Pretend I'm YoursA Single Dad Romance

by Vivian Wood

  “Then what’s the point in worrying about it right now?”

  That’s easy for you to say.

  Effie looked towards the window and started making an inventory of items of value in her head. She didn’t even know if she had anything worth a hundred dollars. She could sell the car, but needed something the right size and reliable to take Yaya around.

  King began to stream one of his classical playlists and made his way into the kitchen. She heard the sizzle of oil in a pan and a scent that made her mouth start to water. Faintly, she thought she could hear him whistle along to the sonata.

  What would it have been like, had things gone differently?

  The scene she was in the middle of, the one where she felt like a crasher, could have really been hers. Maybe listening to classical music while King busied himself in the kitchen would have been an everyday event.

  All you had to do was say yes all those years ago. But she couldn’t undo the past. You’ll never know, she thought.

  The idea hit her hard and tugged her down into a deeper sadness than she’d ever known.

  “Hungry for an early dinner?” King asked as he popped his head into the great room. “The deep freezer outside stayed cold enough to keep the prime cuts in good shape.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  She could tell throughout the dinner that King was trying to be normal, but she didn’t have it in her.

  “Is it okay?” he asked.

  Effie widened her eyes, mouth full of pork tenderloin in a decadent bourbon sauce.

  “It’s amazing,” she said.

  King probed a bit more, but the whole of the day had exhausted her.

  “Sorry, no dessert,” King said. “I’m not much of a baker. But I found Oreos in the pantry. They never go bad, right?”

  In silence they each took a handful of cookies. The overt sweetness shocked her tongue. It had been too long since she’d let herself indulge like that.

  “I think it’s time to release the bunny,” she said as she polished off the last cookie.

  “Tonight? He’s all better?”

  “Yeah. He’s ready to go.”

  Together, she bundled up in jackets and she stuffed her feet back into his mom’s boots. King carried the box to the outskirts of the woods that flanked the cabin. When they put the box into the snow and opened the lid, the rabbit peered around in wonder.

  “It’s okay,” she urged. “You’ll be okay.” Effie put out a handful of chopped veggies against the base of the trunk.

  “Just in case,” she told King. “Just giving him a leg up.”

  As they walked back towards the cabin, she felt that familiar lump in her throat. She wanted to cry for it all. For the rabbit, for her life, for not having King. She felt him take her hand, their thick gloves providing a hearty buffer. It almost broke her heart entirely.

  Effie stomped her feet in the mud room and kicked off the boots. She saw King pick them up and line them against the wall as she shook off her coat.

  “Want to play cards?” she asked. “It might be the last night.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “And I get to pick the music.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve listened to classic all day. Go get a bottle of wine. I’ll put on my playlist.”

  She heard King pop the cork in the kitchen as she scrolled through her music to the Supremes list. Effie pressed shuffle, and “Someday We’ll Be Together” began to flow through the room as King appeared with two full glasses of wine.

  “What are we playing?” he asked.

  “You choose.”

  “Texas Hold’em.”

  They huddled against the fire even though the electric heat had warmed the entire cabin. As Effie sipped the wine, she felt a lightness in her bones.

  “I can’t believe it’s back to reality tomorrow,” she said. “Or kind of reality, I guess.”

  “For you, maybe,” King shrugged. “I might stay awhile longer.”

  “How nice it must be,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “To be the heir of the new American Kennedys.”

  “Right,” King said with a laugh. “Unfortunately, I think there are too many Smiths for it to ever be a name with much influence.”

  “It’s alright. Your parents gave you a unique name to make up for it.”

  “You’re one to talk,” he said pointedly.

  “Hey! Effie is a totally normal name in Greece.”

  “We’re not in Greece.”

  “We’re not!?” she asked and gestured to the blankets of snow outside. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  King laughed as he won the hand and gathered the cards to shuffle. That smile, those full lips, it all made her feel like she was eighteen again. On a whim, emboldened with wine, Effie leaned forward and kissed him. He didn’t reciprocate—but he didn’t pull away, either.

  She bit her lip. It was now or never with him, because they were leaving in the morning.

  “Just once? For the road?” she whispered.

  She looked at him and held her breath.

  12

  King

  He couldn’t have replied if he wanted to. The second King had tasted Effie, he knew he had to have her.

  Effie squealed as he pushed her onto the plush fur rug in front of the fireplace. As he kissed her neck, the scent of roses nearly took his breath away. He traced the curve of her jaw with his tongue, every turn burned into his cortex.

  Effie pulled at his shirt and he felt her nails as they dug into his skin.

  “Since when do you like it rough?” he asked with a grin.

  She wiggled beneath him, frustrated. King caught her slender wrists above her head.

  “Slow down,” he commanded. “You’re not the one setting the pace here.”

  She chewed at her lip and gazed up at him between thick lashes. With one knee, he parted her legs easily. King took his time and drank her in with his eyes.

