by A. J. Downey
“Wow,” I said, my voice low and careful.
Golden snorted a laugh and nodded. “‘Wow’ is right.”
“How’d you handle it?” I asked.
“I kind of didn’t, I just told him good night, tucked him in, and came out here.”
I stifled a giggle behind my hand and he pulled me into his arms, another stolen moment which was all we limited ourselves to lately… But maybe we didn’t have to, anymore.
“I guess the cat is out of the bag,” I whispered.
“Mm.” Golden’s eyes roamed my face.
I cocked my head to the side and asked, “What is it?”
“Did you mean it?” he asked softly.
“Did you?”
“Not fair, I asked first.”
I smiled and nodded. “I meant it,” I whispered, carefully looking anywhere but his face. Not wanting to see it when he said something like how he was just telling Manolo what he wanted to hear… what you wanted to hear, my mind corrected me.
He tipped my chin with gentle fingers and brought me back around to look him in the eyes. I bit my lips together and tried not to cringe, but he smiled and said, “I meant it. I love you, Lys. It may not be the family you dreamed of, baby, but it’s here, if you want it.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?” I asked, a frisson of fear travelling down my spine. It would be way too soon for that. I mean, I only just finalized my divorce!
“No, when I get around to asking you that, there’ll be a ring involved. We had this talk. We’re not done with your ex, yet.”
I smiled in spite of myself and said, “Things sometimes have a strange way of working out, don’t they?”
He smiled at me and lowered his lips to mine and it was the best kiss. So gentle, so perfect, so loaded with promise that I could actually believe in. I put my arms around him and molded myself to the front of his body; his hands smoothing over my body through my clothes were enough to drive me crazy.
“You better learn to be quiet,” he said roughly against my lips. “Because as soon as he’s out, I’m making love to you.”
The words stole my breath, but I couldn’t say I was opposed to the notion. I nodded carefully and he smiled, stepping back and letting me go. I moved to the kitchen to finish cleaning up from dinner and Golden swatted me playfully on the ass, following me in to help.
“So, I talked to my brother,” he said.
“And?”
He sighed heavily and said, “I’m a realist. Maria is going to do some time. Some serious time. The official minimum sentence for her is five years without the possibility of parole, but I don’t see that happening. With the way they’re getting tough on drugs around here, I see her doing ten years minimum, easy.”
“Oh, my god… even though it’s her first offense?”
I nodded, “Babe, these are trafficking charges. This is going to be short and brutal. Even if we could find her a decent lawyer, the financial load alone would wipe both me and Angel out so bad… I have a choice here. I can either take what I have stashed for a rainy day, and put a hefty down-payment on a place to provide for Manolo, or I can try and get Maria off with a good lawyer and still go into debt up to my ass after burning through what I’ve got saved.”
“I hate the thought of leaving her to her fate with a public defender,” I murmured.
“I do too, but Maria made her bed with this one. I hate to sound harsh, but she’s gotta lie in it. Kids come first, always, and I’m not about to screw Manolo over any more than his dad and my sister have. It’s just not fair.”
I nodded and could see the lines of tiredness and distress etched around his mouth and eyes. I leaned back against the cabinets and heaved a heavy, emotional sigh.
“I don’t envy you your position at all,” I said.
“It’s a damn mess, that’s for sure.”
“It sounds as though you’ve made your decision, though.”
“No telling if it’s the right one,” he said softly, “but it’s no contest. Manolo comes first, and I don’t think Maria would disagree with that assessment.”
“Still haven’t gone to see her?” I asked. I knew he hadn’t but still, it needed to be talked about. He shook his head and stayed silent on the matter. “Why not?” I asked, gently prying.
“I’m so fucking pissed at her,” he confessed and hung his head, dragging on the back of his head with one hand to ease the tension in his neck. I put a gentle hand to his back and propelled him to the living room. He went with me, and I sat on the couch and waved him to the floor in front of me. He sat and sighed out, and I began to work at his knotted shoulders and neck.
“I understand that you’re angry, but don’t you think this is a discussion that needs to be had with her?”
He was silent for a minute and said, “Yeah, but I know how it’s going to go down and I’m not looking forward to it. She’s going to be pissed the fuck off and feel like I’ve thrown her to the goddamn wolves.”
“I know this sounds awful,” I said. “But she’s going to have plenty of time to think about it; she’ll come around eventually.”
The dark chuckle he let out, followed by a groan as I found the spot of tension in his muscles giving him the most trouble, vibrated through my quickly-tiring fingers and I smiled. I worked on massaging him until my own hands hurt and when I couldn’t do anymore, I simply draped myself over his broad shoulders and hugged him back into me. He sighed and brought his arms up, holding mine to his chest. We sat like that for a long time.
He bowed his head and kissed my arms, and I smiled and asked, “Are you ready for bed?”
“Mm, never been more ready in my life, Chica.”
I sat up, relinquishing my hold on him. He got up and held a hand down to me, and I let him pull me up off the couch.
He followed me to my bedroom, his hands on my hips, gently guiding me up the hall and through my door. The anticipation building, the wanting, the need, overrode my better judgment to not have sex when Manolo was here and could potentially wake up and catch us in the act.
