I grabbed her legs but she was too quick, and she crawled away, giggling. "You're not allowed to growl at me like that," she said.
I chased her into the pile of pillows at the head of the bed, her chest flattened against the headboard. I roped my arm around her waist, pulling her hips toward me. "Why not?"
"Because it makes me want to do irrational things," she said, yelping as my hand cracked against her ass. "And this is already pretty irrational."
Placing her hands on the headboard and widening her stance, I kissed up her spine and over her shoulders, finally turning her head toward me and landing on her mouth. "The only irrational choice would be not doing exactly what I tell you to." I tapped her hands. "Do not let go."
Making good on my promise, I explored every inch of Tiel. She squirmed when my tongue moved over the pounding pulse in her throat, the dimples low on her back, that sharp curve of her waist. By the time I situated myself between her legs and started biting the soft, soft skin there, she was vibrating.
"Condoms," she panted. "Drawer. Sooner rather than later."
I'd never once taken orders from a woman while we were going at it. I'd acknowledged requests for more, this, that, harder, faster, slower, but even when I was a full-time, card-carrying nice guy, I was the fucking boss.
"Sweetheart," I said, licking the arousal from her slit. "I will get there in good time. Don't you worry about that."
Despite her resistance, I inched lower and lapped at her. Her sweet little clit just begged for my attention, and the sounds she made the second my tongue connected with it were the most erotic things I'd ever heard. She possessed a new level of porn star moaning, and that shit was intoxicating. A few more well-timed cries, and this party would be ending quickly.
"No-oooo," she wailed. "Get there now."
I was the fucking boss, but God, I would do anything to make her happy.
Levering up on my knees, I bracketed my legs on either side of her, my cock sliding along the cleft of her ass. I took her tits in my hands, squeezing them and twisting her nipples until she bucked against me, screeching my name while my teeth sank into her shoulder. "Your neighbors are going to know who I am," I said, my hand sliding up to cup her jaw. I tilted her face toward me. "Is that what you want?"
She licked her lips, and yeah, I really wanted her mouth on my cock but that would be off the table until she stopped worrying about my slutty history. "I can't be quiet," she whispered.
Nodding, I strummed her clit with one hand and brought the other down on her ass. It would be enough to keep her throbbing while I stepped away. I hated leaving her for even a second, and walking away from her while she was on her knees at the headboard tested all of my control. I found what I needed, took some cleansing breaths, and returned to the bed quickly. With the condom rolled down, I leaned into her, my lips on the back of her neck, my cock teasing her swollen tissues. "Tell me again that you want this."
"I need you inside me," she groaned.
I felt lightheaded, besieged with the power she was placing in my hands. I pushed into her, and when she let out a deep moan, I shoved those torn panties in her mouth before it unfurled into the screaming wail I felt shuddering beneath her skin. "Give me fucking everything," I said. "I want it all."
The tight coil between her shoulders loosened, and she dropped her head between her outstretched arms. Again, I was expecting a knee to the groin and a door slammed in my face, but she sighed, humming when I was fully seated inside her. My hands layered over hers on the headboard. I brought my mouth to that precious spot behind her ear for a minute, just tasting while I moved in her.
"You are delicious," I murmured. "Your skin, your mouth, your pussy. But you know what I want to taste now?"
I rocked forward, cursing under my breath as her muscles clamped around me. She shook her head and curled her fingers through mine.
"I want to know how you taste when you come," I whispered. "And I'm going to fuck you now because I intend to find out."
Soon the headboard was slamming against the wall, and regardless of whether the neighbors knew my name, they knew exactly what was going on here. Tiel ground into me, her hips snapping to meet my thrusts, and the hushed cries from behind that balled-up fabric elevated every ounce of desire in my body.
I was gutted—torn in two and split the fuck open—and I recognized my long-held fears decimated and discarded on the ground around us.
