On His Bar

Lainey POV By my third Saturday at The Hollow, I had stopped holding my breath when Beck and I passed behind the bar. I held it in my sleep instead. In the dream it was after close. The chairs were up and the door was locked, and the only light came from the jukebox in the corner. I was wiping down the taps. He came down that narrow run toward me, and this time he didn't turn sideways. Neither did I. "Lainey," he said, low, the same way he had said it my first night. His hands closed around my waist, warmer than hands should be, and he lifted me onto the bar like I weighed nothing. The oak was cool under my thighs. He stepped between my knees and kissed me, and it wasn't gentle. It was the kiss of a man who had been telling himself no for a very long time. I got my fingers in his hair. He got my shorts open. He pulled them down my legs, and my underwear with them, and dropped them on the floor I had just mopped. Then he put one big hand flat on my chest and pressed me back until I was lying on his bar, looking up at the ceiling. "Stay," he said. His stubble scraped the inside of my thigh. I felt his breath first. Then his mouth was on my p*ssy, hot and open, and my back came up off the wood. He wasn't polite about it. He licked me slowly, from bottom to top, like he had all night. Then he closed his lips around my cl*t and sucked. I heard myself. I was loud. I had never been loud in my life. He pushed two thick fingers into me and curled them, and I grabbed the edge of the bar with both hands and hung on. "Beck. Please." He made that sound again, the rough one, close to a growl, right against me. I felt it everywhere. It built so fast, tight and hot and low in my belly. I waited for it to stop. It always stopped. I always woke up right at the edge, aching. He lifted his head, just enough. His mouth was wet. His eyes looked almost gold in the jukebox light. "Mine," he said. I heard it this time. Then his tongue was back on me and his fingers pushed deep, and I came. It tore through me, wave after wave, with my thighs shaking around his shoulders and his name coming out of me. I woke up moaning. It was a real one, out loud, in the gray light of my own bedroom. I was flat on my back with my hips still moving and my fist full of sheet. I was still coming. I felt the last of it pulse through me, deep and slow, before it finally let me go. I lay there and panted at the ceiling. That had never happened to me. Not once, in twenty-five years. I hadn't even touched myself. My underwear was soaked through, my thighs were trembling, and my heart was pounding like I had run the whole way home. I turned my head. The other side of the bed was flat and cold. Dale had called out sick, and Travis had jumped on the Saturday shift. It was time and a half. He had been so proud of it. He was at work, earning extra money for us. I was in the bed he had paid for, cumming with another man's name in my mouth. The clock said ten past six. He would be home in half an hour. I got up. My legs weren't steady. I peeled everything off in the bathroom, turned the shower all the way to cold, and stepped in before I could think about it. It hit me like a slap. I stood under it with my teeth chattering and my forehead against the tile, and I scrubbed like a dream was something you could wash off. It was only a dream. People can't help their dreams. I had told myself that every morning for two weeks, and every morning it sounded a little thinner. At least it was Sunday. I wouldn't have to look him in the eye until Tuesday. I hated how long that sounded. I was dressed and at the stove with my hair still wet when I heard Travis pull in. He came through the door tired and smiling, with his uniform shirt untucked. "Hey. You're up." He kissed me. His mouth was warm and familiar, and I kissed him back with my whole face burning. He pulled away and rubbed my arms. "You're freezing, Lane." "Cold shower. It woke me up." "Crazy woman." He dropped his keys on the counter and stretched until his back popped. "It's Sunday. I'm going to sleep until noon, and then I'm all yours. What do you want to do today?" He was asking. For the first time in longer than I could remember, he was actually asking me what I wanted. And the first answer that came into my head was a fifteen-minute walk away, behind a dark green door.