Spring Romance: NINE Happily Ever Afters

by Tessa Bailey

  “Just a little more, sweetheart. You can do it for me, can’t you?”

  “Yes,” she hissed out as her jaw clenched. “I can try.”

  “Good girl,” I murmured against her skin as I kissed down her jawline. “Because you aren’t going to come until I can taste it on my tongue. And I intend to take my time licking and sucking my way down your body before I get there.”

  And that’s just what I did. I sucked at the skin near the base of her throat where her pulse throbbed. I licked between her breasts as I kneaded them with my hands and rolled her nipples between my fingers. I nibbled on her softly rounded stomach before plunging my tongue into her belly button and mimicking how I wanted to fuck her. And finally, I licked along the top of her pussy as I slowly untied the sash that held her legs trapped together.

  She tried to part them so I’d have better access, but the sash was still wound around her thighs. I lifted them so I could unwrap her legs and then hooked her legs around my shoulders. As the vibrator slid from her body, I plunged my tongue deep inside and ground my face against her warm flesh, driving my stiffened tongue as far as I could, my nose rubbing against her clit. Her body spasmed in my arms as her climax exploded against my mouth.

  I gave her a couple of minutes to recover before I whipped the towel from my body. My erect cock sprang free from its tented confines. I practically leapt for her body, and she was so goddamn wet that I surged inside with one powerful stroke. Even though I had come when she’d blown me in the shower, I was already close to the edge again. I rolled onto my back so she was astride me, impaled on my cock.

  “Sweetheart, you need to move,” I moaned.

  She circled her hips, grinding my cock inside her pussy. I felt my pelvic bone rubbing her clit when she pushed harder against me at the end of each movement. Then her walls tightened around me as she mewled, “So close, but I just can’t get there.”

  I gripped her hips in my hands and took control of our fucking back. I pounded into her, bumping against her cervix over and over again, pushing both of us closer to the edge. Her body began to shudder as I continued to ruthlessly hammer into her. In this position, I couldn’t get any deeper, so I flipped her onto her stomach, pulling her onto her hands and knees. Then I lined myself up from behind and thrust back inside.

  “You’re so tight this way,” I groaned.

  “Fuck me harder,” she begged as she gripped the headboard for leverage and ground her hips back against me on each thrust.

  I flexed my fingers against her hips to tighten my hold on them as I widened my stance. “You want it harder, then that’s the way you’ll get it,” I promised.

  “Please, Andrew,” she cried out. “I’m so close.”

  “Play with your clit,” I barked out as I continued to pound into her body at a punishing pace.

  The second her hand reached down and she touched herself, her walls clenched even tighter.

  “Fuck!” she hissed out. “I’m coming.”

  She came around my cock, her slickness easing my way even more. My legs trembled underneath me as I tried to hold on to my control for just a little bit longer. I didn’t want to leave her body yet, but with her pussy milking me with every stroke, I was fighting a losing battle. Sweat dripped from my face onto her back.

  “I wanted you to come again,” I groaned.

  “Can’t take any more,” she panted. “Need you to let go.”

  I loosened the reins of my control and surged into her a few more times before emptying myself deep inside her pussy. “Fuck,” I hissed as what seemed like endless streams of semen jetted from my body.

  My legs gave out and I dropped down beside her. As we settled next to each other, I traced the marks my fingers had left on her hips. Although I should have felt some regret for them, I didn’t really since they satisfied that dark place inside me that wanted the world to know she belonged to me.

  “I really am sorry for upsetting you,” she apologized again. “I honestly had no idea you were even open to the idea of me moving in with you. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. It’s not that I’m not happy with our relationship,” she reassured me when I stiffened in reaction to her words.

  “Then what is it, Jocelyn? You know this is all new to me, but I want us to build on what we have together,” I admitted.

  She tilted her head so she could look in my eyes as she continued. “I’m not sure I can explain it very well.”

  “Try, dammit,” I swore. “You owe me that much.”

  I was determined to make her tell me what was going on in her head so I knew exactly where I stood with her. The uncertainty her decision had created inside me was driving me even more insane.

  “The last time I really had a home was back when my mom was alive,” she began. “And then the accident happened, and in a blink of an eye, everything changed. I was shipped off to Brower and lived in a dorm with someone I barely knew for a year. Then I got lucky and got Cee-Cee as my roommate for the next seven years—for the rest of high school and my undergrad years. But during my graduate school years, I lived in campus housing on my own. None of it was horrible, but do you know what it all had in common?”

  “No, sweetheart. What?”

  “I wasn’t in control of my home. My dad was. My school was. Even to an extent, my roommate was. So, just for a little bit, I need to be the one who builds a home for myself before I will be ready to build one with you.”

  “Shit,” I grumbled. “I knew things were bad, but I didn’t realize you were bottling that up inside. You need to learn to talk to me about the important stuff.”

  “I know I should have talked to you about it,” she admitted softly.

  “Yes, you should have,” I agreed. “Now that you’ve explained it to me, I can understand better. You may live here instead of with me, but don’t doubt for a second who you belong to, Jocelyn,” I reminded her. “You’re mine.”

