Dust, Sweat, and That Smile

The paintbrush was doing my head in. I'd been crouched over the same skirting board for forty minutes, and my knees were singing a song of betrayal. The house was a wreck — half the bathroom wall was missing, plaster dust on everything, and the smell of emulsion had seeped into my skin so deeply I was probably carcinogenic at this point. Two years I'd been doing this place up. Two years of stripping woodchip wallpaper and discovering crimes against interior design beneath. The previous owner had been colourblind and insane, and I had the receipts to prove it.

The front door swung open without a knock.

"You look like absolute shite," you said, standing in my doorway with the sun behind you, your hair lit up like a halo that had no business being on someone so cheeky.

"Cheers, Beck. Come right in."

"I intend to." You stepped inside and dumped your bag on the chair I'd specifically told you not to dump bags on. "Jesus, it's like the surface of Mercury out there."

Thirty-eight degrees. The weather app had been threatening it all week, and it had delivered. You were wearing shorts — the ones that were technically too short for a mum of two but that I'd never once complained about — and a strappy top that was doing a lot of heavy lifting in the structural integrity department. Your hair was down, long and blonde and slightly wild from the heat.

"You look like you're melting," I said, wiping my hands on a rag that was already more paint than cloth.

"I am menopausal, Luke. I am hot enough already without the sun doing its best impression of a blast furnace." You fanned yourself with an exaggerated gesture, then without any ceremony whatsoever, dropped onto my newly laid wooden floor and lay flat on your back, arms spread. "Oh my God, your floor is cold."

"It's not cold. It's just not the surface of the sun."

"It's heaven. I'm never leaving."

"Alright?" I said, looking down at you from my full height. Even flat on the floor, you radiated something — energy, mischief, something I didn't want to name.

"No, I am melting."

"Water?"

"Yes please."

I walked to the kitchen, which was open-plan enough that I could still see you sprawled on my floor like a starfish claiming new territory. I filled two glasses from the fridge — the one luxury I'd splashed out on in this house, an American-style fridge with ice and water on tap — and kept talking over my shoulder.

"You know, most people ring before they bowl into someone's house."

"Most people aren't me."

"Tragically true."

I came back with the glasses. You sat up to take yours, and I watched you drink half of it in one go, your throat working, a drop of water escaping the corner of your mouth and running down your neck. I looked away. I sat down on the floor next to you, my back against the wall, legs stretched out. The floor was genuinely cooler. I hadn't realised.

"So where are Tom and Jessy?" I asked.

"At his mum's." You shrugged. "I'm on call so I can't go anywhere. Can I hang here for a bit? It's cooler than ours."

"Of course. You know you're always welcome here."

"Even when I interrupt your skirting board artistry?"

"Especially then. That skirting board was winning."

It was easy between us. It had always been easy — that was the problem and the pleasure of it. Conversation flowed like water finding its level. We had in jokes that had built up over years, the kind that made no sense to anyone else. Smutty references dropped into normal conversation like grenades disguised as conversation. You said something about Monty Don and Gardeners' World that was filthy, and I laughed so hard I forgot about the paint drying on the brush.

"He'd absolutely be into that," you said, grinning.

"Beck, the man is a national treasure."

"Exactly. National treasures have needs."

"You're impossible."

"And yet here you are, on the floor with me."

You lay down again, flat on your back, and I watched your shoulders settle against the wood. I lay down too, mirroring you, and the ceiling above us was the same one I'd been staring at for two years, wondering what the hell I was doing with this house.

"Oh yeah, it is cooler down here," I said, and you laughed — that amazing laugh, the one that made your whole face change.

Our breathing slowed. The house ticked around us, the way old houses do when they're settling in the heat. We lay in silence, both looking at the ceiling, and I could hear your breath and feel the warmth of you beside me, not touching, but close enough that I was aware of every inch of space between us.

You turned your head to look at me.

I felt it before I saw it — the shift of attention. I turned my head slowly to meet your eyes.

We both laughed.

"I love being here. With you."

I swallowed. The words hung in the air between us like something fragile. "Well, you do spend enough time here..."

The silence that followed was deafening, but not uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that happens when two people are aware of the same thing and neither wants to be the first to acknowledge it. We both turned onto our sides, facing each other, hands tucked under our heads. Like kids at a sleepover, except we weren't kids, and this wasn't innocent, and I could see the freckles on your shoulders and the way your top had shifted.

