Seduce Me Tonight

He claimed his usual seat at the bar and gave me a wobbly nod of acknowledgement. I sidled up in front of him, wiping down the already clean mahogany bar.

‘Bad night?’

He nodded, studying his hands as if they contained the secrets of the universe.

‘What was it? Homicide?’

He jerked his head up. ‘How’d you know?’

I shrugged, almost embarrassed by my own nonchalance. Everything I knew about police work was second-hand information. I’d feel differently if I’d been the one standing over the body. ‘Seen that expression before. First one, huh?’

‘Yeah. Never seen a … dead person … before.’

‘That sucks,’ I said, filling a beer glass with seltzer. ‘What’s your name, kid?’

‘Williams,’ he said. ‘And I’m no kid.’

‘Yeah, I know. What’s your first name?’

‘Leo, ma’am.’

‘Well, Leo, I’m no ma’am. My name is Kayla,’ I told him. ‘This is my bar.’

‘Yeah, I know. The guys told me.’

I wondered what else the guys had told him. Cops talk. They’re more gossipy than a bunch of housewives drinking the kitchen sherry. I knew more about their lives than their own families did.

I fished a couple of maraschino cherries out of the container under the bar and dropped them into his glass, sending little tendrils of syrup spiralling down into the carbonated seltzer. I pushed the glass in front of him. ‘There you go.’

He held the glass up to the light, studying it. ‘What’s with the cherries?’

‘For your first homicide. You broke your cherry, kiddo.’

He rewarded me with the first smile I’d ever seen on his face, which served to reinforce how young he looked. ‘Thanks. You just made my night.’

I felt something spread through my belly the way the cherry syrup spread through his glass. ‘Any time,’ I said, putting more meaning into the words than I intended.

I left him alone to drink his cherry-flavoured soda, but there wasn’t quite so much tension in his shoulders as there had been when he walked in. That made me feel good. Bartending is about more than serving up drinks – it’s about understanding people and what they need. Or maybe I’m just trying to justify having the hots for a young cop.

After that, we were on a first-name basis. Some nights, he’d walk in with that familiar dejected expression and say, ‘It’s cherry time, Kayla.’ Then, if the bar was slow, he’d tell me what he’d been through that night. Sometimes he’d wait for me if I was busy and that gave me a little thrill, even though a part of me believed he only saw me as his bartending therapist.

I was there when Leo made his first suicide call and I listened without comment as he described the knife wounds on the woman’s wrist and how she looked almost happy in death. He told me about his love of animals and the first time he had to put a bullet in the head of an injured deer hit by a car. I dared to pat his hand when he told me about his first experience with a car full of drunk teenagers, half of them dead on the scene after a collision with a tree. That one brought tears to my eyes, thinking about my own two sons.

They weren’t all traumatic events; some were good career firsts. His first search warrant, his first drug arrest, the first court case he won. Other firsts were just plain embarrassing and he’d relate them in hushed tones, looking over his shoulder to make sure none of the other guys overheard his shame. Some things he could laugh at, like the first time he caught a couple going at it in the backseat of a car. That one made him blush and his blushing turned me on.

‘They didn’t even care that they were sitting there naked,’ he said, naïve incredulity in his voice.

‘Lust makes people do crazy things.’ I thought back to some of my antics, not all of them in the distant past. ‘Lust is the devil.’

He shrugged, as if he didn’t have a clue. ‘I guess.’

We had an easy camaraderie that wasn’t quite like what I had with the other guys in the precinct. There was no swagger to Leo, no macho bullshit to peel away like layers of an onion. At night, after I locked up the bar and headed home alone, I thought about Leo in ways that would surely make him blush. Naked, sweaty, hard. Part of my heightened lust was the fact that I wasn’t taking anyone home any more. Not for a lack of trying on their part – I just wasn’t interested. I tried not to dwell on the reason I wasn’t interested.

Then one night Leo came in looking like a man who’d lost his best friend. The lines etched into his exhausted, stricken face aged him by ten years. The bar was hopping more than usual that night, so it took me a good five minutes to make my way down to him.

‘Hey, what happened?’

‘Dead kid. Five years old,’ he said, as if giving a report. ‘Wandered off and drowned in the lake.’

‘Fuck. I’m sorry.’

