A Real Keeper: Arranged Marriage Romance

by Rocklyn Ryder

  "That's better," he smiles down at me when he finally straightens up, "I like the way you look at me when you want more."

  I throw my open palm against his chest in a lazy slap with a sarcastic laugh, "Careful with that cocky attitude," I tease him as I let my hand wander down to the bulge that's threatening to break through his zipper again, "I don't think I'm the only one who's interested in more."

  His body pushes toward me, and his lips land on my forehead with a soft sigh before he laughs lightly, "Guilty."

  Wrapping his arm around me, he walks me into his home.

  He doesn't bother turning on lights as we move through the kitchen and then into the connected living room, leading me up the stairs to a set of double doors at the end of an angled hallway that open to a spacious yet practical master suite.

  Logan doesn't bother closing the doors before he turns and takes me in his arms.

  Logan

  The sky outside appears to be a shade lighter when I crack my eyes open. I thought I was having a hell of a dream but as soon as my brain registers, I realize I'm really not alone in the bed.

  Kendra's naked body is tangled around mine, her head on my chest, her thigh thrown over mine so that the inside of her knee rests lightly against my cock.

  My fingers trace down her bare arm and I feel my dick beg to feel her heat again.

  I don't bring women home. Not that I take them anywhere else either though. Something about Kendra last night, the way she brazenly wrapped her hand around me while she looked me right in the eye. It was like a dare I couldn't back down from.

  There was no way I was going to be satisfied after that scene in the bathroom. I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't agreed to come back home with me.

  I turn my head to get a look at the clock. I'm not sure when we finally passed out on each other but I know it hasn't been that long since the last time I was inside her.

  Kendra stirs against me, wrapping her arm over my waist and pulling herself tightly around me. I can feel the heat of her pussy on my thigh and the movement of her leg against my cock has me desperate to wake her up.

  Even bringing her home and spending the night taking her every way I could think of hasn't been enough to satisfy me.

  Her hand slides down my hip and I can't control my cock's surge against her soft touch, like it's begging for her to wrap those light fingers around it again.

  She rubs her heat against me and I feel the moisture leaking from her body against my thigh.

  I don't really know her. We didn't spend much time talking before we ended up wrapped around each other. I'm not sure how she'll feel about being woken up at the crack of dawn with my tongue between her thighs but when her hand closes around my hardness and I hear her sleepy murmur and her lips on my chest-- I have to find out.

  Kendra fades back to sleep with a contented smile on her lips and I curl around her for a few minutes.

  I take in the way the pink light of dawn falls over her naked curves and the way her hair covers the pillows. Her face is relaxed and her skin is flushed from another encounter with my cock. I like watching her sleep and I love the feel of her soft skin next to mine, but if I don't get out of bed and let her rest, she's going to wake up with my dick begging to get inside her again.

  Slipping into a pair of pajama pants, I close the bedroom door quietly behind me and head downstairs.

  I catch myself humming as I get a pot of coffee started and start sifting through the fridge on a hunt for breakfast makings.

  Why her? I can't help but wonder. What the fuck is about Kendra that got the better of me last night? I've never done anything that impulsive before, not even in my young and stupid days. Something about this woman...I realize I'm sporting a shit-eating grin while I continue to hum through making pancakes and bacon...for her. I can't wait for Kendra to wake up and come downstairs and sit at the table with me, eating pancakes and telling me all about herself.

  I want to know more about her. I want to know everything about her. Like what she does, and whether I should be putting chocolate chips in these pancakes, and where she's been all my life.

  And who's the chick she was out with last night? The one with the red hair and the huge rock on her hand that I owe my amazing night to? I flip a pancake on the cast iron griddle. That chick shoulder-checked me and sent me right into Kendra's path and never looked back.

  I'd have maybe brushed it off as just coincidence if I hadn't seen that same woman standing on the balcony of one of the rooms at the hotel just behind the bar when we were leaving. Standing up there, talking on her phone watching me close the door after Kendra got in the car, giving me a little wave like she knew me. Weird.

