Secret Confessions: Down & Dusty — Maree by Elizabeth Dunk

Episode 7—Maree
    The sound of the car door slamming rocketed Maree to her feet. She’d been a mix of fear and anticipation since lunchtime. Now, her stomach was awash with emotions and her feet didn’t want to move her anywhere.
    She could picture Brad Williams sauntering across the yard, heading to the bottom of the steps to talk to her. Tall, tanned, rangy limbs that she’d seen pop with muscles on more than one very happy occasion. He would push up the rim of his Akubra to look at her with light blue eyes that she fancied could pierce her soul and collect her innermost thoughts and desires.
    She should be out there, leaning against a post, trying to look provocative. This time, when he asked her if there was something she needed, she’d invite him in to the classroom and tell him she needed his cock.
    But Maree stood at her desk, glued to the spot. Her heart thudded, her palms grew clammy. She was going to back out. She wasn’t going to do it.
    She waited, knowing he was standing at the bottom of the steps, wondering where she was. Then he’d shrug and move on to do his work and her moment would be lost.
    Get out there, one part of her body screamed. You used to do this all the time, remember? Get out there and seduce the man.
    I can’t , screamed the other part. The part that was too aware that she hadn’t done this for years, was approaching fifty, had two grown children and that Brad was so much younger than her. The part that was afraid of being knocked back.
    Maree wiped her clammy hands against her trousered thighs. Do it. You know he’s more likely to accept than reject. Most men do when you ask.
    That was more than twenty years ago. When you were hot.
    I’m still hot.
    For your age, sure. So go for an older man. Don’t go for Brad.
    But she didn’t want any other man in Milpinyani Springs. From the moment he’d arrived on that first day, introduced himself as the groundsman for the school and looked at her with those blue eyes, she’d been hooked.
    It was Brad, or it was continuing to become intimately acquainted with her vibrator. And dammit, the only reason her vibrator worked so well was because she fantasised about Brad while using it. She wanted him.
    This time, her feet moved. Slowly, but with determination, she left the classroom to begin her search.
    Brad was around the back of the library—the only other building in the school that was still in use—watering the garden. Maree took a moment to look at him. Akubra pulled over his blond hair. Plaid shirt clinging to his back. Sleeves rolled up to reveal his strong, tanned forearms. Maree watched the tug and pull of the muscles of his thighs and buttocks under the pale, thin denim and sighed at the thought she might soon have her hands on all that.
    She took a deep breath and called out, ‘Brad?’
    He turned his head, pinning her with those blue, blue eyes. ‘Afternoon, Ms Haraldson.’ No matter what she said, Maree couldn’t convince him to use her first name. ‘How do you manage to look after those little bug—, I mean brats, and still look so good?’
    His voice was soft, a bit gravelly, and Maree had no problem whatsoever imagining it whispering huskily in her ear as he undressed her and did marvellous things to her body.
    ‘I could ask you the same question,’ she said. ‘If you can call cattle brats.’
    Brad laughed, a warm rich sound that turned Maree’s insides to jelly. ‘Some days you can. Anything in particular you need me to do?’
    So many things she needed from him. Particularly when he said it like that, deeper, slower, like the words had meaning. Had his gaze dropped from hers to check out her breasts? The thought sent tingles through her, centralising in a throb between her legs.
    ‘Yes,’ Maree said softly. ‘Yes, there is.’
    How to say it? How to make him want what she wanted?
    ‘It’s something very personal. Very special.’ Brad smiled, and Maree took that as encouragement to keep going. ‘Something