Going For Gold: Providence Gold Series Book Four

by Moore, Mary B.

Chapter Eighteen

  Charlotte

  “You’re a disgust,” I scolded Rambo, refusing to fall for the sad puppy eyes. “Do you hear me? A dis-gust.”

  What was his crime? Well, the morning after Eric had taken me almost four weeks ago, Lily and the girls had come up to the house to tidy up and let the guy in to fix the broken window.

  They’d seen their box of treats open on the floor in our bathroom still and had rightly figured that I’d move to Peru if anyone else saw them. So they’d boxed it all back up again and had hidden it under the bed – something which they failed to tell us until I accidentally kicked it as I was making the bed a couple of days ago. It would also be pertinent to mention that my bed making abilities consisted of throwing the pillows near the top and pulling up the duvet just now.

  I’d pulled it out using my toes, and when I’d recognized the box, I’d put it on the floor in the walk-in closet.

  Well, apparently Rambo had found it and we’d walked in to find him using the largest of the training butt plugs as a teething toy. In the middle of the rug. In the middle of the living room. And when I say we, I don’t mean Levi and myself, either. The we had included Elijah, Webb, Tate, Noah, and Archer, along with Ariana and Bonnie, and not one of them missed what was happening.

  And – because that couldn’t possibly be bad enough, could it? – just to make it worse, when I’d tried to get it away from him, he’d dragged it behind the couch and had proceeded to play tug-of-war with his brother with it.

  “Hey, it’s natural to dogs,” Webb yawned, totally unphased by it. “They like sniffing butts, so they probably thought it was a bonding thing with you.”

  Oh my god, kill me now. I’m begging you, just kill me.

  Coming to my defense, Levi shot his cousin the bird. “She hasn’t used it, asshole.”

  Grinning at him, Webb drawled, “I’d actually assumed seeing as how it was so easily accessible and the beautiful Charlotte is still all banged up, that it was your personal plug,” making everyone burst out laughing.

  Shaking his head, he looked over at Noah. “Help me move this thing,” he pointed at the couch, “so I can throw that shit away.”

  Not willing to let it go, Webb got up and helped him instead. “I agree, cousin. Dogs mouths are full of bacteria and with it all chewed up, it would be awkward having to explain how your ass was such a mess if you got an infection because of it.”

  Giving him a glare, they pulled the couch away from the wall it had been in front of. Sensing that his new toy was about to be stolen, Rambo let out a growl that was probably meant to scare them, but it just sounded like a high pitched trill with the toy between his teeth.

  Incidentally, on that couch were two throw cushions that Ariana had given her brother for Christmas with a Daschund on it, and the words He has a little wiener written above it. He also had a t-shirt, hoodie, and mug with it on, too. It was hilarious. After I’d left that night, someone had taken a red Sharpie and replaced the a with the number two, and added an s at the end of wieners. Now it read, He has 2 little wieners.

  “Jesus, look at him go on that thing,” Levi chuckled, all of the irritation from seconds away gone as he watched the puppy chewing on it like it was an actual teething toy.

  “Maybe they should add that to the packaging? Dog owners could save a fortune in furniture if they got them one of these to chomp on,” Webb suggested seriously. “I remember when you got Bogey, Archer, and he ate the leg off the dining table. I thought Aunt Erica was going to shit her pants.”

  Archer’s eyebrows shot up as he looked over the back of the couch. “Hard to believe he can get his tiny mouth around something so big…”

  “That’s what she said,” Elijah snorted, and then took a look himself. “Bogey would have needed the elephant-sized version of one of those.”

  I wonder if they did those? Not that I wanted one, but now that it had been mentioned I definitely wanted to know if it existed. What was the world’s biggest butt plug?

  Picking up my phone I typed it in, hoping that no one anywhere in the world had been tasked with watching my internet searches. The results were initially disappointing at five inches high with a fifteen inch circumference. I mean, I wouldn’t want to stick one in my own ass, but I’d expected better.

