by Nyla K
My dad breathes out slowly, shaking his head before turning to me. “Are you alright?”
“Me? Yea, I’m fine.” I force myself to appear fine, though I can feel my eyelids sliding.
Lazarus walks over to us and Dad glances at him. “Are you alright?”
“I’m always alright,” Laz shrugs, then to my surprise he reaches out and rubs my shoulder.
It’s a platonic move, since we’re in front of my dad, but still, his touch right now is exactly everything I need. Suddenly, I want nothing more than to go home and cuddle up in bed with him, just touching.
“Well, that was interesting,” Dad runs his fingers through his hair. “I’m going to get a drink. You want one?”
Lazarus shakes his head. “No, thanks. Actually, I was going to get some food before that asshole started acting like an asshole. Traci, would you like to join me?”
My mouth hangs open for a moment while he stares at me with raised brows. “Um, sure. I could eat.”
Eat you, you sexy snack.
I bite my lip, and Lazarus narrows his gaze at me. My dad doesn’t notice because he’s already halfway to the bar.
“Come on.” I tug him by the arm, bringing him inside the house.
“Where are we going?” He sounds mildly nervous, which is adorable.
“You’ll see.”
I’d love to take him to my bedroom, but that’s way too obvious, so I bring him past the kitchen and over to the pantry. Our pantry is the size of a walk-in closet, and it’s private, which is necessary right now. Peering around to make sure no one’s looking, as soon as I know the coast is clear, I shove him inside, stepping in and closing the door behind us.
It’s dark in here, and Lazarus is blocking the light switch with his giant body. Not that I’m in a rush to turn the lights on. It’s sexy being trapped in here with him in the pitch blackness.
“Why are we in here?” He rumbles quietly as I run my hands up his frame, feeling the hard planes of muscle beneath the smooth material of his suit.
“Mmm, because I wanted to touch you,” I purr, grinding myself into him. I’m just tall enough in my heels to nuzzle my nose in the crook of his neck, and it smells divine.
“Trix, this isn’t a good idea,” he protests, though it doesn’t stop him from cupping my ass in his large hands.
“You were so hot out there,” I breathe by his ear. “Protecting me. It was sexy as fuck.”
“I can’t believe he touched you like that,” he growls, and my panties dampen. “I should’ve broken his hands.”
“I wanted you to… But then I don’t want you getting in trouble.” My fingers slink up into his hair and he chuckles.
“That’s funny coming from you.” I can hear the grin in his voice and it makes me so wet it’s almost unbearable.
“You love it,” I lick his earlobe until he hums.
“Baby, we can’t do this. Not here. Not now.” His fingers slip underneath my dress as he palms my bare ass cheek.
“Lazarus, I can’t help it. You’re so fucking sexy.” This earns me another small chuckle, sending me soaring, higher than all the drugs in my system.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells me in an eager tone, my inner walls clenching with need. His face moves to the hallow of my neck and he runs his lips along my burning flesh. “Why do you have to be so beautiful? Fuck, why do you smell so damn good?”
I giggle playfully while he feels me up and kisses my tender skin. “Say more things like that.”
“Like what? That you smell like a cupcake and I want to eat you?” This time I feel his grin, which means it’s wide and probably brighter than all the stars.
“Keep talking,” I plead. “God, your voice is so hot.”
“We have to stop,” he rasps reluctantly.
Panic shoots through my belly. “You mean just right now… right?”
“Not really… But I guess, yes? I don’t know.” He’s flustered. It never happens, and it’s both endearing as hell and slightly worrying.
Time for a new tactic.
“Come home with me.” It comes out like more of a demand than a request.
He pulls back slightly, taking my chin in his fingers. “This is your home.”
Now that my eyes have adjusted, I can see his face, shadowed in darkness with bright eyes glinting gray, like the stones on my bracelet, right at me.
He’s so beautiful, I can’t stand it, and I need to be alone with him, now. We can’t be us here. I want to go where we can be us.
