by Claire Adams
"Believe me; I know that, Everett. This guy is very, very smart, sadly, and he'll be looking for any way he can to get to me."
"Well, I'm fairly intelligent as well, and with you and Jimmy on this as well, we'll outsmart this jerk, I guarantee it."
"I hope so," I sighed. "I really do."
"We will," he said, giving me a quick and reassuring squeeze. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yeah."
"Jimmy and I talked, and we think it's best that you—"
"Sneak in and out of the house, I know, I know," I said, completing the sentence.
"Okay, good. My truck is just in front of the garage. If you go around the back of the garage, you can get to the passenger's side without being seen from the street."
"Ugh, it's just so inconvenient and annoying," I said, rolling my eyes. “I can’t believe this asshole is still controlling my life like this.”
"I know. But we have to be cautious. I'll go start up the truck. When you hear the motor running, you can come out and go around the back of the garage. Remember to lock the door, okay?"
"Okay."
I waited for him to start the truck, and then I did as he instructed. As I got in, he turned and spoke to me.
"Okay, now you need to keep your head down until we're at least a few blocks away. If Simon is hiding out somewhere around here or has set up a few cameras, we don't want him seeing that there's anyone else in the truck. Soon he's gonna figure out that you're no longer staying at your house, and he's gonna start digging. But until then, we have to be secretive."
"Yes, I know," I said, shaking my head. Still, I did as he said and ducked down so that I couldn't be seen from outside the truck.
After we had driven a few blocks, I finally got up and sat normally, feeling relieved. I couldn't believe this was happening. How the hell had Simon found me after everything I'd done to keep my location and identity secret? I had thought that changing my name, moving and cutting off all ties from my old life would have been enough to stop him – but that didn’t seem to be the case. I honestly had no idea how we would go about stopping him, short of putting him in jail. But even if the cops did catch him, I wasn't sure how it could be proven that he had been the one who had broken into my daycare. The cops had combed the scene, and there were no fingerprints or other evidence that could link him to the crime. I was starting to feel hopeless about this; it was like living with a type of cancer that couldn't be treated. No matter what I did, I just couldn't live a normal life. It seemed like I would forever be doomed to an existence of hiding and running.
The thought was almost too crushing and depressing to handle. I struggled not to have a mental breakdown right there next to Everett in his truck – but somehow I managed to hold myself together.
We reached the hospital, and after Everett had parked the truck, we headed inside and went straight to Jane's room. She was in bed and didn't look so good, but at least she was awake. When she saw us, a huge smile spread across her cute little face.
"Daddy! Vivienne!" she cried.
Tears welled in his eyes as he looked at his little girl, and a surge of emotion crashed through me. I fought back the urge to tear up myself. He rushed over to her and picked her up carefully, cradling her in his arms.
"Hey, my little sweet pea," he said, his voice choked with emotion. "How are you feeling? Daddy has missed you so much, so very, very much."
"I'm still not feeling good, Daddy. I'm real hot. But then sometimes I'm real cold, too. My head hurts. And my tummy hurts. My tummy hurts real bad. I don't want to eat because it makes my tummy hurt more."
"I'm so sorry, my little angel," he said hoarsely. "But you're gonna feel better really soon, alright? I promise you that. The doctors are working hard to make sure you feel better."
"I don't like staying here, Daddy. I want to go home."
"I'm sorry, sweet pea, but you can't. You have to stay here because otherwise, the doctors can't make you better."
"But ... can't the doctors come to our house? Can't I stay there, and they come see me?" her little voice trembled.
"I'm sorry, sweet pea, but you have to stay here. The doctors can't come to our house."
We sat and talked with Jane for another half hour or so until a doctor came in.
"We're going to give her some sedatives now," he said gently. "She needs a lot of rest. This should help her rest for the entire night."
"Alright," Everett sighed. “I’ll just wait here until she falls asleep.”
He kissed her on the forehead and squeezed Jane’s hand.
Thirty minutes later, she was sleeping peacefully.
"I'm so sorry, Everett," I said. "It must hurt terribly to see her like that."
"Like no one would believe," he said. "But at least she's getting better. I just pray that the speed of her recovery gets a little faster. I don't want her here by herself for a moment longer than she needs to be."
"I understand, and I hope that she gets out soon, too."
"Let's go," he said with a sigh. "I don't know about you, but I'm pretty damn tired. Let's just get some takeout and veg out in front of the TV for a while."
"We can do that."
***
We were curled up together on the sofa, watching the final credits of The Big Lebowski roll. Both of us had laughed a lot during the movie, and it had certainly helped us each to get our minds off the things that were worrying us.
"Thanks for a nice evening," I said to Everett, cuddling to him.
He kissed me softly and hugged me closer.
"Thank you for being there for me. I'm glad you're here."
I looked up to find a deep, intense passion smoldering behind his stare, and a stirring bubbled inside me. Everything in me wanted him. By the way he was looking back at me, he was feeling it, too. Our lips met and parted, and soon a voracious hunger took over. After unbuttoning and opening my blouse as we kissed, he slipped his strong hands deftly under my shirt, reaching for my breasts. I reached behind my back with eager fingers and unclipped my bra, allowing him access, and then I dropped my shirt from my shoulders.
