Reckless in Moonlight (8 page)

He made all the green lights as he wound on automatic pilot through the deserted streets to his apartment across town near the hospital. His clothing chafed against his sore but satisfied cock. After making love in the pool, he and Dana had moved the party back indoors, where they sacrificed another rubber. A vision of Dana sitting astride, riding his rod to orgasm—hers and his both—caused his cock to harden despite the sensitivity. He hoped he could complete his rounds without lugging around a woody.

His parents’ sexy neighbor had bewitched him the moment he’d laid eyes on her, and his attraction had only intensified since he’d spent time with her, fucked her. Beneath her confident demeanor lurked an appealing vulnerability. The unpleasantness of the divorce hadn’t embittered her; she remained open to new experiences—or maybe because of it. He’d had a hunch from the beginning how good they’d be together if given the chance.

He rubbed a sore spot on his neck and chuckled. Overcome by passion, he hadn’t even realized she was biting him until after he’d crashed back to earth.
Damn
! He laughed aloud again.

Dana was a sexy, hot woman, and if he was a few years younger than her, so what? It was ridiculous to box happiness into tiny packages as if it were a toy sold for a specific age group.
Sexual fulfillment for ages twenty-five to thirty
.
Platonic companionship for the widowed elderly
. Working in the medical field, he saw all too often people whose opportunity at happiness ended tragically and abruptly. He also believed that while one could be friends with many, true chemistry was rare.

He hoped he’d laid her reservations about their age difference to rest.

* * * *

The sun beat down with the full force of day, but Dana was oblivious to its oppressive heat as she lounged on her patio, enjoying a cup of coffee. She’d awakened midmorning to the satisfying scent of Lon and sex on her sheets. She’d lain in bed for half an hour, enjoying the memories of the most passionate evening of her life.

The way Lon had looked at her and touched her filled the empty spaces carved by years of neglect. For the first time in a long while, she’d captured and held a man’s undivided attention.

God, that man could fuck. And lick. And kiss. And stroke. Lon considered it his mission that she didn’t just come but was fully, totally satisfied, and then he would rouse her again for an encore performance.

As she moved throughout the day, her sore pussy would grouch, as would her reddened, tender nipples, but, if given a chance, she would take more of the same in an instant. For years, she’d sublimated her wilder sexual urges to Roger’s more conservative tastes. She hadn’t realized how boxed in she’d felt until she’d let loose with Lon. Dana sighed in contentment, smiling to herself over the rim of her cup. All in all, a most excellent evening.

She’d left her mark on Lon too. She hadn’t even realized she was biting him until he’d said something. But he’d taken it well. What a trooper. She giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

Dana jumped, nearly spilling her coffee. Her daughter stood in the patio doorway.

“Katie, hi.” Dana set her coffee on the table and motioned her daughter to join her. “What’s going on?”

Katie plopped into the chair where Lon had sat. Even with her hair pulled into a messy ponytail and wearing frayed cutoffs, a faded tank, and rubber drugstore flip-flops, she looked beautiful. Dana marveled that she and Roger had created such a pretty young woman. It was as if Katie had gotten the best genes from both of them and none of the bad ones. She had long, thick espresso-colored hair, huge brown eyes, and perfect teeth that hadn’t needed braces. She topped Dana’s average height by several inches.

“I came for a swim.” Katie fingered the straps peeking out from her tank.

“I’m glad you did. Have you eaten? Can I get you anything?” Dana pushed against the arms of the chair.

Katie gestured for her to remain seated. “I’m fine. I grabbed something on the way over. Jillian, Marissa, and I are going to a movie later.” Katie glanced up at the tree-house tower. “It’s quiet this morning. Where are the hellions?”

“Camping.” Dana thought of Lon. Had it been only two days since he’d emerged from the fort? The sparkling pool caught her attention, its shimmer whispering of moonlight naughtiness. Dana averted her gaze from its sly glint and focused on her daughter. “You’re welcome to use the pool anytime, but it might be best if you called first.” Dana strove for a casual tone, glad she’d had the foresight to clear the table of the previous evening’s dinner remains.

Katie frowned. “Why?”