“I want to be alone with you,” I beg with my tone and my eyes, hoping he can tell how important it is to me. I even throw in a graze of his stubbly jaw with my fingers for good measure. He likes that.
Lazarus is quiet for a moment in thought, until he finally takes a breath, then lets it out slowly.
“Alright, I’ll take you home,” he concedes, and I squeal, wiggling in his arms. I know he wants to laugh, but he won’t allow himself to. “But only because I can tell you’re exhausted and tipsy, and I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“Lazarus, I’m fine,” I sigh, though I know it’s not true. I’ve been through a lot tonight and all the champagne and pills haven’t helped. I can’t tell if I’m coming or going.
“No backtalk.” He pinches my butt until I yelp. That gets him. He chuckles, dropping a kiss on my nose. “And we’re stopping for food on the way home.”
Home.
My heart opens like a bloom.
“Whatever you want, Scary Spice.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Lazarus
“Just tell me.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“Mm… nope.”
I growl and flop against the driver's seat. “Pretty please with chicken nuggets and Hostess cupcakes on top?”
Traci laughs, and it shoots me straight in the gut. “I’ll tell you when I feel like it. Now, shut up and eat your nuggets.”
I glance at the big box of twenty chicken McNuggets resting on the center console in my Maserati. They smell delicious, but I want her to eat most of them, because it’s obvious she hasn’t eaten much today and she needs to sober up a little.
“I just really want to know why you call me Scary Spice.” I cave and pick up a nugget, dunking it in the weird barbecue-ranch sauce mixture she made. “It’s driving me insane not knowing.”
She grins then pops a French fry into her mouth, chewing and swallowing before she responds.
“I know, and I like having the power for once.” She lifts her drink and takes a long sip through the straw.
Chicken nuggets and strawberry milkshakes. It’s like she deliberately does things differently than any other woman I’ve spent time with.
It also reminds me of how much younger she is than me and I have to actively push that thought out of my brain before it trips me up.
That’s how I’ve been attempting to handle my feelings for Traci over the past couple weeks. Desperately trying to go with the flow, because if the alternative is not seeing or spending time with her, I really don’t think I’d be able to do that. She has burrowed herself right under my skin and I still don’t understand how it happened, but I can’t ignore the bizarre cravings I have for her all the damn time.
It’s impossible to ignore. I have decent willpower, but this little doe-eyed beauty obliterates every inch of my strength.
“You have more power than you know…” I whisper, and she peeks up at me, lapping at some ketchup on her bottom lip.
The sight of her pink tongue darting out to swipe her lip sends a significant throb to my eager cock. It’s been more days than I can stand since we’ve hooked up and that addiction I have for her needs to be fed. But I’m no animal, which is why I need to feed her first. I refuse to hook up with a much younger woman who’s been drinking all night on an empty stomach.
She already seems better off than when we left the party. Damien was worried that Traci was overtired, and he didn’t feel comfort
able putting her in an Uber or a car service, so he asked me to drive her home.
Yea. The guilt I’m carrying inside for the physical stuff I’ve done with my best friend’s daughter is something that chokes the air out of me on a daily basis, especially when things like this come up. When he trusts me enough to drive her home…
He shouldn’t. And I’m hating myself just a tad.
It’s still hard to believe I’m doing this behind Damien’s back, but the thing is that I just can’t seem to make myself stop. I’m hooked on Traci Wright, like a secret junkie. A functioning addict.
So I packed a wobbly Traci into my car and brought her to the McDonald’s drive-thru, where we picked up some food to help sober her up. And now we’re sitting in my car in front of her building, like we always seem to be lately. I haven’t been inside since the night we Netflix and Chilled and I took off. Right now, though, I really want to go come up with her. At the very least to cuddle and watch her sleep for a bit.
What the fuck happened to you??
