by Kennedy Ryan
Girl, you better wake up! The world is watching and waiting!
Before I can grab my phone and silence the app, a muscled forearm reaches across me, plucks it off the bedside table, and hurls it into the wall.
“Uh . . . maybe not the best way to silence my phone,” I mutter into my pillow.
“I thought it was quite effective.” Jared’s deep, sleep-roughened voice rumbles from his chest into my back. “Every morning with that damn app.”
Shout out to shatterproof cases.
“You’re sleeping in,” he says. Under the duvet, he pulls my back into his chest, anchoring us together.
“I need to get up.” My protest is relatively weak because I’m exhausted and have worked out early every morning and worked late every night this week. Spending a Saturday morning in bed with Jared does hold some appeal.
“I think you should stay in bed,” he says, his whisper finding its way through my hair into my ear.
An impish smile sprouts on my face, and I say the words that started it all for us more than ten years ago between spin cycles in a deserted laundromat.
“Convince me.”
The husky chuckle breezing my neck holds sweet memories and makes dirty promises. He charts a course of kisses over my shoulder and arm. At my back, he lavishes me with his open mouth, licking gently down the shallow groove covering my spine. He shoves the duvet off the bed and the cool air sprays goose bumps over my skin. He turns me to my back, standing on his knees and looking down at me.
It’s just passing dawn, and early morning sunlight filters through the windows. Not fully bright yet but enough light to illuminate the man above me. Enough to see the emotion I was afraid to name and so was he. His love is so evident. It’s wordless but articulated in the reverent touch of his hand at my throat. It’s passionate in the fingers gliding over my ribcage, stealing down my hip and across my thigh, making their inexorable way to my pussy.
“Oh.” The one word precedes my indrawn breath as he strokes the tight knot of nerves budded inside.
Eyes never leaving mine, he finds my breast with his other hand, palming, squeezing, kneading, collaborating with the steady, sensual rhythmic torture between my legs. His fingers don’t just thrust inside me. They search, seeking my pleasure and my secrets. Desire blossoms like a morning glory opening to the sun streaming through my bedroom window. In a matter of moments, I come, shameless, stretching my legs wide, pulling my knees high, wantonly wringing every ounce of gratification from the orgasm that I can, exposing myself completely to his touch and his sight.
“I want you,” I pant, snaring his eyes with mine as the wave recedes, ebbs. “Inside me.”
He’s discomposed. His breaths ragged, heaving his chest with deep rises and falls just from touching me until I came. Simply from watching. Want and need twist, turn, gleam feral in his stare. The hunger there is a beast, and I am its singular focus. I feel the exhilaration of being hunted, pursued. The promise of being caught and taken. His control hangs by a gossamer strand, and when I reach up to grab his cock, that control snaps.
He slides his thumb from my soaked folds to the tight, puckered hole below, lubricating me, preparing me.
“I want this.” He growls it. Grits it between his teeth.
I nod. It won’t be the first time he’s taken me that way. It’s always rough and rides the fine line of pain and bliss.
And I always beg for more.
Still standing on his knees, he stretches to the bedside table to grab the lube, and I take advantage of his preoccupation to lean up and take his cock into my mouth.
“Dammit, Ban.” He squeezes the small bottle in one fist and tangles the other in my hair falling forward, curtaining the work of my lips around him. The bottle falls to the bed, discarded and forgotten. Both his hands cup my head as he pushes himself deeper into my mouth, down my throat. I choke a little from the aggressive thrust.
“Breathe,” he commands, but doesn’t let up, doesn’t pull back. He never does. He knows I don’t want him to. I drop my jaw to accommodate the thickness, the raw thrust of his dick scraping inside my mouth and stretching the walls of my throat. He groans, drops his head back. Witnessing the abandoned pleasure on his face has me chasing my own high again. I slip my hands between my legs, stroking myself in sync with each of his powerful strokes.
“I don’t want to come like this,” he says, jerking out and leaning down to capture my jaw in one big hand. With his thumb, he rubs the faint trail of pre-cum into my swollen lips and then kisses me, sipping his own saltiness from my mouth.
