How About No

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  My eyes likely dilated at the sight before me, and Wade started to chuckle as he caught the move.

  “I don’t understand what your fascination is,” he teased me. “But I fucking like it.”

  “It’s like why I’ll never understand your fascination with my boobs,” I pointed out. “We’ll just have to realize that there are things in this world that can’t be explained.”

  He scoffed. “More like you’re just weird,” he pointed out. “It’s fairly normal for men to be turned on by breasts.”

  “And it’s fairly normal for a woman to find a hairy chest attractive,” I countered.

  Just as the last words came out of my mouth, Wade bent down and captured one distended nipple into his mouth and sucked.

  My pussy clenched on empty air, and I felt downright bereft without something inside of me to clench on to.

  Something he must’ve sensed by again reading my face because his grin went wider as he reached down and plunged two fingers into my wetness.

  My eyes slammed shut, and my nails dug in deeper.

  “Jesus,” I hissed, back arching.

  All it took was two pumps of his fingers for me to realize that I was so not liking this no touching him thing. I wanted to wrap my legs around his hips. I really wanted to pull him down on top of me and latch my teeth into his shoulder muscle as he took me hard.

  And I reallllly wanted to come.

  “Don’t tease me, Wade,” I pleaded. “Either take me or make me come. Please.”

  Wade curled his fingers, and I knew right then and there that he’d liked the pleading, and had decided to give me what I wanted.

  “Oh, God,” I breathed, feeling him stroke that secret, special spot inside of me that I’d never been able to find on my own.

  Yet, without so much as a question, Wade always seemed to find it with little to no effort.

  Then again, it could be like me when I went down on him. It was easy to remember the things that pleased my man, and it didn’t matter that years had passed since I’d done some of them. It was like the things that made Wade weak in the knees were always burned into my memory.

  I knew that he liked it when I flicked that little spot on the underside of his cock. I also knew that he liked his balls to be squeezed just this side of too hard when I was giving him a hand job.

  And just like that, Wade made me come.

  Hard.

  I screamed through clenched teeth, unable to find it in me to open my eyes. I desperately wanted to, though. I loved seeing the satisfaction in Wade’s eyes as he made me come. It’d always been one of those things that only served to turn me on more.

  Breathing hard, I finally felt my back drop back to the bed and opened my eyes.

  Wade was staring at me, one hand still frozen inside of me while the other was wrapped around his cock as he slowly pumped away at it, getting off on the sight of me getting off.

  Feeling an aching in my legs, I let them drop to the bed and released them, then held my hands out in a silent plea for my man to come to me.

  He came willingly, letting go of his cock in the process.

  He growled when his mouth came down on mine. “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful when you come.”

  I felt heat rising to my face, and I turned my mouth so that my lips rested against the fast beat of his pulse.

  “You make me feel beautiful,” I breathed.

  He situated himself between my splayed legs, then suddenly rolled so that we were on our sides.

  There, he made long, sweet love to me.

  His thrusts were slow and deep, driving me wild all while being sweet about it.

  His hands never loosened around me, even when our sweat started to make us slip and slide.

  And when I finally came for the second time, he did, too.

  Deep inside of me where he belonged and always would.

  Once our breathing was back to normal, and his cock was once again flaccid and resting against the inside of my thigh, I told him my deepest sorrow.

  “I made a very bad decision,” I told Wade. “I was scared. So freakin’ mad at you I couldn’t think. And honestly, I hated that you were so sympathetic to my sister when you never even asked me how my childhood affected me.” I paused. “I hate it that you still talk to her. I hate it even more that my parents acted like I was their golden child just to get you onboard for the surgery when it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

  “Your parents are good,” he said, sounding sick to his stomach. “They made it sound like you’d only donated once. Had I known it was as many as it was, I would’ve…”

  “Done the same thing, because you’re a big ol’ softy,” I countered.

  He groaned into my shoulder. “I would take every single thing back if I could. God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I wrapped my arms around his head and squeezed it tight.

  He made a protesting sound into my armpit. “Staaaaap.”

  I snickered and squeezed harder.

  His hands came up, and all of a sudden, I was no longer the one in charge, he was.

  And I was on the bottom, his legs on either side of my ribs, while he tickled the crap out of me.

  “Wade!” I cried out loudly. “Noooo!”

  By the time he stopped, I was crying from laughing so hard, and I barely caught my breath before he was switching gears back to where we’d previously been only ten minutes before.

  With this new position he was in, his balls were resting on my chest, and his large cock was growing bigger by the second, bisecting my breasts.

  His eyes were now heated, and he was staring at me like I was about to really like what he was about to do to me.

  “How can you already be hard?” I questioned, voice barely over a whisper.

  His eyes went from my breasts to my eyes. “Do you see where I’m sitting right now?”

  I looked down, opened my mouth to reply that I did, in fact, see where he was sitting, and he took advantage of my position and pushed his cock into my mouth.

  I teasingly bit down, and his eyes flared.

  Then we did it all over again. This time hard and fast, but still just as sweet.

