Their Secret

by Cassandra Dee

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” remarked Stone. “Plus, there’s this,” he said, fingers flying over a remote.

  And I watched, stunned, as the drapes drew back on motorized wheels to reveal floor to ceiling windows, showing off the manicured grounds behind the house as well as the infinity pool, the blue water glowing with interior lights, almost too beautiful to swim in.

  But Stone was having none of it.

  “Come on,” he said, opening the patio door and pulling me outside. “We might as well sit by the pool as we chat, it’s gorgeous and honey, you look delectable in that swimsuit,” he remarked, throwing another grin my way.

  I flushed.

  “We’re talking business,” I admonished, trying to keep things kosher. “Strictly business,” I reminded.

  And the big man shot me a broad smile before sitting down on a lounger, gesturing for me to do the same.

  “Of course,” he said, eyebrow quirked. “I wouldn’t think otherwise. Now what did you want to talk about?” he said innocently.

  And I exhaled with impatience.

  “Stone,” I said, exasperated suddenly. “Let’s start with the obvious. Where have you been? Why did you disappear without a word? Especially after- after,” and here I choked, “after you took my virginity?”

  The big man was serious then, his blue eyes darkening into a stormy grey, looking at me with feeling, with fervor.

  “Honey,” he said quietly. “I wanted to do what was best for us and leaving was best,” he stated. “I know it was sudden, that I gave you no advance warning but trust me, the less contact we had, the better.”

  I shook my head, disagreeing.

  “Whatever your reasons, they couldn’t have justified leaving me like that,” I said slowly. “Who does that? Who takes a girl’s virginity and then beats feet out of town?”

  Stone sighed.

  “I know this is going to be tough to understand, but I was doing it for you, Evie,” he said gently. “When you came over for dinner, suddenly I realized we’d entered new territory and the stakes were high. Real high.”

  I still didn’t get it.

  “Like they weren’t high before?” I asked, shaking my head. “I mean, we were fucking on an air mattress in an empty classroom, if we’d been caught, it would have been disaster for your career.”

  And Stone nodded slowly.

  “That’s true, but I wasn’t thinking about my career,” he chose his words carefully. “I was thinking about my heart.”

  Suddenly my pulse was pounding, the beating in my chest so thunderous my hearing was muffled, the world spinning on its axis.

  And Stone turned to me, his blue eyes full of feeling.

  “Baby,” he said quietly. “When you came over for dinner I realized this wasn’t some lunchtime fuck, this wasn’t some dalliance that I was going to shrug off with no emotions. You were so amazing, so gorgeous, so perfect, I wanted to bury myself in you, keep you with me, make you mine, and that shook me to my core. It shouldn’t have, but it did.”

  I was so overwhelmed by his words that I just stared at him with wide eyes. I was perfect? Gorgeous? Stone wanted to make me his? Oh god, it was beyond my wildest dreams, I could hardly believe my ears. I’d thought Stone was going to offer some lame excuses like “I was really busy” or even “my grandmother died,” but instead he was declaring himself. Stone Phillips was speaking words that I’d never heard a man say before and my heart jumped into my mouth.

  But something still didn’t jive and I was cautious after a year apart.

  “Stone,” I said slowly, “if I meant all that to you, then your actions make even less sense. If that was true, that I should have been the first person you told when you left town, the first person you reached out to. Why would you ghost someone you loved?”

  And finally the words were said, they were out in the open. I half-expected Stone to deny that he loved me, that that was an overstatement, but the big man didn’t fight it. He just nodded soberly, blue eyes clear, acknowledging the truth, the rightness of my words.

  “I know honey,” he said quietly. “It makes no sense, but trust me, I did it for you,” he said softly.

  “For me?” I repeated, dumbfounded, my cheeks coloring. “Don’t turn this around,” I warned. “There was nothing worse than realizing you’d left town without a word. Do you know how depressed I was, how miserable, how I’ve been walking around in a fog for an entire year?”

  And the big man reached a hand out, taking my small palm in his, his fingers square and warm around mine.

