“Get on your knees,” he said. “Touch yourself.”
She did, as far gone as him. He watched her hand reach between her legs as he rolled the condom on, her backside in the air.
“The times I’ve imagined fucking you like this,” he said as his fingers joined hers. “Bending you over my desk and pushing up that skirt…”
“Do it,” she gasped, taking her hand away, face to the mattress. There was no skirt, of course, but he knew what she meant. Hegripped her hip with one hand, held himself at her entrance with the other, teasing them both for an exquisite few seconds before driving himself deep inside.
She grunted, pushed back against him, forced him even deeper.
“Like this?” he said. “You want this?”
“Yes, yes…”
He moved, fucking her deep, hands on her hips, squeezing her flesh, sliding round to find her clit, trying to keep his touch gentle while he lost his bloody mind, took her as hard as he’d ever fantasised, Poppy moving to meet him, driving him harder still. She came, broke gasping, and he kept going, feeling her clench and flutter around him, still working her clit. “You asked for all night, Poppy.”
She made some noise, a moan.
“Don’t make promises…” he chided, “that you can’t keep…”
She moaned again, face dropping deeper against the mattress, and somehow, she opened even wider to him. Jesus, he wasn’t going to last five minutes, yet alone all night, but he wanted her to come again, felt that she could. She was tightening around him, moaning with every thrust. He teased her clit, moved his other hand to what lay before his eyes, the rosebud there, slicked it with her own arousal, teasing and circling. He already knew she liked that from the first time. He liked it, too, just the thought of it, of her wanting him everywhere.
“Roscoe…”
“Come on, Poppy, good girl, you’re almost there, come on my cock, with my fingers here, you like it, good girl…”
She came with a desperate sort of noise that sent him over the edge, too, sent his thoughts, his pulse, his cum rushing, and he emptied himself into her, everything he had.
They sank to the mattress, shaking.
FORTY-TWO
Poppy was just fallingasleep curled up against Roscoe’s side like the world’s most satisfied cat when her phone rang. Grumbling, she reached for it irritably, then frowned at the name on the screen.
“Mum,” she said, answering it. “Hi. Everything OK?”
Beside her, Roscoe flipped on a bedside light, and sat back against the headboard, his expression asking the same question:Everything OK?
“No, Poppy,” her mum said. “It’s not. I’m sorry to bother you with this. But Liam lost his bloody job. They sacked him today. He’s only just rolled back in the flat. He’s been drinking, the idiot, like that’s going to help. I’ve only just managed to get the story out of him.”
Poppy sat upright, stiffening with anxiety. Liam’s salary wasn’t huge, but it covered the utilities, was almost a third of what her family needed just to get through each month.
“He used his bloody staff loyalty card for a friend,” her mum explained. “That idiot Jackson talked him into it with some sobstory about his mum’s birthday present— No, I’m being unfair. I know she’s been ill and he just wanted to treat her, but I’m fucking livid. He used the discount once, Poppy. Once. And they’ve sacked him. He’s been there two years.”
It was a big chain department store, and all of the staff got a ten per cent discount card—about the only perk of working there. But it was to be used only for their own purchases. Never anyone else.
“Can he appeal?” asked Poppy. “If we pay back whatever it was?”
But she knew it was hopeless even before her mum let out a defeated sigh. “No. Remember what happened to Pat? And she was there for fifteen years. Six months from retirement and they kicked her out without a backwards glance. This is why I’m so furious with Liam—he knew. He knew what would happen. And you know what he’s like, he didn’t exactly go quietly, started mouthing off. They won’t even give him a reference.”
Poppy let out a breath, trying to steady her racing heart. “OK. Look. Tomorrow’s Sunday, but Monday he can go down the job centre. He can start looking, sign on for benefits in the meantime.”
“They take ages to come through. And it’s not going to be enough. Not even close to enough.”
“I know. I know. It’s OK. Don’t stress, Mum. I’ll sort it out.”
“How, Poppy?”
“I have some money,” she said vaguely. The money she saved on not having to commute—the money that was going to let her go part-time and do her course. And if she moved back in with her mum, moved out of Roscoe’s place—her heart shied away from the thought, but she forced it onward—if she moved in with her mum and didn’t pay Roscoe the token rent they had agreed on. But then, how would she get to work…?