  Chapter 16

  Apparently, the correct response to ‘see you later, alligator’ is not ‘after supper, motherfucker.’

  Who knew?

  -Wade to Landry

  Wade

  “I’m gonna be somebody, someday!” my wife—my very drunk wife—sang loudly with the song that was playing through the speakers.

  Bayou’s eyes met mine and promptly slid away. “You know, I’m actually kind of impressed how well she holds a tune.”

  I chuckled. “She sings pretty damn good when she’s not drunk. It doesn’t surprise me that she sings well when she is…although at this point I’m really quite surprised she’s hitting all the notes. She’s on beer seven, I think…”

  “Eight,” Izzy replied, mirth filling her eyes. “I think she finished her eighth as she was walking toward the food table. That’s her bottle that Linc is holding.”

  We all looked over to where Linc and his wife were standing. Conleigh and Landry were now slow dancing to a very fast-paced song while Linc watched on, extremely amused.

  “I think she got sidetracked,” I admitted, finding it amusing that my wife had let her hair down and had actually had some fun after the day that she’d had.

  “I really like her,” Izzy murmured, watching as Linc walked toward us with delight written all over his face. “She’s the sweetest person I’ve ever met. Did you know that she said I could drop off the baby at her daycare whenever I needed to?”

  I felt my heart pang at that.

  “She wants a baby,” I murmured, watching Landry stumble and right herself.

  She looked down at the offending object that’d tripped her—her own feet—and scowled.

  Moments later, her heels were kicked off in the direction o
f our table and she was once again dancing, though now Conleigh and Landry had switched to line dancing.

  “Then give her one,” Linc said as he caught the tail end of our conversation.

  I felt things inside of me clench.

  “If I could, I would,” I murmured. “But, when Landry was a teenager, she had an infection that got out of control and they had to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes.”

  Izzy blew out a breath. “Shit. That makes me feel awful.”

  It did me, too.

  Every single day since we’d found out that we were still married and that I wasn’t going to let her go again, I’d been thinking about ways to make this better. To give her the things that we both wanted.

  And I’d finally decided that adoption was likely the way to go.

  Only, I had no clue whatsoever where to start.

  “When she told me that she wanted to start the daycare when we first met, I had no clue why. She said she loved kids, and that she’d always wanted to do it.” I paused, unsure if I should go on, but at a loss for how to handle the situation without putting my ass in the fire again—so to speak. “She wants kids. She wants them badly. The only problem is that she can’t have them and that I can…she said she always wanted to have a baby that looks like me, with my hair. I’m not sure if that means that I should offer to find a surrogate and we use my stuff, or we straight up go for adoption. I’m so fuckin’ scared of losin’ her that I don’t want to say anything wrong and risk offending her.”

  There was silence for a few long seconds, making me fear the worst.

  “She won’t leave you again,” Bayou finally spoke up. “I think she was just as broken up about everything as you were, to be honest.”

  My eyes turned to the man who at one time had supported my decision to leave Landry be.

  “Why’d you tell me to leave her alone?” I asked carefully.

  Bayou didn’t look the least bit apologetic. “It’s hard for someone to know what they’re missing if they’re reminded every single day of why they should stay apart.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “She was so fuckin’ pissed at you that she couldn’t see past the pain,” Bayou continued. “Whatever you did to her hurt her. Bad. And she needed to get rid of that pain that you caused her before she could see past it. You gave her the time to do that, and when the opportunity arose for her to rethink her choices, she finally saw past it and looked at you. She missed you and was no longer blinded by what you’d done. By doing that, she chose you rationally, instead of choosing you irrationally.”

  “Irrationally?” Rome asked. “Bayou, you’re speaking in goddamn riddles.”

  “I understand.” Zee startled me by entering into the conversation. “My ex-wife? I pissed her off good by joining the military straight out of high school. We’d just gotten married, had a baby on the way, and I couldn’t see past my fear of not being able to support our family. So, I went and joined. She was justifiably pissed because we didn’t get to make that decision together, and while I was gone at basic, she mostly got over being that pissed. Until she miscarried at fifteen weeks without me there. When I got done at basic, she met me at graduation only to have me sign divorce papers. All I’m saying is that time really does heal all wounds…it can also cause more. In Landry’s case, y’all needed more time. I think that’s what Bayou is trying to say. That’s why you didn’t go barging in there and demanding that she come back the moment that you realized you’d made a huge mistake.”

  I looked at the ground and thought about his words, then took a deep breath and told them what I’d done that had hurt Landry so much.

  “Matias had a donor match in an eighteen-year-old,” Rome murmured, sounding sad. “His little brother had also been a recipient of his bone marrow when he was sixteen. It’s hard, according to that kid. And I’ll forever be grateful for what that kid did for Matias. But, on the other hand, I would never have allowed him to give my son that much. Plus, knowing that she was just a kid while this happened? They were supposed to protect her and didn’t. I can see how you choosing to help the sister would bring up bad memories for her.”

  I looked down at my feet and cursed. “I know that. Now.”

  Rome grinned then and pulled his wife close. “Just don’t fuck up anymore. Always choose her. I think you won’t have any problems keeping her.”

