Feelings I can’t describe race through my head, my breathing quick, my pulse way too rapid. The two of them are so damned sexy, so damned beautiful to watch. There’s no Dom/submissive act taking place right now. No controlling. No domineering. Keith isn’t fucking Jason fast or brutally, but just the opposite, with every thrust long and drawn out, sensual, and devoted. So damned devoted. They’re just two men dying for each other, desperate and consumed by their boundless, uncontrollable yearning for love. It’s beautiful and passionate and so deep that my body shivers and my throat tightens.
Jason can no more walk away from Keith and his undeniable love than he could his own child. Nothing can break their bond. Not me. Not small-town hurtful gossip. Not a month, not a year, not being halfway across the country.
Unable to glance away from their cavernous affection and the way their bodies mold together like they were made for one another, I’m wildly turned on, my pussy aching to be touched, to be filled, yet I’m full of emotions and conflict and strife, which has me choking back tears.
“My God,” I whisper silently then turn around and quietly return to Keith’s room, where I gather my things and leave Keith, Jason, and Ryker Ranch.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jen
Hearts shouldn’t be shattered. People we love and need the most shouldn’t leave us with promises of only a goodbye for now when it leaves us feeling like it’s goodbye forever. Sometimes I wonder what I could have possibly done in the past to earn the pain that life has handed me.
It hurts. It aches inside. It feels … wrong.
Darkness moves through me and stabs at my insides. The sun doesn’t shine quite as brightly. The birds don’t sing as loudly as they once did. The stars are a little less bright in the nights at Ryker Ranch, and I’ve even given up looking for Minnie Pearl. Fatigue has me feeling like I’m not myself, like my brain is only operating about fifty-fifty.
Twenty-nine days ago, Jason pulled out of Springhill, Texas to move to Maynard, Massachusetts. With the worst kind of hurt I’ve felt since the death of my father, I said goodbye, wished him luck, hugged him, and soiled his shirt with tears as I professed to love him forever. I’ve done my best to accept that this fairytale romance between the three of us is over and that Jason isn’t coming back, but I can still smell him, still hear the tone of his baritone voice, still see that smile, those beautiful blue eyes, and feel his lips and his body inside mine.
It’s not over. It can’t be.
My throat clogs, and I blink away another surge of tears while trying to stay still. Trying to keep from waking up Keith. Trying to be content lying beside this wonderful man that I’ve loved since I was seventeen and will love until my final breath. Trying to accept the fact that things can never be the same.
I love Keith. With every molecule of my body, I do. And he loves me. He tells me every day, and I have no reason to doubt him. Most days, he puts on a happy face and acts like he’s perfectly fine, like he’s perfectly content, when I know better. There’s a hole in his heart the size of Dallas, and all his smiles, his jokes, and his positivity can’t change his actions when the day has ended and night is upon us. I feel him reaching out for Jason. I hear his shaky sighs as he tosses and turns when I’m pretending to sleep, when I know he’s wide awake, and why. Being in love with more than one person is no dream, no castle in the air, no pie in the sky. It’s agonizing and confusing and excruciating. There are mornings that I wake up aching to find the two of them sharing conversation over coffee or tangled together in an intimate moment. Other mornings I wake up well before sunrise, almost positive that I can feel both of them against my flesh.
Another part of me wonders if Massachusetts is exactly the best place for all of us. Or if moving to Springhill was indeed my biggest mistake.
Keith turns over on his side and moans against the nape of my neck as the firm ridge of his erection bumps into me. His hand glides down and over the curve of my belly.
“Jesus, I love this little bump in your belly. Ryker beef has been damned good for my baby girl’s beautiful body. You’re so fucking sexy.”
His hand dips lower and through my wet slit, which is still slick with his semen from earlier since we no longer use condoms and haven’t since that final night with the three of us. When he slides his tongue over my ear then sucks on the back of my neck, I don’t even pretend not to already be aroused. Just the small move has my sex pulsing and clenching, my body desperate for his. Sex has been so good between us. I can’t get enough, and even feeling tired out of my mind, I’m pushing my back against the heavy, thickly veined erection and wanting him inside my sex, and even my ass. Lately, anal sex has become something I crave, something I ask for. The fullness, the bite of pain, the wicked taboo aspect of it, the way he fists my hair and lunges hard and deep while he utters my name over and again like he can’t get enough. My body is in flames, my core aching for his swollen erection.