“Lie back.”
I do. He grabs the lube again and drags me over the decadent cotton of our sheets to the edge of the bed. He stands at the foot, holding my stare while he anoints the tight hole with cool liquid. He pulls my legs straight up against his chest, stroking the sensitive skin inside my thigh.
“Tell me if it’s too much.”
His jaw clenches, the muscle pushing against the tanned, golden-stubbled skin. He eases into my ass by centimeters. The wide head forces its way in, and my breath catches. This is always the hardest part, that first breach. The thick, welcome intrusion. The pinch of pressure is a forerunner for the unbearable pleasure of his cock caressing the network of nerves cloistered in my ass.
“Oh my God.” I swallow and arch my neck, begging the air for breath. He starts slow, watching my face for signs of pain, discomfort. He begins cautiously, but every stroke in and out whittles his care, his consideration.
Until the beast just wants to fuck.
He’s gripping my thighs to his chest and pounding into me with piston force. My body mourns even the millisecond he leaves to pull out and celebrates the fullness every time he slams back inside.
”Open it for me,” he says, his voice desperate and commanding.
I know what he wants and cup my butt in both hands, stretching, pulling the cheeks apart to make his way easier.
“Shit,” I gasp. It’s intense. The penetration so deep, I shatter inside with every thrust.
Taking control, he pauses only long enough to drop my legs from his chest and let them fall open, and pushes my knees up to my chest. He watches himself going in and out, biting his lip, gripping the inside of my thigh just below the knee. I know what’s next, and I don’t think I can take it.
His thumb revisits my pussy, gently at first, almost an apology for neglecting it, then his jaw hardens and he presses his palm flat over the open lips, passing his hand across my clit over and over. I involuntarily close my legs against the devastating pleasure.
“Stop. Open,” he orders abruptly, pressing my legs back wide and my knees back up. He strokes my clit and sinks his thumb into my pussy, all the while pounding into my ass. The orgasm rises from muscles coiled tight at the base of my spine and explodes over my back, a meteor shower raining down my legs, winnowing through my feet and toes. This feeling possesses me until I scream and thrash my head and grip the sheets.
“Dios. Dios,” I slur, spent, even as he maintains the vigorous pace. Sweat drips down the chiseled workmanship of his chest and abs. His damp hair curls.
How long has he been fucking me? I hope it never ends.
“God, I’m close,” he grunts. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He pulls out and splashes a hot stream onto my ass and along the backs of my thighs, on my belly. His head flings back, proud and leonine, and then he looks at me, ownership in the gaze that takes in the creamy rivulets decorating my body.
And then he rubs it in.
I close my eyes, blocking all extraneous stimulus and every sense but touch. The world narrows to the ridges of his finger pads massaging his essence into my skin. He rubs it into the swollen lips between my legs and roughly over my nipples, melding us in the most primitive way. When the pleasure is too much to contain, I come again. Differently. Soundlessly. Noiselessly. My whole being sighs. My body with the release of such passion, it steals my voice. My heart, which for one devastatingly gorgeous momen
t, stops, pauses in my chest in reverence. And my soul stills, quieted by the presence, the possession, of its mate.
“We’re wrinkling.”
I lift a bare, wet arm from the cooling bath water to show Jared my puckered fingertips. He’s behind me in my claw-foot tub, his arms sheltering my shoulders and my head tucked into the curve of his neck.
“I see.” He catches my fingers, briefly kisses the tips. He links his hands with mine on the lip of the tub. “What do you think about a hike today?”
“Oooh.” I arch my neck to look at him over my shoulder. “That could be fun.”
“Maybe Temescal Canyon?”
“I haven’t done that one. I love the sound of that.”
It feels strange sometimes that we . . . date. That we do normal things together like go to movies or the theater, eat dinner or walk on the beach. I grew up with the ocean close by, and I missed it when I lived in New York. Our schedules are so hectic, but when we snatch time to be together, it’s to do simple things like that. Just breathing in ocean air and appreciating a majestic sunset and learning new things about each other all the while.
