Second Chances (5 Chapter sample read only)

Chapter 3 - Wants and Needs

Issie impatiently curls around my legs as I get her saucer from the cupboard and begin putting her favourite meal of duck in jelly on it. She is jumping up on the worktop and nudging my hand that holds the fork and is apparently not moving quickly enough. Aiden's voice gets louder as he gets closer and still sounds friendly.

"When?" he asks, "Right, what time? I should be able to get there for then. I don't think I've got anything on after half two. Okay, shall I pick you up or meet you there? I'll see you tomorrow, yeah, kiss the kids for me," he says with a smile that radiates genuine warmth and love for his children before hanging up and turning his attention to me and Issie who is greedily lapping at her supper that is now on the floor.

"Phone answered, cat fed, so.....where were we?" He's stalking towards me, making me step backwards although the one thing I want is to be close to him again.

"Is everything okay? With your wife, ex-wife, and your children? I mean do you need to go? I don't mind if you do, well I kind of do mind because I would rather you stayed, but if you have to..." I am grateful when Aiden interrupts and prevents me babbling on any longer.

"No wonder you teach English, all those words. Everything is fine. My ex-wife and children are fine. I don't need to go but am rather pleased that it would bother you if I did. My eldest son has been awarded a merit certificate that his teacher forgot to tell us about until she saw Jan today and the assembly is tomorrow afternoon. Jan waited until the kids were all in bed to call in case I was unable to make it. Now, where were we?" he repeats making me smile as I realise that he is a good dad, the sort of man a dad should be.

"We were kissing, in the hall." I gasp as he closes the distance yet somehow seems to be stalking me as if I am his prey.

"Yes we were." His expression turns darker.

"Would you like some tea or coffee?" I'm feeling nervous again all of a sudden.

A shake of Aiden's head is his only response before his mouth is closing over mine again and we kiss, as if our earlier kiss had never been interrupted. I have no clue how long we remain in the kitchen kissing. I lose track of time and become lost in the moment, in the kiss and before I know it I am on the sofa, beneath Aiden whose lips seem to be a permanent fixture on me. I am minus my shoes and my dress is around my hips, partly having been pushed up by Aiden and also having ridden up by the friction of the sofa beneath me and Aiden above me.

I want to be naked. I want Aiden naked. To feel his skin against mine, yet he seems in no hurry. Part of me wants to point out that I need to get up in the morning, that there is a necessary urgency in his seduction of me. To point out that I have never 'gone all night' but I say nothing because a larger part of me, the part of me that feels increasingly strung out wants this blissful torture he's subjecting me too. I am in turmoil; I want to feel Aiden's hands on me, all over me, inside of me and yet I don't want it to be over, I want to be made to wait for the release that my body so desperately desires. I have never before understood pleasure gained from submission, until now. I think I get it.

I have always been a bit of a control freak. I don't take chances, I'm a planner, a list maker. I leave nothing to chance and try to pre-empt every possibility and eventuality, even with sex, which typically makes me less highly strung because I plan for every eventuality.

I had a friend at uni who was always raving about the power of submission and I could never get my head round it; she used to talk about it using terms such as empowerment, the freedom of submitting, how giving yourself entirely was a priceless gift. She once explained that sex had an added dimension to it when you never quite knew what was going to happen, that you just knew it would be what you needed even if it wasn't what you wanted and it sounded wonderful, but I never bought into it. I wanted to believe it, to understand it but I never did because of the control freak thing. I never ever trusted another person, a man one hundred percent and I figured you'd have to if you were handing over power and control. Would I give that to Aiden I asked myself and immediately answered that just about now I would give him anything, everything and he had barely touched me which meant that if, when he did finally touch me I was fucked, metaphorically and hopefully literally because I was currently feeling things for a man I had known less than a week than I ever had for any other man, including Miller.