Chapter 1

Her boy.

Her first and, as it had turned out, her only boy. Over the years, Corinne had thought of her boy in the middle of hot afternoons when she yearned for a glass of iced coffee, sweetened to perfection, and there was nobody to prepare it just the way she liked it. Nobody to bring it to her. She’d thought of him, too, when she itched and twitched for something that seemed to dance beyond her grasp, leaving her empty when she should’ve had everything she could want to fill her up. She thought of him now in the darkness, stretched out on the king-sized bed that she could still only bring herself to use half of.

Corinne thought of her boy when she wanted to remember that once upon a time, she had not been an overworked and overwhelmed single mother in a precariously situated job with an unexpectedly burdensome mortgage and an ex-husband disgustingly contented with his new wife and family. Once upon a time, Corinne had been cherished and worshipped and adored.

She’d been a fucking queen.

Well, that had been one long damned time ago, Corinne told herself as she rolled over to slap some sense into her alarm clock. It would’ve been way too tempting to snuggle back into her pillow’s lumpy comfort, but it was already half an hour past the time she ought to have been up and in the shower. Also, the bed itself was a tangled mess, sheets kicked off in the night because she’d been way too hot in this late September heat wave for anything but her pajamas.

Once she’d slept naked in her boy’s embrace, neither of them minding the stickiness and the sweat. The memory of it sent her rolling again, this time to bury her face in the pillow to stifle a long, low groan. Frustration, at first, mingled with a latent but stirring arousal.

She’d giving up dating over the past six months or so. Her last few dates had been all right. Guys who were nice enough. Guys with kids and mortgages of their own and jobs they weren’t certain were going to last the month. She’d gone out with one guy five times before they slept together, and after that she’d found herself unable to rouse enough interest to return his calls. The sex had been bland, which was bad enough, but worse, in the morning he’d stared her down over scrambled eggs and made mouth noises about “the future.” It should’ve been what she wanted. It was what her single girlfriends said they wanted while Corinne nodded along.

The truth was, she wanted something far less…conventional.

She’d looked for it, casually, in the first months after her divorce. The specialty dating site had seemed promising enough—you could check off your likes and dislikes the same as the vanilla sites, but this one included choices like “pony play” and “cuckolding.” Identifying herself as a dominant woman had led to an influx of men fairly demanding she top them. Bewildered by the attention, Corinne had tried to start off with conversations that had usually turned quickly into something else. To her surprise and disgust, she’d found herself inadvertently domming a few guys who’d managed to piss her off enough to make her reply with more rudeness than she would have otherwise. That had been enough for her, and back to vanilla land it had been, without much more success.

That long, low moan turned into a strangled sob she tried to hide by biting her pillow, but though her jaw clenched, the pitiful sound still leaked out. She wept, hating herself at first before giving in to the emotions ripping through her, leaving her raw. She was forty-two years old, mother of two, divorced for almost two years, and she didn’t weep for anything that had been her life with Douglas.

She wept, instead, for the loss of her boy.

Corinne forced the tears away quickly, refusing to indulge in a hurt that had happened fifteen years ago. She could’ve screamed if she wanted. There was nobody to hear her. Her younger sister, Caitlyn, had shown up a few weeks ago with a duffel bag and a story she still hadn’t told, but she’d gone to Delaware to visit their parents for the weekend. The kids had been with their dad last night to attend a dance recital for their stepsister Allyson and would stay there through the weekend. Douglas’s new wife—Karen—Allyson, and another stepsister Hannah, as well as a new puppy, were guaranteed to keep them occupied. In the beginning, Peyton had called home four or five times a day and texted quadruple that amount, while her younger brother Tyler had simply refused to talk about anything that went on at their dad’s. It was a good thing, Corinne reminded herself, that the kids had adjusted to their new family. But now, in the big, silent house that had once been their family home and was now empty half the time, all she could think about was how fucking lonely it was without them.

Nothing good ever came of wallowing. Corinne got up and out of bed. She wasn’t going to have time to stop at the diner this morning, though if she rushed a little she’d at least have the chance to brew a single cup of mediocre coffee to take with her.

In the shower, she got beneath the water before it had time to get hot. With a yelp, dancing and shivering, she turned so the spray could pound her back and shoulders, where she carried most of her tension. She put a hand flat on the wall as she reached for her washcloth with the other. She couldn’t find it, though she was sure she’d hung a fresh one on the small hook just last night. Dammit. Teeth chattering, Corinne looked around but found no cloth, which meant she’d need to step out and get one.

These were the moments when being alone hit her so hard. When there was nobody to shout for, “Hey, can you grab me that washcloth?” Nobody to argue over what to watch on television. Nobody to remember to bring up the garbage pails, except her, and she always, always forgot.

Of course, one of the huge reasons why she and Douglas had ended up splitting was because he hadn’t been the sort of man to do those things for her, at least not without a lot of reminding. It had always been so difficult with him. He wasn’t a bad guy. Not a terrible husband. He was simply more interested in whatever it was he wanted than he’d ever been in taking care of anything else.

Her boy would’ve made sure the cloth was hanging on her hook before she even got in the shower, and if he hadn’t, he’d have been there at once to bring it to her. Thinking of this as the water at last warmed to a reasonable temperature, Corinne let herself sink once more into memories.

He’d learned her. Known her. Sure, things had turned bad and it had ended, but that was always the way. If things weren’t bad, they didn’t end.

Corinne’s hand slipped between her thighs at the memories of her boy on his knees, head bowed, rubbing her feet while she drank iced coffee and flipped through silly gossip magazines. All those hours spent on her feet waiting tables had left her with painful arches and cramping toes. Other men might feign a brief interest in massaging away the pain, but only so far as it meant them eventually getting in her pants. Her boy rubbed her feet until they no longer hurt, even if they both knew she didn’t plan on fucking him.

