by Jay McLean
I lick my lips and drop my gaze to her now warm hand curled around my dick and I swear if this is a dream I’m going to cry. Legit, cry.
It’s not a dream, though. Because my dreams of this moment don’t come close to the feeling of her warm mouth around me, her lips spread thin. Not gonna lie, I’ve thought about this moment a lot. A little too much. Every single time she pouted, my mind pictured those lips exactly where they are. And now it’s happening. And I’m close. Closer than I wanted to be.
She’s hesitant, it seems, which just makes my cock throb in her mouth because her inexperience mixed with innocence makes her even hotter. She pulls back, takes a breath and then resumes her position, her eyes focused on her task. I place my hand in her hair and slowly guide her, not to be forceful, but to be…. helpful. Yeah. Helpful.
I lean back on my outstretched arm, the other hand still in her hair and I wonder how the fuck it is I got so lucky. Then she looks up again, her eyebrows raised as if asking if I’m enjoying what she’s doing. That one look—that single second—is my undoing. I push her away and reach for a discarded shirt. “Like this?” she asks, making a fist around my dick and pumping to the same pace as her mouth only seconds earlier.
“You’re fucking incredible, Riley.” And then I blow. I come harder than I have since the first time I was inside her, my breath catches in my chest as she keeps her strokes going and “Holy shit!”
She laughs as I throw the shirt across the room and wipe my brow on my forearm. Then she climbs onto the mattress, her legs on either side of mine, straddling my waist.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” I say back, feeling the wetness of both our parts as they touch, my still hard cock between her folds. She kisses my neck, making her way up to my jaw, before finding my lips. Her hips circle, grinding herself into me. It’s too much. Too fucking much. Because I’m already close to coming again and I need her to get off again. At least twice.
I am a gentleman, after all.
So, I flip her onto her back, her hair splaying across my pillow. I kiss and suck and lick my way down from her neck, stopping at each of her breasts, paying them equal attention before I move to her stomach, my tongue dipping into her belly button. She writhes beneath me, her hands fisted in the sheets as I move lower again, her moans of pleasure filling my ears and making me harder. I taste her again, because I didn’t get enough the first time. Her back arches off the bed, her legs squeezing the sides of my face as I bite down on her clit. I place my arm across her stomach, keeping her in place so I can get my finger inside her again.
She’s close. I can tell because her breathing’s stopped, her stomach muscles have tensed and her thighs are pressed hard against my ears. She’s trying to lift off the mattress, trying to get more of me.
I give her more.
Fuck, I give her everything.
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit.” She says this over and over while my fingers work faster and faster until they’re completely soaked with her juices and so is my mouth. She drops back on the bed, her hands releasing the sheets, her entire body covered in sweat and nothing—not a goddamn thing has ever, EVER, turned me on as much as watching and feeling her hand around my cock, guiding me to her entrance while her eyes lock with mine. I reach across her and open the drawer of my nightstand to pull out a condom and, with one of her hands still around my cock; she uses the other to take the packet from me. She bites down on the corner, tearing it open and then, as if she wasn’t sexy enough, she rolls it on for me. Then she places one hand behind her head, the other covering her breast as she bites her lip and nods once. I push up on my left arm, my right hand gripping her leg and wrapping it around my waist so she’s wide open for me. I wasn’t kidding when I said she was tight—because she wasn’t kidding when she said she was “almost” a virgin. On the first thrust, I’m inside her and on the second, she leans up, her hands on my shoulders and her mouth by my ear when she moans, “Fuck me, Lance Corporal Banks.”
We lay together, her head on my chest and my arm around her, completely naked and covered in sweat. Our bodies stick to the sheets but we’re both too exhausted to do anything about it. “What the hell got into you, Hudson?” I joke.
She laughs and presses her face into the crook of my neck. “I read that book you got me.”
“Yeah?”
“It was a little more… erotic than the first one.”
I chuckle, making her half sit up and look down on me.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.” I reach for my phone and send Cam a text.
Dylan: FUCK YEAH BOOKS!
Twenty-Seven
Riley
The next couple months go by in a blur. Mom jokes that Dylan may as well move in with the amount of time he’s over. We spend every night together, either at his house or mine. Sometimes I wonder if it’s his way of keeping an eye on me—making sure I don’t drink. But then I realize that it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’m grateful for him. Each day we spend together, we learn and we laugh and we love more than the last.
I push him to maintain his rehab. He pushes my buttons. Same old. But he also helps me to push my boundaries. He encouraged me to go into town, which I did, with him holding my hand, our chins raised and ready for whatever would come my way.
Nothing came.
It seems that to a degree, Mom was right. People just needed something to talk about. Apparently, the current “talk” is some priest having an affair with a housewife. Whatever. People are stupid.
That night, I wrote letters to everyone I affected with my actions, put them in a jar, and walked into the stores or offices and handed them to the owners, Jake’s dad included.
Mr. Andrews was happy to see Dylan, and happy to see that I was happy. We also went to see Dr. Matthews, his friend’s dad, and got me on birth control.