Golden shut the bedroom door and flipped the lock, and I felt a little silly for forgetting that the doorknob even had a lock on it, even if it was one of the cheap and cheesy ones easily bypassed with a paperclip from the outside.
He came back to me and cupped my face with his hands, kissing me long and slow as I gathered the hem of his tee in my hands. He raised his arms for me and let me pull it from his body, his fingers immediately going to the front of my women’s blue oxford shirt and working the buttons out of their holes.
I sighed contentedly as he worked to undress me, letting my hands wander over his warm skin, exploring him with light and gentle touching while he worked the last button free. He pushed the shirt back off of my shoulders and down my arms, effectively cutting my explorations of his hard body short. Once free of the button-down, I grasped the hem of the white cotton camisole I wore underneath and drew it up over my head.
Our mouths naturally gravitated to one another and we kissed, pressing skin-on-skin, our upper bodies needing the intimate contact even as he unhooked my bra at the back and pulled it out from between us. My hands went for his belt as he guided his fingers down to the waistband of my dark grey yoga leggings, catching my panties under them and sweeping them down my legs. Smooth as butter, when I stepped out of each leg, he managed to get my socks, too. I stood nude before him, he on his knees looking up at me.
It was a strange feeling.
He was always the one that seemed so powerful and in-control out of the two of us. He was always the one with the plan and the know-how, yet here he was, kneeling at my feet, fingertips ghosting up the backs of my legs, nudging them apart just a little bit more, his somber dark gaze looking up at me in worship as he leaned in and dipped his tongue at the apex of my thighs.
My head fell back, a deep gasp of surprised pleasure falling from between my lips as his hands found the globes of my ass and pressed me closer to his probing tongue. My
hands fell to his hair, fingers burying themselves into it as I trembled at the delicious sensations his mouth wrought on my most intimate parts.
“I don’t think I can stand much longer,” I confessed,my knees feeling weak. He stood swiftly, his own knees letting out twin painful-sounding cracks into the confines of the room, though he didn’t seem to pay them any mind. He picked me up and carefully tossed me onto the bed where I bounced, laughing quietly, as he stripped his belt from the loops on his jeans.
“One of these times, if you’re okay with it, I want to tie you to the bed.”
I raised an eyebrow and said, “Kinky.”
“Sometimes,” he agreed.
I smiled, and put my hands together and held out my wrists, trusting him. He grinned and looped the belt around them, pulling it tight. He gave the long end of the braided leather a loop around the center, tightening the belt around my wrists, and threaded it through, locking them into place.
“Lie back,” he whispered and I did, and he raised my arms above my head and tied the long tail of the belt left remaining around one of the bars of the old-fashioned, wrought iron headboard.
I tugged on my hands and found them held fast as he climbed up onto the bed between my legs and nudged them apart with his shoulders.
“I’m going to eat you out, make you come at least twice, then I’m going to give you the ride of your life,” he promised.
I watched with fascinated heat while he slowly stripped out of the denim of his jeans, peeling them down his muscular thighs, my gaze lingering for just a moment on the indented silvery spider work of the old scar from where he’d been shot, long before we’d ever met. He knelt on the bed, his cock bobbing and swaying, fully engorged, as he settled on his stomach between my legs, taking it from my sight, his dark eyes filling my field of vision as he licked a deliberate, slow, wet line from my opening to my clit.
I gasped, jerking against my bonds and the fact that I was trapped and at his mercy sent such a thrill through me. I knew I was safe, because I knew I was loved, and because I knew that if I asked, he would let me go. I wouldn’t ask, though. I wanted this. I wanted to feel him inside me, I wanted him to do his worst, which in this scenario, translated to his very, very best.
“Oh, god,” I said, and he chuckled darkly against my body, making me gasp.
“Quiet, Chica,” he murmured against my pussy, reminding me, and I bit my lips together to stifle the next moan he ripped from me. I closed my eyes and let my head fall back and concentrated very hard on simply breathing and not letting my voice come into play as he made it extremely hard to remember and incredibly easy to forget all things.
He slid a finger inside of me and teased that spot inside while working my clit with his mouth from the outside and fireworks went off behind my closed eyelids. I shuddered and gasped, panted and attempted to writhe, but his arm across my hips put a quick stop to that last. I swallowed hard, gritted my teeth against making any sounds and gave myself over to just feeling, and it was a cascading rush of pleasure that left me exquisitely shattered in its wake.
I lay panting, beautifully devastated in the wake of it, as Golden climbed my body with light touches and kisses,planting seeds of desire with every scant press of his lips against my overheated, oversensitive skin. I gasped, sucking in and holding sharp little breaths every time he made contact with me. His smile grew with every kiss until he knelt above me, hovering over me and smoothing my hair back from my face.
“How do you feel?” he whispered, checking in on me.
“Amazing,” I whispered back and he kissed my lips. I closed my eyes and drowned myself in the warm euphoria he brought over me.
“Ready for round two?” he asked softly.
“No,” I said, but I think he could taste the lie when I smiled. I mean, I felt good, why go further?