That had been the difference between him and all the other men she’d ever dated. Other men had claimed they wanted to please her, and some of them had tried, but in the end it had always come down to them giving her what she wanted as long as it was also what they wanted to give her. Her boy had taken care of her needs before his own, no matter what.

“You don’t want a boyfriend, you want a dog,” one ex-lover had accused in the final fight that had ended that relationship.

He hadn’t understood her at all.

With one hand still flat on the wall, she let the fingers of the other slide through her folds, finding slick heat between her thighs. When she brushed the tight knot of her clit with her thumb, everything inside her contracted. Tensing. Pulsing.

She thought of her boy in a slightly different position, still on his knees but his back and shoulders straight. Chin lifted. Hands crossed behind his back while he faced the corner for some small infraction she could no longer recall. Sometimes he’d sassed her just so she would be pushed to discipline him.

“Fuck,” Corinne breathed and turned her face up to the water as she opened her mouth.

God, she missed kissing. Tangled tongues, sloppy wetness, the heat of breath on her face. A hand on the back of her head, keeping her close.

She tweaked her clit between her thumb and forefinger, slowly. Then faster. Her fingers curled and slipped on the wet tile. Her hips rocked, and she settled her feet a little wider apart. She wanted, needed, to be filled, but all she had was the thickness of her first two fingers. The heel of her hand pressed her clit as she fucked into herself.

She remembered taking him in the shower. Laughing, teasing, she’d told him he’d been a dirty boy and needed a good scrubbing. Compliant as always, obedient, her boy had allowed her to put him under the spray and had stood patiently while she soaped a cloth. It had quickly become too difficult to laugh around the sharp intake of her breath as she moved the cloth over his firm, taut muscles. He’d always been so, so lovely.

* * *

“Hands on the wall.” Corinne’s voice is low and a little harsh, the tone meant to trigger him. It triggers her, too, when she talks like this. Commanding but not cruel.

He turns immediately, those big strong hands going flat against the slick surface. Without being told, her boy places his feet shoulder-width apart, giving her room to reach through his legs to cup his already hard cock, if she wants. For now, Corinne only strokes the soapy cloth over his back. Shoulder blades jutting, shifting at her touch, he shudders.

Her boy leans to press his forehead to the shower wall, bending at the waist. Corinne nudges his feet with hers to get him to open wider, careful that neither of them slip. When his feet are far enough apart that he’s leaning even farther, his ass easily accessible, she runs a finger down his spine. Counting the knobs there. Briefly circling the twin dimples at the base. Then lower, down the crack of his butt until she finds the tight pucker of his asshole, where she presses her fingertips and listens to him moan.

Her other hands slips between his thighs to cup his balls. She doesn’t squeeze, though when he pushes back against her, she lets out a low warning tone and allows her grip to get a little tighter. Just enough to warn him.

“Please,” her boy whispers. “Please, Ma’am.”

* * *

Corinne let out a hushed cry as she withdrew her fingers from her yearning, hungry cunt and used them to rapidly stroke her clit. She’d fucked him in the shower, fingers, mouth, and tongue working him until he’d begged for the release she had not granted until he’d gone to his knees in front of her and given her two orgasms with his tongue. The water had turned cold by the time they’d finished, but neither of them had noticed.

She moaned his name, letting the thrum and beat of the water take it away so she could almost pretend she hadn’t said it aloud.

Her breath sobbed out of her as she slid two fingers inside her pussy again, curling upward. She let herself go with the pleasure. No more holding back. Stroking her clit again in a steady, constant rhythm, Corinne urged her body toward the edge.

So close, so fucking close, and yet she couldn’t manage to tip over. With a frustrated groan, she turned to press her back against the wall. Now the water spattered her breasts, teasing her nipples almost painfully. It washed over her belly and between her legs, and she tipped her hips upward to let it pound her clit. There, there it was, the stream from the showerhead nothing compared to a sweetly flicking tongue, but all she had at the moment. Corinne used both hands to open herself, exposing her pussy to the water’s steady spray.

Her boy should be on his knees in front of her right now, she thought somewhat incoherently. His fingers gripping her hips. Digging deep. Holding her close to the expert, relentless stroking of his tongue against her.

Oh, yes. Oh, fuck yes. This was it, the point of no return, when everything up until now had been merely a tease. She was going to come, yes, right here, like this, and…

Corinne shook with it, aware of the sting of water in her eyes but not caring. Nothing mattered but the pleasure. Not her own harsh grunting or the stinging needles of water turning chilly or the fact she was definitely very late for work now. All that mattered was the ecstasy sweeping her away from everything that made her sad.

Panting, her inner muscles clenching, Corinne twisted the faucet to turn off the water. She stumbled with weak legs onto the bathmat and grabbed for her towel. Pressing it between her thighs, she let out another hitching sigh at the aftershocks the soft terrycloth gave her. She wanted to come again and again, spending the day in a never-ending chain of climaxes, stopping only to nap in the sweaty entanglement of her lover’s limbs and to be fed cheese and grapes and to sip chilled wine.

The thought of this, finally, made her laugh. As though that scenario would ever happen, she thought as she bent to tuck her hair into the turban she made of her towel and went, otherwise naked, to the sink so she could finish getting ready. A day of nothing but pleasure? How long had it been since she’d been able to indulge in something like that?

A long, long damn time, Corinne thought as she stared at her reflection. The pink flush still spreading over her chest and up her throat gave her a small smile. At least she’d had a few minutes of gratification, anyway, and she should count herself lucky. A few of her friends had declared they no longer even cared about sex at all.

The day she no longer wanted to get off, Corinne thought, she hoped it was the one they put her in the ground.