Casting Stones (Stones Duet #1)

by L. M. Carr

  “I missed you too.”

  He kisses me hard before whispering that he doesn’t like fighting with me.

  My eyes follow the trail from his chest to his neck to his scruffy chin and finally to his eyes where I see sincerity and mischief battling for prominence.

  “What?” I ask coyly.

  “I had a long talk with my sister. She told me if I wanted to keep you that I should put a ring on your finger.”

  In that moment, I feel as though I’ve been zapped by a current of electricity and I jolt back, my eyes widening in disbelief. A ring? I wait for him to laugh and tell me that he’s just kidding, but the words never come.

  “Uh…” I stammer.

  “Relax. I told my sister that her judgment is clouded from the chemo.” He kisses my forehead and begins the task of putting away the food. I get the feeling I’ve somehow hurt his feeling with my response.

  “Shane,” I whisper as I touch his arm. Tell him! Tell him that you’ll never be good enough for him or anyone. No one wants damaged goods.

  “Yeah?” he asks without so much as turning in my direction.

  I chicken out…again. “Are you hungry? Do you want me to make some food?”

  Shane throws his head back as belly laughter fills the small space of the kitchen until he doubles over. “You cook? No offense, but I’d like to live for at least another thirty years.”

  My mouth drops open in mock offense and I huff loudly because although one might think that I should be offended, I can’t be. He’s completely on target. Aside from Ramen Noodles or oatmeal, I’m a shit cook.

  “Aww, baby. Did I hurt your feelings?” He air kisses mockingly. “Come here. Give me a kiss.” Again, I’m drawn flush against his body and his erection presses into my belly.

  “No, you didn’t hurt my feelings. From Southie, remember?” I curl my bicep and grunt, showing my force and brute. “Fine. Since you’re such a good teacher, or at least you used to be, even if you were only a gym teacher,” I air quote for dramatic effect, “teach me how to cook.”

  “Just a gym teacher?” He raises his eyebrows which causes deep lines to form on his forehead.

  “Oh, please,” I huff. “A gym teacher is not the same a regular teacher.”

  “Wait, so you’re saying that because the content or the location is different, the job isn’t the same?”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s like saying a hooker and a stripper aren’t the same thing,” he chuckles.

  “There you go with that analogy again! Strippers are not hookers!” My voice rises to an incoherent squeal as he words hit my ears. “They’re completely different.” My thoughts drift to Candy and my mother.

  Shane must realize what he’s said because he quickly utters an apology. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “But just to clarify for the last time, strippers and hookers are not the same thing.”

  “Damn, calm down. I simply meant that they use their bodies to entertain and offer pleasure in different places. The point is I went to college, on the Army’s dollar, and got my certification like any other teacher. Sorry, it was a stupid analogy.”

  My eyes meet his, accepting his apology.

  “What’s going on with us? Seems like all we’re doing in bickering over the stupidest things.” Shane’s hands run up and down my arms.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I bury my face in his chest, exhaling deeply. “I think I’m really stressed out with school, work and my upcoming internship.”

  “Okay. I thought you were going to tell me something else.”

  “Something else?”

  “I thought maybe you were pregnant?” He grins. “You’ve been extremely moody lately.”

  “Oh, God! That would be awful!” I sneer. “You already know I don’t ever want to have kids.”

  By the look on his face, you would have thought I told him that his dog died.

  “I was hoping you’d change your mind. I’m not talking tomorrow, but maybe someday.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.” I proclaim with conviction as a shiver runs through me.

  “You’re that adamant about not ever having kids?”

  I nod my head.

  “C’mon. Women are supposed to want to be mothers.”

  “That’s not true. Where do you come up with this stuff?” I roll my eyes at his skewed perception of the world according to Shane Davis.

