I grasped her chin in my palm and tilted her head back so she had to look at me. "The only reason I never asked you to move in with me was because I didn't want you to think I was one of those half-assed guys like my brother, who ask women to live with them so they can avoid making an actual commitment." Leaning down, I brushed my lips over hers. "I knew I wanted to marry you the first time we kissed. Do you remember?"
She nodded slowly. "Outside the restaurant that first night."
I remembered that evening as clearly, as if it had happened yesterday. I'd been newly licensed as an architect and had given a presentation earlier in the evening to a community group about a plan for tearing down one of the most dilapidated, drug- and gang-infested projects on the South Side and replacing it with a new, lower-density development that would ultimately allow for home ownership 78
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for some of the residents. I'd thought my plans were brilliant and presented them with all the bravado and arrogance of someone who thinks he's delivering manna to the starving Hebrews.
Then, during the question and answer period, a young woman who looked like she should have been a swimsuit model came to the microphone and asked where I imagined all the people currently housed in the old high-rises would live once we'd torn them down. Wouldn't it take months—if not years—to replace the units in those buildings with new ones?
I didn't have an answer. The issue hadn't been raised by the city planners who'd commissioned the project, and no one at the firm I worked for had seemed to think it was a problem. Stupidly, that was the answer I gave.
The forum went downhill from there, to say the least.
But after the debacle ended, the woman who'd raised the question came up to the stage, introduced herself as Casey Franklin, and asked me if I'd like to go out for a cup of coffee and dessert. I looked, she'd said, like I could use it. She was even more beautiful up close than at a distance, so I'd said yes despite the fact that she'd caused me near terminal humiliation.
Over pie and coffee, we discussed the dilemma she'd introduced, and I came up with an idea for phasing the buildings' demolition and the construction of the new units to minimize the impact on the residents.
Outside in the parking lot afterwards, she thanked me for responding to the residents' concerns and brushed her lips against my cheek. Unable to resist the opportunity, I turned 79
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my head so that our mouths met and kissed her—gently at first, then more deeply as the hot, electric charge of perfect physical chemistry urged me on. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back, her body softening and molding to mine.
Though we'd known almost nothing about each other at that moment, that simple connection of bodies and souls had told me everything I needed to know. What came after had merely been confirmation of what my senses had already determined.
"Why didn't you ask me then?" she asked, dragging me back to the present.
I chuckled. "We'd just met. You would have thought I was crazy."
"I don't mean right then. I mean, why did you wait five years?"
I shrugged. "I was thirty when we met, but you were only twenty-two. You were just getting started with your life, your career. I thought you needed time to do that. I didn't want to rush you and have you regret that you got married too young, that you didn't get to do what you really wanted in life. And now that you have that, I wouldn't dream of asking you to give it up. Unless you wanted to..."
"Oh," she said in a small voice, staring hard at my chest.
"I didn't realize. I should have trusted you."
I slid my knuckle beneath her chin and tilted her face up again. "Yes, you should have. But I should have told you what I was thinking. I didn't give you a chance to trust me."
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With a sigh that was half-regret for the past, half-pleasure for the present, I cupped her ass in my hands and pulled her tight against me. Nothing had ever felt as good, as right, as Casey's body pressed close to mine.
We'd both made mistakes, both kept secrets, both been afraid of the truth. And there was only one way to fix what we'd broken.
"What do you say we start over?"
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Chapter Thirteen
"Start over?" Casey asked, sounding confused, her face flushing with heat and her eyes dilating as I massaged her ass cheeks in slow, sensual circles.
"Yeah." My original train of thought had already become vague as my mind started playing with places to make love to her.
The desk? No, too much junk on it.
The chair? The arms would get in the way.
With her back pushed up against the wall? Not a bad plan.
"How do we do that?"
"Hmmm." I rolled my hips, grinding my hard-on against her stomach. "Maybe we should introduce ourselves."
Dropping my head into the curve of her shoulder, I feathered my lips up her slender neck to her ear. "Hi, I'm Matthew Finley."
A nervous laugh bubbled through her. "Casey Franklin,"
she murmured breathlessly as I palmed one breast through the thin fabric of her sensible, burgundy-colored blouse. The nipple rose to my attentions, its peaked tip easily discernible despite the layers. "You're a bit friendly for someone I've just met, aren't you?"
I stilled my hands, both the one that kneaded her butt and the one that caressed her breast, and lifted my head. "Do you want me to stop?"
"No, but I'd like to know what your intentions are."
I smiled. She was getting into the spirit of the game.
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Lifting her up by the waist, I carried her until I could reach the door to her office with my foot and kicked it shut.
"My intention," I said as I moved her into position against the closed door, "is to make love to you until you agree to marry me."
"You don't have to do that, silly," she said, tracing my jaw with her index finger. "I'm ready to mar—"
"Shhh!" I lowered my mouth to hers, kissing her with all the frustrated passion that had been building in me for months. Her mouth opened, and our tongues tangled as I worked her skirt upward and her panties downward. "You can't say that yet. We've only just met."
