Besides, how else would Laird and I have gotten together? Figured that we were both such morons we had to practically trick ourselves into a relationship with one another.
I stretched out, luxuriating in the feel of the soft sheets on my body, the soft but firm mattress, and the wide space of the bed. We hadn’t straight out said we were moving in together, but Laird had moved all of my stuff in here when I was fleeing from Pete and there was no sign of him asking me to go back to the co-op or finding me a new apartment. I couldn’t even properly describe the thrill that was sent through me at the idea that I didn’t have to share a room with a dozen other people, that I got to have all this space just for me and the man that I loved. It felt like the height of luxury and freedom.
Hmmm. One thing that I could do in an apartment with the man I loved, instead of in a place where I had just a bed in a room that I shared with a dozen other people, was pad around naked.
I got up, forgoing clothing, and walked into the open plan living room and kitchen area. I wasn’t surprised to find Laird facing away from me, concentrating on the coffee maker. He was only wearing a pair of soft flannel pajama pants, but in my opinion, he was still terribly overdressed.
Laird poured out the coffee into his mug and took a sip, still mostly facing away from me. I walked right past him and stood in front of the glass window, staring out over the city. Laird lived on the top floor of the high-rise apartment complex, otherwise I never would’ve done this. I didn’t want anyone to see us having sex, thanks, as excited about our new relationship as I was.
I knew the moment that Laird saw me, because I heard his coffee mug go clattering into the sink.
Not even two seconds later he was pressed up against me from behind, and I could feel the hard length of his cock pressed against my ass through the soft fabric of his pants. “I see someone’s decided to be a little sex kitten this morning,” he purred.
“Well,” I said, keeping my tone casual as I let my head fall back against his shoulder, arching into his touch, “it is my day off.”
Laird slid his hand down my body, cupping my breast, his thumb swiping along the underside, teasing me. I whimpered, feeling myself growing wet for him. There was something so wanton about the fact that I was pressed up against the cold glass, against a window, even if nobody could see us from up here.
“Look at you…” Laird’s other hand slid farther down, between my legs, his fingers stroking leisurely along my folds, just light enough to be a tease. “Already slick and naked for me. Do you want my cock, sweetheart? You want to be a good little kitten for me today?”
“Yes,” I sighed out, leaning more heavily against him. Laird lightly pinched my nipple and slid a finger inside of me, and I moaned.
“Yeah, that’s it.” Laird’s hand left my breast and moved up to my throat, holding me in place there. I shivered with delight. I liked being a bit manhandled by Laird, because I knew I was one hundred percent safe with him. He would never hurt me. I could trust him.
Laird pulled his hand away from my aching cunt and moved it along my thighs instead, then my stomach, stroking, teasing me even more. I whined in protest and Laird just chuckled. “Something you want?”
I ground my ass back against his crotch and felt his hard cock rubbing up against it. Mmm, yes. “Pretty sure there’s something you want, too.”
Laird chuckled and took me by the hips, pulling me back until I was bracing my hands on the glass window and was bent over. He rubbed his hand along my ass, then smacked it lightly. I jolted, desire thrumming through me. God, I wanted him so badly. It was amazing how my body was trained now, in a way. It was like now that I was used to being intimate with him and knew that I could trust him, I got wetter that much faster, I got ready to take him inside of me with greater speed. It felt like I was going from zero to sixty in seconds.
Laird kissed along my shoulder as his fingers returned, sinking inside of me and stretching me, making sure that I was really ready. “I love that you do that,” I blurted out. “I love that you—that you make sure I’m good, that you take care of me—”
Before, I couldn’t have said that. It would’ve been too close to revealing that I was in love with him, and I’d been trying so hard to be careful about that. But now, I could say whatever I wanted, whatever I felt like. It was elating.
Laird kissed the side of my neck. “I’ll always take care of you,” he promised, and then his fingers were sliding out and his cock was sliding in and I moaned.
This angle was good, so good. I felt filled, stretched, and I braced hard against the window so that I could thrust back onto him. Laird groaned and pressed his chest against my back, his hands roaming over my body as he started to move in rhythm with me. He kept kissing me, everywhere his mouth could reach, it seemed, like he just couldn’t make himself stop. Even though I couldn’t see his face, this felt intimate. I felt held.
It didn’t take long for our movements to get frantic, though. This angle meant that Laird was hitting that perfect spot in me every time, making my body jerk and stars dance in front of my eyes, and I knew I wasn’t going to last long at all.
“Please,” I begged. I was far past any embarrassment about begging Laird. He knew that I wanted him, he knew I was desperate—and I knew that he would never use this against me. “Laird, please, I need…”
“I’ve got you,” he promised, his hand moving between my legs to rub his thumb against my clit. I sobbed as my pleasure spiked. It felt so good, so good… “That’s it, you’re a desperate girl this morning. I’ve got you.”
He rubbed mercilessly, over and over, until I felt myself seizing up and my body was wracked with that perfect ecstasy. I felt Laird’s thrusts becoming harsher and I moaned again, my orgasm prolonged by the feeling of his cock inside me, coming inside of me, and I wailed with pleasure and release.
