by Carly Keene
“Well,” she says, and licks her lips again while all the blood leaves my brain, “how about ‘taxes’? That’s pretty unsexy.”
“Granted. Okay, ‘taxes.’” I kneel over her and test the ties again. Her breath flows warm over my overheated cock, and I get an idea. “Now I want you to suck my cock.”
“Without hands?” She sounds mildly perplexed, but looking at her naked and bound in my bed is making me rock-hard. It won’t take long.
“Just suck it!”
We adjust our bodies until my cock’s at her mouth level. I let her lick all around the head, and then she takes more and more of the shaft into her mouth, until my balls hit her chin. Shit, she’s got the entire thing going down her throat. It’s gorgeous, especially with her night-dark, starry eyes heavy-lidded in desire. “Are you hot for me?” I ask her, my voice raspy.
She moans around my cock, and her eyes almost close, but she keeps sucking.
“If I turned around now, would there be a wet spot on my bed where your pussy is?”
“Uh-hunh,” she says, mouth full.
I pull all the way out, and she whines in frustration. But I back down the bed and lift her hips: yep. She’s practically flooding my sheets. I bend down and give her pussy a nice long lick, from slit to clit, and she writhes, pulling at the ties. Damn, this is hotter than I imagined. I give her two more long licks, then a clit nuzzle while I slide two fingers inside her soaked cunt, stroking her G-spot. “Do you need to come, my goddess?”
“Please,” she begs, moving her hips against my hand.
I thought I might tease her a little and then demand more head, but she surprises me by coming, hard, within about thirty seconds. Her head thrashes back and forth against the pillows, and she tugs on the ties, and her body quivers, and she cries out loudly before gushing all over my hand. And that is so incredibly fucking hella sexy that, once I’m sure she’s breathing again, I move back up to straddle her ribs and thrust my cock into her mouth. Feeling her breathing under me, watching my hard-as-steel rod disappear into and appear out of her gorgeous pink lips, I only manage about thirty seconds before I’m pumping a jet stream of cum straight down her throat. She swallows it all.
And then, because this is sure as hell a thigh workout, I pull my cock out of her mouth and bend to kiss her, tasting her sweet mouth and my own seed in it.
“Can you untie me now?” she pants when I stop to breathe.
“Taxes?”
“No, not taxes. I don’t need the safeword, I just want to hold you now,” she says. I melt. I cave. I untie her.
“That was the single hottest half-hour of my life,” I tell her, and lie down next to her so we can snuggle together.
What? I like snuggling.
“Mine too,” she says, and then she wraps her arms around me.
“Don’t leave,” I say again.
“I won’t. Not now that I know what you can do with old ties and an inventive mind . . .” she says in that low, sensual voice of hers, and then she sighs. “No. I’ve waited too long to see you again. Dammit, now I really wish I had gone to some of those work picnic things of Noah’s.”
I pull the sheet up over us. “So why didn’t you?”
EIGHT: Promised You Heaven
Rachel
“Why didn’t I go to Noah’s work social things?” I think about it. “I don’t know. I guess I could have taken James to the family-friendly ones.”
Maddox shrugs and kisses my shoulder, stretching to turn off the lamp. “I probably wouldn’t have gone to the family-friendly ones.” He sighs in contentment and kisses my forehead this time.
I kiss his chin.
“Did you mean that? About waiting so long for me?” He sounds wary now, like there’s something he doesn’t want to tell me.
“Yes. I mean, I dated. I did go out with guys sometimes, and sometimes I kissed them, but nobody was . . . right. I just didn’t want to sleep with somebody else.” He doesn’t say anything. “Wait, did you date a lot of girls?”
There’s a short silence. He plays with my hair. “Yeah,” he finally says, reluctantly. “Yeah, I dated a lot. Not right away, because I was looking for you and not finding you.”
“I’m sorry about th—”
“But after about six months I gave up on it and just went back to my dudebro ways. You know: go to the bar, flirt with a girl, go home with her, have sex with her, say goodbye.” He’s still playing with my hair.
