Because of You

by Laura Ward

  We crashed into each other. Open mouths, dueling tongues, hands everywhere. We pulled off clothes, sucking on earlobes and necks along the way.

  Bringing his mouth to my nipple he sucked, alternating until I cried out in overwhelming pleasure.

  Needing some control, I pulled off his boxers, humming in approval when I felt his hardness between my legs.

  Ricky stopped sucking on my breasts, his mouth slightly parted as he fixated on the same sight as me, his long, hard length between my legs, where it belonged.

  “You sure, mariposa? We can stop right now.” Ricky’s sweet words melted me, even as the volcanic heat in his eyes loosened the parts of me that still rattled with nerves.

  In response, I slid my panties off, allowing his hardness to nestle almost exactly where I needed him. Our eyes met, and we moaned in unison.

  In an instant, my back hit the bed and Ricky was between my legs. His mouth licked and sucked until I called out for him to stop and never stop, and to keep the euphoria I felt forever in my body.

  Blinking my eyes and attempting to come back to earth, Ricky had left the bed and walked back, rolling on a condom. And then he was perched over me, stroking my face and kissing my lips.

  “This will hurt at first, but I’ll go slow and make it good for you. You have my promise.” Ricky’s eyes searched mine, moving back and forth until he seemed to accept the serenity in my own. I nodded, consenting to what we both wanted. He slid in slowly, kissing me and swallowing my cries until he was fully inside me.

  The pain pinched and burned but was quickly gone, replaced by the most intense feeling of fullness I had known. Steadying my breathing, I gazed into the eyes of the man I was starting to love. “I trust you. You’re the best man I know and I’m glad I get to experience this with you.”

  Ricky stilled, his eyes squeezing shut for a long minute. When he opened them, they blazed with intensity. He didn’t speak, but he moved inside me rhythmically, guiding our bodies in escalating pleasure until we broke, falling apart in each other’s arms.

  We were quiet for a long while after that. I sprawled across Ricky’s chest while he played with my hair and ran his fingers up and down my back.

  I had never felt this connected to another person. Joy filled me, my heart wanting to grow arms and burst out of my chest, latching onto the person next to me who made it beat harder and stronger. My body like an electrical wire, zinging with energy and heat. I was amped up, and yet sated. Emotional and also peaceful. Most of all, happy. The realization made me grin and I pressed my face into Ricky’s chest, muffling my elation before I elevated my dork status too soon after mind-bogglingly fantastic sex.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was smooth, but filled with emotion. “My best friend, Dean, is getting married next weekend. Will you come with me? As my date?”

  My heart jumped into my throat. “All your guys will be there? Your closest friends?” I asked, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it nonetheless.

  “My very best friends in the world will be there. And I want them to meet my girl.”

  His girl. Ricky’s girl.

  There were moments in life so impactful you would know that every millisecond would etch onto your soul.

  This was mine. I was his.

  And he was unequivocally mine.

  * * *

  A FEW HOURS later he had to go.

  “I’m working at the shop the rest of the day. Ed closes next week, and I’ve gotta go on some job interviews the next few days.” Ricky told me, slipping on his leather jacket.

  “The wedding’s Saturday, rehearsal’s Friday, and bachelor party is on Thursday. Between tux fittings and job searches, I probably won’t see you next week.” He placed his hands on my shoulders. “Know that I want to, okay? And I’ll make it up to you.”

  I lifted to my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck. “I understand. I’ll get a dress for the wedding and I’ll be working all next week too at my new job. We’ll see each other in class.” I tilted my head up and he leaned his down to meet me. We kissed a long, lingering, wistful goodbye.

  Ricky walked out the front door and I watched him get on his motorcycle and start the engine. He took off, the sound of his engine booming like thunder across a stormy sky.

  He hadn’t left this morning. We made love for the first time. He had explained his plans for the week. He said goodbye to me with one hell of a kiss.

