by Amie Knight
Oliver used his mouth and teeth to lower the straps of my tank top and bra. He nuzzled my breast until the fabric was out of his way and the cool air of the room kissed my hard nipples.
“Fuck, I can’t believe how pretty these are.” He used one finger to trace around the stiff peak of my nipple slowly and I sucked in a breath at how good it felt. He ran his finger around the other one, too, just as slow, his eyes a brand on my nipples, his gaze burning me up. He cupped the roundness of them, cradling them in his big, warm hands, and he watched every move he made, seemingly mesmerized by the sight of his hands on me.
Each of his thumbs came up and swiped over my nipples softly and then a little harder. “Yes!” I yelled too loudly for the quiet room.
“You like that,” he breathed, sounding half like he was intrigued and half like I was some kind of experiment. He thumbed my nipples again before pinching them between his fingers hard. My hands moved out of his hair and covered his hands on my breasts while my pelvis rocked against his hardness. It was right there, the head on my clit. His fingers pinching my nipples, his hazel eyes watching me like he was studying me and coveting me all at once.
I was going to come all over him and we both still had our jeans on.
“I want to taste you.” His voice was thick and rich with want and passion. I wasn’t sure if he was asking or demanding, but it didn’t matter. I rubbed my hands through his hair and pulled his face toward my chest.
One long lick of my nipple and I was about to jump out of my damn skin. It felt so good. It felt so incredibly fucking right.
Oliver went from nipple to nipple, sucking and licking, taking his sweet ass time and drawing every bit of pleasure he could out of me, and it was driving me mad. His hands squeezed and molded the globes of my breasts while he devoured them and me? I ground down on him, my breath quick, my head dizzy, my body so close to exploding.
“Fuck, you taste just like I thought you would. I want to put my tongue between your legs next,” he murmured filthily into my chest.
“God, yes yes.” My head flew back and I ground against him harder.
“Fuck, you’re going to come on me. Aren’t you?” He steadied my hip with one hand and rubbed the head of his cock hard right there against my clit through our clothes and I squeezed my eyes closed, stars blazing behind my eyelids. This was probably going to be the most epic orgasm of my life and my pants were still on. Only Oliver could ever do this to me.
Our mouths crashed into each other, my air his, his mine. He ate me up like a starving man and I gave in over and over. Never in my life had I wanted to give up control like I did right in that moment.
And with his mouth fused to mine and my heart hanging on by a single thread, I exploded over him, my legs tight, my hands rough in his hair. When I cried out into his mouth, he swallowed it down with a groan of his own.
I laid my head to his, panting like I’d run a marathon.
“Fuck, that was gorgeous,” Oliver said, placing the softest of kisses on my cheeks, my nose, my mouth.
When I finally recovered and caught my breath, Oliver pulled me off the shelf behind me and set me down on my feet. “You okay?” he asked, so sincere I could have cried. The man was the most amazing damn person I knew.
“Yeah, I’m good, I think.”
I looked around at the mass of video games on the floor all over the place and then I looked back at Oliver. I perused the scope of him like he was a new person to me because now he kinda was.
His eyes were alight with some kind of newfound tenderness that made my stomach somersault and I wasn’t sure if it was a good flip or a bad one. I let my gaze travel his body, which I’d always appreciated, but now it looked even bigger, better, sexier. Mouthwatering.
His blue T-shirt clung to his big biceps like a second skin. He’d held me up against that shelf like I’d weighed nothing and I wasn’t a girl who weighed nothing. I was sturdy, average height, big boobs, even bigger hips. Winnie was fucking strong.
My stare traveled down to his snug jeans and the obvious bulge in them that told me the man was packing, not that I already didn’t know from our dry humping stint a few moments ago, but still, looking at Oliver Knox in that moment was like looking at a brand-new person to me.
And I decided I didn’t like that feeling at all. Backing away from Oliver, I started picking up the mess of video games.
