No Regrets Read online

  I blinked. “Right now, you mean?”

  “Yeah. Why not? I don’t want to go home either.”

  I finally landed on an explanation for his mood. He seemed adrift, kind of lost, not emotional but torn in some way.

  I wondered what he’d experienced in Chad. What it had done to him. Why he’d decided against working with people anymore.

  Even yesterday, I would have said “no” to his invitation. For the last few months, I hadn’t done much of anything except go to work and take care of Polly. I hadn’t liked to leave her in the evenings.

  It had been years since I’d had a drink with a guy I didn’t know, and this particular guy was too young for me anyway.

  But it was just a drink. Nothing more. He wasn’t coming on to me. He was just being nice. And it would give me something to do with myself, other than go home to an apartment without Polly.

  I felt a little better, talking to him. Like the world wasn’t about to pull me into some sort of black hole.

  I remembered my vow, eleven months ago, on the day I’d turned thirty-eight.

  I was supposed to be living with no regrets, and so far I hadn’t done a good job.

  This would be something I wouldn’t have to regret.

  “Okay,” I said. “Why not?”

  ***

  Two hours later, we were sitting in a booth in the corner of a little bar I’d never heard of, and he was all over me.

  I mean, all over me.

  We’d talked about a variety of things—movies, books, politics, beer, anything except his work in Africa and Polly. And then he’d gotten up to get us more beers and had sat down on the same side of the booth as me, instead of across the table.

  “Dr. Bennett?” I asked, staring at him as he situated himself close to me. I was a little fuzzy, but definitely not drunk.

  He made a choked sound. “Josh.”

  “Josh, what are you doing?”

  “I like your freckles,” he murmured, reaching up to stroke his thumb across the bridge of my nose and my cheekbone.

  My breath sped up, hardly believing that he was touching me like that.

  In all honesty, I might have gotten a little touchy myself as the evening progressed, putting my hand on his arm several times and at one point stroking my fingers over his wrist, which had been resting on the table. I couldn’t help it. He seemed so physical, sitting across the table from me, even as we talked, and something physical in me wanted to touch it, connect with it.

  Maybe he felt the same way.

  I’m no beauty queen, if you hadn’t guessed it before. I’ve got reddish-brown hair, brown eyes, and a tall, slim body, but there’s nothing at all special about me. “I used to hate the freckles.”

  “Why would you hate them?” His eyes had grown warm, admiring. It was impossible not to recognize the expression. “They’re gorgeous. Do you have them all over?”

  He was younger than me, so maybe he was used to asking questions so bold. I definitely wasn’t used to hearing them. “That’s none of your business.”

  “I’d kind of like to know.” He gently slid the neckline of my top to the side to expose my shoulder. He smiled. “I see more freckles.”

  Then he leaned down and gently nipped me, right on the hollow of my throat.

  I gasped at the shocking jolt of pleasure. I’d never experienced anything like it—so completely out of the blue.

  Then he was kissing me, and there was no way I could resist kissing him back.

  The bar was dim and not very crowded, but the other customers hardly crossed my mind as the kiss deepened. It had been a long time since I’d been kissed, and he was somehow stronger and more passionate and more skillful and just more than the other men I’d been with.

  It felt like he was everywhere. Filling all of me.

  His mouth was devouring mine, and his hands were getting quite presumptuous. But I somehow wanted it—despite the other people in the bar, who could easily see us making out like this. Even when he palmed one of my breasts over my top, I arched into it instead of pulling away.

  My whole body pulsed with excitement and arousal—an edge to the feelings I’d never experienced before.

  It was like I was someone else. Someone other than me. Someone not quiet and boring and safe.

  Someone who would do a thing like this. Make out with a near stranger in the booth of a bar.

  Then he pulled away, far sooner than I wanted him to.

  “Damn,” he muttered, rubbing his face with his hand as if he were trying to wake himself up from a dream. “What am I doing? This must be the last thing you want to do tonight.”