I lasted far longer than I expected, and part of it was the awe of exploring the boundaries with Tiel. My handprint on her ass, the panties in her mouth, the sassy, defiant way she followed my orders—she shut down my stress and only allowed me to think about my cock and her pussy and the warm place inside me that she owned.
Her shrieks intensified, and I drew her hands from the headboard and brought them to her breasts. Watching her pinching her nipples harder than I expected she'd enjoy had me pounding into her until she was quivering in my arms. I whispered, "Oh, you are so ready. So ready."
Tiel nodded, her eyes squeezed shut. My balls were full and heavy, and I was well overdue to empty myself into her. Bringing my hand between her legs, I circled her clit while I gradually pulled out and then drove into her. I lingered on that tender spot, the one that felt impossibly deep and absolutely fucking mine, and I stayed there as everything in her shuddered and sighed.
Her head and hands fell forward, clutching the few pillows remaining, and those beautiful rolling spasms unleashed my orgasm. The explosion immobilized me for several seconds—maybe it was minutes, I couldn't tell—leaving my brain superbly numb. I couldn't hear anything over the fire hose of blood pumping through my body, but I pulled out, tied off the condom, and flipped Tiel on her back.
She barely noticed me settling between her legs but when my tongue swiped her pussy, her eyes popped open and she fucking screamed. I took one last taste before crawling up her body, gently running my hands over her hips, belly, breasts before tossing those panties aside and laying my lips over hers.
There was nothing else that needed saying, and we lay there in a rumpled pile of blankets and pillows, kissing and clinging to each other.
It was magnificent.
We stayed there in that euphoric haze until my hands started twitching—my favorite low blood sugar symptom, right behind the temporary loss of my peripheral vision. In all reality, I was thrilled to get this much time with Tiel before crashing, I just hated rolling away from her. I reconnected my device and wasn't shocked to see an abysmally low reading. "Do you have any juice?"
"Mmmhmm," she sighed. "Fridge. Like always."
I'd never asked Tiel to stock organic juices or unroasted nuts, but one week in late September I noticed them there. She was concerned in quiet ways, and it never bothered me when she'd peek at my device and tell me to eat.
I made it to the kitchen, downed an entire carton of orange juice, and breathed through the instinctive panic that set in every time I got this low. Once my calves didn't feel quite as frozen anymore, I grabbed a jar of almonds and some water, and shuffled back to Tiel's room.
She was exactly where I left her, naked and glowing brighter than the moon. She glanced over, smiling, and asked, "Are you okay?"
I reorganized the pillows and linens, and crawled to her side. "Just needed a snack."
Tiel curled into me, and laid her head on my shoulder. "I believe you promised we'd watch Pitch Perfect."
Munching a handful of almonds, I smiled at her. "And you should know by now that if I say I'm going to do something…" I said. I grabbed the remote and toggled through her DVR stockpile to her reigning favorite, then dropped a quick kiss on her lips. "I do it."
14
Sam
"The Castavechias went to Scotland over the summer," Patrick said. "They visited castles."
Riley frowned and nudged Matt's shoulder. "Why is that an issue?"
"They'd like to redesign," Andy said. "Again."
On most Monday mornings, that news would have annoyed th
e shit out of me. But today? Today I was as cheerful as a fucking ladybug in July. It probably owed something to some incredible bed sex—who knew rolling over to a warm, soft, willing woman at all hours of the night could be so fantastic?—but it was more than that. I felt lighter, healthier, happier.
I was falling in love.
"Are they being charged the dicking-around fee? What is this? Version nineteen?" Matt asked.
"Yes," Andy said. "But the bigger problem is that we're already halfway through a Dutch Colonial restoration. The project shouldn't become a Scottish castle, and…" She met Patrick's eyes with a shrug.
"And they want us to go to Scotland with them." Patrick waved his hand dismissively. "Something about recovering stones and floorboards."
"They want us to go this weekend," Andy said.
"Wait. Does that mean you're actually going along with this? You're stuffing a medieval castle into a Dutch Colonial?" I asked. "Does no one care about concept anymore?"