He started, too.
“Oh, Oliver. You don’t have to do that,” I said, knowing he didn’t know where they went anyway. And truly, I needed to be alone. My brain needed time to process what the hell had just happened. What I’d just done to my best friend’s brother. What I’d done to one of my two best friends. I’d fucked up, royally. And this was way worse than the time I’d had video phone sex with him. What the hell had happened to me?
“It’s okay, Hazel. I don’t mind helping.”
Oh my God. Why was he being so sweet? Why was he always so perfect and I was a royal fuck-up? Never mind, I knew why. Because Oliver had always been wonderful and good and kind. I’d always been me—completely undeserving of Oliver’s goodness.
I wanted to cry at what a mess I’d made of things today, but I couldn’t do that with him here.
“You know what?” I asked, picking up the games and not daring to look at his gorgeousness at this moment. I could barely handle thinking about it. “You don’t know where everything goes and it’s so late. You should probably head home before Scarlett worries.”
I may as well have sucked every bit of oxygen out of the damn room because all of a sudden everything stood still. I felt Oliver’s angry eyes on me even though I wasn’t looking at him and I just wanted to run to the back office and take cover because I had a feeling hell was coming. And I deserved it. I knew I did.
“Are you asking me to leave?” His deep voice was deadly calm.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing at all as I continued to pick up video games and pretend like this shit show wasn’t happening. I felt bad for asking him to leave. I really did, but I didn’t know how to handle this. It was all too much. My mother coming back. Oliver and me being something we’d never been before. I couldn’t handle it all. I felt like my heart was going to explode right inside my chest. I just needed a fucking minute to figure things out.
“Oh my fucking God.” I saw him spin around in my peripheral vision until he wasn’t facing me anymore. He was standing there with his hands on his hips looking at the floor and I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to go to him. But I didn’t know how. I wasn’t taught how to be there for people and love them the right way. And that was why he needed to go before I messed things up even worse between us. “You’re throwing me out? You’re throwing me away after you just came all over me?” His voice was full of disbelief.
His words sliced me like a knife. They made me so disgusted with myself. I was an awful, despicable person. I had no right to love Oliver.
“Fuck!” And then I heard a loud pounding sound that reverberated throughout the whole store. And then another and another. “Fuck!”
I knew exactly what it was. Oliver’s big hand connecting with the counter over and over.
Each pound, each yelled fuck, I jumped, startled and so unbelievably fucking sad for me and for Oliver. He didn’t deserve my shit. That had always been the problem.
I heard him stomp toward the entrance. I heard the familiar jingle of the bell when it opened and then a slam as the door met the brick of the outside of the building before it jingled again as it closed.
I didn’t feel relieved when Oliver walked out that door. Not even a little bit. No, an overwhelming sense of grief rained down on me like an old friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. I hadn’t heard from that bitch in forever and I hadn’t missed her one bit.
Grief shattered my already fragile state. And I finally just let it go. I bent over and hugged myself and I cried. I sobbed, ugly, mean, sad tears. I cried for Oliver mostly and then I took a moment to cry for me. It alm
ost didn’t seem fair I should take time to cry for me. After all, I was the one breaking hearts. So, I cried for the guilt that ate me the hell up.
And then I cried for the woman that stood on my pops’s front porch looking so pitifully sad and old. Because I couldn’t be who she needed me to be either. I couldn’t just move on and accept her. Finally, I cried for the girl on Oliver’s bathroom floor with cuts on her arms and scars on her heart because she would forever haunt me.
“Gah, I can’t believe you’re twenty-five today. You’re like almost thirty and old as shit now,” Scarlett said with a ridiculous grin. She sat across from me with a glow that made her somehow look even prettier, which I didn’t think was possible.
I took a bite of my birthday pancake and looked across the booth at her. “I can’t believe you’re knocked up and living in sin with your boyfriend.” I pressed my hand to my chest and tried to look scandalized.
