by Trent Jordan
Lilly
As I approached Cole with a small smile on my face, he walked toward me. Lane stepped inside the garage and disappeared from view, leaving just the two of us with each other. I had made this walk knowing that many things could happen, most of them negative.
But perhaps in a sign of what our future held, the good thing happened. The man I hoped to see again was here. And he wasn’t looking at me with resentment or fear or annoyance. He was looking at me with happiness.
“Hey,” he said softly. “How are you feeling?”
I walked up to him, opened my arms up, and just fell into a gentle embrace with him. I didn’t feel that there were any words to describe how I actually felt right then. I just wanted to hold him, to feel secure in his arms, to know that the violence had ended.
“Well, my morning’s been interesting,” I finally said with a laugh when I stepped back. “I paid two rogue Saints to clean up the house.”
“You—”
“Relax,” I said. “They’re not going to do anything. There’s enough money in it for them to take care of it. I’ll probably come back with some of you for protection, but I know they’ll clean it up. And once that’s done, I’ll sell it. But that’s just a money thing. How I feel?”
I put my hands on my hips, trying to find the right words. It was much harder than I had thought it would be.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “There’s a lot to feel right now. I’m ready to move on out of here. I’m ready to start my life. But I know that it’s not like I can just leave my father’s death behind so easily. I feel fine now, but I’m sure it’ll hit me more later. How about you?”
Cole shrugged.
“Like you,” he said. “I’m happy this is over, but I can’t pretend I feel gleeful about it. I…”
He shook his head.
“What?”
“It’s going to sound ridiculous.”
“No, say it.”
He bit his lip, looked up at me, moved his jaw around like trying to get a crick out, and nodded.
“Your talk of moving to New Mexico got me thinking,” he said. “A year and a half ago, I ran away from here to get some space for myself. But I refused to engage the world. I wasn’t trying to build a new life; I was just trying to avoid an old one. But now? I think I’d like to try another new one. But I can’t do it here. Too many memories here, and there’s another Carter here anyway.”
He leaned forward, placing his hand on the small of my back and guiding me away from where Lane was, even though I didn’t think his brother was in earshot already.
“I think I’d like to move to New Mexico too.”
That sounded... wonderful.
Really, it did. Maybe I was replacing one constantly present man with another, but I didn’t see it that way. Cole had always supported me in what we did. He didn’t push me in anything; he just encouraged me to be. He was not my father, not in any sense of the word.
“Let’s go for a walk,” I said. “Let’s talk.”
I waited until we were outside the Black Reapers’ compound to continue talking, though given how there was literally no one else on the grounds, I wasn’t sure it would have made that much of a difference.
“You’re serious,” I said.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I don’t think I’d be running away from anything either. I think it’s something I just want to do.”
He chuckled for a second.
“Funny thing is, before recently, I would have thought that it was going against the wishes of my father,” he said. “One of his dying wishes was for my brother and I to be co-Presidents. But I think, knowing what I know now, he really just said that because he thought it would help us reach our full potential. He had good intentions, but I think my brother and I have to respect that we are too different to run the club effectively. We’re not going separate ways over butting heads, but from a solid space.”
“So... New Mexico?”
He got a guilty smirk on his face.
“I like you,” he said. “And it seems like as good a place to go as any. You are, of course, welcome to tell me to leave you alone, and I’ll respect the hell out of that. You just... most women in my life don’t stick around long. You seem like someone with potential.”
Oh, Cole.
“That’s a hell of a thing to say for a virgin and the daughter of your biggest enemy,” I said.
“But I don’t see you that way,” he said. “You are not just the daughter of Lucius Sartor, and I am not just the son of Roger Carter. We are Cole Carter and Lilly Sartor, our own people. We can come together and be something, but we can also be our own people at the same time.”
I couldn’t help myself. I stopped walking, gently grabbed his cheek, and pulled him in for a kiss.
“I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there,” I said. “But I feel safe with you. I’m so attracted to you. And... I want you, Cole. I want to be around you, I want to be with you, and…”
I blushed.
“You want something more,” he said with a sexy-as-hell smirk.
“I think I’m ready,” I said.
“Well, bad news, I don’t have an apartment and I don’t think you want to go back to your house,” he said. “But I did stay at a motel last night. It ain’t cosmopolitan, but—”
“I don’t care,” I said, becoming more excited with every passing second, every moment of thinking about Cole. “It’s not about where, but with whom. So come on, Cole. Take me back to the motel. Take me. I’m yours.”
There was a slight delay as Cole had to technically pay for another night to get the motel room back, but I just saw that as a sign that instead of being forced to get in and get out, we could spend all day together. Losing my virginity to him wasn’t going to be something that would have to be hurried so the cleaning staff could come in and change the sheets; it would almost be like a day-long experience where I’d get to make up for lost time.