  He shrugs then looks away. Shane seems to drift elsewhere momentarily until he claps his hands and announces that we need to make some food. “I’ll be right back.” In an instant, Shane is gone from the kitchen and is behind the locked bathroom door for the next twenty minutes. He’s freshly showered when he enters the kitchen. Washed away is the sweat of the day and the anxious man replaced by a relaxed one.

  “Like this,” Shane’s breath tickles my ears when he moves behind me and covers my hands with his. We dice a red pepper then a Spanish onion. The proximity of his body against mine sparks a wild frenzy in my core.

  “Now you try.” He lifts his hands away, leaving me to finish cutting the vegetables under his watchful eye. Slowly, he presses a free hand into my stomach and swirls his hips while his lips nip at my neck.

  The knife slips and I nearly graze my finger when the fire in my belly ignites, sending heat throughout my body. I set the knife down on the cutting board and inhale, willing myself to be strong and steadfast.

  “You’re supposed to be teaching me how to cook.” I close my eyes and let out a breathy moan.

  “I am,” he whispers in my ear, “this is just an appetizer.” He raises my arm and starting at the small tattoo on my wrist, dots my skin with kisses and nibbles before spinning me around to face him. Lust is heavy in his blues as he grins deviously.

  He drops to his knees, taking my BC yoga pants down to the tiled floor.

  “Beautiful and bare. And all mine.”

  My fingers clench the edge of the counter as he spreads my legs wide, hooking one leg over his shoulder and positions himself between them. Just before my eyes become heavy and close, he sweeps his gaze upward, licking his lips slowly before darting his tongue out to meet my buzzing flesh. Around and around we go, tongue and flesh, until he slides his fingers into my core, causing me to tangle my fingers in his thick hair. Unabashedly, I scream out his name as the rush of an orgasm overtakes me and I climax from the incredible high no drug could ever offer.

  I drop my head to look at him, my leg still slung over his shoulder, his mouth slick and shiny. “Do you have any idea how much I love to do that to you?”

  I hum to signify how much I love it, too.

  Needing more from him, I tear off my shirt, exposing my heavy breasts and tight nipples. I lower myself until our eyes meet.

  “Lie back,” I command as the need to sate the desire becomes almost too much to bear again. I kneel beside the man I lust after, but more importantly, the man I love.

  I lower his sweats to quickly disengage his erection; it falls heavy against his stomach. I smile in appreciation of his heady arousal for me. A small bead of precum drips as I rub my finger along the crown. Using his own slickness, I begin a slow and even stroke up and down his length. I lick my lips as I will myself to continue until I lower my face, close my eyes and lick the clear drops. I can do this. My lips part as the slippery head enters into my mouth, giving me access to all his glory. I want to devour him. I concentrate on the feel of him as his erection grows further in my mouth. I can do this. I can do this for him. Thoughts of my incompetency are pushed far from my mind as I try to forget how every other attempt ended up as a failure of epic proportions because as soon as I felt him twitch against my tongue, I gagged to the point where my eyes watered and I had to stop. I’d never been so mortified in my entire life. It’s not as though I’d never seen someone get or give a blow job, I just hadn’t ever actually done it to anyone. Ever.

  Shane is the only man I would do this for and I beg Aphrodite and Eros, the Greek sex gods,
to help me do this right.

  Slowly, I begin to move my tongue and apply pressure. He props himself on his elbows to watch and offers encouraging words laced with profanity as I continue the rhythmic motion with my mouth and hands.

  “Oh my…God! That feels so good. You’re gonna make me come.”

  It’s not until his body tenses and his abdominal muscles contract do I realize that I’m actually giving him a really good blow job. He fists my hair and grunts a wild, feral curse.Instinct wants me to pull away, but it’s too late. With a final groan, Shane comes hard, spurting hot and heavy, coating my tongue and filling my mouth.

  I turn away and scrunch my eyes, forcing myself to swallow quickly. When I’m absolutely positive that I don’t run the risk of spewing up bile and cum, I swallow and wipe my mouth. I crawl up his body, smiling when I reach his strained face.