“Why aren’t you eating more?” Traci asks, creating another sauce concoction out of sweet and sour and honey mustard. It looks disgusting, and she seems enamored with it. “I can’t eat all twenty nuggets myself.”
“Yes you can,” I point out, and she fires an evil look that’s way too cute. “I ate a couple. I just don’t understand what you’re doing with those sauces. Can’t you just have one and call it a day?”
“You know I don’t do that,” she mutters, adding some ketchup to the mixture, making it look even more inedible. “Me and Mom used to do this. Sauces are too plain on their own. They’re way better when you mix them.”
“Ah, okay. That would explain Lia’s obsession with the Mac sauce,” I grin in nostalgia.
“Yup. Because it’s like ketchup and tartar sauce. Or like thousand island. It’s delicious.”
“Well, regardless, you’re eating all these. And drinking that water.” I nod to the bottle in the cup holder. “I can’t believe you killed that much champagne with nothing in your stomach. I told you to eat the damn coconut shrimp.”
She chuckles. “Trust me, I wanted to. That asshole Ted kept stalking me, so I couldn’t eat.”
At mention of the dickhead I almost pummeled tonight, my fist clenches. “That guy is a real pile of shit.”
“Uh, yea,” she mumbles, absentmindedly swirling a fry around in the sauce. “He was like obsessed with finding out who I was fucking.” She fakes a gag, and it makes me smile.
But then I stop, because why is that prick such a stalker? Does he know something I don’t…?
Maybe Traci has hooked up with a guy at work. Maybe he’s seen her with other guys and that’s why he’s harping on it.
The thought of her touching, kissing… fucking some douchebag turns me murderous. My stomach twists up like a pretzel as my blood pressure rises. I’m not sure what she gets up to when I’m not around, but she takes her clothes off for money. It’s plausible that she’s given some of those guys similar treatments to what she gives me.
I watch her closely for a moment as she goes about her eating. It’s strange, but I know so much and still so little about her. There are things I’ve learned over the years, just from being around all the time. But then, we haven’t talked all that much.
Sure, we’ve done it more in the past few weeks. I’d like to think I understand her well enough now, but I still don’t really know what goes on in that head of hers.
And for the first time in eighteen years, I want to.
Traci leans back in her seat and sighs. “I’m full.”
I toss everything back into the paper bag. “We’ll save the rest for tomorrow, when you wake up hungover.”
“Ew, you can’t save McDonald’s,” she scrunches her face at me.
“Yes, you most certainly can,” I state matter-of-factly. “It never goes bad. Haven’t you ever seen that thing where they leave a McDonald’s cheeseburger out for thirty days and by the end it looks exactly the same as it did on day one?”
“That’s disgusting!” She squeals, pulling a grossed out face that makes me laugh.
“No, it’s amazing. Food that never goes bad. What more could you want?” I’m partially kidding, though I have to admit as much as I work out and eat healthy, I have a major soft spot for fast food.
I think it’s because I never got it as a kid. It was like a rare and special occasion when one of the Four would bring home McDonald’s or Burger King.
“It’s probably insanely bad for our bodies.” She opens her door and steps out into the muggy air.
“I’m sure it is.” I do the same locking up the vehicle as we walk across the street to her building. “But then, there are worse things, right?”
She glances up at me and rolls her eyes, to which I bite my lip to smother the smile. I smile so much when she’s around and I just can’t help it. It’s baffling. I can’t understand how she does this to me.
Once inside the building, we pass the usual crowd in the hallway, and they give me their intimidating glares, like I didn’t invent that look. You’d think they would have seen enough of me by now to know I’m not just some miscellaneous John, but apparently they still don’t trust me. It makes me wonder if maybe there are guys coming through this hallway often…
Is that why they look at me like that? Because I’m the only one who keeps coming back?
And why do I keep coming back? Like, really. What am I doing??
Traci gets us settled in her inside, immediately wandering into her bedroom without saying a word. Glancing around, I feel mildly out of place. I want to be here, but I’m unsure of what I should be doing.