“That seems unsatisfying.”
“Yeah. Eventually, I gave that up too. I’ve been totally on my own for about a year now.”
We’re quiet for several minutes. I let my fingertips drift across his chest, back and forth, slowly. He plays with my hair.
“Are we together?” he whispers, finally. “You’re really not leaving this time?”
“It would be like tearing my heart out.” I kiss his mouth. He kisses back, and it gets hot and heavy again. I pull him closer with one leg wrapped around his hip. He palms my ass. “I don’t think,” I confess when I come up for air, “that I was ready for something this serious before. Not with all my responsibilities. I mean, it was like I was a mother. I didn’t have the mental space for it.”
He caresses my butt lightly. “Well. Do you have the mental space for it now?”
“For you? I have all the space in the world, Maddox.”
Since the kissing, I’ve been aware of his cock growing against my belly. Now it’s undeniable—as undeniable as my need to have it inside me. I reach down to stroke it, and I pull his head to mine and kiss him again.
“I need you,” he says into my mouth.
For answer, I guide him inside me, just as we lie there side by side, my leg over his thigh. I’m slippery and hot for him, and even as big as he is, he slides in easily, rubbing sensitive tissues. “You feel so good.”
“So do you.” He sounds breathless, but he’s so solid and stiff in me, and his big hand is stroking my buttocks. I didn’t think I liked that. But I do. He smacks me lightly, and I rock harder against him. “Touch yourself, Rachel. I want you to come. I want your pussy milking me when I come.”
He doesn’t have to ask twice. I inch my hand between us, and I play with my clit, circling it lightly with one finger. That, and his hand on my ass cheeks, and his hard length thrusting inside me, and the memory of him making me squirt on his hand earlier, and everything we’ve done tonight, all of it, makes me so aroused that I can’t help moaning.
“Are you close?” he whispers. “Please be close, Rachel.”
I rub a little faster, and then I catch fire. “I’m so close. Maddox, fuck me. Fuck me hard.”
His hand gets tight on my ass, and he thrusts harder, and my body explodes into fireworks. He groans, and I feel him pulsing deep inside.
“It just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?” he says.
I kiss him.
We sleep.
In the morning, I’m alone in the bed, but I hear singing—awful, off-key, joyful singing—from the kitchen. I pick up his dress shirt from the floor and throw it on, and then I go out there.
He’s dancing to Fleetwood Mac in just his boxers, stirring something in a pan on the stove. His hair is a toinky mess, he can’t sing, and he might have burned the bacon, but I’ve never witnessed anything that made me want him more than I do this minute. And not just for the sex, but for the joy of him. The way he calls me goddess. The way he touches me.
I watch him put scrambled eggs on two plates. “Good morning,” I say. “Want me to pour the OJ?”
He lights up. “Sure. Let me get some glasses out.”
I don’t mean to say it, but it just sort of comes out. “I think I love you.”
He hands me two glasses, blue eyes shining. “Good. I love you too.” Then he takes the plates to the breakfast bar and sits down, patting the bar stool next to him. “Come on, eat.”
I just said “I love you” to this man, and he said he loved me back. Some part of me might long for more fanfare
, but on balance I reflect that this is the way he’s always been. He saw me and wanted me. He just laid it out there.
It’s all I need, really.
I sit down next to him and pick up a fork, and then I see it: a key. Just sitting by my plate. He eyes me, eating eggs. “That’s for you,” he says. “If you want it.”
“What’s it unlock?”
“My place,” he says simply. “You can move in any time you want.” And then he smiles, and after that he laughs out loud. “You already unlocked my heart.”
I wipe my eyes and smile. “How’s this afternoon?”
EPILOGUE
Rachel, six months later
I’m so nervous I can hardly stand still! It’s my first solo show ever, and of course it’s being hosted at Art Factory. I’ve been working for this for so long, and I can hardly believe it’s finally happening.
