by Dani Wyatt
“Okay.” Her sleepy voice only makes me want to run back to my place and climb in the bed with her again.
I keep thinking each time, each night, each moment will be the high point and there will be a lull or an ebbing of my need for her, but it’s not happened.
“Take a bath. Get your work done because you know when I get there, I’m going to need a feast. My mouth needs you, baby,” I whisper making sure no one around me can hear.
“If my legs work.” I hear her soft giggle. “I’m trying to get out of the bed now, and my muscles are not working all that well.”
I hold back my prideful laugh. “The way they were shaking this morning I’m not surprised.”
Gerald comes and plops down in the chair next to my desk to finish up some paperwork on a bust from last night.
“Baby, I have to go. I’ll be there soon. Call or text if you need me though. I’ll keep my phone right here.”
“Alright. I’ll crawl to the kitchen then to the tub.”
We wrap it up, and I turn to Gerald.
“You look like hammered shit.” He takes a bite of a bagel smeared with cream cheese and hands me a full steaming cup of coffee. “You look like you need that more than me.”
I think of giving him shit back, but instead, I take the coffee feeling the effects of several sleepless and very sex filled nights with Jessie.
“Thanks. You get that report in?” I take a sip and feel the hot liquid slip down my throat.
“I did. You get yourself into something too, huh?”
I don’t know if it’s my lack of sleep or the bit of glint in Gerald’s eye, but I’m immediately pissed at his innuendo.
“You even think about her in any way other than you would your own mother I’ll set you on your ass, my friend.”
Gerald throws his hands up on a hoot.
“Jesus Torin.” He looks around then presses his hands to his knees leaning toward me. “Your monk status is officially terminated, my friend. I’m happy as fuck for you. Honestly, I was beginning to wonder if you were playing for the other team. Would be fine with me, just seemed you’ve been out of the game so long, wasn’t sure what was up.”
“Well, you don’t have to wonder anymore, okay?” I set the coffee down and fight the urge to text Jessie and ask her for a picture of her in the bathtub then resolve to at least wait until Gerald is gone.
We finish up some details on the closing of the paperwork from last night, and he makes his way back to his desk.
I’m wrapping things up, and I shoot a text to Jessie.
Me: Baby, are you out of the tub?
I wait.
Fuck, I hate waiting. It’s as though every moment we are apart, I feel I’m missing so much. If I could either be with her or have a live audio/video feed of what she’s doing every second I’m not with her I would.
Thirty-seconds and ten gray hairs later she answers.
Jessie: Just getting out. Felt so nice. Nicer with you.
My cock jerks thinking of her naked and wet and missing the opportunity to be there with her.
Me: Take a picture Blossom. I want to see my beautiful, clean, wet girl.
Jessie: ?? Okay, one sec.
A moment later there’s a picture of her smiling, standing by the tub which is still full of water and bubble bath. Her tits with rose-colored hard nipples and her hair slicked back and dripping down her luscious curves.
Me: Thank you, baby. I will be there in about twenty minutes. Don’t get dressed. Be on the bed when I come in. Legs open, head on the pillow. I want to walk in and see the beauty of what’s mine waiting for me.
Jessie: As you wish.
At her words, cum seeps out of the end of my cock, and I need to get out of here before I embarrass myself in front of my co-workers. Luckily, my schedule is flexible, and I can come and go as I please. I’ve worked probably eighty to a hundred hours a week for years, so I don’t feel bad taking some time for myself now that I’ve found something that feels more important than work.
As I’m heading out the door, my phone dings and I look down.
“Fuck.” I grit out when a picture of Jessie comes up. I scan around me making sure no one else can see.
She’s there, on the bed, legs open with the message below the picture, “Ready and waiting to be licked.”
My balls seize up, my mouth waters, and I’m in my truck peeling out of the parking lot nearly running down a couple of my colleges as I speed toward home and my own personal heaven.
“You’re like a fucking drug.” I lap at the slick opening drinking from her and feeling drunk on the way she reacts to my mouth.
Her back arches as I sink a finger inside her, pressing upward into the rough patch of skin and taking her clit between my lips.
She moans my name, and I’m a king among kings. Her blonde hair spills across the bed, light gleaming through the tall window casting shadows over her lush form.
I want to fuck her hard. Fast. I want to take her like a dog, but I fight off the urge because I want to enjoy this slowly this time. Watch her face as she cums, her eyes half closed, and sounds dripping from her wet lips that only I will ever hear.
I try to hold my orgasm off as I eat her drenched cunt. Rubbing myself on the sheets as her thighs press onto my cheeks. She makes me forget all the awful things I see every day in my life.
She makes me smile for no reason while I’m sitting at my desk at work. That’s never happened to me before.
“God,” she whispers, and I press harder and rub at the special spot I’ve found inside her.
I rasp my teeth over her hardened clit, and I can’t help but jack myself off on the bedding as she reaches her peak and drenches my face.
Her cum drips down my beard as I swallow and take all of her, listening to my name as her hips jerk wildly up and down against my face.