We go to Dylan’s check ups together (I’m on my third notebook) and his doctors are happy with his progress. And even though we know the clock is ticking on our current time together… we don’t talk about it.
We don’t look at the clock.
We’re having too much fun.
My mom brings it up sometimes, but never to the point where she’s the one pushing the wrong buttons.
A few nights ago we drove down to UNC for “Operation Mayhem: Retaliation Edition.” I didn’t really know what this meant, but it involved me dressing in black, fishing wire, a fishing rod, sixteen cans of cat food, a crowbar, the High School Musical soundtrack, a shit ton of eggs, a blow up doll, and five huge black dildos. That’s just what was in the front seat. I don’t even want to list what was in the bed of his truck. Nor do I want to think about the dent this made on his credit card.
“Mo money, mo problems,” he said when I casually mentioned it, which made absolutely no sense but he’d been talking to Dave a lot more lately so I guess that might have something to do with it.
I beg him to leave Lucy alone since her and I had started texting a bit, mainly about books. Oh. I forgot to mention, the morning after I showed up at his house in the middle of the night, Dylan went out and got me a Kindle and had Lucy load it up with “her” types of books. He just kept saying, “Read, Riley. Read as much as you want, whenever you want.” So I did. And now Lucy and I read books together—something she loves because we’re both quick readers. Anyway, his response to my request to leave Lucy alone was quite disturbing. “But then what would I do with three of the dildos and the five feet of chains?” So… I left that alone.
I also left him to do most of the mayhem himself considering I already had a record for disorderly conduct. We left UNC as the sun was rising and headed back home. I asked why he didn’t stay to at least watch one of the reactions. He said it wasn’t the point. The point is to plant, not to witness. That’s rule number four.
Did I mention that I think I’m in love with him? Because I think am. Soul-crushing, heart-stealing, life-changing, guilt-free L.O.V.E in love with him.
“A
ll right, babe,” he says, sticking his head out from under the hood of the Honda. “Turn her over.”
I put my Kindle on the seat next to me and reach for the keys in the ignition. Then I crank it. It starts first go, causing a giant grin to form across Dylan’s face. I start to celebrate but he presses a finger on his lips to silence me, then he closes his eyes and listens to the quiet roar of the engine for a minute. I guess hoping it doesn’t die.
I’d learned from our chats that he’s a 1342 Small Craft Mechanic. I’m sure I got my wording wrong but it basically means that that’s what he chose his job to be when he enlisted and while he was deployed. Besides, you know, saving the world and all that.
So I guess it’s safe to say that he’d be pretty disappointed in himself had he not connected the engine to the shell properly. But going off of the widening of his grin, he’s done all right.
He rubs his hands together as he makes his way to the passenger seat, carefully placing my Kindle in the glove box. Swear, he thinks that Kindle is made of unicorn leather or something. He handles it with more care than he handles me… but then again… the books I’ve read have taught me that not all lovemaking should be sensual. Sometimes, you just want a good, hard, rough spanking. True story.
“Let’s take her for a spin,” he tells me.
“You want me to drive?”
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “Of course you’re driving. It’s your car.”
“What?!” I shout.
“Why the hell do you think I’ve been working on it?”
“You can’t give me a car! Did Afghanistan give you brain damage?”
He rolls his eyes. “I have a car! What the hell am I going to do with this one?”
“You can’t buy me a car, Dylan!”
He scoffs. “Technically, I didn’t buy you a car. I made you one.” His smile widens as he pretends to write in the air. “Dear Jeremy,” he says, his voice high pitched. “Dylan made me a car and I love him so much.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. Because I know he’s not mocking me. He’s just being Dylan.
“Seriously,” he adds. “What am I going to do with this?”
“You didn’t buy it with the intention of giving it to me, though.”
“I beg to differ.”
“You got it a few weeks after you got home. We’d barely started dating.”
“Yeah, and I wanted to get in your pants back then. This was my go-to if all my other plans failed me.”
“What? Give me a car in the hopes I’d put out?”
“Yep.”
We argue about this for another five minutes before he finally gets sick of my nagging and tells me to shut up and be grateful. So… I shut up and be grateful.
We’re gone a couple of hours before we get back to our neighborhood, but he tells me to turn onto a street two before ours. He doesn’t tell me why. Just says it’ll be worth it. Then he tells me to stop in front of nowhere familiar and gets out of the car. I stay. Just in case this is one of his crazy Operation Mayhems and I need to bail quickly. He walks to my side of the car, opens my door, undoes my belt, and holds my hand, helping me to get out. “What’s going on?” I ask, looking around me.
He’s pulling one of his shitty pranks. I can feel it. My heart can feel it. It’s already hammering in my chest. I suspect his crazy friends will retaliate his retaliation and throw shit at me. Probably under his advisement. I do tend to throw shit at him often.
He must sense my concern because he chuckles. “Don’t worry, Riley. Nothing bad is going to happen.” He walks up a path leading to a single story house, similar to ours, but a little bit bigger.
“Are we visiting with someone?” I look down at my clothes—my standard grease stained shirt underneath one of his and my torn denim shorts and I grasp his hand tighter and dig my heels into the ground. “I’m not dressed for this.”
