Peace, Love, & Macarons

by Jessica Gadziala

  Beg?

  Beg for his cock?

  I think not.

  I had never needed to beg for anything sexually before.

  And at twenty-seven I was not going to start.

  Not even for the sexy as hell man who made my coffee every morning and ate my pastries and had been the star of my fantasies for weeks.

  Weeks.

  Nope. Not even for him.

  I walked back across the room, trying to ignore the fact that I found his dirty mouth almost obnoxiously sexy as I packed up sweets for more people he felt sorry for me, who 'think they might know someone to fix me up with', who told me to keep my chin up.

  By the time five rolled around, we were dead and I was dead on my feet.

  "Ready to head home, Ma?" I asked, wiping down the counter again.

  "Oh, honey, didn't I tell you?" she asked, looking almost a little... stricken.

  "Tell me what?" I asked, brows drawing together.

  "I, well, I sort-of have..."

  "Are you going out with your friends?" I asked, almost feeling a little relieved at the idea. I just wanted to take a bath then curl up on the couch and watch something with absolutely no romance in it.

  "No, actually... honey. Well, I have a date."

  A soft breeze could have knocked me over.

  A date.

  And not just a date. A Valentine's Day date?

  "Oh, wow. Yeah, no. You didn't mention it. That's great though," I said, giving her an encouraging smile.

  "I can absolutely cancel if you don't want to be alone tonight. Really, it's no..."

  "Stop," I cut her off, smiling. "I'm actually happy to just have some time to veg around and be lazy and eat food you wouldn't approve of. I'm glad you have someone to spend the night with. That's great, Mom. I'm happy for you."

  "I might be... late," she said, looking wholly uncomfortable.

  I laughed at that, my smile huge. "Just remember- the only good sex is safe sex," I teased, making her cheeks get red.

  "Maddy, this is..."

  "Normal for a single mother and a single daughter to discuss," I cut her off. "Be late. Stay the night. Whatever you want to do. I am a big girl. I can be home alone."

  "Alright," she said, looking both embarrassed and relieved.

  After all, what Valentine's Day date didn't end in sex? And who wanted to do the dirty and then rush to get dressed and head home when you could just stay the night?

  I genuinely was happy for her.

  But she was totally going to get grilled about her new man once she got home.

  "Are you coming home with me to change and grab a couple things?" I asked as we walked toward the front door.

  She grabbed a "closed" sign and put it on the pastry counter because the coffee shop was still open, Brant finding himself busier than expected with a bunch of young lovers hanging out because they had nowhere else to be.

  "Have a good time, Alice," he called, making me acutely aware that while she had forgotten to tell me, she had told Brant.

  He also said nothing in parting to me which, well, I was mostly grateful for.

  We went home. Mom slipped into a sexy red dress I knew she bought for the occasion because the tags were in the garbage, grabbed a very small overnight bag, and headed out the door, practically bouncing she was so excited.

  Me, well, I took a long shower to try to wash the sour mood away, slipping into hideously old and oversized sweatpants and a sweatshirt, made a pot of macaroni and cheese, and went ahead and ate on the couch while watching reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent because there was no such thing as romance in it and that made me feel better about life.

  I was about half an hour into the third episode and fully done with my first bowl of mac and cheese (yes, first. I planned to eat the whole pot of it), when the entire other side of the couch depressed suddenly, hard enough to make me actually bounce on my cushion as my heart flew into my throat and I let out a genuine scream.

  "Just me," Brant said casually, reaching out to take the bowl from my hands and putting it on the coffee table.

  "Jesus," I hissed, hand to my heart, taking a couple of slow, deep breaths. "What the hell, Brant?" I demanded, fear making me snippy.

  He turned to face me, looking as freshly showered as I was and changed into thick black sweatpants and a Yale t-shirt.

  "Thought you heard me coming in the back," he shrugged.

  "Ever hear of knocking?" I insisted, moving my hand from my chest and curling it around my legs which were cocked up on the cushion.

