“Did you wear this top just for me?” he asked, sitting back to rake her with his avid gaze. His fingers caressed and kneaded. “You know how I love the perfection of your sexy titties, Macy.” The buttons seemed almost to open by themselves, and she felt his hot lips searing her flesh, drawing her eager nipples deep into his mouth. He’d never used that word—titties—with her before. She liked it. It made her feel naughty in the best way. She writhed on the bed, wanting him to touch her in other places. And then he did.
His hands roved up her thighs, smoothing upwards, lifting the hem of the short skirt and pushing it away, baring her. For a moment she felt uncertain. Her eyes stayed on his face, watching for his reaction. Would he like the way she had shaved down there? Leticia had promised her that shaved pussies turned men on.
“Oh, Macy. Oh, baby.” He stared at her bare pussy, his eyes lighting up. “Did you do this for me?”
She nodded shyly, pleasure furling through her as he petted her there. “Do you like it, Jerrod?”
In response, he bent and kissed her on her newly naked mound. She squirmed as the kiss turned into more, his tongue foraging with bold strokes between her folds. Lovely spirals of arousal lifted her hips off the bed as slippery moisture trickled from within her. He pressed his face against her body, using his tongue in a new way; pointed and hot, it found its way into her ready opening. She cried out and spread herself even wider for him, her restless fingers grasping and tangling in his hair.
“Oh God! Jerrod. Wait. Wait!”
He pulled away and stared at her with raised brows.
“I don’t want to come yet. I want to—” She paused, feeling shy as her lips hesitated around the unfamiliar words. “I want to come with you inside me.”
“Whatever you want, Macy girl. We have all night.” He grinned like a kid in a candy store.
She took a deep breath. “But first I want to—I want to suck on your c-cock.” She felt herself blushing.
His grin got wider. “Darlin’, I’d be more than happy to let you do that.”
Chapter 11
The next week seemed to disappear in a heady rush. On Wednesday Jerrod met with the prosecutor and the detectives, learning that Egan Jones had finally made a full confession, clearing Macy completely. Jerrod prepared a motion to dismiss and on Friday they got their five minutes before the judge. The sharp whack of his gavel officially set her free.
It was a bittersweet moment, and as he stood in the aisle of the courtroom with Macy’s arms around him, feeling silent sobs wrack her body, it was all he could do not to break down himself.
The last few nights had been like something from a dream. He had cut his schedule back to the bare minimum so he could leave early every day and come home to her. She would be waiting, freshly bathed and scented, sometimes in his bed, sometimes at the foot of the stairs. Once on the kitchen counter without a stitch on. They would make love, eat a little supper, take a shower or soak together in the hot tub. Then make love again until the late hours of the night. They’d expanded their repertoire, and Macy had proved to be an excellent student. There wasn’t anything she shied away from trying, and her talented mouth had found its true calling when she would eagerly devour his throbbing cock.
To say he was happier than he’d been in years was a vast understatement. Maybe happier than he’d been in forever. He was almost afraid to really ponder the extent of his joy in Macy’s arms. Because Sunday was just around the corner, and Chuck would be here to collect his daughter and take her home. Three hundred miles away. Where she would return to school in a few weeks for the fall term and no doubt forget all about him.
Oh, she insisted she’d never forget. She promised she’d email and call and come back for a visit over the Christmas break, but Jerrod knew better. Real life had a way of catching up to fantasies, and that’s pretty much what they were living right now. He’d been lucky enough to get a rare second chance to fall in love with a beautiful, sexy woman, and he’d finally taken it. He was savoring every moment like the treasure it was. But he had no illusions about it lasting once she headed out his door.
They planned a special day Saturday, with breakfast at their favorite café. This afternoon they would visit the Japanese Garden, something Macy had wanted to do since she came to Portland. Followed by a sumptuous dinner atop the tallest building in the city.
And one last night in each other’s arms.
