by C. Lesbirel
His voice trails off. I slowly step closer to him only coming to a halt when his hands are resting on my hips and my chest is up against his.
He catches hold of my hand and brings my fingertips to pause over his heartbeat. I feel it pulsing hard against my palm as he presses his hand over mine.
It makes my heartbeat faster. Or stops beating at all. I’m not sure which one. “Do you feel that?”
I nod once, staring up into his dreamy summer sky eyes and hold my own breath in anticipation of what he’s going to say next. For a hot second I’m wishing he’s going to tell me exactly what I want to hear, but I glance toward where the only movement between us is coming from. I can’t help feeling like I’ve got his whole heart in my hands, and I’m about to rip it out of his chest and break it.
“Don’t,” I warn him, the word escaping my lips in barely a whisper.
“Too late. It’s beating for you, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m falling hard, Hope.”
My throat squeezes so tight, it’s as though I’m choking on air. I want to scream out, ‘no’ or push him away, but instead I collapse into another passionate, unrelenting kiss that says everything I’m unable to.
A thick knee parts my thighs, and his hands work their way from my waist down to my ass, squeezing hard. Moaning softly as he pulls me towards him, I wrap my hands around his neck and pull him towards me for another kiss.
Instead, I’m pushed back and met with dark blue eyes that are clouded with concern.
“This isn’t why I brought you here, you know. We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. I just want you to be able to relax and be free from the busyness of life. I’m not saying I don’t want to go to Rome with you. Fucking hell, if you keep on looking at me like that then I’m gonna take us both to Rome and back again before you can decide if you want to or not, but I respect you, Hope. I want you to know that this is not about me trying to stick it on you.”
He’s telling the truth, and I love how much he genuinely respects me enough to quit the making out if that’s what I want. But, honestly, the fact that he is that good of a man is such a freaking turn on that all I can do is grab a hold of his waistband and fumble to undo the button on his jeans.
25
Sullivan
It’s taking all of my self-control to try not to devour her right here on the car hood. But I’m worried about her because she hasn’t been herself since we met up in Paris. If I push her, I might just push her away, and the thought of that is more than I can handle.
I clasp her hands in mine, bringing her movements to a halt at my zipper and looking into her hazel eyes that shine back at me with a glimmer of amber and a deep color of green that I haven’t noticed before. Her expression is so full of lust, her eyes are pleading with me to give her what she needs. Her full lips tremble with desire, and I’m whip cream on top of a latte, hopelessly melting into an oozy drippy gooey substance at the heat radiating from her touch.
I regain control by pinning her hands behind her back with one hand and pulling her hair with the other, just hard enough to tip her head backwards, so I can devour her neck with my mouth.
She screeches out in surprise at my swift move, and it only spurs me on further, the sounds of her sexy moan hardening my already swollen dick.
“Not here,” I growl into her ear before closing my mouth over it and lashing hot wet licks across her earlobe showing her exactly what I plan to do when my mouth is buried between her thighs in a few short minutes.
“Why not?” She purrs in a cat like whisper.
“Over there.” I pause to avert my focus to the quaint windmill a few yards ahead of us. “That place is ours for the night.”
“I love it. But it’s all the way over there.” She sulks dropping to her fucking knees and taking my jeans as she goes. My body freezes at the sight of her mouth so close to my solid cock, and my balls ache with a need to have her lips wrapped around me.
Self-restraint, Sully. This is her move to fucking make.
Control yoke.
Rudder pedals.
Altitude indicator.
“And I like it, right here.” She pouts, shuffling the waistband of my Armani black boxer shorts over my buttocks and down. I’m standing here half naked and completely exposed.
Radar display.
Throttle levers.
Fuck, I am so completely screwed with this woman. Reciting every part of the cockpit is not going to make a blind bit of difference and neither is recalling every switch and lever on a plane because when her tongue swipes across the end of my cock, my eyes roll back, and every piece of resistance shatters from my body like seed heads on a dandelion in the wind.
“Hope,” my hands fall to her head, her hair tangling around my fingers like soft silk, and her mouth moves slowly and carefully back and forth. She feels scalding hot, confident and so fucking sexy that I could cum all over her face right now, especially if she keeps circling my balls in her hands like that.
She deep throats me, and I shudder at the sound of her almost choking before she stops, jumps to her feet, pulls her top over her head and moves to unclasp her bra. My jaw drops, and it takes a few seconds for any of the blood in my dick to travel back up to my head. It’s like my nerves are working in slow motion and the only message my brain is receiving right now is pleasure. Pure unadulterated pleasure.
“Take me to Rome, Sullivan,” is the last thing she says before I strip her and myself of all clothing and lay her down in a patch of red tulips.
“We’ll squash the flowers.” She chuckles as I position myself on top of her, not giving a shit about the flowers.
“Fuck the flowers,” I mumble as I thank God that I kept a condom in my ass pocket and grab it, ripping it open and putting it on as quickly as possible.
