Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  “I look like the victim of a gang-bang golden shower gone wrong, don’t I?”

  “You look alive,” she whispered. She couldn’t speak offhandedly about his injuries. Not yet. Maybe never. “You look incredible.” Pushing up on her knees, she ran her hands over his muscular shoulders to the solid, warm planes of his pecs, and slowly down to his abs. She tickled her fingertips along the waistband of his pants.

  He released a deep moan. “No way I can handle teasing from you, Max. Not with missing you so much. Sorry.” Abruptly, he stood up and kicked off his shoes. With a swift yank of his wrist, he unbuckled his belt, then shoved his pants down and pushed everything aside with his foot. He sat back down, his erection sticking straight up from his lap.

  She moved back in again and encircled his hard cock with her hand. Her fingers didn’t meet around the circumference of it. Hmm. Managing to give a blow job to such an imposing organ was going to be…a bit of a challenge.

  Hope you’ve got good gag-reflex control, sugah.

  So did she.

  With her other hand, she nudged at the middle of his chest till he got the hint and lay down on his back, his legs left to hang off the edge of his bed.

  She scrambled up onto the mattress, settling beside his hips, her hand still grasping his erection. She examined it from every angle. Probably best to work her way up to the big gulp. She licked her tongue across the wide top of his smooth cock.

  The muscles in his thighs flexed.

  Come to think of it, she could probably do no wrong here.

  She hung out at the tip of him for a bit, swirling and swirling her tongue around the rim and all over the plump crest. His breathing sped up. She switched to the lollypop treatment, dragging her tongue down the length of him, then back up, then back down. She spied his hands twitching. He grabbed up fistfuls of sheets. A ribbon of desire twisted through her belly. She was really undoing him here. She would’ve giggled, but, er, laughter while sucking a man’s dick was probably the definition of a passion-killer. Back up, back down…all the way down, this time to his balls. Slipping one hand underneath his sac, she gently lifted his balls to her mouth. She kissed and licked and nibbled, and Kyle’s next breath came out in a rush.

  She smiled against the warm, supple flesh of his scrotum, then glided her tongue back up the long stretch of him, pressing his cock into the flat of her palm as she did. This time when she reached his head, he tasted salty. And powerful. She muffled out a noise. This drop of virile flavor on her tongue shot another bolt of lust straight through her.

  Shifting into a better position, she wrapped her hand fully around his thickness again and drew the top of his dick into her mouth, just the crown, and gave it several hard sucks.

  A rough growl spilled out of him.

  The noise was such a base sound of pleasure, hearing it got her wet. Just, swoosh, she was all slippery heat between her legs. She gave her thighs a quick squeeze, then suctioned her lips around his circumference again and rode smoothly and slowly down his length. Up and down, up and down…she pumped her fist along with her mouth movements, each time taking him in deeper.

  “Jesus,” he hissed.

  Never slowing, Max angled her eyes up to check on him.

  His nipples stood out like pebbles on his chest, his hands were fisted knuckle-white around wads of sheets, and he was breathing so heavily, his stomach was collapsing inward on each deep inhale.

  He was close to coming, and how awesome was it going to be to push him there? She rode down him again. The steady, bumping incursion of his cock into the back of her mouth had softened the muscles there and worked up a good amount of lubricating saliva. It was time to conquer. On the next downward bob, she swallowed him down her throat.

  He made a sharp “ah!” sound, and his hips bucked.

  With a swift exhale from her nostrils, she deep-throated him again. And again.

  “Max,” he gulped out. Then “Ah!” again, which was the greatest noise ever. He threaded his fingers in her hair, trying to urge her off as semen erupted from his arousal. He shouted.

  She stayed in close and drank him down. He tasted a little salty and musky and not too bad at all.

  Groaning long and low, Kyle’s body lost all of its former rigidity. He sprawled limply on the mattress.

  She released his softening cock, kissed his belly once, then crawled up to lie beside him.

  With another soft moan, he clutched her close to his side. “I’d planned to stop you so we could have sex, but…” His breathing still a bit labored, he turned his head to look at her. “What you did ended up feeling way too great.”

