by Hannah Ford
“I wanted to smack you upside the head a few times lately,” she replied.
“I’m sorry. I’ve realized that I can’t let my past haunt me anymore.” His eyes grew distant as he said it.
“That’s my only concern,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I just don’t want it to happen ever again.”
He seemed to come back to himself. His gaze grew sharp and he nodded. “I understand why you’d be worried, you need to be able to trust that I won’t go crazy again.”
“Can I?”
“Yes. But the only thing that’s going to convince you is time passing, and me being a steady presence in your life. My words aren’t going to cut it.”
“I do believe you,” she said. “I believe that something shifted for you.”
“We’re a family now,” he said, touching her stomach and smiling.
***
Not long after, both of them agreed it was time to go to sleep for the night.
“I’m worried about hurting your ankle if we try and sleep together in this tiny bed,” he told her.
“I need to be close to you tonight.” She sat up on the couch and swung her leg to the floor. The ankle didn’t even hurt that much anymore, although it was incredibly stiff and awkward to move on. “I’m going to run to the bathroom—or hobble, I guess—and get changed.”
“Let me help you,” he said, coming to her side and supporting her as she stood up. “How does it feel? Can you put your weight on it?”
She tried. It hurt. But it didn’t hurt badly enough to make her want to stop walking—she just needed to be careful. “I’m okay. I’m just going to lean on you.”
“I love it when you lean on me, baby.” Red’s arm was slung around her waist, her arm over his shoulder, but he had to stoop down because he was taller.
Finally they made it across the cabin to the door to the bathroom.
“Grab my bag for me?” she said.
Red had brought it in from the car earlier, and now he grabbed it and carried it to where she stood. “You came prepared.”
“I wasn’t going home without seeing you.”
“How did you find me here, anyway? Almost nobody knows this place exists.”
She leaned on the wall. “Well I tried the house, but the security guard wouldn’t tell me a damn thing.”
“Good,” he said.
She gave him a look.
“It means they’re doing their job,” he explained.
“Yeah, if that job is to keep you apart from your fiancé.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I was at my wits end. So finally I called your brother at his practice.”
“Jeb?” he said, his eyebrows rising in surprise.
“How else do you think I would have figured this out?”
“I don’t know,” he said, contemplating it. “I was so happy to see you and overwhelmed with the whole thing—I didn’t really care how you figured out where I was.”
“Do you care now? Are you upset with me for calling him?” Nicole watched him closely.
She could tell that there was a kind of battle going on inside of him. The old Red would have been annoyed—frustrated at least—that she’d gotten in touch with Jeb after the falling out the two brothers had had. Nicole hoped he wouldn’t let his temper ruin what had been a nearly perfect day until this point.
“I totally get why you called him,” he said, after a long moment. “You needed to try every avenue to find me and I’d made myself completely unavailable to you. I’m ashamed that I did that to you, Nicole. Forgive me?”
“Of course I forgive you.” She kissed him. “Now I need to change.”
He smiled. “I’d rather you came back out with nothing on.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Oh?”
“We’ll see.” She gave him a wicked grin and then hobbled into the bathroom. The ankle was ruining any chance she had at a sexy exit, but oh well. She did the best she could.
Nicole decided to meet Red halfway. After a few minutes of primping and readying herself, she appeared again wearing nothing but a t-shirt that came to her upper thighs.
“Oh boy,” he muttered, when she opened the door and he got a look at her.
She batted her eyelashes at him. “Can a girl get a helping hand around here?”
“Anytime,” he said. And then he picked her up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. Red carried her to the little twin bed against the wall and laid her down on it.
“Cozy,” she said, even though it was anything but.
“That thing?” he said. “It’s about as cozy as sleeping on a pile of rocks.”
“It’s more like sleeping on a thin mattress on a pile of rocks,” Nicole corrected him. “And I don’t care, as long as you’re in here with me.” She patted the bed next to her.
“There’s hardly any room.”
“You’re used to sleeping in gigantic beds. This is better. I want to change our bed in the master bedroom to one that’s this size. Maybe we can swap them for one another.”
Red laughed at that. “You’re nuts,” he said, climbing into bed with her. “Your ankle?”
“I’m fine. Just don’t sit on it and we’re good.”
“I’ll do my best not to sit on it.”
“Good.” She spun so that her back was to him and he wrapped his strong arms around her, pressing his entire body close to hers.
Instantly, Nicole was warm and happy, as content as she’d ever been. “This is nice,” she purred.
“It’s a lot better than nice.” His mouth brushed against the back of her neck and she felt his member stiffening against her from inside his shorts. He was wearing boxers and a tight t-shirt.
She had nothing on under her t-shirt, and he could probably tell right about now. “I want to stay like this forever,” she murmured, as his hands cupped her breasts over her shirt. Nicole’s nipples stiffened—as always, she responded instantaneously to his touch.