  All signs were pointing toward me being wrong. Maybe Ricky, the big, strong, tough, formerly angry, sex-God, would take a chance on a relationship with the shy, awkward, slight of a girl with glasses.

  Perhaps sometimes, the light of hope was strong enough to keep fear locked away in the dark.

  Only leaving room for one thing.

  Love.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ricky

  THE WEEK PASSED by in a flash. At times, I had been wracked with guilt. I knew, deep down in my soul, that I should have resisted Aveline. Making love with all the lies and secrets between us, was one step too far. But my God, I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anything… even revenge. And for once in my life I wanted to be selfish. This one time I wanted something better than me, because she meant so much. A part of me knew, in the future when I was alone, working with all I had for Mama and Papa, I could look back at this experience with Aveline and know that someone pure and good and sweet and kind wanted… me.

  It probably didn’t help my mood that other than seeing Aveline in class and stealing kisses on our way out of campus, we hadn’t been together. My best friends were in full-on wedding chaos mode, pulling me along for the wild ride.

  Tonight, was Dean’s bachelor party. Dean was always the loudest, most obnoxious, man-slut of us all. He was and still is a wicked quarterback, taking IU to the National Championships and then getting drafted to play for the Chicago Bears. Of course, during his senior year of college he lost focus, falling for a gorgeous girl named Grace and her cute son, Finn. Dean, a daddy? Dean, settled down? Dean, happier than ever in his life? Checkmate.

  Rich, playing ball for a living, loving a girl even more than the sport he was destined to play, and loving her son just as much. Was I green with envy? Fuck yes. But I was happy for my bud, too.

  When we first arrived at the bar, I started giving Dean shit over only sleeping with one girl for the rest of his life. He shut me down quickly and Landon chimed in, stating he would only ever want Emma in his bed. Even Jon, the only other single guy in the group stayed quiet. I had been wondering if he was hooking up with Daisy, Dean’s little sister, but I didn’t have a death wish, so I didn’t bring it up.

  Watching two of the biggest players I had ever known wax on about how sex with the girl you loved was the best thing in the world, something struck me. The other morning had been the best sex I had ever had. Sure, I’d slept with girls I was dating and had feelings for, but I had never been in love. Something about being with Aveline felt different. More intense. More connected… more everything.

  Now I sipped my beer watching Landon talk to the biggest disappointment of his life, his estranged father.

  Growing up, Landon was the richest, the prettiest, and if I was being honest, the nicest of our group. Not one of us could believe it when he realized the hot fling he had with a fellow lifeguard the summer before his senior year of high school would turn out to be our new economics teacher.

  Lucky bastard.

  But she dumped him like he was on fire when she realized he lied about his age, and the poor fucker spent the rest of the year cleaning up his playboy reputation and attempting to win her back. She didn’t touch him until he graduated, and she’d quit teaching at our school, but by then he had lost his scholarship to IU for football and the two of them took off to the West Coast, eager for a fresh start at the University of Southern California.

  I hadn’t been out to Cali until last summer when Jon had dragged my sorry ass on a road trip. Spending time with Emma and Landon had been great,
but I’d only left unhappy with my own life. That aside, Landon had begun his master’s program in special education last fall, while Emma finished her PhD in History.

  They planned to rule the educational world and were completely in love. And now his father learned that Landon would be moving back to Indiana and would be proposing to Emma. He begged his son for forgiveness for throwing him out of their home and cutting all ties with him the past four and a half years. He pleaded for another chance with him. And when he left the table, Landon hightailed it to call Emma.

  He called Emma.

  He had a table of his boys surrounding him, but he needed to talk to the woman he loved.

  I thought about what Landon’s father had said. He’d admitted that he was human, and he’d fucked up. All he’d wanted was forgiveness.

  Fist pressed to my mouth, my thoughts swirled and intensified. I hadn’t been honest with Aveline. I kept my truth about my father and our shared history from her. I fucked up with the blackmail texts, for sure. But I never thought I would care for her this much. That I could fall in love with her.