  Don't care.

  I change the tune I'm humming and add another golden cake to the stack I'm working on while the bacon sizzles.

  It takes me a minute to realize I'm not alone. Looking over I see Kendra watching me from the other side of the bar-top counter that separates the open kitchen from the great room.

  My dick immediately jumps back to life.

  She's a mess. In the best way. Her hair in a tangled mass of waves and her lips have a swollen look to them like they spent the night either crushed against mine or on my cock. Which they did-- and knowing that is a fucking turn on that hits me with brutal force. She's got her clothes back on but they look anything but the neatly chosen outfit they were when I first saw her. Her blouse is misbuttoned, the seams on her skirt are crooked and she's holding her stockings and her shoes in one hand.

  Everything about the woman standing in front of me screams that she has been thoroughly fucked and the little smile she shoots me when she catches me in the kitchen in nothing but PJ bottoms and an apron (because you should never cook bacon without a shirt on) tells me she'll be in need of another thorough fucking before I let her get away from me.

  "Morning, Beautiful," I slide a cup of coffee across the counter to her, "Milk, sugar, all that--" I gesture at the table, "you're just in time for pancakes and bacon." I turn off the heat under the griddle and bring the mountain of cakes to the table.

  Kendra adds milk to her coffee and snatches a piece of bacon off the plate, "You cook, too?"

  I love the way she looks at me, it makes it hard not to set her ass up on the counter and add her pussy to my breakfast menu. I settle for stealing a bacon flavored kiss.

  "Somebody has to," I tell her with a laugh, "Mari's good with the microwave but I'm not ready to let her near open flames yet."

  It doesn't even occur to me that she doesn't know who Mari is. Something about Kendra feels like she's always been here. When her silence makes me look up, I see the suspicious horror on her pretty features and I'm quick to reassure her.

  "My kid," I tell her, "Mar's my daughter. In that deadly tween phase."

  Kendra's smile seems guarded and her eyes scan what's visible of the house, "Oh, is she--"

  "At her mom's," I promise, standing in front of her and wrapping my arms around her shoulders, bending to kiss those pouty lips before I manage to let her go long enough to put her ass in the chair and encourage her to eat enough calories to make up for what we burned off last night. "I only play at Josh's on the weekend's Mari's with her mom."

  "About that," Kendra looks up from her plate, "I don't-- um-- normally."

  Her fork waves in the air, dripping syrup back onto the plate below while she fights for the words she wants.

  It's fucking adorable. The way her cheeks tinge pink and her lips purse in an embarrassed little smirk.

  "I guess I'm saying, um...thanks?" She shoves the forkful of pancake into her mouth and chews.

  "What are you thanking me for?" I honestly have no idea-- but I'm hoping she says something dirty, like Thanks for making me come so hard I can't stand the thought of leaving your bed. That'd be awesome.

  Kendra looks at the breakfast table and shrugs, "I don't know? I mean, I don't really know the etiquette for random hookups? I didn't really expect breakfast before
doing the walk of shame."

  I laugh. It feels good. I can't remember the last time I woke up feeling this good.

  "Sorry," I tell her when she gives me a confused look, "I don't-- um-- normally either." I don't mean to echo her words back at her, it turns out it's harder to explain that you don't normally hook up with strangers than I thought it would be. "I didn't know there were rules-- and I figured I'd drive you home like a gentleman."

  Kendra's eye brows shoot up her forehead, her eyes rake down my bare chest and back up. That tongue of hers that has already revealed what magic it's capable of darts between her lips and my cock jumps to life again, "Really?"

  "Of course," I tease her, "I can't have you walk of shaming out of my place. This is a family neighborhood."

  She laughs, choking slightly on her last slice of bacon, "Well gee, so much for gentleman, eh?"