I want him whispering sugar but fucking me like sin.
Heat spreads between my legs. “Inside me. Fuck me, Keith. Please. Hard and deep.”
“Christ, Jen.” He feeds his entire length inside me so hard and deep that his heavy balls slap against my butt and I feel every thick ridge and vein. “Your fucking body,” he utters roughly as he thrusts into me from behind with his hands caressing my breasts, my nipples, then rubbing my swollen clit.
Seconds later, I’m on my stomach, Keith hovering over me and balls deep inside my most private sensual place, way beyond the tight ring of muscle, where he’s stroking deep into me like sin and damnation. Filthy, improper, and ungodly. But so damn good. My hands are curled into the sheets as he kisses my neck, my hair, my shoulders, and even the tops of my hands, with intoxicating, rip-my-heart-to-shreds, take-me-and-never-let-me-go kisses. He moans with every thrust. Controlling and taking what’s his and what will always be his, as I surrender and trust and offer all that I have.
“You are so beautiful.” His breath is warm and accelerating against my ear while wild pleasure ripples through every inch of my body. “And you belong to me, Jen. Every hair on your pretty head. Every opening on your amazing body.” He bites the nape of my neck just hard enough to make me yelp. “My baby girl would be miserable without my cock,” he says in a voice low and provocative while he slides in and out of me in deep sensuous drives and strokes my clit.
“God yes, I would.” I hoist upward, my body wanting deeper, craving more. I’ve never felt closer to him than I do at this very moment, and I know I could never survive without him. “I love you, Keith. More than you could ever know.”
The mattress shifts as he pushes my knees up so I can take him even deeper. “And I’ll love you until my final breath, sugar.”
That’s when it happens. A light goes off in my head like an explosion. My mouth goes dry, my heart hammering, Keith’s cock in my ass suddenly feeling like an uncomfortable, fiery, giant poker, as I think how much my appetite has picked up. How I’ve been craving steak and pot roast and juicy burgers. Yes, Ryker prime beef is far superior to any I’ve eaten. You can cut through it with a butter knife. And yes, Keith is a fabulous cook. And yes, I’ve simply been hungrier than usual the last two weeks. I’ve … Holy fucking shit! My mind is a sudden blur. I’m thinking. I’m backtracking. I’m retracing the last time I felt a cramp. Four weeks? Five? No. God, no. I couldn’t be. I can’t. I can’t.
Fuck. Fucking fuck! We’re not ready for this.
Fear has my veins ice cold. Flickering images of churning emotion fill my head. The bump in my belly, the tenderness in my breasts, my libido all over the damn place. I’m pregnant! I know it. I absolutely do. Nausea hasn’t been an issue, but I’ve been hungry enough to eat the ass end out of a cow, and sex has been on my mind every damn time Keith walks through the door. Please God, no. Not this. Not now. I have a museum to run. I have guided tours. We’re still putting the final touches on Rylee’s Room. I want to learn to ride a horse. Plan a garden for next summer. I have so many
things I want to do. And I’m not fucking married. And the worst part—who does this baby belong to?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Wait.” I push him out of me and turn over to face him with everything inside me tightening and clenching. “My God, Keith. Shit!”
“What?” His eyes are wide as he strokes the hair from my face. “Did I hurt you? What’s wrong, sugar?”
“Everything. Absolutely everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Keith
They say that a pregnant woman brings on a whole new meaning to the concept of beauty. The way her body thickens in places that haven’t been thick before, appetites for weird shit at all times of the day. Hair, body, face, and skin all changing. Hell, she even smells different. And it’s all sexy as fuck. The word beautiful doesn’t even begin to hold a candle to the way I feel about Jen carrying my babies. Twins. I’m going to be a father to fucking twins! And I’ve never been more excited over anything in my life.
