Chapter 20: Different Strokes

Scott showered before bed, letting the hot water wash away the sweat of the shift, the stink of the Tahoe, and the memory of brains spattering his boot. Fresh boxers, clean skin, hair still damp—he slid beneath the covers in the dark bedroom, hoping sleep would take him quick.

It didn’t.

His mind wouldn’t quit circling back to Maggie. To her hand, less than an hour ago, sliding across the front of his sweats until she’d found him. To the way she squeezed, uncertain at first, then firmer, curious. He’d never gone completely soft after that—just a state of tactical standby. But lying here now, remembering it, he was swelling again.

And he couldn’t help but tie that memory to another—the feel of her hand around his bare cock only a few nights earlier. Her fingers wrapped around him while he poured himself into Lena’s body while Maggie’s tongue was in his mouth. The sensations blurred together, indistinguishable, and the heat in his boxers grew urgent.

But then came the thoughts. The consequences. He and Maggie hadn’t crossed the big line yet. Not quite. They’d kissed, touched, teased. But no final step. What would happen if they did? Could they keep living together, raising kids, being each other’s safety net—if they tipped themselves into something they couldn’t pull back from?

He shifted under the sheets, restless, staring into the dark.

Downstairs, he heard the house come alive. The soft creak of a stair. A bathroom door closing. The calling of the kids’ voices—indistinct, but familiar enough he could picture exactly what was happening. Chairs scraping back. Plates clinking. TV blaring faintly through the floorboards. He’d left a skillet full of scramble on the stove, and they were feeding themselves now. He knew the routine by sound alone.

Maggie had told him: when the kids were settled, when the house was on autopilot, that would be the time. But when was that exactly? Now? In an hour? He didn’t know. And the not knowing gnawed at him, his thoughts swinging hard between the excitement of possibility and the dread of what it might cost them.

At some point in that anxious loop he drifted off, falling into a restless sleep.

The click of his bedroom door woke him again. A thin band of light spilled across the floorboards. Maggie stood in the doorway, framed in the glow from the hall. She still wore the long t-shirt that left her braless chest moving free beneath the cotton, but she’d pulled on sweatpants. She never minded the kids catching a glimpse of bare thighs, but she didn’t parade it in front of them either.

“They’re settled,” she said softly. “I told them I was going to nap. They know not to bother me or you unless the house is burning down.” Her eyes met his, calm but questioning. “So ... are you still up for a little surveying of the road we’re traveling?”

When it came right down to it, Scott didn’t think. His brain didn’t need to. Both of Scott’s heads were on the same page for once. That made it right, right?

“I’ll be right up,” he told her.

Maggie sat on the edge of her bed, bare legs crossed at the ankle. She’d stripped off the sweats after closing Scott’s door, leaving only her red panties and the battered old t-shirt she’d bought on a trip to Cabo a month before starting the Sheriff’s academy.

The shirt had seen better days. The collar sagged, the armpits were frayed through, the once-bright margarita glass on the front was fading into pale green and yellow shadows. I LOST MY MEMORY IN CABO!? it declared in cheerful block letters, though it was the memories that had stuck with her most.

Particularly one.

A Mexican woman who worked the hotel bar, maybe mid-thirties, with a low laugh and a knowing touch. She had accompanied Maggie back to her room one humid night, her first real taste of what an experienced lesbian could do. The woman had coaxed her, guided her, taken her apart piece by piece and put her back together in a haze of sweat and salt and ocean air. It had been the first time Maggie had actually orgasmed from a sexual encounter—and she had done it no less than six times between midnight and 6:30 AM.

And now, four years later, she sat in that same shirt, waiting for her male roommate.

Not just her roommate. Scott. A man she’d fought beside, was raising kids with, laughed with. A man she realized—too late to stop it—she loved.

She didn’t know what was going to happen when he came through her door. She hadn’t promised to go all the way. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to. But ever since Lena had dropped her little truth bomb—that they were in that kind of love—Maggie hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.

And she was torn.

She had always been proud of being a lesbian. Of owning it. Of not apologizing for it. That pride had been born the night she had sex with Christopher’s sperm donor, the one fumbling experiment that proved how little she wanted men. Did she really want to test the experiment again? Risk confusing herself? Risk putting her entire identity in peril. Risk ruining everything she and Scott had built?