When I’ve slid it down my solid length, I clasp her hands up above her head and pause to regard her naked form for a millisecond.
Her skin glows in the sunlight, and the red of the tulips she’s lying on bounces off her body, giving her an almost ethereal appearance. Her hair is draped over red petals and underneath us is a bright carpet of green and red. The sky is bright blue, and the colors we’re surrounded in only make her eyes sparkle a more enchanting shade of amber than ever before as they roam over my naked chest, awaiting my next move.
I hadn’t realized until this moment that this woman has become the rainbow in my grey sky, and I wanted her, needed her in every color and every shade.
Her hips buck as I enter her without warning, and all of the force of what I’m feeling translates in my heavy thrusts. Feeling her writhe around on the sea of red silky petals beneath us is strangely erotic, and for my first attempt at vanilla sex, I’d say it’s completely underrated.
As I work us both towards our release, her nails drag over my abs, and her heels dig into my ass cheeks, willing me to get us there quicker, but I ignore her frenzied attempts to hurry this along.
I want to savor every single sweet sensation of the feel of her delicious pussy wrapped around my cock, and I need to prove to her that I’m her man. That I can fulfill every single fantasy she ever had and then some.
Her hips circle in time with my own. My eyelids grow heavy as I fight to keep them open, wanting to commit every inch of her sweat drenched golden skin to memory as she clenches down so hard on my cock that I climax before I can do anything to stop it, and she grins a wicked fucking grin as she throws her head back and finds her own release.
“Fuck,” I groan out. “You are too fucking hot for your own good.”
She doesn't reply, just pants breathlessly and lets out a light flirty chuckle that causes her to squeeze down on my dick that’s still inside her.
“Be careful what you wish for, golden girl, I warn her. Stamina is not something I’ve ever lacked, and I’m already craving to cover every inch of her with my mouth and see her own lips around my dick again.
Imagining how her ass in the air looks when I bend her ove
r and claim her ass.
Her nipples puckering when I come all over her tits.
Like a drug addict, I can’t see that I’ll ever stop chasing this high.
26
Hope
We worship each other for the entire afternoon, and I seriously wonder whether this Adonis of a man ever gets tired. After leaving behind a human shaped hole in the Tulip field, Sullivan drove me to the windmill where we made out over and over again. Once on the stairs on our way up to the bedroom, once over the bed, then in the bed and again in the shower as we cleaned up.
I was being careless, unrealistic and dangerously foolish, yet it felt fucking fantastic. Like all that mattered in the world was being here with this man, but that’s a lie.
What matters is the truth, and it would be completely unfair of me to expect him to give up his entire life to settle down when I’m not even ready to settle down myself.
The time it's taken for him to make dinner has given me all the space I need to think and know for certain that I can’t and am not prepared to give up my music. Whatever happens, I need to find a way to put that sixth album out and get the contract with Simon’s company resolved. I just need a way to do it without having to cross paths with Simon anymore.
Although it seems impossible, there must be a way. Maybe I can apologize for firing him and agree to do everything over the phone, at least then I won’t have to see him face to face, so the risk of me punching him in the nose would be reduced. As much as the guy’s a jerk, I don’t care to bring my baby up in a prison cell because if I hit him, I have a strong feeling I’d never stop. All the anger and years of resentment would come pouring out of me like a dragon breathing fire to all who dare stand in its way.
Then there is my tour that needs completing, and who knows where I’ll settle down. My baby needs stability, and we both know Sullivan can’t provide that. He spends his life flying around the globe. There’s no way I want him to give up his dream career to stay home and play daddy to our baby. He’s twenty-six, for God’s sake, he’s got his whole life ahead of him. It would be unfair of me to expect anything, and that’s exactly what I’m about to explain to him.
No expectations. I can do this on my own. I have enough money to provide a good home, so the baby will never want for anything. My parents won’t exactly be thrilled, but I know they’ll love the baby too when he arrives. Sully can be involved as much or as little as he wants, I’m not backing down on my agreement. Well, maybe we can’t be frenemies anymore, but at least we can still be friends. At least, I hope we can.
When I walk into a candle lit dinner for two, I can’t help feeling that I’ve just checked into Heartbreak Hotel, and I’m the one about to cause the damage. After all, I’m the nearly-forty-year-old who should have known better.
Who should have seen this coming?
“Hungry?”
“This looks amazing.” I smile as I take a seat, and he fills the wine glass in front of me with crimson red wine. There’s roast chicken with seasoned potatoes and asparagus neatly presented as he wears the cutest shy smile on his face.
“I know. It’s one of the three meals I can cook.”
“Three, huh? Impressive,” I reply as he takes the seat opposite me, and all of the sentences I’d carefully prepared in my head disappear to mush.
“Are you vegan?” he asks when he sees I don’t immediately begin eating.
“No.” I push my plate forward and lean in, placing my elbows on the table. “The food is great; this whole place is great.” Glancing around at the romantic setting with a small sofa full of scatter cushions and a log fire that he’s no doubt planning on lighting later, a thick lump forms in my throat. “We need to talk.”