  And then I found it. “Holy shit!”

  When someone says that as they’re looking at their phone, few people can resist either asking or looking, which was proven by Ariana and Bonnie who immediately looked over my shoulder at the screen.

  Squinting her eyes, Ariana asked, “What’s that?”

  “This butt plug is called The Assifier. It’s a pacifier for your ass and measures in at thirteen inches long, with a fifteen inch circumference at its widest area,” Bonnie read out, then closed her mouth with an audible snap.

  There was silence in the room as the three of us read the rest of the description, total forgetting the six men who were now staring at us in a mixture of horror and fascination.

  Looking at a photo where it was lying down next to a man’s hand, showing the size of the plug, I breathed, “How the hell would you fit that inside you?”

  “You’re gonna need a lot of lube to stick that sucker in,” Bonnie snickered. “We’re talking ten sticks of butter up your ass, one of those family sized popcorn buckets worth of lube, and more than likely…”

  “Please stop talking,” Archer growled, turning stiffly away so that he was looking out the window.

  He’d been getting headaches ever since Eric had hit him across the head with a two by four, so immediately I assumed he had another one. “Have you got another headache? Can I get you something for it?”

  A loud snort came out of Webb as he looked from his cousin over to us. “Oh, I think his headache will go down in a minute.”

  His wording confused me, although I guess you could phrase it that way. If a headache or migraine lessened in severity, didn’t that mean it had gone down? Something about the way he was laughing quietly and how the other guys mouths were twitching told me my theory was wrong, but without being included in on the joke I didn’t know what else to go with.

  “Do you need me to massage it?” Bonnie asked, making them laugh even harder. Ever since that night, she’d stopped avoiding him and only giving one-word answers when he spoke to her, and had even helped get him back on his feet.

  “I need a second,” Elijah wheezed, walking toward the kitchen.

  Seeing an escape route, Rambo ran after him, trying to carry the full weight of the plug in his mouth and failing miserably. Before he could get too far, Levi leaned down and grabbed it out of his mouth.

  Turning away from it with my cheeks burning all over again, I thought of something to say to distract myself but Ariana got there first. “So, how are you feeling, honey?”

  This question wasn’t as easy to answer as it seemed. At this moment I was feeling great, regardless of some pain still in different areas of my body. When I was tired that pain increased slightly, a bit like when you’re not well and feel worse at night.

  Mentally and emotionally I was exhausted, happy, sad, angry, I felt betrayed, I felt loved – I couldn’t say that I felt one way because I had too much going on in my head.

  And to my shame, I was also horny. Levi wouldn’t touch me until the pain went away, and that was messing with my emotions as well. I also had some paranoia about it in case he didn’t want me anymore – which I knew was stupid – or in case he would get tired of waiting for me, which was also stupid.

  I didn’t want to unload that emotional nightmare onto my friends, though. I was better sorting through it myself. “I still have moments where I’m close to having a panic attack,” I explained, angry at one of the other great side effects of what had happened. “If it’s dark at night and I can’t see, or I’m on my own and hear a noise, that’s when the anxiety hits hard. I’ve had some nightmares but they’re starting to get better.”

  Sighing, Ariana picked up my hand. “A
nd the pain?”

  Forcing a smile onto my face, I grinned at her. “It’s getting better every day.”

  A large body kneeling down in front of me almost made me poop my panties, and these were the nice purple ones that Levi liked so much.

  Rubbing my thighs with his large hands, Levi didn’t take his eyes off mine as he spoke to his sister and Bonnie. “Lottie started talking to a therapist last week about it, and they’re going to see each other for a while. It’s not going to work itself out overnight, but we’re all going to help her.”

  “I’m in,” Ariana agreed, not even taking a second to do it.

  Bonnie was the same. “Me too.”

  Then a chorus of deep voices behind me added, “I’ll do it.”

  The freaking tears that kept appearing out of nowhere built in my eyes, and I was struggling to not let them loose. The support meant everything to me, but I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t bothering them with this burden.

