Age Gap Romance by Penny Wylder

3

Nicola

I pull out of Tristan’s arms quickly. “Thank you. Sorry for running into you.”

“It’s not a problem,” he says, and that voice does things to my body that I absolutely can’t ignore. “Feel free to fall into me anytime.”

“Thanks,” I say, but I’m incapable of saying anything else, even though it feels like I have so much to say. So many questions. But I can’t breathe, because Tristan is reaching out to touch me.

I swear that time freezes and my heart stops as he strokes his fingers down my cheek. That look is in his eyes again, like he’s trying to memorize me and consume me and draw me closer, and I don’t want to think about what it means. Because if it doesn’t mean what I want it to, I’ll be devastated.

Tristan leans in, and his lips touch mine without hesitation.

Holy shit.

This is exactly what I just said can’t happen. There’s so much wrong with this right now, including the fact that we’re in the hallway where anyone could see us. And there are four years of silence and yearning and questions that have to be answered.

But my body isn’t listening. I melt into his embrace without a second thought, and it feels like I belong there, just like it did that night four years ago. So impossibly good that I never want to resurface from this kiss. But we have to.

I have to.

“Tristan,” I say, managing to pull back barely an inch. “We can’t.”

“Why not?”

Whatever I was going to say is lost in his next kiss, and it takes my breath away. His hands stroke down my ribs, and I shiver. The heat from his fingers sinks through the fabric of my dress and this is doing nothing for my resolve. It’s crumbling faster than I can believe.

“You want me to list the reasons?”

“Yes,” he says, moving his lips to my jaw, pressing me against the wall as he does it. “I do.”

I bite my lip to keep back my groan as his lips trace further down my neck. “For one thing we could get caught. If someone sees us, I don’t know what will happen, Tristan. You just got here. You want to lose your job?”

He doesn’t respond to the question, just focuses his attention on the line just below my jaw. Wetness gathers at my core, and my nipples go hard beneath my dress. Fuck, he’s good at that, and it’s everything that I’ve ever wanted—his lips on me. I dream about it all the time. “Keep going,” he murmurs.

“I don’t know you anymore. I haven’t seen you since…everything happened. We’re strangers now. You don’t even know if I’m involved with someone.”

His head snaps up when I say those words, eyes like fire, pinning me to the spot. “Are you?”

I swallow the lie I had on my lips. If I could muster it, it would make it easier on both of us, but I can’t do it. I can’t tell him that I’ve been with anyone else. I remember the promise that I made to him, even though I’m not going to admit that.

It doesn’t matter how much I want this, have begged the universe for it. We can’t. Not like this. “No, I’m not.”

“Good.”

Pulling the bathroom door open, Tristan sweeps me inside and locks the door behind us, and then his mouth is on mine again, and now that we have privacy, my body is a traitor. I’m kissing him back, my hands finding their way to his shoulders and then around his neck. My ass presses against the sink as he leans into me, and I can feel all the incredible hardness of his body and…other things.

Our tongues dance together, and this is better than everything that I imagined. Pure fire and heat and aching need gathering together and pulling me closer to him. “Tristan, we should stop.”

“Should we?” He looks down, and I see the same fire and lust in his eyes. “If you really want to stop, tell me. I will.”

But I can’t say that, and he knows it too. I don’t want him to stop. I want him to keep going until we both have everything. A small smile tilts the corners of his mouth, but his eyes are serious. “If you want me to stop, I will. If you want to throw me out of this bathroom and never see me again, I’ll do that too. It would break me, but I would do it.”

I want to ask him why he’s here, and what changed his mind. There’s the question too of why he left, but when his lips crash down on mine—harder and deeper, I lose everything I want to say. Because nothing is more important than kissing him right now.

“I’m sorry I missed your birthday,” he whispers in-between plundering my lips.

I try to wrap my head around the words but my brain is short-circuiting. Tristan’s lips are like a drug that I’m addicted to and I can’t get enough of the way they feel. Fuck, I’m in so much trouble. But in this moment, I don’t care. We’re locked away from reality, and even the strongest person would have a hard time saying no to a dream dangled right in front of them.

“You’ve missed a few of them.”

“I’m hoping my present will make up for it,” he says.

“What is it?”

He smirks, and sinks to his knees in front of me. “Hopefully still a first.”

Oh god. He’s lifting up my skirt and I can’t even breathe. And there’s no way in hell that I’m going to stop him because the amount of times that I’ve imagined this moment is in the thousands and I want to feel his mouth on me.

“Hmm,” he makes a sound when he’s bunched the fabric around my hips. “Last time I was here I don’t remember there being any panties in the way.” He brushes his mouth against my thigh, and I gasp.

“If I’d known that this was going to be on the schedule then maybe there wouldn’t have been any.”

Tristan chuckles against my skin, and fuck, I don’t think there’s ever been a more erotic feeling. Granted, I’m not exactly experienced in real life erotic feelings since I’ve been limiting myself to my imagination and my vibrator, but that laugh makes me feel things in places that I didn’t even know existed.

Lips brush against the fabric, a barely-there ghost of a touch, but my reaction is anything but light. I moan, unable to keep myself quiet, and while I was wet before, suddenly soaking. My body knows better than I do what’s about to happen, and it’s begging for it.

Another touch, this time with his tongue over the fabric of my panties, wet on wet. I’m gripping the sink, my knuckles white from holding on so tightly. Tristan makes a sound of appreciation. “I can taste how wet you are for me.”

Only for you, I say in my mind. But there’s no way I can say that out loud. There’s nothing I can do but feel his mouth on me. He doesn’t move the fabric out of the way, instead he lazily runs his tongue along the thin lace, letting it add texture to the strokes of his tongue. And fuck this feels better than anything I’ve ever felt.

