Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend (68 page)

Wilson lifted his head from where he’d been dipping his tongue into her belly button. ‘Promise I’ll kiss that better in a bit, too,’ he drawled, and Hope was just about to hit him or kick him, she hadn’t decided which, when his hands closed around her breasts.

She lifted her arms so she could wrap her fingers around the bars of the bedstead as Wilson’s mouth worked furiously on one pouting nipple, sucking it hard, while his fingers teased her other breast. Then he switched over.

When Hope let go of the bedstead in favour of grabbing Wilson by the quiff, he stopped. Finally, she thought, relaxing her limbs and getting ready to take him in her arms, but he was sliding back down the bed and settling himself between her thighs.

‘Now where exactly does it hurt?’ he asked and before Hope could answer, he decided to find out for himself.

In Hope’s limited, one-man-only experience, oral sex wasn’t something that happened the first time. In fact, the only time it happened was when she absolutely begged Jack to reciprocate after she’d given him a lengthy blow job.
Even
then, he did it with a put-upon air and not much enthusiasm. But then Hope stopped thinking about what Jack did and didn’t do, because all she could concentrate on was what Wilson was doing: two fingers gently thrusting inside her, grazing a little spot that made her buck her hips, as he caught her clit gently between his teeth and sucked on it.

She was coming before she even knew that she was coming, twisting and turning against Wilson’s clever mouth, so he had to put his hands on her hips to hold her down and make sure that she didn’t decapitate him with her thighs. Hope reached down to push him away and pull him up so he was lying next to her as she tried to catch her breath.

‘Was that all right?’ he asked, and Hope could hear his hesitation, as if he wasn’t confident of his performance.

‘God, it was more than all right,’ Hope sighed. She ran the back of her hand along his flushed cheek. ‘If you give me a moment to recover, I’ll return the favour.’

‘I’d rather fuck you,’ Wilson said, and his gruff, plain way of speaking might be kind of scary and annoying sometimes, but when Hope was naked on his bed, it was wonderfully arousing, even though she’d been sure that she needed at least half an hour to get her second wind. ‘Can we bank the blow job?’

‘I think that can be arranged,’ Hope said with a giggle, turning on to her side so she could smoosh against Wilson and kiss him slowly and wetly as her hand reached for his cock. This time Wilson didn’t stop her, and she closed her fingers around him, mentally comparing him to Jack because she couldn’t not. She wasn’t a size-queen, but his cock was big and solid like the rest of him, and even as they kissed, Hope’s mind was racing with the possibilities of what it would feel like when they were fucking.

The kisses had started off slow and languid, but as Wilson shifted so he was lying over her and she could feel the head of his cock nudging against her inner thigh, the kisses
became
fiercer, hands started wandering and she was canting her hips, trying to get just an inch of him inside her.

‘What are you doing?’ Hope hissed, when Wilson lifted himself up so she was suddenly cold and untouched. ‘Did I do something wrong?’

‘No, you were doing things exactly right.’ Wilson nodded his head in the direction of the nightstand. ‘Could you grab a condom?’

That was something else that Hope hadn’t had much experience of before. She’d been taking the pill ever since she’d turned sixteen and had gone on a stealth mission to the family-planning clinic in Rochdale, and had been on it ever since because she knew where Jack had been – although when they’d been having make-up sex, she hadn’t known that he and Susie were really shagging, which was another thing she should hate him for …

‘Hey, hey! Where did you go?’ Wilson asked softly, and as Hope brushed the hair out of her eyes, she pushed the bad thoughts away.

‘Sorry,’ she said, scrambling to her knees and opening the drawer. ‘One condom coming up. Shall I do the honours?’

As Hope leaned over to put the condom on, curiosity got the better of her. Besides, it seemed rude not to when his cock was so hard and so near that it was a simple matter to take him in her mouth. Wilson tasted clean and salty. Hope swirled her tongue over the tip of his dick, her eyes on him as he threw his head back and caught his lip between his teeth. She was all set to suck, hard, when he actually lifted her off him and practically threw her back down on the bed.

‘Not helping,’ he said through gritted teeth, snatching the condom out of her sweaty hand and prising it out of its foil wrapper. ‘Obviously you can’t be trusted.’

‘Obviously,’ Hope agreed, parting her legs once Wilson was safely suited up, and coaxing him back down. ‘But I just couldn’t help myself.’

Wilson lowered his head and nipped her neck, and they
were
right back where they’d been a moment ago, except now Hope was worming her hand between their bodies to take hold of his dick again and guide him into her. He pushed in slowly, an inch at a time, then retreating, before pressing home a little further so Hope could feel him filling her, stretching her, and when his cock was deep inside her, she wrapped her arms and legs tightly around him.

They hardly knew each other, not really, but they were as close as two people could possibly be, and though it felt right, in fact it felt really good with the walls of her pussy gripping him tight and the base of his cock rubbing against her clit, it was also a little sad. Because in that moment, Hope knew that she and Jack were really over, there was no going back now. And she didn’t want to go back, but to not have that option any more was a little frightening.

‘Stop thinking,’ Wilson whispered in her ear. ‘No thinking, just feeling.’

And then he moved, pulling out of her, to thrust back in, harder and faster than he had before, and Hope was scoring her nails down his back to urge him to go even harder and faster. She lifted herself up so she was almost sitting on his lap, revelling in the slap of flesh on flesh, the bedstead banging against the wall and Wilson’s voice telling her how beautiful she was, how tight she was, how he could become addicted to fucking her. Then she was almost there, almost but not quite, just needed Wilson’s hand suddenly dipping down, thumb rubbing hard against her clit, and she was biting down hard on his shoulder, urging him on with eager little cries, as his rhythm faltered and he was coming too.

