Lucky Kiss

by Melanie Shawn

  “Lucky,” she rasped as her breathing grew more and more labored. “I want… I’m going to… I don’t want…”

  She might’ve thought she knew what she wanted, but once he drove into her tight sheath, he was going to be like a cowboy trying to last eight seconds on a bull, so he held her where she was. He even moved his finger to her clit and gently rubbed the swollen nub.

  “Oh!” she cried out as her stomach spasmed at the first pass of his fingertip.

  When he brushed back and forth several more times, she began shaking and fell against him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

  The motion caused him to lose the ironclad control he had on her body, and she lifted her hips to position herself above his rod. Her breasts were crushed to him, and the hardened buds of her nipples brushed against his chest. That sensation combined with the head of his dick pushing at the seam of her entrance snapped any self-control he had.

  His hands clenched her hips as he pressed her down so she took in just his tip.

  It felt so fucking good that an animalistic groan tore from deep inside him. Then the reason it felt so good crashed into his consciousness like the Kool-Aid Man smashing through a wall.

  Every muscle in his body contracted, and his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her ass.

  “I’m not wearing a condom,” he somehow managed to grit out.

  In his thirty years, he’d never, never, traveled up Bareback Mountain. Those trails led to two places: STD Falls and Baby Lake. And he’d never had the inclination to visit either. He’d never even been tempted to take a day hike and dip his toes in the water.

  Nope. In his playbook, there were two routes to run: protected sex or no sex. No exceptions.

  Her lips brushed the side of his neck as she said, barely above a whisper, “I’m on the pill.”

  Other women had told him the same thing. But he’d never cared for or trusted them. The second those words had come out of any of their mouths, alarms had started sounding in his head. He still had sex with them. Obviously. But he was extra careful. Which was smart on his part, because several of those same girls had even gone as far as taking the condom off mid-encounter. Which had only backfired on them, because then the encounter had ended.

  But this was different.

  He trusted her. This was Deanna. The woman he loved. The only woman he’d ever loved. She wasn’t a hookup or even a casual relationship. She was it for him. Even if she didn’t know it yet.

  Slowly, gently, he began massaging her fleshy backside. His fingers kneaded her body as he pushed inside her tight passage only a tiny amount. Sweat beaded at the base of his neck as the warmth of her inner muscles contracted around his engorged head.

  “Ahh, that feels so good,” she softly moaned against his neck.

  Looking down, he watched intently as his large hands tightened and relaxed, massaging her perfect, heart-shaped ass.

  She peppered kisses on the highly sensitized skin of his neck, and between kisses, she whispered one word over and over. “More.”

  Each time she did, he entered her in millimeter increments. Time ceased to exist while he pushed into her at an excruciatingly tender, intoxicatingly passionate pace.

  Lucky knew that this wasn’t just sex. This was more than sex. This was more than just their bodies enjoying each other. This was two people’s souls connecting.

  When he was finally embedded inside her as deep as he could possibly go, she kissed her way up to his ear and instructed softly, “Wait. Please don’t move. I just want to feel you.”

  That wasn’t a hardship. He could stay just like that forever. He wanted to stay like that forever.

  The heat of her breath fanned down his neck and her full lips grazed his outer ear as she said with a blissful sigh, “This feels so good. You feel so good. I love how you feel inside me.”

  He wanted to speak. He wanted to tell her how amazing and sexy she was. He wanted to tell her how good she felt contracting around him. How tight and wet she was.

  But instead of saying any of those things, he said, “I love you.”

  At his words, she sucked in a breath, and her body pulsated around his steel-hard rod, which was growing steelier by the second. Feeling her body’s response to his expression of love, he repeated, “I love you.”

  Again, her inner walls milked him. She gasped as her fingers held on to his shoulders like she was holding on to a life preserver. He wanted to be that for her. Her life preserver. She spent her life serving people, taking care of others, putting herself at risk to save lives. He wanted to serve her. Take care of her. He would risk anything to protect her.

  “More,” she pleaded in an anxious sigh.

  “I love you,” he said again as he kneaded her flesh.

  “More,” she whimpered as her thighs started trembling.

  “I love you.” His fingers dug into her backside as he remained still, filling her to the hilt.

  Over and over, she repeated, “More,” against his ear. Each time she said it, her voice grew more desperate and shaky. Again and again, he repeated, “I love you.” Each time he said it, his voice sounded more possessive and dominant. Like with every confession of his love, he was claiming her.

  They continued this sensual exchange until she finally cried out her final, “More,” as her body shook uncontrollably and tightened around his throbbing member. That was all it took and his world erupted in a frenzy of simultaneous explosions. It was one of the longest, hottest releases of his life. He came so hard that he saw tiny, white lights as he groaned, “I love you,” in blissful agony.

  As they both drifted back from their climaxes, Lucky rubbed his hands up and down the smooth slope of her back. Her body had collapsed against his, and her head was lying on his shoulder. Both of them were still breathing heavily, and Lucky knew that something significant had just transpired between them.

  She might not have said the words, but he hadn’t missed the significance that she’d asked him to say them again and again. And hearing those words had taken her up and over the edge.

