He grinned down at her. It was a combination of mystery and naughty and sly. Before she could respond verbally, his lips were against hers. Her response to his mouth was visceral. Her body arched towards him and her hands slid up his chest to rest at the back of his neck.
His free arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her against him, and the other one stayed against the wall, encircling her with his entire body. She gasped when she felt his firmness and had no desire to be anywhere else on earth.
His lips left a trail of damp kisses down her neck and across her collarbone as his fingers tickled up underneath the hem of her tee shirt. She squirmed against him and nipped his neck lightly with her teeth.
Tony brushed the backs of his fingers against her tee shirt and watched as her nipples puckered for more attention. Annie’s breath escaped her lips as a breathy gasp and she dug her nails into his back.
In a flurry of thrown clothing and urgent hard kisses, Tony and Annie left their workout attire in a puddle on the floor. In one surprisingly smooth motion, Tony picked her up around the waist and turned so that his back was against the cold grey cinder blocks. His arms rippled as he controlled her hips downwards until his cock was buried to the hilt inside her wet heat.
The noise that escaped Annie was a mix of groaning and gasping, and sounded like a plea for more. He grinned at her and dug his fingertips into the smooth skin of her ass as he started to move her hips up and down around himself.
She reached forward and balanced herself against the wall, and ground her hips down on him until he grunted a pleading moan against the swell of her breasts. Her head fell back as his tongue found her nipples and she wrapped her legs around his waist.
In a sensual dance, their bodies parted and came together with need and desire and urgency. She panted as the heat inside her threatened to overwhelm her and she found the edge creeping closer and closer. Tony grunted underneath her, the sweat beginning to glisten on his brow as every muscle in his body strained towards release.
With one hard motion, he pulled Annie’s body down as he drove his hips up and their mutual release spilled over one another.
“Annie,” he grunted deep in his throat as he filled her wetness with his own.
“Oh Tony,” she breathed, feeling the waves crash through her entire body.
When they had both found their breath and bearings, he slowly let her back down to the floor and they dressed quickly without a word. She was out the door before Tony even had a chance to get her phone number.
Chapter Nine
The next morning, Saturday morning, Annie wished she could go to the office to distract herself but there was no good reason to do so. Her assistant would have been even more worried about her, and she could not let that happen. She was grateful that the young woman had not said anything, but Annie knew very well that she had noticed something was different.
She lay in her warm bed for a long time, until nature called her to the bathroom. After she made herself a cup of coffee and wrapped herself in a blanket on the couch, clicking through random television shows and movies until she dozed back off.
When she awoke again, she saw that she had missed three calls from the gym. She knew exactly what it meant and declined to do anything about it. Warming up her coffee, she realized that she was also hungry. Apparently hot sex up against the wall, followed by a hard night’s sleep had rendered her starving for food.
She laughed when she tried to remember the last time she had had a lazy Saturday morning all to herself with no one to bother her and nothing to worry about. She bit into her bagel and cream cheese and smiled as she settled back in to the couch, still ignoring the missed phone calls.
The movie on the television was some sort of cheesy action flick, with car explosions and guns and scantily clad women screeching for a man to save them. She rolled her eyes and clicked the remote again until she landed on the cooking channel.
She always liked food and cooking, but never really had a reason to try anything beyond the basics since Ken rarely could taste anything through the beer and was not interested in anything new that he did not know.
After she finished her breakfast and her show, she stripped out of her yoga pants and tee shirt, and stepped under the flow of hot water from the showerhead. Every shower since she had kicked Ken out was like washing off one more layer of whoever that woman had been. The bruise on her back still stung slightly, but she liked to think of it more as a reminder of where she was going than where she had been.
Once she was shampooed, scrubbed, shaved, and rinsed, she stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in the thick pink robe that her assistant had given her for Christmas. She pulled a brush through her tangle of long hair and smiled at the face in the mirror.
The blue eyes seemed brighter, the face seemed less lined, and the smile seemed genuine. She was starting to see herself as an attractive, single, and successful lawyer. In fact, she was starting to feel as though Tony was more of a catalyst into the next chapter rather than a major player in it.
Annie pulled on a bra and underwear, and then a pair of running shorts with a tee shirt and a hoodie. She tied her sneakers firmly and headed out the front door on a walk. The sun shone off her blonde waves and she darted back inside for her sunglasses before headed down the street.
She had never realized that she lived so close to the city animal shelter until she happened upon it several blocks later. She ducked inside with an expectant look on her face. Ken had never liked animals, but in retrospect, perhaps he just did not want anything that would take her focus off of him.
In the first cage, she lost her heart. The tiny grey striped kitten stood up with its front paws on the window and mewed straight at her. She grinned and wriggled her fingers against the glass and giggled as it chased them back and forth.
“Guess that one is going home with you,” the friendly voice behind her announced.
“It looks that way,” she said as she spun around.
