Page 56 of Her Age Gap Match

I followed her over with my hands in her hair and my face pressed to her temple and nothing left to hold back.

We stayed there after. Neither of us moved. The fire had burned down to coals, casting everything amber and low, and the only sound was the lake outside and both of us breathing.

She pressed her lips to my jaw. My cheek. The corner of my mouth.

I held her and looked at the embers and thought about a different redheaded kid—fifteen years old in Detroit, telling himself he’d have land on a lakeshore just like this someday.

Took a while.

But he got there.

CHAPTER 17

Poppy

I wanted to go hiking the next day, but it was snowing.

So…bed it was.

I really couldn't complain.

I woke to John's hands on my thighs, his lips trailing kisses up to my core, spreading me open. I moaned in the early morning light, and he lifted his head—tenting the blankets, a lazy smile on his face.

“Bad weather for a hike,” he murmured.

“Mmhm.”

I didn't say another word.

Couldn't, really, because his tongue found my clit and everything else ceased to matter.

We stayed in bed until about noon, at which point we finally hauled ourselves down to the kitchen for coffee. The coffee was still brewing when my phone lit up on the counter.

My mom was calling.

…like she did every Wednesday, and I’d completely forgotten.

“Everything okay?” John asked from where he was pulling mugs down from the cabinet—shirtless, with a pair of grey sweats slung low on his hips. I was never going to get used to that sight.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s just my mom—normal weekly update call, but I forgot it was Wednesday because I’m not at work.”

He set the mugs down. “You should answer it.”

“But it’s Facetime.”

His eyes darted toward me. All I had on was one of his shirts, an old and worn Guns & Roses tee.

“That’s fine.”

“Is it?”

He laughed under his breath, then grabbed my phone and put it in my hand. “Poppy,” he said. “Answer your mother. I’m going to get a shirt.”

I swallowed hard.

Picked it up.

My mom’s face appeared on the screen, a big smile on her face. Her hair was in a messy bun, brown and silver curls popping free, and she had her reading glasses pushed up on her forehead. Behind her I could see the kitchen—the yellow walls she’d painted herself in 2003, a row of cookbooks on the shelf above the stove, the little clay handprints me and my siblings had made in elementary school set neatly together.