Before Daylight

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  Ballet was done with her, and she didn’t know how to say the words yet.

  “It’s okay.” He kissed her forehead. “It will be okay.”

  She subverted his expectations yet again when she pulled him down to her mouth.

  This time, she was claiming him. He stayed still, let her explore his mouth, bite his lips. Sweep her tongue in search of his. She whimpered and wrapped her legs around his waist. He palmed her ass over the leggings and leotard she wore. He wanted to be pressing his fingers into that firm skin, and must have made a frustrated noise.

  His cock was so full from being this close to her. Her eyes, her smell, the ways she rocked her center against his cock in perfect rhythm, fucking him through his clothes.

  When she ran her greedy lips across his cheek, making his beard hairs stand up straight, he opened his mouth, somehow knowing she needed him to talk. To say things so filthy that she could completely leave her body. “Is this what you need baby? You need to ride my cock?”

  She bit his ear in response.

  “You’re wild today, aren’t you?” He pulled her thigh off his waist, needing her clothes the fuck off. “I’ll never forget the feel of you sliding up and down my cock so hard your ass bounced.”

  He pulled off her leggings, ending up in a kneeling position in front of her. He couldn’t help but take the fabric covering her pussy in between his teeth. Fuck. She smelled so ready for him. He didn’t bother to take the leggings completely off. She wasn’t going to have to move, and by the time he was done eating her, she’d barely be able to walk.

  He picked her up. “You could wait until I took my shoes off.” Her breathy voice made his cock chafe against his boxers and jeans. She needed this as much as he did. It was all too much for her—thinking about the thing her life was about disappearing. Falling without a safety net, just waiting to hit the ground.

  But she didn’t realize that he was on the ground, that he’d hit rock bottom long ago, and that he was right there to catch her.

  “I don’t need to wait until your damned shoes are off.” He was grateful that she had a private dressing room and a couch. He needed to lay her out and to give her the kind of licking she needed. He dropped her on the couch and ran his fingers over her seam. Her leotard was all wet, and he could almost taste her on his mouth. “And you don’t need to dance. Or to move right now.”

  “I don’t?” He kissed her half-smiling mouth, and rubbed his index finger against where her nipples stood out against fabric. That must have felt good, because she arched her back and thrusted her hips at him. “Did you lock the door?”

  “You shouldn’t be thinking about who might walk in on us, gorgeous.” He got up and flipped the latch, even though he said, “It doesn’t matter that they can’t get in. They’re about to hear you screaming.”

  He made it back to her in two steps and dropped to his knees. Her leggings kept her from getting her legs too far apart, but he ran his hands up her thighs, worshiping the soft skin and the supple muscles there.

  When he looked up at her, her gaze was glazed over and her chest moved up and down so fast she might have been performing. No, when she was performing, she made everything look effortless. It was only after that she showed the strain. What she was feeling right now wasn’t strain. It was lust, for him.

  They might be stuck in this marriage a little longer than she’d wanted to be, but he would never get enough of her. And he would make sure that it was worth her while.

  He pulled the thin straps of her leotard over her shoulders. When her breasts popped out from the built-in bra, he paused and kneaded them until she gasped. “Hurry up.”

  “Do you have to get back to rehearsing?” He stilled his hands.

  She blinked as though she’d forgotten where she was for a moment. “N—no. We’re done for the day.”

  “Then, I’m going to take my fucking time.” He bent and pulled one nipple into his mouth. Her eyes closed, and she moaned. Her entire body got involved when he gave her pleasure, and he fucking loved that. She was so fucking pretty straining up towards him. He must have done something good in the life before this one. His misspent youth was clearly not what had earned him this woman.

  When the sounds she made got anxious and needy, he finished pulling down her leotard. She lifted her hips eagerly, so he could get it over her ass and all the way down. Somehow, he got it off one leg and tangled with her leggings.

  He was only kind of kinky, but there was something deeply satisfying about having her all spread out in front of him, almost naked, but bound. She looked at him with a hungry gaze, and he felt like he was going to come in his jeans. He didn’t even care. He just wanted to make her happy. Just wanted to make her body sing. Wanted to make her forget all her troubles and drown in the lustful dance they were in together.

  “Touch your nipples.” When she hesitated, he said, “I know that gets you hot enough to come all on its own, and I want to see it.”

  “You’re not going to—” She snaked her hand down her belly, and he caught it with his.

  “I’m going to when I’m good and ready, and when you’re good and ready.” He moved her hand to her breast, and she put the other one where he wanted it. “That’s a good girl.”

  “You’re a fucking tease.”

  “You want to talk about a tease?” She nodded. “Close your eyes. That first night we went out to dinner, you knew I was into you, yet you treated me like I was an inconvenience.” He ran one finger against the seam where her thigh met her pussy. She shivered and grasped her nipples. “Good girl. I’d never felt like that, like I had a hill to climb when it came to a woman. Treating me like that after you came on to me was more than I could stand.”