My fantasies have nothing on the real thing. “Holy shit,” the words slip from my mouth before I can stop them.

Fingers hook in the elastic of my panties and pull them down. I can’t believe that I’m letting him do this after I haven’t seen him in four years. I can’t believe it, but I am. Further and further down the panties fall until he’s guiding them over my ankles and high heels. And then his palms are on my thighs.

“Open for me,” he says, his voice leaving no room for argument. And I obey. I spread my legs wide, blood painting me with a fierce blush.

His first touch is slow and deliberate. One long, slow lick from the bottom of my pussy all the way to my clit. And my vision goes white. Holy fucking hell, this isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s so much better.

Pleasure swirls under my skin, sinking deep and echoing back on itself. I’m ready to come already and he’s barely started to touch me. Already my breath is shallow, and the heat of this is bringing sweat to my skin.

The fabric of my dress slips down over Tristan’s head so he’s hidden. Nothing to see, just feel. His lips seal over my clit and he sucks gently before stroking with his tongue. Under and over and side to side, experimenting.

Every move he makes brings out a different response from me, and I can tell he’s paying attention to them. My hips jerk toward his mouth when he sucks me deeper, and so he does it again. And again and again until I’m moaning, trying to keep myself quiet because the bathroom echoes.

I almost cry when he releases me from his mouth and lifts my dress so I can see his face again. Fuck, he’s hot. Hotter than I remember. It’s the same thought that entered my mind when I first saw him in the focus room, and I think it again now. Hell, I’ll probably think it every time I see him. He’s beautiful, and like that saying, only getting finer with age.

It’s never bothered me that we’re so far apart in age. Despite what people might think, I’ve never felt like it was that great a distance. But that doesn’t make it safe. Especially if my father finds out.

“How close are you?” he asks. The gravel in his voice is that much sexier, and a new burst of wetness forms between my legs.

“Close,” I gasp.

He grins with a knowing smile. “Don’t hold yourself back,” he says, running his palms up the inside of my thighs. “I’m going to taste you until I’ve had my fill, no matter how many times you come.”

I have to close my eyes, the words sticking clear through my chest. Oh fuck.

Tristan isn’t cautious now, his mouth consumes me entirely. He told me not to hold back, and so he’s not going to either. Every pull of his mouth sends me higher, and I’m so close that I’m going to lose it. A quick flurry of strokes on my clit clouds my mind with ecstasy, and I gasp, suddenly grabbing his hair with one of my hands.

It’s an instinct to pull him closer. I don’t want him to ever release me. One stroke after another on the underside of my clit, and white-hot fire explodes through me. I cover my mouth with my hand, muffling my cry as my orgasm fills my veins and makes me shake.

I’ve never had an orgasm like this before, all-consuming and feeling like it never wants to end. The pleasure from it is sharp. It cuts a line between before and after, and I know immediately that I’ll never be able to go back.

But just like he promised, Tristan isn’t finished with my pussy. He doesn’t stop, teasing his tongue around my clit and making me shake more before licking down to my entrance. “You taste so good,” he says, barely dipping his tongue inside me in the most intimate caress. “And you have no idea how badly I want to fuck you with my tongue. But the first thing that you’ll feel inside you is my cock. And after that…” the words hang in the air with sinful promise. That he’ll fuck me with his fingers. And his tongue. And anything else that he chooses. Because I’ll be his.

The possibility yaws open in front of me, and I can’t ignore how badly I want that to happen, and how complicated it would be to make it real. I remember clearly that I told Tristan I knew what I wanted, no matter my age. But he was right, too. Now that I’m a few years older, I realize that this isn’t simple. Even if I want it to be.

Tristan grazes his teeth across my clit, and my knees start to shake. If he keeps this up I’m going to fall on the floor and never be able to get back up. My breath is coming in heaving gasps, and I’m so sensitive, so stimulated, that I’m right on the edge again, hanging in that space before and after pleasure where all you have to feel is the rippling echoes of it.

He rolls my clit between his lips and uses his teeth again, the contrasting sensation against his tongue shocks me like lightning. I go over again, tumbling headlong into brightness, my gasps echoing off the bathroom walls. Tristan’s hands ride up my thighs to my hips, fingers digging into my ass and holding me still while he plunders me, carrying through the second round of breathless pleasure with ease.

No matter what the complications between us, this is one hell of a birthday present. Fuck, I think again. I’m fucked. And I can’t even deny that I want to be fucked. By him and only him. Little spasms run through my body, and I can’t control them. Can barely find a way to open my eyes. But when I do, Tristan is looking at me. His mouth is still locked against my skin, that delicious suction making it impossible to ignore. “Dash,” the nickname slips out without thinking.

His eyes lock on mine with renewed fire. It’s what I always used to call him, when I would insist we race, and even though everyone told him to, he never let me win. When I finally beat him it felt so good. And it was the day I realized how I really felt about him. And now he’s here. Doing this.

And I have to leave. He just got back, and I’m not going to let him or me getting fired—or worse—ruin what we could have together. We can figure it out, but not like this. Not hiding, afraid that someone will discover us and everything will fall apart.

“I’ve always loved it when you called me that,” he says.

I look at him like he’s gone mad. “You always acted like it annoyed you.”

He smirks. “Of course I did.”

“You—” His mouth seals over me again, erasing my words, and I don’t think I can take another one of these orgasms. They’re too much. “I can’t,” I say. “I can’t.”

“You will,” he says. Tristan’s voice leaves no room for argument, those two syllables kindle new fire in my gut and spread heat under my skin. He’s right, I will. And I don’t ever want to stop.