by Luis, Maria
It’s bad enough that Rick Clarke took other women to his bed, but it’s downright cruel that he never made his wife feel beautiful and wanted.
But his loss is my gain, and I don’t hesitate when I pull back long enough to unbutton her jeans. With a finger to the center of her chest, I push her all the way down. Her butt collides with the blanket, and then I get to work stripping off her pants.
“You, too,” she says into the night. “If I take a risk, you take a risk. Remember?”
I drop the jeans off to the side, then find her slim ankles with my hands. Guide my palms up over smooth skin and strong calves. “Oh, I remember, but you’re going to have to wait for that. Have a little patience.”
“Patience is overrated.”
“You won’t feel that way in a minute.” Settling myself between her legs, I spread them wide with an assertive hand. “Plus, I don’t wear underwear.”
“Oh.”
“Mhmm.” Slipping my palms under her thighs, I lift them onto my shoulders. I’m staring down the barrel of heaven right now. Me, myself, and the sweetest heat known to mankind. I’m starved for a taste of her, right there where she’s the softest. My thumbs sweep over her inner thighs. “You find that patience yet?”
“No underwear at all?” is all she asks, so lightly that the words might as well flit away with the breeze.
“None,” I confirm, pressing a soft kiss to the quivering flesh on the inside of her knee. “Nada.” Another kiss, farther up her leg. “Zilch.” And, before she can issue any more protests about my lack of underwear, I hitch a finger around her panties and move the fabric to the side. Lower my head and exhale, easy and controlled, right over her bare pussy.
“Oh, God.”
Yeah, I have her exactly where she belongs.
At my mercy.
Begging for my touch.
Desperate for me.
Ignoring the fact that her thighs are damn near squeezing my head into oblivion, I use my free hand to spread her lips. Her legs loosen, as if she’s caught on that she’s nearly throttling me, and I chuckle. “Found some of that patience?”
“Go . . . go easy on me,” she says in a whisper, “this . . . Rick never . . . Crap, you know what I mean.”
Everything in me goes ramrod still.
“Never?” It barely constitutes as a question, my teeth are gritted so hard.
“Never.”
Breathe in, breathe out.
“Good,” I growl, “because this first belongs to me. Only me.”
Her hips rise off the ground when I touch my tongue to her clit. Her cry pierces the night, and if I had a single romantic bone in my body, I’d also say that it pierces my heart. Slashes it in half, stitches it back together, good as new, and pops it back into my chest for me to use again.
I groan at the taste of her. A whole lotta sweet. A little tart. Just like her. I take it easy, tempting her with the promise of more but keeping the pressure light. The elastic band of her underwear cuts into my knuckles, but I don’t stop for even a second to remove it. Not when I’ve got Levi begging me to “keep doing that.” Like there was any other option the second her shirt came off and my cock turned so stiff my vision blurred. No. Other. Option. My tongue slides along her crease, slipping into her core.
Another cry that echoes off the mountain.
Her legs tremble on either side of me, and I’m faced with the truth: maybe I’m the first one to go down on her, but she’s the first one to make sex feel like something more than just getting off.
I want to take my time.
I want to make her come all over my face, and then shove her right back up the same damn mountain so I can watch her splinter apart all over again. Never has fucking felt more selfish. Feeling her heels dig into my back? Hearing her keening moans? Knowing that I’m the first and only guy to ever feast on her like she’s my own personal buffet? Yeah, all kinds of selfish on my part.
I’ve never been accused of being a gentleman.
Needing more, I thrust a finger deep inside her.
“Oh!”
I enter her with another finger, just to see her belly seesaw with heavy breaths and her hands fist the blanket. Like I said, selfish.
“Dominic.” Her hands fly off the ground to clamp down on my forearms. She pulls fruitlessly. “I need you. Please.”
I lap at her clit, applying enough pressure to send her hips on the rise again.
Her panting echoes in my ears. “No, that’s not what I mean. You. I need you.”
