by Eden O'Neill
Phone hanging from my fingers at this point, voices I knew were either Prinze’s or December’s chattering in the air. I had no idea if he was still asking her about what she wanted or what, but rather than find out, I turned off the phone, placing it on the vanity table.
I hadn’t even thought about it.
Instead, I tugged Brielle in the room, summoning her smokey laugh and basically triggering the urge to blow my load in my boxers.
“What are you doing in here, Midwestern boy?” she crooned, clearly missing the fact I’d been on a call seconds ago when she dropped her arms across my shoulders. And also, we both had nicknames now? Cute. “I’m trying to make you breakfast.”
So fucking hot, my hands undoing her robe. I didn’t stop until I placed my hands on her bare hips. She was completely naked under this thing. Goddamn.
“I heard,” I said, dropping to my knees. I smelled her sex before my kneecaps even hit the floor, her perfect pussy untamed besides a slight shaping to her tiny curls. I wasn’t really big on women doing too much work down there. I liked it all, liked it natural.
I placed a hand between her legs, touching a kiss to her mound which effectively got me a quiver to her honey-toned thighs. This woman did taste like honey everywhere. “God, if I can’t stop tasting you.”
And God, if she didn’t want me anywhere else. Her legs easily parting for my fingers and lips. Her fingers buried into my scalp and the mess of curls I had lazily dragging over my brows. I’d let them get too long over the summer. A nightmare to tame even on the days I had patience for it. I was about ninety percent sure I had a halo of them over my head, but Bri didn’t seem to mind them, and really, I did nearly blow my load when she tugged me back by them to look up at her.
“You’re being bad,” she said, and without warning, threw a thigh over my shoulder. Her clit glistened in front of me, completely drenched, but when I growled in for a taste, she held me away from her. She was teasing me, being bad herself. “I told you. I’m trying to cook for you.”
Yeah, she definitely liked control. But as I was a fan of that too, I eased her leg off my shoulder, spreading her wide. I had all I needed to eat right here.
I fucking showed her, latching onto her like a man deprived. She cursed above me, still fighting me when she added a hand to my scalp. She yanked—hard—at my curls, but my only response was to roar, pining her thighs down and sucking her lower lips into my mouth.
“Fuck, Ramses.”
The sound of her giving in, giving in to me, and what a glorious one it was.
Her nails dug deep into my scalp now, guiding me on to the task as she rocked her hips in the direction of my tongue. This was still her trying to take control, and I gathered the back of her thighs, slowing down her ministrations.
“Slow down, Jersey girl.” She was going to enjoy this, and she was going to let me give it to her. I blew heat over her sex. “Slow, let me have this.”
I didn’t know if she’d listen. So stubborn, so imagine my surprise when the tension left her legs and her back eased against the wall. I stared up, and she had a tit out, perfectly beaded and hanging heavy above me.
I fisted it, guiding her clit into my mouth as I made her ride my face. I grabbed her ass, flesh hot and pinched between the spaces of my fingers.
“Oh, hell,” she gasped. “I’m going to come.”
Hell indeed, and I was going to get her there, Bri on the tips of her perfect little toes. There wasn’t much about this woman that wasn’t.
She gushed into my mouth like a river, crushing through brick walls as she came. I hoovered in every drop, and she let me, to her mouth in the next second when I trapped her against the wall and made her taste herself.
Her moan between my biceps jerked my cock, the girth probing above her tummy. The fact I completely dwarfed this girl turned me the hell on like nothing else, but even cradling her face, I couldn’t deny a buzz sounding from within the room. My phone was ringing.
It probably hadn’t stopped.
I didn’t think Bri noticed since I’d been distracting her. Not on purpose, and honestly, she’d distracted me too. It hadn’t been until I made her come and had her juices in my mouth I’d been pulled back into reality.
Out of the corner of my eye, my phone dimmed, silent, but I clearly knew who it’d been. I also knew I was still technically December’s man of honor and she obviously needed me for something.
“Mmm. Breakfast now?” Bri asked, knotting her arms around my waist. “Or are you still hungry?”
I definitely was, but when the phone buzzed once more, I realized I had to handle some business first.
My knuckles grazed Bri’s cheek. The phone fell into silence for the third or fourth time, who knew, and when she hadn’t noticed, I felt like an ass. She was completely in this moment where I’d allowed my thoughts to run off. But the sooner I handled whatever this call was, I could come right back to her. I could be here with her completely.
I kissed her knuckles. “Mind if I, uh, head to the bathroom first?” I smiled. “That is, if you have one of those.”
I was joking because of the lack of furniture she had in her living room, and she obviously had a bathroom, so what I said didn’t make any sense at all. But I liked that she played along when she shoved me. I liked her playful side completely.
“You really are naughty.” Her head shook, and all those delicious waves of jet black cut across her clean face. Before she left, she captured a hand behind my ass. She was an ass woman, noted. A gentle squeeze before she slapped it. “It’s down the hall. Kitchen the same. Follow the sounds.”
