Bedroom paint

The dust sheets had been down for three weeks and I'd forgotten what the living room floor actually looked like. I was halfway through measuring the chimney breast for the new surround—pencil behind my ear, tape measure stretched out, plaster dust in my hair—when I heard it. That familiar low rumble. Not the motorcycle, not the Mustang. Something quieter, more deliberate. Becky's car.

I straightened up, knees cracking, and listened. The engine cut outside. A door slammed. I tossed the tape measure onto the dust sheet and walked slowly through the hall, brushing plaster off my joggers. She'd bowl in any second now. She always did. Front door open, shoes kicked off, something sarcastic about the state of the place within thirty seconds.

I stood at the door, hands in pockets, waiting.

Nothing.

Through the frosted glass I could see a shape—blonde hair, hood up, the silhouette of someone who was not walking toward my door but away from it. Then a thud through the letterbox. Something flat and heavy hit the mat. Aqua board samples. The ones we'd ordered together last week.

I opened the door. "You not coming in?"

She stopped on the drive. Turned. The hood was up but I could see her face well enough. Thunder. Absolute thunder.

"Well do you want me to?" she snapped.

I leaned against the doorframe, genuinely lost. "Beck, what's the matter?"

She stomped back across the gravel, hands clenched at her sides, jaw tight. "You are selfish." Her voice carried across the whole street. "You know that? Completely fucking selfish."

"Right, get in." I stepped back, gesturing inside. My neighbour Brian was definitely listening through his bathroom window. "Come in, don't do this out here."

She stared at me for a beat, then marched past, shoulder nearly catching my chest. I closed the door and followed her into the living room, where she stood in the middle of the dust sheets, arms folded, hood still up.

"Beck, what the fuck?"

"You just don't care about anyone but yourself, do you?" She wouldn't look at me. Her eyes were darting around the room—the bare plaster walls, the stacked tiles, the half-finished chimney. "You just do what you want, when you want, and everyone else can fuck off."

"That's not—"

"I messaged you three times about the work thing on Saturday. Three times. You didn't even open them."

I rubbed the back of my neck. "I was busy. I was doing the—"

"You're always busy. You're always doing something that only matters to you."

I stood there, plaster dust still falling out of my hair, and tried to piece this together. Becky and I had been doing this dance for ten years. Friday dinners at hers, the kids running around, her husband pouring wine while we argued about engine sizes or wallpaper patterns. She'd been coming to mine more lately, turning up unannounced, making herself at home in a renovation site. I'd always assumed it was just what we did. Easy. Comfortable. No strings.

"I don't go to work things, Beck. I don't go to anyone's work things. You know that."

"Oh stop it." She pulled her hood down and her hair fell loose, messy, like she'd been pulling at it in the car. "You can't just use that as your excuse. This is different and you know it."

I held my arms out, palms up. "I'm genuinely confused."

She took a step toward me, then stopped. Her chin was trembling. "You're part of our family. You come over and eat our food every Friday. You sit in my kitchen and make my kids laugh and drink my husband's wine. And then you ignore my messages and don't show up when I ask you to be somewhere."

"Because I don't do things I don't want to do. That's why I'm not in a relationship, Beck. I like doing my own thing."

"Yes, but you can't have your cake and eat it." Her voice cracked. "You can't keep coming over when it suits you and then not be there for me when I need you."

"When you need me?"

"Yes. When I need you."

I stared at her. "You have a husband. A family. Friends. Why do you need me?"

The room went quiet. I could hear the boiler ticking in the kitchen and a dog barking somewhere down the street. She looked at me with those blue eyes—red-rimmed now, wet—and something shifted in her face. The anger drained out of it like water through a crack, and what was left underneath was raw. Exposed. Scared.

"Because you're the one person I can be myself with."

She said it quietly. Almost a whisper.

"You're the one person I can say anything to and not be judged. The one person who makes me laugh more than anyone else can. When I'm with you, I don't have to be the mum, or the wife, or the one who organises everything. I'm just me."

I didn't move. I could feel something heavy settling in my chest—part flattery, part shock, part something else I didn't want to name yet.

"I can be myself with you," she said again, softer now. "We laugh. You make me feel..."

She stopped. Backed up a step. Her hand went to her mouth.

"What, Beck?"

She closed her eyes. When she opened them, there were tears rolling down her cheeks. "I pull up on your drive, and the anticipation of seeing you..." She swallowed hard. "I'm soaking wet before I've got to the door. Then I see you, and the want is unbearable. I am literally dripping."

The room tilted. I felt it shift under my feet like the house had settled wrong. She was crying properly now, not loud, just tears falling freely, her shoulders shaking inside that cashmere hoody. She looked small. She never looked small.

"Beck..."

"Don't. Don't say something kind. I'll lose it completely."

