Sage enjoyed the surprised look on Derek’s face as he walked into the loft to find it aglow with a dozen flickering jar and votive candles sprinkled throughout the apartment and, just beyond, the small deck overlooking quiet, downtown Seaside, Florida.
“Wow,” he said, closing the door behind him. “What’s the occasion?”
“The occasion,” she said, pouring him a frothy frozen margarita from the fresh batch she’d made the moment she got his text that he was downstairs, “is Colby is babysitting Archie tonight so we could have some quiet time alone.”
He smiled, slurping some of the frozen drink off his finger where it had sloshed during the handoff. “Wow,” he said, beaming. “What an unexpected surprise!”
“Not for me,” she said, taking his hand and leading him into the living room. “I’ve been setting it up for days now, and Colby finally got a break in her school schedule, so… wa la!”
On the little bistro table in the nook by the bar was a feast of all their favorites: Hummus and olives, rice crackers and breadsticks, sliced fruit and cheeses. Just hearty enough to keep their energy up, Sage figured, but not too heavy to weigh them down.
“Wow,” he said again, sampling a grape before polishing off his drink. “This is… you are… great!”
“I was thinking the same thing about you,” she said, reaching for his glass to refresh it. He grabbed her wrist instead, gently, but insistently, turning her toward him.
He smiled, melting her heart and fluttering her belly in tight, distant places she hadn’t felt in weeks, maybe months. “How long’s it been?” he asked, as if reading her mind.
“Too long,” she said, afraid to count the times they’d not had sex since Dana and Archie had shown up. In fact, the math was suddenly quite easy: They hadn’t had sex since Dana and Archie had shown up!
Either Derek was babysitting Dana, or Sage was babysitting Archie, and the few times since Dana had gone to rehab that Sage figured they might “connect,” Archie had somehow sensed someone other than he might have fun so he chose to stay up all night long, never giving them the chance!
Now they had all night long, and Sage had vowed not to miss a second of it. From the look in his eyes, Derek was just as eager as she was. “I can’t believe we used to do this all the time,” he said between long, lingering, smoldering kisses.
“We were spoiled, I guess,” she gushed, tugging at his grey and white striped tank top before peppering his bare chest with light, feathery kisses.
“Speaking of spoiled,” he said, gently pushing her away to tug off her sleeveless tan blouse and unzip her pleated brown skirt before it slid down her legs into a puddle around her feet. “I’m going to make you come so many times tonight, it will make up for all those times we haven’t been doing it this month.”
She shivered with anticipation as he lifted her in her arms and carried her to the bed beneath the long row of windows overlooking the deck. Soft ocean breezes fluttered the curtains above as he unclasped her bra and admired her bare breasts before using the bra straps to tie her left wrist to the slats in the metal headboard.
She moaned with delight as he drew off her panties, releasing her moist pussy to breathe the salty air and drool onto the soft white sheets beneath her squirming ass.
“Mmmmm,” she muttered as he used the panties, already damp, to bind her right hand to the same headboard. “I think I came already.”
“Pace yourself,” he said, standing at the foot of the bed as she squirmed to watch him unbutton his pants and drag them from his lean, boyish waist. His cock was straining and she wished for all the world to take it in her mouth and devour it, but Derek had other plans. And, besides, they had all night.
If he didn’t wear her out first, that is…
Chapter 14:
Derek
Derek sank to his knees, cock straining, heart pounding, the very sight of Sage’s naked, writhing body making his dick drool and his lips moist. He sank onto his belly, burying his throbbing, damp staff in the bed sheets while beginning to kiss the insides of Sage’s thighs.
She murmured and cooed, fragrant waves of her feminine musk scenting the room as he inched closer to pepper her thick, moist mound with deeper, richer, more insistent kisses. She mewled and panted as he licked around her glistening labia, tongue thick and eager to collect every drop of moisture as it drizzled like frosting along her pink, wrinkled lips.
She spread her legs wider, grinding her ass into the sheets as he wedged his lips on either side of her pink, throbbing bud and greedily sucked her clit until it responded with a fiery throb and thrum.
