Chapter Forty-Two: Young

***

Melanie:

When I leave Ophelia's room after our chat, click the door shut behind me, for some reason there are tears stinging my eyes.

Oh, get a grip, you. Menopause is such a bitch.

I blink the wetness away and dab at the corners of my eyes with the tip of a ring finger.

Swallowing back the dryness, I walk into our bedroom and push the door closed just as Gavin exits the en suite bathroom. He looks comfortable, ready for bed, clad in just a dark blue t-shirt and white-and-blue pinstriped boxers.

I offer him a small smile of greeting, trying for normalcy, and his brow instantly furrows.

He strides over to me with a couple long steps, takes my face in his warm hands. "Hey, baby," he murmurs, arched over me, studying me. The tenderness of his touch and the soft concern on his handsomely-aged face somehow makes my throat raw, makes my lips quiver, gives my chin licence to begin wobbling.

"Gavin," I breathe hoarsely. "She's... all grown up..." An irrational, unwelcome string tears starts streaming down my face and he wipes away at them with his thumbs, draws me into his arms and lets me bury my head in his shoulder. "She doesn't... need me anymore..." One of his big, achingly-familiar hands comes up to stroke the back of my head, his fingers threading into my hair as he kisses the top of my forehead gently, soothingly.

"Oh, Mel," he grumbles, cocooning me tightly against his solid chest. "You know that's not true, baby. She's always gonna need you. Even when she doesn't realize it."

I laugh quietly at myself, at my hysterics, pull away from him a little. "I went to see... how she was doing, if she needed anything, any advice, but..." I give him a wry, watery smile and whisper, "She seemed to have it all figured out."

He chuckles, arcs a dry eyebrow. "And obviously that would be because she has her mother's genes." His forehead wrinkles softly at the thought. Oh, my baby. It isn't easy for him either, I know.

I reach up so I can sift my fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. A few years ago, he was mortified to find those first few strands of grey, but now he's used to it, and I can't help but think the still looks so very sexy. My husband has aged better than Brad Pitt and that man is hotter in his fifties than ever.

"I'm surprised it hasn't all fallen out from the way you like to tug at it," he muses lowly.

His blue eyes glimmer warmly down at me and it cuts through some of the ambivalence weighing heavily on my heart. "Don't jinx it."

Those worn, solid hands find my waist, tug me towards him. He rests his forehead onto mine so the tips of our noses connect and then after a few moments of us breathing the same air he mumbles gruffly, "Just remember that I, at least, will always need you."

Something twists and curls and squeezes in my chest. How does this man still have the ability to make my heart stutter as fast and off-beat as he did a couple decades ago?

I sink forward into his embrace and he holds me for a bit before taking my hand so we can go to bed.

We settle back against the headboard with his arms around me and my head in his shoulder as my thoughts begin to carry me away again. "She's so young, Gavin. Do you remember being that young?"

"Mm." A low, tired hum. "Crazy how time flies, huh?"

"Ridiculous."

Some more pensive silence before he asks, "So, she'll all good? She's happy?"

I think back to my visit to Ophelia's room a little while ago and suddenly a small, knowing laugh is spilling from my lips. "She's more than happy, she's... effervescent. The second I walked into her room I recognized the look on her face."

Gavin groans and I feel the vibrations rumbles through his chest and into my body. I can't help but smile as he comments, grumpily, "You mean, like that look on your face when I know exactly what you're thinking about?"

"Mm, yes, the same one."

"Damn."

After a moment, a rough palm cups the side of my face and draws me towards him so our lips are just an inch or two apart. The soft, hooded look in his eyes and the dark twitch at the edge of his jaw send warmth pooling between my thighs. "Haven't seen that look in a little while," he notes, his voice faintly huskier.

"Because," I murmur close to his lips, "I've been preoccupied."

Slowly, lazily, one of his hands drifts down my side until his fingers snag in the belt of my nightgown and begin to pull it loose. As the silken sash unfurls, the front of the robe spills open and my bare skin prickles from the cool air that slides across it.

He pulls away just far enough to gaze down at me. An appreciative grunt echoes from low in his chest and when he looks at me like that, I don't feel saggier or fleshier or wrinklier from years of age and wear. I can remember what it was like, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, when I felt like a goddess beneath his insatiable touch, like my body was his to worship, like I was the walking incarnation of his desires.

It's crazy to me, to think that my little girl is beginning to get a taste of that world, those experiences. Terrifying and nearly inconceivable.

And as I filter through memory after memory after memory of my own sexual adventures I'm suddenly... perturbed.

"What's the matter?" he questions, his lips halting momentarily from their searching, sensual path down my neck.

I grip onto one of his biceps and confess, despite how I know it'll sour his mood, "I'm trying not to imagine our baby girl doing all the things I've done..."

He lets out a tortured, displeased groan, burying his face in the crook of my neck. "Thanks for that, Mel."

"It's horrifying, isn't it?" I wonder aloud, feeling quite flushed. "I mean, just think about how dirty we used to be..."

He scrubs a palm over the scruff coating the lower half of his face. "Fucking hell. We were pretty bad, weren't we?"

The look of utter distress across my husband's face for some reason makes me giggle. I stifle the soft, round sound into the palm of my hand. I am fifty years old and should not be giggling.

"Terrible," I whisper, leaning into him and pressing my hands to his chest. "In your old office, all over our old apartment..."

A crooked smile spreads across his face. "The backseat of your old car. Almost in the elevator, too..."