He bent his head. I thought he was crying, but then I saw that he cradled something on his lap. ‘It was his,’ he said, holding up a bedraggled orange and white kitten in his big hands. ‘Parents said he was in the yard playing with the cat, last they saw. Thought the father was going to strangle it, so I took it.’

His words were punctuated by rough strokes of the cat’s fur. That little furball was all that was holding him together but a kitten wasn’t company enough to fight off his demons once the lights went out.

‘Let me get Quentin to close up shop for me and I’ll get you home.’

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ he said, a little too loudly.

I ignored him and walked to the other end of the bar. I snagged Quentin as he went by on his way to serve a round of beer to a bunch of rough-looking bikers. ‘Can you close for me? I’ve got something I need to do.’

Quentin looked from me to Leo. He’s been with me for seven years, as rough around the edges as some of our customers, but he’s a decent bartender and had become a good friend. ‘Got yourself another rescue?’

‘Something like that.’

He winked, but there was no humour in his knowing expression. ‘Just watch yourself, girl. That one’s liable to break your heart.’

I laughed. I knew about lust – lust could twist me six ways to Sunday. But love was for other people, and so was heartbreak. I hadn’t had enough time to fall in love before I’d fallen pregnant and love wasn’t a privilege I’d had as a young wife or a single mother. I hadn’t been heartbroken when my abusive ex-husband took off with one of my barmaids ten years ago and left me to finish raising two rambunctious boys. Love sure as hell wasn’t a luxury I could afford now. The idea of this sweet young kid breaking through my protective barrier, much less breaking my heart, was ludicrous.

I shook my head and made my way back to Leo, who was trying to keep a hold on the mewling kitten. ‘C’mon, rookie. Let’s get you home.’

‘I haven’t had my cherry soda yet.’

I knew he was in shock, so I humoured him. ‘I’ll make you one at home.’

I guess that’s when it dawned on him that I wasn’t taking him to his house. ‘Oh,’ he said, long and slow, drawing it out like a deep, relieved sigh. ‘OK.’

Out in the parking lot, I sized him up. ‘Are you OK to drive?’

He nodded.

I wasn’t convinced, but I let it go because I only live a couple miles from the bar. ‘Good. Just follow me.’

My house is on a quiet dead-end road. It’s not much, just a little two-bedroom bungalow. The place had seemed cramped with two six-foot teenagers eating me out of house and home, but now with them gone – Ty off to the Army and Nate off to college – it felt huge and lonely.

I waited to get out of my car until Leo’s truck pulled in on the gravel driveway behind me and he shut off his engine. He met me at the front door, the kitten tucked in the crook of his arm.

‘Hey,’ he said, as if we hadn’t just seen each other at the bar.

He was nervous, I realised. That didn’t surprise me, really. The short drive had given him time to think and nervousness was cutting through the shock. What surprised me was that I was nervous, too.

‘Come on in.’

I let us into the darkened house and turned on the lamp by the window, filling the room with a peaceful amber glow. I could feel Leo close behind me, his grief so large it felt like a third person in the room with us. The kitten let out a wail and that seemed to break the nervous tension between us.

‘Let’s get the little guy some food,’ I said. ‘I’ve got tuna and milk to hold him until you can get him some cat food.’

‘Thanks. That’s really nice of you,’ Leo said, his voice thick with a range of emotions. Fleetingly, I wondered if any of those emotions had my name on them.

I took the kitten and gave Leo a little nudge toward the couch. ‘Sit. I’ll be right back.’

The kitten was a cute little thing. I dumped tuna in a cereal bowl and sat the kitten in front of it while I found a box to line with newspaper for a makeshift litter box, and an old towel for a bed. Once I had everything set up by the radiator in the corner and the kitten was purring over his windfall, I returned to the living room.

Leo didn’t look as forlorn as he had at the bar, but he sure as hell didn’t look happy. He looked lost. Sad. I sat down next to him, our knees bumping.

‘Are you going to be OK?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. It was rough, but I think I’ll be OK.’

I nodded along with him. I only knew of one way to get over this nagging feeling that I was robbing the cradle and going to hell for it. I put my hand on the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. I half expected him to resist; I wasn’t entirely sure he knew my intentions or would even want what I had to offer. But his lips parted and he kissed me back, a quiet sigh whispering across my mouth.