We carried on chatting. About nonsense — Gogglebox, someone at work, the state of my bathroom. The normal stuff that made it feel safe, that gave us cover.

Then you said it.

"I often wonder, if things were different, would you want me?"

I sat up. My heart was doing something it shouldn't have been doing. I shook my head slowly. "Beck, that's not fair."

You sat up too, and we looked at each other. Your eyes were steady, searching. There was nothing casual in them now.

I reached out and touched your face. Your skin was warm from the heat, and I tucked a stray bit of hair behind your ear, my fingers lingering longer than they should have at the top of your ear, tracing the curve of it.

"You know how I feel," I said.

"I don't. You need to tell me."

"The eyes, Beck. The flirting. It's not fair."

"You do it too," you said, and your voice was quiet but certain.

"I don't know what to think. One minute I think you want to take me on your kitchen counter and the next I think you can't bear to be around me."

I stood up. The words had come out before I could stop them, and I walked to the window, pressing my hand against my head. The glass was hot from the sun, the light harsh and white outside. My reflection stared back at me — paint-streaked, six foot seven of idiot in a manky t-shirt.

"You're fucking married, Beck."

I heard you stand. I heard your bare feet on the wooden floor, and then your hand was on my back, and you were pressing your face into me, nuzzling between my shoulder blades. I could feel your breath through the fabric of my shirt, warm and deliberate.

"I need you, Luke."

Your voice was muffled against my back.

"I am so fucking wet for you."

My hand was at my side, and you took it — guided it down, past the waistband of your shorts, and my fingers met heat and slick and you. Fuck. You were soaked. Not just wet — drenched. The fabric of your shorts was saturated, and beneath it, your pussy was slippery and swollen and so ready it was almost indecent.

"Fuck," I said, and the word came out rough, like it had been dragged from somewhere deep.

"I want you to taste me," you whispered, and your breath was hot against my back.

I turned around. You looked up at me — way up, because even standing, I had more than a foot on you — and your eyes were dark, your lips slightly parted, that amazing smile replaced by something more urgent.

We kissed. Frantic, open-mouthed, desperate. Your hands were in my hair, pulling me down to you, and mine were on your waist, gripping the soft skin above your shorts. You tasted like water and heat and something sweet I couldn't name. Your tongue met mine and you made a sound — a small, hungry sound — that went straight through me.

I broke the kiss just long enough to bend down, hook my arms under your thighs, and lift you. You weighed nothing, or that's what it felt like. You wrapped your legs around me and your arms around my neck, and I walked us to the kitchen counter, the one I'd installed myself, the one that was solid oak and could hold a lot more than a fruit bowl.

I set you down on it, and even perched up there, I still had to bend down to kiss you. That made you laugh against my mouth, and the laugh turned into a gasp as I pulled your top over your head in one motion. Your breasts were bare underneath — of course they were, it was thirty-eight degrees — and they were full and heavy and your nipples were already hard, tight little peaks that I took in my hands, rolling them between my fingers while you arched into me.

"Luke—"

"Shut up," I muttered, but I was smiling. "Just let me."

I pulled your shorts down. You lifted your hips to help, and they came off easily, taking your knickers with them, and then you were naked on my kitchen counter, your legs open, and I could see everything. Your pussy was glistening, slick with arousal, the hair trimmed short, your lips swollen and parted. The smell of you hit me — musky, warm, intimate — and my cock was straining against my paint-streaked joggers.

I bent down and ran my tongue along the length of you, from the opening up to your clit, a slow, deliberate lick that made your thighs clench around my head.

"Jesus fucking Christ," you said, and your hand came down on the back of my head, fingers gripping my hair.

I did it again, slower. I used my thumbs to spread you open, exposing the pink, slick flesh beneath, and I licked into you, tongue pushing inside, tasting you properly. You were sweet and salt and heat, and your juices were running down my chin already, pooling beneath you on the oak.

I found your clit and circled it with my tongue, slow, deliberate circles that made your hips buck against my face. I sucked it gently into my mouth, and you cried out — a proper cry, loud and unguarded — and your hand tightened in my hair to the point of pain.

"Don't stop, don't you dare fucking stop—"

I didn't. I worked your clit with my tongue, alternating between slow circles and rapid flicks, and I slid two fingers inside you, curling them upward, finding that spot that made you gasp and clench around me. Your pussy was impossibly wet, soaking my hand, and I could feel you building — the tension in your thighs, the way your breathing had gone ragged, the way your walls were squeezing my fingers.