  My body definitely didn’t appreciate the abrupt end to our embrace. Then I realized what he was thinking. He assumed I was too emotionally delicate to genuinely desire this.

  Yes, I’d had the worst day in recent memory, but it felt like he’d had a wrenching day too. Like he needed something from me, as much as I needed from him. And that was why I said, “I do want to do this.”

  “I don’t want to take advantage of you, if you’re vulnerable—“

  I grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward me again. “I’m not vulnerable. You’re not taking advantage. Aren’t I allowed to decide what I want?”

  “Yes. Fuck, yes. Absolutely.” Then he couldn’t say anything because he was kissing me again.

  After a minute, we were hot and breathless again. “Fuck, Leslie,” Josh rasped, his mouth still against mine. “I’m so turned on right now.”

  “Me too,” I admitted, shamelessly feeling my way down to the front of his shorts to find the proof of his words. I couldn’t believe I was doing that, but I was.

  I was.

  “Do you need to go to the bathroom?”

  I was so lost in a heated daze that the words barely registered. “What? No.”

  “Are you sure?” He slid a hand down to brush against my groin in a way that made me gasp.

  Then I realized what he was asking.

  I didn’t do this. I never did this. Never once in my life had I had a one-night stand. And I certainly had never considered fucking a stranger in the bathroom of a bar.

  But I’d never felt like this before, either. As I fisted my fingers in his hair, I briefly imagined myself saying “no,” going home to an apartment without Polly, trying to make it through a long night alone.

  I didn’t want to be that person. I wanted to be someone else.

  I’d regret not trying to be this new kind of woman, and I wasn’t going to live with more regrets.

  So, instead of my normal answer, I said, “Maybe I do.”

  Before I knew what was happening, Josh stood up, looking hot, sexy, and almost wild. His hand slid down my arm to hold onto my wrist. Without a word, he started toward the back of the bar, dragging me with him.

  I didn’t resist—didn’t want to resist. I wasn’t going to regret not doing this, even though it was crazy. Even though it was terrifying. Even though it wasn’t me.

  We walked together to a dim hallway in the back, which led to a women’s bathroom. The room was worn and small, but basically clean, and I didn’t pay much attention to our surroundings anyway.

  Josh pushed the door shut and locked it. Then he pushed me back against the counter of the sink.

  The hard edge connected painfully with my ass, and I grunted as he eased the hard line of his body against mine.

  A glimmer of anxiety tried to fight its way through to my consciousness, but it was quickly drowned in the surge of resolution and excitement from the sight of Josh’s damp, handsome face, only an inch or two from mine, and in the visceral thrill of the press of his body against me.

  He rubbed the bulge of his erection against my middle, with a blunt animality that really turned me on. He leaned his head down toward mine, and I thought he was going to kiss me again. But instead his face lowered to the side of my neck, which I intuitively exposed with a tilt of my head.

  He bit down on the sensitive flesh of my thro
at, and I felt the sharpest jolt of pleasure I’d ever experienced in my life.

  I cried out wordlessly in response, my pelvis jutting out in sudden need for stimulation.

  My arousal had intensified so quickly—and with so little conscious thought—that I was losing my sense of balance and coordination. I wasn’t sure I could stay on my feet, had Josh not trapped me between the sink counter and his body. My eyes blurred over until the small, dingy bathroom faded into nonexistence.

  All I was aware of was Josh, in all his intensity, physicality, and hot, hot power.

  When Josh bit down again on my neck, and I felt another jolt of painful pleasure shooting down to my pulsing arousal, I moaned, and my head fell backward.

  The sensations from his touch and from the alcohol were so intense and so overwhelming that I was briefly afraid I might pass out. But I stiffened my neck and reached around his body, squeezing him hard on the ass and using my grip to push his erection tighter against me.