"It's like a turducken," Riley said.
Matt pressed his fist to his mouth in a poor attempt at concealing his laughter, and while I should have found some humor in Riley's commentary, I couldn't. I was too stunned at the idea Patrick would bow to anyone like this.
"We wouldn't do that," Patrick said. "We can work with floorboards and stones, but we won't be digging any moats."
"So you're going to Scotland," I said. "This weekend."
"Possibly." Patrick shared a smile with Andy that didn't feel entirely appropriate, considering it was Monday morning and four people were watching. They were always doing that—looking at each other and saying things with infinitesimal shrugs and furrowed brows and quick smiles. They could probably go an entire month without speaking to each other and not miss a beat.
Riley leaned to me, asking, "What are the odds they come back married?"
It was amusing to watch a blush climb up Patrick's neck and across his face, and it was even better seeing him and Andy exchanging tense glances while they pretended to be engrossed in their screens.
I handed over a twenty. "I'll take that bet, and my money is on no," I said, my eyes on Andy. "Princess Jasmine looks like she's about to castrate you and Optimus might hold you down while she does it."
"Yeah, Riley," Shannon said. "Not everyone needs to get married fourteen minutes after they meet."
Matt leaned forward, his arms folded on the table, and he glanced at Riley and me. "Did she just insult me?"
"Sam, why don't you tell us about Tiel?" Andy sat back with a smug grin and gestured around the table. "I know everyone would love to hear about her."
I wavered between wanting to tell them everything about Tiel, and hiding her away and protecting her from their breed of friendly. I wanted to prove to them that I was capable of keeping something good in my life, even after everything we'd been through, but I was also greedy. Sharing her with my family meant just that—sharing—and they were grabby little bastards. It would be only a matter of time until Lauren and Andy adopted her into their yoga-and-farmers'-market routine on Saturday mornings, or Shannon's Thursday night drunken pedicure outings.
I wasn't interested in surrendering that time to them.
Not when I could have Tiel surrendering to me.
"Or maybe we should talk about Thanksgiving, Shannon. What's the plan?" I asked.
"I'm not going to be in town for Thanksgiving. I have reservations at a spa in New Mexico, and considering the shit you all put me through on a daily basis, I don't want to hear any whining about it either," Shannon said. "I'll order everything from the farm like I usually do, and I can have Tom pick it up, but I won't be the one reheating it. You're grown men. Figure it out for yourselves."
"So I'm hearing two things," Matt said. He pointed to Shannon. "One, it's really shitty that you're just now mentioning this a week before Thanksgiving. Lauren and I will have Thanksgiving at our place, and fuck you very much for waiting until Sam brought it up. It's not like you've hosted for the past fifteen damn years or anything."
"See? The newlyweds want to do it. Let them trot out their new crystal and china. Crisis averted." She shook her head and kept her eyes on her screen.
Matt pointed to me. "Two, I think we'd all like to hear about Tiel."
Patrick said to Matt, "You're going to love this story. You would have enjoyed seeing this firsthand."
"What were you even doing at that event?" I asked him. "If you were going to be there, I certainly didn't have to."
"You were getting a fucking award, so yes, you did have to be there," Patrick said. "And stop evading."
I rolled my shoulders and sighed. They had me cornered. "I'm seeing someone," I said. I was aiming for casual although I'm certain it came off as defensive. "Her name is Tiel."
"And she's a college professor and a violinist," Andy added. "She's very pretty and wasn't even wearing hooker heels. And I'll go out on a limb and say they've known each other for a while."
Riley kicked me under the table. "Is this the same chick you drunk dialed last week?"
"Oh. Oh," Matt said, frowning at me. "So we're talking about a real girl? An appropriate, adult, professional woman?"
I ignored Riley and glared at Matt. I knew he was not referring to age. "She's a couple months older than me."
"She didn't look anything like his usual syphilitic crew," Patrick said to Matt and Riley.