“What part of me?” I taunt, before swirling my tongue over the sensitive nub again. “Say the words for me, Coach.”
She pauses only a moment before caving with an aggravated cry. “Your cock, you jerk. Now.”
With one last lick at her clit, I slide her legs from my shoulders. “Take off your underwear,” I order, already fumbling in my jeans’ pocket for the condom in my wallet. I tuck the square foil between my teeth, keeping it safe as I kick off my pants and shoes before dropping to my knees. I can’t see a damn thing but I feel the cool breeze against my erection, and then I feel even more when Levi’s dainty fingers unexpectedly wrap around my length.
“Aspen.”
Fire races down my spine when her lips delicately kiss the tip of my cock. It’s sweet and tender and then she might as well cut me at the knees. She sucks me in. All the way down. A gurgling noise erupts from her mouth as I hit the back of her throat, and oh, fuck. Control spirals out of reach. It’s gone the instant she peels back long enough to praise, “I love the way you taste,” and then goes back to lapping at the leaking, swollen head.
I’m going to die.
All these years of risking my life in dozens of different ways, and I’m gonna end up with an obituary in the newspaper that reads: Died of a heart attack at the age of thirty-five. Cause: amazing blow job. Where: on a mountain top. Regrets: only that he didn’t last long to finish the job.
Frantically, I rake my fingers through her hair. “No more,” I groan, “you keep that up and I’m going to come . . . Jesus, Aspen.”
I cup the back of her head, unable to keep from thrusting forward. I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want to scare her. But nothing—nothing—has ever felt so good as her mouth sucking me off. Her hand and lips meet in the middle of my cock, coming together again and again to turn my vision sideways and wreak havoc on my body.
When she finally does pull away, it’s with the sassiest retort I’ve ever heard: “Say it, Dominic,” she purrs, her fingers dancing their way up my flat, ridged stomach, “say how much you want this.”
“I want you,” I confess raggedly.
I rip the condom open with my teeth, roll the latex down over my already hypersensitive erection, then climb on top of her. In all my life, I’ve always stuck to positions that put women facing away from me. Doggy-style. Reverse cowgirl. Doesn’t matter how it got done, so long as I didn’t need to make that connection.
Callous.
Asshole.
Unfeeling.
I can’t be any of that tonight, not with her. Levi. Aspen.
Wrapping her legs around my waist, I prop myself up with a hand to the left of her head. Guide my cock to her pussy, already hissing between my teeth because I know this woman is going to ruin me forever as soon as I thrust inside.
“I’m big,” I warn her, not cockily just stating the facts.
She hooks her hands over my shoulders. “I know.”
“I’m not gonna be able to take it slow.”
“I know that too.”
“I’ll try. I don’t want to hurt you—”
“Stop talking and make me feel good, will you?”
This woman . . . she was made for me.
I enter her with a single stroke. Her nails dig into my shoulders, but I hardly feel it. I don’t feel anything but the sensation of her tight pussy milking my dick. Needing to feel her walls clamp down on me again, I draw back and flex my hips forward.
“Again,” sh
e whimpers, her legs reflexively tightening around me. “Again.”
So I do.
I hook one arm under one of her legs, hiking it up so I can thrust even deeper. With the flashlight uselessly pointing toward the copse of tress, I revel in the shadows cast by the moon overhead. The chance to be open without risk of being judged. I kiss Levi’s chest. Her collarbone. I whisper in her ear, promising that I’m gonna deliver her straight to fucking heaven with an orgasm so good she’ll never forget it.
She’ll never forget me.
She clasps my face between my hands, kissing me squarely on the mouth as though she knows my features so well that she doesn’t even need the light to find me. I suck on her tongue, and I piston my hips forward, and I silently damn myself for taking this step with her. There’s no coming back from this moment. Each thrust feeds my addiction. Each gasp that leaves her mouth is another reason for me to make it my sole mission in life to see Levi come. Daily.