  Even so close to the heat of the flames, he could make out her nipples hard below the tee-shirt. He lowered his lips to her collarbone and began to kiss across the divots slowly.

  Effie mewled above his head. She fought lightly against his grip. King squeezed harder as he made his way to her breasts.

  Through the material, he caught one of her nipples in his mouth. Effie gasped and arched her chest closer towards him.

  With his free hand, King traced the outline of her other nipple. Frustrated, Effie bucked slightly.

  “You want it badly, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Come on,” she whispered and lightly whipped her head side to side.

  “Tell me.”

  She blushed and it made the hardness below his denim painfully push against the material.

  “If you don’t want to tell me, you’ll show me, won’t you?”

  He trailed his free hand down her stomach and across the band of the thin cotton pants she’d borrowed. He felt the heat of her center before the wetness.

  When he flicked his fingers across her mound, he caught his breath at the wetness. She’d already soaked completely through it.

  “That’s what I thought,” he murmured. “You’re horny as hell for me, aren’t you?”

  Effie looked away but pressed her wetness against his hand. Even pinned beneath him, she writhed with her desire.

  “Let’s see if you taste the same,” he said.

  With a fluid motion, he pulled off the loose pants to reveal nothing but bare, smooth skin below. Her clit was red, swollen and slick. Effie spread her legs wider, eager for his mouth on her.

  When he released her wrists, her fingers immediately wove into his hair and pulled him close.

  He wanted to resist, to tease her longer, but the scent of her was irresistible. King ran the tip of his tongue across her clit and Effie shivered with her entire body. She did taste the same, sweet and earthy.

  “How do you taste so fucking sweet?” he asked before he slipped his tongue lower to test her opening.


  Effie started to pant. He no longer felt her hands in his hair. As he toyed at her opening with one finger, he could see her pinching and pulling at her nipples. She pressed against the tip of his finger while he suckled her clit.

  “Please,” she said. Each time she pushed against him, he pulled his finger away.

  “Tell me what you want,” he said.

  “I want you.”

  “I said tell me what you want. How do you want me to fuck this sweet pussy?”

  He pulled her clit between his lips and flicked his tongue wildly against it.

  Effie let out a cry.

  “Fuck me with your finger,” she said.

  King drove into her and found her G-spot with his finger. He could tell she was close already.

  Not yet, he thought.

  Slowly, he slipped his finger out and examined the juices.

  “Taste yourself,” he told her. When he raised his hand to her mouth, she parted her lips and sucked greedily. “You see how fucking wet you get?”

  He kissed his way upward, pulling up her shirt in the process. This time, when his lips met her nipples with no material between them, he almost couldn’t contain himself.

  He needed to be inside her more than ever before. That time in high school had nothing on this.

  “Tell me what you want now,” he whispered into her ear.

  She kissed his neck and pressed herself against him.

  “I want to suck your cock. I need it,” she said, her voice desperate.

  King got onto his knees while Effie scrambled for the buttons on his jeans.

  “Oh, my God,” she said as she gripped his length in her smooth hands. She looked up at him as she spread his pre-cum across her lips. Without blinking, she took his tip into her mouth.

  It was painfully slow. He watched as she took his entire length to the back of her throat.

  “Fuck, Effie,” he said. King pulled her hair to the top of her head.

  “I missed this,” she said as she released him and started to stroke him. Her other hand disappeared between her legs.

  “Come here,” he said when he was so close he was almost over the edge. King leaned back and pulled her on top of him. “I want you to ride me like you did in high school,” he said.

  She laughed as she straddled him. Effie guided his tip to her opening.

  “I don’t remember it like that,” she said.

  “What, you think you were a good girl?”

  “Of course I was,” she said.

  King trailed his hand across her chest and pinched a nipple. With his other hand, he slapped her ass.

  “That’s not true. You were always naughty, deep down. Just look at you now.”

  “What?” she asked with a coy smile. She teased him, braced just high enough that she only let a part of him inside her.

  “Acting like you don’t want to be fucked,” he said. “You’re fucking dripping down my cock right now.”

  He traced her jawline and ran a thumb across her ripe lower lip. Effie opened her mouth and pulled his finger inside. She closed her eyes and moaned as she let his hardness slide a little deeper.

  “So…” she said slowly as she released his finger from her mouth, “are you saying I’m a slut?”

  King searched her eyes, but saw nothing but desire.

  “You are a fucking slut,” he said.

  Her eyes widened and he felt a new flood of wetness between her legs.

  “What are you going to do to me then?” she asked.

  “Little sluts like you deserve to be punished,” he said.

  Quickly, he sat up and grabbed her around the waist. The movement impaled himself deep inside her.

  “King!” she cried out. “Oh, fuck.”

  He held her down on top of him while she snaked her arms around his back. Effie squirmed and tried to set a rhythm, but he held her tight.

  “You move when I tell you to. You understand, you fucking whore?” he commanded into her ear as he nibbled on her lobe.