  He let himself lower his head to where he wanted to be—always—for one taste before he continued. “Then, you flirted with that fucking waiter.”

  “I can talk to who I want. Just. Friendly.”

  Her head was thrown back then, and she was close. Simply from the sound of his voice and her touching her nipples. She jumped when he licked between her thumb and forefinger. “Of course you can, but you didn’t even want to look at me.”

  She looked at him then with such lust. “Please.”

  He rubbed her opening with his thumb, brought that thumb up to her clit and rubbed. The fact that he’d gotten her that close with just talking, bare ghosts of touches had him almost as close to coming as she was. “Shhh. Good girl.” She narrowed her gaze when he said that, and he knew she’d take her revenge.

  He smiled at her, wanting to commit the giddy, desirous, vengeful look on her face like a treasured photograph. Then he dipped his head into her lap to take his fill.

  * * * *

  Charlie was determined to give her as many reasons to hate him as he could. Ordering her around instead of fucking her. Making her beg for his mouth.

  God, God, God. His mouth.

  She broke almost immediately when he touched his tongue to her clit. It was painful and pleasurable, and all too much. Shaking and arching from the sparks of everything he made with his lips and tongue. She moved her hands from her tortured nipples, and grabbed at his hair.

  “Stop. Don’t stop.” She pulled and he finally looked up at her.

  “Enough?”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. Now that he wasn’t attempting to lobotomize her with an orgasm, she wanted him inside her, over her. And this time, she wanted him face-to-face.

  But even more than that, she wanted him in her mouth. She hadn’t gotten that last night. “Stand up.”

  He got up, and she scooted to the edge of the couch, where she was eye level with his cock. She was tempted to tease him in the same way that he’d teased her. And now that they had time together, she was going to make him jack off in front of her some time.

  She undid his belt, and pushed his jeans and boxers down h
is thighs. Instead of making him wait, she took him in her mouth, as deep as she could, wrenching sounds from him that resonated inside her to her bones. Her hair was all up in a bun, so he couldn’t wrap it around his fist the way he had the night before when he’d been riding her from behind.

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  She wanted to do this. Needed to make him as crazy and helpless as he’d made her. Tasting him, feeling this close to him kept her body ready for him, but she didn’t store condoms in her dressing room and didn’t know if he carried them around.

  Fuckboy Charlie would have had condoms. Her husband, Charlie, on the other hand might not.

  He cupped the side of her head as she sucked him in and jacked him off. When he’d been on his knees for her, she’d forgotten all the confusing feelings she was having about her future. The only thing that remained were her confusing feelings about him.

  Sucking him off made even those feelings go away. Her only objective was to make him feel good, to wring helpless declarations, curses from his filthy mouth.

  “Fuck, so good, gorgeous.” She didn’t look up at him, but felt his gaze on her face all the same. Every time she pulled off of him, she sucked in her cheeks. “Suck it like a good girl.”

  A prickle of anger hit her when he called her a good girl. She wasn’t that, and she let him know it when she loosened her lips and ran her teeth across his cock.

  “Fuuuuck.” He gripped her jaw then, and she looked up at his face, expecting to see him pissed off. Instead, he was smiling. “You don’t like it when I call you a good girl?”

  She pulled back, and shook her head.

  “What do you want me to call you then when you make pretty noises that almost make me come in my pants?”

  She didn’t answer, just licked the darkened head of his cock.

  “You want to suck it and then not have me tell you how good you are?”

  Using her hands, she took him deeper. She didn’t know what to say to him. Although she wanted him to keep talking, dirty talk was not her strong suit.

  He pulled his cock out of her mouth. “No more until you tell me what you want.”

  “You don’t want a blow job? Fine.” She would have gotten up, but his hands on her shoulders held her down.

  “I want a blow job, but I want you to talk to me even more.”

  She swallowed, her throat suddenly hoarse. “I want to suck your cock.”

  “But you don’t want me to call you a good girl?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  She wasn’t going to tell him that being a good girl never got her anywhere. She’d become a principal dancer because she was a hard-ass bitch, impervious to pain. And having Charlie see any of her softness, any of her dark insides was way too much. She didn’t want him to call her a “good girl” because it felt so good when he did it.

  “Call me whatever you want.”

  He tapped his cock against her lips and she opened her mouth. “You’re going to tell me why eventually.” She took him in, and snaked one hand between his thighs to touch his balls. She was probably imagining the emotion in his voice when he said, “Suck it, wife.”

  Chapter 10

  It had been four years, three months, and six days since Charlie had spoken to his father over the phone. When he went to visit his brother and sister-in-law at Northwestern Memorial Hospital the day his youngest nephew was born two-and-a-half years ago, the schedules had gotten messed up, and he’d come face-to-face with his father.

  Joseph Laughlin had nodded his head, turned, and walked out of the waiting room. Charlie’s mother patted his arm, but then hurried after her husband. The years since seeing his father hadn’t faded the ache in his chest that he felt every time he thought of his family.

