After Hours: Midnight Oil / Midnight Madness / Midnight Touch

Relief filled him. “Let me see your breasts,” he said, sliding in to the hilt again and knocking the breath out of her. Her hair was tumbled over her shoulders, hanging in her eyes, which were half-closed with desire. She nodded, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

He bent forward and took it between his own, wanting to possess everything about her. He wanted her body and soul, completely at his mercy. “Let me see,” he said again once he’d released her mouth.

She pushed up her top, pulled down her bra so that her breasts poked impudently over it. Troy pulled out just enough so that he could bend his head to them, capture a nipple between his lips and suck hard. She cried out, he released it and drove into her. He worked her into a frenzy; she met his thrusts with the same urgency; until he hit some nerve deep inside of her. She gasped, arched her back and convulsed against him, shaking.

Just the sight of her, the feel of her losing control sent him over the edge, too. He pushed himself as far as he could into her sweetness and heat and spilled himself inside her, cursing softly.

He stood like that, embedded in her, until he realized how uncomfortable she must be, and gently lifted her off him, setting her on her feet. She automatically straightened her clothes, probably still fearing discovery, but not even a mosquito seemed to have witnessed their public indecency.

He noticed that her thighs were shaking and she could barely stand up. He gathered her in his arms, pulling her against him. He kissed her hair. “You okay? I’m sorry I was rough—I don’t know what got into me.”

“I wanted it rough,” she said into his chest. She bit his nipple through his shirt, bit it hard.

“Ow!”

Peggy tipped back her head and smiled at him in the darkness. “Where are we going for round two, cowboy?”

SHE RODE HIM in the moonlight on his freshly screened back porch. His entire yard was surrounded by a virtually impenetrable ficus hedge, ten feet high. It was one of the few things he liked about the place, since it offered total privacy.

The scents of sex, new wood and citrusy lantana mingled with the night air. A touch of chlorine from the pool intruded, too.

But mostly what he smelled was her: a green-apple eau de parfum, a honey-coconut shampoo, a tinge of sporty deodorant and the rich, natural musk of her body’s secret places.

He lifted her easily, in spite of her protests, and rolled her under him, pinning her with his big body. Then he ate every succulent inch of her, drawing her flesh into his mouth and savoring it.

Feeding at the juncture of her thighs, he reduced her to begging before he rolled her onto her stomach and settled his cock in the cleft of her buttocks. He slipped his fingers down, found her lips and parted them. Then he thrust into her once again, unbelievably turned on when she raised her bottom to meet him, taking her weight on her knees.

She raised her torso on her hands, too, and her heavy, lush breasts swung free. He reached around her waist for them and pleasured them as he stroked into her, pulled out, rammed himself in again until he thought he’d die from the sheer ecstasy of it.

He squeezed her breasts gently, toyed with the nipples until she arched her back, cried out and ground against the root of him, body trembling and convulsing around him. He thrust two, three more times—and then collapsed over her, murmuring her name.

THEY WENT SKINNY-DIPPING afterward, bodies slipping through the cool, silky water. It soothed all the parts of them that were oversensitized, allayed some of the burning that Peggy felt between her legs. Troy’s body looked even bigger submerged in the water, her own small and white beside him.

There was a shelf at the deep end of the pool, and he tugged her over to it, then into his lap. He folded his arms around her and they sat in the water listening to the night noises: the wind in the trees, the cicadas in song, the frogs’ amphibian baritone.

This is as close as it gets to heaven on earth.

She snuggled back against his hard chest, feeling safe and protected and thoroughly sexed-out. She didn’t think about the future much, just that Troy had been sweet to have concerns about dating his nieces’ coach. That showed a rare, old-fashioned honor that you didn’t see much these days….

She gazed inside at his house, which he laughingly referred to as the hovel. It wasn’t one, but the ancient old-person furnishings like the avocado-green couch and the gold-and-orange-and-brown crocheted afghan hadn’t been what she’d expected.

She’d thought his living room would be dominated by a massive wide-screen television, wall-to-wall carpet and a big, ugly black leather couch. Nothing could be further from the truth. The floors were scarred pine and the TV was a relic from the 1960s, tiny and sporting rabbit-ear antennae that made it look like a martian’s suitcase.

The kitchen was something out of a time warp, too: old-fashioned cabinets with 1950s handles, an unspeakable stove and a refrigerator that she’d swear was powered by squirrels running on a wheel. The only “modern” addition was a gray plastic answering machine, its wires trailing from the wall-mounted phone.

