Our top halves are still inside the fabric and he places his wide, hot tongue on my stomach, trailing a path up and over my breast and to my nipple. He swirls his tongue around before flicking it. I moan again, unable to keep it inside, my hands gripping onto this soft, thick hair like a lifeline.

“It’s like licking a fucking buttercup,” he says between groans and I look down. My breasts, heaving and wet from his tongue, also glowing yellow from being inside the fabric.

Now he’s undoing my jeans and sliding his fingers down the front of my underwear. I want to spread my legs to give him easier access but he’s pulling down my jeans and locking my thighs together. His finger pushes in through the slit and I close my eyes to the feeling, succumbing to him.

When he finds me soaking wet, I’m almost embarrassed at how desperate my body is.

“You’re gushing,” he says, in a low voice that connects with me on this primitive, visceral level. “Oh fuck, babe, you have no idea how badly I need to be inside your tight, pink little hole right now.” And with his words, two of his fingers slip inside me and I gasp, automatically clenching around him.

“God, you’re greedy, aren’t you?” he whispers. “Totally underfucked and I’m about to change all of that for good.”

Oh, God. Please do.

He bites at my breast, plunging his fingers in further and my back is arching, wanting so much more, harder, longer, deeper. I want to be stripped naked, bare to the marrow, and I want him to take me so fucking completely I’ll never need anything else again.

“Mommy?”

Ah, fucking shit!

“Damn,” I cry out softly and Bram immediately retrieves his hand, zipping back up my jeans. We exchange a wild, bashful look between us and then, once my shirt is on properly, he lifts the couch fabric up and over us.

Ava is standing at the door to my bedroom, rubbing her eyes and looking sleepy. Thankfully from her position, she couldn’t have seen all that much.

“Hi, sweetie,” I say to her, trying to catch my breath.

She peers at me and Bram. “What are you doing? Your hair is all windy.”

“Just putting the couch together,” I say, smiling way too broadly. “Bram stopped by.”

“Hi, Bram.” She yawns and then plods along through the living room and sits down on the couch. The normal couch. The couch that doesn’t practically force two neighbors to have sex in it.

I look over at him as he pats down his hair with a smile. What the hell just happened? I’m still turned on as hell, my breasts feel heavy with desire, my clit throbs from where his thumb was pressing. Good Lord, I need him to continue.

But maybe this is a good thing that we stopped. Getting carried away would have been a bad idea.

Right? I realize I’m just asking myself and I don’t have the answers. I just want to get fucking laid by this Scottish sex god beside me.

“Well,” I say to Bram, clearing my throat. “Thanks for your help.”

He nods and slowly gets to his feet, pulling me up to mine as he goes. “Sure. But I wasn’t done helping you, you know. I was just getting started.”

I know what he’s saying and as much I want to ask for more, I’m not sure how and if I should.

“Well, thanks for the help you did give. You know, with the couch.”

He shoots me a wicked smile and then runs his fingers – his same fingers that were inside me just moments ago – underneath his nose and breathes in. “I’ll be back for more of this,” he says thickly.

Then he turns and leaves and I’m standing beside an almost finished piece of shit couch, wondering if my legs are ever going to stop shaking.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nicola

I don’t see Bram for the rest of the night and when I wake up the morning, my body’s still groggy from the previous hangover and my insides ache for the brief moment that some part of Bram was inside me. It all feels like a dream, a really good wet dream, except I never got a chance to come and now I’m feeling embarrassed and sexually frustrated to boot.

Jesus, the things he said to me were so fucking hot, I don’t think any guy had been so explicit and we had barely gotten started. I wanted to see where that filthy mouth would have taken us – figuratively and literally. I wanted him to come back for “more of this.”

But as the morning stretched on, I’m stuck with one almost finished couch, another in a box I can’t even fathom putting together and I’m this close to taking the largest blunt object I have – probably my dildo – and smashing the shit out of both of them. Fucking IKEA! But it’s not really the store’s fault (not really), it’s mine for getting so wrapped up in him already. It’s like one little touch, one little taste, and I’m ready to give him more. Although, I would say neither his touch nor his taste was little. His tongue is strong and long and his fingers even more so.

Even though it’s Tuesday, Lisa can’t make it in to cover my shift today since it starts at 3pm but luckily my mother can. I’m starting to feel awful for dragging her out here more often. Shift work just isn’t as predictable as the jobs of my past but she’s a trooper and loves spending time with her granddaughter as much as possible.

“Hey, darling,” she says to me as she comes inside. She stops and immediately eyes the IKEA crap in the corner before waving at Ava who is lying on the original couch, buried in cushions and mindlessly watching TV.

Ava gives a half-hearted wave back, as if she can’t muster the energy. Normally I’d freak out that there’s something wrong with her but I just measured her blood levels and she’s in perfect range. She’s just a bit blah – must be picking it up from her mom.

Yet my mother says to me, “You’re looking good.” As if it’s a surprise, as if I normally walk around looking like a bag of crap. Hmmm. Maybe I do.

“Oh, thanks,” I say. I’m just wearing my normal bar uniform of black cleavage-producing tank top and jeans but she’s peering at me like I’m hiding something.

“Really,”’ she says, pinching one of my cheeks, something she hasn’t done since I was a little girl. “Whatever you’re doing, keep it up. Don’t forget you’re still young, you know, no matter how old this troublemaker makes you feel.” She jerks a thumb at Ava who pays no attention.

“Yeah, yeah,” I tell her. I grab my leather jacket I’ve had since the Dark Ages since SF decided to be a real asshole this week and drop the temperatures to about minus a million. I’m getting ready to head out the door, when my mother says, “Should I expect a visit from Bram?”

Even though the door handle is in my grasp, I let go and step back to face her.

“Mom, listen,” I tell her. “Bram’s a very nice guy.”

“A gentleman,” she says with a weirdly knowing smile.

“Sure,” I say. “I mean, he’s a real good guy. And also, not…anyway, my point is, I don’t care if he brought you over a kettle or seems to show an interest in me and whatever, he’s just my neighbor. He’s never going to be anything more than that.”

“Oh, Nicola…” she goes on, throwing her hands down at her sides.

I grab one of her hands. “I know you and this is pretty much the first guy you’ve met since I’ve been with Phil, other than that guy Ben, but he didn’t stick around much either, but really…Bram and I? We are just friends. I don’t know what the future holds but for now, he’s doing me a favor and I’m trying to make it as easy as possible on him.” I pause. “You know what I mean? And don’t do any of your mom meddling things that you usually do. That’s not going to work, okay? It may jeopardize the landlord-tenant relationship we have going.”

“What makes you think I would do any of that?”

“I can see it in your eyes,” I tell her. “I see it in my eyes too, sometimes.”

She throws her hands up in the air and walks over to the couch, plopping down beside Ava. “All right. I understand. Mom can’t have a little fun. But I’ll tell you, one day your daughter will be old enough to be dating boys and you’re going to care as much about the process as she does. Only she won’t let you.”