She shrugged. “And I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” she sang back at me like a complete badass. She looked around our favorite breakfast spot and then looked at the front door for the millionth time before finally saying what was on her mind. “I can’t believe Ollie didn’t come to breakfast. He never misses your birthday.”
He’d missed a hell of a lot lately. It had been almost three months since I’d really seen and spent time with my Winnie. But still, I kinda couldn’t believe he’d missed my birthday either. It just didn’t feel right. I hadn’t had a birthday without him since I was in the first grade. I tried not to let it get me down. I’d done the right thing that day. Oliver needed to move on. And I needed to get over whatever kind of infatuation I had with him. It had hurt, but it had been for the best. Or at least that was what I kept telling myself. Still, I thought of him too often to admit.
Oddly enough, Gray Wolfe still came around. He’d log on to Hadrian’s Wall late at night. He didn’t say anything in chat, but he still played the game with me, which was strangely comforting. Like maybe this wasn’t the end of the end. Like maybe things were just on pause.
“It’s okay, Scar. I’m sure he’s busy with school.” I’d make all the excuses in the world for him. This wasn’t his fault. It was mine. I’d kissed him first that day in Level Up. I’d made the first move. It was a moment in time I thought back on frequently. A moment I wanted to kick my own ass for over and over again. Because if I hadn’t done it, things would probably be quite a bit different right now. Like Oliver might possibly be sitting with me right now, instead of being God knew where.
Slowly her head shook back and forth. “What’s going on with y’all, Hazel? I know something has been up for like the last six months. I’ve been waiting on one of you to come clean with me.”
I knew this was coming soon. Dread sat like a rock in my stomach. I bit my lip hard before answering. “It’s so complicated. I wish I could explain it all.”
With sympathetic eyes, she asked, “Can you try?”
I wanted to. I really did. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to show her my arms. Tell her Oliver was there for me. I wanted to explain how my love for him was deeper than any I’d ever felt before. It was different and wide and vast and that no matter how I tried to explain what Oliver and I had, no one would understand it but us. I wanted to spill my guts about my mom and how I was still avoiding her because I didn’t know what else to do. But I didn’t want to do it today. On my birthday. I was already feeling depressed about Oliver.
Reaching across the table, I grabbed her hand in mine. “If I promise to tell you soon, can I tell you another day?”
Understanding colored her features and she turned her hand to squeeze mine. “Of course.”
“Good. Now tell me all about living with Luk and Ella and how much you love it.”
A lot had changed in three months. My best friend was pregnant with the man of her dreams’ baby. She’d just moved in with him and his sister with special needs. And Scarlett was great with kids with disabilities. It was what she did for a living and it was a passion of hers, helping children. She was the happiest I’d ever seen her and while I was going through my own shit and mostly depressed, I was still excited to be an auntie. I was going to spoil this baby to death. And I was going to be the coolest aunt ever.
Scarlett told me a couple of cute stories about Ella, who I already adored, and I’d only met her twice before telling me how Lukas didn’t like her getting her red hair all in his hairbrush. We laughed about the trials of going from single to practically married, which they would be soon. Because girlfriend was sporting a generous and beautiful rock on her hand. NFL players must be rolling in dough.
We left for breakfast and hugged each other before I headed to work. It may have been a Saturday, but this girl still had to work for a living. That was what being an adult meant, apparently.
I opened the store up at 10:00 a.m. and got to work putting rentals back in the system until one of my employees would come in at noon. I was in the middle of inputting them back into the computer system when the door jingled and I looked to the side to see someone I never expected to show up at my job.
For some crazy reason I looked around the store, like someone was going to pop out and save me. Like maybe I was being punked. Why would she come to my job? Was it because Pops straight up told her we wouldn’t see her until I was ready?
I felt cornered and scared and angry, and I was terrible with coping. I didn’t know how. I just wanted to hide.