“Jesus,” she murmured, sounding miles away as Derek lost himself in her damp, fragrant pussy. Sage lost herself too, grinding her molten mound against his bruised lips, wriggling against his greedy tongue as, pant by pant, drop by drop, tremble by tremble, she groaned, moaned and came with a glorious wash of heat and bouquet across his gleaming face.
He basked in it, missing it, grateful for it, his own cock throbbing in the sheets, damp with his pre-cum and eager to glide inside her molten cave. When at last she had shaken and trembled, exploded and burst with half a dozen orgasms, she clamped her damp, trembling thighs on either side of his head and begged, “Please, no more!”
Derek obliged, pressing himself up to a kneeling position and peering down at Sage’s beautiful, sweaty body. Her small nipples were pale and aglow in the flickering candlelight, rouge nipples standing stiffly at attention.
She strained at her bonds, head propped atop two pillows as she peered back at him blissfully. “Let me taste you,” she murmured, eyes glassy and voice hoarse.
“Later, baby,” he purred, inching forward until his hands caressed her inner thighs, still trembling, and he could run his throbbing cock along her damp strip of auburn pubic fuzz. “I can’t wait to fuck you any longer.”
She chuckled, lazily licking her lips. “If you insist…”
“Oh, I do,” he said, gently guiding his thick, purple tip along the glossy lips he’d so recently feasted upon. He could still taste them, exotic and musky, as he watched them writhe and clench around his rigid staff as, inch by inch, he slid into the heavenly warmth between Sage’s legs.
She sighed with the intrusion, he trembled and, before too long, he was buried seven inches deep, their pelvises meshed and meaty as he ground against hers to cement himself deep, warm and wet inside.
“God, I’ve missed this,” she moaned as she ground her sweaty mound against the meaty joint where their flesh wed.
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” he bragged before thrusting forward, gently, to watch her face wince before melting into an expression of pure joy. “Show me, baby,” she grunted as he began to thrust in earnest, the hot and wet and sensitive flesh making him realize it wouldn’t be long before he, too, erupted in a gushing torrent of joy and bliss. “Show me…” she panted. “Show me… fuck me… fuck me!”
Her hoarse voice, her writhing body, her sweaty skin, her damp bush and tight pussy and hard nipples made Derek a weak boy indeed. He thrust fervently, the fire building, the wave cresting until he slid out and, with just a few strokes up and down his dripping dock, came all over her dancing belly, dotting her stiff, pointy breasts with a molten spray as he milked himself to her giddy delight.
When at last he grew limp and lifeless, Derek slumped down beside her. “Release me,” she purred, wriggling against her bonds. “I want to hug you.”
“All in good time,” he said, lying on his side and rasping hungry fingers along her perfect, boyish breasts before dragging them down her still whimpering belly. “I want to try a few things first.”
“Already?” she gasped as he slid his hand along her pubic thatch only to circle desperate fingertips around her belly button.
“Like you said,” he murmured, inching closer to lick a bead of sweat from her shoulder. “We’ve got to make up for lost time…”
She turned, angling her head and pursing her lips so that they could kiss, long and slo
w, fragrant and wet, heavy and deep. “Well,” she sighed, easing back into the sheets as he continued to ply her fiery skin with his greedy hands. “If you insist…”
Chapter 15:
Sage
“Terry used his binoculars to look around,” Sage read, holding the big pink book in one hand while pretending to peer around with binoculars with the other. “In all directions he could see varying shades of blue…”
“Like your scarf,” Archie said, sitting on the edge of his fuzzy red chair in the Reading Corner as she read aloud from his favorite book, Terry Treetop Saves the Dolphin.
Sage looked down to see the scarf she’d worn as a belt that day was, in fact, a brilliant shade of blue. “That’s right!” she said, peering back at her tiny little friend. “And like your shoes.”
Archie wrinkled his freckled little nose, peering down at the new sneakers she’d bought him just the other day. “Yay blue!”
“Yay blue!” she said, putting the book on her lap and clapping her hands, then high-fiving him.
