Nick of Time [Davis Hollow, Davis Ranch 4] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by JQ Jones

  He took his time, enjoying the warmth and wetness. It was slick and smooth, different from any other woman he had ever felt. This is what drew him to her in Houston, a feeling of completion while her pussy throbbed around his dick. It grew in scope every time they made love.

  They rocked with growing speed building up in speed and intensity. The room filled with the wet sound of her butt pounding into his thighs, his balls slapping against her pussy and taint and their combined moans and whimpers.

  Propped as far away as she could get by using her forearms, Manny was able to pick up the speed and depth of her thrust. He caught her nipples between his fingers, squeezing them over and over to make up for his lack of pressure. She came in an explosion of brightly colored lights. She continued to rock this time more forcefully as she sought and found a second orgasm with a grunt and tighter grip on David’s dick. He came with her.

  David clutched her to his chest, calming her from her orgasmic high before he collapsed back. He kissed her back, her breast, he rolled her over and rained kisses down on her stomach. The Beans stretched wide but in opposite directions. David drew back to watch.

  “It’s great when they stretch out like that. They move like two tiny gymnasts,” he said. His hands caressed the outline of his sons’ heads as they moved to connect with their father’s heat.

  “It’s all fun and games until somebody’s kidney explodes. Help me up, please,” Manny said. She held her hands over her head waiting for him to help her down from the high bed.

  “The Colonel sent the bed up from the house. He said that all Davis men were conceived in this bed. I hadn’t the heart to tell him that my sons began life in an avant-garde hotel in Houston in America,” he said.

  David padded after her into the bathroom. He cleaned every inch of the exposed wet and swollen areas of her pussy. That sent her into minute orgasms. What started out as a gentle clean set David off into a forty-five minute exploration of how easy it was to make Manny come.

  After he bundled her back into the bed, she curled into a ball, exhausted. He dressed for work watching Manny as she slept. She was passionate and giving, in all aspects of her life, including sex. He was determined to live with Manny and the Beans. They were his family. He only had to convince Manny of that fact.

  Chapter Twelve:

  Leave It All Behind

  By early December David and Manny were settled into a very nice very comfortable very pedestrian groove. She worked, half the day, at the bistro. The chef even allowed her to add a few of her own creative dishes to the menu. They seemed to be selling very well. David worked steadily on his play due to open at the beginning of the season. They never discussed why Manny had left. David didn’t want to discuss it because he didn’t want to know the reason. It might be something that he couldn’t fix. Manny didn’t discuss it because she didn’t want to give a reason that would reveal too much of her feelings.

  A week before Christmas, David mentioned that his parents had sent them an invitation to spend the holidays at the family estate in Essex. The Colonel was exuberant about the arrival of two boys into his family. His sister had three little girls under eight years old who everyone doted on but still they were girls. The Colonel was old-school enough to require a male child to pass down the family name.

  “I very rarely go to my parents, but since Angela and the girls are coming in this year I really want them you meet you and the Beans,” he said. They sat in a small library listening to soft music and eating one of Mrs. Brown’s desserts. Manny felt lazy because she allowed Mrs. Brown to cook every day. But she knew that the sweets that the older woman produced could be sold at any of the top restaurants in the city.

  “I’d love to meet your family. I was thinking it would be awkward for me to have the twins arrive on their doorstep to introduce myself. Or worst yet, be in between contractions as I shake hands with Bean’s grandparents,” Manny said. Her laughter rang through the small room. Recently she began to laugh often and long. Everything had taken on a patina of contentment that she decided to ride until it was no more.

  “The Colonel wanted to meet you as soon as I told him about the Beans. I planned on introducing you to the family sooner but I did misplace you for almost a fortnight. This is the first time I’ll be able to leave the city before the play begins and the Beans arrive,” David said.

  “I do more sitting than cooking at the bistro. I’ll hand in my notice. The undercook has been doing most of my work, he can take over. When would you like to go?” she said.

  “Next Friday. We’ll be gone four days. I always try to stay an extra day just so I could smell up the place like fish,” David said.

  The rest of the night they worked on logistics for the trip, nibbled on the rich dessert, and retired to the bed with him inside her for the rest of the night. It just felt right like that.

  * * * *

  By mid-morning on the next Friday David and Manny were on their way. The passing scenery was so different from being at home that Manny felt a pang of homesickness. The rolling, stone-covered hills of Oklahoma were nothing like the flat marshes that they passed. Just after the town of Maldon, they turned north in a new Range Rover. An hour later they passed a high weathered stone wall.

  “This is the entrance to my family’s land,” David said.

  As used to the wide open spaces of the Davis ranch as she was, Manny was impressed with the long winding drive to the huge manor home that was strategically placed on a cliff between two overlapping hills. Weathered gray limestone lovingly designed into an e-shaped manor home, told of countless generations who had lived there.

  “The heating and cooling bill must be outrageous here,” Manny said softly.

  “It is rather,” David said. His laugh bounced around inside the car. “Most families who live in mausoleums like this shut off most of the house during the colder months and rely a great deal on very, very big fireplaces. This weekend remember that socks and shoes are your friend. And never, I mean never, go into any room without a sweater within reach,” he said. “I bought you some slipper boots. The floors are like ice skating rinks.”