I closed the gap between us. Two steps. My hand found her jaw—gently, fingertips only—and tilted her face up. Her eyes were wide, terrified, wet. I wiped a tear with my thumb.

"You should have just said something."

"When? Between the lasagne and the kids' bedtime stories? While your mate was pouring you another glass?"

Fair point.

I kissed her. Not carefully, not tentatively. I kissed her the way I'd wanted to for longer than I was willing to admit, my hand sliding from her jaw into her hair, gripping the back of her neck. She made a sound—something between a gasp and a sob—and her fists unclenched and grabbed my t-shirt, pulling me down to her. I'm six foot seven. She had to reach. She rose on her toes and I bent and our mouths met properly, open, urgent. She tasted like coffee and something sweet. Lip gloss. Her tongue found mine and she pressed forward, body against body, and I could feel her shaking.

"Tell me to stop," I said against her mouth.

"Don't you fucking dare."

I pulled the hoody up. She raised her arms and it came off in one motion—nothing underneath but a sports bra, pale blue, stretched tight. Her skin was warm. I could smell her perfume, something floral, mixed with the clean scent of cashmere that clung to her hair. I ran my hands down her sides, over the curve of her waist, and she shivered.

"Upstairs," she said.

"Bed's stripped. Mattress is bare."

"I don't care."

We went up. She walked ahead of me, joggers low on her hips, and I watched the way she moved—quick, certain, like she'd been waiting for this and wasn't going to let anything slow her down. At the top of the stairs she turned and pulled me by the hem of my t-shirt, walking backward into the bedroom, and I kicked the door shut behind us.

The mattress was bare, yes, but clean. She sat on the edge and looked up at me, hair falling over one eye, and reached for the hem of my shirt. I let her pull it off. Her eyes moved over my chest—not scrutinising, just looking, like she was memorising something.

"You're dusty," she said, and almost laughed.

I knelt in front of her. Put my hands on her knees. Pushed them apart slowly and moved between them. She was breathing hard, chest rising and falling, and when I leaned in to kiss her collarbone she let her head fall back. I kissed her throat. The hollow where her pulse was hammering. The curve of her shoulder. I unclasped the sports bra from the front—snap, easy—and her breasts fell free. Full, heavy, pink nipples already hard. I took one in my mouth and she grabbed the back of my head, fingers in my hair, pulling me closer.

"Fuck," she breathed.

I switched to the other side, tongue circling, and she arched her back, pressing herself into me. My hands found the waistband of her joggers. I hooked my thumbs inside and pulled. She lifted her hips and they came off—knickers too, all in one go—and there she was. Bare from the waist down, legs open, and I could see it. She hadn't been lying. She was wet. Genuinely, visibly wet. Slick and shining on her inner thighs, the soft hair between her legs dark with it.

"Jesus, Beck."

"I told you," she whispered. "Every time."

I pushed her back onto the mattress. She went willingly, hair fanning out on the bare surface, and I spread her legs wider with my hands on her thighs. I kissed the inside of her knee. Her thigh. Higher. She was trembling. I could smell her—musk and salt and heat—and when I ran my tongue along her, one long slow stroke, she cried out. Not a moan. A cry. Her hips bucked up and I held them down, one arm across her pelvis, and went to work.

I wasn't gentle about it. I found her clit and circled it with the tip of my tongue, steady, rhythmic, and she grabbed the mattress on either side of her, knuckles white. Her thighs were shaking against my ears. I slid two fingers inside her—she was so wet there was no resistance, just heat and pressure—and curled them upward while I kept my mouth on her. She swore. Loudly. Her back arched off the mattress and I could feel her clenching around my fingers, rhythmic, desperate.

"Don't stop, don't stop, don't—"

I didn't. I kept the rhythm exactly the same until she broke. Her orgasm hit her like a wave—whole body rigid, then convulsing, her thighs clamping around my head and her hands grabbing my hair hard enough to hurt. She made a sound I'd never heard from her before. Raw. Unfiltered. Not the Becky who made jokes and organised dinners. This was someone else entirely. Someone she'd been hiding.

I eased off slowly, pressing soft kisses to her thighs as she came down. Her chest was heaving. Her eyes were closed. When she opened them, they were different. Clearer. Like something had been unlocked.

"Get up here," she said.

I stood, and she sat up and grabbed my joggers—same as hers, elastic waist—and yanked them down. My cock was hard, straining against my boxers, and she looked at it for a second with an expression that was half hunger and half relief, like she'd been imagining this for months and finally got to confirm it was real. She pulled the waistband down and freed me, and her hand wrapped around the shaft, warm, firm.

"Fuck, Luke."

"Good or bad?"

"Shut up."