He laughs again. “There’s no one here.”
“Oh my God, you’re going to kill me in this abandoned house.”
He shrugs. “Maybe,” he says, pulling a set of keys out of his pocket and stopping at the front door. Then he proceeds to open it. “But that would be a really bad way to start out in our new home. Not to mention the resale value.”
I stop in my tracks, my breath leaving me and running far away to the land of sense, abandoning me in the land of—“What’s going on?” I ask.
This makes him laugh harder. “I spoke to your mom about it,” he tells me. “She was hesitant at first, but after an hour or so of me convincing her that it was a good idea for you to get out of the house, get on your feet, and maybe even get a job… if you don’t plan on going back to college, that is…”
My eyes roam the space of the empty living room, but they’re not looking at the house. They’re still looking for my breath. And the sense. Because right now, neither exist.
“So?”
I look over at him, standing a few feet in front of me with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on mine. “Huh?”
He shrugs, his voice lowering, and I can see the insecurity masked behind the cockiness. “I bought us a house, Riley. I want us to move out and move on. I want us to do it together.”
“But the car…” I whisper stupidly.
“The car goes with the house, and both come with me. If you want them.”
“I want them,” I squeak, feeling it impossible to breathe through the lump in my throat, the overwhelming emotions and the love I have for the man in front of me. “But what happens… I mean, when you leave?”
“That’s why I got one close to your mom, so you can visit and if things ever get too hard, you can always go home… to her home.” He takes a step forward, licking his lips as he does. Then he takes my hand and dips his head so we’re eye to eye. “But I’m hoping we can make this our home, and while I’m gone, you’ll continue to keep it that way. So that when I’m done, I can come home, Riley. To you. You’re my home now.”
We make love on the hardwood floors of our new living room, our sounds of pleasure echoing off the walls and into my heart. I cry. I’ve never cried when we’ve made love before—but then again, he’s never made me feel like this. There was always a question between now and the day he redeployed… what would happen to us? And he cleared up that question with an act that defies logic—an act that denied permission. He didn’t ask if I wanted these things. He didn’t need to.
He knew I wanted it.
Wanted him.
And for the first time since he knocked on my door—angry and pissed off at the world—we found what we were looking for. And it sure as hell wasn’t in the bottom of a bottle.
It was in each other.
We found the horizon.
He found his calm.
And I found my reality.
We drive. His hand on my leg. The sun beaming down on us. While we talk about my new car and our new house.
Dreams—they do come true.
Twenty-Eight
Riley
Dylan rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, his eyes on mine and his lips pressed tight.
I take another look around the empty kitchen. “Well,” I ask him. “Where should we start?”
He smirks. “Probably where it all began. On the kitchen counter. Then the bedroom floor. Oh, and the shower. I’ve always wanted to fuck you in the shower. The possibilities are endless, Hudson.”
He jumps back, avoiding my smack on his stomach. Then he laughs. “I don’t know, babe. It’s your house.”
“Our house,” I tell him.
Shrugging, he says, “Yeah, but I don’t care what it looks like. Anything will be better than how I’ve been living.”
I rub my hands together. “My Little Pony it is!”
He shrugs again.
“You seriously don’t care, do you?”
“Nope.” He steps toward me, his arms going around my waist. “Just as long as you’re happy.”
“I feel horrible,” I admit. “We’re spending all your
money.”
He shoves me away jokingly. “Yeah, go get a job, gold digger.”
An excited burst of laughter bubbles out of me. “I can’t wait to move in and make this our home.”
“So let’s do it then. What do we need? Bed? We can bring one of ours. Fridge? I have a spare in the garage.”
“Mom said she’d give us her kitchen table and any linen we needed.”
Dylan smiles. “Then that’s all we need. We can get everything else as we go.”
I cover my lips with my hand, hiding my smile as I look around the empty house again. “I can’t believe you bought us a house.”
He places his hand on my back as I walk from room to room. “I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have you all to myself.”
I turn to him, my hands on his chest. “Shut up. I’m the lucky one, Dylan.”
He takes my wrists, and kisses the palm of each hand. “We’re both lucky.”
“I’ll get a job to help pay for things.”
“It’s not necessary, but I do think it’ll be good for you.”
I nod.
“So are we moving in today or what?” he asks.
“We’re here. Now. Why not?”
Eric and his dad help us move my bed and his fridge using Dylan’s truck. Mom raids the house for whatever she can give us. I can tell she’s sad to see me go and I’m sure she was more than hesitant when Dylan brought up the idea, but she’s doing exactly what she’s always done. She’s doing what’s best for me. I’m sure the fact that I’m only a ten-minute walk away helps. Dylan makes plans with Logan and Amanda to come over the next day so Amanda can give us ideas on how to decorate since she’s apparently into that stuff. I don’t tell him that the idea of getting to know his friends on more than a “Hey, I knew you in high school” level absolutely terrifies me. It’s not so much that they’re intimidating, because I don’t think they are. I think it’s more my worry about being compared to Heidi. I don’t know. I just hope they like me. And accept me. Because I don’t plan on going anywhere.