Jerrod smiled fondly across the café table as Macy toyed with her scrambled eggs. In her time at his home she’d attempted to please him by changing her morning habits to include breakfast, with limited success.
An unexpected rush of love for her welled up inside him, so fierce that he almost had to speak it. But to speak his feelings might possibly bind her to him, and that wasn’t what he wanted for her. Her whole life stretched ahead of her, with virtually unlimited choices. She was bright and articulate; there were any number of careers she might pursue. She’d told him that her dad was pressuring her to declare a major now that she was a sophomore, but Macy hadn’t made her mind up yet. That she was tinkering with the idea of pre-law pleased him to no end. She would make a fine attorney.
She looked up now and caught him watching. Her smile was sad.
“I’m going to miss this so much. I’ve never known anyone like you, Jerrod.” She sniffed, her beautiful eyes glistening with unshed tears.
He smiled back and covered her hand with his. He had to keep it together for her sake. He couldn’t let her see how this parting was shaking him to the core.
“You’re bound to meet dozens of men in the next few years, Macy. Don’t you dare settle for anything but the best.”
“But you’re the best, Jerrod,” she whispered.
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, savoring the satiny texture, afraid his voice would betray him if he tried to speak again.
They finished their coffee and strolled up 23rd Avenue past all the eclectic shops. Her hand clung tightly to his. At a trendy New Age bookstore they went inside and were immediately enveloped by the fragrance of candles and incense. They browsed, looking at books and CDs and jewelry. He found a polished rose quartz amulet on a silver chain and bought it for her, kissing her deeply after he put it around her neck. It glistened there like a pink teardrop against the caramel color of her skin.
“I’ll never take it off,” she said, beginning to cry again.
They went back home to change clothes before their planned jaunt to the garden. As they crossed the patio, she reached for him and threw her arms around him. They stood without moving for several minutes as the fountain played beside them and Peter came out to greet them. She looked up at him through teary eyes and he bent and kissed her, putting all his unspoken emotions into the kiss.
And that’s how Chuck found them
They turned at the sound of the wrought iron gate swinging open.
“I knocked on the front door but no— What the hell?” Chuck roared, shock and rage turning his face a deep purple color.
Jerrod pulled away from their embrace and stepped in front of Macy, shielding her from her father’s wrath.
“What the hell, Jerrod! What are you doing kissing my baby girl?” Chuck advanced toward them, his hands balled into massive fists.
Jerrod tried to regain his composure, coherent words deserting him. It was Macy who spoke up from behind him.
“It’s okay, Daddy. I’m an adult.”
“The hell you are. You’re nineteen, Macy. Nineteen! Do you know how old this joker is?” His finger stabbed toward Jerrod’s chest. “And he’s white besides!”
“Whoa, Chuck. Now hold on.” Jerrod’s own blood began to boil. “There’s no reason to bring race into this. That has nothing to do with our feelings for each other.”
“Feelings?” The man looked like he was about to explode with rage. “How dare you, Preston? How dare you?”
“Daddy, Daddy, wait.” Macy clung to her father’s arm, attempting to calm him. “You alway
s told me race didn’t matter, right? It didn’t matter with you and mo—”
“Your mother and I had our share of bigots to deal with. I want better for you.”
“But that was twenty years ago. And this is Portland. People are more accepting here.”
He stopped and stared at her for a long moment. “You don’t live in Portland, Macy. You live in Medford. Remember? It’s a whole different world.”
“But I—”
“Go get in the car. Now.” Chuck’s arm shook with restrained fury as he pointed toward the gate.
“But my things!”
“I see you have your purse. Preston will ship everything else. You’re not spending even one more minute here. Now get!”
Looking back over her shoulder at him several times, Macy finally slipped out of the gate and disappeared, leaving Jerrod facing her livid father.
“Chuck, I—”
“Save it.”