  Maybe if I was straight up like Landon’s Dad and admitted my mistakes and asked for forgiveness we could move past this. Maybe her parents would be willing to help my father if they knew we were in love.

  “Dean, I’m sorry, but I gotta bail. There’s something I have to do.” I stood up, threw some money for my beer on the table, and shrugged on my leather coat.

  “Not a problem. Drive safely,” Dean said, a look of concern on his and Jon’s faces.

  I slapped each of them on the back. “See you tomorrow at the rehearsal,” I muttered, jogging to the door. I stopped before getting onto my bike to text Aveline.

  “I need to see you. Now. Can you meet me at the bike shop?”

  Almost instantly a bubble formed under my text with dancing dots.

  “Leaving my house in 5. My parents are asleep already.”

  Relief flooded me. I needed to tell her now. I needed to see her. I needed to hold her and ask her to forgive me.

  “Drive safe, mariposa.”

  And with that, I hopped on my bike and took off to see my girl and get my secrets out in the open.

  * * *

  I MADE IT to the closed bike shop in record time. Unlocking the door, I went inside and turned on the light to the main bay. The bike I had been working on for the past week was finished, sitting in the middle of the garage.

  I paced, dragging a hand through my hair as I thought through my speech.

  The sound of footsteps stopped me in my tracks. I turned to see Aveline walk through the door. Her hair was down, face clean without a hint of makeup. She wore her glasses and a long grey sweater coat that tied at her middle. On her feet were little boots with a small heel that gave her an extra inch or two of height.

  “Hey there,” she greeted me, coming closer and pulling on my shirt to lower my head to hers.

  I obeyed, my mouth finding hers as we spoke our hellos without any more words.

  Aveline moaned, shifting her head to the side to deepen the kiss, her tongue meeting mine and sliding against it in firm, demanding strokes.

  Funny that a few weeks ago, Aveline had her first kiss. My sweet girl was a fast learner.

  I broke away on a gasp taking a few steps back, wiping the edge of my mouth with my thumb. “I need to talk to you.”

  Her eyes narrowed, a seductive look taking over. “No, you said you needed to see me. I needed to see you, too,” she purred.

  Her hands unknotted the tie at her waist and she moved the edges of her sweater coat open, revealing a lacy, see through nightie.

  “Aveline,” I growled, stalking toward her. “You drove here in this?” I closed the sweater, holding the ends together in my hand. “Someone could have seen you!”

  She rolled her eyes at me and huffed out a laugh. “Don’t be silly. I got in my car in the garage and drove straight here. Plus, I kept my sweater closed while I drove. This is for your eyes only.” She moved my hand away and slipped the sweater off.

  I watched it pool on the floor for a long minute before slowly, painfully, dragging my eyes up her body. The tiny scrap of lace and silk was nude colored and so short it barely covered her ass. Underneath she wore no panties or bra, I knew because I could see… everything.

  My legs were shaking. Pulling her close, I held her to me. After a moment, I moved us to the stool I used when I worked on bikes, sitting down and keeping her tucked into my lap. “What are you doing to me?”

  She ran her fingers down my face and around my neck, settling in my hair. Her nose dragged along the side of mine and she planted kisses on my cheek, ear, and neck. “I’m being your butterfly. You make me feel free, like I can spread my wings and soar. You said you needed to see me. I wanted you to see me. To see what you do to me and how you make me feel.”

  Her lips hovered over mine and the tip of her tongue traced the line between my lips, causing them to open of their own volition. She gave me the lightest, most restrained, but sexiest kiss of my life. Her next words are what did me in. “And I seem to remember you saying that your ultimate fantasy was to have sex here, in this garage. I was thinking… on this bike?”

  On. This. Bike.

  My eyes squeezed shut and my body shuddered. It was my ultimate fantasy. Hell, her, right here, wearing the barely-there scraps of material and saying that was more than my perverted mind could ever conjure up.

  My mind raced, and I willed myself to remember what I needed to say to her.