  "Could hear the ding-ding of your show all the way on my own porch. Doubt you would have heard me."

  He wasn't exactly wrong, I realized, reaching for the remote and turning the volume down slightly.

  "You went to Yale?" I asked, wincing a bit at the skepticism in my tone.

  "Yep. And you went to the Institute of Culinary Education," he said, nodding. "Your mom was really proud of that."

  "What about your family?"

  To that, his smile was a bit humorless. "Both my parents are lawyers. So was my grandfather and his father. My sister is one too. It's a legacy they hold near and dear. Me? I'm the black sheep. They're proud of my time at Yale and my early career. This?" he said, waving a hand out toward the town in general, "Not so much."

  "That sucks," I said, shaking my head. My mother wouldn't have cared if I chose to scrub toilets for a living so long as I was happy. I couldn't imagine not having that kind of unconditional support.

  "I'm a grown man, sweetheart. Their opinions stopped holding weight as soon as I went off to college."

  Unlike Rich.

  That was my first thought and I realized I had been comparing the two men a lot over the past few weeks. And in pretty much everything I had to compare them with from cinema opinions to kissing skills, Brantley had come out on top.

  A man I barely knew trumped a guy I knew almost every infinitesimal detail about over the course of five years.

  "That's a healthy way to be, I think."

  "Nothing fucking worse than a thirty-something year old man still hanging on his mother's apron strings."

  Well, if that wasn't the damn truth.

  I had known so many of those guys over the years.

  Grown mama's boys were always a complete and utter turn-off.

  I didn't know a girl who didn't agree.

  "I thought you had to keep the shop open late tonight," I observed.

  "Eh, after three extra hours of listening to shit like 'on fleek' and 'can't evens', and 'feels', and 'goals' and 'turnt', and 'basic', I decided I had about e-fucking-nough of the youths for the day."

  I laughed at that. "I think you left out 'squad', 'literally' used incorrectly, and 'legit', and 'bae'."

  "Jesus..." he said, shaking his head at the ceiling. "So was Alice excited for her date?"

  "It was cute," I admitted, smiling. "She kept nervously fixing her lipstick." I paused, then told him something I wasn't sure why I wanted to. "She packed an overnight bag."

  "Yeah?" he asked, giving me a look I couldn't quite read.

  But I understood it about two seconds later when he reached out toward me, grabbing me by the hips, and pulling me until I found myself straddling his lap.

  "Brant..."

  "Less talking. More doing things," he said, one hand staying on my hip, the other going around to cup the back of my neck and pulling me down toward him. "Like this," he said just a second before my lips pressed into his.

  And, yeah, I was pretty sure less talking was definitely, definitely a good idea.

  But I was not going to beg him for anything.

  Even as that thought crossed my mind, his hands went to frame my face and his tongue moved in to claim mine, making me immediately aware as desire started to ping off of every single nerve ending in my body, that I was absolutely capable of begging.

  My hips sank down on his, dragging a needy whimper from between my lips as his hardness pressed me where I needed him mos
t.

  Before I could move my hips against him, get the friction I desperately needed, I was suddenly moving as Brant got to his feet, both his hands going to my ass and holding me up by it as my legs wrapped around him.

  I didn't lose his lips as he seemingly effortlessly navigated past all my mom's haphazardly placed furniture and decorations, not even stumbling over the stupid little toadstool figure she kept in the corner of the doorway that I tripped over at least half of the times I walked into the room. Then he turned and started up the stairs as confidently as you please, his lips pressing harder, getting more demanding.

  When he turned right into my room, I yanked back, looking down at him with furrowed brows. "How did you know this was my room?"

  "Who do you think painted it?" he asked, eyes heavy and heated.

  I couldn't help it, I looked around at the space, thinking of him there with a paint roller, moving my stuff around. I had a momentary stomach drop when I wondered if maybe he had found the loose floorboard where I stored my childhood and adolescent journals before I remembered that a couple years back on a Christmas visit, I had finally cleared them out myself.