“Listen, will you?” Even as he protested, Jerrod knew there was really nothing to say. He was well aware that he’d breached several unwritten rules, rules about race and age differences, rules about clients. Rules about not fucking an old friend’s daughter.
Chuck waited, glowering, his huge body tensed and menacing.
Finally Jerrod said all there was to say.
“I’m sorry. Really sorry. But I do love her.”
“Oh, great. That’s the last thing I need, to have some middle-aged pervert drooling over my little girl, thinking he’s in love.”
“She’s a woman, not a girl,” Jerrod said softly.
Chuck stared at him, speechless. Then his shoulders slumped. “You have my address. Send her shit UPS, will ya? And fax me your invoice.” Then he turned and stalked out of the yard.
* * * *
“Hello, Verna, may I speak to Mr. Preston, please? This is Macy Wilson calling.” Macy’s hand shook as she held her cellphone against her ear. This was the eighth time she’d tried reaching him since she’d gotten home Saturday night. He wasn’t answering his home phone or his cell, but surely he would take her call at the office.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said, “but Mr. Preston is in court all day. I’ll give him a message that you called.”
“Thank you.” She clicked her phone closed and slipped it carefully into her pocket, then opened the door of the portable toilet and made her way across the lot to the construction trailer where her father’s temporary office was. He’d insisted she couldn’t stay home alone today, and had offered to pay her an hourly rate to do some filing and organizing for him. With him constantly coming and going, she hadn’t dared to make her call in the trailer. How would she handle it if Jerrod called back while her dad was close by?
Even as she wondered and held on to hope, her heart told her that Jerrod would not return her call. She knew his reasons. He’d enumerated them to her a dozen times. She should find men her own age to date and fall in love with, men who were at more of a starting place in their adult lives, men she could someday make a family with.
She supposed that made good sense.
But a woman’s heart didn’t run on good sense.
* * * *
As the days ticked by without a phone call or email from Jerrod, Macy allowed herself to be pulled more and more back into her real life. She worked for her father and got herself enrolled for her sophomore year at Southern Oregon University. She hung out with Leticia and her sisters, going to the mall and the movies, as they always had. But the days seemed to have a hollow quality, as if she was trying too hard just to feel normal again.
At night, as she lay in bed thinking back on the day, she often found herself wondering what Jerrod had done that day. Had he come home early and made pork chops on the patio, with Peter-the-cat overseeing everything? Had he lounged in the hot tub under the stars? Had he thought about her?
Or had he maybe taken that blonde grocery checker, Pam, out on a date? For a moment Macy let herself imagine the worst, picturing the two of them having sex in Jerrod’s bed. Her whole body seized up as she thought about Jerrod kissing and fondling the other woman, putting his beautiful, delicious cock into Pam’s blonde pussy. Her stomach roiled in protest and she burst into tears. She hadn’t really felt well in days.
Chapter 12
Jerrod glared at the tall stack of gold embossed Christmas cards that Verna had placed in the middle of his desk. It was the first week of December, and this was the annual holiday mailing, thanking all his clients for their business during the past year. He had always taken the time to sign each card himself and add a personal note; it seemed like a wise practice to maintain friendly contact with everyone he had served.
But this year the Christmas season was rubbing him the wrong way. Not just the commercial aspects, which everyone agreed were completely out of hand. But the whole “merry and bright” theme was depressing. He didn’t feel merry and certainly not bright. He hadn’t felt really content since Macy had left the middle of August. The light had simply gone out of his life. Even Peter had taken it hard, disappearing for several days before wandering listlessly into the back yard one day and flopping down beside him in the late summer shade.
“I know how you feel, Pete. It’s not the same here without her, is it?”
How many times over the past three months had he picked up the phone, ready to dial her cellphone number? Not to start anything up with her—he told himself—but just to hear her voice. Just to touch base with her and find out how she was doing. Did she like school? Was she getting along okay with her father?
Was she seeing anyone?