  And Levi, the man had done so much for me, but when was he going to say enough? I hadn’t done a damn thing for him, so wasn’t that me just using him? What exactly was I bringing to this relationship for him?

  Not wanting to share that with everyone, I figured I’d speak to him about it later when they’d all gone home. Until then, I thanked them and let the support and relaxation wash over me.

  Just in case, I needed to think of something I could do for Levi. Something special.

  Levi

  I knew that something was bothering Lottie and given everything that had happened, it didn’t surprise me that things reared their heads now and then. It was just getting her to talk about it that was the problem.

  I’d just taken the dogs out to go potty and put them in the den with their toys for the night. Ever since that night they hadn’t been able to come through to the bedroom in case they jumped on her and hurt her, and she was missing them. It just wasn’t worth the pain right now, though. Really, it had only been a matter of taking away the little steps at the end of the bed that she’d bought for them, but she wouldn’t have been able to ignore them if they were in the room, so to the den they went.

  Leaving the hallway light on in case she needed to go to the kitchen, I strolled into the bedroom and almost tripped over my feet. Kneeling on the edge of the bed, Lottie was wearing a dark blue lace panties and bra set that I hadn’t seen before, and she was wearing the necklace I’d bought her for Christmas. It was made of solid silver and was a two inch by two inch copy of the Flor del Espiritu Santo, a type of orchid that was Panama’s national flower.

  I’d been looking for something meaningful online and when I’d seen it described as the dove orchid, I’d seen a lot of Charlotte in the flower. It was beautiful, it was rare, it was unique, it was delicate, but orchids were also robust and resourceful. Doves looked like ordinary birds, but there was something special when they flew up into the skies that made people stare at them and want them for special occasions. She was all of that and more to me, so this necklace was perfect for her.

  And it looked amazing nestled between her tits, her pale skin a stark contrast against the shiny silver and the angles of the petals.

  The problem wasn’t that I didn’t want her, because I really, really fucking did. It was torture not being able to slip inside her and take her, having that closeness back. The problem was that she’d been hurt by Eric, and I didn’t want to cause her more pain while she continued healing. When I’d found her, it had looked like he’d broken her body into pieces, and we’d all been preparing ourselves for the best case scenario to only be surgeries, casts, and scars.

  It sounds ridiculous phrasing that as the best case scenario, but the other scenarios would be ruptured organs, perforated or collapsed lungs, removal of major organs, a traumatic brain injury, paralysis… so really it wasn’t that stupid. After doing numerous x-rays, scans, and tests, it was concluded that she’d escaped with severe bruising and exposure to the cold temperature that night. That didn’t sound so bad and we were all relieved, but that’s because few of us understood exactly how bad bruising could be.

  Her right thigh and arm – the side of her body that had been facing up when he’d been beating her – were badly bruised, and the blood had built up in the bruises so badly that they had to put a drain in and were considering surgery at one point. She’d then developed cellulitis in her thigh as well and had been on IV antibiotics because she’d been so sick with it.

  In total, she’d been in hospital for nine days, and had been out of it now for eighteen days. The bruising was beginning to disappear, but there were still dark patches of purple surrounded by yellow over areas of her body.

  And I still found her just as beautiful as I had before, and fuck the man card – I loved her even more deeply than I had before.

  Pointing at her body self-consciously, she said, “I know I don’t look like I did a month ago, but I wanted to show you that I could do things for you, too.”

  Closing the distance between us, I stood in front of her intending to crouch down, but she stopped me. “Baby, you look as beautiful as you did a month ago.”

  Sighing, she looked up at the ceiling. “I’m bruised all over and you’re having to carry me emotionally and mentally, Levi. You run around doing stuff for me all the time, and I can’t do anything for you. That’s not a relationship, at least not for us it isn’t.”

  I had to lean down because she was holding my hips now and I didn’t want to risk hurting her. She might see it as carrying her, but it was far from that.