“We’re going to be like this forever. You’re my soul mate,” he said, kissing her neck again and again.
“Do you believe in that? Do you believe we’re really soul mates?” She looked back at him.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I guess maybe in the past I dismissed the idea, but now that we met I know what that term really means. There’s nobody else in the world who gets me the way that you do.”
“And you get me,” she said, pushing her butt against him and wiggling. He pressed closer to her. She could feel the tip of his hard cock pushing against her, sending waves of pleasure through her lower half. Nicole was suddenly wet, wanting him like she’d never wanted anything in her life.
“I get all of you,” he said. “Don’t I?” His hands cupped her breasts more firmly now, his fingers making circles around her nipples.
“All of me. Any part of me. Every part of me.”
“Tell me what I get,” he said, his voice growing husky as his hands worked over her breasts.
“You get my lips,” she said.
“And I can make those lips do anything, can’t I?” It was more of a statement than a question.
Nicole grew more aroused at the sudden image of her lips sliding up and down his shaft. He was rocking against her now, the tip of him sliding around the edges of her from behind. She moaned and laid her head back against him, as his hot lips brushed across her neck, nibbled and sucked her earlobe.
“I’ll do anything you say,” she finally responded, almost breathless from excitement.
“What other parts of you do I get?”
“My tits.”
“And?”
“My pussy.”
“What about the rest of your body?”
“Everything I have is yours,” she said.
In response to this, his hands moved down and reached beneath her shirt. His hands were large and warm, so familiar but also unpredictable. Depending on his mood, Red could be gentle and softer than soft, or he could
be as rough and aggressive as a man just let out of prison after twenty years.
Tonight, he seemed to be a perfect mix of gentle and aggressive. Nicole liked it when he was rough, she liked the constant push and pull of his sexual desires. He was at once dark and light, soft and hard, loving and ruthless.
She wanted all of him. She loved all of him—even the difficult parts.
His hands slid across her belly, remaining there just long enough to show her that he was still very much aware of what was at stake now. There was a life growing inside of her, and sooner than either of them could imagine, it would be born into this world and needing two strong parents to protect it.
But Nicole felt deep inside her heart and soul that Red would be there—he would be there for the both of them, even if he had to fight tooth and nail to do it.
Despite all the hardships and all the fighting and miscommunication, neither of them could or would give up on what they shared. She knew that now.
He caressed the tops of her thighs, leaving a trail of heat everywhere he went. Soon he’d just touched the place where her thigh met with her hip, sliding closer and closer to the hottest spot, and she dripped for him. Her teeth clenched.
Please just let him touch me there so I can release everything that’s been pent up, she thought. I need him so badly. Please.
But Nicole knew better than to ask. Red did everything in his own time, and when it came to her, he took his time.
He knew exactly where her buttons were—all of them—and he enjoyed pushing them one at a time, slowly edging her closer and closer to total exultation while also pushing her closer to madness.
“I want you,” she moaned.
“Beg for it,” he told her.
“Please, I want you to touch me. I want you inside of me.”
“Tell me more.”
In the darkness of the cabin, she felt just how much it was just the two of them, and for miles and miles, no one else. The inside of the cabin was dark, but some moonlight shone in through a window.
They were so close and warm in this tiny twin bed, their limbs wrapped around one another, the heat from their bodies mingling. Nicole was sweating, her entire body slick with need and desire.
Red wanted her badly—she knew that much. So she told him how much she wanted him too. “I want your cock in my mouth and my pussy. I want you to fill every bit of space inside of me,” she whispered, as his hands worked up and down her body beneath her t-shirt.
Soon, his fingertips were pressing lightly on the entrance to her most intimate place, rubbing the sweet wet juices around and around the outside of her skin, up and down the slit, making her hips move in time with his hands.
“Tell me how you want me to do it while I play with you,” he commanded.
Nicole could barely speak at this point. “Oh god…” she cried.
“Tell me or I’ll stop,” he warned.
His fingers insistently pressed against her folds. They grew slicker, wetter than before. She was dripping more and more as he touched her.
“I want you to go inside of me, just the head of your dick,” she said.
“Yes, that’s right,” he agreed, and his fingers slid into her, less than an inch, in and out, in and out rhythmically—as if acting out her wishes.
“And then you’ll occasionally slide deep, so far in that I can feel your balls slapping against me.”
When she told him this, he in turn pushed his fingers all the way into her, and for a brief moment she could have sworn it really was his shaft going in, penetrating all of her layers.
Nicole’s hips bucked involuntarily as she was wracked with pleasurable sensations. Every nerve and fiber and ridge of her flesh was on fire.
“Oh, Red! Oh, god…”
“Keep talking,” he said in a deep, controlled voice.