  “And are you mine too?” she asked.

  “Every inch of me,” I replied. “I get that you feel the need to make a home for yourself, sweetheart. But what I need you to understand is that you already have one with me. It doesn’t matter where you live. You belong with me because you are my home.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Josie

  Losing my mom the way I had could have marked me in a different way, taught me that my time here could be short and to grab hold of life with all I had. Maybe it would have if I’d had the comfort of my dad, my home, and my childhood friends to help me through that dark time. But I hadn’t, so I’d learned a different lesson. That the people you love the most can also hurt you the most. So I’d built walls around my heart, thinking that, if I didn’t let people in, then they wouldn’t be able to hurt me. And I was successful for the most part. It took someone with a lot of determination to make their way past my guards.

  That first night in my new apartment with Andrew had torn down some of the walls I’d built to protect myself. In more ways than one. Giving him control of my body like I’d had seemed to have changed the tone of our lovemaking. There had always been an undertone of domination when he took me, but now, it was more blatant. He wasn’t afraid to take me hard anymore. To use my body to slake his desire. To leave his mark on me so I would remember that I belonged to him. A love bite here, slight bruises from his fingertips there—little reminders of the passion we shared.

  It wasn’t just my body that Andrew had complete access to anymore either. What had started between us might have been a case of insta-lust, but it was quickly turning into so much more. It was rare for me to truly let someone inside my heart, but I couldn’t deny that he had figured out how to work his way in there.

  Which made it even harder for me when I knew I was going to disappoint him. Even though it wasn’t convenient for him to spend the night at my place, he made an effort to make sure he was there a couple of times a week. It was much smaller than his sprawling home and less than a fifteen-minute drive away, but he knew what it meant to me
to build a home there for myself.

  After our heart-to-heart, he didn’t grumble or complain about the move. Instead, he made sure I had room for him in my space. And he accomplished that by taking some of it over. The morning after I’d moved in, I’d awoken to him cooking breakfast in my kitchen. I must have been exhausted because I hadn’t even heard him get up and head to the store. We hadn’t made it there the night before.

  When I blearily made my way into my bathroom, I was surprised to find an extra toothbrush in the holder. I flipped open the medicine cabinet out of curiosity and saw an assortment of his toiletries inside. A peek in the shower revealed his favorite shampoo and conditioner, and a bar of soap had been added to the rack that held my items. And when I finally made it to the kitchen to join him, I found him dressed in track pants and a T-shirt he hadn’t had with him the night before.

  It shouldn’t have been a surprise when I found that he’d done all the same things at his house with my stuff when I spent the night there a few days later. But it was. He’d even snagged some of my work clothes and hung them in his closet so I didn’t need to stop back at my place before going to work in the morning. Although we both had on our places, he’d effectively moved us in with each other anyway.

  And now, I was going to throw another wrench into the works with my job. Training camp was over and the season started with a couple of away games. Normally, I would stay behind to work with the guys on the injured reserve list so they could get back onto the ice as soon as possible. But one of their star players was just released to play again in the season opener and needed me to come along to make sure he didn’t risk reinjuring himself.

  When I’d been hired on, I had been told that there might be some occasional travel with the team, but I hadn’t expected it to be for the very first game. And I hadn’t had a boyfriend to consider back then. A possessive, territorial male who was not going to be happy about the idea of me hitting the road unexpectedly. He knew my job was important to me, and he didn’t give me a hard time about it. I wouldn’t put up with it if he did. But I knew he wasn’t entirely happy about all the time I spent surrounded by the guys. Not that I could blame him, because I wasn’t thrilled with how much time he’d been spending at the new club he’d just opened—Ice.

  I’d only managed to make it there with him one other time besides opening night, and I had not been impressed with the skimpiness of the pale-blue outfits the bartenders and servers wore. He and Mark had hired with an eye to bring the people in the door, so it seemed that every employee there was young, single, and hot. And mostly female. Not that I thought Andrew had a wandering eye or dick, because he didn’t. He was too busy making sure any guy in a one-mile vicinity knew that my ass belonged to him to bother with checking out anyone else’s.

  And it was the fierce possessiveness that was going to come into play when I told him about the road trip with the team. We hadn’t spent a single night with that many miles separating us since we’d started dating, and I had a feeling it wasn’t going to go over well.

  * * *

  I thought maybe I’d overestimated what Andrew’s reaction to the trip would be. I made sure I talked to him about it the same night I’d gotten the news. I’d learned my lesson about waiting with him when I’d signed the papers for the apartment. Plus, I didn’t want to run the risk of him hearing about it from his brother since I wasn’t sure who all knew about it yet. The last thing I needed was for Alec to give Andrew another reason to come storming over here.

  He seemed to take the news well. The flare of his nose and clenching of his jaw were the only signs that he wasn’t excited for me. But he kept those thoughts to himself instead of going apeshit crazy all over the idea. Right up until the morning I was supposed to leave.

  “Here. I want you to take this with you,” Andrew said as he placed a glossy gift bag on the table next to me.