My mouth finds hers in a demanding kiss and for the first time in my life, I let myself feel. Feel the need that tightens my balls and puts my orgasm at the ready. Feel the way Levi isn’t content with letting me put in all the work—her hips rise to meet mine, over and over again. Feel the emotion that surges forth when she whispers in my ear that she’s never felt so good as she does underneath me.
Ruined.
It’s the perfect word for how I feel when she comes around my cock, my name on her lips. I drive my hips forward, hitting her at the perfect angle, and there’s no stopping the inevitable when her sex clenches my dick like a vise. With a guttural groan, I hurtle into the oblivion right along with her.
Her arms circle my back, sweeping her palms down my spine in a gentle gesture.
Safe.
The word settles in beside ruin, then kicks the latter to the curb. Try as I do to stifle it back into the dark depths of my soul, it flips me the bird with mocking gusto.
Levi threads her fingers through my hair.
And she breathes out a quiet laugh into my neck.
“You took a risk and got your reward,” I murmur into her skin, that goddamn word refusing to take a hike and leave me alone. Safe. So stupid and silly, and yet I can’t deny the shudder that wracks my limbs when she kisses my forehead. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’m on Cloud Nine.”
“Good,” I grunt. “That’s real good.”
But Levi is Levi, and I’m not surprised when she forces me to look up at her, even though I can’t make out her features. “And how do you feel?” she asks.
I answer honestly, in the only way I know how: “I feel like I’ve won the Super Bowl all over again.”
A soft kiss meets my forehead. “I know exactly what you mean.”
Yeah. I knew she would.
26
Aspen
“Mom, can I drive to practice today?”
I meet my son’s excited gaze as we pack up all our stuff for a day full of scrimmaging. Unfortunately for him, my stomach has formed a hard lump of hell to the no. I’ve yet to recover from the last time he got behind the wheel, and I’m not sure I ever will. Bikes are a good method of transportation. Eco-friendly, no revving engine . . . Really, they’re perfect for fifteen-year-old boys determined to turn their mothers’ hair completely gray.
“Mom? Can I?”
“You do remember what happened the last time you drove us, don’t you?”
Topher tugs on his earlobe. “It’s just a minor scratch. Plus, I promised Coach DaSilva I’d help out with his house to pay him back.”
“You did?” I grab the car keys off the entryway table before Topher can get any fast ideas. “When?”
“The day he took me mini-golfing. You should come with us next time.” Topher snags my duffel bag, as well as his own, and hikes them up onto his shoulders. The benefit of giving birth to sons who grow like weeds. “I totally caught onto his act when we played last weekend.”
“What act?”
I’m starting to sound like a parrot—not that it stops me from asking questions. Since our night up on Cadillac Mountain late last week, Dominic and I have done our best to keep what’s going on between us quiet. Although I’m not entirely sure what is going on. While our late-night phone calls and round-the-clock texting scream It’s a relationship! there hasn’t been ample opportunity to sort it all out. I spent the entire weekend with Topher, and there’s been no more sneaking out all night on my part. Once was risky, twice was downright stupid but . . . three times? As tempted as I am to throw caution to the wind, I don’t want Topher thinking that tiptoeing around is acceptable behavior.
Leading by example has never been more difficult.
Especially when my nosey, sexy next-door neighbor has made it a habit to knock on my bedroom window every evening for a midnight kiss out in my courtyard. A heady, toe-curling kiss that ends with my back pressed against my house and Dominic’s thigh wedged between my legs. Twice now he’s gotten me off that way, his hand clamped over my mouth to keep me quiet and a dry-humping session that leads straight to orgasmic oblivion.
Dominic DaSilva has made being bad feel so incredibly good.
With Topher ambling down the brick-cobbled walkway to my Honda, I shut the front door behind me and immediately scope out Dominic’s driveway. His truck is gone, which means he’s probably on his way to the school already. With a firm hand, I kick the anticipation of seeing him to the curb and unlock my car.
“Toph?”