Her stomach tightened. Her hands wouldn’t stay still in her lap.

Then the door creaked open.

Scott filled the doorway, bare but for his boxers. Hair mussed a little from sleep, his chest cut with the lean muscle of a man who worked hard to keep himself in shape for his job. Her eyes slid lower, caught the unmistakable swell beneath the thin cotton, and her breath hitched. She wasn’t supposed to be turned on by that. But she was.

Scott closed the door behind him and turned the lock with a quiet click. They almost never locked interior doors in the house—at least not doors that weren’t the bathroom—but he did now.

“The kids are glued to the TV,” he said, his tone casual, matter-of-fact. “Teen Titans Go! marathon. They didn’t even notice me being awake. For sure didn’t see me coming upstairs. My door’s locked too. Nobody’s interrupting.”

To anyone else, he’d sound perfectly calm. Professional. Like he was giving a routine briefing. But Maggie wasn’t anyone else. She knew him, down to the smallest tells. She heard the edge under his smoothness, the tension woven through every word, saw the tenseness in his shoulders. He was keyed up. Nervous. Awkward. And not in a bad way.

And if she hadn’t heard it, she’d have seen it. His boxers were betraying him, the bulge stretching the thin cotton, heavy and insistent. The sight of it made her pulse throb. She had already been wet before he’d walked in, but now she was ridiculously wet, her panties clinging to her folds, heat building between her thighs. Her nipples pressed hard against the thin cotton of her shirt, and she was suddenly hyper-aware of every rise and fall of her chest.

“Maybe we should take off our clothes,” she said, keeping her own voice level, cool, like it was the most ordinary suggestion in the world. She knew she wasn’t fooling him any more than he was fooling her.

He gave the faintest smile. “Seems like a good place to start.”

“I’ll go first,” she said.

She rose to her feet, heart hammering, and caught the hem of her faded Cabo shirt. A quick pull, and it was over her head, tossed aside. Her breasts spilled free, nipples hard, standing proud in the dim light. She hesitated only a beat before hooking her thumbs into the waistband of her red panties. She slid them down slowly, the fabric peeling wetly from her lips.

As she stepped out of them, the scent hit her—her own arousal, warm and unmistakable, rising into the air between them.

All her doubts went quiet.

Because in that instant she knew—she did want this. Maybe not the whole tamale, maybe not today. But at least a few steps down the road. And from where she sat, the road ahead was paved in gold, bordered by flowers, and it looked very, very inviting.

Scott’s eyes moved over her and, for the first time since he’d walked in, his mask slipped. The calm, casual cop vanished, and in his place was a man staring openly at the naked woman before him. A naked woman he desired.

She could see it—the hunger. Not subtle, not polite, not hidden. His gaze raked her body with the full permission she’d given simply by standing there, stripped bare. And he did it. He drank her in, a male gaze without apology.

And God help her, she liked it.

Liked that he wanted her like that. Liked that he was going to put his hands on her soon. Strong, masculine hands—bigger even than Stacy’s, the Amazon basketball player who stood taller than nearly every man alive. But this was different. This was Scott. The man she loved more than any man on Earth, then and now.

“You are absolutely beautiful,” he said, his voice low and rough.

She felt herself flush, heat blooming beneath her skin, warmth that wasn’t just arousal but something deeper, sweeter. She smiled at him—knew it was a nervous smile—but managed a quiet, “Thank you.”

She let the moment hang, then found her voice again. “Your turn.”

He nodded, a faint grin tugging at his lips. “Fair is fair.”

Then he hooked his thumbs into the waistband, pushed the boxers down, and kicked them aside.

Her breath caught when the boxers hit the floor.

She’d seen plenty of dicks in her time—probably a hundred or more. On the internet, mostly by accident. She stuck to strict lesbian porn, but every so often some guy would stroll uninvited into the frame, ruining the scene. And at work—God, the jail, patrol calls, field searches—it was a never-ending parade. Flaccid, shriveled, hairy, unwashed. None of them anything she’d felt nicer than mild discomfort for, sometimes genuine disgust.

And except for those stray porn slip-ups, she’d never seen one hard.

Not like this.