Nicole could feel his dick as hard as it had ever been, pressing into her still from behind. “I want you to take your clothes off, so that I can feel our naked bodies against one another,” she said.
“And you’ll be able to feel all of me, even my dick, right up against your bare flesh,” he reminded her.
“Yes, I want it so much.”
He took his hands off her momentarily, and she could hear him removing his boxers and shirt. When he came back against her now, all she felt was skin on skin, and his erection pressing directly into her. With one easy thrust he could slide right in, she thought, beginning to swivel her hips at him, hoping to entice him inside.
He allowed her to do so, keeping the head of his manhood resting against her slit so that her pussy lips would rub directly against him.
And as she moved into him, he controlled her hips with one hand, not allowing her to climb on top of him as she desired. Instead, he used his other hand to rub her swollen clitoris while the head of his cock hovered against her, rubbing and pushing and prodding but never quite giving her the relief of entering.
Nicole’s hands gripped Red’s wrists as she moved against him.
“Okay, climb on top of me, if you can do it without hurting your ankle,” he said, lying on his back.
It was easy for her to slide onto his dick now. Her ankle did hurt, actually, but she didn’t tell him because Nicole didn’t care about the pain right now.
The pain in her ankle was nothing compared to the pleasure in her pussy as his rock hard shaft slid inside of her.
Nicole lowered herself all the way down onto him, as deep and as far as she could go, resting in the fullness of it all. Her eyes actually rolled back into her head, the sensation was so good.
“Oh Nicole,” he rasped. His hands held her breasts momentarily, and then glided down to her hips, where he helped her to slide up and down on him.
With each new penetration she was closer to climaxing.
She looked down at Red, at his dark eyes, the darkness surrounding him and yet he wasn’t part of the darkness, she realized.
“You’re so beautiful,” Red told her.
He was on fire, she realized. He was pure white light, and he was an angel, even if he’d been kept in darkness for so long that he’d thought that darkness was what he was made of.
She caressed his face as her movements and breathing came faster and faster and faster.
Soon they were coming together, both at once, and she was looking at her man and seeing him for who he truly was and she knew he was good and strong and burning brightly for her alone.
***
Nicole knew she had to tell Red about Kane Wright before any more time went by.
They’d been up for a few hours already, and her ankle was much better. Still, Red insisted on her elevating her ankle again, icing it—the whole nine yards.
He’d gone out to the store and come back with more food, some cheap wine, and magazines for her.
While he was gone she’d decided she would tell him as soon as he returned.
As Red entered the door with his bags of supplies, she blurted it out like she’d been stricken with a sudden case of Tourette’s. “Kane Wright is trying to blackmail us,” she said.
He stopped in the middle of the cabin and looked at her. “Huh?”
Nicole took a breath. “I’m sorry to spring it on you out of nowhere. But Kane Wright told me he has information, documents, evidence that he could release to the media and it would show you in a very negative light.”
“That’s absurd. And your believe him?” he asked, shaking his head and bringing the bags to the cabinet and placing them on the floor.
“I don’t know what to believe, but yes, he was convincing.”
“Well, he’s full of shit.”
“So you never hired undocumented workers?”
Red spun around and faced her. “Is that what he told you?”
“He didn’t get very specific and I didn’t want him to. It’s none of my business who you hired to work at Jameson International.”
His jaw tightened. “But you somehow made it your business, didn’t you?”
“He can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to, Nicole.” Red shook his head once more. “I feel like this is déjà vu all over again.”
“I was scared for you, Red. How do I know what’s true or not? You weren’t around for me to talk to.”
Some of the anger drained from his face as he considered her words. “I know. I know, and I suppose I’m really just mad at myself for putting you in the position where Kane Wright could take advantage.”
“There’s more,” she said.
“Of course. There’s always more.” He laughed, but it sounded like a bark.
“Come here, sit next to me,” she said, patting the couch.
“I’ve got to put this food away.”
“Red, don’t do this. Don’t withdraw because you’re upset.”
She could see the conflicting emotions on his face. His difficulty in trusting anyone was coming to the surface once again.
“I’m not withdrawing, Nicole. I’m just putting the food away,” he said. And then he went to the bags and began unpacking them and putting things into the cabinet and the refrigerator.
After a minute or two, he walked back to her carrying a few magazines. His eyes were softer. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m listening.” And he gave her the magazines, which she put to the side for now.
“Come sit,” she told him.
Sighing heavily, he sat down on the edge of the couch. His head was sagging as if he were a whipped dog. “So, tell me everything.”
“I’m going to just warn you that this is probably going to piss you off…”
“Please, don’t torture me anymore, Nicole. What happened?”
“Promise me you’ll listen to the whole story before you make assumptions.”
“I’ll do my best. I can’t promise anything.” His hands were clenching and unclenching on his lap.