Renovating Desire

The phone buzzed against a stack of tile samples and nearly slid into a bucket of filler. Luke wiped plaster off his thumb before he touched the screen.

I will be there in 10 minutes. Absolutely dripping and want you to do filthy things to me.

He read it twice. The second time his mouth went dry and his dick pushed against the fly of his work jeans.

Ten minutes. The kitchen clock, the only thing in the house that looked like it belonged in this decade, said she was already on the road.

He stood in the middle of the open room and tried to see it the way she would. Leather sofas under plastic sheeting. A fireplace with the old surround ripped out and the new one leaning against the wall like it had given up. Dust on everything the hoover had not reached, which was most of it. Two years of evenings and weekends, and the place still smelled faintly of the old lady’s lavender drawers under the new paint.

The kitchen was the exception. Pale stone, brass taps, a fridge that hummed like it had opinions. He had finished that first because he liked cooking and because Tom had taken the piss out of him for living on takeaway in a house the size of a small hangar.

Tom. Luke set the phone down and pressed both palms to the cold worktop.

He adored the man. Fourteen years of late nights in the garage, of arguing about ride heights and then buying each other terrible coffee. Tom was steadier than Luke, five years ahead of him in the way that mattered, the one who remembered birthdays and never raised his voice when a part failed on a Friday. Their daughter called Luke uncle and meant it. She had drawn him a motorbike once and stuck it on the office fridge.

None of that had stopped week one. Or week two. Or the text burning a hole in his pocket on week four.

He went to the front door and did not open it. Through the glass he could see his car, low and stupidly fast, and the bike under its cover. The drive was empty. She was not here yet. His body did not care.

He thought about the end-of-season party in 2012 because not thinking about it had never worked.

She had come in late, hair still damp from a shower, that smile already on. Long legs in a black dress that was not trying too hard. Tom had an arm around her and was introducing her to half the paddock, proud in the quiet way he did everything.

Luke had been taller than everyone in the room and had made some dry remark about the canapés looking like failed carbon layups. She had laughed properly, head back, and looked up at him like the height was a private joke they were already sharing.

“You’re the boss,” she had said.

“Only on paper.”

“Tom says you’re worse than that. He says you notice everything.”

He had noticed the line of her throat. The way her hand rested on Tom’s chest and still managed, somehow, to be aware of Luke standing there. He had gone home and sat on the bike in the dark and told himself he was a bastard for even clocking it.

He had been right.

Years of dinners followed. Barbecues. A Christmas where she had kissed his cheek and the kiss had landed half an inch closer to his mouth than it needed to. He had pulled back. She had seen him pull back. Neither of them had said a word about it.

Then four weeks ago she had turned up here with a lasagne Tom had sent, because Luke had been living in dust and Tom worried. Tom had a sim session and could not stay. She had put the dish on the new counter. Luke had thanked her. She had looked at the unfinished fireplace and said, “You always leave the interesting bit until last.”

He had said, “Occupational hazard.”

She had stepped in. Not much. Enough that he could smell her shampoo over the plaster. Her hand had landed on his wrist, light, checking.

“If I stay ten more minutes,” she had said, “I am not going to behave.”

He should have walked her to the car. He had kissed her instead, one hand in that long blonde hair, the other careful at her waist like careful was still an option. She had made a small sound and opened her mouth and the careful had lasted about four seconds.

They had not fucked that afternoon. They had stopped, breathing hard against the fridge, her lipstick on his jaw, both of them saying this was insane and both of them knowing they would do it again. The next night she had come back without a lasagne. That time they had not stopped.

Now the gravel cracked under tyres.

Luke opened the door before she knocked. She was in jeans and a soft grey top, hair loose down her back, that smile already doing damage. Cheeky. Bright. Like she had not just sent him a text that could have set the unfinished wiring on fire.

“Traffic was kind,” she said.

“Miracles happen.”

He let her in. The door clicked. For a second they only looked at each other, the dust hanging in the light between them, her chest rising a little fast.

“You read it,” she said.

“I can read.”

“And?”

He smiled, small and dry, and stepped in. One hand at her hip. The other slid down the front of her jeans, past the button she had left a fraction open, under cotton, into heat.

She was soaked. His fingers slipped, no effort, and she grabbed his shoulder to stay upright.

“Fuck,” he said, low. “You weren’t joking.”

“No, I don’t joke about how much you turn me on, Luke.”

Her voice had gone rough. He kept his hand there, two fingers resting in the wet, not pushing yet, just feeling how ready she was. She rolled her hips once, shameless, and bit her lip around that smile.

“Kitchen,” he said. “Before I do this in the hallway and the dust gets ideas.”

“Romantic.”

“I’m a catch.”