“Hm,” he chuckled darkly. “Be right back, baby.”
He settled down between my quivering legs and lapped at my pussy. I gasped, a whimper escaping my mouth before I could stop it. I’d barely come back from the last earth-shattering orgasm and he was already sending me back into space. The pleasure mounted, the full feeling returned to my pelvic region as he sucked at my clitoris, teasing it with his tongue, his fingers pumping in and out of my wetness as I strained at my bonds, the feeling of being at his mercy incredibly sexy and surprisingly freeing.
I just couldn’t get enough.
31
Golden…
Her second orgasm was choice. It was like she crashed hard into a quivering wreck in the middle of the bed and when I pulled my fingers out of her, licking them clean, she looked up at me with lust-filled brown eyes that told me that she was having a blast. I pulled her legs apart and walked up the bed on my knees, collapsing over her, holding myself up on one arm over her shoulder. I gazed into her eyes from inches away and she panted, struggling at her bonds a little. I could tell she wanted to touch me, but not yet. I wasn’t done playing with her.
“I believe I promised you one hell of a ride, Chica.”
She raised an eyebrow in challenge. “So what are you waiting for?”
I grabbed her around the thighs and pulled her towards me; her arms snapped taut above her head and she let out a surprised yip, but her smile and her laugh followed it and I knew she was in a good place. Hopefully, I was about to make it better.
I shoved into her hot, wet cunt in one deft stroke and she was ready for me. She bit her bottom lip and let out a harsh breath with just the edge of a decadent murmured sound. I pulled her onto my cock to meet the surge of my hips and it was rough and brutal and I fucking loved it.
We’d talked about her ex, what he’d done, in detail, so I had figured this was worth a try, seeing as it was the opposite to how she’d been assaulted. I was glad I’d given it a go because the unbridled joy on her face was worth everything.
“Harder,” she murmured and I obliged. I wasn’t going to last long, not like this, this was something too hot for me to hold off. I gritted my teeth and felt a surge of triumph when she came around my dick. The squeeze of her soft body around my shaft sent me right over the edge.
We both gasped for breath, her arms twisting against her bonds as she begged me breathlessly, “Let me go.”
I knelt up and undid her bonds, working the leather off from around her wrists, massaging them and her hands until she shook them out of my grasp and captured my face between them, dragging my face to hers. I fell over the top of her, cradling her under the protection of my body as she clung to me and kissed me breathless all over again.
“Stay with me,” she murmured and I nodded carefully. Manolo seemed like he didn’t have a problem with it, and I could use a decent night’s sleep that didn’t involve the kid kicking me in the middle of the night, or waking up with a plastic dinosaur digging into my ribs from between the couch cushions.
She kissed me again, slower, more luxurious than before, full of weight and meaning, before whispering, “I love you.”
My heart swelled so damn big in my chest it damn near hurt and I put my forehead against hers and whispered back, “I love you, too, Lys. I love you, too.”
She lay on my chest in the close dark, her fingertips playing along my skin, her skin hidden beneath one of those damn nightshirts of hers, but it wouldn’t do for Manolo to walk in on us in nothing but the sheets. We’d already tempted fate once that night. She sighed out and it was the most satisfied sound I’d ever made a woman make. I smiled and kissed her head and she cuddled closer.
“Life has a funny way of working out, doesn’t it?” I asked.
She practically purred when she snickered.
“Mm, it does,” she agreed.
“I’ve been thinking about some things,” I murmured.
“Like?” she asked.
“A beat cop’s salary is okay for one guy, but when it comes to raising a family? A mortgage? Not so much.”
“You know I’ll help,” she said, her tone slightly injured.
“I know, baby, I know… it’s just the department has been after me since I joined up to take another position, and now I’m seriously thinking about it.”
“What position would that be?” she asked and I could tell it piqued her interest.
“Well, when I was overseas, I was trained to do things like bust down doors and extract the bad guys. All the things the ICPD look for in a SWAT member. They were trying to court me onto the SWAT team when shit went sideways serving that warrant and I got shot.”
I laughed a little and she raised her head, smiling a little wanting in on the joke asking, “What’s so funny?”
“All the tours of duty I pulled over there, I didn’t once even come close to getting tagged by a bullet. Come home, and I get shot in the leg inside my first eight months on the job.”
She swallowed hard and I could see the wheels in her pretty head turning. It was my turn to ask her, “What?”
“Tactical situations are dangerous…”
I could hear the ‘but’ coming so I said, “…But?”
“So is being a cop on the street, especially nowadays, right?”
“Actually, statistically, crime is lower than it’s ever been,” I told her. She looked at me like I was crazy. I laughed, “No, really, it is! It’s just that everybody has a damn camera in their hand now, so things that wouldn’t normally make the news, they get put up on social media and then go viral and everybody hears about more and sees more than they used to. At least, that’s my explanation for it, anyway.” I gave a light shrug.
“Are you asking me for permission?” she asked, after mulling it over for a while.
“Well, yeah, kind of, I guess. I don’t want to just go off and make a decision that might affect you or Manolo negatively.”
“I suppose it’s really a matter of pay, isn’t it?” she asked.