Laird scooped me up and carried me to the couch, where we both collapsed. “Too lazy to take me to bed, huh?” I teased, poking him in the arm.
“You’re welcome to go there yourself,” Laird replied. “I’m staying right here.” Then he paused. “Actually…”
I burst into laughter as he got up and I realized what he was doing. “You and your damn coffee, honestly.” I was fond of it, though. We all have our quirks in life and I thought his thing about coffee was adorable.
Laird poured himself another cup, and then one for me, and walked over to rejoin me on the couch. I cuddled up next to him immediately. “Can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “I forgot how much I could enjoy sex. I forgot what it was like to want it. Back when I was with Pete… At first, sure, we had sex, but then… he never forced me in that way. I was lucky like that. But I still stopped wanting it and enjoying it and… it was rough. But now I’m with you and it’s like a switch has been flipped, almost? And I just want you all the time. Like I’m making up for it.”
Laird chuckled, but then to my surprise his face got serious. “Sweetheart, I want you to know, as much as I love you and as much as I want to fuck you on every bloody surface in this apartment, I’d still love you even if we never had sex. I’d still want to be with you. Whatever you want, I’m here for it.”
“I know,” I told him, and I meant it. “That’s part of why I love you so much.”
Laird smiled warmly at me and clinked our mugs together in a gentle toast. “To us.”
“To us.”
Okay, so yeah, this coffee was pretty damn fantastic.
Epilogue: Trudie
Maybe it was silly of me, but my first instinct was to hide the pregnancy test.
It had only been three months since we’d officially gotten together, and in that time I’d moved in with him and gotten married for real, in that beautiful church I’d been going to on my own. It was a small ceremony, nothing at all like the crazy wedding I’d attended with Laird. Liam and Alana were there, along with Edith and a few other girls from the co-op, and
Red with some of my coworkers that I’d become close with. And Laird’s parents, of course. Only about two dozen people in total.
Everything had been lovely. Better than I could have dreamed. And Alana had helped out a lot, keeping everything simple and to our tastes as I struggled to balance planning the wedding with preparing to go into college and get a degree. Laird had been nothing but supportive as I’d gotten ready. I wanted to have a proper degree and start working—in what, I didn’t know, but I wanted a proper career in something that I felt passionate about. I was ready to finally get back to becoming the person that I was supposed to be, that I wanted to be, after Pete had derailed me for so long.
Ugh, Pete. At least that had gone off without a hitch. He was still serving jail time and I doubted I’d be seeing him any time soon. Laird’s lawyers had thoroughly taken care of that.
But after all that had gone on and everything moving so quickly—I must’ve skipped a few days with the pill. Stupid of me. How could Laird handle a baby on top of everything else that had been going on? We’d been moving at a hundred miles an hour and now that everything was set up, the wedding and college and all, we were supposed to get a chance to breathe.
It looked like the universe had a different plan in mind for us.
Should I keep it? Or tell him, and if so, how? Wouldn’t it be better to wait until we were more settled?
Stuffing the pregnancy test inside of my makeup bag—Laird would never look in there—I called Alana and asked if she was free to meet me for lunch. She’d know what to do. I would ask Liam, but asking Liam to keep a secret from Laird was a lost cause.
Alana listened patiently as I outlined everything, and to my surprise, she laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry!” She cleared her throat and made her face more serious. “I didn’t mean to make it seem… unimportant. It’s just that it’s so obvious to me that Laird would be ecstatic if you told him.”
“Are you sure? Wouldn’t it be smarter to deal with all of this later down the line?”
Alana shook her head. “He loves you and he’s always wanted kids. I know you two probably haven’t really had time to talk about it but even though he only has the twin brother, Laird comes from a big family. Lots of cousins. He grew up with all of that. And he wants that as a father. If you tell him this I promise you, he’s going to be happy. He’s not going to see it as too fast or as a burden.”
I nodded, and accepted Alana’s hand, letting her squeeze mine reassuring. She was incredibly kind, distracting me with talk about literally anything else until it was time for me to leave.
“You can tell him,” Alana promised me as she hugged me goodbye. “He’ll be ecstatic. I promise.”
The drive back to the apartment had never felt longer. Laird had bought me a car as a wedding present so that I could get around the city and to all of my college classes. I had tried to give him back the money he’d given me, but he’d told me that I’d earned it, fair and square, and so I was using it to pay for my college.
“I’m home!” I called into the apartment.
There was no answer. Odd, since I knew that Laird was home today. His car had been in its parking space. Had he gone on a walk? Was he working out and listening to music? Taking a nap?
I walked further into the apartment and saw him standing in the bathroom, my makeup bag open in front of him, a familiar looking stick in his hands.
My heart stopped.