“I agree.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, there are things that need to be said between us. Things I’ve been meaning to tell you since I called you after our fight.”
“Shoot.” He stuffs a forkful of potato in his mouth and leans back in his usual relaxed manner.
“I’m pregnant.”
The potato almost shoots back out of his mouth, and I watch him choke on it, trying to swallow it down quickly so he can respond. When he does eventually regain composure enough to speak, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he jumps up from the table and begins pacing up and down the cozy room that feels anything but cozy.
His fists are clenched, his fingers anxiously massaging his thumbs, and his usually relaxed brow is furrowed with a look I can’t decipher.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to just blurt it out like that. What I wanted to say was, ‘I’m pregnant and I completely understand that this is not what you were expecting.’ Believe me, this came as a total shock to me too. But that’s the reason I called you.”
“You’re just now telling me this?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time, but I wasn’t sure how to say it.”
“How do you know it’s mine?”
I bite down hard on my inner lip, trying not to feel hurt that he would think so little of me.
“Trust me, it’s yours. There’s only been you.”
“Fuck!” he yells, running his hands through his hair in frustration.
“I know it’s a lot to take in, but I want you to know that I’ve got this, Sullivan. You don’t have to worry about anything. I am completely prepared to take care of this baby on my own, and you can be involved as much or as little as you want to be. I’m fully aware that you’re in your twenties, and this is not what you signed up for, but I hope we can find a way to figure this out. I want the child to know who his father is.”
“You want the child to know who his father is? Fuck, Hope, are you listening to what you are saying?”
“I…”
“Just stop talking. Just stop. I don’t want to fucking hear another word.”
He storms out of the room, and I hear his footsteps clanging down the metal winding staircase. My feet are routed in place. I can’t follow him, his reaction leaving me slightly shell shocked.
Warm tears slide down my cheeks as I cross the room to the small window and scan the neat rows of Tulips below until I see him.
He looks like a lonely figure pacing along the edge of the field of flowers and seemingly putting as much distance as he can between us.
27
Sullivan
Anger floods through my veins filling them with adrenalin that I fight to regain control of by marching at full pace through the open space.
Pregnant?
I have so many questions, but apparently, I don’t deserve answers because she’s so busy obsessing over the fact that I’m a few years younger than her to see that I’m everything she needs.
What does that even mean, she wants the baby to know who his father is? Of course, my child will know who his dad is. Like I’d have it any other way. I can’t believe that she thinks I’d walk out on my own kid. And, to hell with her thinking she’s got this all figured out, she knows nothing. The woman barely even takes care of herself, let alone a baby.
My phone rings in my pocket, and I half expect it to be Hope but see the name Shiloh instead. Perfect fucking timing, she’s probably the last person in the world I want to speak to right now, but I pick up anyway because it could be something to do with her baby.
“Hey, are you okay.”
“Not really,” I admit, throwing a hand over the back of my neck and looking down at my shoes which are now covered in soil.
“I knew it. My twin sense is never wrong. What’s up?”
Fuck Shiloh and her stupid twin thing. Why did she always have to be all up in my business? “I’m fine.”
“Liar. You just said not really, and my twinnie radar is flashing like a police siren right now. What’s going on?”
“It’s the woman I told you about.”
“Trouble in paradise already. That doesn’t sound good, bro. Did you even tell her how you feel about her yet?”
“Not exactly. Something came up.”
“Yeah, but you do really like her?”
“This stays between us, okay?”
“Of course.”
“She’s pregnant.”
The phone goes silent for a few moments before Shiloh’s voice returns, this time low and dripping with concern.
“Is the baby yours?”
“Yes. As far as I know.”
“Holy crap, Sully. And I thought I had problems. How long have you known?”
“Just a few minutes. She literally just told me, and then you called.”
“Shit. Is she there now? Do you need to go?” I glance over to the windmill that’s a fair distance away, and a heavy feeling makes my chest contract.
“No, I left the room and went outside. I needed to think straight.”
“Oh no, Sullivan,” she hisses through gritted teeth. “You need to get back in there.”
“I can’t. I don’t know what to say. It’s complicated, Shy. We’re not even a proper couple.”
“But you care about her.”
“Yeah.”
“And she obviously likes you too.”
“That doesn’t mean she wants to be with me. She’s already talking about raising the baby on her own.”
“Look, I don’t have a choice with my baby. That was taken out of my hands by the baby daddy not wanting to know. But you have a real shot to step up and be a dad. That’s incredible, Sully. All the playing around in the world isn’t going to feel as amazing as holding your baby in your arms and knowing that you created him. I think you will make the most amazing father, and I really think you should give this thing with her a chance. Her hormones will be all over the place, exactly like mine. She doesn’t know what she wants. What she wants is her baby daddy by her side, telling her he’s here for this. That whatever happens he’s got her back and wants in.”
“You think?”