  But she was on the move, standing in front of me, pulling me up to standing and undoing my belt, button, and zipper.

  “Wait.” I grabbed onto her wrist, halting her progress.

  “No,” she shook her head. “I need you now.”

  “I have to tell you something. There’s something you don’t know about me. I haven’t told you everything and before we go on, I need to.” My words were pained, forced. I wanted to keep them buried, because God above I wanted nothing to stop what Aveline was intent on doing.

  Aveline did stop. Her chest heaving, face flushed, lips swollen, and hair mussed, she stopped and looked into my eyes. “I haven’t told you everything about me yet, either. And I want to have these conversations, but not tonight. You need to know that nothing you could say to me would change even an ounce of what I feel for you. The past is the past. You and me, right here and now, are just that. You and me. And that is all that matters.”

  Nothing else she could have said would have settled my racing heart and calmed my indecision, but those words did. Because with all that I was, I needed to believe they were true. All that mattered was us. Nothing else.

  I nodded. “You and me, that’s it.”

  She grinned, guiding me out of my pants and stroking me in her warm hands. “You and me. That’s it.”

  Sliding off her glasses, I placed them safely on her sweater coat. Then I kissed her, sucking on her lower lip, while I moved us to the bike. Reaching into my wallet, I grabbed a condom, rolling it on and then straddling the bike. Never breaking our kiss, I lifted her up and over so that she was also straddling the bike. My feet were planted on the ground to steady us.

  Pulling away, I dragged the wispy straps of her nightie down, revealing her breasts. I took one in each hand, palming them and rolling the nipples between my fingers. Her head lolled back, and she watched me with lazy eyes.

  My body was lit, hot, and strung tight. But my heart worried about this sweet girl. “You sure about this? For your second time having sex? This is pretty freakin’ hot, and totally adventurous, but I don’t want you uncomfortable for a second.”

  She licked her lips. “Oh, I’m sure. I’ve pictured it all day. And if I spazz out, I’ll let you know.” She smiled, vulnerable and seductive at the same time.

  I ran my fingers down the smooth skin of her throat, lingering on her thrumming pulse. “You’re going to have to do a lot of the work here, mariposa. I have to keep my feet on the ground to steady
the bike.”

  Her forehead creased, uncertainty filling her features. My hands left her breasts and cradled her face.

  “You’ve got this, beautiful. Ride me.” I growled the last words and grinned when I saw a flush develop on her neck and creep up her cheeks. My words turned her on and I had a feeling she’d be wet from them alone.

  My fingers traveled under the short hem and parted her.

  Yes, she was drenched.

  My sweet, beautiful butterfly.

  Placing my hands on her hips, I lifted her onto my lap. Her hands found my shoulders and she held on as I lowered her onto me. Starting slowly, I filled her. Our focus was solely on the other’s face and I reveled in her glow. Her eyes widened, her mouth parted, her breathing increased, and a light sweat formed on her temple. She cried out, a look of pure ecstasy on her face.

  “Fuck yeah,” I grunted, doing everything in my power not to come from the look on her face. This was my girl, my fantasy come true.

  She did what I asked, lifting up and down, back and forth, riding me and experimenting with what positions and timing brought her the most pleasure. I gripped her ass in my hands following her lead, assisting when she found the rhythm that worked best for her. And when she captured her release, head thrown back and calling my name, I followed right after her knowing this truly was it. This was what had been missing in my life.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Aveline

  KNOCK, KNOCK.

  I turned when I heard the sound at my bedroom door. That my parents always knocked to announce their presence tickled me. While they couldn’t hear the sound, they still afforded me the gesture of respect.

  Mom poked her head around my door and I waved her in. She came into my room, a deep frown etched on her face. It was Saturday and a day off work, but Mom was not dressed casually. Her pressed, cream colored linen pants, pale peach colored cardigan sweater, and silk blouse looked fit for a museum or the theater. Her hair was in a perfect bun and her makeup light applied.