“I ran out of chapstick,” Laird said, still staring down at the stick. “I thought I would see if you had any I could borrow. And I found…”
“I only did that this morning,” I blurted out. “I wasn’t keeping it from you.” Suddenly the idea of keeping a secret from him was abhorrent. I couldn’t believe that I had ever thought about keeping anything from him. “I just… I needed some time to… adjust.”
Laird set down the stick and turned to look at me. I couldn’t read his expression, which was unusual, and concerned me. Laird was such an open book to me.
“Please tell me you’re excited about this,” I begged. “I know the timing isn’t the best, but I do want to be a mother and I do want to have your child. Even if it wasn’t when we planned.”
Laird looked away, towards the mirror, and when he looked back I realized that there were tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry, love,” he said, and my heart plummeted. “I’m just… feeling overwhelmed. In a good way. I’m—I didn’t think we’d do this for a bit, yeah, but I’m overjoyed. I’m flying.”
My breath felt like it had been punched out of me. “You mean it?”
“Of course I mean it!” Laird walked over to me and took me into his arms, kissing me all over my face. “I know it’s not what we planned, but I want to be a father, I want to grow our family with you.”
I took his face in my hands, kissing him, hardly able to contain all of the joy I felt bursting out of me. “I want that too. I really do.”
We’d have to figure out college, and all the rest, but I had faith that we would. Laird picked me up and spun me around, laughing into my shoulder, and I held on tightly in return. This was the man of my dreams, and I was never letting go—not of him, and not of our bright, shining future together.
Dear Boss
Description
I swore I’d never fall in love again.
And especially not with my new employee.
What am I even thinking?
I remember what happened last time.
My ex-wife cheated on me.
Women have seduced me for my bank account.
This time can’t be any different.
Billie comes from a small town.
Her curves beg for me to take her.
But she doesn’t know what she wants.
She’s young, innocent and sassy.
And I’m drawn to her like a magnet.
Even though I know what the future holds.
I see scandal as clear as day.
This story could only end in one of two ways.
Heartbreak.
Or an extremely unexpected happily ever after.
1
Billie
Around me, the wind was blowing gently and rustling the material of my knee-length chiffon skirt. Small pieces of my honey brown hair were tugging free from the confines of the messy bun I’d hastily thrown on my head and they were tickling my cheek. I reached up and tucked the deviant hair behind my ear with a sigh before looking up at the dreary, gray exterior of my apartment building.
Well, former apartment building, I corrected myself. I ran the back of my hand over my forehead that was covered in perspiration. Despite the light breeze, the sun hung high in the sky and illuminated my little hometown of Sausalito, California. This was going to be my very first time living anywhere else in my twenty-nine years on Earth and I was a little apprehensive, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. After all, I needed a fresh start. I need fun and excitement. I needed…
“Billie! I can’t get these damn boxes through the door. Can you come help me?” my mother, Rena Nichols, called from the doorway.
“Coming, Ma!” I replied before hurrying back up the steps to the entrance of the building and away from my rickety old Range Rover.
Standing in the doorway, my mom was holding two boxes balanced on top of one another. They were towering over one another in a way that meant I couldn’t even see her face. I tutted. I’d told her not to overdo herself and here she was clearly taking more than she could handle.
“One box at a time, Ma, I already told you that,” I scolded her with a shake of my head. “You’re going to hurt yourself otherwise.” I reached around the thick brown box on top and took it from her before turning and heading back to the car.
“You’re starting to sound more like a parent than me,” my mom said as she followed along behind me. We both laughed as we stuffed the last two boxes into the trunk of the car, and I was happy when I managed to slam it shut without any problem.
“Is that everything?” my mom questioned wit
h a furrow of her eyebrows as she looked around the car. Her brown eyes that matched my own were narrowed as they assessed the boxes in the car. “There’s not a lot here, Billie. Are you sure you have everything you need?”
I understood my mom’s concern. After all, I’d never lived so much as five minutes away from her and now I was actually moving across the state to start my own life somewhere completely different. “It’s okay, Mom. I didn’t have much stuff here anyway,” I explained with a shrug. “And besides, like I’ve told you a thousand times before, the apartment I’m renting in Napa Valley is already furnished!”
My mom gave me a weary look and sighed. “I know, I know, but I’m your mom. It’s my job to worry.”
“I get it, but you did raise a smart daughter,” I insisted, taking her hands in mine. “I know what I’m doing, you can trust me.”
“I know.” My mom gave me a watery smile before squeezing my hands and then leaning in to give me a kiss on the cheek. “You’re my strong, brave girl. You always have been.”
Tears began to well in my own eyes at the praise and I had to reach up and swipe them away. For a moment, we cherished what was one of our last moments together before I went away for a very long time.
“Okay then, now that we’re all packed away, we should probably go get Lucky,” I finally said, breaking the silence between us.
Mom nodded. “I imagine she will have torn through that tug rope you gave her by now.”
“I’ll take her for a quick walk before we go too, so she can relieve herself before the journey,” I explained. “You can head on home now if you want. I can handle everything from here. I promise I’ll call you once I get to my new place.”
Forbidden First Times: A Contemporary Romance Collection Page 39