When I come to the entrance of her bedroom, I see Traci struggling to get out of her dress and it makes me smirk. I walk up to the back of her and slide the zipper down, using the opportunity to sniff her a little and touch the smooth skin of her back. Her complexion is flawless, and she smells like a picnic in a meadow; flowers and sweet treats and sunshine.
She peeks at me over her shoulder and gives me a shy smile. “Thanks.”
A dizzying warmth surrounds us. I clear my throat and step back. “You should get some rest.”
She turns to face me, holding her dress up over her breasts. “You’re not staying?”
“I don’t think that would be… wise.” My eyes fall to her cleavage, barely covered by the material in her hands.
“Lazarus, please.” She drops the dress, shimmying out of it until it pools at her feet and she kicks it away. “Just stay for a little while.”
My eyes are now being held captive by her tits. She has no bra on. Just standing here in front of me in panties and nothing else, those pert, rosy nipples begging to be tended to by my mouth. Blood pumps to my dick at the offer, and unfortunately for my conscience, there’s no way to make myself leave this time. I have a need, and I can’t ignore it anymore.
“Maybe just for a little while,” the words flow from my lips before my brain even fully decided what I was doing.
She grins and grabs a tank top from her bed, slipping it over her head. “Okay, I’m going to brush my teeth.” She scoots past me to go for the bathroom then calls out, “I have an extra toothbrush if you want!”
Dazed and confused, I follow her. We stand side by side, casually peeking at each other in the mirror while we brush, spit and rinse. It’s unexpected, but it feels good. I’ve never done anything like this before, with anyone, and I’m realizing I enjoy doing the basic stuff with this girl just as much as the fooling around.
I like talking to her, about anything really. I like listening to her laugh and watching her eat, and studying the way her forehead lines when we’re watching Schitt’s Creek, like she’s thoroughly invested in the lives of fictional characters. I like listening to music in the car with her, and I like sitting with her in silence as well, because just knowing she’s there is as thrilling as doing the physical stuff we’re not supposed to do.
Really, we’re not supp
osed to do any of it. But it’s hard for me to see it as bad or wrong when it feels so goddamn right all the time.
Once we’re done brushing, Traci takes me back into her bedroom and turns down the lights. I swallow hard as she stares at me and I guess since I’m staying, only for a little while, I might as well get undressed.
Having lost the bow tie and vest in the car, I unbutton my dress shirt carefully and shrug it off my shoulders, draping it on her dresser. Then I unbuckle my belt, removing it and going for the pants.
Traci watches with wide blue eyes that twinkle in the low light, only the moon partially streaming in through her window. Everything else is dark, giving this experience a hedonistic thrill to play with.
Stepping out of my pants, I walk casually to her bed, where she’s crawling in and nestling under a blanket. I know I shouldn’t be doing this. But stopping myself would mean denying this burning hunger and, as it turns out, I’m not that strong.
“Come…” She pats the mattress next to her.
And for that very reason, I go, as I’m called. Subservient to this tiny woman.
Climbing in, I pull her soft, warm frame closer, tucking her head against my chest. My arm holds her protectively as she melts into me, kissing a spot on my bare skin, the feeling of which lingers long after her lips are gone.
After only a few minutes of lying in silence, breathing and cuddling, she begins to wiggle, pushing her thigh subtly between my legs to graze my erection.
“Trix,” I warn in a hoarse voice. “It’s time to sleep.”
“But why? I’m not tired,” she murmurs, the exhaustion in her tone not fooling anyone. “I want to play with you.”
My cock responds, and she can obviously tell because she hums and rubs herself against me again.
“Not now,” I shush her with my lips in her silky soft hair. “Sleep.”
She grumbles in protest, but then she yawns and I can feel her drifting. It makes me smile, like she only she can. And as my own lids droop, I wonder why I’m so quick to do so many things with Traci that I’ve never done with any other woman.