When she finally settles, I scoop her up and spin us around. I sit on the edge of the bed and guide her down onto my still hard cock and rock us back and forth to another set of orgasms that leave her breathless and hanging onto my shoulders for dear life.
She’s breathing and kissing the taught scared flesh of my neck as I run a hand up and down the indent of her spine.
Her lips come to my ear and leave kisses there that make me moan. Deep inside her, I want her again, but her body is raw and shaking so I hold her steady and push away my own depraved need for the moment.
“What happened?” Her soft words drip into my ear as her fingertips dance on the webbed silver skin on my neck. “Can you tell me?”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” I answer even as a wave of sadness sweeps over me. “It’s not a happy story though baby. Are you sure you want to know? Now?”
She leans back, and I see the sincerity in her blue eyes. “Yes. I want to know.”
I swallow and lift her up before laying her down on her side, then lower myself facing her, my head propped up on my hand.
“My brother.” I start thinking out each word, unsure just how much I want to dump on our pleasant moment with unpleasant memories. “He was a great guy. Ten years younger than me but we were close. He wanted to be a cop like my dad and me.”
Jessie’s fingers trace a slow circle on my chest as she looks into my eyes, a soft smile at the corners of her lips.
I continue giving her the short version and leaving out some of the gory details of that night.
“Only, when he was young, we knew he was different. My parents did everything they could for him: therapy, clubs, some medications. But, in the end, he fell into a darkness that we couldn’t seem to help him out of. He took off in my dad’s car one night after a bad episode saying some crazy things. My parents called me. I was the one that, when all else failed, could sometimes calm him down. I drove around for an hour trying to find him when I heard the call.”
Jessie’s fingertips turn to a soft palm over my heart, and her lips turn down as she presses them together.
“A police call?�
� she asks, and I nod.
“Yep. An accident. I was just around the corner. If I had been there, caught up to him five minutes sooner maybe things would be different. He hit a tree. The fire department had his door open when I got there. He was still buckled in his seat belt. I pushed everyone out of the way, took out a knife and started to cut…” My throat closes up, and I look over her head and out the window at the sun lowering, remembering just how it looked that day. “Just as I cut through the belt, the leaking gas ignited. I pulled him out, but the flames caught my shirt and burned my neck. I couldn’t save him. No one knows for sure, but there was no sign of him trying to break before he hit the tree. He was twenty.”
“God, I’m so sorry.” She licks her lips and takes a long breath searching my eyes.
I know the story hits home for her. She’s told me in the past she’s struggled with some of her own mental illness and I accept it as much as I would someone with diabetes or any other problem. I make sure she takes her meds every day and there’s no stigma for me. Concern, for sure.
Maybe that’s why I’ve held off telling her about Jeff. I didn’t want her to feel the extra burden of my own experience, but in the end, if we are in this together, she has a right to know my past as well.
“Me too. My parents never really got over it. They passed away not too long after. First my Dad from a stroke. Then my mom from lymphoma.”
“I’d love to know more about them all someday. When you want to tell me, I wish I could have known them.”
“I wish they could have known you. But I know they see us. See how happy you make me, and that’s all they ever wanted for me. To be happy. You make me happy Jessie. I just hope I can do the same for you.”
Chapter 10
Jessie
“How many days?” Heather’s voice hits a high note. I hold the phone to my ear in the back of the bakery.
“Well, I went there after I left you guys Monday.”
“It’s Thursday, Jessie! You’ve been with him all this time?”
“Well, he’s gone to work. I’ve worked from his place. Went to the bakery. Gone to my place to pick up some things. But yes, we’ve been together since Monday.”
“How do you feel? Are you, like, getting sick of him yet? That’s a lot of time to spend with someone you don’t really know.”
Her words sound strange. Saying that I don’t really know Torin feels foreign to me. I feel like I know him as well as anyone ever in my life.
“Not at all. It feels like we’ve been doing this forever. And he has this nickname for me. Blossom, because he raises orchids. God, right?”
“For the love of all things holy, really? Okay. I just worry about you, is all. And, speaking of worrying, anything else going on with that other thing? The guy who was messaging you?”
My insides twist. “Yeah, a couple weirder messages but I’m just ignoring it. He’ll get tired and stop. I’ve talked it over with Barbara, my therapist too, and I feel okay about it.”
It’s not the whole truth. The messages have increased and gotten more personal. I thought about telling Torin, but sometimes with these crazies that follow authors, the best response is no response. I knew if I told Torin, all hell would break loose, so I just kept my mouth shut. Besides, I don’t want to come off as some damsel in distress.
Needing my big, tough cop boyfriend to take matters into his hands isn’t what I want.
It’s such a trope. Sure, it’s in a lot of my books, but I don’t want to live it. I don’t want to create some false sense of needing to be saved.
“Okay but be careful.”
“I will.”
“So, he’s a detective.” I hear the twinge in her voice, and the knots inside me tighten again.
I guess being in this bubble of happiness means I’m not dealing with some of the realities of my life, but I don’t want the magic to end.
“Yeah, he is,” I reply. “And no, I haven’t told him.”
