Maybe it was better to let them play, carefree, for the rest of the day. She would be happier if she had them around to distract her, but she wasn’t going to disrupt their day just to be selfish.
But then, as the door to her house closed behind them, Carlos enfolded her from behind, his mouth hot on the back of her neck.
“Oh!” she said, startled, and shivered despite herself. But...”We can’t.”
“Why not?” he murmured.
“Well, not now—what sort of disrespectful kind of almost-parents would we be?”
Carlos pulled back a little, but didn’t let go entirely. Now he was speaking right into her ear. “We can’t do anything to help anyone right now,” he said quietly. “We have to wait. And we won’t help Drew by working ourselves up into an angry, anxious state. I could sit here on tenterhooks for the whole afternoon, waiting to pounce the second I hear something—and then the second I hear something, I’ll pounce. That’s not what Drew needs. He needs thinking, feeling adults, with their heads on straight, who’ll act calmly and do the right thing for him.”
Pauline could feel her body start to soften just at his words. It was true—without anything else to do, she knew she’d spend the afternoon getting tenser and tenser, more and more anxious. Hadn’t she just been thinking of getting the younger kids as a distraction?
This was a distraction that wouldn’t hurt anyone.
“Cell phone ringers turned up high,” she said.
“Absolutely,” Carlos agreed, letting go of her to pull out his phone. “We won’t miss any news. I promise.”
Pauline dialed up her phone’s volume to its highest setting, and then put it carefully on a side table—and then Carlos was on her, his mouth hungry, his hands searching. She gasped, and suddenly it was like all the energy that had been fueling fear was transformed—she was on fire.
She clutched at him, devouring his mouth, wanting to lose herself in his body. He caught her close, pressing her against his body. She could feel his cock half-hard already, as his hands slid down her back to cup her behind.
The only warning she got was a sudden tensing of his shoulder muscles, and then he lifted, bringing her smoothly up with his hands under her butt. Pauline let out a giggling shriek that she hadn’t known could even come out of her own mouth, and wrapped herself around him, arms and legs both.
He spun them around and pressed Pauline up against the wall. She’d never been in this position in her own home before, and suddenly the idea struck her as ridiculous—why was she so staid? Why had she thought that this would be disrespectful, that connecting with her mate like this, with love and joy, could be anything but good for them, and for the people around them?
Then she lost her train of thought because Carlos was kissing his way down her chest.
His mouth was hot and insistent, dipping down into her cleavage. Pauline let go of his shoulders, trusting him to hold her up, and unbuttoned the shirt, wiggling out of it and tossing it aside. Carlos was like a rock under her, not a hint of a waver.
But the second she put her hands back on his shoulders, he was kissing her breasts, his tongue tracing a hot line down between them. Shivers ran down her body at his touch, and she squirmed against him. His belt buckle was right—right—
“God, you’re gorgeous,” he said against her skin, which wasn’t a word Pauline had ever associated with herself.
“You’re the gorgeous one,” she murmured, and he shook his head slowly, the hint of stubble rasping against her skin, his dark hair brushing her chin. There was so much of him, holding her up, drinking her in. And he was all hers.
He relaxed his hold slowly, letting her slide down the wall in a long aching move that rubbed all of her against all of him. Then he repeated it from his side, going slowly down to his knees, catching the button of her jeans as he went, tugging them down with him.
Pauline gasped as he pressed his mouth to her mound, over her panties, his hot breath filtering through the fabric to caress her without a touch. Then he reached up and tugged them down, spread her lips with his big hands and licked her.
Pauline shuddered, her hands pressed against the wall, trying to hold herself up as her knees went liquid and pleasure burst through her, centered right on her clit where Carlos’ tongue was exploring.
He was slow but confident, seeming to remember everything she liked from last time, sucking in all the right places, following every noise, every twitch of pleasure, to its peak, until Pauline was a quivering mess against the wall. She was damp with sweat, making high-pitched noises with every breath, and still his tongue was relentless.
Carlos brought her off like that, against the wall with her jeans and panties tangled around her ankles. She shrieked in pleasure as her entire body contracted, all of her nerves seeming to coalesce at the point on the tip of her clit where his tongue was, her vision darkening with the power of her orgasm.
Carlos didn’t hesitate. While she was still shivering with the aftershocks, he stood up and caught her up again, bridal-style this time—her jeans still holding her feet hostage. “What—” she half-laughed, pleasure still rippling through her.
“Bedroom,” he growled, and snagged her phone with one hand before taking them off to her room. Their room.
He laid her gently on the bed, then set her phone just as gently on the nightstand. Even in the middle of sex, he’d remembered what the most important thing was.
Heart swelling, Pauline reached out for him. “Come here,” she demanded, breathless.
“Here.” He was, too, right up close to her, dropping a kiss on her mouth. “What do you want?”
“To take my turn,” she said. She finally got rid of her jeans and panties, unhooked her bra, and pushed herself up to kneel, naked, on the bed. “I haven’t seen nearly enough of you yet.”