“My life is…a bit unsettled right now.” Dana did not doubt Katie would be okay with the age disparity and with her seeing someone, but she wanted to be sure she
was
dating before she delivered any formal announcements or introductions. A fuckfest did not necessarily a relationship make.

“You mean with the divorce and all.”

And all
. “Yes.” Dana nodded.

“Okay.” Katie shrugged, stood, and shucked out of her clothes to reveal a modest nautical-striped bikini.

“You can use one of those.” Dana pointed to the unused towels left over from the previous night’s moonlight escapade.

Katie nodded and scurried toward the deep end but stopped dead before jumping in. “Oh, Mother. Yuck!”

“What is it?” Dana got up and rushed over.

A circle of latex floated in the water. Dana almost moaned. This wasn’t how she’d wanted to announce she was seeing someone. Dana pressed her lips together to smother an embarrassed giggle and dropped to her haunches to scoop out the condom she’d lost the night before. Katie latched on to her wrist.

“Don’t touch it! You don’t know where it’s been.”

A tinge of heat stung Dana’s cheeks. “It’s okay. It looks unused. It’s still rolled up, and the chlorine would have killed anything anyway.”

Katie looked doubtful. “Still. Use this.” She grabbed a net hooked on the fence and extracted the condom with as much care as she would use to defuse a bomb. “I wonder how it got there,” she mused as she deposited the offensive article in a poolside trash receptacle.

“No telling.” Dana shrugged and pretended to check her poolside flowerpots to see if they needed watering, to cover the grin on her face. She heard Katie dive into the water.

Dana sauntered back to her chair, her pussy gleefully protesting every step.

* * * *

Wearing swim goggles and nothing else, Dana sliced through the water in an efficient crawl, breathing every third stroke. In contrast to her movements less than a week ago, now she could cut through the pool with a minimum of effort and splash.

The heat wave had broken midweek to the relief of the residents of Creek’s Crossing. The days remained hot, but the nights cooled to a bearable warmth. The moon turned gibbous, on the wane to a sliver of its former self, and the crazies among the public had retreated and stopped calling the power company. The Corbins were still on their camping trip, but with their return, Dana’s privacy would end. She wanted to take advantage of every last minute she had, so each evening after work she’d shed her clothing and took to the pool naked for exercise and meditation.

Just like her, Lon had also been working long hours. She’d tunneled through a mountain of work that had piled up when she’d been dealing with the heat-wave fallout. Their respective work demands left little time for her and Lon to connect, save for a couple of brief get-togethers and nightly phone calls, which did little to assuage her growing need.

After Lon’s instruction, Dana found she was getting quite good at swimming, and she actually enjoyed the exercise, but submerging herself in cold water and doing laps until she was exhausted failed to relieve her sexual arousal. The pool reminded her of the time she and Lon had spent there. Images flashed through her mind like a private porno flick stuck on replay.

She couldn’t forget the sight and sensation of his face buried in her pussy, the erotic contrast of the rough bristles of his jaw with the softness of his lips and tongue, and the intoxication of his cock sliding into her as currents of water splashed over her and waves of passion crashed within. She remembered Lon’s groans and heady exhortations mingling with the slap of the water against the tiles. Their pool encounter erased the innocent childhood memories evoked by the smell of chlorine and replaced them with X-rated ones. Each time she stepped out onto her patio, she’d gotten wet before she ever stuck a toe in the water.

“When did you learn how to swim?” Her ex’s voice interrupted her reverie.

Dana anchored her feet on the pool’s floor and stood chest-deep in the water. She pulled her goggles off and let them dangle around her neck and glared at him. “Do you ever knock?”

“I did knock, but you couldn’t hear because you’re out here. Do you ever wear a bathing suit? Anybody could come along.” Roger glanced at the fort.

“Anybody just did. And don’t talk to me about suits.” She forced away the image of him and the bimbette cavorting in her pool.

He shuffled his feet on the deck. “Seriously, I didn’t know you could swim.”

“You don’t know a lot of things.”

“I brought the divorce papers for you to sign.”

“Why didn’t you let your attorney handle it?”

“I’m here now. You’re here. Let’s sign.”