  “Honey, there’s not a day that I don’t think about it,” he said roughly, emotion filling his voice. “But the problem is that you’re a terrible liar. Every emotion, every feeling can be read on your face, you’re an open book baby and if someone asked you, you’d give everything away.”

  “So what?” I asked, still confused, shaking my head. “Why would that matter?”

  “Because you’re a young girl, a virgin even. If someone discovered us, it was better if you’d been used and then deserted. It was better if you knew nothing about me or where I was.”

  “So you were doing it to save your own ass?” I asked slowly. “You didn’t want to be found?”

  And Stone shook his head exasperatedly.

  “No honey, that’s not what I’m saying at all. They can find me all they want, I don’t give two shits about that. It’s you. You can’t tell a lie, Evie, it’s impossible for you. And if someone found out about us and reported it to the police, I wanted you to be honest and say, ‘I was used and abused by Stone Phillips and I have no idea where that fucker is now.’ I didn’t want you to be pulled deeper into the web, a clean break was best.”

  I nodded a little now. It was starting to make more sense.

  “So if someone caught us, you wanted me to tell the truth – that you’d left me high and dry?” I said slowly.

  “Exactly,” he confirmed, his blue eyes boring into mine. “I wanted you to tell the truth even though it was painful because we were swimming in dangerous waters baby. Think about what we were doing. We’d gone from fucking in a classroom to full-on dating, me cooking you dinner, making love to you, worshipping your beautiful body. This was no fling, this was no passing infatuation. Honey, we were doing couple things, acting like a couple and if people found out, everything would be ruined.”

  “Does it make more sense now?” he asked gently. “It was better to cut off all contact so that if we were discovered, you could say honestly that you had no idea what happened. It was tough, but simpler this way.”

  I shook my head, somewhat confused still. I couldn’t accept it because there were so many what-ifs and maybes, all these different branches on the decision tree, gnarled and loopy. So I shook my head, biting my lip, saving it for later. My brain cells were so fried at the moment that I just wanted to keep going, figure out more.

  “So what’s different now?” I asked slowly. “Why are you back?”

  And Stone smiled at me then, gentle, caring, blue eyes filled with emotion.

  “Why do you think?” he rumbled low in his throat, a finger trailing down my cheek.

  I paused for a moment, trying to ignore the shivers running down my spine.

  “Well I’m clearly not a high school student anymore, and you’re not my teacher,” I said slowly. “But you’re still way older than me.”

  “Eight years,” he interrupted.

  “Eight years,” I repeated, nodding slowly. “Let me guess, it’s different because I’m in college now?”

  And Stone shot me a wry grin.

  “It’s more than that. Everything’s different baby,” he said pointedly. “You don’t live at home anymore, you’re not a little girl under the watchful eyes of your parents, you’re not a dependent anymore. You’re a single woman making your own way in the world, paying for your own life. And yeah, you’re eighteen, a college student so it’s not so freaky to be dating someone older. Especially since I’m not your teacher any
more.”

  “Right, you’re not my biology teacher anymore,” I said slowly. “So what are you?”

  And Stone was silent for a moment.

  “What do you want me to be?” he asked softly, seriously, his eyes eating me up, swallowing me whole.

  “I- I don’t know,” I said honestly, resisting the pull. “This has been so much to process in a short amount of time. You were gone, and now you’re back, and I’m just not sure,” I shrugged suddenly feeling hopeless.

  “That’s true,” the big man rumbled, his eyes understanding as he trailed a finger across my jaw, the contact electric. “But what does your body tell you?”

  And I shivered visibly then, pupils dilating, my breath coming fast at his closeness, drowning in the blue depths of him.

  “My body says,” I panted a little, leaning in towards him, “that it wants you.”

  “Then why don’t you focus on that for right now?” he murmured against my lips. “There have been a lot of changes recently, I’ll give you that. But why don’t you relax a little, let go with a man who loves you?”