This gallery has been displaying several of my pieces each month, and every one of them has sold. I won a juried show two months ago, and got a really lovely write-up in Richmond’s fine-arts magazine. I’ve been making enough that I can afford to buy marble blocks instead of using the powdered-marble-in-concrete technique I was using before now, and I had to expand my studio space—great problems to have.
And then there’s Maddox, my god of love. I love his apartment, because not only is it close to my studio, it’s close to the hospital too. And Maddox let me fill it with boho decor to my heart’s content. It’s lush and plush, but airy and natural all at the same time: Moroccan rugs, brass-and-glass tables, wicker papasan chairs, a blue velvet sofa, ivory sheer curtains. I adore it.
I adore him too.
Here he is now, coming into Art Factory’s back room to get me. I’ve been back here for too long, too nervous to go out. There’s a reception for the show opening, and I should be out there, but I. Just. Can’t. People from the School of Design are out there. People from the university. Art critics from New York are out there. It’s terrifying.
I think I’ll just stay here a minute and stare at him, instead. He’s a work of art in himself, with that fine body looking delicious in his suit, and his blue eyes glowing at me.
“Your public awaits, my goddess,” he says lightly, reaching a hand to me. “Come on.”
I resist. The thought occurs that I’d really rather sneak out the back door and run the four blocks to our apartment, holding his hand, so we can take off our party clothes and slide our bodies over and around each other, making love again and again.
He kisses me gently. “They’re waiting for you.”
“I don’t want to.” I am afraid, deep down, that I’m dreaming all of this. That I’ll go out into the room and people will call me a fraud. A hack.
“Goddesses never fear failure,” he says to me, and then he smiles. He smiles like a man who knows the truth. “Come on, Rhiannon. You deserve adulation.”
I let him pull me into the crowded room. It’s full of people smiling, congratulating me. Martin, the manager, catches my arm and whispers in my ear that four sculptures have already sold. He’s beaming. “The Cabell-Venables are interested in the big piece,” he says, mentioning a socially prominent young couple with a yen for modern art.
Dr. Yen from VCU seizes my hand and shakes it, asking if I’d consider doing a one-day workshop next fall with his Dimensional Art students. I nod, stunned. He says he’ll contact me to discuss my schedule.
This feels like an out-of-body experience.
Somebody hands me a plastic wineglass. I sip from it, and then put it down (bleah, cheap Chardonnay). Maddox finds me a stool to sit on while people circulate around the room. “People are buying stuff,” he whispers in my ear. “Lora looks like she’s on Cloud 9.”
The rest of the evening passes in a blur, with various people coming by to say hello and tell me they’re enjoying the show. Friends from art school, business contacts, colleagues of Maddox’s. My brother and sister-in-law, openly joyous for me. After the door closes and it’s just my inner circle, I almost collapse, and remember just in time that you can’t collapse when you’re sitting on a tall stool.
Maddox pulls me into a hug. “I’m so proud of you, Goddess of artistic inspiration. Let’s have a real drink to celebrate. Chrysanthemums all around?”
Noah shudders and tries to disguise it; Kalinda just smiles at me and shakes her head. Martin’s assistant, Lora, says she has Asti Spumante in the fridge, and Maddox follows her to the back. “Come look,” Martin says to me, and leads me around the room, pointing out pink SOLD stickers. Of the twenty-six on display, fourteen are sold on opening night.
“To Rachel!” Lora exclaims, and the wine cork pops.
Maddox hands me a Chrysanthemum and winks. “To you.”
I take the cocktail coupe and bring it to my lips—and stop.
Because there’s something in it.
I look closer, and it’s a ring. I set my cocktail down and fish the ring out of it to look at it. It’s a pale green cabochon stone in a platinum setting, unique and gorgeous. I’m amazed. When I look up there’s Maddox on one knee with his hand out to me, heart in his eyes, and I simply melt. I just run down into little puddles of melted girl on the floor, because this man, my god of love and magick, this man is asking me the most important question.
“Rachel. You never promised me heaven, but we’ve found it together. My goddess, will you marry me?”
I send a little prayer of thanks up to Mabon himself—and I say yes.
A thousand times yes.
