Object of My Desire

by R. L. Kenderson

  “What’s Travis doing here?”

  “I don’t know,” Harper said. “Why don’t you answer the door and ask him?” She pointed to my ringing cell. “Or at least answer the phone.”

  I rushed to the door and yanked it open.

  Travis grinned and lowered his phone from his ear. “Hey. I was beginning to doubt you were home even though your lights were on.”

  Harper came up behind me. “She thought you were a serial killer.”

  “Actually, I said murdering rapist.”

  Travis laughed.

  “Well, I’m going to go,” Harper said as she squeezed past me. She already had her purse and her overnight bag on her shoulder.

  “What?” I said.

  “Nice to see you again, Travis,” she said as she passed him.

  “You, too.” He looked back at me.

  Harper walked down the steps and turned around. She made an O with one hand and repeatedly stuck the finger of her opposite hand through the O, making the universal sign for sex.

  I put my hand over my mouth as I burst out laughing. Sometimes, I felt like I was getting old, and other times, like now, I wondered if I would ever truly grow up.

  Travis spun around, but Harper quickly dropped one hand and turned the other into a wave.

  “Have fun, you two.”

  “Wait. You can’t drive. You’ve been drinking.”

  A car pulled up in front of my place.

  “I already called an Uber,” she said as she walked to the end of the drive.

  “That’s not an Uber. That’s your husband,” I shouted at her.

  “Yeah, but Uber sounds cooler.” She opened the car door. “Hey, baby,” I heard her say to Ian. “Let’s go park and make out since your mom’s with the baby.” She got in and shut her door, and Ian drove off.

  I took a step back. “Would you like to come in?”

  Travis smiled, his green eyes ablaze, as he stalked toward me.

  “Do you want some wine?” I asked as my back hit the wall.

  Travis reached me, circled my wrists with his hands, and pushed them over my head. “I think you misread my text. I said I wanted to be the wine. Not that I wanted to taste the wine.”

  I studied his face. I had missed seeing it the last six days. I was in so much trouble. “Then, taste me already.”

  Pushing his pelvis into mine, Travis kissed me. His tongue slipped past my lips, and I opened my mouth to let him in.

  I lifted a leg over his hip to try to bring him closer, but it wasn’t going to happen with our clothes still on. I pressed against Travis’s hands, and he let go. His fingers moved to my waist while I attacked the fly of his pants.

  Travis kissed down my neck while I pushed his khakis off his hips. I pulled at my own pants, which thankfully had an elastic waistband. They fell to the floor, and I once again put my leg over his hip and sank down on him, pushing his cock into my body.

  My eyes rolled back as my head hit the wall.

  “Holy shit, Sydney.” Travis gripped my hips and started thrusting into me. “You feel fucking amazing.”

  I lifted my head. “So do you.”

  He kissed me again. “You know, I was planning to take my time with you. Give you lots of good foreplay.”

  I giggled. “Alcohol makes me horny.”

  He groaned. “Please tell me you’re going to remember this tomorrow.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m not wasted, just a little drunk.”

  “Thank God.”

  I laughed. “I don’t know if it’s appropriate to thank God while fucking.”

  Travis grabbed my thighs, lifting my leg that had still been on the floor around his waist. “I think it’s very appropriate. He gave us these bodies to enjoy.”

  “Mmm,” was all I said in agreement as he drove into me.

  “I can’t get over how incredible you feel.”

  Uh-oh.

  “I think we forgot a condom.” Or maybe it was me who’d forgotten the condom since I was the one who pulled him inside me without a second thought. “My bad.”

  Travis thrust into me and then stopped. His head dropped against mine. “Fuck me. I knew it was too good to be true. I also knew I’d forgotten something on my race over here.”

  I grinned. “You raced over here?”

  “Shh. I have a reputation to uphold.”

  “I have condoms upstairs.”

  Travis sighed with relief. “That was close. I was going to cry if you didn’t.”

  He pulled me away from the wall, and I held on tight to him as he carried me toward the stairs.

  I kissed his neck. “You wouldn’t need to cry. There are other ways to finish.”

  He took the first step up the stairs, and I whimpered as it caused him to move inside me again.

  “But I want to finish right where I am.”

  I didn’t know what it was about the stairs, but each step brought me closer to orgasm. “I think you need to pull out,” I said breathlessly.

  “You’re going to come?”

  I nodded.

  “Fuck yeah. I want to feel that.”

  “Do you think that’s wise?” We almost reached the top of the stairs when I felt the first spasm hit. “Too late,” I was barely able to say before my climax hit me hard.

  I cried out, and Travis swore.

  He fell to his knees, and I landed on my back on the top step in the middle of the hall.

  The force of our fall sent him deeper into me.

  “I can’t—” Travis started before I watched his body give in to its pleasure.

  His hips bucked into mine, and I held on to him through his orgasm.

  When his breath caught and his body relaxed, he said, “Oh shit.”

  I chuckled. “I’m clean and on birth control.”

  He kissed my neck. “Me, too, sexy.”

  “I’ve never had the no-condom conversation so early in a relationship before.” I sucked in a breath. The words had just come out of my mouth without me thinking.

