by Jackson Kane
My fingertips trembled as they dragged down across his Windsor knot. It was a flimsy excuse to touch him, we both knew his tie was perfect. And even if it wasn't, I wouldn't know the first thing about how to fix it. It didn't matter. I just couldn't resist touching him any longer. All my grand ideas about ground rules, and civilized adult conversations melted away like snow flurries in mid-June.
Veto took both my hands in one of his. I felt so small and fragile near him, but for the first time, I wasn't apprehensive. He leaned closer and said, “Do you have any idea how hard it is to hold back when you're broadcasting what you want so boldly?”
“I don't know what you're talking about.” Shut up, Calli. I wanted this. Why couldn't I just let myself have it? Just give in, just this once! “You're crazy. I'm not broadcasting anything.”
“No?” Veto eclipsed me in his shadow and his warmth. He coated my lungs with his scent; faint smoky musk, ground coffee beans, and the lingering soap of freshly laundered fabric. Then there was his subtle, masculine cologne to finish off my inhibitions. “Then why are you trembling?”
I couldn't answer. He'd caught me--I felt both foolish and free.
His fingers tightened on mine, caressing the backs of my palms. “We don't have to do anything. We can just lie in bed together, nothing but heat and skin between us.” His words were drizzled chocolate over warm honey, evoking sweaty images of us intertwined to flood into my mind. “If you want.”
His emphasis on want spurred a butterfly ripple through my rib cage. My eyes grew heavy, but not for sleep. Veto's errant finger brushed my hip, I no longer felt tired at all, or sad or worried. I wasn't thinking anything. I was simply feeling.
“I won't touch you,” he murmured, and the words sank into my bones. “Just tell me not to. Say what you want from me, Calli.”
Fuck. His voice crippled me. My thighs crushed together at the way he teased out the word want. If my heart didn't explode, my pussy would.
There was a playful smugness that curled his lips. “But don't pretend my tie isn't perfect.”
“Perfect?” I ruthlessly tugged at his tie, determined to wipe that look from his face. When I was done it was a disheveled disaster. “Just look at it, Silly.” I suddenly felt ferocious. I'd lived life in first gear for so long that it was a rush to cut loose. “It's a mess.”
Veto exhaled a deep, throaty growl, dragging his lower lip between his teeth and grinning. The next thing I knew I was pinned against the wall and his lips were on my neck.
I pulled my head straight back and gaped with a completely open mouth.
Veto's jacket slid off his shoulders. His lips found mine, taking them as a prize; owning them. He slammed me up against the wall hard enough to rattle the alarm clock on the night table.
“Fuck,” I grunted, loving the force. I'd never had a man be rough with me before. It was intoxicating. “Don't stop there, give me more.” I sought out his mouth, groaning when he leaned away to speak.
“Careful, Calli. I'll tear you apart.” Our teeth clipped, and our tongues flirted. “If you want.”
“I want.” I moaned loudly from somewhere deep within my soul, dragging my nails down the back of his shirt. It was so good to say that out loud. He was the long lost key to a door I worried was rusted shut.
Every forbidden fantasy I ever had tingled in the front of my mind. He untucked my blouse, nipping my ear and peeling it off. I clumsily unclasped and wiggled my bra free while trying to kiss him. I reached roughly for his shirt and vest, but he jerked himself completely away.
“Normally I wouldn't care, but I can't have you ruin this suit,” Veto said at arm's length. He stared at me through every agonizing unbuttoning. “At least, not tonight.”
Not tonight? Did that mean he wanted more of this after the wedding? I couldn't maintain any kind of concentration with his sexy undressing unfolding right before me. My eyes pleaded with desperation. The waiting was unbearably cruel, but he didn't care. If the edge of his smirk revealed anything, it was that he was enjoying torturing me.
The cufflinks clicked loudly on the desk.
Finally, he broke his gaze and hungrily took in my bare tits. “You are perfect,” he said, draping his suit onto the chair. He wore nothing but his boxers again, all skin and ink and an erection that threatened to tear his boxers in half. He approached like a train with no brakes; I closed my eyes and felt his hands and tongue ravage my nipples. Pin pricks of lusty pain sparkled across my breasts as his teeth came out to play.