We’ve only been together a few weeks, and it’s quiet. Not many know, only our closest family and friends. Zo and I released a joint statement explaining that our relationship had been platonic for months, but we had decided not to discuss it while we were navigating his illness. That put his “te amo” from stage in a different light, that of a man appreciating his best friend for standing by him through hell. Which is what it was, what we are, even though it took Zo some time to accept it.
“Uh . . . what time were you thinking?” I ask, touching the powerful legs on either side of me.
His skin slides against mine behind me with a shrug.
“Two?” He pulls the wet hair from my neck and kisses the curve. “You have something to do?”
I’m quiet for a few seconds. I’m still involved with Zo’s care now that we’re back in LA. With chemo behind him, the medical team is monitoring his body’s response. Preparing for the next stage, stem cell replacement, is a complex process that includes a battery of tests ensuring his organs are healthy enough for the procedure. Then follows a lengthy recovery that will largely isolate Zo, nearly quarantining him because of how the process will strip his immune system down to nothing. He’ll have very few visitors.
But he’ll have me.
“Yeah, I do have a few things to take care of.” I clear my throat before going on. “I need to check on Zo.”
It’s quiet behind me, the only sound the water lapping against the tub with each slight subtle shift of our bodies.
“Does it bother you?” I finally ask softly. “That I’m still so involved with him? With his care?”
“Yes.”
I try to be a no-judgment zone for Jared. We love each other deeply but are made so differently. We’re both fiercely protective of the ones we love, but Jared has a tight filter for who gets in, for who gets loved. I’m glad I made the cut.
“Thank you for being honest with me.” I turn in the tub so I’m facing him. “I can’t abandon him.”
“I know that.” His lashes are lowered, screening his eyes from me. His face is implacable, chiseled into tight lines and sharp angles. “I don’t want you to abandon him. That wouldn’t be who you are, but it still bothers me because I know he’s in love with you.”
I can’t deny that. It’s an odd situation I have us in, but I’m not sure how to get out and live with myself. I know there will come a time when I’m less involved, but Zo is nowhere near out of the woods. With the stem cell process looming ahead, he is actually about to enter a deeper, darker forest in some ways. This would be the worst time to leave him.
“At least we’re not living together,” I say, my attempt to soothe the frown from his handsome face. “Me and Zo, I mean.”
Our things are scattered between Jared’s apartment and my house, but most nights we end up here.
He does grin at my hasty clarification and traces my lips, my cheekbones, leaving a damp trail in the wake of his finger.
“I knew what you meant.” He kisses my nose. “My lease is up in a few months. We could discuss it, if you want.”
My stomach lurches and my breath hangs in my throat. My heart triple beats.
“Sure, we can talk about it.”
I glance down, studying the contrasting textures of our bodies in the water. My skin a little darker. His rougher, golden-hair dusted. There’s no self-consciousness about my nudity, about my body. Yes, I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been, but it’s not that. I’m still a double-digit girl in a single-digit town. I work out and eat right, but Mother Nature took her time spreading these hips and this ass. My curves are toned and firm, but they ain’t going anywhere any time soon, and I’m fine with that. I’ve grown to love that. Jared loves it, too. I used to think being with a man like him would make me more self-conscious. If anything, with his love as a constant, I’m more confident than ever.
“Hey.” He tips my chin up so I meet his eyes, which are laughing, content, blue. “It would be a very short conversation. I want to live with you. To wake up with you every day. What do you say?”
His grin is teasing and infectious. As complicated as our careers, our lives are, it’s simple when it’s just us. And I love when it’s just us.
“That’d be nice,” I reply, leaning up to kiss him, long, slow, deep. When I pull away and turn back around, even though the water is getting chilly, I settle into his chest again.
“There’s something, uh . . . else I wanted to discuss,” he says.
Now I hear something in his voice, a reservation. A hesitation that has me grabbing his hand and linking our fingers at my waist.