The girl smiled and offered to let Annie hold the tiny thing.
As soon as the kitten was in her hands, Annie felt it snuggle into the crook of her neck underneath her hair. She giggled as the furry paws tickled her chin and ear.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” she wanted to know.
“This one is a little girl.”
“I think she needs a home. What do you think?”
“Oh absolutely. And she likes you already!”
“Oh crap,” Annie blurted out. “I was going for a walk, and totally forgot everything but my apartment key. Can you hold her and I’ll be back in like 10 minutes?”
The girl grinned, “Of course.”
Annie dashed back to her apartment, grabbed her purse and her car keys, and drove back to the shelter. She certainly did not want to carry the kitten home in her pocket, and she also knew she had to get to a pet store. The kitten was handed over to her in a small cardboard box and she felt her heart flutter as the tiny creature fell asleep and started purring.
On her way to the store, she heard her phone buzzing and clicked it on without checking first.
“Hey there,” Tony’s voice sounded warm and inviting through the phone.
“Oh. Hi.”
“Sleep in this morning?”
“Yeah, sorry I missed your calls.”
“Want to get lunch at that diner near the gym?”
She looked down at the cardboard box in the passenger seat.
“I guess. I do have to make a stop, so you want to say maybe 45 minutes?”
He agreed and clicked off.
She picked up the kitten essentials at the pet store and decided to take tiny one to the diner with her. It seemed safer than leaving her in the car or abandoning her in the apartment. She got an odd look from almost everyone in the diner when she walked in with the mewing box but today she did not care.
Tony chuckled, “Made a new friend I see?”
“Yeah, I couldn’t resist her face.”
“I
know the feeling,” he said quietly, staring right at her.
When the waitress arrived, both Annie and Tony ordered the spinach and mushroom omelet.
The waitress laughed, “How long you two been together?”
They grinned at each other, “This is our first date.”
THE END
Taken by my Navy SEAL Stepbrother
Chapter 1
If there was one thing Gerald Allen knew, it was how to strategize and win by following the game plan. As a Navy SEAL, it was his job to follow orders and to eat, drink and sleep the “plan”, the mission. Failure to do so meant not only losing your life but the respect from your peers, and the attention of the all-watchful eye of the United States. Even at twenty-three years old, Gerald still walked and talked like it was day one of training. His enthusiasm never left him and the unending danger of it all seemed to calm him when things got too quiet.
So it only made sense to Gerald that getting laid while on leave to meet his dad, was just a matter of following the basic rules of combat. The battlefield was slightly different, women, but the strategy was much the same.
First, come prepared and armed. Good-looking men in uniform always had a better chance of scoring on the first date then some poor schmoe in a leisure suit. The uniform meant courage. The big guns were, naturally, his tight abs and tighter ass, as well as his series of villainous tats stretching across his arms and deep into his shoulders. Markings of skulls, angel wings, stars and even a few verses of song lyrics that always wowed the bimbo babes who prided themselves on being “like, really smart”.
He was a machine in the uniform; off-duty he was a soulless badass, a mock of a real man, with no morals or standards other than maintaining his body to prime shape for when duty called. Whatever he was inside was irrelevant to the mission, which in this case was simple enough. Operation: infiltrate the enemy’s territory through surreptitious diversion. Namely, by being attentive and “mirroring” whatever the woman was saying. Demonstrate confidence, pay attention to her conversation, challenge her, become the ideal man she’s unconsciously asking for.
It was all too easy and then all that was left was the tequila and the dance. Dancing was never his forte, but it didn’t matter. Because he knew that dancing was all a confidence game; women were looking for someone secure enough with himself to gyrate mindlessly, pretending like he knew a fucking thing about how to two-step. It was all about positioning, all about the deception of power. Just like on the battlefield, psyching your opponent out.
After making eye contact with two new friendly faces and dancing with regulars at the 411 Honky Tonk Club, the local college bar, he decided to sit back and relax—and take in a full view of the lovely woman sitting at the end of the bar. His blood was rushing and his confidence was soaring as high as a jet. Approach her too fast, too undisciplined, and he would blow the mission. So he settled into the “Funny Guy” mode or stealth mode using some self-deprecating humor to lower her defenses and then hopefully her panties. All women were narcissists anyway. Treating her like someone special, like a celebrity to be entertained, was the best way to appeal to her vanity and score a date for the night…and early morning.
There was only one problem…it’s when the enemy is smarter than you are.
“Hi there,” he said, starting off, letting her feel content that he was no serious threat. Gerald couldn’t help but notice the cutest twenty-year-old girl in the bar, a redhead in a white t-shirt and blue jeans with two empty beer bottles by her side. She was watching the game, a little bored, and definitely sending out signals to anybody, to come try their luck.
“Heeey,” she said sarcastically.
“I just want to know. What would you rather have from me? A, a nice date, restaurant and a movie. B, meaningful intelligent conversation. Or C, multiple orgasms?”