“Hey, Hazel,” my mother said, coming to the counter. She was smiling, but her eyes were apprehensive. They should have been. She wasn’t supposed to be here.
I backed away from the counter, feeling smothered by her very presence.
“I just wanted to come in and say hi. Today’s your birthday, right?”
“Yes,” I said quietly, trying to understand how and why she thought this was okay.
“I know you don’t want to see me. And I’ve been trying to be patient, but I miss you every day and—”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” I interrupted her. She missed me. Had she missed me ten years ago when she’d let them take me away? I guess I should feel lucky that my pops got custody of me and I did. So much. But back then, I’d been heartbroken. How could she just never call me, never come see me, never check on me? I’d loved her so much and I’d missed her every day. She’d broken my heart and ruined me. Hell, the effects of her abandonment still lingered all around me, ruining relationships, tormenting me day in and day out.
The bell jingled again and all I could think was fuck, a customer. Much to my surprise, Winnie walked in. The sight of him almost did me in. I was so relieved I felt like crying. I needed him and there he’d appeared like some kind of fucking miracle. And God, I’d missed him. He looked gorgeous as always, my sweet boy.
“Hey, birthday girl.” He smiled at me like he hadn’t been avoiding me for three damn months. It didn’t even piss me off because he was here and that was all that mattered now.
I didn’t return his hello, still too stunned at how a perfectly decent start to my birthday had taken a horribly wrong turn because this woman had come into my store.
Oliver immediately picked up on my state of panic and walked quickly to me behind the counter. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
I didn’t know what to say. I just looked from him to my mother and then back again. I hadn’t told anyone she was back, not even Oliver. I wasn’t sure how to begin to explain.
“Hi there,” my mother said, holding her hand out. “I’m Brenda, Hazel’s mom.”
Oliver looked like I felt, shocked as hell. Still politeness won out and he leaned over the counter to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you?” He looked at me full of questions, probably mostly wondering if it really was nice to meet her.
She smiled at him, completely charmed by Oliver like every other woman in the rest of the world. “I just came by to wish my girl a happy birthday.”
That was it. I was willing to let her talk, but what I
wasn’t willing to do was let her bullshit Oliver.
My back was straight, my hackles raised to the damn sky. “I’m not your girl. I haven’t been your girl for ten years. I’m Pops’s girl.”
Her smile fell a bit and she looked at Oliver, clearly embarrassed. That wasn’t my intention. My intention was for her to stop acting like she was somebody to me that she wasn’t.
“Now, Hazel, I came by here to tal—”
“Please leave.” There was a small break in my voice that even alarmed me and Oliver caught it immediately, moving close to me and wrapping an arm around my waist. I grabbed the back of his white T-shirt in my fist, making sure he stayed right next to me.
“I just wanted to stop by and talk to you,” she argued.
I was about to tell her to leave again when Oliver’s voice stopped me.
“Look, ma’am. Hazel has asked you to leave. I think that if you ever have any hopes of having a relationship with her then you should respect her wishes.”
His arm tightened around me and my mother looked back and forth between us before finally turning and leaving the store. When the bell signaled, I literally turned to Oliver and buried my face in his chest, more relieved than I’d ever been in my life.
After a beat I finally asked, “How do you always do that?” My voice muffled by his chest.
He pulled me back and looked down at me, his eyes fierce, like he was ready to go to battle for me. “How do I always do what?”
“Come when I need you. Save me.”
He lifted up his shoulders and dropped them slowly. “Maybe it’s fate.” He gave a small chuckle. “Maybe I’m just lucky.”
“No,” I said, burying my face back in his chest and hugging him hard to me. It felt so damn good. He smelled the same. He looked the same. He felt the same. God, I’d missed him. I breathed him in deep, relishing this moment that I knew was just a little blip in time. I didn’t know if I’d see him another three months after this. “No, Winnie. I’m the lucky one.”