Four weeks ago, two in-home pregnancy tests later, we accepted that it was real and not just a misreading. And a week after that, we were handed the biggest surprise of our lives when we found out there wasn’t one fetus, but two.
It’s hard to really put the way I feel into words. Emotions swim inside me that I’ve never experienced. Awe. Amazement. Astonishment. And Christ almighty, who ever knew that a woman’s hormones could become a man’s damned best friend? The woman wants to fuck my brains out. The sex is out of this world, and I don’t mean soft, sweet missionary sex. The lady wants it hard. She wants it rough and nasty. She wants my teeth sinking through her flesh and marks left between her thighs. She wants dirty talk and even dirtier fucking. Fuck me like sin, she says at least once a day, if not twice. And she loves riding my cock and grinding that sweet pussy against me like a madwoman as she teases her clit with a finger or squeezes her nipples. Her climaxes are so damned intense. So damned hot. And I love her so damn much. But along with all the wonderment and the fucking and the mind-boggling, deep-throating blowjobs, which literally have me losing track of where I am and who the hell I am, is the proverbial elephant in the room.
Whose babies are growing in Jen’s belly?
If they’re Jason’s, then what? Will he move back home where he belongs? Will the three of us carry on like we were and like we should still be? And if not, is it morally right to deceive a child about its natural parent? Will they hate me one day when they learn the truth? Will Jason hate me for what I’m going to do tonight?
Fucking fuck if I know.
The pondering, the worrying, the questions all loop around in my head constantly. Every minute. Every day. Every damned second. But as Jen keeps insisting—does it matter whose babies are inside her? Does it matter if they’re raised to think I’m they’re daddy until they’re old enough to be told differently? Jen swears it doesn’t matter to her, thus the refusal to have a DNA test. They were conceived out of love. Love that’s still strong. Love’s that’s never-ending. Won’t you love them just the same? Even if they’re Jason’s? They’ll love you, Keith. They’ll love Jason. That’s all that matters.
I miss him so goddamned bad. The pain inside me is an ache, a dark and endless hole. I want to see his smile. I want to share a beer with him. Laugh together. Listen to music. I miss his smell. The blue of his eyes staring up at me. The sound of his boots against the hardwood floor. The moans deep in his chest when he’s seconds from coming or when I’m deep in his throat.
This agony inside me rests deep in my gut, twisting and turning and blazing like a hot, slow-burning fire that never burns out. I have Jen, whom I love with every cell of my body. I have two children coming into my life in just a few short months that has me so fucking full of joy that I can’t stop grinning. But I still want him. I need him in my life. My God, I need him.
But he’s not here. And he may never be again.
I scrub along my jaw as I drive back to the ranch after a trip to San Alba to purchase some extra hay tarps with winter approaching us over the next month or so. And also, to pick up the ring I had designed for my Jen, my sugar and, I hope, my future wife.
****
Jen
Meet me thirty feet to the west of the pond in one hour. Don’t be late.
With no idea what Keith wants me for out by the pond, I log off my laptop, deciding I absolutely will not be ordering baby furniture and bedding until I learn the sex of both babies. Even though I’ve chosen not to decorate in pink regardless if both are girls, who knew how hard it would be to choose room décor? Mom says she’s coming to Springhill in the next couple of weeks and help me at least decide on paint colors for the room. I’ve spent so much time with Keith at the ranch that I’ve barely been in my own home enough to really sit down and sketch out a plan. Life brings on a lot of surprises, but I never dreamed I would be a single mother bringing up two children, unmarried, in the house I was raised in. Alone.
The muscles of my chin tremble as I walk outside Keith’s bedroom door. Doubt rushes my head again, more questions stirring, more fear emerging, more unabating stress. Unwed mother. No husband. Unsure who the father to my babies are. I push away the building tears as I walk toward the pond, the grass underneath my feet soft and cushiony, still plush and green even though the trees are changing colors, the leaves turning pretty shades of red and gold. Sunlight illuminates the water in the pond just a few feet ahead, and for some strange reason, when I see Keith in the distance looking like the handsome cowboy hunk that he is, and has always been, in his tight jeans, starched shirt, black boots, and a matching black felt cowboy hat, I almost feel like I’m in a dream.