FINLAY
HEART DOCTORS BOOK 4
CARLY KEENE
THISTLE KNOLL PUBLISHING
This one's for Wade, who is not my cousin.
ONE
June
One kiss. That’s all it took.
No, it started before then. One look from those dark pirate eyes of his, and I was a goner. I don’t even have the excuse of being drunk.
My best friend Wade and I were out last week at Lonnie’s, hunting Wade a new squeeze, which he says he can never find if we go to a so-called “normal” bar. Lonnie’s is pretty great even if you’re not LBGQT—it’s not all neon and club music, it’s like your dad’s cool friend’s garage, with old lived-in leather couches and wooden bar stools, and interesting sports like rugby and curling and dog frisbee-catching on the big-screen TVs, and retro music from the 70s through the 90s. Lots of indie beers on tap, not that I like beer, but at least it means that the place isn’t full of girls in fuck-me shoes drinking $18-a-glass Bahama Mamas.
And it’s not like Wade and I don’t go out with the girls anyway. We’re already planning for next Friday: appetizers and margaritas at Charlie Shark’s with our coworkers, to celebrate Makayla’s engagement.
But here we were at Lonnie’s, and Wade looked good. I’d touched up his hairstyle earlier in the salon, trimming the undercut and zhuzhing up his light-brown curls with a little gel for texture. “See anybody?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
The thing is, although Wade is gay and I am straight, we tend to like the same kind of guy: tall, dark, clean-cut but with a naughty streak—the kind of you-know-you-want-me cockiness you see in early Harrison Ford movies. I have frequently been disappointed with the reality, but I still can’t resist the tease. Wade’s better at having a good time, but not so great on keeping boyfriends around.
Look, he’s my best friend. I don’t judge.
In fact, we’ve been best friends since junior high, when he was the only guy in the flute section of the band. Most of the other girl members of the flute section were grimly earnest overachievers. It was me and Wade holding down the lowest-ranked seats, practicing when we remembered to, and having lots of fun.
And it’s been me and Wade, tight as twins, ever since. We went to prom together our senior year, since neither one of us was likely to get a better offer. I did him a gorgeous young-Burt-Lancaster hairstyle, all short sides and curls just on the top, and he gave me a really swoony Veronica Lake style, except brunett
e.
But both of us have had a long run of bad luck with guys, starting in high school. Wade’s first boyfriend was a guy named Dave, a baseball player, who was super-closeted and freaked out over me knowing about them. Yet the summer after graduation, he managed to get Wade in a compromising position under the pool table in Wade’s dad’s man-cave. And when Mr. and Mrs. Howell came home a little early from their movie date, you talk about some freaking out.
Wade got kicked out of his house, so he came and lived in the basement bedroom at mine until we went off to cosmetology school. Then we got jobs together at Halo Salon, where we’ve gotten really tight with the girls we work with.
I sighed, looking at the guys at the bar. Most of them were good-looking, but all of the cute ones were registering a little too high on the gaydar for Wade’s taste (and definitely too gay for me). “Thing is, bud, I think we might be looking for Bigfoot.”
He snickered. “Bigdong, more like.” I rolled my eyes, but I smiled. “Want a beer to cover your disappointment? We can Uber home.”
I shook my head. “I’ll stick with Coke.”
“Now, if I could find a medium-hot gay guy who drives a Volvo and has a full-time job, and also has sexy tattoos, I’d be happy. But I think you’re right, that beast is mythical.”
“Bigdong,” I agreed. “There are no real-life hot guys that you would want to bang into the middle of next week and open a bank account with. I should probably give up.”
Wade shrugged, and stood up. “Pee break.”
I stood up too, and went to the bar for another round. That’s when he got me.
Hot Doctor, I mean.
He came up to the bar and stood there, all tall and solid in those blue scrubs, and ordered a glass of scotch. When I glanced over to get a better look, hoping against hope for McDreamy, he gave me a sly sideways smile that instantly turned my insides to liquid. “Hey,” he said, “can I buy you a drink?”