Before I let her leave, I got her mouth, planning to make quick work of whatever this was with Prinze and December so I could get back to her.
Back to this.
Bri
Ramses took a long time. In fact, so long I went down the hall just to check on him. He was obviously fine, but typically men didn’t take as long as women when it came to getting themselves together in the morning. I heard the shower running when I arrived at the door and almost knocked to ask if he needed anything. I’d actually left towels in there for him. Being proactive and all that. I assumed he might want a shower later, and I guess I was being a little bit anal retentive.
I stopped at the sound of voices.
Just his, but he was talking to someone. I heard one name, December, but it’d been enough for me to step back since I recognized it. I read it on menus when I arrived at the reception last night.
His friend.
His friend who’d just gotten married. His friend who he’d admitted being in love with back in high school. His friend who (again, just got married) he secretly spoke to behind my bathroom walls…
With shower on.
All right then.
I didn’t consider myself one of those women who jumped to conclusions. I was reasonable, but that most certainly didn’t make me blind. Especially when it came to some of the conversations we’d had last night. The reason we came together in the first place and fucked basically like animals last night. I’d been hurting, yes.
But he had been too.
He said he was less happy than something else, i.e. hurting.
Gliding away from the door, I left Ramses to it, that conversation and whatever that was not my business. That was his friend, not mine, and I didn’t know the dynamics of their relationship. Him talking to her the day after her wedding might have been perfectly okay. And possibly was on her end.
She wasn’t in love with him.
He said he had loved her. Had.
Easing a breath, I tabled all unreasonable thoughts and returned to the gravy. I had it set to slow burn, the biscuits I’d made to go with it off to the side. I’d had to make do with what I had in the condo today. I didn’t go to the store a lot, usually had someone deliver.
I turned the burner off in thought, then placed my hands on granite counters tops, trying really freaking hard to convince myself the guy who’d gone down on
me just this morning (and hell, had he been good at that) wasn’t still in love with his high school crush—a married woman.
Ramses…
Like a summon through the air, extended limbs hung heavily around my waist, hitching me back toward a solid chest. My feet actually escaped the floor a little.
“I could get used to you standing around in an empty kitchen saying my name.” His teeth pinched my earlobe into his mouth, his body moist and thick with heat. He didn’t have a shirt on.
Christ in heaven.
He also smelled like my body wash and rather harshly of male, his limbs so long he’d not only been able to pull his arms completely around me but lock his hands on his biceps above my hips. He backed me up, completely hard in his boxers, trousers, or whatever he wore behind me. He chuckled. “You summoned?”
I hadn’t meant to say his name out loud, but now that he was here, I found myself hard-pressed not to want his arms around me, not to want him. He made me feel so good, something he knew as his hands slid down my thighs.
“Bri?”
Wake up, be present. Be in the now and unfortunately, I wasn’t so good at listening to myself.
Getting a firm hold, I unlocked his arms from around me, then went stupid a little at the sight of him, a well over six-foot-five male in nothing but his trousers and feet bare on my kitchen tiles. His abs pulled solid and ridged under his tanned skin, his curls wet and sweeping above his dark eyebrows. He wasn’t one of those guys who had curly hair and didn’t know what to do with it. No, he made it work for him, his quirky waves clipped a little shorter on the sides and with the natural sweep, glided out in a perfectly barbered sway across his brow. This guy was incredibly handsome, his body immaculate, but I think what appealed the most about him was he didn’t take every opportunity he could to flaunt the way he looked. I mean, obviously he knew he was good-looking, took pride in his appearance, and though he flashed me that cockiness from time to time, I noticed he leaned harder into his sense of humor and charm. He had charisma, liked to smile.
Liked to make me smile.
He reached for my hands, making me dance in my kitchen. He made it easy to forget what I stumbled upon finding him doing, making a call and clearly keeping it from me.
“You said food?” He locked his junk against me, freaking hell, and how I really shouldn’t be considering tossing breakfast off to the side and allowing him to give me a morning fuck on my granite countertops. I was ridiculously sore, and considering I hadn’t had sex since my divorce a year ago, I needed to give the space between my legs a rest.
Try telling her that, my inner walls actually vibrating at the prospect. I let him kiss me once before the rumble I audibly heard emanating from beneath his tight abs got us both to come to our senses and laugh a little. I was hungry too and decided to serve him first.
Getting things together around the kitchen, I found myself hard-pressed to do the job, Ramses pinching at my robe whenever I placed something to eat or drink in front of him. Eventually, I managed to fill his plate and his teasing definitely lightened the mood on my end.
“You sleep okay?” he asked me, funneling biscuits and gravy into his mouth like a vacuum. Really, to be young and able to do that.
Oh, don’t do that.
Okay, so he was young, his twenties but being twenty-six or whatever he probably was really wasn’t that big of a deal. It wasn’t like I was forty, fifty, or more, and even if I was, so what? My prerogative, and in any sense, I was getting ahead of myself. We’d only slept together, all this casual.