The slick decorator-chosen furnishings of most pro ball players weren’t in evidence. No bearskin or tiger-head rug. No trophy case. No revolving round bed under a mirror.

“Where are your things?” she asked him. “These must have come with the house.”

“Gorgeous, aren’t they?” He chuckled. “All my stuff’s in storage. I’ll bring it in when I’m done remodeling the place. We’ll be making a huge mess, knocking out walls and redoing the roofline. I’d rather trash the poor old geezer’s furniture than mine—and I have to sit on something.”

“So we’re both making a new start,” Peggy said. “You came down here from Gainesville, I came down here from Connecticut.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I never want to be financially dependent on the whims of a team owner or an athletic program again.”

She had to ask. “So did you leave a girlfriend behind?”

His arms stiffened. “No. No girlfriend. There were a few women who kept trying out for the position, though.”

She slid under his arms and under the water. When she surfaced, she shook water out of her eyes. Treading water, she said, “Trying out for the position?”

He shrugged. “I know how arrogant that sounds. Sorry. But it’s true. There hasn’t been a shortage of women in my life, most of them annoying and with no identities of their own. They want me to validate them somehow, and that disgusts me. I don’t want to be used—not for money, not for status, not for an identity. I guess that’s the reason I’m still single and most of my old teammates are married.” Troy changed the subject, unwilling to dwell on the fact that he no longer had money or status. Now he was just a guy who mowed his own lawn, like everyone else.

“So why did you come down here from Yankeeland?”

She rolled onto her back in the water and stared up at the stars. “To get away from the stupid, lying bastard whom I almost married.”

“Care to share any details?”

“B-league hockey player, steroid user, gambler, loser. Replaced the stone in my engagement ring with a “nicer” one, a big honking CZ. But I knew about his gambling debts and figured it out.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah. The funny thing is, I never even wanted a diamond in the first place. I’m not really into that stuff. But Eddie insisted. I think he didn’t want to look bad in front of his friends. Of course, he ended up looking worse than he could have imagined—though a couple of them called me a bitch and couldn’t understand why, if I never wanted a rock in the first place, I’d be bothered by a fake one. Eddie drove around with a bumper sticker on his Saab after that—‘Why buy her a diamond? She won’t live forever.’”

“God. The guy sounds like a real charmer.”

“Irresistible. I pine after him to this day,” Peg said dryly. She rolled to her stomach again and dove under the water. When she surfaced again, she told Troy, “It ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. I love it here, the kooky mix of people, the internationalism, the sun and water. You’ve got the beach bums in their flip-flops, the show-offs dripping diamonds and designer duds, the students with their backpacks, the moms with their toddlers and the old guys with their cigars and Guayabera shirts.” She swam down the length of the pool, doing an easy sidestroke.

On the return lap, she continued. “What I love most, though, is being part of After Hours. We have a little community there, whacky as it may be. It’s our corner of the world where we get to have fun working and make other people feel good. Transform them sometimes, other times just maintain their sanity in a crazy existence…a manicure can lift a woman’s spirits for the rest of her day. Or a great haircut. We get models coming in here on their way to the clubs, but we also get exhausted moms who wouldn’t make it through their weeks without a massage. I have one who can only afford it every six weeks or so, on the change she collects in a jar. She can’t tip much, but I adore her. It makes me feel good to make her feel good.”

Troy had an odd expression on his face and his gaze had grown distant. “Peggy,” he said, “I need to tell you—” He broke off as the phone rang inside the screen porch. “Who the hell is calling me at 1:00 a.m.? This can’t be good.”

He hoisted himself over the edge of the pool and strode, wet and naked, toward the porch. She was riveted by his body, sleek and silvery in the moonlight. The broad shoulders, the long lean legs, the powerful musculature of the whole. Maybe I hate jocks and football players, but I sure do like to look at them nude.

“Hello?” Troy answered the phone. “Samantha, what’s wrong?” He swore. “Call the cops!” He listened a moment more. “You know what? There comes a time when you just can’t worry about that. He’s doing it to himself. Call them.” He swore again. “I’ll be right there.”

“Troy?”

“I have to go. My asshole brother-in-law has just shown up at my sister’s house drunk. He’s trying to kick in the door, and she won’t call the cops because of the kids. Anyway, it’s still half his property, so I don’t know what the cops could do unless he’s actually threatening her or them. Right now all he’s trying to do is see them.”

“I’ll come with you.” She was out of the pool already, and hunting for her clothes on the porch.

“You don’t want to get involved in this.”

“The girls—maybe I can help with them.”

“Sam’s there, and she’s their mother.” He was already headed for the door, keys in hand.