, but he barely looked winded.

“I’ve got to cool down. You can keep going, if you want, though. I don’t mind waiting for you.”

“Nah. I ran this morning, so I’m good.”

We did a cool down lap and then walked over to our cars. His was near the beginning of the track, and mine was in the far corner of the lot, where it was shady. I hated getting into a hot car after running.

I noticed Josh watching a dog that was climbing out of a car near his—a golden lab.

“He’s cute,” I said, thinking of Polly and how excited she’d always been to come to the park. “Look how happy he is.”

“Yeah.”

There was something strange about his face, so I asked, “Is anything wrong?”

“No.” He turned back to me and smiled before he glanced once more at the dog. “Just made me think about this dog they brought into the vet today who…”

“Who what?”

He kind of shook himself off. “Nothing. Did you want to come over tonight?” he asked, pulling the bottom of his shirt up to wipe the sweat off his face.

I checked his expression to see if I could get a sense of what he’d prefer. We’d run three times that week already, but I’d only gone over to his place for sex once afterwards, since one day I’d had a headache and the other he had to work evening hours at the vet. The running was actually a very convenient thing—avoiding the weird feeling of making a date just for sex.

Had I ever considered it before, I would have thought casual sex would be simple. Easy. But I was finding that there were all kinds of unexpectedly landmines to avoid—even just in the way we talked about it and planned to get together.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind, if you feel like it.”

“When have I ever not felt like having sex?” He grinned at me, looking warm and relaxed again. Normal.

“I don’t know, but I assume occasionally you might not. You won’t hurt my feelings, you know, if you just don’t feel like it. It’s not like I’m so insatiable that I can’t be stopped once the lust overwhelms me.”

He laughed and gave me a good-natured leer. “I’m disappointed. I’ll have to work harder at rousing your insatiability.”

“If you work any harder, then I won’t be able to get up in the morning.”

“Sounds good to me. So you’ll come over?”

“Yeah. I’ll follow you back.”

We both pulled out of the parking lot and headed to his place. Once we got to his apartment and he’d shut the door behind us, we stood in the entryway and just looked at each other.

Then, without warning, he dragged me closer and kissed me.

I kissed him back. Even taken unaware, I always responded to his kisses. And then we were stumbling over toward the couch, and he was laying me down on my back, lowering himself over me, still kissing me.

We were both still very sweaty, but it didn’t seem to matter. I loved the feel of him, the firm, heavy substance of him, the need I felt in his body, his touch.

We eventually remembered the condom, so he went to the bedroom to grab one, walking stiffly because he was fully erect. Then he moved over me again, pushing aside our clothes, rolling on the condom, sinking inside me.

I held onto him and rocked with his motion, overwhelmed with a need that was more emotional than physical. He was grunting low in his throat, but he wasn’t saying anything. He usually talked. He hadn’t been this quiet in bed since our first night together. But he was with me. I could tell he was with me. It felt like
him
.

It felt like
me
.

The pleasure in my body was real, but it wasn’t building into a climax. I didn’t care. I kept wrapping myself around him, trying to draw him deeper. His breath was hot and fast against my skin as his motion accelerated.

Then I felt him come apart in my arms, between my legs. I felt the tension tighten as he froze on the cusp of a moment. He shook and moaned through his climax, rasping out something that sounded like my name.

I stroked him afterwards. Couldn’t seem to stop.

Before I was ready to let him go, he rolled off me. “Damn,” he muttered. “I’m sorry about that.”

My eyes widened as I straightened my clothes. “What for?”

His face twisted briefly, and he looked down at the floor, before he looked back at me. “I didn’t wait for you.”

I realized then what he was talking about. I hadn’t come. Thinking about it, it was the first time we’d had sex when I hadn’t had an orgasm.

It was a pretty damn good record. No woman in the world could complain.

I’d actually loved what we’d just done even more than the sex that came before.

I could hardly tell him that, though, so I said instead, “I thought it was good. I really did.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t press the subject. “Did you want to take a shower?”

I didn’t want to shower. I wanted to cuddle with him a little. That was a woefully inappropriate desire, however, and I knew it very well. “Yeah. I guess I should.”

I’d come prepared, so I had a change of clothes with me. After my shower, I put on the t-shirt and leggings I’d brought, feeling tired and clean as I left the bathroom.

Josh was at a stool in his kitchen, checking something on his phone. He still wore his sweaty clothes, but his skin and hair had dried off in the time since the run.

He glanced up as I entered and smiled. “I like your hair that way.”

I’d been getting myself a glass of water, but I stopped at his words. “Was that a joke?”

My hair was wet from the shower, and I’d just twisted it up with a clip.

“No, I do like it.”

“It’s still wet.”