  It wasn’t just the control that turned him on. It was the permission to say everything he’d held in for all those years—and the response it got from Effie.

  “Please,” she said. “I know I’ve been bad…”

  When King lifted her and started to make her bounce, she threw her head back and groaned towards the ceiling. Effie presented him with her full breasts right at mouth level. Every time she rose upward, he caught one of those pink buds in his mouth.

  Seeing her like this, eyes closed while she cried out his name, it all got him to the edge faster.

  “Slow, slow,” he said. “Shit, you’re going to make me come.”

  Effie didn’t listen. She moved faster. “Come with me,” she said. “Make me come with you. I’m close…”

  “Effie, we—fuck, there’s no condom.”

  “It’s okay,” she breathed. “I want you to come in me. I want to feel you…”

  He gripped her ass and bounced her harder.

  “Look,” he said. “Watch.”

  Effie’s eyes shot open and she looked between them.

  “Feels so good,” she breathed.

  “You like watching my cock pounding your pussy?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, breathless.

  “Play with your clit,” he commanded.

  Effie shook her head. “I’m too close…”

  “I said play with yourself, you goddamned slut. Show me how you got yourself off in the parking lot.”

  She licked her forefinger and placed it lightly on her clit. Immediately, her eyes began to close again.

  “I told you to watch,” he said.

  King slowed down the rhythm but kept a tight hold on her ass. He controlled her completely.

  Effie opened her eyes and started to make small circles on her clit.

  “Oh, my god,” she said.

  “Were you thinking about me when you did this in the parking lot?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she admitted.

  “Were you hoping you’d get caught? That someone would see you getting yourself off?”

  “I don’t… I don’t know…”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

  “I wanted it to be you,” she said.

  “You wanted me to catch you being dirty like this?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Why?” he asked. He increased the pace and Effie squeezed her eyes shut.

  “I just wanted you to fuck me so bad,” she said.

  “Since when?”

  “Since always. I…”

  “Say it.”

  “I’ve always wanted it to be you.”

  “Come now,” he said.

  Effie wrapped her arms around his neck and he spanked her ass again. He gave her permission to ride him, to be as wild as she wanted.

  Effie came like he remembered, hard and fast. She called out his name as the wetness spread across his thighs and lower abdomen.

  He meant to pull out, or to not come at all. But the second he felt those walls grip his dick, he couldn’t control himself. King spilled into her seconds after her own orgasm.

  Effie responded with a second wave of her own. She pushed heavily onto him while small cries of “yes” spilled out of her lips.

  King kissed her neck and lifted her gently off of him. She was soaked in sweat and their combined wetness.

  Exhausted, he stretched out on the rug and barely noticed as Effie spooned against his chest.

  13

  Effie

  Effie breathed in King’s scent, both familiar and somehow intoxicatingly exotic, as she pressed her cheek against his bare chest. It was inching towards morning, but she didn’t want it to end.

  Maybe it had been stupid or careless, she thought to herself.

  But she’d never felt more secure. Effie hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this. It didn’t feel like a fling.

  She steadied her breathing when he shifted. There was no telling what might happen when h
e woke up.

  No matter what he said or thought, her heart was already on edge and prepped for breaking. She’d have to leave, likely in a few hours, and never see him again.

  As hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop the tears as they silently lapped down her face. She’d spent the entire night before wrapped in his arms and going over possibilities. There was no way this could work.

  She thought about the entire dynamics with his family. Sure, his parents had accepted it when she’d gone from King to Thorne—but there was no way they would stand by and let her go back.

  The first time, they’d all been young and dumb. She could still remember his mom calling their high school romance “puppy love,” though it was said with a sweetness.

  And Thorne?

  No way in hell would he ever let this happen. She didn’t know what he would do, but she also apparently didn’t know what he was capable of. She never thought he would have been bitter enough to kick her family out on the street.

  Shit. My family.

  And what would her mom say about this? Or Yaya, in her lucid moments? It was hard enough as it was, but to go back to King, otherwise known as “the one who won’t bankroll us” as her mom would likely put it.

  Effie choked as she tried to swallow the tears and King stirred.

  “Hey,” he murmured.

  She quickly pressed her face deeper into his chest and wiped away the tears. He was groggy, his eyes still halfway closed.

  When she looked up at him, her lips met his without thinking. Last night, she thought, or maybe hoped, that perhaps it was just a one-time thing. All that pent up sexual energy between them throughout the years.

  But as soon as he kissed her in the morning, she knew that wasn’t it. There was a spark between them that refused to go out.

  King bit her lip and it edged on too hard. Effie yelped. As she did, King swiftly rolled on top of her. His weight pinned her instantly.

  Effie could feel his hardness pressing, insistent, against her thigh. Even as she pressed her lips together and checked for blood, she felt herself grow wet at the idea of him inside her.

  “You just can’t get enough, can you?” King asked as he kissed his way along her jaw and to her ear. “Seems like my brother hasn’t been fucking you proper.”