  Stupid wine. Now, I didn’t know if I should backtrack or just hope he hadn’t heard me, except that I noticed that his body was stiff.

  Great.

  “Don’t mind me. My brain has no filter when I have alcohol in me. I didn’t mean relationship—”

  Travis lifted his upper body off of me. “What did you mean?”

  I felt like a deer in the headlights. Why is he questioning me? Just let me take it back, damn it.

  “I don’t know,” I whined. I put an arm over my eyes. “Just forget I said anything.”

  I felt Travis withdraw from my body—probably for the last time—and move away from me.

  I squeaked when he yanked me up, put his shoulder to my belly, and lifted me over his shoulder.

  “Ooh … nice ass,” I said.

  He slapped mine, and I jumped. “Where’s your room?”

  “End of the hall.”

  He walked into my room, threw me on my bed, and lay down next to me. He pushed my hair off my shoulder. “It’s a little premature, but I would like to think we’re heading toward a relationship.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You’re not just saying that so you can have sex with me without a condom again, are you?”

  Travis pulled me into his arms and laughed. “My little skeptic. I’m saying that, so I get to hang out and spend time with you. Because that’s what people in relationships do.”

  Travis looked away from his phone as he heard Sydney move on the bed. She rolled toward him and put her head on his shoulder. Her brown hair was messy, and her eyes were puffy from sleep.

  He thought she looked adorable.

  “Mmm … good morning,” she said, her voice hoarse from sleep.

  “Good morning.” He kissed her forehead and slid an arm under her head.

  She brushed her hand down his chest and abdomen and back up. “Mmm … it’s been a long time
since I woke up to a man in my bed.”

  “Are you forgetting last weekend?”

  She smiled up at him, her eyes half-closed. “That was the hotel bed. I’m talking about my bed.”

  “Ah … got it. And I’m glad I could break your dry spell.”

  She looked to his phone, which he was holding up. “What are you doing?”

  “Just scrolling through Instagram.”

  She continued to rub his torso. “That’s your app of choice, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. I used to be on Facebook, but it got to be too much. My personal page, my professional page, groups …”

  “I forget how young you are sometimes.”

  He wrinkled his forehead. “I’m not that young.”

  She kissed his chest and smiled. “Young enough that you’re in the group of twenty-something-year-olds that make me feel old for using Facebook.”

  “I never said you were old.”

  She laughed. “I know. You should hear my niece.”

  Travis smiled. “I can imagine.” He opened up his messages and scanned through them. At the same time, he noticed that Sydney looked away. He assumed it was to respect his privacy.

  The woman was a keeper.

  He went through them, saving some to reply to later and replying to a few right away. “Oh my God.” The next one, he hadn’t been prepared for. He should have been, but those kinds of messages still surprised him every time.

  Of course, Sydney looked up at his exclamation.

  His first instinct was to hide the image on his phone, but he was innocent.

  “Is that … hold on.” She reached over and put her glasses on. “Holy crap.” She burst out laughing. “Those are some huge boobs.” She grabbed his cell out of his hand and zoomed in and out. “Wow. Those babies are impressive.” She handed him back his phone. “Do you know who sent the pic?”

  Travis just stared at Sydney. She’d laughed. She hadn’t gotten mad or upset. She thought it was funny.

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, no. It’s some random fan.”

  “You, too, huh?”

  “What do you mean, you, too?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’ve gotten my fair share of dick pics.”

  “You have?” He was surprised.

  “Yeah. I guess it’s because I write romance. Apparently, the conclusion is, I write about sex, so I must want pictures of strangers’ dicks. When are men going to learn that women don’t ever want that, and if they do, they’ll ask for it?”

  Travis laughed. “Do you keep any of them?”

  She looked away from him. “Do you?”

  “Don’t judge, but sometimes, I show some of my friends before I delete them.”

  “You perv. I can’t believe you,” she said, her voice full of sarcasm.

  Travis’s eyes widened. “You do it, too.”

  “Duh. Of course.”

  “So, do you have any on your phone right now?”

  “Uh … no.” She looked up at the ceiling.

  “You liar.”

  “Okay, I have one because I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  He made a come-here motion. “Show me.”

  “Okay. But it’s your turn not to judge me.” She grabbed her phone from her nightstand, did a couple of moves on her phone, and passed it over to him.

  “Holy shit.” He reached down and cupped his dick.

  “Right? It’s a Jacob’s Ladder. Ribbed … for her pleasure.” Sydney laughed at her joke.

  He was horrified. “That looks so painful.”

  “I suppose it is.” She took her phone back. “I’ve always thought it would be cool to have sex with a guy with a penis piercing, but this is just too much.”

  This caught his attention. “You want to have sex with a guy with a penis piercing?”

  “Technically, I said it’d be cool. I want to know if it feels good or if it feels weird.”

  Travis took her phone out of her hand and threw it on the bed as he rolled Sydney under him. “How about I show you what feels good right now?”

  She grinned up at him and spread her thighs.

  Travis pushed into her, groaning at the sensation of her wet, slick heat surrounding him.