“Okay,” Archie said, adopting a paternal tone as he crossed his arms over his chest, tiny legs dangling over the edge of his fuzzy red chair. “We’ve had our fun, now back to Terry Treetop Saves the Dolphin.”
Sage snorted, struggling to keep from another one of her giggling fits. No matter how hard she tried, Sage just couldn’t help but be surprised by Archie’s frequent flashes of brilliance, the way his four-year-old mind worked and what flew out of his smart little mouth. “Yes, sir!” she said, affecting a mock salute when the bell over the door rang.
“We’re over here,” she said, waving to a young man of medium height standing just inside the doorway. He wore sunglasses and, as his eyes adjusted to the bookstore’s light, he raised them atop his head.
He looked vaguely familiar, though she’d never seen him before. “Archie?” he said, the door shutting behind him as he spied the little tyke in his fuzzy red chair.
Archie turned, wrinkling his nose until he spotted the man. Then his face lit up and, as if he and Sage had never met, he bolted for the door, arms outstretched as he hollered, “Daddy! Daddy!”
Sage let out an involuntary gasp, rising slowly as father and son reunited in the front entrance of her store. As the young man swept little Archie into his arms, she realized why he looked so familiar: From their freckle-sprayed pug noses to jolly green eyes, Archie was the spitting image of his father.
“Hey buddy!” his father said, snuggling close before letting him down and peering back at Sage. “Who’s your friend?”
“Sage Drake,” she said, extending a hand.
“Sage reads to me, Daddy,” Archie said, excitedly, tugging his father’s hand. “And buys me blue shoes, and blue jeans and teddy bears and toys and movies, right Sage?”
“And gives you your favorite lemon scones,” she reminded him, winking at his father as she led them to the café counter where the man helped his son onto a bar stool before sitting beside him.
“I’m Clark Hogan,” he said, nodding to Sage. “I’m… Archie’s father. Is his mother around?”
“No, Daddy,” Archie said as Sage slid a small plate heaped with three lemon scones toward them. “She went away for awhile.”
“Yeah?” Clark asked, even as he peered at Sage for further explanation.
“She’s at Sunnyside Wellness Center,” Sage explained, pouring Archie a glass of milk and she and his father two cups of strong Surfer’s Blend coffee. “Getting… better.”
“All better, Daddy,” Archie said, nodding as he bit into a lemon scone. Just then Colby returned from the stock room, burdened down by three boxes of coffee beans and powdered creamer.
“Colby!” Archie said, quickly losing interest in his scone. “Read to me, Colby!”
“Archie,” Clark said, but Sage waved a hand.
“Do you mind?” she asked Colby, taking the boxes off her hands.
“Not if you put those away, boss,” she said, grabbing Archie’s hand as they trundled back to the Reading Corner.
Sage slid the boxes aside and picked her coffee up. “So,” she said, leaning against the ice machine at her back. “Dad, huh?”
Clark blushed slightly, still sugaring and creaming his coffee. “God only knows what Dana told you,” he said.
“Well,” Sage sighed, “she showed up with Archie in tow a few months back, looking a mess and talking about how my boyfriend, Derek, was Archie’s father.”
Clark’s nostrils flared as he put down then picked back up, his coffee cup. Sipping as if to calm his nerves, then sets it back down. “I should have started looking here,” he said, shaking his head at a display of Derek’s books on a table no more than six feet away. “I just, it was so long ago, and she’s had so many… relationships… since then.”
Sage bit her tongue, even as Clark tried to be polite. She noticed no ring on his finger and said, “So… you’re divorced then?”
“Divorced?” He chuffed, picking up a scone. “We were never married. She’s never been married, but the timing was right when she had Archie and, anyway, she had a paternity test to make sure. I’ve been paying child support ever since, but only because she moves around so much I can’t ever haul her into court to get custody.”
Sage sighed. “Sounds about right,” she said. “But then, how did you know to look here?”