He walked her backward, hand still in her jeans, mouth at her ear. She laughed once, breathless, and then stopped laughing when his fingers curled.

On the stone island he finally took his hand out. It shone. He held it up between them like evidence.

“Talk,” he said. “You said filthy. I want the list before I wreck you.”

Becky’s eyes went dark and pleased. She hopped onto the counter, long legs dangling, and pulled him in by the belt.

“You first. You’ve had years. Don’t pretend you haven’t rehearsed.”

He had. He was not proud of the rehearsal and he was not going to lie about it either.

“I used to think about your mouth,” he said. “At those dinners. You’d be telling some story and I’d be counting how many times you licked your lip. I wanted you under the table. Wanted your lipstick on my dick while Tom talked about tyre temps and I had to keep a straight face.”

Her breath hitched. She undid his belt without looking down.

“Keep going.”

“I thought about bending you over this counter the day the stone went in. Before it was even sealed. Your jeans around your knees. Me fucking you slow so you could hear how wet you were. Then not slow.”

“Jesus.”

“I thought about your tits. Constantly. That top you wore to the summer party. I wanted them in my hands, in my mouth, bouncing while you rode me on that stupid sofa out there. I thought about coming on them. On your stomach. Inside you, deep, and watching it leak out after because you asked me to stay in.”

Her cheeks were flushed. She shoved his jeans down enough to free him. He was thick, already wet at the tip, and her hand wrapped around him like she had been waiting in the car with exactly this plan.

“My turn,” she said.

“Go on.”

“I used to get off in the shower thinking about how tall you are. How you’d have to fold yourself down to kiss me and then just pick me up when you got bored of bending. I wanted your fingers in me at some boring team thing. Wanted to stand there smiling at people while you made me come and nobody knew.”

He groaned. Her thumb smeared the wet at his tip and she brought it to her mouth, licked it, held his eyes.

“I fantasised about sucking you until my jaw hurt. About you holding my hair and telling me I was doing well in that dry voice, like it was a debrief. I thought about you eating me until I couldn’t keep quiet. About you fucking my pussy and then my arse if I begged. I have begged, in my head, more times than is decent.”

“Becky.”

“I thought about you coming in me and me walking back to my car with it still slick on my thighs. About texting you from the traffic lights to say I could still feel you. Which is basically what I did today, except I hadn’t even seen you yet and I was already a mess.”

He kissed her then, hard, tasting himself on her tongue. She kissed back like the week had been too long, which it had. Four weeks of stolen hours and neither of them getting less hungry.

He tugged her top off. No bra. Her breasts were full and heavy in his hands, nipples already tight, and he bent — he did have to fold down — and took one into his mouth. She swore and held the back of his head. He sucked, bit gently, soothed it with his tongue, then gave the other the same attention until she was squirming on the stone.

“Jeans,” he said against her skin.

She lifted. He peeled them down those long legs, knickers with them, and dropped the lot on the floor. She was bare on his kitchen counter, blonde hair over one shoulder, pussy glossy, thighs already marked where she had pressed them together in the car.

He dropped to his knees. The height still worked in his favour; his mouth met her without her having to slide to the edge like a circus act. He hooked her knees over his shoulders and licked a slow line through her.

“Fuck, Luke.”

She tasted sharp and sweet and like she had been thinking about this since she sent the text. He did it again, flatter, then focused on her clit with the tip of his tongue until her hips jumped. Two fingers slid in easy. She clenched around them and laughed, wrecked.

“You really weren’t joking.”

“I told you.”

He fucked her with his fingers and his mouth, unhurried, listening. When she got close she went quiet, which he had learned in week two, so he eased off and kissed the inside of her thigh instead.

“Don’t you dare.”

“You wanted filthy. Filthy includes me deciding.”

“Sadist.”

“Engineer. I like the data.”

She grabbed his hair and pulled him back. He gave in because he wanted to, not because she was stronger, and sucked her clit while his fingers curled. She came with a broken sound, thighs tight around his head, pulsing on his hand. He stayed with her through it, then licked her softer while she shook.

When he stood, his mouth was wet and his dick ached. She looked at him like she might start again immediately.

“Sofa,” she said. “I had a specific fantasy and your kitchen, gorgeous as it is, is not it.”

He carried her. She yelped, laughed, locked her ankles behind him. The plastic sheet came off the leather in one yank. Dust puffed. They both coughed and then she was on her back, hair spread, pulling him down.

“In my head,” she said, guiding him, “you don’t ask. You just—”

He pushed in.

She was so wet he sank to the base in one long stroke. They both went still. Her eyes fluttered. His jaw locked.

“Christ,” he said. “You feel illegal.”

“Move.”

He did. Deep, steady, the leather creaking under them. Her breasts moved with each thrust and he watched because he had promised himself he would, then ducked to mouth a nipple without losing rhythm. She scratched his back. The unfinished room made every sound bigger: skin, breath, the wet pull of her around him.