  Picking up the phone to tell his father he was married made him realize why he’d been yearning to settle down over the past couple of years. He’d thought it had been because he’d gotten to hold his nephew. But really, it was about wanting to feel like he belonged to someone.

  And it wasn’t like what he’d done was that bad. He’d gone out on his own, and done some sleazy shit. It was the fact that he’d done it publically, and it reflected poorly on his family. The Laughlin family name was everything to Joe-the-third.

  For a hundred years, the Laughlins had owned the most respected newspaper in the Midwest. And, under his father’s leadership, the family business had grown to include newspapers and local television stations all over the country. Joe had been able to grow in a business that most people were failing at.

  Charlie’s hands shook as he entered his father’s direct office line. He would be a man and not send news of his wedding in an email to his whole family, which was the only way he’d communicated with his father for those four years, three months, and six days.

  His father picked up on the third ring. “What do you want?”

  He would take offense, but that was the only way his dad had ever answered the phone. Even when they were little kids. “I wanted to tell you that I got married.”

  Joe appreciated communications being right to the point.

  “Is she a porn star or a centerfold?”

  That would have been a safe assumption when he was in his early twenties. Several of the girls on the The Single Guy had gone on to illustrious careers in adult entertainment. And with the benefit of years, Charlie had often wondered if he’d altered their lives in a bad way, but he tried to shake it off. Coming from a place of shame was not the right way to approach his father.

  “Neither. She’s a dancer.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Charlie could see his dad shaking his head and patting himself down for a cigarette—a habit he’d given up when his sons were still small—from a thousand miles away. “You married a stripper?”

  “Not a stripper. A principal dancer with the Miami City Ballet.” His father was silent. “Laura Delgado.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “A few months ago.”

  “And you’re just calling me now?” Joe was probably standing now, looking out the window of his office on the deep-brown colored Chicago River. “Your mother is going to kill me when I have to tell her.”

  “You don’t have to tell her. I’ll call her myself.”

  “It’s going to break her heart that she wasn’t at the wedding.”

  “It wasn’t big. Just me and her.”

  “How’d you convince her to do it?” Charlie winced. He had enough shit boiling in his head about why Laura shouldn’t want to be with him. He didn’t need his baggage with his dad making this any harder.

  “I got her drunk.” He went with the truth, and exactly what his father would expect. “And, miraculously, she wants to keep me.” For now.

  “I just wanted to tell you because there’s going to be a story in a magazine.”

  “One of my magazines?”

  “Nope. Ocean Drive.”

  The phone clicked, and he was almost relieved. He wouldn’t have to talk to his father for at least three more years.

  * * * *

  Lola looked smug, and Carla’s shock was palpable. This wasn’t nearly as difficult as telling her parents had been, but telling Carla that she had already been married to Charlie when she was trying to set her up with him was awkward to say the least.

  Alana and Maya, her oldest cousin and cousin-in-law were in the kitchen getting wine. She’d only met Maya at the wedding—and judging from the short period of time she’d spent with the free-spirited painter—her cousin-in-law was going to think this was funny.

  Alana, she wasn’t as close to. Her oldest cousin had always been kind of intimidating. Smart, serious, worldly. Now that she was married to a guy she’d had a wild, New Year’s Eve one-night stand with, she seemed to be a lot more fun.

  “You married Charlie
?” Carla’s voice was more of a shriek.

  “Mija, that’s what she said.” Grandma Lola with the helpful narrative.

  “At my wedding?”

  Laura still felt guilty about that. “I know it’s like one of those memes on the Internet that had everyone up in arms about another person’s wedding. It’s gauche to steal focus. I’m sorry.”

  Carla stood up and moved to the couch next to her. “You don’t need to apologize.”

  “It happened after you and Jonah made your exit. On the beach, I think. It was sort of wedding adjacent.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “You should be.”

  Wait a second. ‘You think’ it happened on the beach.” Alana and Maya had four bottles of wine in between the two of them and glasses for everyone.

  Laura shouldn’t even be thinking about drinking any. She had just a few weeks of rehearsal left, and a very skimpy red costume to look magnificent in.

  “I was a little drunk.”

  Carla squinted her eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drunk.”

  “I was injured and on a tropical island.”

  “And you fell in love at first sight.” Lola was wrong, of course. Lust maybe. And she liked Charlie, which was growing to be a problem. She found herself wanting to see him at least once a day.

  “Love at first sight is not a thing.”

  Her grandmother stood up. “Of course it is, look at this one.” She gesticulated at Alana with her full wineglass, almost spilling. “And Carlita.”

  “It was not love at first sight. I thought he was an asshole.” Carla whispered in her ear. “I only considered him more than a weekend thing after my dad gave him a black eye.”

  “And you were knocked up.” Maya smirked over the rim of her glass. “I believe in love at first sight.”

  “You do?” It seemed surprising. Her cousin Javi’s woman seemed to be about as cynical as Laura. She thought that was why they’d hit it off.

  “Of course I do.” Maya shrugged. “Why else do you think I acted like a lunatic about Javi for five years?”