The end

Tyres and bikes. Right. That was what he was all about. That was what I should’ve been all about. But under Vaughn’s piercing stare, it was all I could do to tell myself how to breathe.

“I… I don’t know,” I croaked out, and the words barely made it out my dry mouth.

“Of course, of course.” Nick glanced at Vaughn. “She’s new. But you already know that. I mean, you’ve been coming here for ages.” His gaze returned to me. “I can’t understand the new filing system for the list of what we’ve already put an order for.”

“I just… put them in order of dates.”

Nick gave out an audible sigh. “Give me a minute, man?” he grunted at the boy-man I’d only been thinking about minutes before. “My glasses are somewhere in my office.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll just wait here.”Nick met my eyes. “You don’t mind being left alone with him?”

I shook my head and he turned and left. My stomach instantly turned over. Alone. I was alone with Vaughn. I took that long moment of silence to let my eyes devour him. It was like seeing him for the first time. His black hair was cropped short now, only making the hard angles of his face stand out. The black T-shirt he wore was tight across his chest, as were the jeans hugging his thick legs.

I want to lick the stubble on your face, bite into your lips, suck the part of your body I crave to have in my mouth again…

“This was a complete coincidence, Sofia.”

There was my name coming out his mouth again, said in that particular way. I didn’t want to react to him this way but I was. I wanted him so badly my pússy was clenching around air.

“My tyre burst a few days ago,” Vaughn continued, approaching me in a few long strides. “I completely wiped out, went skidding for a couple metres.” He held hisright arm up. The skin there was still red and looked a bit like raw, ground beef. “One of my battle scars. I trust Nick’s crew to take care of my bike.”

The little nurse in me was horrified at how nasty the wound was and grabbed his wrist without thinking. “Did you get this checked out? Fúcking hell, Vaughn, did you just put mercurochrome on it and call it a day?”

The corners of his lips tipped up as he stared down at me. “You want to kiss it better?”

“I… Stop it. Please.” I released him, instantly missing the feel of his pulse in his wrist. It reminded me that he was here, that I wasn’t dreaming him up.

“You’ve lost weight,” he observed, looking me over. “I don’t like it.”

I felt a blush bloom in my cheeks but my mouth remained shut.

“Have you been thinking about me?” Vaughn’s voice was soft, so soft it felt like a gentle caress to my ears.I looked away. “Yes.” Why lie and say I hadn’t?

Vaughn’s fingers came up under my chin, making me face him. “Is your pússy wet?”

I gulped, shaking my head. Lies, lies, lies…

“I don’t believe you,” he said, frowning. My hand was swallowed in his as he effortlessly dragged me past my desk and through the doorway that led to the parts of the shop where work on the vehicles got done.

Vaughn obviously knew his way around the place because he pulled me into a small office I knew Nick used to hide stuff he purchased on eBay. Danielle didn’t understand that her husband could bid on anything Hulk Hogan so much as breathed on.

But all that nonsense flew out my mind the instant the door was slammed shut and Vaughn’s lips crashed against mine.

My knees buckled. I lost the use of my limbs. All I could do was stand there andaccept the sweep of his tongue across my lower lip, open my mouth and grant him entry. I didn’t know if the low moan came from my mouth or his, but I knew whose thighs were clenched together, hoping to relieve the ache between them.

“I don’t believe your sweet little pússy isn’t wet for me, Sofia,” Vaughn murmured, sliding his hands beneath my coat and wrenching it off. “Have you fúcked anyone since me?”

“No,” I moaned, my breath catching when he pushed up the hem of my dress and I felt his fingers on the inside of my thigh.

“Have you touched yourself thinking about me?” He cupped my cúnt, his fingers teasing the small lace triangle encasing it.

“No,” I whispered, because how could I do that when my best friend was two doors away from my bedroom and her children’s rooms on either side of mine?

But Vaughn misunderstood. His fingers stilled. “Who’ve you been thinking of, then?” Jealousy swirled in the emerald pools of his eyes.

“I-I haven’t touched myself.”

A slow smile softened his face but did little to diminish the wolf that he was. “You must be soaking, then. Poor Sofia. You’ll cut off your nose to spite your beautiful face.”

Then he sank to his knees, tugging my thong down.

Before I could protest, he had his hands on the back of thighs, holding me in place as he pressed a soft kiss against my entrance. As embarrassing as it was, I nearly came from that. My hands were on his head, saying what I couldn’t say and making him eat me.

“I know what you need,” he breathed against my pink flesh. “You just have to say it.”

I huffed out a breath, my entire being thrumming with excitement. But I couldn’t tell him how much I wanted him, how much I’d missed him. I just couldn’t.“Sofia.” Vaughn’s breath ghosted across my swollen clítoris.

I whimpered. “I…need…you. God, please, Vaughn. Make me come. Please, make me come.”

I could feel him smile against my opening and then the only thing I could feel was the point of his tongue, licking its way up my slit. I threw my head back, biting my bottom lip so hard I instantly tasted metal. My clít was sucked past his lips like a tiny juicy fruit. Pleasure radiated from my very core and when Vaughn slid a finger inside me, fúcking it into me along with his tongue, I surrendered to it. I let myself be washed away with the force of my órgasm. It was quick, it was intense and I just about collapsed all over the man at my feet in gratitude.

He rose, holding me to him as he did, and his lips found mine once more. The taste of my own excitement was heady and addictive. Looping my arms around Vaughn’s neck, I surrendered to him completely.