“Jessie…”
“I know. And I will. It’s just not the right time.”
The knots turn to a sick feeling as I remember listening to Torin talk about the pending promotion he’s on the short list to receive. I’m sort of surprised he hasn’t looked into my background already, but on the other hand, I’m not. It’s not his style, and he so much as said he wouldn’t because he wanted to know me. The me I am to him. Here and now.
Anyway, I can’t say I’m not scared about what will happen if he learns he’s involved with a felon. I don’t think that would push him to the top of the promotion list. I know if I told him about it, he would be honest and probably step away from the possibility, butI never want to be the thing that holds him back.
Besides, once he’s got it, he’s got it, right? I mean, they’re not going to take it away just because of something someone else in his personal life did a long time ago. So, I just need to wait. Then I can tell him. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
“Okay. It’s just you can’t start something like this without being honest about things. Important things. It’s not fair to either of you. Even if it was a stupid mistake and you didn’t really know what was going on. It’s still on your record, and it could affect Torin and his life. So please promise me you will tell him, okay? I don’t want to see you get so involved, then have it blow up, and you are more hurt than you would be now when it’s just starting. And, you know, you should probably tell him about the other thing too. If only to get it all out there.”
“I know. I said I’ll tell him. I’m just so happy right now…” I’m surprised when my voice cracks on the last words.
“I know, honey.” Heather wants the best for me, I know. “It will all work out if you’re honest. If he’s the man you say he is. I know it will.”
Her words ring in my head the rest of my shift at the bakery. Torin is due to pick me up in a couple of hours when he’s off work.
The last thing he said before I came into work, was to ask about my lease on my apartment. Who the owner was and then asked me for my key.
I gave it to him without a word, even though a thousand questions were zooming around in my head. Over the last three days, Torin talked as though we are already living together. Asking me questions about things I like in a house, would I enjoy a garden next spring, what I would think of living on a farm…
He has not come right out and asked me to move in with him, but whenever he talks, he says things about how we will do this or that in the future. As though it’s already happened.
That makes me happy and nervous at the same time. I want this to work, I feel it deep down that it’s right, but I question whether it’s just too many romance books.
I read them. A lot of them.
As well as I write them and in real life, happily ever after isn’t always a lock.
Heather and I finish up, and my mind wanders to the events that changed my life shortly after my eighteenth birthday.
I’d dated this guy in high school a few times toward the end of the year. During the summer, he’d called and asked me to hang out with him at a friend’s house. I’d liked him, he was the bad boy with this bit of a swagger, and I was not the kind of girl that got all that much attention from any of the boys, so I felt flattered.
Long story short, we’d stopped at one of his ‘friend’s’ house. He asked me to wait in the car and stupid me, so eager for any attention I said sure. I sat out there for about forty minutes before he returned. By then, I knew I should be furious. What kind of guy leaves a girl sitting in a car that long?
Well, a guy who was about to get me into a hell of a spot.
He’d gotten back in the car and put something rolled up in a white plastic shopping bag into my purse.
Before I could say no, the car is surrounded by six squad cars lights flashing, and I’m being dragged out and handcuffed.
The bag he’d handed me contained a half-pound of cocaine.
Legally, I was on the hook for collusion to distribute sc
hedule C narcotics.
A year, a hospital stay and about fifty-thousand of my parents’ dollars later, I made a deal that had me with time served, two years of probation and a permanent felony record in exchange for a no contest plea.
I’ve never done drugs in my life. I’ve barely had enough drinks in one night to get tipsy. But try to explain a record like that to anyone, and no matter what, they believe somehow, I knew. Somehow, I must have been involved.
Enter my dilemma with Torin.
Just then, my phone dings and I look down to find it’s him.
Torin: Thinking about you, baby. How’s work going? I’ll be by to pick you up in a couple of hours.
Me: Things are good here. Sounds good.
Torin: I can’t wait to see you. I miss you. Have you eaten today?
Me: I miss you too. Yes, Helga brought food, as usual.
Torin: Okay, I want you to take care of yourself. Or I’ll do it for you. Oh, and I have a surprise for you later.
Me: :)
Torin: Okay, baby, I’ve got work stuff going on, I’ve got to go. See you soon.
Me: Okay. See you.
Helga comes in the back room, inspecting the two cakes I’ve finished today with a nod.
“Always so perfect.”
“Thanks,” I answer, pushing a smile to my lips as I look down at my phone and see another message from my Facebook friend.
Coming closer.
That’s all it says, but a shiver runs over my skin.
Helga goes about straightening up the counters as I pack up my bag, ready to walk to my place and get some writing done before Torin comes in a couple of hours to pick me up.
“Jessie.” Helga turns, holding a broken wooden spoon in her hands. “This is last one. Do you have time to run to that big Wal-store and buy me a pack of spoons? You take my car.”
Helga has me run errands for her now and then. She hates going shopping. Too many people and she’s not that great a driver, to be honest, so I don’t mind.
“Sure.” She reaches into her purse and hands me the keys. “Be back in a bit.”