The funny thing about older men is they forget how to kiss properly. They’re all about the fucking. They may spend some time on the foreplay to get a woman ready, but kissing takes a back seat to all the rest. Leo kissed like he knew it was as far as he was ever going to get with me and he was determined to get his rocks off that way. His lips were velvety soft, softer than any man I’d ever been with. It was like kissing a woman except for that little hint of invisible stubble above his upper lip. I moaned when he nibbled my bottom lip, nipping it with his teeth before sweeping his tongue over it to soothe the pinch of pain.

I slid my hands down to his broad shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch under my touch as if he was showing off his gym work. But no, he was just reaching for me, pulling me up against him so he could dip his tongue in my mouth. It was awkward, with him still dressed in his uniform and that damned utility belt getting in the way. I made an anxious little noise in my throat and he pulled back, searching my face.

‘Did I hurt you?’

I laughed. ‘It’s going to take a lot more than kissing me to hurt me, but we need to get you out of that damned uniform.’

I stood and took his hand. He followed me willingly to the bedroom. I didn’t turn on the light.

He tried to pull me into his arms once we were standing by my bed, but I slipped away from him. ‘First things first.’

I saw a flash of white teeth in the darkness. ‘You’re not teasing me, are you?’

‘Oh baby, I’m no tease,’ I said, my voice sounding a little breathless. ‘I just want you naked.’

He had no response to that.

I got his utility belt unfastened while he stripped off his shirt, then his vest, with a loud rip of Velcro, then his undershirt. I unfastened his pants and felt the bulge of his erection against my hand. I gave him a squeeze and smiled at his deep moan.

I yanked his pants and underwear down in one swift motion as I slid to my knees. His cock hung heavy in front of me, a shadowy outline of his arousal. I inhaled deeply, revelling in that musky masculine scent. That’s all I did, just kneel in front of him and wait.

‘Please,’ he said, so softly I almost didn’t hear him.

‘Please, what?’

I was teasing him now, trying to ratchet up his arousal – and mine. I like a man to tell me what to do. To make him quiver until he’s insistent and rough in his need. I didn’t know if Leo had it in him, but I was going to find out.

‘Don’t make me get the cuffs.’

Despite the threat, the way he said it told me he had no idea how to use handcuffs in a sexual way. The boy might have had the accoutrements for kinky sex at his disposal, but I’d bet my bar that was one cherry he hadn’t busted yet. I hadn’t been thinking beyond that night, but the possibilities excited me.

‘Hmm, you just might have to do that,’ I said, knowing he wouldn’t.

‘You are teasing me.’

‘Yeah, baby, I am.’ I waited a beat. ‘This time.’

I heard his sharp intake of breath at the promise of the future. ‘Suck it, Kayla,’ he said, his voice dropping an octave to become a demanding growl. ‘Now.’

I murmured my appreciation of his new-found dominance before I took him in my mouth. Without using my hands, I sucked the head between my lips and listened to his corresponding groan of approval. His erection jerked in my mouth and I took another inch of that velvety warmth.

He caught my long hair up in his hand and moved me gently along his length. Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world to fuck my mouth and intended to enjoy every second. I cupped his balls in one hand, feeling their heavy weight in my palm. He thrust harder into my mouth when I did that, giving my hair a little tug just the way I like it.

I used both hands then, one on his balls and one on his shaft, feeding his erection into my hungry mouth. I had only intended for this to be an appetiser for things to come, but he jerked his hips forward and his dick slipped to the back of my throat. I wasn’t ready for it and I gagged, the sound turning me on in my submissive haze of desire. Then he was coming and I was swallowing as fast as I could to keep from gagging more.

I nursed his dick as he came, my hands braced on his thighs to hold him still. I felt a flood of disappointment, my aching pussy still untouched and needing to be filled. But I held him in my mouth until he went soft, the bittersweet taste of him thick on my tongue.

‘Damn, baby.’ He still held my hair in his hand, moving my head slowly back and forth on his dick. ‘That was amazing.’

What was amazing was that his dick was hardening, just moments after his orgasm. I pulled back to look up at him. ‘You’re getting hard again.’

He just laughed, a full-bellied laugh of masculine pride.