“I don’t care if it’s wet.” His eyes lingered on my face and hair. “It looks like
you
. It seems quiet and unassuming, but you just know that if you unclip it, it will all fall down in these gorgeous, wild waves.”

I felt a flood of emotional pleasure at the words. He really seemed to believe that about me—that my quiet reserve was all on the surface, and there was something wild and beautiful underneath.

I still didn’t believe it was true. I just felt like I was experimenting with being someone else.

I said, “If you want to know the truth, if you let out the clip, my hair would fall down in a thick, wet mop.”

He chuckled appreciatively, getting up—I assumed to start toward the bathroom to take a shower. “Well, I still like your hair that way.”

Feeling rather fond at the sweetness he couldn’t seem to hide, I grabbed his t-shirt and pulled him toward me. “You sure know how to give a girl a compliment,” I murmured, stretching up slightly to kiss him on the mouth.

He returned the kiss but didn’t deepen it. He was smiling against my mouth. “I do my best.” Then, unexpectedly he took a step back. He was still smiling, but something had changed about his presence. “I’m all sweaty still. I better take a shower. Get something to eat if you want. There’s not much there, but you can have anything you want.”

“Okay.” I felt a little rebuffed by his sudden retreat, just when I’d been kissing him.

But, by the time he’d disappeared into the bathroom, I’d realized what had happened.

I hadn’t been acting like we were having no-strings-attached sex. I’d been acting like we were a couple. And so, naturally, he’d retreated.

He hadn’t been rude. He hadn’t called attention to it. He’d just put up his walls again.

And that was fine. I couldn’t get hurt by it, since this was what I’d signed up for. He’d been honest from the beginning, so I had no cause to complain.

If I felt disappointed, then that was my own fault.

I wasn’t really all that hungry, so I took my water into the bedroom and stretched out on the bed, getting comfortable. I could have gone to the couch, but then that would have reminded me of the sex we’d just had there—the memory of which still gave me emotional shivers. It would also make me feel domestic, and I really had to be careful about that.

We weren’t playing house. We weren’t even really friends. We were fuck-buddies, and I couldn’t forget it.

I breathed deeply and tried to relax until Josh came out of the shower. I certainly didn’t intend to fall asleep.

But I did.

I really just dozed off, and I woke up again when Josh collapsed onto the bed beside me. I blinked at him groggily, immediately realizing what I’d done and kind of embarrassed by it.

He’d stretched out next to me on top of the covers and didn’t look like he was about to jump me again. In fact, he looked really tired himself. He wore nothing but a pair of pajama pants—something I’d never seen him wear before.

“I didn’t know you owned pajamas,” I said, since it was the first thing that came to my mind.

He glanced over. “My mom bought them for me a few Christmases ago.”

It was funny, but I hadn’t even imagined him having a mother. I wondered what she was like.

“So there’s a matching top? Why aren’t you wearing that?”

He narrowed his eyes disapprovingly but didn’t say anything.

I giggled. “The blue is kind of boring. They’d have been cozier in red flannel.”

He seemed to be hiding a smile. “Cozy isn’t really the look I’m going for. Which is why you’ve never seen these before. I thought you were asleep.”

“Just resting my eyes.”

“Ah. Is that what it was?”

I turned on my side to face him, feeling that wave of affection again that was so dangerous and so impossible to stop. “You look kind of tired too.”

“I am,” he admitted. He was lying on his back, but his head was turned to face me.

“We don’t have to have more sex tonight, if you’re tired.”

“I believe I already replied to that comment earlier.”

“I know. But it’s fine with me if you’re tired. What happened with that dog?” I don’t know why I asked the question—only it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the exhausted, stretched look on his face.

“What dog?”

“The one you started to mention earlier. In the park. You said there was this dog who was brought into the office this morning, and then you just trailed off.” I was watching his face, making sure he didn’t look annoyed or defensive by the inquiry. I didn’t think it was a very personal question, but he’d changed his mind about telling me earlier, and there must have been a reason for that.

“Oh.” He turned his head so he was looking straight up at the ceiling. “It wasn’t a big deal. Just someone found this dog in their neighborhood, and it had been really beat up.”

“Beat up how?” I spoke softly, since there was something underlying his calm expression that made me think he was bothered by the memory.

“I mean, literally beat up. Someone had beat the dog until it couldn’t even walk.”

I sucked in a breath, a pain in my chest at the thought. “Oh, how horrible. How can people do that to a poor, defenseless dog?”

“I don’t know.” He closed his eyes. “It says something about their heart, though, if they hurt creatures who depend on us as much as dogs do.”

“I used to talk mean to Polly sometimes,” I said, my throat tightening at the memory. “When I was in a bad mood or impatient or something. She would always look so upset when my tone was mean, and then as soon as I said something nice to her she immediately forgave me. She’d wiggle all over, so happy about it. It was such complete devotion, even when I didn’t deserve it.”