We both climb in, him relegated to the passenger’s side while I take the wheel. Cracking open a Gatorade bottle that he brought along, Topher guzzles half of it with all the aptitude of a teenager who doesn’t care about a thing called calories. Swiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he leans back in the seat. “I mean, I could tell he was trying to go easy on me. He’d fake a hit and let the ball take five tries to make the hole, that sort of thing. At least, he did in the beginning.”
“And by the end?” I ask, already sensing where this is going. After all, Dominic did call my baby boy a swindler. I’ve never been so proud.
“It was an all-out battle, Mom, and it was awesome! I still won because I don’t think mini-golf is his thing, but he came up with all these crazy rules for us. Like, instead of trying to get a hole-in-one, we had to hit a specific bush on the course or skip the ball over a small stream. It was insane.”
Insane. A word that seems to exclusively belong to Dominic alone.
After last weekend up on Cadillac Mountain, I think I’ve grown an affinity for the insane.
I think I’ve grown an affinity for him.
Or a crush. A harmless crush. Who wouldn’t, though? The man’s an enigma to those he doesn’t know, and now that he’s shown me pieces of himself, is it any wonder that I want to learn more? I mean, I never would have guessed by looking at him or even seeing him on TV that he has a secret love for photography.
Dominic is a puzzle comprised of mismatched pieces and I think he prefers it that way.
I slide a glance over to Topher, who’s practically bouncing in his seat with excess energy. His leg jiggles up and down, his Gatorade going for a joy ride since it’s balanced on his knee. “You seem to like him. Coach DaSilva, I mean.”
“Oh, yeah. Did I tell you that he’s letting me call him Dom when we aren’t at practice?”
No, I definitely did not know that. “Is that so?”
“Yep! It was the spoils for whoever won at mini-golf. If I won, I could call him Dom.”
“And if he won?”
“Which would never have happened because you taught me better,” Topher says, cracking himself up. “But, yeah, if he won then he said that he got to take me and you out for dinner.”
Like a date?
Butterflies flutter to life in my stomach. It’s no good to think what if’s—Dominic hadn’t won at mini-golf and after our heart-to-heart that day, he hadn’t mentioned dinner. But still the thought of us sitting down at one of the little restaurants that line t
he shore brings a huge smile to my face.
Feeling giddy for the first time in years, I turn onto Main Street. “Maybe we could have Coach DaSilva over for dinner sometime this week? How does that sound?”
I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen Topher brimming with such excitement. He blows up at the front of his hair, then gives up, exclaiming, “Ma, that would be so much fun. Maybe we can all play football on the street? You can show Dom how badass you are with the ball.”
I pretend to hack up a lung at his B-bomb.
“Sorry,” he mutters, swatting at his hair again, “I meant to say how great you are with the ball.”
“Thank you.” Lifting one hand off the wheel, I poke him in the side. “One day you can curse and do whatever you want, but today is not that day.”
“Is it ever?”
I grin. If I had both hands free, I’d rub them together evilly. “Nope.”
“Mom?”
At the trepidation in his voice, I glance over at him. “What’s up, baby?”
“Is it wrong . . . is it bad of me that I had more fun hanging out with Coach DaSilva than I do with Dad?”
It’s a good thing I’m not sharing any of that power drink because if I was, it’d be all over my dashboard. As it is, I come up spluttering all on my own. Pull yourself together! “Toph, bud, of course it’s not wrong.” Parenting needs to come with a rulebook. A how-to rulebook that tackles everything from changing diapers to the first time your kid asks about masturbating—that conversation nearly put me in an early grave—to times like now, when your kid feels guilty because his daddy is a prick and yet he still sticks up for him. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I add, “But you have to remember that every person has their own personality. Coach DaSilva might like to get out there and play mini-golf with you, but you can’t forget how many hours you spent with your Dad playing video games. That’s the thing you two do together, remember?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch my son slink down in the seat, dejection written all over his face. “I remember.”