‘Oh, hell,’ I said in wonder, stroking his rising erection. ‘Praise God for younger men.’

Leo pulled me up from the floor and tugged my T-shirt over my head, then thumbed my hard nipples through the thin fabric of my bra. I moaned, feeling a corresponding zing of sensation in my clit. I worked the zipper of my jeans down with trembling fingers. Then it was a frenzy of four hands on my body, with him trying to unfasten my bra while I got my jeans off.

He turned me towards the bed and stumbled, his pants and underwear wrapped around his ankles. He hadn’t even taken his work boots off yet.

‘Why don’t you get yourself undressed and I’ll take care of myself?’

I was stretched out naked on the bed by the time he unlaced his boots and got the rest of his uniform off. He stood beside the bed, hesitating.

‘What?’ I said, afraid he’d changed his mind, even if his dick hadn’t.

‘Can we turn on a light?’ he asked. ‘I want to see you.’

I flipped the bedside light on, the amber glow showing me his hard, muscular body. He had an expression of near awe on his face, the wire rims of his glasses winking in the faint light as he stared at me.

‘Damn, you’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘I want you so bad.’

Then he did something that made me catch my breath: he slowly and deliberately took off his glasses and put them on my bedside table. Then he climbed on the bed and knelt between my spread thighs. I could feel the wetness pooling at the opening of my pussy, I was so ready for him. I reached for his hips to pull him into me, but he leaned back.

‘Who’s teasing who now?’

‘I’ve never –’ he started, then paused and looked up at the ceiling. ‘I mean, I haven’t been with a –’

‘Oh, fuck.’ My whole body tensed up. ‘You’re a virgin?’

Damn. He really was as cherry as the drinks I made for him. It was one thing that he was a decade and a half younger than me, but I didn’t think I could deflower a virgin. Never mind that I’d just blown him, it didn’t seem right to do the deed just to scratch an itch, especially after the rough night he’d had. I was so wrapped up in my moral dilemma that it took me a minute to realise he was laughing at me.

‘God, I know I look innocent, but I’m no virgin,’ he said, shaking his head as he laughed. ‘I just meant, I’ve never been with an older woman before. All my girlfriends have been my age. I just don’t want to screw this up.’

To punctuate his comment, he ran his hand up the inside of my thigh, so close to where I wanted him that I gasped. I didn’t feel older than him. I didn’t feel like the one with more experience. I didn’t feel in control of the situation at all. My body was humming with a need only Leo could satisfy.

‘It’s OK,’ I managed to say as I wrapped my hand around his wrist and brought it to my pussy. ‘I’ve never fucked a boy so much younger than me.’

Taking his dick in his other hand, he ran it between my legs, wetting the tip with my juices before rubbing the head against my swollen clit. ‘I’m no boy,’ he growled. ‘I’m a fucking man.’

And then this man was fucking me. He didn’t take his time like he had with my mouth; he pushed the full length of his dick into me in one swift stroke. I went from aching emptiness to almost painful fullness in an instant.

He stayed like that for a minute, buried inside me so deep we were breathing in unison. This was round two for him and his control was better, but I was just as hot for him now as I had been when we left the bar. I pressed my feet to the bed and raised my hips, hoping he’d take the hint.

His soft laugh was indulgent and knowing, with no trace of the tender young rookie I knew. Or thought I knew. ‘You want my dick?’ he asked, giving me another quick thrust.

I whimpered, raising my hips again to meet the next thrust. ‘Oh, yes, baby.’

He stretched out over me and I wrapped my legs around his muscular back and gripped his ass, pulling him deeper. He rocked his pelvis, bottoming out inside me, giving me another twinge of pain that fuelled the ache of desire.

I’d expected hard fucking with no subtleties, but this was something else. Slow and wet, our bodies pressed together in anxious need, with all night to get there. He kissed and sucked my neck, trailed kisses down between my breasts before licking my nipples until I whimpered. He sucked my nipples in time to his thrusts, my pussy making wet slurping sounds as he slid in and out. The sheet beneath me felt damp and the room smelled of sex.

My orgasm built slowly, spiralling out from low in my belly. I felt the first tremors and rocked against him. He sat back on his heels and pressed my knees to the bed, with just the head of his dick inside me. I was splayed open before him, on the verge of coming hard. I writhed on the bed while he watched me.