‘That was the best Christmas present I ever had,’ he said later, when they were both lying flat and spread-eagled on the bed, only their little fingers hooked together. ‘Even better than when I got a Scalextric.’

Hope still wasn’t capable of rational thought, much less speaking, so she just smiled and hmmed her agreement.

‘Are you all right?’ Wilson tried to prop himself up but
Hope
refused to relinquish her grip on his little finger. ‘No second thoughts?’

Surely if she was having second thoughts, she wouldn’t be sprawled in a state of post-coital bliss with her mind resembling mush? ‘No, I’m good,’ she murmured. ‘Really good.’ Except, there was one thing. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way …’

Wilson tensed up. ‘So you
are
having regrets?’ He stopped tensing, in favour of slumping. ‘I knew this would happen. You didn’t do anything wrong and there’s no point in beating yourself up over someone who—’

‘Don’t!’ It took great effort, but Hope sat up. ‘Don’t you dare bring
that
up when all I was going to say was that I’m really hungry.’

‘Oh, right. Sorry.’ Wilson curled his fingers around hers again. ‘I’m hungry too. Starving, to be more accurate. I was so nervous about you coming over that I could hardly eat a thing all day.’

‘I could only manage one roast potato,’ Hope volunteered.

Wilson sniffed. ‘I didn’t even have any pigs-in-blankets.’

Hope rolled over so Wilson would get the full benefit of her plaintive expression. She pulled her hand free of his so she could fashion herself two little paws. ‘Please will you go and make me a turkey sandwich?’

THEY SPENT THE
next three days in bed, so that Hope wasn’t sure when it was day and when it was night, though she didn’t much care. Her mind was a hot red blur of what they’d done, what they were going to do, all the things she’d ever wanted to try, but had never had the courage to suggest in case Jack thought she was some kind of freak.

But if Hope was a freak, then Wilson was too, because whenever she managed to falteringly describe a scenario that had provided her with fantasy fodder for years, Wilson would quirk an eyebrow and murmur, ‘Hmm, sounds interesting.’ Then he’d pause and get a faraway look in his eyes. ‘So, if you’re up for that, then how would you feel about embellishing it a little?’ Wilson’s embellishments always seemed to lead to things that Hope wouldn’t have thought were anatomically possible, or had to be illegal in at least five countries, not that she minded when she was screaming herself hoarse and clawing at the bedsheets.

It wasn’t all about sex, though. It was also about eating turkey sandwiches the size of bricks and drinking tea or wine as they chatted. The kind of inconsequential chatter that meandered through childhood pets and films that made them cry, to their all-time favourite midnight snacks, to the most drunk they’d ever been. It was the unimportant stuff that really defined who you were, and that you shared when you were starting to really get to know someone. Because although, technically, they’d known each other for
months,
it had been months of not liking each other very much, then months of
Sturm und Drang
, and it was only now that they were really figuring out the meat and bones of each other.

Hope now knew that Wilson hated pickles, couldn’t sleep until he hoovered the sandwich crumbs off the bedsheets with a dustbuster, and had been thinking about getting a cat for years, but didn’t know if he was ready to assume responsibility for another living creature. ‘I have to check that Alfie has washed his hands after he’s had a leak, so having to deal with litter boxes would just be too much,’ he’d complained.

Hope had thought that she might go home to get some fresh clothes or to give Wilson some time and space. But as she spent most of the time either naked or in one of Wilson’s shirts, and when she got back into bed after foraging for food and drinks in the kitchen, he’d wrap his arms around her and insist that she’d been gone too long, fresh clothes and giving Wilson some time and space weren’t really an issue.

She didn’t know where this was going. If it was just a few days of the wild, uninhibited, no-strings sex that Hope had always imagined single girls had, or if it was something more permanent, more meaningful. But after years of no surprises, her life all planned out, not knowing was an exhilarating white-knuckle ride.

On the fourth day of their confinement, after they’d bathed together in Wilson’s claw-footed, roll-topped bath, sipping the champagne that they’d only just got round to opening, legs entwined, Hope decided that she couldn’t stay here for ever. For one thing, they were running desperately short of milk, they’d finished the last of the bread the night before, and Quality Street and slightly stale mince pies weren’t a nutritionally balanced diet. Besides, Jack was due back any day and there were things that needed to be sorted out.

‘Oh dear,’ Wilson said, when Hope tripped down the stairs
from
his bedroom wearing her lace dress and clutching her iPhone. ‘You have this look that makes me think you’re dressed for more than a trip to Tesco’s.’

‘What kind of look?’ Hope asked as she switched her phone back on.

‘Mulish,’ Wilson explained. ‘Determined. Not particularly happy.’

‘He’s back,’ Hope said, as she skimmed through her messages. ‘In fact, he’s been back since yesterday, and he wants to know if I’ve run off to join the Foreign Legion.’

Wilson got down the last two clean mugs. Due to the lack of milk, they’d both resigned themselves to choking down camomile tea. ‘I suppose it’s not the kind of situation that’s going to take just a phone call?’

Oh, how Hope wished that it was, but … ‘I have to see him. Hanging around a tiny flat, waiting on someone else, when you don’t know where they are or if they’re coming back, is horrible.’ She hoisted herself up on one of Wilson’s kitchen stools and rested her elbows on the breakfast bar. ‘Anyway, I can’t stay here for ever.’

‘Well, no, not for ever,’ Wilson conceded, and Hope felt her heart sink. She’d had enough of for ever to last a lifetime, but four days was hardly any time at all. ‘But I was going to cook an actual meal for tea. A meal that includes these green things called vegetables.’