We are lying on a hotel bedroom floor, mostly naked. He is wrapped around me and I’m wrapped up in him, living entirely in the moment.

“I want you to be bad for me,” he says, his blue eyes flashing with lust. “Can you be a little bit bad for me?”

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. My body says, “Oh yes, sir. Whatever you say. I can do that.”

But before any words can come out of my mouth, the proverbial record scratch screeches in my brain. I look over at Bruce, wondering if he heard that. And maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I don’t know. Because he has his arm slung around another woman and they are deep in conversation.

But he senses me looking and turns, giving me a big grin. So, yeah, he’s okay.

The conversation moves on, and we return to the game we’re playing. The one responsible for our almost total nudity and a whole lot of laughs along the way.

The good girl in my brain is throwing a tantrum. This is weird, she says. You’ve got a kid waiting for you at home, she says. But honestly, I don’t give a shit. In fact, when said kid texts, I ignore her for almost an hour. Does this win me a mom of the year award? Most certainly not. Do I care? Not really.

But I do care about what the people I write about think of what I write about them, so I ask. “Do you mind? That I wrote about you?” I mean, I have an audience of approximately ten at the moment, but it pays to respect other people’s feelings.

He shakes his head. “No, no I don’t. It’s a huge turn on, if I’m being honest. But why do you call me Mr. Neon?”

This is another place where, if the part of me who writes smutty romance novels was in charge, I would have something amazingly sexy to say. But Real Me, she struggles. “Well, I mean, you have to create characters, right? So people don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Sure. But why Mr. Neon?” he asks, a small smile playing on his lips.

“Well, because…”

At which point Mrs. Neon handily interrupts, sparing me from having to explain myself. Which is good. Because I honestly don’t know how to explain the electricity that jumps through my skin when he touches me. I keep thinking it’s a fluke. That it’s in my imagination. But it’s not.

I mean, I’ve always had a thing for older guys. I didn’t marry one, but you know. There’s a part of you that sits up and takes notice, even when you’re not actively looking. Bruce knows it. I know it. Maybe it’s an authority thing? I don’t know. My inner feminist hates that I even said that out loud. But I can always delete it later…

ANYWAY.

How did we get here? After our initial freakout and subsequent heart to heart conversations, we decided we did want to see them again. But we live not so close together. So we met in the middle again. And after dining at another one of the town’s dubiously well-rated eating establishments, there was no place left to go (without judgey bartenders) other than a hotel. Their hotel to be specific.

So here we are. And to be clear, they are super respectful of the boundaries we set before we arrived. While the booze flows, and hands wander, and sexy somethings are communicated, nothing “untoward” happens.

So when Bruce tells me the next morning that he would have been fine if Mr. Neon had let his hands wander beneath the decidedly skimpy panties I was wearing, I am more than a little surprised.

“That is… unexpected,” I say to him.

He shrugs. “Yeah. Well. I was having fun. It was fun. And I didn’t have any problems watching him with you.”

“So… if we see them again, we could, if you wanted, maybe take things a tiny bit further? If we’re all comfortable? Though, I was actually pretty good were we left off. We are in no rush.”

“If we see them again?” he asks, grinning at me.

I blush furiously. “Well, I mean, we don’t have to. It’s a long way and we’re all so busy…” God damn it, I’m awkward.

“You’re so cute when you’re embarrassed. But I think you mean when, not if.”

He’s right. I did. But only time will tell…

Wanna hear about the evening from Bruce’s perspective?