Although I certainly felt a rush of nerves when we got inside the room and he came up behind me, pressing his body against mine and kissing my neck, the nerves were not going to stop me. There was no uncertainty about who was the best man for me. I had no hesitation in wanting to lose myself to Cole Carter.
He had shown me that I was a woman, not a child in her twenties living at home. And now, I was going to show him what this woman could do.
Getting to the point we had gotten to before was not nerve-wracking; in fact, it was exciting to take off clothes and tumble onto the bed. The fact that the motel bed was not as comfortable as his former bed meant nothing, lost in the sea of passion that was storming in our minds. In fact, our kissing and our touching were less of a slow dance and more of a rush, like we were pressing fast-forward on a movie that we’d already seen to get up to where we had left off.
But at the moment when Cole had me down to my underwear and he only had his jeans on, with him resting my legs on his shoulders and his fingers curled under my panties, he stopped.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Are you sure?” he said. “I just want to make sure.”
I understood this was the point of no return. Once that last piece of clothing came off, it would make no sense to stop Cole. They were quite literally the last line between my virginity and my fully realized sexual self. It was a scary leap.
But it was a leap that had a soft landing, no matter what. Either I felt great having sex and I wanted to do it over and over, or I felt shame after but had the open ear and support of the kindest, gentlest man I knew.
“I’m ready, Cole,” I said, smiling. “Please me.”
It was all he needed to hear. In an instant, the man who had gone from frenzied to cautious returned to the primal animal, yanking on my panties so hard that I thought he was going to tear them off. The rush of cold air on my exposed clit sent a chill down my spine, although I was pretty sure that had something to do with the rush of finally being naked in front of him. He kissed my feet
just as he had before, but this time, there was an anticipation that made the same action ten times better.
He got to my calf. How would this feel? I’d touched myself before, but I knew that would utterly pale in comparison to this.
He got to my knee. What if it hurt? I’d heard people say their first time hurt. But maybe that was only temporary?
He got to my thigh. My body shook with anticipation. I felt like I’d explode if he didn’t get down there.
He got to the crevice between my clit and thigh. Oh, God, just this anticipation was getting me off. Oh, heavens, he hadn’t even touched me yet! I had to close my eyes.
And for several seconds, I felt nothing.
I eventually opened them to see a smirking Cole staring at me.
“What are you doing?” I said, so horny and so ready that I was seconds away from pressing his face against me.
“I just want to savor this moment,” he said.
“Oh, fucking get to it!”
I tossed my head back. I heard him snicker.
And then he touched me.
It was such a light touch, like his tongue had just barely brushed over me. It was enough that I might have wondered if I had imagined it. But I most certainly had not.
The gentle tickle that went through my body emerged as a soft groan. I wasn’t sure what I had expected, but a soft, slow touch from Cole was not it. I’d expected something more ferocious, faster, more ravaging.
And yet, there was something about the sensual dance around my clit that made every lick, every press, and every penetration of a finger feel that much more intense. No motion was wasted or lost; I could feel everything that he did to what had to be the fullest extent possible.
“Oh, fuck,” I muttered, running my hands through his hair. “That feels so good, Cole.”
My hips started to shake involuntarily at the mere touch of his tongue; my body was not my own anymore. I was merely along for this slow but sexual ride to the destination of orgasm.
I wondered what that would feel like. I’d made myself climax with my own touch, but this was already, in some ways, well past anything like that. Nothing that I could do to myself could match what Cole was doing to me. I just knew—
I started to feel something swell. I didn’t need experience to know what it was.
I was going to come.
I was so enthralled that he’d skillfully and artfully brought me to climax. It was beautiful and erotic... and now I couldn’t think straight.
“Oh, Cole, yes, please, so close, I’m almost there.”
It was like a switch got thrown on because the pace picked up. Cole knew what he was doing. He got me closer and closer. I bit my lip. I squeezed my thighs around him.
“Oh!”
The orgasm crashed through my body, pulsing warmth that reached all the way to my toes. My body tensed with the kind of incredible rush that I’d never felt before. This was…
Oh my God.
This was indescribable.
This was perfect.
This was... this was because of him.
And then it became too much. I had to gently push him away.
But my God.
Cole did this.
I wanted this man.
“Wow,” I said, reduced to sounding like a blabbering idiot. “That was fucking incredible.”
“Glad you liked it,” he said, wiping his mouth with his forearm.
“I’ve just got one question,” I said, looking him up and down.
He was mine. He was all mine.
“Why do you still have pants on?”
He looked down at himself in bemusement.
“That’s a very good question,” he said.
“Well, get them off and come over here,” I said. “I’m going to give it back—”
“I just want to be inside you,” he said. “You’ll have plenty of time to get me back. I want this to be about you.”
God, how did I get so lucky?
“As long as you’re getting something out of it.”