“Tell me,” she said. “While you do it.”

“I think about filling you up,” he said into her neck. “About fucking you until you can’t do that smile without it going crooked. About your husband never knowing his best mate is the reason you walk funny on a Thursday.”

“That’s awful.”

“You clenched.”

“I know. Don’t stop.”

He hooked one of her legs over his arm and opened her more. The angle made her gasp. He drove in harder, the head of his dick nudging deep, and she met him, greedy. Sweat gathered at his spine. Plaster dust stuck to his forearm where it braced beside her head. None of it mattered.

She rolled them. He let her, sprawled back on the sofa, and she sank down onto him with a filthy little sigh. Hands on his chest. Hair falling forward. She rode him slow at first, rolling her hips, then faster, tits bouncing, the smile gone sharp and focused.

“This,” she said. “This was the one. You under me. Looking up like you can’t believe your luck.”

“I can’t.”

“Good.”

He thumbed her clit. She swore and ground down. He sat up enough to get a mouth on her breast again, one arm banded around her waist, fucking up into her while she rode. The slap of skin filled the room. She was dripping down his balls. He felt it and nearly lost it.

“Not yet,” she said, reading him. “I want your mouth again. Then I want you to fuck me from behind and come in me. I want to feel it.”

He lifted her off, turned her, and bent her over the arm of the sofa. The height difference made it perfect and ridiculous. He had to spread his stance. She laughed into the cushion.

“Adjustable ride height,” she said.

“One jargon joke. That’s your lot.”

He dropped and licked her from behind, messy, thumb stroking her arse while his tongue worked her pussy. She pushed back. He pressed the thumb a little firmer against her rim, not entering, just pressure, and she moaned like the fantasy had teeth.

“Yes. That. Not all the way. Just— fuck, yes.”

He gave her the pad of his thumb, slow circles, and slid two fingers into her pussy at the same time. She shook. When he stood and lined up again, she reached back and spread herself.

He sank in to the hilt.

This angle was brutal in the best way. He held her hips and fucked her properly, deep strokes that knocked small sounds out of her. One hand slid under to rub her clit. The other stayed at her arse, thumb stroking, dipping just enough to make her clench around his dick.

“I’m going to come,” she said. “Don’t you pull out. I want it. I want all of it.”

“I’ve got you.”

She came hard, pulsing, a rush of wet that soaked his thighs. He kept moving through it, teeth gritted, and then he couldn’t. He buried himself and came, thick pulses, groaning her name into her shoulder. She reached back and held him there, keeping him deep while he emptied into her.

They stayed like that, breathing, his forehead against her spine. Dust on her skin. His come already starting to slip out around him when he softened.

He eased out carefully and watched it. She looked over her shoulder, cheeky even now, flushed and wrecked.

“Verdict?”

“You weren’t joking,” he said again, quieter.

She laughed and let him help her upright. Her legs wobbled. He liked that more than was polite. He grabbed his shirt off the floor and pressed it gently between her thighs, not hurrying her, then kissed her mouth, slower than anything they had done in the last half hour.

“Shower’s finished,” he said. “Miracle number two. The rest of the bathroom is a crime scene, but the water’s hot.”

“Walk me there like a gentleman.”

“After I just did that?”

“Especially after.”

He did. In the steam she soaped his chest and he washed the dust from her hair, careful with the tangles. They did not talk about Tom. They never did in the first ten minutes after. The guilt lived in the car, on the drive home, in the way Luke would answer Tom’s texts an hour later like his hands were clean. Here, with her forehead against his sternum, it was only the two of them and the sound of water on new tile.

Downstairs she stole one of his t-shirts. It hit her mid-thigh. She stood in the unfinished living room, barefoot, surveying the damage: plastic sheet on the floor, cushion askew, her knickers by the kitchen island like a flag.

“Your plasterer is going to think you’ve started a cult,” she said.

“I’ll tell him it was an offering to the gods of snagging lists.”

She grinned, amazing even with mascara slightly smudged, and picked up her phone. Typed. His buzzed.

Still dripping. Same time next week. Bring fewer dust allergies and the same dick.

He looked at her over the screen, dry as he could manage with his heart doing something inconvenient.

“Demanding.”

“You love it.”

He did. That was the problem and, for now, the whole point. He kissed her once more at the door, hand spanning the small of her back, and watched her walk to the car on those long legs, his shirt hem flashing under her coat.

The house was quiet again. Dust settled. The kitchen clock ticked. Luke picked up her knickers, put them in his pocket like a man with no sense of self-preservation, and smiled at the unfinished fireplace.

“Interesting bit,” he told it. “Still leaving you till last.”