  “Well, good.” She combed her fingers through his chest hair. “I wasn’t sure if I could do it, actually. I’m feeling quite proud of myself.”

  He chuckled. “You should be.” He shifted and seemed to sink deeper into the mattress, his eyelids sagging down. “Give me ten minutes of rest, then I’m going to show you what a fantastic husband I’m going to make you.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She was feeling squirmy with leftover desire, but… “I can’t make love right now, anyway. I’m on my period.”

  His eyes came open all the way. Levering up onto his elbow, he bent over her and stared.

  “See?” She tapped a finger to his chin. “I told you I wasn’t ovulating in Pakistan.”

  He continued to stare at her.

  “So…I bet you’re relieved I’m not pregnant.” Question mark. Was he? “Right?”

  He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip, then he nodded, but it was such a tiny movement, it was almost imperceptible. He glanced up, gazing across the room for a long moment—gifting her with a gnarly view of his jaw scar—then glanced down at her again. “I’m also disappointed. Is that strange?”

  She felt the warmth of the sun move into her chest. “No.” She smiled, close-lipped. “I am, too.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Kyle’s emotions see-sawed into schizophrenic mode. One second he was filled with wonderment at the thought of creating a blue-eyed, tow-headed child with this woman. The next second a hollow ache emptied him out as he imagined that tow-headed kid sick in a hospital bed. He took in a measured breath. “It’s just as well,” he said. “I still want to have genetic testing done first.”

  “All right.” Max cupped his cheek with her palm, her eyes soft. “But I’m not worried.”

  He found a smile. Positive Max to the rescue again. He went back to staring at her.

  The sight of her, in his very own bed no less, was such a miraculous, amazing, stupefying thing, he was still processing the reality of it. Had she really magically appeared on his porch a little while ago, like a present gift-wrapped by the Universe itself? Yep. Here she was, although she looked sort of different, her hair puffed up in a style that left behind only a hint of her normal tomboyish appearance, makeup on her face. She looked feminine and pretty like this, and smelled womanly and of life’s comforts. Of homey things. Of home. Although the ragamuffin Pakistan Max he’d grown accustomed to was pretty, too. Truth was, he couldn’t imagine her ever not being pretty to him.

  Her lips were also extra-red from the stupendous blow job she’d just given him. Not many women could handle his size, even pros—and, yes, he’d sunk to such levels in his endless search for methods to numb himself, which probably had a lot to do with the Worthless Shithead Act Max had accused him of engaging in. But Max had taken all of him. He’d never been particularly picky about deep-throating. Any time a woman’s mouth and tongue were near his cock, he could count himself a happy man. But the way Max had drawn him in had been…he didn’t know…. He supposed he’d have to stretch beyond his usual male vocabulary of fucking amazeballs to describe it. Extremely intimate, maybe?

  He rolled out of bed, and as he stood, exhaustion nearly buckled his knees. Whoa. He’d been tired before, but now that Max had oralized him so thoroughly, he was running below bingo on fuel. He checked the clock. It was eighteen hundred hours, which meant i
t was three o’clock in the morning German time inside his body. No wonder. “You hungry?” he asked, yawning.

  Max sat up on his bed. “You look ready to drop, Kyle. Why don’t we order in? Pizza okay with you?”

  “Damn, woman, you always say the most perfect things. Pizza’s my favorite food.”

  “As your future wife, I should probably warn you that I don’t usually eat fast food. I prefer to cook.”

  Even better. “As your future husband, my response to that is coolio. And also to tell you”—he winked—“I do housework.”

  She placed a hand to her breasts. “Be still my beating heart.”

  Chuckling, he tossed his pants in the direction of the hamper—he’d fish his final letter out of them later—then snagged a pair of maroon basketball shorts out of his dresser drawer and tugged them on. “I have some flyers in the kitchen for several local pizza joints. You can pick.”

  “Okay.” She tossed him his shirt off the bed, then hopped to her feet.

  They went into the kitchen together.