"Luke, I'm going to—"

I pressed harder, faster, my tongue relentless on your clit, and you came apart. Your whole body went rigid, your back arching off the counter, and then you bucked hard against my face and I felt it — a rush of wetness that was more than normal, a gush that sprayed against my chin and ran down the cupboards below. You squirted, hard, and it dripped down the oak cabinet doors and pooled on the wooden floor beneath, a dark spreading patch on the new boards.

"Beck, that was fucking filthy," I said, pulling back, my face wet with you.

You were gasping, one hand braced behind you on the counter, the other still gripping my hair. Your eyes were glazed, your cheeks flushed, and you looked absolutely wrecked.

"I am so fucking turned on right now," you breathed. "I need you to fuck me, Luke."

"Oh, don't you worry." I straightened up, and my cock was straining so hard against my joggers it was painful. "I am going to fuck you so hard you won't be able to sit down."

You whimpered. And then your pussy let out more juices — just a little trickle, running down from your opening onto the counter — and the sight of it made my cock twitch so hard it was visible through the fabric.

"Jesus," I said, looking down at myself. "I didn't think I could be this hard."

You opened your legs a little wider, bracing your feet on the counter's edge, and reached up to grab your tits, squeezing them together, your nipples pinched between your fingers. You looked at me with those dark eyes, challenging, wanting.

That was it.

A sound came out of me — low, guttural, something I didn't recognise. I grabbed your hips, pulling you forward to the edge of the counter, and with one motion, I slammed into you.

We both groaned. The sound echoed off the kitchen walls, off the 80s tile splashback I hadn't got around to replacing. You were so wet that I slid in to the hilt despite how tight you were, and the heat of you — fuck — the heat was overwhelming, clenching around me, slick and swollen and perfect.

"Fuck, Beck—"

"Move. Please, just move."

I pulled back and thrust into you again, setting a rhythm that was hard and fast and exactly what I'd promised. The counter shook. Your tits bounced with every thrust, and you were gripping the edge with one hand, the other flat against my chest, feeling my heartbeat through my shirt.

I pulled my shirt off — I needed to feel your skin — and leaned down to kiss you, still fucking you, and the angle changed, went deeper, and you broke the kiss to cry out.

"Yes, there, right there—"

I held that angle, driving into you with everything I had, and your legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me in further. The sound of it was obscene — wet, slapping, the squelch of your pussy taking me over and over. I could feel you clenching around my cock, rhythmic pulses that told me you were close again.

"I'm going to come again," you gasped, and your eyes were wide, almost surprised.

"Come on my cock, Beck. I want to feel it."

You did. Your whole body seized up, your pussy clamping down on me so hard I almost couldn't move, and you came with a sound that was half-sob, half-scream, and I felt another gush of wetness around my shaft, running down my balls, dripping onto the floor.

I couldn't hold back after that. The grip of you, the sight of you — naked, flushed, wrecked on my kitchen counter — it was too much. I thrust into you three more times, deep, grinding, and then I came, burying myself fully inside you, pulsing hot and hard, filling you up.

I collapsed forward, catching myself on the counter, my arms bracketing you. We were both breathing like we'd run a marathon. My cock was still inside you, softening, and I could feel the mix of us leaking out around it, dripping onto the oak.

"Fuck," I said, into your neck.

"Yeah," you said, into mine.

We stayed like that for a long moment. The house ticked around us. The sun blazed outside. The paint on my skirting board was definitely dry by now.

Eventually, I pulled back and looked at you. Your hair was a mess. Your eyes were soft. You had that smile — the amazing one, the one that had started all of this.

"So," you said. "That kitchen counter fantasy."

"Was it everything you hoped for?"

"And more. You're going to need to clean those cupboards, though."

I looked down at the streaks on the oak cabinet doors, the pool on the floor. "I just laid that floor."

"I know. It's really nice. Very slippery."

I laughed, and you laughed, and I kissed you again — slow this time, gentle, the kind of kiss that said something neither of us was ready to say out loud.

"You know," I said, pulling back, "if you wanted to come round more often, I could probably stop charging rent."

"I don't pay rent."

"Exactly my point."

You grinned, and I helped you down off the counter, and you stood there naked in my kitchen, bare feet on my ruined floor, looking like you owned the place.

"Round two?" you asked, reaching for the waistband of my joggers.

"It's thirty-eight degrees."

"So?"

"So you're going to kill me."

"What a way to go," you said, and that smile — that fucking smile — told me I was already gone.