  "Maddy," he called, making my gaze fall back on him, finding his head ducked to the side slightly, teasing smile on his lips. "Did I lose you?"

  "I was just thinking about my old diaries I used to keep under the floorboard."

  "Damn, missed those, huh?" His smile went a little wicked after that though. "Know what I did find though?" he asked, making my belly instinctively tighten.

  "Oh, God, what?"

  "A MS and a CD in an embarrassingly large heart carved into the wall behind your bed."

  It was actually under my bed. Where I used to lay and read trashy books I found in the library as a teen so my mom couldn't see me. Not that she would care, but I would have been mortified if anyone caught me with those half-naked man covers.

  "Should I be jealous?" he asked, eyes dancing, white teeth on full display.

  "Of Cody Donalds, the boy I had a wicked crush on in seventh grade? I think you're safe."

  "I've seen Cody Donalds," Brant said, moving toward the bed which meant I was moving backward toward it. "He's got a beer belly and thinning hair already. I say you traded up."

  I laughed at that, having had caught sight of him the week before and had been shocked by the drastic change. When I had seen him last in high school, he had still been a really good looking guy.

  "I didn't trade. Cody never even looked my way," I admitted.

  "Cody's fucking loss," he declared right before his hands left my ass, grabbed my hips, and tossed me backward.

  My stomach dropped as I fell through the air for an excruciating moment before I landed on the bed with a bounce, laughing up at him as he kneeled at the edge of the bed.

  He reached up and snagged the baggy material of my sweatpants and the knees and yanked hard enough to pull them down over my ass and hips.

  "You won't be needing these," he informed me as he pulled them free of my feet, leaving me in my oversized sweatshirt and somewhat fancy pink lace panties. I had developed a slight obsession with buying pretty underthings in college. Some women had their handbags. Some had their shoes. I had my panties.

  Then before I could fold up and make some saucy comment about his shirt, he grabbed it behind his back and yanked it over and forward, discarding it to the floor as I let out a slow exhale, eyes shamelessly moving over him, taking in every etch of muscle, before meeting his gaze again.

  "Ready to beg yet?" he asked, ducking his head to the side, eyes devilish.

  I smiled up at him then bit into my lower lip, watching his eyes go there. "Not even close."

  "Well, we'll have to see what we can do about that."

  With that, his hand reached down and grabbed my leg, pulling it up and slowly, deliciously kissing up the inside of my ankle, my calf, behind my knee, then up my inner thigh. Until every inch of skin was humming, until I could feel my hips rocking instinctively upward, begging for fulfillment, until my panties were wetter than they had perhaps ever been as he dropped that leg and went on to torture the other. But when his lips met the crease where my thigh met my sex, he didn't move in as I had anticipated, as I was half-dying for him to do.

  Instead, he moved upward, running his tongue along the waistband of my panties then inching up my shirt and kissing up my belly, between my breasts. Then, after pulling my shirt off, over my collarbones, my neck, my earlobe.

  Touching me everywhere but where I needed him to- my breasts, nipples, clit.

  "Brant..." I groaned when he grabbed my arms and lifted them over my head, pinning them to the mattress and then kissing up the underside of my arm, grazing his teeth over the inside of my wrist in a place that shouldn't have been erotic, but somehow completely was.

  "That didn't sound like begging," he said, voice a low, deep, sexy rumble that had my insides turning liquid as a pressure built deep in my lower stomach that was borderline painful.

  He moved down the next wrist and arm, the side of my neck, between my breasts.

  But just when I was sure he was just going to torture me forever, his lips sucked one of my nipples into his mouth unexpectedly, making my back arch as I let out a strangled moan, my hand slamming down on the back of his neck as his tongue moved over the hardened point. He moved across my chest to my other nipple before his lips pressed a kiss between my breasts again and he looked up at me, one side of his lips tipped up for a second, looking positively devilish before he started moving downward again.

  His hand yanked my panties out of the way and then his mouth was on me without hesitation- his tongue circling my clit with perfect pressure, making my fingers curl into his hair as my hips rose to meet him, as he drove me toward the edge.