This last one always stopped him cold. Although he’d told himself over and over that that’s what he wanted for her, the idea of another man being with Macy was more than he could bear. Another man kissing those ripe pink lips, another man touching her delectable breasts, sucking her nipples. Another man—a stranger!—putting his mouth on her sweet pussy. The very idea drove him mad.
And it wasn’t just the sex he missed. It wasn’t just her body in his bed. He missed the comfortable dinners together, the cribbage games, the way she pointed out the colors in the sunset. He missed cooking beside her in the big sunny kitchen and laughing with her as they watched a silly comedy together. He missed the debates and lively conversations. The passage of time had done nothing to lessen the dull throb caused by her absence.
He growled and shoved the images away. He picked up his pen. Working quickly, he signed a dozen or so cards until he came to the one addressed to her. He hesitated, his chest tight with pain.
Thinking of you, he finally wrote. An understatement if there ever was one.
* * * *
The three words were enough.
Macy reached out and fingered the gold embossed card sticking up from her purse on the car seat beside her. After so many months of silence, his simple message—letting her know that he hadn’t forgotten her—was all she needed to set her into action. Telling her father that she and Leticia were spending a long weekend together studying, she borrowed her friend’s car and set off Friday morning, heading north.
Leticia was all for it. She’d been urging Macy to write or call Jerrod since mid-September.
“It’s about time your baby’s daddy knows what’s up. How can you expect him to do right by you if he doesn’t even know you’re pregnant?”
“But I don’t want him to do right by me,” Macy had insisted, fighting tears. “I want him to want me.”
That hadn’t changed in the intervening months. Despite Leticia’s reminding her constantly that “pride won’t put a man in your bed”, Macy had stubbornly waited for Jerrod to reach out. The single line in the Christmas card wasn’t much. It wasn’t a confession of true and everlasting love, which is what her heart was hungry for.
But it was enough.
She wasn’t showing much yet. No one but Leticia knew she was four months pregnant. With her bulky winter coat on, Jerrod wouldn’t have any reason to suspect. She wanted to meet him on her
own terms, to see how things really were between them before she told him her secret.
Her heart thumped unevenly at the possibility that he would send her away.
By the time she reached Portland, it was mid afternoon. A light snow fell as she walked the two blocks from the parking garage and into the busy lobby of the building where Jerrod’s offices were. A towering fir tree stood in the center of the lobby, bedecked with gold streamers and red balls. Beneath the tree, a mountain of donated toys awaited local homeless children. As she waited for an elevator, Macy stopped to look at the gifts, warmed by the generosity of the building’s workers.
Unconsciously, she put her hand on her belly, circling gently, as thoughts of her own child’s uncertain future tumbled chaotically through her head. Would her baby’s father want to be part of their lives? Or would she end up raising their child alone?
* * * *
Jerrod crossed the lobby, heading for the elevator, checking his phone for messages and appointments after being in court since nine that morning. Ahh. Except for a couple of calls to return, he was done for the day if he wanted to be. He could head home for an early start to the weekend, or he could hang around for the office Christmas party that was scheduled to start in a couple of hours. Or he could lock himself in his office and play Scrooge, using the time to brush up on case files. He had to admit that last option had its own appeal. There were pitfalls aplenty in attending the annual office shenanigans. Invariably one or more of the female legal assistants drank too much and came on to him, which made things awkward in the following weeks.
As he walked past the Christmas tree, he turned his head to look at the back of a woman standing near it. Something about her seemed familiar, though she was bundled in a wool coat, knee-high boots and knit cap. The color of her hair and the size of her body reminded him a little of Macy.
And then the elevator chimed and she looked up, and he saw her profile clearly.
The air left his lungs as if he’d just taken a mean punch to the gut. He froze in place, watching as she joined a small wave of people getting onto the elevator. The group jostled and reformed, leaving her standing in front. Just before the doors closed she glanced up and saw him.
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