She laughed hard but diverted her eyes from his, still keeping him at a distance. “Is there a D, all of the above?”
“Oh, I get it. You’re saying you want the D?”
“Wow,” she laughed again. “Skillfully played, cadette.”
“Thank you. I like the
“Like the sassy side braid,” he said, noticing her red hair and how she had a full braid probably from teasing her roots to her ends.
“Ah okay. So I get one tiny compliment instead of a ‘You’re beautiful.’”
“Say what?” he said with a squint.
“Yeah, I know the type,” she said tiredly.
“Whoah, would you rather me say, “Did it hurt when you fell from heaven…to eat some poor kid’s soul, you soul-eating ginger bitch?”
She laughed harder, against her will, but still a free guffaw. He had balls all right and seemed high on life, but he was much too smooth to be believed.
“No offense, honorable army man. But I’m not attracted to players.”
“Players? Get out of here. Okay, you’re beautiful. Let me buy you a drink. How’s that? More predictable?”
“Mmm, whatever. But I know what you are, Gomer Pyle.”
“Don’t hate. Just serving my country and enjoying my single life. Unless you’re asking to marry me, which is a bit stalker-esque.”
“Very smooth, very smooth,” she said with a wink, but turned away.
“By the way, I’m Gerald. And I’m a Navy SEAL, just so we understand each other.”
“Oh definitely. You’ve told me everything I need to know about you.”
He cracked up, sitting down and ordering a couple of tequila shots. “I’m not a player, you know. Just enthusiastic. And I like to win. You got to be driven in my career if you want to survive. What do you do?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business, Forrest.”
He laughed again. She was playing him like he was playing her. The cool thing was she already spoke with her eyes. She was attracted to him. She loved the uniform. And his cockiness is what she was responding to—even if she was pretending she was a nice girl. Yeah right, but how many nice guy losers had she brushed off that night?
“My momma told me to beware of gingers,” he said in a mock-Forrest Gump accent. “They take your virginity, then your money, then your soul.”
“I think I need another shot just to keep listening to you.”
“What can I say, ma’am? I’m having a lot of fun tonight. I’m happy to be home, in all honesty. Another day of life is a reason to celebrate. I’m sure you’ll agree with that.”
“True…” she said eyeing him sideways, but accepting his drink. “What does the tattoo on your arm say?
“Says She took a whip to me until I shout, Oh, motherfucker's, just a motherfucker.”
“What in the world is that all about?”
“I actually got it on a dare,” he said with a smile. “It was our first trip back home, the guys and I were celebrating. We all went drinking and I lost a game of truth or dare played between us and the girls. So they said I could choose any Prince song I wanted to get tattooed on my arm. They thought I was terrified, but I was like, naah. I’ll show them. So I chose the lyric with motherfucker in it, just to show them I wasn’t afraid.”
“Hmmm,” she said with a smile, studying his face. There was something charming about him. His arrogance was all too simulated. Not a guy that was oblivious to the world, but all too familiar with the horrors of war and the ugly truths of existence. He was arrogant and silly because why the hell not? Indeed, another day another sacrifice, another day to laugh off something as silly as a blown date.
“Not afraid to get dumped on either. First time I went to Afghanistan found out via Facebook that my girlfriend cheated on me.”
“Damn,” the woman said with a headshake.
“Yeah, took cookies. So by that time, I was saying Fuck It. It’s time to live like every day is my last. So yeah, I’m the type of guy to say you’re beautiful, you got crazy funky hair that I think is awesome. And I want to drink all night and show you the world, Aladdin style.”
“That’s a
hard offer to pass up. But I don’t dig players.”
“Players? There you go again with the players thing. But I appreciate you being honest and telling me why I have no chance in hell. I’ve never really thought about how I come across to people.” He shrugged, indicating he was ready to move on.
“Well…I didn’t say you didn’t have a chance. I’m just saying I usually don’t date players.”
“Looking to settle down and get married, huh?”
“No, it’s not that,” she said with a snarky head bob. I just think you guys move too fast sometimes.”
“Don’t you like roller coasters?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“So I think of it like life being a roller coaster. We could all take things slow and keep a distance from what intimidates us. Or we could just brace ourselves and take the ride.”
“Hmmm.”
“Speaking of which, would you like to go for a ride…”
“No!”
“Excuse me! I just meant would you like to go to a great little dessert place down the road. On Amory Boulevard. Coffee and dessert place that serves alcohol-spiked hot chocolate with cannabis-infused cocoa. This was Colorado, so what do you expect but the friendliest bar in town? Doesn’t that sound like heaven and hell just mashed together in a blender?”
“Oh, I thought you were talking about something else.”
ROMANCE: Stolen by the Alien Lord (BBW Alpha Male Pregnancy Romance) (Contemporary Science Fiction Paranormal Short Stories) Page 156