  He pulled out a stack of fast food pamphlets from the cupboard where they shared space with his coffee mugs.

  A loud knock sounded at the door.

  “Afterward, we can cuddle up in bed,” Max said, sifting through the leaflets. “I’ll watch a chick flick while you pretend to watch, but really sleep.”

  He laughed as he crossed his living room. Another spot-on comment.

  He was still laughing when he opened his front door, leaving him totally unprepared for the small fist that came flying at him. The punch slammed into the left side of his chin and sent him staggering. He grunted.

  “What the fuck is your problem, Kyle!?”

  He moved back into the doorway and went rigid, heat chasing up the back of his neck and into his cheeks. Sienna!

  His ex-girlfriend glared at him through glitter-coated blonde eyelashes, her enormous breasts heaving beneath the tight stretch of a skimpy tank top. “Is it a sick, perverted joke of yours to make me fly out here from Virginia every time I want to have the simplest conversation with you?!” She sneered. “Do you think it makes you the big boss man or something?”

  “Here’s an idea, Sienna,” Kyle shot back. “Stop trying to talk to me.”

  Sienna’s cheeks bloomed bright red. “You never think I have anything important to say!” she shouted, her hands landing on her hips. “Here you are back from deployment early, but once again you can’t be bothered to respond to my text messages. Well, guess what? I do have something important to say! Something vital! Okay, you prick?!”

  Kyle felt a vein throb to life in his forehead. The sound of this woman’s voice could push a pro-lifer to suicide. “I’m not just back from deployment,” he snarled. “I was MEDEVAC’d out of Pakistan. So excuse the fuck out of me if spending this last week trying not to die superseded talking to your cousin Michael about the naval career he’ll never have because he’s a complete mullethead. You should also know that I bought a new phone. You don’t have my number anymore, Sienna, but if you should ever manage to text me, I’ll automatically push the delete key.” Ha! Fuck, yeah, I will! “Got that?”

  Sienna’s face stained darker. She threw her fists into the air, shrieked, then hurled her bunched-up hands toward his chest.

  He sidestepped her blow. “Do not hit me.” He growled the warning, rage scorching his throat and burning his eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you?” He was this close to grabbing this bitch by the back of her hair and thong, and physically 86’ing her off his porch. “Get out of my life,” he ordered her, “and never come back.” Kyle shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet, poised for the Universe to roll its eyes and start in on a bunch of yeah, right’ing. Because he’d said those very same words to Sienna many times before and had never owned the strength to mean them.

  But that was before Max.

  Max believed in him. She demanded that he believe in himself, and because of that, had taught him to quit sabotaging his life. So, yeah, this time when he told Sienna to get out, he was met with only silence from the Universe.

  I do mean it this time! Damned straight he did. Facing his ex-girlfriend squarely, he moved to close the door.

  Sienna shoved the door back open with the flats of both palms. “I’m here for a reason, you idiot bastard!” A wash of angry tears added extra shine to her glare.

  “Whatever it is, I don’t—”

  “Brodie’s dead!” she hurled at him. “The bone marrow transplant didn’t work, and he died two days ago, you fucking prick!”

  The world wiped out onto its side and went dark. Kyle stood ice-still, barely squeezing breath through the constriction of his throat, chest, lungs. His guts slithered down and tangled around his feet.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to get it touch with you about! And now you’ve missed the memorial service,” Sienna accused through her teeth, “because my texts weren’t important enough for you to answer. Are you happy with yourself, Kyle?!” Sienna punctuated the question with a hard slap to his face.

  Kyle was too paralyzed to block the hit. His head kicked sideways from the blow while the sound of flesh on flesh cracked out loud as a plate breaking. He shuffled into the doorjamb on unsteady legs as Sienna’s words spilled like Alphabet Soup onto the floor of his brain, a scatter of random letters—o, d, y, e, a.

  Brodie…two days…dead.

  But Sienna wouldn’t allow him to slink away into the safety of confusion. “Our son is dead!” Visibly shaking, Sienna started in on a free-for-all, whaling hits at him. “Do you hear me?! Dead!”