I gave him his second helping before reaching for a plate to make mine. “Good, you?”
“Have you slept in your bed?” A wink before he devoured more food. “Slept with you in your bed?”
“Only every night.” I winked now, being cheeky, which was something I never did. Clearly, this Midwestern boy was doing something for me, but I noticed the fact he didn’t mention his secret call from before, nor address the sound of his phone buzzing right next to him via his seat at my kitchen island. He’d apparently taken his phone with him into the kitchen when he came in, glancing at it before going back to his food. He didn’t answer the text or call, but he didn’t address it either.
“I could be about that visual,” he said, his leg extending out, his naked toes getting me. I started to laugh, but then the phone buzzed and he looked at it again before waving a hand and pocketing it.
“Everything okay?” My way to see if he’d bring it up, not my business but I didn’t know how I felt that he was being all secretive. I mean, he had taken a call in my bathroom.
He lifted fingers. “It’s fine. December, the bride, just lost her house key. I was trying to tell her how to get into my condo to get her spare.”
My mouth parted. Like a serious drop, which he didn’t notice because the phone came out and he raised it to the air.
He smiled. “Looks like she got it okay so the texts should stop. I guess she stopped by the house to drop the wedding gifts off before boarding a plane today for the honeymoon.”
Back into his pocket, back into his food like what he said was normal and maybe, it was. But… “You have a key to her place?”
He nodded, completely casual about it. “Yeah, she’s my neighbor. I bought a condo and didn’t need both spaces, so I rented the other side out to her. It’s basically a duplex set up so, yeah. Tried to help her out. The place she was in—”
“With her husband.” I tried to sound casual about it, but noticed I placed my back to him when I turned around. I put the gravy back on the burner.
“Yeah, with Prinze.” I turned, and he was sitting there, staring at me with a wrinkled brow. He frowned. “Plumbing went out in their old place. They’re renting from me.”
And so, she was effectively and intricately weaved within his life.
Wow.
I, well, had more than enough of my own drama, more than enough of my own shit but this.
“Brielle?”
My head shot up to find his fingers pinching at my robe again, his reach that long. He cleared me from the burner, hugging my hips. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I passed that off, way off but wow. Wow. I shook my head. “Yeah.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.” His look curious before his eyes danced at me. “You lying to me?”
“No.”
Curious again before he chuckled and pinched my chin, tipping it down. “Okay, play your games, Jersey girl,” he paused, but then, smoothed his hands over my hips, cupping my ass. “But after you’re done doing all that, how about we play some together? Finish breakfast and get back to where we were.”
Back to all this he meant, his hands massaging my hips and making me feel good. His hands distracting me and clearly avoiding literally everything else. His business was his and maybe it wasn’t drama. Maybe he was okay with being so close to someone who had such a firm hold over his life in the past. I really didn’t know his dynamic, but I did know what last night was for both of us.
It’d been avoidance.
It’d been giving in to pleasure and passion, so we didn’t have to address other things clearly in the room here. It’d been fun for a night true, but long term?
I unknotted his arms from around me once more but this time he stood and cradled my elbows when I placed my back to him.
“What’s up?” His chin touched down on the top of my head. Like I was his bite-sized kid when really, our age difference favored in my direction. It wasn’t a big deal he was in his twenties but being older did give me a perspective he didn’t have. It let me see things he didn’t see, even easier when it wasn’t your own life. I couldn’t handle my own crap for anything, a big reason why last night even happened.
I palmed my face. “I’m not looking for anything serious,” I said, making myself. His fingers paused on my elbows and I turned within his hands. “I just moved here, got a new job I’m starting soon, then getting this place together?” I shook my head. “I’ve
got my plate full.”
All of these things were very true—in fact, so true I forced myself to believe they weren’t complete and utter bullshit. That they were the reason I didn’t want to see him again and ignore the fact that all I actually wanted were his hands all over me and to be completely surrounded by him. We were in different places, him and me.
And I really couldn’t add to my own drama.
Ramses’s fingers grazed a jawline on the cusp of shadow, like he had a lot of thoughts but wasn’t quite sure how to voice them. He opted, in the end, to hitch himself back against my kitchen island, his big hands handling his biceps. “Was it something I did?”
Oh, fuck.
Yes. “No.” Both answers really, both of us and our shit. I touched my face before my fingers settled at my neck. “I’m just busy. Don’t have time for anything serious.”
He should be used to this, right? Young and turning women down himself. Ramses was a very handsome man, and I was quite sure he’d been through his own fair share of letdowns.
Though maybe not so much on his end with his response, taking a seat before facing me. He opened his hands. “I get it. I actually just moved back here. Busy too.”
I hated that my heart squeezed, like someone kicked me in the gut and sucked all the air out of my chest at the same time. That he was denying me.
He took a seat, his fist dropping between his long legs. “Well, can I at least have your number?” he chuckled, but I noticed the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Not like last night anyway. “I’d like to keep talking to you. We can just be friends.”
Yeah, I couldn’t be this guy’s friend without something more, impossible.