  “You know the Beans and I run a little hot. It’s coming in handy.”

  David bypassed the front of the house with its sixteen-foot door and drove around to what could only be the kitchen. Steam and heat fogged up the windows and the glass of the door. David parked the car away from the door and helped Manny exit.

  One of her biggest complaints was that she was so awkward and clumsy. That surprised him. Like now, watching her step with such care across the cleared path, he loved the ease of movement she had in everything she did. He ushered her into the warm kitchen as the wind blew and shook through the gaps of the trees.

  Inside the kitchen three old women and an even older man stood in total silence as Manny and David unwrapped their outer clothes. The women, caught in some act of cooking, gasped together as they saw David walk into the room. The old man smoked a pipe in the corner smiled and nodded. The women laughed and hugged David, commenting on how good and how healthy he looked. They stared with open curiosity at the very pregnant Manny standing just inside the door waiting to be introduced.

  “Mrs. Crabtree, Angie, Doris. It is so good to see you all. You look so well and not a day older,” David said.

  “Always the charmer,” Mrs. Crabtree said. She stood a little away from David and now watched with arms crossed as Manuela crossed the room and sat in the chair beside the old man.

  “Who’s this then?” the woman who was just a little younger and slimmer than the other two were said. Her thin lips pursed into a lemon-juice-tight bow.

  “This is Manuela Menendez, Angie. I’m surprised my parents didn’t tell you. Manny and I are having twins in the spring,” David said.

  “I thought you were to marry Miss Barbara in the spring?” Doris said.

  “No, luv, I told you fifteen years ago that I would not marry Barbara. It was never going to happen. Even though our lands conn
ect she and I don’t connect as people. I feel a little bad because I did allow her to live with me but that was her choice. I think it’s ended quite well,” he said.

  “You were always one to look on things in the best light. Never mind all that, let’s get your woman some food. She looks all glowy and happy like a pregnant woman should,” Mrs. Crabtree said.

  “I am glowy and happy. I’d love to have some of whatever you have cooking right now. It smells delicious,” Manny said.

  The old man, Mr. Crabtree, smiled while Manny ate lobster bisque with just-out-of-the-oven bread. The old man was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s. He had been with the Colonel since World War II and there was no way that he would go anywhere, nor with David’s grandfather allow him to go anywhere outside of the home he had known for the past sixty years.

  After the quick snack, David held her hand as he traversed the labyrinth that was getting from the kitchen and servants’ area to where the family lived. He opened the door to a drawing room that was as big as the first floor of their new townhouse. It was something straight out of a PBS drama, books to the ceiling, Turkish rugs on the floor, and a group of people sitting around on settees drinking cocktails.

  A young woman with hair the same shade as David stood up from to meet them as they entered a huge library with six sets of couches. The rich are different than you and me. Manny smiled as David hugged his sister with a tight squeeze before kissing her cheeks.

  She leaned in close to David and Manny. “I had forgotten that mother and father were so very boring in the evening. The Colonel sleeps a lot so it’s been batting one insult after the other from Mother and snide remarks from Father,” Vanessa said. She said it in a low soft voice so as not to carry to the elders still sitting in straight-backed attention.

  “I’ll just sit over in the corner and watch the fireworks as you introduce them to Manuela. Mother heard you pull up and decided not to call you from the kitchen. She’s nervous. More so than ever I’ve seen. Time for me to take my seat and listen. Good luck.”

  David held Manny’s hand as he crossed to stand in front of a roaring fire. “Mother, this is Manuela Magdalena Menendez. Manny this is Hortense and Joseph Smythe Davis and my grandfather, Colonel Joseph David Smythe Davis, retired. Grandfather, this is Manny.”

  He introduced her without any explanations and waited. The Colonel stirred from his chair and reached for his glasses. After placing them on his large nose he looked Manny up and down several times. He took off his glasses and polished them on a handkerchief again and replaced them on the end of his nose before he began his perusal once again.

  Manny smiled and nodded as she took the seat offered to her on a hard couch. She lowered down to the edge, careful not to go so far back as to make it impossible to get up again without the benefit of help. Just by looking at his father and grandfather, Manny could see David at sixty and almost ninety. The Beans should have the looks. My nose though, I’ve a great nose for boys. She spaced out for a minute imagining two little boys with dark skin, Mayan noses, and blue eyes.

  Only after Hortense asked her more than once was Manny able to shake off the daydream and decline a drink. She didn’t know where the bathroom was.

  “Why didn’t your husband attend this time, Vanessa.” Hortense said. She placed the thin crystal glass on one of the end tables scattered around in this seating area.

  “Gayan had an emergency surgery.”

  “Did he really, dear, or was that a convenient excuse?”

  “It was a necessary excuse. I couldn’t think of one for myself so here I am,” Vanessa said. She tipped her glass toward David. He drained his glass and poured two more in martini glasses. Before he sat down he handed Manny a glass of water.

  “Well, it’s up to you David for civil conversation. Have you had an opportunity to arrange the paternity test we suggested?” Joseph said.