  This time, Josh was the one who made a breathless sound in response, and he wasted no time in pushing my skirt up my legs. I was still wearing my work clothes—I hadn’t changed since I’d left the office that morning.

  He was feeling inside my panties as I started to reach into his shorts. My fingers were clumsy and eager, as the ache between my legs threatened to make me scream.

  “Condom,” I gasped, remembering at least that much of my sense.

  “Yeah.” He was obviously just as out of control as I was, and his fingers shook slightly as he pulled a condom packet out of his wallet, which he’d brought with him.

  I figured he was still young enough that he might always carry one around.

  He adjusted our bodies and found my wet pussy with his hand by pushing aside my panties. I bit down hard on my lip as he slipped one of his fingers inside me, stroking my inner walls and spreading the moisture collected there.

  I lifted my thigh and grabbed at the back of his neck with both hands as his intimate massage built up my pleasure.

  Before his touch could drive me out of control, I clutched at his t-shirt. Then I reached down for his cock.

  His aroused flesh was hard and thick and warm under my fingers, and I squeezed him with incautious impatience.

  Josh pulled his hand out from between my legs with a jerky movement, and his fingers dug hard into my thigh. He raised his head so that he was looking once more into my face.

  The expression in his eyes might have been lust, or frustration, or a hard resolution that matched mine. I wasn’t sure.

  Either way, he sheathed himself with the condom, parted my thighs further, and positioned himself in between them.

  He paused again, but now I’d lost the last thread of my control. I grabbed at his ass and dug my fingernails into the muscles, forcing his pelvis forward.

  His cock drove its way into my pussy, his upper body pressing against my chest as he sunk all the way inside.

  I bit down on his shoulder—my teeth against his t-shirt—as I felt his solid substance stretch and fill me.

  He didn’t give me a chance to get used to the tight penetration. With a guttural sound and a jerk of his neck, he started to thrust. Fast, short, and sloppy.

  I could feel a pressure building up between my legs, behind my eyes, and beneath my ribs. I was kind of propped on the sink counter, and the hard edge bit into my bottom. I had to wrap my legs around Josh’s body to keep myself mostly steady.

  It was like a weird, unworldly dream—one where the normal world dissolves into an irrational sequence of inexplicable details. I wasn’t me anymore. I was someone else—someone who would do this kind of thing. I was a body. A body fucking another body in a bathroom.

  A body made up of more unconnected details—brown hair, flushed skin, sinewed neck, sweaty clothes, and strong, needy hands.

  I could feel his rapid breath against my skin, and I could feel the rutting of his hips beneath my hands. He was driving into me now with clumsy urgency, and despite the speed and the lack of real foreplay, I could feel an orgasm developing below my belly.

  I was scared of it—like I wouldn’t be able to deal with the sensations, like it finally might push my heated haze into total collapse.

  I forced the reaction down. I was doing this. Doing this. I wasn’t going to regret not taking what I wanted—not when the world always, always slipped out of your hands, no matter how tightly you held on.

  I fumbled around his body, until I’d grabbed onto his shirt. The fabric was thin and warm under my damp skin, and I held onto it.

  Everything about him was hot—like his shirt. The scent of him, masculine and sweaty. His skin. His cock. His urgency. The salty taste of him on my tongue.

  He was grunting now, low and in the back of his throat, and he held my legs apart until I was splayed wide for his taking—his hands neither gentle nor careful.

  I didn’t want him to be gentle or careful. Stretching my back, so that my face was against his shoulder, my mouth close to his ear, I whispered, “Harder. Faster.”

  The first words since he’d entered me.

  Josh made a primitive sound—maybe pleasure, maybe dominance—and his hips accelerated as he gave me all he had. He was hotter than ever beneath his clothes. His breathing was thick and scratchy. He held one of my legs up so high that my foot dangled and flopped.

  I was so wet that the sloppy sound of suction from where we were joined was as obvious in the room as the slapping of our skin and the raspy texture of our breathing.