“Shoot,” I say. “What’s up?”
He brushes his free hand over my hair and drops a kiss onto the wet strands.
“I have an offer to make,” he says, watching my face closely. “I have a position for you at Elevation.”
If you could hear a pin drop in bathwater, we would right now. It’s not that I suspect he chased me for my clients, for what I could add to his agency. I’m clear on Jared’s single-minded love for me. It’s my brain working through the offer.
I separate myself from the woman stretched out against the man who owns her heart. That woman’s ass still aches from how hard he fucked her. That woman wears stubble burns on her breasts and the insides of her thighs from his kisses. That woman’s whole world fits inside this bathtub with the golden-haired man behind her. In an apocalypse, this would be all she needed.
But the world is not coming to an end, and I mentally take a few measured steps away from this tub and that girl and her man and examine the offer with objective distance.
“You say you have a position for me at Elevation?”
I turn and slide away until my back hits the other side and we’re facing each other. I hang my arms over the lip of the tub, caught at the elbows.
“Yes.” His lips twist, a smile suppressed because he feels the shift. The water isn’t the only thing cooling. “A very generous offer, I think.”
“You have a position for me at your agency. How would that differ from my current situation?”
“I’d beat whatever Cal pays you.”
“Cal doesn’t pay me.” I relish the surprise in his eyes. “I negotiated a contract to waive my base salary in exchange for keeping even more of my commission.”
I smile innocently and bat my lashes.
“It’s actually quite a lot.”
An amused breath passes his lips, and where I lean back, he leans forward, propping his elbows on the edge of the tub.
“So what would it take for you to come work for me?”
“I won’t come work for you.”
“You won’t?” he asks, his frown quick, heavy.
“I know exactly how many clients Elevation represents, and I can guarantee that all of mine would follow me out the door if I left Bagley. That would double your
client list.” Now I lean forward, my naked breasts pushing through the water, and wait for him to raise his eyes from my nipples. “In a day.”
“Double?”
“Double,” I confirm. “I have autonomy at Bagley, by and large, and keep more of my money than I would anywhere else. Eventually, I’ll strike out on my own but haven’t wanted to take that step before. What you’re describing would be a lateral move, at best, and doesn’t interest me.”
I raise one knee and watch his eyes drop between my legs.
“I won’t come work for you,” I reiterate. “But I would come work with you if the offer was right. Equal partner.”
“Equal partner?” His mouth drops open, that strong jaw unhinged. “In the firm I built from nothing? You want to walk in the door and be handed an equal partnership?”
“Handed?” I tilt my head and compress my lips. “I can’t remember the last time I was handed anything. I’ve worked my ass off for the last decade, just like you have. My reputation and results are just as good.”
I give him a meaningful look and don’t say the words aloud, but he hears them.
If not better.
He licks his lips and tucks them in, hiding a smile from me.
“I’d have to talk to August. He’s a silent partner.”
“You do that.” I stand, naked and as confident as if we were wrapping up a negotiation at a boardroom table. I step out, tie a towel at my breasts, and offer my “closer” smile. “And get back to me.”
Epilogue
“It is true what they say-When you know, you know.”
-Cindy Cherie, Poetess
Epilogue - Jared
“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Banner says, chewing her thumbnail and scrunching her expression into a frown.
Looking nervous.
“Uh . . . okay.” I pull into the parking lot of the villa where Banner’s niece Anna’s quinceañera reception is being held. “I’m not nervous.”
She probably doesn’t believe me, but I’m not. We’ve been together for six months, and I’ve been to the occasional dinner with her closest relatives, but this is the first time I’m attending a function with the entire sprawling family. Apparently, it’s a big deal since she keeps telling me how not nervous I should be. We just left the Mass, which is traditionally held before the party. It was full-on Bible, rosary, priest, pomp and circumstance—the whole shebang. First time I’ve been to a church of any kind since . . . I literally cannot remember. I’m surprised lightning didn’t strike.