“Get me my towel.” She pointed toward a chaise on the patio. Too bad Roger’s sense of fair play hadn’t evolved before they’d each paid their respective attorneys five hundred bucks an hour to wrangle.

She waded to the pool’s edge. Once again, her ex had caught her naked, but at least she wasn’t masturbating this time. As she hauled herself out of the pool, Roger leaned down to give her a hand, then gave her the towel. She wrapped it around herself sarong style. “Thanks.” She blotted her face with the end and squeezed the water from her hair.

He nodded. “I left the paperwork on the dining table.”

Dana started into the house, but Roger touched her elbow, stilling her. She arched her eyebrows in question. He met her eyes and sighed.

“You still look good, Dana.”

What the fuck
? She stared at the forty-nine-year old paunchy, balding stranger she’d been married to for twenty-three years. If she looked so good, why was he screwing other women? Why did he leave? And what the hell made him think she gave a damn now?

Her thoughts must have played out on her face, because he held up his hands as if surrendering to an attacker. “I’m trying to be nice.”

“Nice?” She loaded a scathing retort on her tongue and readied to pull the trigger when she realized she would be doing it more out of habit than real anger. She analyzed her emotions and discovered the resentment she’d lugged around for so long had dissipated. She sighed. “Let’s go sign the papers.”

When they entered the dining room, Roger seemed to be panting. Dana eyed his pinched pale face. Sweat beaded above his lip and trickled down his temples.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just a little out of breath.” He sank into the chair at the head of the table he’d occupied when their family was still intact.

Dana frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Despite what he’d done to her, enough residual regard remained not to want Roger to keel over. At least not in her house.

“I’m fine. Really.” He motioned for her to sit.

She itched to ask how he intended to keep pace with a twenty-two-year-old when a short stroll from the pool knocked the wind out his sails, but it wouldn’t be “nice.” Karma had a way of boomeranging, and as she was now dating someone almost as young, she was superstitious enough not to taunt the fates. However, she gloated silently.
She
was keeping up just fine.

She sat in her old place, the chair to his left.

Roger passed her the papers, and she scanned them. The house would be appraised, after which time she had sixty days to refinance and buy out his half of the equity. “Looks good,” she agreed and signed next to Roger’s scrawl.

Fair, he’d called it a week ago when he’d conceded to let her have the house. It was all so odd, his sudden capitulation after months of stubborn refusal. Why now, she wondered. What had changed his mind?

“How is…Mila?” Saying the girl’s name felt awkward, as if her lips had been shot full of Novocain. Dana had never asked about the other woman. Never had wanted to hear her name mentioned, had never spoken it.

Roger arched his eyebrows in surprise. “She’s fine.”

Dana glanced at the document she’d just signed. “So things are progressing between you?”

“My relationship with Mila has nothing to do with the house. I don’t know why I acted like such an asshole. I guess I thought if I pissed you off, I’d feel less guilty about what I’d done.”

Dana pursed her lips. “I wasn’t aware you felt guilty.”

“Of course I felt guilty. I still do.” He smoothed a hand over his balding head, dislodged his comb-over. “Maybe it’s like you said—maybe this is the result of a midlife crisis, and it will all come back to bite me in the ass. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to pursue this chance at happiness.” He paused and took a breath. Dana was relieved to see the color had returned to his face.

“I met Mila’s parents the other day,” he said.

“Oh?” Dana leaned on her elbows. Once she might have fired off a sarcastic zinger, but curiosity held her tongue.

“Her father is a year younger than I am.” His tone told Dana the meeting hadn’t gone well. If Roger was surprised by the disapproval, he was the only one.

Dana thought of Lon. Would his parents view her as a lascivious Mrs. Robinson who had seduced their son? How would she and Lon handle the pressures? “You had to know how your relationship would be received.”

“I did.” Roger grimaced and massaged his knuckles. His hands showed the wear of a half century of living in the roughness of his skin, the slight arthritic swell of his joints. She could imagine the contrast of Mila’s youthful hands next to his. Roger’s chest lifted and fell in a deep breath. “I love her, Dana. She says she loves me. A part of me wonders if she’ll be gone when the novelty wears off, when she realizes what an old fart I am.”