  "No!" I shrieked when he pulled suddenly back as I felt just seconds away from coming.

  He wasn't listening though as he pushed back to sit on his ankles, grabbing the waistband of my panties and pulling, leaving me with no choice but to raise my hips so he could pull the material down and discard it.

  "What are you..." I started when he just watched me for a moment, lips twitching, and I knew he was up to something.

  But then I felt two fingers thrust unexpectedly inside me, making me let out an almost pained moan as my hand slammed down on his thigh and squeezed.

  There was nothing slow or explorative about it either.

  His fingers started thrusting- fast, hard, demanding, unrelenting.

  Until my moans became choked whimpers.

  Then he stopped thrusting and twisted his fingers inside me, raking up over the top wall, hitting my G-spot with expert precision and I saw white at the contact.

  "Brant!" I gasped when my walls started to tighten.

  I should have kept my mouth shut.

  Because hearing it, feeling my walls tighten around his fingers, he pulled them out quickly, again denying me an orgasm.

  My chest was rising and falling too quickly, my skin sweaty, my heart slamming, my frustration like nothing I had ever felt before.

  And judging by his smile as he jumped off the end of the bed, he knew exactly what he was doing to me.

  He reached into his pocket, tossing a condom casually onto the bed.

  Then he reached for his pants and dropped them, leaving him completely freaking naked to me- his cock hard and straining, needing fulfillment just as badly as I did.

  "Brant," I whimpered shamelessly, pressing my thighs tightly together, trying to ease the chaos there.

  "Mmm?" he hummed, kneeling at the edge of the bed again, fingers whispering down the side of my thigh as he reached for the condom with the other. "Got something you need to say?" he asked, lips tipping up as he opened the condom and slipped it on.

  I was close.

  I was so so close to being ready to do it.

  Beg.

  But not quite yet.

  "No?" he asked, smiling wickedly.

  Then his hand went to my hip and pushed h
ard, rolling me onto my stomach and I felt his lips press into the back of my ankle, up my calf, my thigh, stopping to slip his tongue between my slick folds, but only for one delicious second before he kissed over one ass cheek and then moved toward the center, gently kissing up my spine. When he reached the back of my neck and I felt his tongue replace his lips as he moved down again, his body curled over mine, his cock pressing against me, I was done.

  I was so, so done tormenting myself.

  "Brant, please," I begged, my ass angling upward toward him.

  The licking paused for the barest of seconds then started again, making me wonder how much more begging I would need to do before he gave me what I needed so badly.

  But then his hips shifted.

  His cock slid between my slick folds.

  And he slammed inside me in one thick, fast, hard thrust.

  "Oh my God," I moaned into the bed as he settled into the hilt.

  "Fuck," he growled at almost the same second as his head slammed down on my shoulder for a second as he took a deep breath, tried to hold it together.

  But I didn't want either of us to be put together.

  I wanted both of us to shatter apart.

  I rocked my hips against him, impatient, too needy to care about dragging it out any further.

  His chest jumped slightly as he let out a low chuckle, pushing up and off me. His fingers whispered down my sides until they got to my hips, sinking in, and dragging me up and back as he settled on his knees.

  I pressed up onto my forearms, ass angled up toward him, shoulders down, getting into the best position I could to give me the fastest, most consuming orgasm possible.

  "Nuh-uh," he said, hand tracking up my spine then into my hair, getting into it at the base, sifting in, turning, and yanking hard. The sting coursed over my scalp as a shocked gasp escaped me, an unexpected rush of wet pooling where our bodies met at the pain/pleasure mix as he pulled me back by my hair until my back was against his front, my ass on his lap. "That's better," he said, releasing my hair so both his hands could slide up my front, covering my breasts, rolling my hardened nipples between his fingers for a long minute.

  Beyond turned-on, truly in another realm I didn't know existed, I started rocking against him, feeling the angle make his cock scrape against the top wall and making my head fall back on his shoulder as I rode him best I could with his hips below mine preventing too much movement.