  He struggles to open his eyes. “Holy shit! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

  “Not a heart attack, just a blow job.” I smirk.

  “That was one hell of a blow job! Oh, God! How did you…when…” he stammers muttered words wondering where my courage or resolve came from. “That was…”

  “Dessert.” I wink and kiss his lips.

  DAYS LATER AS we lie in bed, short strands of my hair are plucked and run through Shane’s fingers slowly. “Your hair is growing. I like it.”

  “I think I’m going to let it grow long.”

  “I might pull it when I fuck you,” he chuckles.

  I slap his chest playfully. “Oh God, you’re so weird.”

  My eyes fall to the open closet where the bag with beautiful, expensive and sexy lingerie remains untouched. I couldn’t explain my reaction when I opened the gifts he gave me along with the weekly bouquet of flowers.

  Lying across Shane’s chest, I watch him read through the playbook in preparation for the game.

  “Hey, is the championship game this Friday or next?” I ask, scrolling through my phone while looking at the upcoming deadlines for my paper.

  “Next Friday. Why? Are you coming?” he asks skeptically. He knows I don’t really like football and I don’t like the cold.

  “Maybe, but I’m going to wear multiple layers.” I laugh.

  A smile stretches across my face when I think about how I don’t have to “reserve” my Friday nights anymore.

  After the last game when Candy called me and told me that my mother showed up bruised and beaten, nearly unable to walk let alone dance, Paul snatched the phone and screamed, insisting that if I didn’t take her place, she’d pay the ultimate price. So I make a decision that night, I would, for one last time, fill my mother’s shoes.

  I was done.

  Never again will I be forced to do something I didn’t want to do. I didn’t create the debt and I refused to pay it any longer. I had hoped that someday the debt would be paid and I’d be set free, but watching my mother stagger to the back room for sex and drugs was too much to bear. If I didn’t walk away and stand up for myself, I was never going to be free of this life. The thought was enough to make me vomit and send me to Shane’s bed with a migraine.

  I realized that I have something with Shane that is too important to jeopardize. He’s the most important person in the world and I refuse to let her or anyone else force me to give him up.

  “Where’d you go?” he teases me, snapping me out of my silent thoughts.

  “Alaska,” I chuckle lightly. “I’m not promising that I’m going to the game or anything, but I’ll try. I have a lot of work to do. I have to hand in my rough draft this week.”

  “Fair enough,” he says, but what he fails to do is to hide the disappointment in his voice.

  I tug on the string to lift the blind. “Did you see this? It’s snowing and there’s a lot of it!”

  Shane strides over and stands behind me, dropping his chin to my shoulder while his hands snake around my waist. “They are talking about a clipper system coming up the coast.”

  “They are?” I’ve been so wrapped up in my own little world, I hadn’t even paid attention. I exhale with annoyance because that means I’ll have to get up earlier to take the train across town. I can’t exactly ride my bike through the snow. I plop myself down on the couch and pick up the remote control, flipping through various channels until I stop at an old horror movie. In an instant, I’m taken back to a time when I watched a movie with Simon and he rigged the window shade to roll up at the exact moment when the killer came out from the closet. I screamed hysterically while he laughed and called me a big fat baby.

  “What are you watching?” Shane hesitates and then sits next to me with a bowl of popcorn.

  I shrug, tossing the memory aside. Sensing the tension rolling off him, I ask what’s wrong.

  “Nothing.”

  “You sure? You look a little pale.”

  He shoots me a serious look.

  “What’s the matter? Afraid of a little blood and gore?” I tease. “Fine. I’ll change it.”

  After flicking for three seconds on what seems like every channel, I finally settle on one.

  “Oh, I’ve seen this.”

  “What is it?” I ask, eyeing the sci-fi movie.

  “Thor.”

  A close-mouthed giggle escapes when I hear the movie title and Shane looks at me as if I’ve gone mad.

  “That’s what Jenna used to call you.”

  He laughs. “She did? Why?”