  “You didn’t have to buy me a present,” I told him as I picked it up and tore the tissue paper out so I could see what was inside. My jaw dropped at the contents. “Holy crap, Andrew. Did you take a trip to the army surplus store or something?”

  “I noticed the mace when I was at Dick’s Sporting Goods looking for a new pair of running shoes,” he explained.

  I pulled a rape whistle out of the bag. “And this?”

  “I got to thinking after I bought the mace and did some looking online. I found that at Amazon,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders.

  “You do know I’m a grown-ass woman who’s been taking care of herself for a long time, right?” I demanded.

  “That was before you had me to take care of you instead,” he pointed out in a reasonable tone of voice, like it was the most obvious thing ever.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Then you do know that I’m going to be traveling with the team and probably won’t even be on my own at all except for at the hotel at night, right? It’s not like I’m going to be out wandering the streets of Grand Rapids, Michigan, by myself.”

  “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you out of my sight for three days without taking measures to ensure your safety. You might not like it, but that’s just too damn bad because it’s the way it is,” he argued. “Not when I can’t get to you fast enough if you needed me.”

  My heart melted a little at the insight into his crazy present. “Your brother is going to be there too.”

  “I know,” he said, nodding his head. “I already talked to him about the trip.”

  “Talked to him?” I repeated dumbly.

  “Yeah. He’s gonna make sure his room is next to yours,” he explained blithely.

  An idea formed in my head and I didn’t like it much. “Andrew, you don’t think I’m going to do anything stupid while I’m gone. Do you?”

  “Nah, sweetheart. That’s not it at all,” he reassured me. “I’ll just feel better knowing he’s nearby if you need him. I just saw on the news the other day that there’s this device that can pop the door lock with no problem at all. Hell, they said you could go online and figure out how to make one in less than thirty minutes.”

  “Seriously?” I gasped. “But we’re staying at a nice hotel.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They tested it out at a shit-ton of chain hotels and the guy could break into each and every one,” he explained. “And you’re a gorgeous woman staying in a room all by yourself. My woman. And I’m not taking any chances with your safety.”

  “I promise to be careful,” I assured him.

  “And you’ll call me before you go to sleep and as soon as you wake up,” he pushed.

  I relented. I didn’t want him to worry needlessly.

  * * *

  “Hey,” I sighed into the phone as I sank into the bed and pulled the sheet over my body.

  The day had felt incredibly long between traveling to Grand Rapids and working with a few of the guys once we’d arrived. But it had been worth it since the team had pulled out a two-to-one victory for the first game. Unfortunately, I’d had to wait around until the bus had left and then had been stuck in line behind the team to check into my room. It was now nearing midnight and I’d been up for eighteen hours already.

  “I was starting to think you’d forgotten your promise to call me before you went to bed,” Andrew replied to my greeting.

  “Never,” I assured him. “I’ve only been in the room long enough to take a quick shower and open a bottle of wine.”

  “Does that mean you appreciated at least part of the gift I sent with you?” he asked.

  When I’d dug through the bag on the team bus, I’d found a couple of single-serving bottles of chardonnay underneath the mace and whistle.

  “God, yes. You have no idea how badly I needed this glass of wine.”

  “I’ll always do my best to provide you with what you need even when I can’t be right there with you,” he said, his voice dropping a couple of notches as he spoke.

  “What if I said I needed to come?” I whispered.

  “Fuck, Jocelyn,” he hiss
ed. “I was already hard just hearing your sexy voice, but now…” He paused.

  I couldn’t handle the silence. “Now what?”

  “Now my cock is about to burst through my boxers,” he admitted.

  “Then take them off,” I suggested, picturing his fist wrapped around his dick while he stroked himself to the sound of my voice. My pussy clenched at the very thought of it.

  I heard muffled sound of rustling sheets through the phone line.

  “Done,” he sighed.

  “You’re totally naked in your bed?” I asked, wanting to picture exactly how he looked right now.

  “Yes, and you’d better not have anything on either because I want to hear your moans as I come,” he ordered.

  “Hold on a second,” I said before I dropped the phone next to me so I could whip off the camisole and pajama pants I’d put on after my shower. “Okay, I’m back.”

  “I want you to touch yourself lightly,” he instructed. “Run your fingertips around the outside of your pussy and tell me how wet you are.”

  I opened my legs and followed his directions, sighing into the phone when I found myself dripping wet already. “Very wet.”

  “If I were there, I’d suck on your pussy lips before I flicked your clit with my tongue,” he described.

  “And would you put your fingers inside me?” I questioned him.

  “Fuck yes, I would,” he groaned harshly, his breathing becoming more labored. “I’d shove them deep inside your little pussy. I’d rub your G-spot until you drenched me.”

  My hand vigorously rubbed my clit as I writhed on the hotel bed listening to him describe what he’d do to me if I were home instead. My orgasm was already so close.

  “So damn good,” I murmured into the line.

  “You know what would feel even better?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “If I were fucking your pussy hard, wouldn’t it?” he asked, and I was a little startled by the harshness of his tone. When I didn’t respond, his voice deepened as he repeated himself. “Wouldn’t it, Jocelyn?