  "Oh yeah, Baby, I'm a real keeper." I joke as I take her plate to the sink and go back to pull her out of her chair and into my arms, "just ask my ex-wife."

  I look in her eyes and smile, "You got some place you need to be today?" I ask her and then drop my mouth to hers, "I'm a single man till Friday at 3:42 in the afternoon and I'm not really good at one night stands."

  Kendra

  Logan drops me off at my place at 6 AM on Monday morning. It takes all my will power not to drag him inside with me but I barely have time to shower and change and get to work as it is. I can't afford to even let him get out of his car.

  "I'll call you," he murmurs against my mouth between kisses, "dinner tonight, right?"

  "We'll see," I can't help but smile, "I do have a life, you know."

  "Mmm," he kisses me again, "Tell me I'm it."

  "You're terrible," I push away but only for a second before leaning across the cab of his SUV to collect another kiss.

  "That's not what you were screaming last night," he tells me with a laugh as he finally-- reluctantly-- lets me get out of the car.

  Logan waits till I have my door unlocked and I wave goodbye before he pulls away from the curb.

  Well, I think to myself as I head for the shower, that was a hell of a weekend.

  Of course, we didn't stay in bed all weekend. Well, we did plenty of that too, but we also sat on the sofa curled up together watching movies. We went for nice drive in the hills and had lunch at a cute little country place that I never would have known about it if Logan hadn't taken me there.

  We stayed up late, talking and laughing, and getting tangled up in each other's bodies and waking up to do it all over again.

  My body is sore and my brain has never felt so alive.

  I thought for sure I was busted when the text from Raven came in on Saturday afternoon though. Here I am hooking up with this gorgeous man while I have the country's foremost match maker interviewing me to see if I'm a candidate for one of her clients.

  I got lucky. Her text was just to let me know that she was going to be MIA while she works on another case and that I won't hear from her again till later.

  Raven flew out here to meet with me in person and is willing to waive her fee for me if I turn out to be the right person for the man she's currently trying to match, and I'm cavorting with some random dude I ran into in a bar after a few drinks.

  I'm torn. I like Logan. Under normal circumstances, I could see this being the beginning of something. Despite our impulsive meeting, it turns out we're compatible in a lot of other ways as well.

  He certainly was not about to let me go this weekend, not that I tried very hard.

  I stand under the hot water and smile to myself. I didn't even come home to grab a change of clothes. I've been running around in a pair of Logan's jeans with one of his daughter's scarves as a belt whenever we left the house, and nothing but a worn flannel work shirt from the back of his closet most of the rest of the time.

  But Logan has a pre-teen daughter who will be back with him when she gets out of school on Friday. Who knows how that could complicate things?

  We may have done a lot of talking but it's not like we discussed any serious plans for a future-- alone or together. Why would we? It was just a weekend fling.

  Even if he does insist we're going to dinner tonight after we're off work.

  Hell. I don't even know what he does for a living!

  My head drops against the cool tile wall of the shower. Duh. I can't believe I know his favorite flavor of ice cream is mint chip and that he hasn't had a serious relationship since his divorce when he was all of 22 years old, and that he owns every single James Bond movie, but we didn't discuss our careers.

  Oh well, I decide as I blow dry my hair and pull on a pair of scrubs, We'll have something to talk about at dinner-- guilt gnaws at my gut as I grab a cold bagel and jump in the car. What about Raven?

  Raven finds matches. Her entire business is based on getting people together for the long haul. She's out here because she thinks I might be right for a man who is paying her a shit ton of money to find him a wife.

  What if she's right? What if her client is the right man for me? What if he could be the man that I could build a life with-- start a family with?

  I'm almost 30. I want that. A husband, children. Maybe this thing with Logan could go somewhere. Or maybe it'd never get past part time friends with benefits. Either way, it could take years before I even knew for sure.