"Oh." She giggled, then gasped as I slid my fingers between her pussy lips. She was wet with the same need that made my cock strain against my fly. "We shouldn't be doing this."
"I know. After all, we hardly know each other."
"That's not what I mean." She wriggled as I thrust two fingers inside her. It might have been an attempt to escape or it might not. "I mean here, in my office. What if someone comes?"
"Oh, someone's going to come all right," I promised. "But I already told your receptionist to hold your calls and reschedule any appointments. For the next hour, you're all mine."
She shivered with pleasure as I pumped her with my fingers, and I knew I'd won. Her arms came up around my shoulders, and she peppered kisses across my mouth, cheek, and neck. I maintained a steady rhythm of thrusts, in and out 83
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of her slick heat, until she buried her face in my chest to muffle her cry as she came.
"Told you someone was going to come," I said with a grin when she'd stopped shaking in my arms.
"What about you?" she teased, her hands finding their way to my waistband. She unbuttoned and unzipped my pants with smooth efficiency, extracting my dick and pumping it with her fist just the way I liked. I closed my eyes. Some things were definitely better with practice. Sex was one of the
m.
"I have a feeling I'm going to be coming very soon," I said with a groan, grabbing her hand to stop her from making that happen before I was ready.
I lifted her off the floor, and she kicked off her panties so she could spread her legs wide. Her pussy, drenched and ready, glistened like a chocolate-covered strawberry in the fluorescent light. Damn, she looked good enough to eat. To lick. To taste and torture until she came again, this time with my tongue buried up inside her spasming cunt.
But my cock was insistent. First things first, it demanded.
I hooked my arms under her thighs, lined up, and slid inside her. Closing my eyes, I pressed her back against the door to ease the stress of supporting her weight while I pistoned her. Nothing could be better than this. I was an idiot to think anything could make me give up the splendor of fucking the woman I loved. Cutting off my own arm would be easier, better than letting her go.
"Matty," she whispered.
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"Yes," I answered, barely registering her voice as my orgasm inched closer.
"Would you do something for me?"
The hesitation—or was it embarrassment?—in her voice made me lift my head and look at her. "What, baby?"
Her cheeks, already a shade pinker than normal, turned dark red. "I—I want, no, I need something in my ass."
My motions stilled. "Huh?"
"Can you ... you know, do what you did yesterday? When you licked me?"
Comprehension washed over me. I knew what she wanted, but I wasn't sure how to manage it while I held her up against the wall. I looked back at the desk, considering.
"Okay, but we have to move." I eased her off my dick—
which would have protested bitterly had it not known what was coming—and led her to the desk.
She needed no direction to do what I had in mind. Bracing herself on her hands, she bent at the waist, her legs spread wide, her pussy and ass fully exposed. I slid my fingers back into her cunt, moistening them with her juices before replacing them with my cock. I pushed one digit slowly and carefully into her ass and fucked her that way for a few seconds.
"More." The word was virtually inaudible, but I complied.
The muscles resisted, then relented, resisted and relented as I eased the second finger in alongside the first and pumped her a few times. She shuddered but said nothing.
"You okay?" I whispered.
She nodded. "I'm wonderful."
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"Yes, you are."
The thought, the sight, the feel of what I was doing to her as I fucked her in both holes, filling her completely. Her hand slipped down between her legs, rubbing her clit furiously while I picked up my pace, cum swirling and tightening in my balls as they slapped against her ass. The sounds of our loving—grunts and moans and wet smacking noises—seemed to echo in the small, crowded room. I wanted it to go on forever, and I struggled to hold back, the stave off the inevitable.
When she came, I felt it first with my fingers and then with my cock, the twin sensations so intense, my knees wobbled and my vision blurred. I lasted all of five seconds more, my orgasm rocketing through me as I pumped spurt after seemingly endless spurt of cum inside her.
Several minutes later, head resting on her back and cock still buried in the slick warmth of her pussy, my breathing had finally returned to normal. I pulled out of her, straightened her skirt, tucked my dick back into my pants, spun her around to face me, and tucked a few stray braids behind her ear.
I got down on one knee and took her hand in mine. "So, Casey Franklin, will you marry me?"
"Hmmm, I'm not sure if I know you well enough to marry you yet, Mr. Finley," she teased. Grinning down at me, she rubbed her chin as if considering the matter very seriously.
Finally, she said, "I think I may need a repeat performance to make up my mind. For, say, the next fifty years or so."
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I rose and scooped her up in my arms. "That, my dear, can be arranged."
The End
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Author Bio
When Jackie isn't trying to be a writer—and even when she is—she's a happily married mother of three who makes her living writing technical training materials for the software industry. She lives with her husband and children in Southern California, where she was born and raised. She holds a BA in Classical Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and an MA in Classics from the University of Chicago.
Jackie has been telling stories since before she learned to write, but only got up the courage to submit her work to publishers a couple of years ago. In addition to her ebooks published by Cobblestone Press, you can find her erotic novella anthology, Behind the Red Door, in bookstores and at Amazon.
You can visit her online at www.jackiebarbosa.com
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