  It might not have been reciprocation in the most literal term, but he would take it. He would take anything she was willing to give him.

  Chapter 21

  ‡

  Deanna tried her best to pay attention to Chief Maguire as he spoke during their shift change meeting. She wasn’t doing a very good job at it though. Blue shift had had a record number of calls over the past three days, which meant that they had a lot to discuss now.

  The drought that had been plaguing the state for the past few years had caused everything to be extremely dry, which meant flammable. Tourists and vacationers tended not to heed the warning signs about the dangers of not extinguishing fires they’d built before they’d turned in for the night. Or making sure cigarettes were extinguished before they’d tossed the butts into brush.

  As much as she wanted to give her full attention to this debriefing, her mind kept wandering back to a certain MMA fighter. They’d been taking it “one day at a time” for the past ten days, and despite her best efforts, he was starting to chip away at her wall of self-protection. That fact should’ve terrified her and sent her running for the hills, but instead, she just felt…happy. And the only place she wanted to run was back to Lucky’s bed.

  Sex with Lucky had quickly won the place of all-time favorite activity. The two boyfriends she’d had were decent in the bedroom. But, after a handful of times, things tended to get boring. Repetitive. Half the time she’d had sex in the past, it had been out of obligation instead of desire. Like she and her boyfriend were just doing it because that’s what couples did and they were a couple.

  That wasn’t the case with Lucky. Not only were they not technically a couple, their sex got better with each encounter and was as far from an obligation as you could get. She craved him like a pregnant woman craved pickles.

  “All right, Bishop. You’re going to head over to Mountain Ridge and talk to a group of campers Justin and Amanda ha
ve coming in on a corporate retreat,” Chief Maguire announced.

  Looking across the table, she and Eli stared at each other. She was hoping he knew which one of them the chief meant, but her cousin just shrugged and made no move to find out.

  Men.

  It took all of her willpower not to roll her eyes. She hated stereotypes and tried not to put any credence in them, but the not stopping for directions or asking questions when they didn’t understand something seemed to be at least seventy-five percent accurate.

  Once the chief finished his rant about red shift needing to step up their chore game around the firehouse and start pulling their weight, he asked, “Any questions?”

  The last thing Deanna wanted to do was be the tool who had to ask the chief for clarification, but since Eli wasn’t going to do it, she figured she had to.

  “Which Bishop do you want going to Mountain Ridge?”

  The chief looked down at his notes for several moments before glancing back up. “Both of you.”

  Deanna’s stomach dropped. Since she and Lucky had started taking it “one day at a time,” she hadn’t seen her cousin. It wasn’t that she was avoiding him. It was just that, since he wasn’t in her bed or Lucky’s and he was on red shift, she hadn’t run into him.

  Over the past few days, the guys had given her a hard time about her relationship with Lucky, but it had all been playful and in good fun. She feared, however, that Eli wasn’t taking the news as well as the guys on her shift.

  She’d heard, through the grapevine, or in this case the Hope Falls gossip line, that Eli wasn’t too happy about her seeing Lucky. In fact, Chris even said that she might want to “tread lightly” if the subject of her and Lucky came up around her and Eli. It was odd having someone who wasn’t even in her family telling her how to act with her cousin. But this station was a family, and Eli considered these guys his brothers.

  Her big plan had been to ignore him. They were on separate shifts, so she didn’t see him all that much at the station. As far as running into him in town, her plan had been to “have to be somewhere” and get away from him as fast as possible.

  Was it the most well thought out and mature plan? No.

  But she was working with only getting three to four hours of sleep per night for the last week and half. When she’d been home, she had been up half the night having the best sex of her life with Lucky. Then, at the fire station, they’d gotten calls in the middle of the night, every night, for three days.

  Her mind was a little fuzzy and thinking about having to answer her cousin’s questions, and lead a fire safety course, wasn’t high on her want-to-do list. She was going to need coffee and lots of it. Caffeine was her Obi-Wan Kenobi—her only hope.

  When the chief called the meeting to an end, she stood and started for the door, calling out to Eli over her shoulder. “I’m going to Brewed. Do you want anything?”

  “I’ll come with you,” he replied in a tone much too serious for this early in the morning.

  “Great,” she mumbled under her breath. It looked like she wasn’t going to have the caffeine fix she desperately needed to face her overprotective cousin.

  It surprised her when Eli remained quiet as they walked across the street. She’d assumed that the second they left the station, he was going to give her the third degree. But, he said nothing, which should’ve made her feel relief. Instead, it made her nervousness pop like kernels of corn in a microwave.

  Eli held the door open for her once they’d reached the coffee shop. The bell rang overhead, and the rich smell of freshly brewed java welcomed them. They took their place at the end of the short line.

  “So,” her cousin began, sounding more unsure than pissed. “I heard Lucky was the one who bid on you.”

  “Yeah. Sorry to steal the title from you like that, but hey. If it had to be someone, at least it was still a Bishop.” Deanna tried to make light of the situation while simultaneously downplaying the Lucky portion of it.

  Her cousin’s mouth tightened. Thankfully, the line moved and they were at the counter before he could follow up on his line of questioning.