My heart constricts nostalgically from the memories. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and our legs tangle together. "Remember when Darcy was three, and he was taking a nap and we tried to have a quickie in the kitchen and he walked in on us right in the middle of it?"

His rough laughter spills against my ear. "No wonder he is the way he is."

It shouldn't be funny but somehow it is.

With a low hum, he guides me onto my back so my head hits the pillow and uses those long, deft fingers of his to slip my open nightgown off my shoulders, to remove the entire thing and discard it so I'm wearing nothing but a pair of cream-coloured lace panties.

I reach for his shoulders, tug at his t-shirt, appreciating the way his body moves, golden skin and muscle shifting and rippling. He's put on a bit extra flesh over the years but he keeps fit and healthy and my core still thrums and pools at the sight of him.

With a sparkle in his sapphire eyes, he begins kissing his way down my body, pecking the tips of my breasts, my stomach, then settles himself between my legs and curls a finger beneath the waistband of my underwear. He flicks the thin scrap of fabric off and down my legs with an ease and precision born of many years of practice, and then I'm shivering from the warm humidity of his breath falling in heavy puffs against the centre of me.

I reach down, muss his hair and then tease, dryly, "I thought too much take-out isn't good for your health?"

"Obviously I was lying." Mm... that hungry, possessive look on his face when he stares at the space between my thighs... Looks at those parts of me as if I haven't pushed out two kids from there, or been used and abused countless times at his hands...

Ophelia's lucky she still has a young, fresh, flexible vagina. I guess she should enjoy it while it lasts.

***

Ophelia:

"Oh, Luke..."

He slides into me and pulls out and then slowly slides back in while I grip onto his shoulders, my body shaking beneath him. "Fuck, Ophelia," he rasps into my ear, leaning in to press a hot kiss against the side of my neck. "You feel so good, Feelz."

"I like the way you feel inside me, Luke," I whisper, my eyes fluttering shut from all the crazy, incredible sensations I'm experiencing right now. His skin burns against mine, so much heat emanating from him.

It, uh. Didn't take us very long, once I got to his house after lunch, for us to make it to his bed and get rid of all our clothes. Ever since yesterday afternoon, I've been thinking about us doing it again. And again, and again...

Having Luke's strong, tall, naked body on top of me, having him inside me, so deep and full... it's miraculous. Our hearts race together, and our warm, humid breaths mix between us, and he makes these low, gruff, masculine sounds and my entire body lights up so brightly and intensely...

It's so crazy. "Ah, Luke..." As he rubs my clit in firm circles with the pad of his thumb, he rocks his hips so he can move inside me and... he's so deep, and thick, and my body stretches so much and... it's weird and still a little foreign and maybe a bit uncomfortable but... good. So good because... he's Luke, and he loves me, and when we do this together I can feel our love for each other envelope us and fill the air around us and... It just makes me feel so whole.

"This okay?" he grumbles, his nose sliding against mine. The  front of his hair is dampened with sweat and when I nuzzle my face into the crook of his neck, press an open kiss against his pulse, the salty, dark taste of his skin fills my mouth.

"Mhm..." My chest rises and falls rapidly, our bellies stuck slickly together. Um, before we actually had sex this time, we kissed a lot and touched a lot because, all the websites say that foreplay is really important. So when he finally pushed himself into me, my body was so on edge and so wet and so hot and achy. I think the anticipation of it just adds to how good it is in the end, you know?

"Ophelia, I'm... close," he murmurs. "Are you almost there?"

"I just need... more, Luke..." I whimper. His movements are steady, gentle, slow. I know he doesn't wanna hurt me but I just... need more friction? "Maybe you can move... a little faster?" I breathe. I spread my legs wider and cinch them around his waist and try to grind my hips up a little because I just... don't really know what I need but I just need it.

A throaty groan rumbles from him. He pulls out of me and then thrusts back a bit harder and oh my God... "Again?"

My hands clutch his hips and I'm just... so high, so into it, so buzzed and fuzzy and like, in a haze, grasping onto him, moaning and gasping from the way he makes me feel. The pleasure throbs and builds between my legs, bubbles and rises and I don't even know what comes over me but, I'm grabbing at his butt to try and get more more more more...

"Oh my fucking god, Ophelia..."

I can feel my body swell so tight around him, just get so tense, and his thrusts become sloppier, and his muscles bunch up, become taut with tension and then he releases, and I can feel him twitch and spasm from his climax, buried at the centre of me, and I reach down and circle a finger over one of my hard, peaked nipples and then, "Luke... ohmygodohmygod..." My voice is nothing more than a breathless, high pitched squeal. "Ahh..."

He collapses half on top of me, his weight pinning me to the mattress, and we're an awkward tangle of arms and legs and sweat as we pant for breath. What... just happened?

Holy. Fricking. Shit.

It takes us like, a couple long minutes to recover. He rolls onto his back and I glance down at his softened penis wrapped in the soiled condom and, for the record, it looks kinda really weird.

He peels the latex off and ties it shut, then rises off his back so he can go toss it in the bin, groans tiredly in the process.

When he's finished, he settles back beside me and I press myself into his arms, against his chest. A long, satisfied, exhausted sigh falls from me. We're so sweaty and stinky and smelly but I just... don't care. "That was amazing, Luke," I whisper, my voice breathier, huskier.

"Yeah. Holy shit, Feelz."

He holds me and I press soft kisses all over his face, feeling so mushy and exhausted and kinda sore and messy but...

Wow. Just, wow.

I love sex.

***

A/N:

What a surprise, Fee.

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