  And it was those words that turned the tide. I didn’t know what I thought about Stone’s abrupt departure, the lack of notice, the fact he’d left me high and dry. But now my alpha male was back, and he was telling me that he loved me, that he’d done it all for me, no less. And there was truth in his words. I was a bad liar, and it made sense to cut things off cleanly until we got into safer waters. So I was tempted, definitely, but there was one last question.

  “Why do you keep saying this was all for me?” I asked, curious, my eyes quizzical. “You had just as much on the table as well, I mean you were going to lose your job. You lost your job,” I corrected.

  And the big man laughed at that, sitting back a little before pulling me onto his lap, my curves pressed against his big form.

  “Honey, the last person I was worried about was me,” he said, nipping at my ear gently as his hands ran up and down my thighs. Oh god, it felt so good, his touch warm, his fingers gentle, stroking along my sensitive flesh. Without meaning to I whined and twisted in his lap, my mouth instinctively turning towards him, begging for a kiss.

  And the big man went for it, taking my lips authoritatively, his mouth firm, commanding, licking at the seam between mine before breaking our contact and coming up for air, his chest heaving, nostrils flaring.

  “Fuck baby, I can’t believe you do that to me,” he growled, hauling me closer. “Do you feel that? Do you feel how hard my dick is just after one kiss?”

  And I giggled because his rod was so huge and stiff pressing against my ass that it was like a steel bar against my curvy flesh. And I had every intention of helping him relieve that pressure, vent some of the steam, but first, I wanted an answer.

  “Stone,” I said gently, looking up into his eyes, “what about you? Why weren’t you afraid for yourself?”

  “Because I had nothing to be afraid of,” he growled, pulling me close again. “Honey, have you heard of Phillips Packaging? You know the Fortune 500 company?”

  And I nodded slowly.

  “Sure but what does that have to do with us? I mean … are you related to them?” I asked, jumping back all of a sudden.

  He nodded slowly, his face serious.

  “I’m not just related, I’m the heir apparent,” he said wryly. “You’re looking at the CEO of Phillips.”

  My jaw dropped. Suddenly the incredible luxury surrounding us made sense. There was no way he could afford this on a teacher’s income, even if he had years of salary saved.

  “That’s where you got all this, isn’t it?” I asked, my chin trembling as I gestured to the house, the pool, the car parked out front. “You’re a rich man. Even that apartment in NYC,” I said slowly. “The company was paying for it, weren’t they?”

  And the big man tapped me on the nose with his index finger, eyes dancing.

  “No, not exactly,” he said. “The company didn’t pay for the apartment, nor do they pay for this house,” he said, his eyes sweeping across the luxurious surroundings. “My trust fund bought these things and it’s time I began contributing to the family business after living off its largesse for so long.”

  But still, there was something missing.

  “But what about being a teacher?” I asked slowly, shaking my head. “I thought you loved your chosen profession. Plus, you really knew your stuff, Stone, you were great in front of a classroom, truly talented.”

  And the big man leaned in to give me a swift kiss before straightening again, eyes gleaming.

  “Thanks baby, I appreciate it. Yeah, teaching is something that I always wanted to do,” he said contemplatively. “Educate kids, work with my brain. And I had a good run, but I’d been thinking of leaving the profession for a couple years, believe it or not,” he said wryly. “My grandfather’s sick and can’t man the helm for much longer, plus a bunch of my relatives are nitwits and couldn’t possibly sail this ship. So it’s me,” he said with a shrug. “My dad’s gonna be the chairman and I’ll be the CEO, we’ll work in tandem until my dad retires and then it’ll be all me.”

  I gaped a little.

  “You-you’re going to be running Phillips Packaging?” I asked, disbelief in my eyes. “But what do you know about the business?”

  And the big man tapped me on the nose lightly.

  “You know little girl, you can be so amazing and yet so insulting at once,” he said dryly. “Sure, you know me as your biology teacher, but what do you think I’ve been doing since I was nine years old?” he asked. “That’s right, I’ve been working at the Phillips factory since I was a kid, child labor laws be damned. My family didn’t hesitate to put me to work, figured it help me learn the business early.”