  “Miss Menendez, we’re not trying to be unpleasant. However, there is no reason for us to just assume that the father of your children has been established,” Hortense said.

  “Mother, I have already made it clear but I will repeat for you just once more. Then we will not discuss again. Manny and I are having twins. I will not seek nor do I need to seek confirmation for your personal gratification,” David said. “May I have another martini Vanessa?”

  “You should pace yourself. It’s going to be a very long few days. Make your own drink, David. I’m taking Manny upstairs to show her your room and to introduce her to my little hellions,” Vanessa said.

  Vanessa took Manny to David’s wing of the house. She stopped for frequent rest stops, explaining the portrait they passed. They were relatives going back to the 16th century.

  “Don’t take the parents too seriously, they didn’t speak to me for a year after I married Gayan. He’s Sri Lankan. He’s absolutely brilliant, kind, nice, a great father but they can’t accept him. They adore the girls but they try to keep them in background. At first that broke my heart but then I realized that what I gain from Gayan and the children more than makes up for anything I lost here,” she said.

  “That’s going to be compounded by having Mexican grandsons. They can’t win for losing,” she said. She and Vanessa shared a look and began to laugh.

  “I promise you I didn’t rebel against them and pick the blackest man I could. I knew what I didn’t want. Gayan is the antithesis of that. Seems like David is doing the same thing I did.”

  They talked while they moved from David’s suite over to Vanessa’s. The laughter of three young girls met them as they came down the hall. They were lovely girls with sparkling brown eyes, curly honey brown hair and light cocoa skin. Samantha, eight, Carina, seven, and Edwina, four, said hello and asked Manny to play army. Manny could only go as low as the footstool but they killed one another for forty-five minutes. She and Vanessa kept general conversation.

  “Uncle David,” Samantha said. She led Carina and Edwina into a stampede that destroyed both armies.

  David hefted the girls into the air, juggling them until they screamed with laughter. The little girls began telling competing stories that merged into a breathless rush to shout as much as possible of everything they had done in last six months since their last visit.

  “Father Christmas will find us, won’t he, Uncle David?” Carina said.

  “I told Carina that Father Christmas can find us no matter where we are. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. I was a little bit worried about Daddy not being here when he comes. I think Daddy will have to pay for the change of address,” Sam said with all the seriousness of an eight-year-old.

  “I don’t think you have to pay Father Christmas. That wouldn’t be fair to people don’t have money. Since he gives everybody a present, he doesn’t care about money. The only time you get coal is when you’re not nice,” Eddie said. That discussion devolved into the effectiveness and fairness of gifts. It was only interrupted when a very tall Norwegian blonde called the girls for baths and bed. The nanny smiled and spoke quickly to each girl in Norwegian.

  “I hope Gayan is able to make it for Christmas. It will be the first one we’ve not spent together in fifteen years. Not that he likes coming. My parents are not shy with their disapproval,” Vanessa said. “But if you live to make the parents happy you will never be happy. I’m glad to see that you finally figured that out, David,” his sister said.

  “I’ve been telling them I’m living my own life since I came from University. Right now they’re still in the we-will-cut-you-off-without-farthing moment,” he said.

  “Like that worked so well with me. I was in college and they cut me off because of Gayan. Mother couldn’t send money fast enough when she found that that I was working in a nightclub. But enough about that. How are the babies?”

  After David heaved Manny up from the stool they left the nursery and continued their conversation over dinner. Manny talked a lot to David’s grandfather, she about her life on the ranch and he about World War II. When he foun
d out she was a chef he asked her to fix him her favorite meal.

  David’s parents listened to the conversation and said very little during the meal. David and Vanessa used their lack of parental attention to catch up on one another’s lives. After dinner they converged in the drawing room. The Hall of the Couches. Manny stopped her laugh before it escaped.

  Polite non-talk took up the time after dinner. It was time to go to bed, David and Manny.

  “You didn’t know you can talk for three hours and not say anything at all,” David said.

  “I thought talking to cowboys could make you want to hit your head on a thick stone wall but, man. I’d kill to be a fly on the wall when they talk about me and the Beans. My ears are burning already,” Manny said. The climb to their wing was getting the best of her.

  “I have to fix this,” David said. He saw the adjoining rooms with a connecting door. He disappeared between the connecting doors to reappear with his suitcase. His things were unpacked into the waiting drawers and armoires.

  He lifted Manny into the bed foregoing the three steps that led to the canopied bed. It would sleep eight but he and Manny were able to use a space just right for them.

  * * * *

  The rest of the extended weekend passed much the same as the first day. The only highlight of the day was the long walks David and Manny were able to take. There was nothing in my whole life better than to go to different places on the estate and have David tell her some interesting bit of history about them. David enjoyed showing Manny his home. He wanted her to understand his love of his land and to come to love it as much as he did. He planned on them spending at least summers here even if most of their time had to be spent in London.

  Manny had progressed far enough in their relationship so that Hortense didn’t curl her lip in disgust as soon as saw her son’s woman walk into the room. Then Barbara came over on Christmas to drop off the gifts for the family.