I take in a shuddering breath, my core quivering just at the sight of his fine ass. My God, I’ve never wanted sex the way I do now. It’s on my mind every minute. Just the thought of it makes me whimper with need. But the seriousness in Keith’s expression is a sure-fire sign that sex is the farthest thing from his mind.
“Hey.” I smile mischievously and run a hand across his firm upper thigh. “Looking mighty fine in those ass-hugging jeans. Want some company?”
He brushes his lips over mine for a soft kiss. “I always want your company, sugar.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a package of something. I can’t really tell what. He bends down and kisses me again, this time slowly, deeply, his free hand against the nape of my neck and pulling me against his mouth, his eyes dark and brown, his breath accelerated.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” I pull back, almost certain something has upset him.
“I’m better than okay.” He holds out the small package again with his eyes holding mine.
“Basil seeds? What are those for?” Are you going to start an herb garden or take up Italian cooking?”
“Something like that,” he answers warily while he hands me the package that says Beginner Basil Seeds across the top. “Open them.”
I begin opening the package that appears to have been opened before. When I get the paper pulled back, I don’t notice it at first, but then I shift the seeds to the side, and my breath catches in my throat, my eyes instantly flooding with tears.
Spellbound, I can’t speak. My throat is too tight, and I have no idea how to form words, much less sentences. He takes the seed package and reaches inside for the ring then drops to one knee. I’m instantly sucking in a breath, my pulse racing in my ears. It’s a beautiful platinum band with a shiny emerald-cut diamond that has to be two carats, maybe more. More tears build in my eyes as my hand flies to my mouth. Keith Ryker, the man of my dreams, the boy I used to fantasize about marrying, is going to propose to me. I don’t know what to do or what to say. I’m at a complete loss for conversation.
With the brilliant diamond glistening like the sun’s rays on the ocean in front of him, he stares up at me with his eyes the color of roasted chestnuts and an expression I’ll never forget. “Jennifer Boylan, I knew I loved you the day you waltzed into my life nearly fifteen years ago. I fucked up, baby. In ev
ery way a man can. And chances are, I’ll fuck up a lot more. But I love you. I love you hard. And I’ll continue to love you until my dying breath. And I don’t care who the sperm donor is. These babies,” he says, “were made from love, and I’m here to ask not only for your hand in marriage but for a chance to be a father to these two new lives. I will love their mother unconditionally and love them with everything I have and everything that I am. I will give them all that I can and raise them to be the best that they can be. Will you please do me the honor of living with me on what you once called my piece of heaven on earth? Will you marry me, angel?”
A deep sob catches in my throat, but at the same time, I start giggling. Just like a silly little love-struck schoolgirl. I drop to my knees in front of him and place my hands on either side of his cheeks. “Of course, I’ll marry you. How on earth could I ever say no to a man who proposed with a ring hidden inside basil seeds?”
With that, he takes my hand and slides the ring onto my finger just as I see what appears to be a deer in my peripheral vision. “Christ, woman. I had this all planned out. I was going to tell you I’d scoped off this area right here for the garden that you’ve always wanted. I had a long romantic spiel planned out, but once I saw you walking up, I forgot every damn word of it. You absolutely blow me away with your beauty. Every day. Every minute. I just love you so fucking much. And I’ll do everything in my power to give you all the things you’ve ever wanted and make you the happiest you can possibly be.”
“Oh my God.” I look up and recognize the big, white heart-shaped spot on the side of the doe’s face. “Look who came to watch you propose. It’s Minnie Pearl.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
3-1/2 Years Later
Jen
Unbreakable … Never-ending.
It’s what we are. What we’ve always been. What we’ll always be.
The spring morning is ideal for an outdoor party in every sense. Upper seventies, clear blue skies, trees covered with new buds, and a pleasant breeze blowing through the air.
Call Me Sugar Page 20