Shannon looked up from her screen, the first hint she was listening. "And how long has this been taking place?"
I shrugged. "A little more than two months."
"Is that why you've been so pleasant recently? I assumed it was some new meds or a colonic or a fucking juice cleanse or something, but this is great news," Matt said. "Good for you."
"Oh no, no, no. We don't do secret affairs in this office. Not after the shit these two"—Shannon pointed to Patrick and Andy—"pulled last spring."
"I wouldn't say there's been any secret." I swirled my coffee cup and glanced to Shannon. I didn't want to argue with her today. Not after my girl woke me up with some tremendous morning sex, and holy shit, where had that been all my life? So rather than reminding Shannon that she hadn't talked to me about anything outside the realms of my projects and my eating habits in months, and we hadn't been out together since the summer, I folded my hands in my lap and smiled.
Last winter I'd told this group we were too fucked-up for anything normal, but I was starting to believe that was a choice I could make. Happiness, too. I didn't have to dig myself out of a hole; I just had to decide I could and should have whatever the fuck I wanted.
Right now, I wanted Tiel.
So she liked being spanked and gagged and God only knew what else, and most importantly, she liked when I did those things to her. We were both within throwing range of thirty and yet we'd discovered all manner of new bridges to cross together, and that swelled in my chest like a rebel yell. I was fucking delirious for her.
"You're saying this is a legitimate thing," Shannon said. "Dating and the whole normal relationship? Seriously?"
Was that what we'd been doing? All those nights out, the kissing, the touching, the texting each other 'good night' and 'good morning' as if the continued rotation of the earth depended on it—was that dating?
Shit. That was dating. We'd been dating, sort of, all this time and it took me until this weekend to get my hands on her tits.
"Yeah, Shan. Pretty much."
"The universe must really fucking hate me if you're in a healthy relationship," she murmured. "Just wait, RISD will be next, and I'll start hoarding cats and learning how to knit because what else is there to do with my time? Soon enough, you'll all have kids but you won't let me near them because all I'll want to do is smell their little heads and make them promise not to let you assholes put Auntie Shannon in a home."
"We already discussed this," Andy said. "No one is letting you start a cat colony. Cool it with the end of days talk, or I'm cutting off your caffeine supply."
"Bring her
to Thanksgiving," Matt said.
"Yeah," Andy said. "Maybe she'll like Lauren more than she liked me."
"You can't hold that against her," I said. "She's the friendliest person I know. We did not expect to run into you two. We were on our way out and Patrick was his usual jovial self, and she wasn't wearing any—" I stopped myself before that thought went any further.
I'd never spared them an intimate detail in the past. If anything, I enjoyed the shock value of announcing I'd fucked another nameless, faceless woman in some questionably private location. But not now.
If Tiel was walking around bare-assed because I shredded her panties, we were the only two who needed to know about it.
"Oh shit, son," Riley yelled. He clapped me on the back before rolling away from the table, laughing. "I need to meet this girl. Anyone who goes commando at an Arch Society gathering is a keeper."
"She didn't—no, I mean, I ripped her—fuck," I groaned. "Never mind."
"I've never had that much fun at any event put on by the Arch Society," Matt said. "I might start attending more frequently."
"Definitely a keeper. At the very least, she should come drinking on Black Friday," Andy said. "We'll see if she still hates me then."
"As entertaining as this has been, we have a business to run and far more important things to discuss this morning," Patrick said. "And it's already eight thirty. All of you—shut the fuck up unless I tell you otherwise."
Standing in the center of the Turlan's kitchen, I glanced from one wall to another. The flow was all wrong and it wasn't built to accommodate modern appliances—hence the refrigerator in the mudroom. The original design relegated cooking to the shadows, closing it off from the other living spaces with several small, choppy sections: the butler's pantry, the dry goods pantry, the laundry, the galley. Bringing order to this room was my current puzzle, the one I'd been poring over all damn week, and I was getting it right this morning. I was convinced I'd make sense of it all if I stared long enough.
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