With my breasts free, he cupped each once gently in his sizeable hands and started massaging them, rubbing his thumbs gently over my nipples, which soon began to stiffen and swell with joyous arousal.
I, meanwhile, unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off of him as his tongue continued to dance with eager enthusiasm in my mouth. I traced my fingers flirtatiously over his hulking muscles, experiencing each ridge and peak and valley of his hard, granite-like physique with my fingertips. At my light, teasing touch, he shuddered with pleasure and increased the pressure with which he was caressing my breasts.
My nipples were now swollen with arousal, full and stiff with pleasure. I began to move my hand down, tracing the contours of his abdomen. As I reached the top of his jeans, I started to unbutton them.
He pulled his mouth away from mine and began nuzzling my neck and throat, teasing me with sharp little nips and gently pressing his teeth against my flesh. His breathing was heavy, and I could almost hear his heart hammering in his chest. I knew that when I unleashed his manhood, it would be fully aroused and ready for action.
With fingers moving slowly with a teasing eagerness, I unzipped his jeans and positioned myself for what I wanted to do next. Then, with one swift yank, I pulled them down around his knees. His cock sprang eagerly out, directed skyward with the swollen intensity of arousal. I wrapped my fingers appreciatively around its substantial girth and began rubbing my hand up and down its equally generous length.
He shuddered and gasped with pleasure. His hands slid from my breasts and caressed down my sides as his mouth left trails of heated kisses in their wake until he was swiftly unbuttoning my jeans. Pushing them down my thighs, he began to kiss and nibble, moving closer and closer to my center which was growing wet and swollen with hungry excitement beneath his touch.
He slid my panties down, exposing me completely. A ravenous hunger for him exploded i
n me, and I was beginning to lose every ounce of self-control I possessed. I wanted him so badly, so madly at that moment, my blood was near boiling, and my heart pounded with the furious thumping of a jackhammer inside my chest. He began to edge his eager mouth toward the meeting of my thighs, but instead, I stopped him.
"No," I whispered.
"You don't want to do this?" he asked, confused.
"It's not that," I purred, "it's that I want you – no, I need you – inside me, right now. I can't wait any longer."
He kissed me deeply, penetrating my mouth with his hot, keen tongue, and scooped me up in his arms. He swiftly made his way to the bedroom and gently laid me down on the bed as he positioned himself on top of me. I parted my legs to allow him access and helped guide his steel-hard cock into me, inch by glorious inch until it filled me. We both let out long, intense gasps of pleasure as he filled me and began thrusting, slowly at first, but increasing the tempo and pressure with every successive stroke. He slipped his hands through mine, and we held hands tightly as our love-making became more and more intense.
With every powerful thrust, a wave of bliss ripped through me, pulsing and shooting from my center to every part of my being. I could feel an orgasm building with force inside me.
Everett moaned and shuddered with pleasure, sweat glistening on his hard muscles as he began to thrust with an almost animalistic fervor, stoking the fires of my orgasm. Every stroke was coming fast and hard, and each one blasted an even more intense wave of pleasure through me than the previous one. My orgasm was imminent, and with unbridled intensity, it surged through every cell of my body. I cried out with pleasure as it ripped through me, sending sheer bliss through every inch of me, and making me feel so closely connected to Everett that it was if I had become part of him.
He slowed his rhythm and allowed me to catch my breath, but remained inside me.
"Holy hell, that felt so good. That was so intense..." I mumbled between breaths.
He grinned, sweat glistening on his handsome face.
"I hope you're ready for more," he said. "Because I'm far from done. In fact, I'm only just getting started..."
And then, still tingling from the waves of the first orgasm, he began to thrust again, and I soon felt the stirrings of yet another one coming on.
Chapter Twenty
Everett
I woke up with Vivienne sleeping peacefully in my arms and realized that it had been a very, very long time since I had woken up like this. I had slept peacefully through the night, having been able to quit worrying, even if only temporarily, about both Jane and the saga at school. I leaned over, trying not to wake her, and looked at my clock; it was seven in the morning, far later than I usually stayed in bed. Still, there was no doubt I needed a bit of a sleep-in after all the stress of everything that had happened, and everything that was still going on. It was still rather early, so I tried to be quiet.
Despite how careful I'd been in moving, Vivienne started to stir. She opened her eyes and smiled, and then leaned in and squeezed me tightly. I hugged her back, and we simply lay like that for a while, with the morning sunlight coming in bright golden shafts through the gaps in the drapes.
Eventually, we disengaged, and I smiled at her when her eyes finally fluttered open.
"Morning, beautiful," I said. "How'd you sleep?"
"Outstanding," she muttered lazily.
"That was quite a night."
"Yes, it was," she replied with a flirty grin. "I haven't had a night like that in... maybe ever."
"I haven't either; I really needed it."
"I'd venture to say that makes two of us," she said.
“Give me a minute to call the hospital and see how Jane is doing, then I’ll be right back. After a quick call and an assurance from the nurses that Jane was doing okay and still asleep, I turned my attention back to the woman in my bed.
