Page 70 of Experiments in Offline Dating

I unbuckled his belt and then his zipper and pulled him from his boxers. His hips bucked as I slid my hands down the hard length of him. Then it was my slick body I rubbed against him as he groaned, hands on my hips.

“Can I? I want you so badly.”

He nodded. “Christ, yes.”

We locked eyes through the rain. “Tell me.”

“Yes, Maya. Fuck! I’ll go mad if you don’t.”

I sat straight up and slowly, ever so slowly, slid down over the huge length of him, my body stretching to make room for every inch.

He growled and his fingers dug harder into my hips, but he didn’t pull me harder against him, he let me adjust to his size, let me set the pace. We moved together. The rain poured down over my naked skin. He cursed as his hands moved back to my breasts, calluses grazing against them as the cold rain slid over me. I was dizzy, panting, I didn’t even recognize the scratch of my own moans as they grew louder with each breath.

“Go ahead, sweetheart.”

The sound of his voice did something to me. I threw my head back and I rocked against him and opened my mouth to the rain as I let loose some animal yell, some primal, visceral thing that clawed its way up my throat and took hold of me. I thought of nothing. I wasn’t me anymore. He wasn’t him. I was completely lost to anything but sensation. To everything but the feel of him in my body, stretching and filling every part of me. The storm matched our fury, and the wind howled as we rode each other until I shattered all over again, this time with him inside me.

Chapter 16 An Experiment in Fucking . . . Fucking It All Up, That Is

We had a few hours’ drive, and I was grateful they were mostly silent, because what in the fucking world did I just do? It felt like sensory overload. The storm, the danger, the unbelievable sex, all of it was so very much, and I felt exhausted and overwhelmed. I needed to think carefully about how I should behave in the wake of all this.

Needless to say, sex did not adhere to my travel-Ireland-with-a-furious-stranger protocol. It was clearly not an intelligent choice to have anything the least bit romantic with this man who openly hated me and with whom I would have to travel, contained in a tin can with a rabid honey badger, for the next several eons of my life.

For someone who never even spent the night at people’s houses after sex because I dreaded the cuddling and the excruciating awkwardness of drinking coffee together in the morning—this was . . . not ideal. It was basically a three-week morning after.

Whatever happened next was going to take some grace and careful navigation. Neither of which came naturally to me. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how I wanted to go about dealing with this. All I knew was that I was utterly exhausted. The evening was gathering in. Turned out we had lost a lot of time by nearly drowning and then humping the life out of each other. Tadhg had had to cancel the date for me. But soon there would be food and bed, and that, at least, was some comfort. Perhaps after some sleep, I would have the mental faculties to think this through.

“I think I’m gonna lie down and take a nap back here.”

“I’m not surprised.” His eyes flashed in the rearview, but I couldn’t tell what sort of look it was.

“Wake me if you need anything,” I said lamely. There wasn’t anything he could possibly need that I could help with. I just didn’t know what else to say.

Finn, who had been elated to see us and had run around wildly in the rain for five solid minutes after we’d returned in one piece, slept in the coveted front seat under a blanket. For a change, I didn’t begrudge her this, as I was relieved to have the backseat to myself.

The rain tapped hard against the windows, looking for ways to get in, and the winding single-track roads rocked me in a gentle sway. I lay down, put on my audiobook, set Libby’s sleep timer for thirty minutes, and was asleep in five. Decadent oblivion.

That is—until Jackie called, and the ringer was a bucket of ice water to the face!

I was sure it was one of my elderly gentleman callers, and grimaced in pain as I looked down, but when I realized it was Jackie, quick joy was soon replaced by trepidation. This was Tadhg’s father. And Tadhg’s father was a lifelong matchmaker with antennae finely tuned to all things romantic in nature. What would he ask? What should I say? Would he know? Could he hear sex in my voice?

“Hello,” I croaked.

“Well, there ye are, Maya! And how lovely it is to hear your voice.”

“Oh! Um. Hi, Jackie. How are you?” Just act natural and it’ll be fine.

“I’m just grand. But more to the point, how are you?”

Mildly apprehensive yet still floating around in a delirious postcoital glow, thanks for asking.

“Um. So good!” Too much! Don’t be suspicious. “I mean, pretty good. Normal good, you know.” Crap in a suitcase! Why can’t I remember what natural sounds like?

“Are you all right, my dear? I’ve been calling you all day.”

“Oh no. Really?” I’d heard it. It had been ringing while we’d walked up the hill in the rain. But I hadn’t answered. And why hadn’t I answered, you ask? Because I couldn’t talk after two wild bone-shattering orgasms with this man’s son. That’s why. “I’m so sorry. I was . . .” What were you doing? THINK, MAYA. “Busy.” Getting busy! “Busy with . . . doing stuff.” Doing stuff on your son!

My eyes squeezed closed, and I had to take a deep breath in reverent awe of my own unmitigated stupidity.