He snorted, finishing his coffee. As she filled it back up, he said, “I’d stupidly cosigned on her last apartment,” he explained. “When she hadn’t paid her rent in a few months, the landlord came looking for me. I wasn’t about to bail her out, but I paid just enough to get him to let me in and grab a few of their things. The place was a mess, but I found a little black book. An actual little black book. I’ve been going through it, name by name, and finally got to Derek’s, so…”
“That’s some detective work,” Sage said. “I just wish you’d come here first.”
“Why?”
Sage sighed, watching Colby read to Archie. “I just… he’s been so great. Now I’m going to have to say goodbye.”
“How do you think I felt?” he asked, turning in his swiveling barstool to watch Colby reading to Archie. “Not knowing where he’s been the last few weeks. I just… I didn’t know it had gotten so bad with Dana.”
“I don’t know if she came here looking for money,” Sage said, “or love, or was just acting out because of the drinking, but it’s really going to come as a surprise to Derek that he’s not Archie’s father.”
Clark nodded. “It’s not a pretty picture for any of us, unfortunately,” he said, meeting her gaze with his own. “So, this Sunnyvale place… that’s a rehab, right?” When Sage nodded, sipping her coffee, he asked, “How long has she been in?”
“Just over three weeks,” she said, hopefully. “They’re letting her out next week, if you’d like to—”
“Hell, no! Hell, no!” he hissed under his breath, biting off each word. “Now that I’ve found him, I want to get Archie back to his old life, stat. We’re leaving as soon as he says goodbye to everybody.”
Chapter 16:
Derek
Derek was still breathless as he rounded the corner from the surf shop to see Sage, hugging little Archie in front of Sequels. Thank God I made it in time, he thought, double-timing it down the street until he stood, just shy of the tearful goodbye.
Colby was there, moist eyed and fragile as they hugged, familiarly, while Sage handed Archie his favorite book, Terry Treetop Saves the Dolphin. “So you got our texts?” she asked.
“Yeah, thanks,” he said, waving the stuffed animal in his hand. “I just… I wanted to get him something to remember me by, you know?”
“Oh Derek,” she said, squeezing his hand before quickly releasing it. “You were his honorary dad for a few weeks. He’ll never forget that.”
He nudged her playfully with his hip as Sage turned to them, smiling to see him. “Derek!” said Archie, melting his heart as the little tyke ran to greet him. Derek wrappe
d him in his arms, trying to bottle the moment in his mind: Sniffing his little boy’s smell, feeling his little heart beating against his chest, the warmth of his arms as they tried to reach around Derek’s neck.
“I got you something,” he said, handing him the stuffed dolphin he’d found at the last minute.
“Like in my book!” he said, grabbing the dolphin and clinging to it as he just had Derek.
“I wanted you to have it to remember me by,” Derek said.
“Why would I forget you?” the little guy asked.
Derek winked, tapping him on the pudgy little nose. “Well, you never know. You’re such a great kid, and you’re going to make lots of friends, so…”
“Friends are friends,” Archie said. “But Dads are forever!”
Derek flinched at the beauty of the statement. Sure, he wasn’t the kid’s real dad, a fact that had both shocked and, somewhat, relieved him. But they’d had a few months where he was a dad. They’d always have that. “You bet, Archie,” he said, just as the horn honked on the sedan waiting in front of Sage’s store.
“Oh boy,” Archie said, waving the dolphin as he hustled away. “My other dad’s ready to go now!”
And, just like that, the little tyke was gone. The car roared off, leaving the three of them standing there in the empty space it left behind. Colby sighed and, spotting a pair of tourists walking toward the bookstore door, she greeted them fondly before following them inside.
“Holy shit,” Derek said, collapsing into Sage’s arms where, gently, they had a good, nice, soft, quiet cry. “How… what had just happened?”
Sage snorted, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands and grinning. “I have no idea, but… I’m glad you got here just in time. That Clark guy was not waiting around another minute.”
“Clark?”
Sage sighed. “Archie’s real dad,” she said, squeezing his hand. “They hooked up while she was still in high school and he was a sophomore in college. Never married. Apparently she was going through her little black book, looking for a sugar daddy and saw your books, figuring you’d support her for the rest of her life.”
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