“Do you want me to fúck you, Sofia?”he groaned, pulling my sore lip into his mouth and sucking it better.

My fingernails dug into his nape and, feeling the promise of his erection against my belly, I lost the ability to breathe.

“I want to fúck you, sweetheart,” Vaughn said for me, his hands cupping my butt. “Want to feel your cúnt around my cóck like a fist. Want to fill you with my cúm. I’ve missed putting a shocked expression on your face every time you come, sweet Sofia.”

“I need you, Vaughn,” I finally admitted. “I need you so, so much.”

He was fumbling with his belt now, trying to free himself as quickly as possible. I whimpered; hungry, desperate.

“Bend over that desk, Sofia.”

It was a small desk, pushed to one side and piled high with Hogan memorabilia. I let Vaughn go and did as he asked, fighting to get my long-sleeved dress off and leaving on what was underneath.Bent over a desk with my back to him and my butt in the air, I felt, rather than saw, Vaughn cop a look at me.

“You’re wearing my T-shirt.”

It was totally traitorous to the Red Devils but only for Vaughn would I wear an Arsenal shirt. When I’d put it on today, feeling stupidly sentimental, the idea that he’d see me in it never even crossed my mind.

I was breathing deeply as I felt him approach me. My brain scrambled for something to say, anything to make me any less pathetic than I already seemed.

“You’d love to make this all about mindless sex, wouldn’t you?” Vaughn’s voice was defeated when he finally spoke. “You’d love for me to shove my cóck in you then go on my merry way. You’d love to wait a few days – maybe just one – before you called me for a quick fúck in my car. Repeat cycle. Am I right, Sofia?”

I closed my eyes, hating the tears that threatened to make an appearance. “Will you just fúck me already?” I forced myself to say.

“Is it the age thing?” He went on as if I hadn’t said anything. “Who gives two shíts, Sof? Our relationship would be just that – ours. Yours and mine. No one else’s. You’re the most beautiful thirty-eight-year-old woman I’ve ever laid eyes on and you’re the only woman I want. Fúck what people say.”

“Until I turn forty and you lay eyes on a beautiful twenty-year-old,” I bit out, tugging the shirt down my back to give me a modicum of decency. “It might seem hip right now to have a cougar on your arm but we’d never work, Vaughn. You’d want kids and I’d be… I’d be an old prune whose womb has withered away and… and –”

“Shut up.”

“Excuse me?” I straightened, spinning around to face him. Anger made my heart pound faster. “I’m raising a valid argument here and you’re telling me to shut up?”

“You just gave me flimsy excuses not to bewith me. I don’t find them valid anything.”

“You’re so…so –”

“Immature?” He quirked a brow. “Why are you wearing my T-shirt?”

The change in subject threw me momentarily. “Because it reminds me of you,” I answered without thinking. “You can take it back if you want,” I added curtly.

He gave me a satisfied smile. “I don’t want it back. I quite like it on you. Red is your colour.” But he was probably referring to the blush on my face.

“Vaughn,” I said softly, unable to resist touching his arm, “I don’t want to want you. It’s selfish of me.”

He laced his fingers with mine, looking into my eyes. “If we have kids, we have kids. And if we don’t, we don’t.”

You say that now… I thought to myself.

Vaughn brought his forehead down against mine. “But for now, I just want to make love to you on this desk with Hulk Hogan’s creepy face staring at us. Then, I want to take you out to lunch, since you lost yours at the door. That would be considered as a date. If I’m really lucky, maybe you’ll come home with me because I kind of liked seeing you in my bed. But only if you want to.”

I let out a sigh, simply revelling in his attention. A date. I wanted that. I just wanted to be around him. Jack was right (I never thought I’d say that) – I deserved to be happy. Vaughn made me happy and I was sick of pretending I didn’t care about him. Maybe I’d even get over the “age thing”, as he so eloquently put it, someday. Maybe.

“Sof? Say something,” he implored me, pulling back, his face wary.

“I just remembered – Nick doesn’t wear glasses.”

It was Vaughn’s turn to flush. “Yeah, he’s not great at ad-libbing. He was supposed to have to take a call.”

“Come here, you sly dog,” I murmured,pulling him back to me. “Make love to me.”

He kissed the top of my head. “I think we should wait until I get you to my bed.”

To my chagrin, he was already zipping himself back up. “Are you kidding me?”

He looked sombre. “You really want to have sex with the guy from Thunder in Paradise watching us?”

Sometimes, Vaughn’s boyishness was endearing, like now. As he took me into his arms, just holding me to him as if I were the most precious thing in the world to him, I realised that yes, I might be eleven years older than the man I was about to declare my love to, but older didn’t make me any wiser. He seemed to have his shít figured out whereas I… I was just starting a new chapter in my life. The page was blank for the moment and the author wasn’t sure if the ending would be a happy one but one thing was for sure: Vaughn was going to be the hero. Always.To my chagrin, he was already zipping himself back up. “Are you kidding me?”

He looked sombre. “You really want to have sex with the guy from Thunder in Paradise watching us?”

Sometimes, Vaughn’s boyishness was endearing, like now. As he took me into his arms, just holding me to him as if I were the most precious thing in the world to him, I realised that yes, I might be eleven years older than the man I was about to declare my love to, but older didn’t make me any wiser. He seemed to have his shít figured out whereas I… I was just starting a new chapter in my life. The page was blank for the moment and the author wasn’t sure if the ending would be a happy one but one thing was for sure: Vaughn was going to be the hero. Always.

THE END