Cole chuckled as he unbuckled his jeans and pushed them and his boxers down. The sight of his thick cock made me wonder if I would hurt when he got inside. I had no frame of reference; maybe he was huge, maybe he was average. He certainly looked thick and he looked large, but all I really cared about was how I felt when I took him in.
But I wasn’t going to say no now. Nor did I want to.
“I know I just ate you out,” he said. “But I want to make sure—”
“If you ask that question again, I’m going to take you against your will,” I said with a laugh. “Fucking come here and get inside me.”
Cole went wide-eyed, and I just laughed further. I liked pushing Cole; he liked me pushing him. I think we have the start of something special here.
He came on top of me, kissing me. His cock brushed the outside of me. I didn’t even care that he didn’t have a condom; I was obviously clean, and I trusted that he would not have put me in a spot to get anything.
And as far as the risk of kids? Well, to be frank, I was not thinking about kids in the slightest. And if I had been, I would have said that I didn’t worry about it. I wanted them eventually, and if Cole was the dad, he would have been the best choice.
“OK,” he said as he reached down, grabbed himself, and put himself ready to slide inside.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t care if it hurt at first, as long as—
He went inside me.
It didn’t hurt at all.
In fact, it felt fucking incredible.
There was some... discomfort wasn’t the right word, but there was some adjusting needed for the sensation, but it was the best kind of adjustment. It was the adjustment of being connected with Cole, of having him in me.
I held his face close. I kissed him. I pressed my hips against his. He wasn’t thrusting so much as he was just inside me. It felt incredible; it felt so connected.
I had no regrets at all about this moment. I didn’t feel anything but sheer joy and happiness at being with Cole. Yes, I wanted to be with him. I wanted him to come with me to New Mexico. I wanted us to go as long as we could.
Cole eventually picked up the pace, and I went from thinking about how incredible my first time was to just enjoying the pleasure that filled my bones. I had a little bit too much going on upstairs to climax again, but that didn’t mean I didn’t relish or moan at every single thrust, every single feeling of him going deeper and deeper. If anything, I wanted to prolong this as long as I could—I was in no rush to finish anything.
And even when Cole did eventually finish, I knew we had all day, all night, and the morning after. We’d order in food if we had to. I wanted the next twenty-four hours or so to just be us getting to know each other’s bodies.
Every position was a novel experience. I did not expect to realize that I liked sitting on the edge of the bed and straddling Cole as much as I did, for instance; it was so hot being pressed against his body and being able to kiss him while I was upright. I wasn’t the biggest fan of doggie style because I couldn’t see him, but that was very different from saying I didn’t like it, because I definitely did.
When we got to me on top, I let my hair hang over his face as I leaned forward to kiss him. Cole’s sturdy, thick arms wrapped around me. And then his cock started to swell as he increased his thrusting. He’s about to come.
“Oh, Cole, baby,” I whispered into his ear.
He responded with a series of inaudible grunts. His cock continued to swell, and I felt like I could literally feel the cum rising in his shaft. I just kept kissing his neck, kissing his cheek, kissing any part of him as he approached that release.
“Ah!”
And then he fired his warm seed inside of me. I loved every spurt, every shot of cum into me. It felt so good to know that I had made Cole come.
And when he finally finished, I giggled, kissed him, and slid off him. I searched for the right words to say, but honestly…
&nbs
p; Silence was just best.
For all that we could say, we’d said enough. We’d experienced enough. There was nothing more I had to say.
“Lilly,” he said. “This might be crazy, but I know it’s the truth. I love you.”
Oh, Cole...
I guess I do have something to say.
“It’s not crazy. Because I love you too.”
“So… does that mean yes to New Mexico?”
I laughed.
“It means yes to us.”
Epilogue
One Year Later
It was a warm, clear-skied Saturday afternoon, and it was a day and night of celebration.
One year ago, we had eliminated the Fallen Saints. But that was not why we were celebrating.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
Lane, having finally found his ever-after love, having finally secured the knowledge that he could love without fear of a violent death, had proposed to Angela Sanders about a month after everything that had happened. They chose this day as their wedding date.
And now, it had happened. Angela Sanders, deputy DA, had become Angela Carter with pride, love, and joy.
Everyone in the room broke out in raucous applause, some of the Reapers cheering a little louder than others—some, it should be said, with a hint of alcohol on their breath.
It could not be said that the room was without a little bit of sorrow. There was the unmistakable fact, for instance, that the man leading the marriage ceremony was not the beloved Father Marcellus, but just an officiant from the State of California. We were grateful for the officiant having led everything, but it was not the same as Father Marcellus leading the marriage.
Similarly, even though Phoenix and Lilly had long ago accepted the dark sides of their fathers, they still mourned the lack of their presence, if for no other reason than them being there would have meant forgiveness would have been reached. Now, they could only find peace in the silence of their minds.
But the presence of sorrow also made possible the presence of joy, and the joy that was felt was unlike anything I had seen from anyone in this club in ages.