  “I don’t know. She said something about how you look like Chris Hemsworth.” I reply, feeling a little embarrassed because I remember Googling the actor and thought there was a striking resemblance.

  “I do not!” he chides.

  “Yeah, you kind of do.” I smile.

  “Do not compare me with some asshole who plays pretend for a living. Did you see him in Red Dawn? What a fucking joke! Play Army…I’d like to see him put a real uniform on.”

  I curl my fingers into claws and hiss like a cat.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’re like a girl sometimes. You get catty and bitchy.”

  “Catty and bitchy?” he questions my word choice.

  “All right. Bad choice of words. How about “judgy” and righteous?”

  “Remy, ‘judgy’ isn’t a word.” He smirks.

  “I know, but judgmental sounds so much worse!” I counter.

  “I’m not judgmental. I’m just always…right.”

  “Says who? You? What makes you the expert?”

  “I’m not an expert. I just think people should do what they’re supposed to do, life would be easier for everyone.”

  “But you think that everyone should do what you think they’re supposed to do. That’s a bit judgmental, don’t you think?”

  I raise my chin in defiance when Shane raises an eyebrow and then shakes his head, mumbling quietly.

  “No…and for the record, I am not judgmental.”

  Moments later after releasing a deep sigh, he tucks me into the crook of his arm and squeezes gently. His nose is buried in my hair before he places a soft kiss on my head.

  “There’s a clear line between what’s right and what’s wrong. People need to pick a side and stand their ground.”

  “That’s easier said than done. You and David would get along so well.” I pop a handful of buttery goodness into my mouth and change the channel. It isn’t until I’ve eaten almost the entire bowl that I think about how many calories I’ve consumed. I smile when I remember that I don’t need to worry about that anymore.

  A commercial for a presidential candidate flashes across the screen.

  “Are you a Republican?” I tease.

  “What?” Shane asks, grabbing the last handful of popcorn.

  “You see everything so black and white.”

  He turns to me. “You know what I see?”

  “What?”

  “You still have clothes one.”

  Articles of clothing are strewn along the way to the bedroom.

  THE SOU
ND OF metal scraping the road wakes me before my alarm does. It’s the sound that interferes with my morning commute. I toss the blanket off and drag myself to the bathroom. Shane walks in as I’m brushing my teeth.

  “What are you doing up?” The foam drips down my chin as I inquire.

  “Driving you to work.” He lifts the toilet seat up and goes about his morning business.

  I glance over with a smirk. “You couldn’t wait until I was done?”

  “Why?” He flushes the toilet. “I don’t have anything to hide from you.” His morning erection is in full view.

  “Stop it!” I laugh. “Don’t tempt me with that thing. I don’t want to be late for work.”

  “Okay,” he shrugs and hums as he walks out of the room. I stare at his tight ass in the mirror.

  After shoveling out his truck and driving through the snow-covered city, I find myself late for work. I hop out quickly after kissing him goodbye.

  I count the money in the tip jar and sigh when I realize the slow morning didn’t yield much money for us. Jenna and I split our tips right down the middle. After wiping down the last table and saying goodbye to Paco, Simon and I sit in an empty booth, reviewing requirements for our internships. I glance up when I feel the weight of someone’s glare. I unlock the front door when I see Shane standing there.

  “Hi! What are you doing here?”

  “Coming to get you.” His eyes cast over my shoulder to Simon before he grabs my face and kisses me hard.

  “I thought you were watching film today.” I look back at Simon who is watching me carefully.

  “That was yesterday, babe.”

  My eyes travel the length of his body. “What in the world are you wearing?”

  “Ski pants.”

  “Oh,” is my only response. I stand there awkwardly as the two men I care about stare at each other until Shane directs his attention to me.

  “You guys remember each other, don’t you?”

  Neither man responds.

  “I have a surprise for you.” He holds out a bag from Dick’s Sporting Goods.

  I open the bag and pull out the article of clothing.