  Cupping her jaw with my hands, I outlined it for her. Firmly. “Lottie, look at me.” When she realized I wasn’t going to let her away with not doing it, she looked me in the eye. “I’m not carrying you and this isn’t an uneven relationship at all. It’s my honor to help you get back to where you were. In the last two months you’ve been through things that most people – if they’re lucky – don’t go through even once in their lifetimes. And both times you’ve tried to continue like nothing’s happened, and our minds just don’t work that way. Right now you need help, you need someone to support you physically, mentally, and emotionally, and it is an absolute fucking privilege to be the man who does that for you.” When the tears started trailing down her cheeks, I moved to kiss her softly. “Don’t ever look at it as being an uneven relationship, because you’re the one who’s carried me mentally and emotionally through all of this, too.”

  “I have?”

  I let her see how serious I was and added the words so that she could hear it as well. “I couldn’t have gotten through it without you, Lottie.”

  And that was no fucking exaggeration. I couldn’t have. I was in a dark place after that night, one I hadn’t been in since Luna had been taken. It had left raw areas inside me that Lottie had healed with everything she did.

  Wiping off her cheeks with her hands, she leaned into me. “I want to do more for you.”

  “More?” What else could she do? She literally gave me everything, there wasn’t anything more that I needed from her.

  Moving her hands to my ribs, she nudged me to stand up in front of her and reached for the zip of my pants. “I wasn’t sure what the best way to do this for a guy was, so I searched online,” she admitted, making me burst out laughing.

  “Lottie, I don’t need you to do this. I’m honestly good with just holding you until you’re better.”

  Yanking my pants and shorts down, she slowly lifted my t-shirt. “I need to do this for you. We’re restricted, but we’re not totally cut off.”

  Then her soft hand enveloped my cock and started to move up and down its length, making my legs shake slightly. Pulling my t-shirt off the rest of the way, I threw it behind me as I kicked my pants to the side of the room leaving me totally naked in front of her.

  With her free hand, she skimmed her palm up my stomach until she got to my chest, and then she lightly dug her nails in and dragged them back down. Christ, her nails always got me and she knew it.

  Ge
ntly taking her ponytail and wrapping it around my hand, I pulled her closer to me. “Are you sure?”

  Angling my cock up toward her mouth, she paused as she tipped her head back to smile up at me. “I’m going to blow your mind.”

  And fuck me she did. I’d given her tips on sucking me before she’d gotten hurt, but it had always been as part of our foreplay. Whatever she’d read had gone into shit that I never even knew about.

  Keeping her tongue flat, she slowly ran it down the full length of my cock, holding the tip with her hand and raising it up as she got closer to my balls. Once she’d reached them, she started to ascend back up until she got to the top, then dragged a slow swipe over the head.

  “Holy shit,” I croaked, unable to look away from what was going on. I even begrudged the millisecond it took to blink because I was missing some of it to do it.

  Leaning slightly away, she moved her hand down, so that she was now holding it at the base. I want to say that I could predict what she was going to do but there was no urgency in her movements, so it was impossible to tell. She was running the show, and whatever she had going on in her head was how it was going to happen.

  Looking up at me, she opened her mouth and slowly enveloped the tip now, sucking on it as she swiped her tongue across the underneath. Distracted by the sight, I barely registered that one hand was jacking me off with short movements while the other one was now cupping my balls.

  Not breaking eye contact, she sank down as far as she could go, and then sucked as she moved back up to the top. Continuing to do this, she also increased the rhythm and speed of her strokes, but just as I got used to it she’d then alternate speeds between her hand and mouth. It was the most complicated thing to describe, the most fucking amazing thing to watch, and fucking outstanding to feel happening all at the same time.

  On the next plunge down she moaned hard, her eyes closing like she was the one getting this done not me, and I felt the tingling at the base of my spine. There was a level of etiquette to getting a blow job – not to be a selfish asshole. You needed to warn the woman, not assume that it was ok to just blow.