Page 53 of An Ex Affair

She shot me a grin and then paid attention to the road as we wound through downtown Blueball. “Did you have a good shift?”

This felt like everything I’d ever wanted, shooting the shit with Tully at the end of the workday. The same scene I’d watched with Joey and Gabi and felt jealousy. I couldn’t pretend any longer that I was just in this for the sex. It was so much more.

“Has your agent been trying to get ahold of you?” I asked abruptly.

Tully’s leg tensed under my hand, which wasn’t a good sign. I snatched my hand away and studied her expression. She was good at acting now, but her eyes could still give her away.

“Yeah, she has. Why?”

“I guess I’m just wondering if you’re making plans for a new show. Making plans to leave.”

Tully pulled off the road onto the hunting trail that led to the vacant land behind the high school football field. The car bounced over the pot holes until we made it to the spot all the teens made out at back in our day. The huge trunks of the pine trees made for good cover, and so did the branches that reached up into the sky and blocked out the sun. Tully shut off the car and turned to me.

“No, Colson. I’m not making any plans to leave. In fact, I haven’t even listened to her voicemail.” She pulled her phone out of her back pocket. “Here. I’ll show you.”

Her thumbs flew over the screen for a minute. Then she turned it around so I could see what she wrote. The picture she attached was a selfie of her and the rest of the crew on their jobsite. They were sweaty and so covered in sawdust to be almost unrecognizable. It was a hilarious picture.

Me: Sorry for not responding, but I’m happily employed here in Blueball with zero plans to come back to Hollywood. Hope all is well with you.

She waited until my gaze met hers over the phone, indicating I’d read the text. Then she turned the phone around and hit send before tucking it back in her pocket.

“I’m not leaving,” she said quietly, looking deep into my eyes.

The anxiety that had crept in the second Gabi made her comment about the agent slowly drained away. But, fuck, my heart felt battered knowing this woman could still bring me to my knees.

Tully tilted her head. “How about we eat dessert before lunch?”

I lifted an eyebrow and she shot me a grin before climbing over the center console and into the back seat. She wiggled out of her jeans and tossed her tank top at my face. I found myself climbing back there before she got her bra off. I may have cursed a few times, and there were several bruises already developing, but I managed to get naked with Tully in the back seat of her car, worries from earlier forgotten.

Her foot braced on the passenger seat headrest and the top of my head was jammed against the back window, but none of that mattered as I slid inside her heat. Why was every time so fucking good with her? I didn’t believe in magical pussy, but maybe it was the whole woman who was magical. The seat belt was digging into my thigh, but that didn’t stop me from acting like a goddamn teenager with his first backseat action. My skin held miles of goose bumps, she felt so good. Hopefully I wasn’t hurting her with my fast pace. The top of her head was hitting the door handle but her moans seemed like pleasurable ones,not pain. I was barely holding on by a thread, hoping I could get her there before I lost control.

Tully’s eyes fluttered shut. Her fingernails dug into my shoulders, giving me something else to focus on instead of her pussy contracting around me. She shouted my name and arched her back on her orgasm, spurring me to thrust faster and harder in the cramped space.

“Aghh!” I shouted, spilling into her a few seconds later with an intense pain in my hamstring cutting short the pleasure. I whimpered and fell on top of her, grabbing for my leg.

Tully started giggling in between pants of air. “What…the hell…happened?”

I buried my nose in her neck and gritted my teeth. “Hamstring cramp. Did an intense leg workout yesterday with the boys.”

I ended up having to slide out the back door, bare ass first, to stretch out my hamstring. The woodland creatures got an eyeful, I was sure. Tully’s peals of laughter carried us all the way home where we finally ate the picnic lunch she packed. I really, really hoped the high school hadn’t posted cameras around that part of the property in recent years.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Tully

I woke up deliciously sore,mostly from good old-fashioned hard work at my job, but also from the shenanigans in the back seat of my car. I didn’t know when we’d lost the flexibility, but that location for future nookie was officially off the list. Twisting my head to wake up Colson, I discovered cold sheets. I frowned, sitting up and pushing my curly hair off my face. Where the hell did he go? We’d planned to sleep in on our day off, have a slow morning together, and then go meet Gabi and Joey at the farmer’s market downtown.

Getting up and splashing water on my face in the tiny bathroom, I was irrationally irritated that he was gone. I’d somehow gotten addicted to his arms around me while we slept. We still hadn’t made love in his bed, but every night that he wasn’t working, he’d snuggled up to me all night long, creating this cocoon of safety and comfort that I now craved.

Throwing on a clean pair of jeans and a blouse that gave a little lift and push to the small breasts genetics gave me, I stepped outside and saw that Colson’s truck was gone.

“Come on, Tully. Don’t be this pathetic.” I had to give myself a pep talk as I walked over to Mama’s house, trying to ward off the disappointment of him being gone.

What I should be doing was using this time to come up with a plan. I couldn’t keep sleeping with Colson and not tell him how I felt. But I couldn’t just blurt out that I loved him. For one thing, he probably wouldn’t believe me. I’d said that many times before and then I’d gone and left him. But I also couldn’tnottell him how I felt.

The rocks crunched under my feet as I walked toward the lawn area in back of the main house that Colson kept trimmed up for Mama. The days were getting warmer and I knew it was only a matter of a few weeks before the afternoons were scorching. Dips into the river would become a necessity for cooling off. The seasons were changing and I was still here in Blueball.

I’d seen the look of fear in Colson’s eyes when he asked me about Joselyn’s phone calls. It wasn’t fair of me to keep living in this limbo with Colson when he clearly had trust issues because of our divorce. If I wanted to be with Colson, which I most certainly did, I needed to put down roots. Prove to him that I intended to stay. Hell, I needed to do all that for myself too. I deserved to live in a place I loved that loved me back. LA had been fun for awhile, but it had lost its luster long before I got fired. It was cutthroat in an underhanded way that took you by surprise when you let your guard down. Here in Blueball, I didn’t have to have my guard up at all. People were exactly who they claimed to be and everyone looked out for each other. Case in point, look how many people told me to leave Colson’s heart alone. They had his back and I wanted some of that connection.

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