‘Fuck me, Leo,’ I gasped. ‘Please.’

He thrust into me like he had that first time, the whole length of his dick pushing into me in one startling stroke. He pulled back to the tip and slammed it home again. His deep, unrelenting thrusts started slowly and built to a pace that made it difficult for me to catch my breath. I gasped and screamed as I came and kept coming, clutching at the pillow beneath my head.

‘That’s it,’ he coaxed in that gravel-rough voice. ‘Come on my dick.’

He kept saying it, demanding it, his voice and his dick beating a rhythm into my body that was merciless and impossible to ignore. My orgasm seemed to go on for ever and he kept fucking me in long, slow strokes that rubbed against that sweet spot in my pussy. I arched up, taking him as far as I could, then pressed against the bed when it became too much to bear. He reached under me, gripped my ass and pulled me up so I couldn’t escape.

‘I’m so close, baby.’

‘Come for me,’ I said, as demanding as he was.

He was quiet, his body going still and tense as his dick throbbed inside me like a separate entity. Then he let out a soulful groan. I rocked my hips to milk every last sensation from his sweat-slick body, my hands soothing the muscles in his back.

We lay like that for a long time until he got too heavy for me and I nudged him off. He had that self-satisfied smile of a man who knows he’s done it right. I couldn’t argue with that.

He rested his head on my shoulder, his eyelashes tickling my cheek. ‘That was so … nice.’

I laughed. ‘I think “nice” is an understatement.’

‘Yeah, but my brain is scrambled and I can’t think of anything else.’

‘Well, if I’m your first older woman, I think maybe I need to make you another cherry soda, huh?’

‘Yeah, I guess so.’

The kitten meowed plaintively just then from somewhere in the house. I’d forgotten what had brought us here tonight. Leo had too, judging by the way his body jerked against me at that lonesome cry. The wails grew louder until I heard the snag of claws in fabric and felt the soft press of fur in the small of my damp back.

‘He thinks you’re his mama,’ Leo said.

‘They all do. So, are you going to keep him?’ I didn’t know what else to say. What could I say to this young guy I had nothing in common with but a couple of mind-blowing orgasms?

‘I can’t have pets at my place. Maybe you could keep him?’

‘Sure.’ I yawned, feeling the tug of sleep. ‘I’m used to taking in strays.’

‘And maybe I could come back and visit him?’

He hadn’t caught my double meaning, but I caught his. I sighed, but it was a sigh of acquiescence. I’d gone this far, I might as well go all the way, I told myself. I was in no hurry to get rid of him.

‘Maybe, but you’ve got to promise not to fall in love with me. That wouldn’t go well for either of us.’

Curling a leg over my hip, he nuzzled my neck the way the kitten was nuzzling my naked back. ‘I won’t fall in love with you.’

I turned my head and stared at Leo’s contented expression, a smile playing on those soft, full lips. He would fall in love with me and it would be messy and emotional and it wouldn’t be good for either of us. I closed my eyes and decided I would deal with it when it happened.

Hell, maybe this time I’d fall in love. With a cherry on top.

Fixing What’s Broken

Bang. Bang. Bang.

It had been going on all morning. Banging, often followed by cursing. I glared at the door to the garage. What the hell was he doing out there? Better question: why wasn’t he in here doing me?

Bang! Bang! ‘Stupid fucking car!’ Bang!

I couldn’t take it any more. My head was starting to throb in time to the banging he was doing – which was a far cry from the banging I wanted to be doing. I opened the door and tried to keep my voice even and serene. ‘You OK out here, sweetheart?’

Mark glanced around the hood of his jet-black ’69 Mustang. Actually, glowered was a better word to describe what he was doing. ‘Does it sound like I’m doing OK? This piece of shit engine is giving me fits. It used to purr like a kitten and now it rattles like an old man on a respirator. I’m a shit mechanic if I can’t make this baby run.’

I bit my tongue to keep from stating the obvious solution. It was a familiar argument. Every time I suggested buying a new car – even a new Mustang – Mark went postal. He was a mechanic by trade and would not hear of parting with his ‘baby’ no matter how many dollars – or hours – he ended up dedicating to the cause of keeping her running. Or how many hours it cost us in matrimonial togetherness, apparently.