  I hadn’t really thought I’d be able to come—not with a stranger, not after everything, not with having had so much to drink.

  But my body wanted this, needed this, and it was going to have it. The muscles of my thighs and belly started to tighten, and a spiraling pleasure deepened with every thrust.

  “Eh!” I gasped out, my climax catching me by surprise and coming hard and fast. My spine bent backwards, and I tried to hold on as the deep pleasure flew apart.

  Josh grunted loudly, stretching the one syllable with tight effort, as he jerked a few times against the clenching of my pussy. He had bared his teeth, and his nostrils were flaring like an animal’s as he fought with his body for control.

  His body won, the excruciating tension releasing in twitches and messy, long breaths.

  I could feel the release shudder through his body, something primitive in my gut loving how it felt, even though the rest of me knew what it meant.

  This was over. It was over now. And nothing about the rest of my life had changed.

  We were both gasping when we finally pulled apart, and Josh took care of the condom.

  I leaned back against the sink, barely able to support myself.

  “You okay?” he asked, looking relaxed now but that lingering, searching question still in his eyes.

  “Yeah.” I was okay. A little sore and a little embarrassed. And feeling a little cheap for having fucked a stranger in a small bathroom.

  “Do you want to come over to my place tonight?” he asked. “I’m just down the block.”

  I blinked several times, trying to process the question. “What do you mean?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “My place? For the rest of the night? I thought it was good.”

  The cheap feeling dissipated at the invitation. It might be a one-night stand, but at least it would last a whole night. At least it was more than just this bathroom.

  I still hated the thought of going home.

  “Yeah, I might as well.”

  Three

  Two hours later, I was in his small, barely furnished apartment. We’d gotten takeout to eat from a place halfway down the block. After we’d eaten, I’d taken a shower first, and now he was taking a shower.

  He was very easy to hang out with. No demands. No deep feelings. No awkwardness. Just interesting conversation and sex.

  I was sitting on his bed in one of his t-shirts, checking my phone as he showered, and I texted my mother, since I’d missed a call from her
earlier. I didn’t want her to get worried and start trying to reach me. Then I idly started gathering up receipts from the bottom of my purse and scrunching them into a ball to throw away.

  As I scavenged for more receipts in my purse, I pulled out half of a dog biscuit. The cashier in the pet store had given it to Polly the last time we were there, a couple of weeks ago, and she’d only eaten half. I’d been saving the other half for later.

  I’d forgotten about it and so had never given it to her.

  Looking at the crumbling treat in my hand, my shoulders started to shake.

  Maybe I was having a strange, hot night with a sexy man. Maybe it was different than anything I’d ever done before. Maybe it didn’t really feel like this was me doing it at all. But Polly had been mine for fourteen years. Now she was gone. She’d never get to eat the rest of her dog biscuit.

  I cried silently, fighting for control, since I didn’t want Josh to hear me.

  I don’t think he heard me, but he saw me, since he walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom before I noticed his presence.

  I didn’t realize he was there until he sat on the edge of the bed beside me, and the mattress shifted. Very gently, he opened my hand and took the dog biscuit out of it.

  I opened my mouth to try to say something—anything—but couldn’t form a word.

  He just shook his head. “You don’t have to say it. I get it.”

  He really did seem to get it, and I didn’t resist when he pulled me toward him and wrapped an arm around me. I shook against him for a minute until the emotion had tapered off.

  “You can go home if you want,” he said. “Or call a friend. Or just sleep here, if you’d like. We don’t have to do anything else.”

  It was unexpectedly sensitive, since I’d come over here for sex. I shook my head and looked up at him. “No. I…I need something different tonight.”

  He nodded, appearing to understand yet again that lostness inside me. It must somehow be inside him as well.

  He wore a towel around his waist and nothing else. His body was gorgeous—strong but not bulky, well-developed but efficient. I wanted to touch it. Feel it against me. Make this void in my heart go away.