  Hell, he might not want more kids. He talks about Mari like she's his whole life, but he was barely 18 when he knocked up her mom and he hasn't remarried. Maybe he doesn't want those things.

  I park the car in my space and head to my office.

  The kid he's got could hate me.

  We didn't talk too much about her, but if Mari is a pre-teen with a solid relationship with her mom, she might be holding out romantic notions that her folks will eventually get back together. If Logan and I started dating seriously, she could hate me for taking her daddy's attention from her. She could hate me for trying to replace her mother. She could just hate me. Teenage girls are a mystery.

  By the time I've checked my paperwork in my office and headed out to the front desk to check the patient schedule, I've almost convinced myself that dinner with Logan tonight will be the last time I see him.

  If I have a serious shot at getting my happily ever after on, I need to take it. That means I can't be wasting time on Logan, no matter how talented his tongue is.

  "You OK?" Lilly asks from behind the counter, making me realize I just heaved a rather dramatic sigh.

  "Yeah," I tell our receptionist as she looks up at me with a worried expression, "fine." I give her weak smile.

  Talented tongue and magic cock notwithstanding, the idea of calling it quits with Logan doesn't set well in my stomach, even though we haven't even really begun anything.

  Still. I don't have time to waste on someone who doesn't want the same future I do. Especially not when the Raven Swann has me on her radar as a possible match for one of her clients.

  Lilly hands me a clipboard, "Well you don't look fine," she tells me, "here's the schedule, don't forget the interns start today."

  Interns. Right. Shit. "Yeah, I remember," I lie as I look through the paperwork she handed me.

  "You lie," Lilly calls me out with a brusk laugh, "Yours is named Mariah, like they call the wind."

  "Huh?" Lilly is in her 60s, she's good at her job and great with both the humans and the animals, but half of the things she says make no sense to me.

  "They call the wind 'Mariah?'" she looks at me like I'm the weirdo in this conversation.

  I shake my head, clueless.

  "Seriously?" She laughs, "Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood? Paint Your Wagon? You've really never heard of it?" She shakes her head like I'm hopeless, "Well your new shadow for the summer is named Mariah....like the wind."

  Oooooookay. I'm betting the 14 year old high school freshman that's going to be following me around for the next 12 weeks doesn't have a clue that she's named after the wind either.

  Every summer t
he clinic offers a handful of internships to local high school students.

  We usually try to nab them just before they start their freshman year. That way, if they still think they want to pursue a career as a veterinarian by the time they've spent 3 months at the clinic, they have time to choose their classes accordingly.

  I can't tell you how many times I've watched a kid's eyes widen like saucers when they realize that being an animal doctor means every bit as much medical school as being a people doctor.

  I make the usual rounds, checking on the critters that spent the weekend with us and then meeting with a couple of dogs, a couple of cats, and a turtle that I'm not adequately prepared to treat.

  Mr. Bubbles gets referred to a nearby vet that specializes in herpetology and by the time the new interns have arrived and finished their initial orientation from the head doctor here at the clinic, I'm ready to meet my personal whirlwind.

  Logan

  I don't pretend to understand what goes on in a woman's head and I'm certainly no player but I know enough to understand when a woman's body is receptive to me.

  Kendra's body was more than receptive. If sex was like that with everyone I'd be a card-carrying manwhore.

  I throw another dart at the board and continue cussing under my breath.

  She swears she's not seeing anyone, so why the fuck call it off just when it was getting started? Fuck! Women! The next dart goes wild and sticks in the wall about a foot wide of the board.

  We had a great week together while Mari was at her mom's.

  Then it was Mari's week with me and we didn't get to spend as much time together but we still talked every day and I even got to spend a few hours with her while Mari was at her 8th grade graduation dance.

  Then Mari went back to her mom's and Kendra came back to my bed.

  She told me she wasn't "interested" in getting involved with anyone, but when I stopped by her place on my home from work Monday just to see her, we still ended up naked before I had to get home to Mari.