"Let's throw on some music," I said. "I always like to listen to music in the morning."
"Sure thing."
I went over to my CD collection, which I browsed through for a while. I grinned as I spotted a record that I thought would be ideal.
"Hey, I'm gonna play a song for you," I said to her, smiling cheekily.
"Alright," she replied, smiling curiously.
I took the CD out of its case and popped it into the stereo, and then skipped to the track I wanted. I hit “play” and started nodding my head as the opening guitar riff started coming out of the speakers.
"Recognize it?" I asked as Alice Cooper's “Poison” started playing.
"Yeah... I know it very well," she said, and a strange look came over her face – a look I hadn't been expecting at all. It was like a kind of veiled sadness. It seemed, for whatever reason, that this song was bringing back some bad memories.
"I can change it if you don't like it," I said cautiously. "I just thought that everyone liked this song."
"No, no, it's a great song," she said. "It's just that it reminds me of my dad."
"Oh, I see," I said. "I'm sorry, I didn't…"
"No, how could you have known? No, look, let's listen to this and enjoy it. It brings back good memories of him, and I'm really lucky to have had such a great dad."
"How uh, how long has he been gone?" I asked, sitting down on the bed next to her and wrapping a sympathetic arm around her.
"It's been around four years now. He had an aneurysm; it was quick and painless for him, thankfully. I didn't have to see him suffer or slowly deteriorate and waste away or anything so I guess I should be grateful for that."
"I suppose out of all the ways, that's a pretty good way to go, as long as it doesn't happen when you're young."
"He was 67 when it happened."
"It's a decent age," I remarked. "Many don't make it that far."
"Yeah. Well, he was my only parent growing up. My mom died in a car accident when I was two, so I don't remember her at all."
"And he never remarried?" I asked.
"No, never. Stayed single for the rest of his life. He truly loved my mother; said no other woman could possibly take her place."
"He sounds like a really great guy," I remarked.
"Believe me, he was. And all this 70’s and 80’s rock and metal stuff, that was totally his thing. I grew up with that music playing in the house all the time."
I chuckled. "There are definitely worse soundtracks to grow up with."
She laughed, and it was good to see a smile on her face.
"There sure are. You know, he was an exceptionally talented guitarist."
"Was he, huh?"
"Oh, he was, believe me. We had a room in the house that was his, well I guess these days they'd call it a 'man cave.' But yeah, he had this big Marshall stack amplifier in there, a Gibson Les Paul, and a huge rack of effects pedals. He would sometimes sit in there for hours on end, just playing. And he could play all of the well-known guitar solos note for note, seriously."
"Wow. I was gonna say that I can play a little, but that's just strumming chords. It'd take me years to learn to play even a simple solo. Did he play in a band?"
"He did when he was young, but after my mom died and he had to take care of me by himself, he just didn't have the time for it anymore."
"You know, I was raised by a single parent too," I said.
"Really?"
"Yeah, except in my case, it was by my mom."
"And did you have any siblings?" she asked.
"A younger brother and a younger sister. You?"
"No, I'm an only child. So, what happened to your dad, if you don't mind me asking?"
I felt a ripple of darkness rush through me as I thought about him.
"He was a deadbeat. A drunk. He used to beat my mom up a lot. He would get wasted and disappear for days. One day, when I was eight, he got really trashed and, as he always did, he got in his car and drove off. And that was the last we ever saw of him."
I watched a veil of shock consume her beautiful face.
"Oh, my
... That's awful," she remarked and hugged me tightly. "It must have been difficult for you."
"To be honest, it was a relief for us kids. He used to smack us around, too, and with him gone, there was no more screaming and fighting and breaking things. His leaving hit my mother hard, though; for all his abuse, I think she really loved the guy. She fell into a bit of a funk after he left, and as young as I was, I had to step up and be the man of the house. I had to grow up quickly; I was taking care of my mother and my younger siblings. I got my first job when I was nine – mowing neighbor's lawns and washing their cars after school. It also motivated me to work really hard in school, because somehow, even at such a young age, I knew I would need to get good grades to get into a decent career, in case I would need to just go on supporting my mom indefinitely. I've been working hard since then."
"Well, motivated a very admirable trait."
I smiled. "Thank you. I appreciate that."
"And how's your mom now?"
"Oh, she recovered after a few years, so I did get to have a somewhat normal high school life. But I was already set in my ways by then. She met a much nicer guy and eventually remarried. But I had already gone off to college by the time that happened."
I considered telling her about my career in the Navy right after finishing college – but I decided to save that for another time.
"Well, I'm happy to hear that things worked out in the end," she said.
"I am, too. And what's more, I'm really happy that all the choices I've made have led me right to this moment ... Right here, right now."
I kissed her slowly, deeply, and passionately, and we were both left gasping for breath and buzzing with pleasure at the end of it.
"Yep, I definitely picked the right neighborhood when I decided to move in across the street from you," I remarked with a smile.
"And I'm very, very happy that you did," she said. "Best neighbor I've ever had!" she teased.
"Well, I do go above and beyond when it comes to, how shall I say... neighborly courtesy?"