Page 34 of An Ex Affair

I wiggled against his erection, tingles of pleasure rocking through my core, even through a layer of clothing. Colson cocked his head to the side and tilted his wrist to look at the big black watch he wore.

“You still have thirty-five minutes of the hour you paid for.”

I was pinned to his locker like a bug in a science experiment. His hips, his hand, and his hard chest kept me in place. But he wasn’t giving me what I wanted. What I needed. It had been a while since my last non-self-induced orgasm. I’d learned quickly that getting involved in Hollywood led to complications, so unless the man was overwhelmingly worth it, I didn’t bother.

My legs tried to climb Colson’s torso like a tree, but he squeezed his fingers again, stopping me. That cocky grin was almost a sneer now, alerting me to the game he was playing. Well, fuck that. I could play the game right back.

I shrugged, though the movement was thwarted a bit by his body pinning me in place. “Not much we can do in that amount of time.”

Colson gave my upper body a lazy once-over that had me squirming again. “Come on now, princess. There’s a whole world of things we can do in thirty-five minutes. Don’t you remember?”

I felt like I was going to pass out. Breathing this hard at our age probably wasn’t good for us. But I wasn’t going to give Colson the last word that easily. “I must have forgotten. You’ll have to remind me.”

His grin was wicked. Moving ever so slowly, he dipped his head, rubbing his cheek against mine. The five o’clock shadow on his cheeks abraded my skin in a delicious way. He inhaleddeeply, like he was an animal, scenting me. His lips and then his tongue traced my jawline around to the other side of my face where he rubbed himself against me again, inhaling in my ear. He rumbled something I couldn’t make out above my obvious panting. He moved his lips closer to my ear, letting them brush against the shell with each word he whispered.

“I can get you naked. Find that sweet spot with my tongue that always made you scream.”

“Yes,” I said on a whoosh of an exhale. My leg tightened around his waist.

He pulled his head back, a hard glint in his eyes I’d never seen before. “Or I could push you down on your knees for leaving me. Make you take my cock out of my pants and take my frustrations out on your mouth.”

The visual of it had me trembling. He felt it, I knew he did. That grin was positively mocking now.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, dirty girl.”

I opened my mouth, not sure if I intended to tell him to go to hell or to beg him to let me do just that. Didn’t matter because the door to the fire station banged open at that exact moment. Colson’s hand on my throat was suddenly gone and he pushed me down his body to stand on my own two shaking legs.

Joey came whistling into the room and stopped short at the doorway. Colson and I both looked in his direction, probably looking exactly like two people who’d gotten caught making out. Joey blinked like he wasn’t sure he could believe his eyes. I pressed further into the locker next to Colson’s, determined not to let my legs give out.

“Sorry, friends. Am I interrupting something?”

“What do you want?” Colson snapped.

Joey made a valiant effort not to smile. “Captain wants to know who’s taking the animals home.”

Colson leaned toward me, my heart hammering yet again. But he reached behind me, snatching a shirt from his locker and shoving it over his head before slamming the door shut and striding away from me. He reached down to adjust his pants, which made Joey muffle a laugh. Without a backward glance, Colson was gone, door clicking shut behind him.

Joey looked at me. I looked at Joey. For the first time in forever, I had no idea what to say. How do you explain making out with your ex-husband? Joey tapped his thumb against his thigh and cleared his throat.

“Careful with that, Tully. I was here after you left. I don’t want to see him go through that again.” And then he walked out too.

My legs gave up and I sank to the ground, my back to the lockers. I put my hands to my face and focused on breathing normally. Five counts in, five counts out. Repeat. When I had my breath under control, I lifted my head again and evaluated what just happened.

We simply got out of control for a second there.

Habit. That’s what it was. Simply an old habit we’d reverted to because of proximity. Another week or two and Mama’s house would be fixed up enough to move back in. I just needed to avoid being alone with Colson, and all this old attraction would fade. It had to. I couldn’t live here in Blueball and have an affair with my ex-husband. That would be…emotional annihilation. We’d broken up once before and once was enough for me.

With that decided, I pushed to my feet and squared my shoulders. I needed to be careful. No flirting, no teasing, no being in rooms with him all alone. I could do that.

With a few more deep breaths and the repetition of affirmations that made me feel like I was on the right path, I headed back outside and helped the crew take down the event. It was dirty work, cleaning up after the entire town and all theirkids. Colson always seemed to choose a cleanup job that was on the opposite side of the property from me, which was great for the avoidance I was going for. He got the animals in the trailer Warrick pulled up to the curb with. Frank whined about cleaning up after the animals, but one look from Captain shut him up.

Several hours later, when everything was clean and the guys on shift headed back inside the station, Colson gave me a head lift and walked to his truck. Guess that was my cue to leave. I got in his truck and we both didn’t say a damn word to each other the whole way to his mom’s house. Which was fine. More than fine. Preferable actually. I tried not to inhale through my nose or else I got a whiff of the sweat-and-shaving-cream-and-soap scent that had made me lose my head earlier. I even rolled the window down for some fresh air, earning me a frown from Colson. But whatever. A girl had to do what a girl had to do.

He parked the car in the long driveway and I slid out, making a beeline for the house. He took his time, probably removing the tools in the back of his truck. I wasn’t sticking around to help, that was for sure.

“We’re home!” I called out as I entered the house.

Gigi answered from the living room where I found her working on another sewing project. “Oh, Tully. That fundraiser was spectacular!” She shoved her glasses up on her head and set the sewing aside.

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