  And I gaped again.

  “So it’s really true then,” I gasped. “You’re taking the reins of the family company.”

  And Stone grinned at me then.

  “Actually, I’m not taking the reins, I’ve already taken the reins,” he winked. “I was named CEO last week, installed at the head of the corporation, and there’s a ton of shit to do.”

  “So why are you here now then?” I asked. “If you’re so busy, why are you here?”

  And the big man threw up his hands before pulling me closer, my breasts touching his chest now, my softness pressed up against his hardness.

  “I swear Evie, have you not heard anything I’ve said? I’m in love with you,” he said, suddenly serious again, gripping my chin in his hand so that I looked deep into his eyes. “I stayed away because I wanted you to get on your feet, become independent first. And now that I’m back,” he said determinedly, “it’s time to start up again.”

  And with that, I gave in, my heart pumping, my pulse racing at a million miles an hour. Because although I hadn’t completely internalized Stone’s explanation, I did understand the words “I love you,” “I’ve fallen in love with you,” and “I’m in love with you.” And my lover had said those words repeatedly during our conversation, said them again and again for my benefit, to help explain things, help resolve outstanding issues.

  So I threw my arms around him and caught his mouth in a kiss, infusing it with everything I felt for the man, how much I’d missed him, how much I adored him still.

  “Fuck me Stone,” I breathed. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  And the big man groaned deep in his throat, his hands possessive on my back, trailing up and down before reaching in front and cupping my tits, squeezing and fondling, pulling the nips and making me squeal.

  “That’s it, baby girl,” he growled. “You’re a horny little girl with a slutty little cunt and a dirty little mouth. And baby,” he paused for emphasis, “I fucking love it.”

  And I mewled into his mouth, twisting and turning, begging him to kiss me and the big man obliged. His mouth slammed onto mine, demanding, possessive, making me gasp with need, Stone drinking in each exhale, breathing me, savoring my essence.

  “Fuck little g
irl,” he said hoarsely, his mouth trailing up and down my neck. “I’ve missed you so much. Let’s get you out of this,” he said, his hands already pulling at the wrap, the flimsy material gauzy and sheer.

  But I had other ideas. Standing up, I leaned down for a kiss before backing away.

  “Stone,” I said sinuously, “I want to dance for you.”

  And the big man groaned, leaning back on the lounger, his face hungry, ravenous, a huge tent as his groin. But he nodded, eyes eating me up.

  “Make it quick baby, otherwise I’m going to rip that shit off you.”

  And slowly, I began swaying on the deck of the pool. I twisted this way and that, letting an internal music play, running my hands through my hair, the brown curls a glorious fall. Slowly, I undid the string tie of my wrap and stroked the fabric off my shoulders, letting the gauzy material drop to my feet.

  “Oh fuck,” Stone groaned, his eyes fastened to my curvy form, his dick out now, already stiff and dripping at the tip. “Oh fuck little girl, make it quick I’ve gotta get in you,” he ground out, his hand moving up and down his shaft, fisting it in a tight squeeze. There was so much pre-cum that his rod was already shiny, the lube highlighting every bulging vein, the raging red helmet at the top.

  And I licked my lips lasciviously, running my little pink tongue over my lips suggestively.

  “You like?” I asked, cupping a breast through my swimsuit. “You like?” I breathed.

  Stone was like a man on fire

  “Take. It. Off,” he commanded, fist pumping even faster now.

  And without any further ado, I began undoing the zip at the front of my swimsuit. My outfit was already ungodly tight, I’d put on a couple pounds so the spandex hugged my curves like a glove, my boobs squeezed out the sides, the thigh cut-outs indecently high. And as I unzipped the front zipper, the black material peeled back, my boobs literally bursting out with relief, liberated from their confinement.

  “Ohh big boy,” I cooed, toying with a fat pink nipple. “See this?” I said, pulling at the hard tip, popping it like a cork. “She misses you.”