  Kyle bowed his head, letting Sienna beat on him. His eyes suddenly full, he welcomed the stinging pain. This is my fault. I should’ve never left Brodie. And wasn’t that always the way with him? So, yeah, it turned out he hadn’t changed a damned bit. Not a single iota. His time with Max in Pakistan had led him to believe he’d made himself over into a good man. But he hadn’t. Because people never changed. Not really. Not deep down.

  You were going to leave Brodie’s hospital room today, weren’t you?

  Kyle pushed his face into his palms. I’m so sorry!

  “Our son is dead!” Sienna shrieked again. Slap. Slap. Slap.

  “Excuse me.”

  Two words spoken. Quietly. Firmly.

  And everything stopped.

  Pain. Noise. Thoughts. Time.

  Kyle lifted his head. Something trickled from his nose and he dully identified it as blood.

  Max had come in from the kitchen and was standing just inside the foyer, her face stark white, the pamphlets in her hand shaking. She wasn’t focused on him, though. She had a solid bead on Sienna.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” Max said, walking forward. “I understand that you must be in incredible pain right now, but I can’t imagine a crueler way to give someone bad news than what you just did to Kyle.”

  Sienna stared at Max, her wet lashes turning her eyelids into frowning slits.

  Max grabbed the door, the gesture setting her arm as a bar across access to his house. “Kyle has asked you to leave, so please do so. I’ll take care of him from here.” Max started to close door, even moving her body forward so that there could be no stopping the forward momentum of the closure.

  Sienna seamed her mouth so tight, her lips disappeared. Kyle had never seen her look meaner. “Who are you?”

  “Kyle’s fiancée.” Max stopped with only a foot of space between the door and the jamb. “Please take a moment to calm yourself before you drive off, Miss Kelleman.” Max’s eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t wish a crash on you.”

  Kyle didn’t get the parting dig at first, but then remembered back to his cell phone exchange with Max and realized she was referring to the text message of Sienna’s she’d read:

  Ur the most selfish inconsiderate man in the world, Sienna had written. I hope u crash out there you prick!!!!

  Max firmly shut the door, then looked at him.

  It felt like spoiled g
lobs of cottage cheese were in his throat when he swallowed. His barometer in life—the blue light in Max’s eyes—was doused completely out. This is bad…very, very…

  Brodie’s dead.

  Kyle smashed his eyes shut, squeezing his lids until he had stopped all but the smallest bit of moisture from seeping beneath his lashes. He was snatching at control with grasping fingers…and losing the fight. Soon his control would be completely gone. “Leave,” he ordered Max, his voice rumbling out deep and rough, heavy with this horrid, swelling need to weep.

  “Kyle,” Max implored gently. “You’ve just received a terrible shock. Let me—”

  “I mean it.” He hauled open the door. “Get out, Max. Now!”

  Max’s chest moved. “No,” she said, soft, but adamant.

  Kyle’s heart banged hard enough to knock a couple of his ribs into his stomach. Max said something else to him, but it was as if her voice was coming at him from behind soundproof glass. Or maybe it was being drowned out by the dull roar rising in his ears, a tsunami of screams—shouts, shrieks, wails. Accusations! This is my fault! I never should’ve left Brodie! He sucked in a huge lungful of air. “GET OUT!” he bellowed at her.

  Max paled another shade, but didn’t budge.

  Jutting his chin, he grabbed her from behind, a full bear hug around her torso, his arms locking hers down.

  The pamphlets sprayed everywhere.

  Lifting her off the floor, he charged for the door.

  Max made a sound deep in her chest, and swung her legs up, planting her feet on either side of the door frame. He continued forward, making her knees bend. He met resistance. Protesting wood barked.

  Max snapped her legs straight, and her strong swimmer’s muscles sent them both flying backward.

  He hurtled through his living room until he was stopped by the abrupt meeting of the backs of his legs to the arm of his couch. He tumbled backward, his ass ending up, of all places, inside his open suitcase. He fell onto his back, the edge of his suitcase digging into his spine, and Max toppled out of his hold.