“Fuck me,” I pleaded, rubbing my hand against him, opening my legs.

He didn’t hesitate, his hand pushed mine aside and he undid his jeans.

“You on the pill?” he asked, his voice gruff.

“No,” I answered and felt the tip of his c**k pressing against me. I wanted it inside me so badly it was an ache, my hand slid into his jeans, curling around his tight ass in an insistent demand.

“Fuck it,” he groaned and drove in deep.

I gasped then held my breath as he filled me. He was huge. So big, it was a shock to be that full.

Then I had to start breathing when he started moving, driving deep, filling me full again and again, rough, hard, almost brutal, his big hands going to my h*ps and lifting me to plant himself deeper. Then I wasn’t breathing, I was panting.

My nails dug into his back, my h*ps rising, helping him to go deeper. I wrapped a calf around his waist, digging my heel into his back to leverage my hips, my other leg wrapping around his thigh.

“You’re so big,” I whispered.

“You like it,” he pointed out the obvious and I made no response, I couldn’t, that’s how much I liked it.

“Harder,” I gasped, wanting it harder, wanting the pounding never to stop, but even demanding it, still thinking he couldn’t f**k me harder. There was no way he could f**k me harder but I was wrong, he could and he did.

It built fast, it had been a long time, I felt it coming and I wanted it. I reached for it, the nails of one hand scraping his back, the other hand fisted in his hair, begging, “Fuck me harder, Joe.”

His mouth was at mine, his breath ragged when he murmured, “You like it rough.”

“Yes,” I breathed.

“Good,” he muttered, kissed me deep and f**ked me harder.

It was happening, I could feel it and when it started, I tore my mouth from his, arched my neck, my back, and announced on a throaty, breathy moan, “Joe, I’m coming.”

“Christ,” Joe bit off as it hit me, it was so huge, my body shook with it and I tightened my limbs around him, pulling him close.

I felt him thrusting as I came, suspended in the glorious moment, beautiful.

I was coming down when his thrusts became even more powerful then his hand left my hip, his fingers sunk into my hair, fisting and twisting again, his mouth slammed down on mine and he groaned, his h*ps driving into mine once, twice, three times then, on the fourth, he planted himself to the root and stopped.

His lips slid from mine, down my cheek, my neck, where he buried his face and he stayed fixed deep. I lay under him, bearing his heavy weight, feeling full of his cock, immune to anything but his body, his heat, his weight, his prick. There was nothing in the world but me and Joe Callahan and I liked it like that.

Then suddenly he slid out and his weight was gone, his heat, his body, all vanished and it was just me in the bed.

I blinked at the suddenness of it then closed my legs, rolling to my side, curling up, my eyes moving to him in the dark. He was standing at the foot of the bed doing up his jeans. Nothing entered my mind. I could still feel him between my legs, my brain fuzzy with drink and sex, my body sated. He bent to the floor then straightened, pulling on his t-shirt.

Mindlessly, I watched as his hand went to his back pocket, he yanked out his wallet, flipped it open, pulled something out, he returned his wallet to his pocket. My brain still not having kicked into gear, I didn’t move as he bent over the bed, putting a hand in it by my belly, the fingers of his other hand sliding up the inside of my forearm which was lying on the bed. When he reached my open palm, I felt the edges of a card against my skin as he curled my fingers around it.

Then he trailed his fingertips down my hip and outer thigh as he said, “Call me, buddy, anytime you need a ride home.”

My body locked at his insinuation but I had no chance to ask a question or make a retort, he disappeared and, seconds later, I heard the outer door closing.

I laid there a long time, curled mostly na**d on my bed, the air in my room chill as the knowledge seeped into me that I just let me next door neighbor, Joe Callahan, a man I disliked, f**k me so hard I ached. I’d even begged him to do it.

And it seeped into me that, after thirty-five years, I’d just taken my second lover and I’d done this like a slutty, drunken barfly, letting a guy I barely knew and didn’t even like pick me up, take me home and f**k me so hard I ached. Hell, he didn’t even need to work at it, he just dragged me out of the bar, I followed him to my house and then he dragged me to my room.

And it seeped into me that this guy, Joe Callahan, thought he could do that to me whenever it struck my fancy to let him, calling him to service me and then he’d pull out, leave me mostly na**d and alone and not even kiss me before he left. And I couldn’t f**king blame him.

And this knowledge seeped into my bones, bitter and humiliating.

I heard the front door open and I froze.

Kate was home.

I whirled into motion, jumping off the bed, pawing through my clothes on the floor, I found and yanked on my underwear. Then I ran to the bathroom, pulled Tim’s robe off the hook on the door and shrugged it on, feeling for the first time the soft, warm flannel against my skin like a burn.

I tied the belt tight and walked into the living room, pulling my hair out of my face, hoping to God my daughter couldn’t read the heinous deed I’d done in my expression or the line of my body. I looked to the DVD clock under the TV in the living room and saw it was two after midnight. My responsible Kate was home on time and her boyfriend, who I didn’t want to like or trust, had brought her home by curfew.

I headed to her room, the light coming through the door which was opened a crack.

I stopped at the door and knocked softly.

“Yeah, Mom,” she called and I pushed the door open and stood in its frame, my arms wrapped around my belly.

“Hey baby, have a good time?”

She was texting someone and I knew it was Dane even though he just dropped her off. Her head came up from her phone and she grinned at me.

“Yeah,” she said softly, her face just as soft.

Oh f**k.

“Dane have fun?” I asked.

She nodded and looked back down at her phone. She hit send, slid it shut and tossed it on her nightstand.

“I like him, Kate, he’s a good kid,” I told her, her head twisted to me and she studied me a second before she dealt a blow she didn’t know she was dealing and, if she did, it would cut her to the quick. Kate felt. She felt everything but she felt other people’s pain far more than her own, one of the few things she got from me.