Scott stood in front of her, cock rising heavy and proud from the nest of his pelvis. The first time she’d caught a glimpse of it, it had been buried in Lena’s pussy, only enough exposed for her to wrap a hand around while her tongue tangled with his. That hadn’t been the full picture—just a tease, a flash.

Now she saw everything.

The thick shaft flushed darker than the rest of his skin. The glans smooth and swollen, a shade redder still. His balls hung low beneath, tight and heavy. He kept the boys shaved—smooth as any woman—and from the look of it he’d given them a fresh swipe with the razor in the shower just for this moment.

It should have repelled her. Should have felt alien and unwelcome.

But it didn’t.

She found herself staring, her lips parting, tongue flicking out to wet them without conscious thought.

This one didn’t disgust her. This one was Scott.

She stepped closer. Very close. Not touching, not yet, but close enough that any part of him was within easy reach if she wanted it.

And that was when she smelled him.

It was a male smell. Familiar, because it was Scott—she’d smelled his scent in every variation since the academy. The sharp tang of sweat after PT. The salty musk of him climbing off his bike after pounding out fifty miles. The faint cologne he wore for court, crisp over pressed shirts and ties. Even the raw, musky edge he carried when he came home freshly fucked—Samantha, Lena, one of the badge bunnies who used to orbit him before Gardenville upgraded his tastes in women.

But this was none of those.

He wasn’t wearing cologne. Just the faintest layer of deodorant. Beneath it was something elemental, unmistakable: the smell of an aroused man.

She’d only smelled this once before. The night with the sperm donor. Fumbling in the dark of his room, the air thick with nerves and clumsy sweat. He’d insisted on darkness—self-conscious about his body, she realized now. Or maybe his cock. She’d never seen it; she’d only felt it. Smaller than Scott’s, thinner. She was sure of it. And she remembered that smell.

And she hadn’t liked it then. It made her want to recoil.

This was different.

She liked this smell. She liked it a lot.

She felt her face flush as her gaze traveled back up from his cock to his eyes. He was flushed too, a faint bloom of color across his cheeks.

“Put your hands on me,” she whispered. “Touch me. Anywhere you want.”

For half a second she braced for the obvious—that he’d lunge for her tits or shove a hand between her legs. That was what men did. That was what the sperm donor had done. That was what every bi or straight woman she’d ever known had told her men always did first.

But Scott didn’t.

His big hands lifted to her face, cupping her cheeks gently, his thumbs brushing her skin with surprising tenderness. He caressed her face like a lover. Like she was precious. And it melted her, softening something inside she hadn’t realized was frozen solid.

They were nearly the same height—him five-ten, her five-seven—close enough that a kiss would take no effort at all. A big part of her ached for him to do it. To close that last sliver of space and seal them together.

But he didn’t.

Instead, his hands slid down, stroking her neck, then over her shoulders, slow and deliberate. Every pass of his palms made her shiver.

She raised her own hand, tentative at first, then firmer, and set it against his chest. The heat of him bled into her palm. She felt the hard plane of muscle beneath, the roughness of male skin so utterly different from the soft, smooth give of a woman’s.

Such a contrast.

But right now, it was a contrast she liked.

Her hands drifted over him, exploring. Across the ridges of his abs, smooth and hard beneath her fingers. Around to his lower back, the play of muscle shifting as he breathed. Up over his shoulders and the curve of his upper back. Each pass brought her closer until their bodies nearly touched.

Then she felt it.

Something poking her in the lower stomach, just above her pubis. Firm, swollen, a little slick at the tip. She realized it was the head of his cock, wet and warm against her skin. The reality of it made her shiver.

His hands were moving too—sliding down her back in steady strokes until they cupped her ass, big palms squeezing and pulling her into him. Suddenly she was pressed flush to him, her bare breasts mashed against his chest, the warmth of his body overwhelming.

She nestled her face into the hollow where his shoulder met his neck, and the smell of him filled her nose—strong, male, aroused. She couldn’t resist. She leaned in and licked, tasting the salt of his skin, dragging her tongue along the side of his neck.

Scott groaned, a low sound that vibrated through her chest, and pulled her in tighter. She felt the full length of him now, thick and alive, pressing against her from pubis to just below her belly button.