She stroked me once, twice, then leaned forward and took me in her mouth. Wet, hot, her tongue flat against the underside as she moved. I put my hand on the back of her head—not pushing, just resting there—and watched. Her blonde hair fell over her face and I could see her cheeks hollowing as she sucked. She looked up at me, eyes watering slightly, and something about that look—those blue eyes staring up while her mouth was full of me—nearly ended things right there.

"Beck. Stop. I need to be inside you."

She pulled back, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and lay back on the mattress. Legs open. Arms reaching for me.

I climbed over her. Positioned myself between her thighs and pressed the head of my cock against her. She was so wet I could feel it on my skin. I pushed forward—slowly, just the head—and she gasped, her eyes going wide.

"More."

I pushed deeper. Inch by inch, watching her face. Her mouth open, her eyes half-closed, her hands gripping my forearms. When I was fully inside her we both stopped. Just stayed there. I could feel her pulsing around me, still sensitive from before, and she was so warm and tight that I had to concentrate on not losing it immediately.

"Fuck me," she gasped, the words torn from her throat, and I drove into her harder—no more teasing, no more restraint, just raw, punishing rhythm that made her cry out. Her spine bowed, her fingers clawing at the bare mattress for purchase, and when I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back, she moaned like it was the answer to a question she'd been asking for years. Her cunt clenched around me, slick and greedy, and I watched my cock disappear into her again and again while she pushed back to meet every thrust. The sound of it—wet, obscene, skin slapping skin—echoed off the empty walls, and she was babbling now, words dissolving into whimpers as I fucked her through the mattress springs.

I did. Slow at first, long deliberate strokes, pulling almost all the way out before pushing back in. She wrapped her legs around my waist, locking her ankles, and pulled me deeper. I braced my hands on either side of her and picked up the pace. The mattress creaked—no sheets to muffle it—and the sound of us, skin on skin, wet and slick, filled the bare room.

"Harder," she said. "Stop being careful with me."

I fucked her harder. The bed frame hit the wall. She was meeting every thrust, her hips rolling, her nails digging into my back. I could feel the scratches but I didn't care. She was saying things—my name, fragments of words, half-sentences that didn't finish—and her face was flushed from her chest to her cheeks.

I pulled out and flipped her over. She went without resistance, face down on the bare mattress, and I grabbed her hips and pulled them up. She arched her back, presenting herself, and I could see everything—her pussy swollen and wet, the pink of her, the curve of her arse. I slid back inside her from behind and she moaned into the mattress, muffled and desperate.

This angle was deeper. I could feel her differently, and she could feel it too—her whole body tensed, then relaxed, then tensed again. I reached around and found her clit with my fingers, rubbing in circles while I fucked her, and she started shaking again.

"I'm going to—again, I'm—"

"Come for me, Beck."

She did. Harder than the first time. Her whole body seized and she buried her face in the mattress and screamed into it, her vaginal walls clamping down on me so hard I couldn't move. I held her hips and let her ride it out, feeling every pulse, every wave, until she collapsed forward onto the mattress.

I wasn't done. I pulled out and she rolled onto her back, breathing hard, eyes glazed. She looked up at me and reached down between her legs, touching herself, watching me stroke my cock above her.

"Come on me," she said. "I want to see it."

I was close—had been teetering on the edge for minutes, held back by sheer stubbornness. I worked my cock faster, and she watched with those blazing blue eyes, her fingers still circling her clit. When I finally let go, it was a violent, gut-deep release—thick ropes streaking her belly, her tits, one lashing all the way to her collarbone. She let out a filthy gasp and kept touching herself, while her other hand gathered my cum, smearing it across her skin, rubbing it into her chest, her stomach, like she wanted to wear it. It was obscene, absolutely fucking filthy, and my cock twitched at the sight.

I braced myself against the wall, chest heaving, and looked down at her. She was a glorious fucking disaster. Hair a wild tangle, skin flushed hot pink, my come smeared across her tits and stomach like she'd claimed it, legs still spread wide, that filthy, satisfied smile curving her lips.

"Well," she said. "That's been building for a while."

I laughed. Couldn't help it. I dropped onto the mattress next to her and she curled into my side, her head on my chest, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my skin.

"You're still dusty," she murmured.

"And you're still lying on my mattress with nothing but dust and my come on you."

"Wouldn't be the first time I've made a mess somewhere I shouldn't."

I stared at the ceiling. The plaster was half-sanded up there too. Everything in this house was unfinished, in progress, waiting to be completed. Something about that felt uncomfortably symbolic.

"So what now?" I asked.

She tilted her head up, chin resting on my chest. "Now I go home. Cook dinner. Act normal. And you come over on Friday like always."

"And then?"

"And then we figure it out. One Friday at a time."

I looked down at her. That amazing smile. The one that had been getting me into trouble for a decade without me even realising it.

"You know," I said, "you could have just texted me."

She laughed—proper, full, the laugh I loved most—and punched my arm.

"You don't read your messages, you absolute knob."

Fair point.