  “Hey, Eli. How are you?” Audrey asked, a small blush rising on her cheeks.

  “Doing good. How have you been, Aud?” Eli responded.

  Deanna had seen the aftermath of the flavor-of-the-month’s reactions once one of her cousins had slept with them but wasn’t interested anymore. This interaction didn’t quite have that same feel. Audrey clearly liked Eli, and the other night at the ball, they’d definitely seemed headed for Sexy Town. But, for some reason, she didn’t think they’d reached their destination.

  Audrey greeted her with a wide, friendly smile and had Deanna and Eli served and on their way in just a few minutes. As they walked down the street towards his truck, Eli started his interrogation back up.

  “Are you two serious?”

  “No,” she scoffed, but as soon as the answer had come out of her mouth, it’d felt wrong.

  She felt guilty.

  Deanna didn’t like that. A sudden burst of defensiveness flashed inside of her, which made her quickly turn the tables.

  “What about you and Aud?” She’d lowered her voice so that she’d sounded like her cousin when he’d addressed the pretty, brunette coffee shop owner.

  “Nothing happened and nothing will.”

  The serious tone in Eli’s voice caused Deanna to stop in her tracks. He’d sounded…sad. Not his normal, quiet, brooding self, it was more than that.

  Her heart sank. Was he sick? Was there something he wasn’t telling her?

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He, too, stopped walking, but his back was to her. Then his shoulders dropped before he took a deep breath and turned towards her. His jaw tensed, and he stared out towards the street, but in a faraway glance, not like he was actually seeing the street. When his eyes finally returned to her, the tortured look caused her head to spin. She felt like she couldn’t breathe.

  “Just don’t mess it up,” he stated firmly, as if that would make any kind of sense to her.

  “Mess what up?”

  Was he talking about her position at the fire station? Was he talking about her life? Why was he speaking in code!?

  “I saw you and Lucky the other night. He loves you, Deanna. And…I know you. I know how you saw your dad act, how you saw us act. I know that you’re independent and you want to believe that you don’t need anyone.” Eli’s voice grew hoarse as he continued. “But you do. Everyone does.

  “You might not be able to fit Lucky in some box you have, that you think will make you happy. A box you think you’ll be able to rely on and trust. But that doesn’t matter. Love like that, it doesn’t come around every day. And no matter how hard you try to move on, act like it doesn’t bother you, forget the past, you can’t. So, if you love him, don’t let your pride or fear, or whatever, mess it up. Because, I promise you, you will live the rest of your life regretting it.”

  She’d never seen her cousin so adamant about, well, anything.

  “Eli, what are you—”

  Before she could finish the question, her cousin started walking to his truck in purposeful strides. She remained frozen in place, not sure what had just happened. Then he opened the passenger door and barked for her to get in because they were late.

  As they silently drove to Mountain Ridge, Deanna was trying to wrap her mind around the fact that her cousin had obviously had a once-in-a-lifetime love she’d never known about. And it was painfully clear he’d lost her. Casey was right about one thing: her cousin had been upset after he’d seen her and Lucky at the ball. But it hadn’t been because he was mad that Lucky and Deanna were seeing each other. It was because he was mad at himself for not having what he’d seen between Lucky and his cousin.

  Would she end up like him if she didn’t see this thing through? Would she think about it every day? Would she regret it for the rest of her life?

  Yes, a small voice in her head said. Yes, I w
ould.

  *

  “Are you sure you don’t want a real bachelor party?” Lucky asked his cousin for at least the third time since they’d all met at the bar. He was waiting for Levi to rack the balls on the pool table.

  Adam nodded. “I’m sure. I wouldn’t even be here right now if Jane hadn’t kicked me out of the house. She says it’s bad luck to see each other the night before the wedding, but I think that’s bullshit.”

  Lucky laughed. If this was the period in his life that he was now mentally referring to as B.D. (Before Deanna), then he would’ve given Adam all kinds of shit for saying that. But this was A.D. (After Deanna), and now, instead of feeling sorry for his cousin being so whipped, he actually related to him.

  Deanna was at home, and there was no place else he wanted to be but with her. She’d been working for the past three days, and he’d missed her so badly that his body hurt. He’d ached for her.

  When he’d texted her earlier today to see how she was after what he knew had been a grueling few days (because they’d been messaging daily), she’d said that she just wanted to sleep. He’d told her about the bachelor party and said he would stop by after. But she’d told him not to do that, to just go and enjoy the night with his brothers and cousin, explaining that she planned on drinking a large glass of wine, taking a bath, and then crawling into her bed and sleeping until tomorrow morning.

  He’d felt the sharp, painful sting of disappointment—until she’d sent one final text saying that she would be his plus one to Adam’s wedding. That information had made him Tom-Cruise-jumping-on-Oprah’s-couch happy for two reasons. First, he really wanted to have her on his arm at his cousin’s wedding. And, second, she’d actually committed to more than just today. Sure, it was just tomorrow, but he’d take it. Maybe next week she’d commit to something two days away next week, and then maybe, the week after that, three. He didn’t care how long it took for her to trust him. To trust them.