  He kissed her neck and drove into her over and over. Sydney moaned as she lifted both legs and sank her nails into his back. He thrust into her until he brought them both to completion, whereupon he collapsed on top of her.

  He quickly fell to her side, so he didn’t suffocate her, and then he pulled her against him.

  “Feel good?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, panting on his chest.

  “And I did it all without a cock piercing.”

  Sydney laughed and kissed his sweaty chest. “What are you doing today?”

  “I’m hoping you have a gym nearby I can go to.”

  “You can go to mine. Do you go every day?”

  “Yep. I might take a day off, but it’s usually only once a week. Or, if I can’t go, I do something else to get exercise in.”

  She groaned.

  “What? You don’t go every day?”

  “Hell no. I do four days a week.” She looked up at him. “Does this mean you’re going to break it off with me?” Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “There I go again, opening my big mouth. And, this morning, I can’t even blame the wine.” She got up on an elbow. “Feel free to ignore me.”

  Travis laughed. He liked that she saw them together. The best part was, he wasn’t scared, nor did he feel the need to push her away.

  He pulled her back down. “I’ll forget what you said if you go work out with me.”

  She rolled away and jumped up from the bed.

  He sucked in a breath at her sexy, naked body.

  “I take it back,” she said as she walked toward her bathroom. “You can remember me sticking my foot in my mouth.”

  Travis laughed.

  Five minutes later, he joined her in the shower.

  An hour later, she joined him at the gym.

  Two hours later, they met up in the shower again.

  I enjoyed spending the day with Travis so much that I didn’t realize how late it had gotten.

  The doorbell rang, and my front door was pushed open. My dad came through the doorway and stopped when he saw Travis in my living room. “Oh.”

  “Dad, what are you doing here?”

  “Dinner.”

  I looked at the clock on my wall. It was just after five. “Dinner?”

  “Yeah, you said you were making dinner tonight.”

  Crap. “I completely forgot. I don’t even have anything to make.”

  Travis and I had just been talking about going out to eat.

  My father shrugged. “That’s okay. We can order pizza.”

  “Dad.”

  He looked at me, and I darted my eyes toward Travis, hoping he’d get the hint to leave.

  My dad stepped forward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Doug Harting.”

  Wrong hint, Dad.

  Travis took my father’s outstretched hand. “I’m Travis Zehler.”

  My dad gave him the side-eye.

  Please don’t question him on his intentions, I telepathically begged.

  “Are you a Vikings fan?”

  Travis smiled. “Yes, sir.”

  “Twins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wild?”

  “Yes.”

  “Timberwolves?”

  “I’m not really much of a basketball fan, but I suppose so.”

  My father continued his narrow gaze toward Travis for two more seconds, and then he grinned. “Good man.” He slapped Travis on the upper arm and sat down on the recliner.

  And that was all it had taken to win the approval of my father.

  “Dad, Travis and I were thinking of going out for dinner.” Alone.

  My dad grabbed the remote and turned o
n the TV. “Nah, let’s stay home and order pizza.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. I angled my body toward Travis. “I’m sorry. If you want to leave, you can. I know you didn’t sign on to meet my father tonight. Or ever.”

  He smiled at me. “It’s cool. I like pizza.”

  My front door opened again, and Ryan, Grace, Lexie, Ben, Gretchen, and Lexie’s boyfriend, Brendan, came barreling into my house.

  I looked at Travis again and raised my brow. “You still think it’s cool?”

  He grinned at me and shrugged.

  “Pizza’s here,” Lexie yelled after the doorbell sounded through the house.

  Travis and I were upstairs in my office where, upon the arrival of my family, I had quickly whisked him off.

  “I’m giving you one last chance,” I told him. “I will smuggle you out of here.”

  Travis, who was leaning against my desk, pulled me into his arms and kissed me, which was hard to do because he was also laughing. “I’ll be fine. I have to meet them sooner or later, right? Might as well be tonight.”

  He stood, and I backed up, stunned at his comment. It was exciting to think he’d planned to meet my family, no matter what.

  “We’d better go down.”

  I sighed. “Yeah.”

  I wasn’t looking forward to the twenty-one questions Travis was going to get. It was times like this that I missed my mom. She would have loved Travis. And she would have shut down any questioning or ribbing of him she felt had gone too far or gone on too long.

  That reminded me. “Travis.”

  He stopped at the top of the stairs. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t mention my mother. My dad still struggles with her passing.”

  Travis put his hand on my cheek. “I’m sorry, Syd.”

  “Thanks. It’s hard. It’s only been four years. I still miss her.” I stood on my tiptoes and brushed my lips against his. “I just wanted you to know, so you didn’t bring her up. If you had, everyone probably would have stared at you like you’d run over the family dog. I didn’t think you’d really have a reason to, but better safe than sorry.”

  Travis chuckled. “Thanks for watching out for me.”

  We headed downstairs where everyone was getting situated around my dining room table. Someone had brought out paper plates and plasticware, and my brother was bringing in a couple of folding chairs from the garage, so we’d have enough seats for everyone.