  “What makes you think that?” I looked at the bigger man.

  Rome tilted his head at something at my back, and I turned to find Landry still dancing, only this time it was with her eyes directly on me.

  “Because someone who hasn’t taken her eyes off of you all night long, even with all this man candy all around her, obviously sees something in you that she doesn’t want to lose,” Izzy pointed out.

  I felt my lips twitch.

  “And she makes you less grumpy. So, you’ll want to hold onto her,” Izzy continued.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure getting shot had nothing to do with that grumpiness.”

  “You were a grumpy bastard well before you were shot, and we all know it,” Linc offered.

  I sighed and shrugged. “It’s just me, what can I say?”

  “Who’s ready for dinner?” Conleigh yelled.

  We turned once again to see Landry wobbling and Conleigh attempting to guide their way to us with over eight pizza boxes a piece. Conleigh had the boxes she was carrying resting on her baby bump while one hand was holding Landry’s elbow.

  Both Linc and I immediately started forward. “Who the hell thought it was a good idea to give the food to the drunk girl and her pregnant friend?”

  “This girl has cash,” Landry informed me as soon as she was close enough. “And apparently the pizza guy doesn’t care whether I’m drunk or not as long as I gave him a tip.”

  Chuckling, I took the pizza boxes from Conleigh’s grasp and walked them over to the bar, unsurprised when I felt Landry leaning up against me as she started to peek into the boxes. “Where’s the one with the pineapple on it?”

  A few of the guys made a gagging sound.

  “Oh, I love pineapple!” Conleigh cheered.

  “No, you don’t,” Linc countered. “You don’t like pineapple, just like you don’t like peppers.”

  “Well, I like the smell of pineapples.” She paused. “I also like the way they’re so pretty. I have some sparkly flip-flops with them on it. You want to borrow them sometime, Landry?”

  Landry’s eyes went sad for a few seconds. “I don’t have any more flip-flops. I only have the tennis shoes that I’m wearing. Did you know that my house burned down with all my stuff inside of it?”

  I felt a pang in my chest.

  We’d been so busy over the last few days that we hadn’t even had a chance to go check the house—or what remained of it.

  That was on our plan for tomorrow, actually. Or had been.

  Honestly, that was the last straw for Landry after the day she’d had, and instead of doing the whole adult thing, she decided to get drunk instead of facing her responsibilities.

  But again, it’d all be there tomorrow. Today, she was allowed to unwind.

  “Seems like you may need to get your husband to take you shopping,” Conleigh gasped. “Oh! I can take you shopping!”

  Linc groaned at the same time I did.

  My leg was feeling better, sure, but goddamn. There was no way I was up to walking for miles and miles on end while the damn woman decided to try on every single outfit that may or may not look good on her.

  Honestly, that was the one thing about being married that I did not miss—going shopping.

  Landry tried every single thing within a ten-mile radius that was her size. Whether she needed a formal dress or not, it was going on.

  “I don’t want to go,” Linc whined.

  “I’ll give you my credit card and you can shop online,” I offered hopefully.

  Landry turned, a half-finished slice of piz
za in her hand, and frowned. “Are you trying to tell me that you wouldn’t go with me so I can have some new clothes?”

  I paused, unsure how to answer this.

  “I don’t think I can go with you,” I told her, playing up my disability to get out of mall shopping. “I may be able to walk a little bit, but you know how constant standing hurts my leg. I could do maybe an hour, tops.”

  Landry sniffed. “I don’t need you there. I have a car.”

  She did.

  And Debbie was in jail so…

  “Okay,” I said. “But if you need me, you’ll call.”

  Landry took another bite of her pizza. “I’ll call.”

  “I’m going!” Conleigh twisted the top off another beer and handed it to Landry. “And we’re gonna have to go tomorrow. I need new underwear.”

  Linc sighed.

  “Why do you need more underwear, Conleigh?” Izzy laughed.

  Before she could answer, Linc put his hand over his wife’s mouth. “Let’s not talk about this right now, okay?”

  Chuckles sounded around the bar that they’d all gathered around to start eating, and I chose a piece of pizza that most certainly did not have pineapples on it.

  After practically inhaling it, I groaned.

  “God, that was good.” I sighed. “Did they deliver my salad?”

  “I told them to take the salad off,” Landry said around a mouthful of crust. “Nobody wants a salad from there. Eat the pizza.”

  “Landry,” I growled.

  “Pizza’s not going to kill you.” Landry narrowed her eyes. “Unless you think I’m fat?”

  Chuckles sounded again, and this time I was not one to join them.

  “No,” I told her honestly. “I don’t think you’re fat.”

  Where the fuck did that come from?

  “Then you should have no problem eating pizza, because you’re in better shape than I am,” she countered. “Make me happy and eat some of those Cinnastix, too. Jesus, this pineapple is good.”

  Rolling my eyes, I reached for another piece.

  “Your convoluted explanation makes no sense,” I told her as I reached for another beer.

  “Whatever.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re eating the pizza, and that’s all that matters.”