I've never been called perfect before. I didn't know if he meant it, or if it was just pillow talk, but it was really nice to hear. Was I that starved for attention? Or was he really that special?
I didn't know which scared me more.
He slid his fingers into my slim waistband, dragging it down. “What else are you hiding from me?”
Thoughts of his package in just a flimsy pair of boxes swelled in my mind. “I was just wondering the same thing.”
“Don't worry,” he said, between kisses. My stomach quivered against his hot mouth as it inched slowly ever downward. “I've got no secrets. I'll show you everything I have.”
He said the words with his lips lightly brushing against my cotton panties, his hot breath massaging right through my clit. The pleasure of it made my limbs give out; I had to slam a hand against the wall to keep from toppling over. He had barely started to touch me and I was already on the cusp of orgasm.
In a flash my soaked panties were a distant memory. He was done waiting. He buried his mouth into my slick, eager slit. His rough, calloused hand slid up my stomach, chest, then neck. My pussy crushed the two fingers he dipped into me and was destroyed by the tongue that immediately followed.
“Oh hell,” I screamed, crumbling to the bed. He held me, guiding me and never letting me escape. No matter how hard my hips bucked, I could feel him destroying my clit. I bit his fingers hard as I came. My thighs crushed his head; it wasn't my fault I couldn't control my limbs any longer. He wouldn't stop making me come!
It was so intense that I had to pull his hair to keep him from breaking me. And even then, the aftershocks still wrecked me.
“Mmm.” Veto licked his lips in a smacking sound, then sucked on the fingers that had been inside me. Something about the way he enjoyed the taste was insanely hot. He crawled up from his knees to hover over me. “I hope I didn't scare you off. Just say the word and we stop.”
“Are you joking?” I panted, pulling him in for a kiss. “Don't you have more to show me?”
“If—”
“Don't say it.” I cut him off with a smile, then a kiss. His hard figure was carved with heavy shadows from the warm yellow light that flooded in through the open bedroom door. “I can only get so wet.”
He flashed a mischievous grin, pulling a condom from his pants pocket where they hung nearby on the chair. As he knelt in front of me, his cock tenting his boxers, a flutter of nerves made me hesitate.
Veto studied me curiously as he tore open the condom. His face said he was starting to doubt I wanted to go all the way. Gritting my teeth, I hooked my fingertips in his underwear, sliding them down. His cock was unleashed, bouncing into the air. My eyes widened at how big it was. I worked my hand up and down the shaft, I could just barely get my fingers around it. “Wow.”
“Just you wait.” He offered me the condom.
Trembling through my body, I took the rubber circle. The sound of the foil tearing pushed my heart into my throat. Guiding the latex over his swollen length was intensely erotic.
Veto pressed me into the bed. He rubbed the head of his cock back and forth over my swollen pussy until I writhed in anticipation.
“Please,” I moaned. His eyes narrowed, then he slipped his cock-head in just a little only to pull it out; torturing me! I grabbed his tight ass and dug my nails in. “Ah! Fuck me already.”
He slowly pushed into my soaked pussy, but infuriatingly, did it at his own pace. I crushed every inch he gave me and yearned for
more. His cock was warm and huge, and split me almost to the point of discomfort. Almost.
It was incredible.
He slid out and slowly thrust back in, then again. I was thrumming now, on the cusp of climax and craving it. I needed relief from this hot pressure. He pulled my legs apart, a hand at each ankle, and opened me wide. The motion allowed him impossibly deeper inside of me.
I gasped, my whole body quivered with pleasure. Ecstasy made his eyes half-close, lips tight in a line. But he never looked away from me; he was savoring this. Finally, he crushed into me and started to speed up, his body sliding over mine. I was drunk off the friction. I held on for dear life.
Sparks of heat traveled through my thighs and turned my quads into rocks; even my toes cramped from the tension. He whispered in my ear, teeth brushing my flesh. “You're so close. Come for me, Calli. I need to feel you lose control.”
My body rocked forward, then went completely rigid. All my muscles tensed as the deep orgasm radiated through me. I screamed until I saw spots of color—my lungs gave up on trying to scrape up oxygen. We were animals in heat. Wild. Hungry.
I was far from a virgin, but this still felt like the first time. Like somehow all the sex I'd had up to this point was just foreplay. Veto was a force of nature—strong and unpredictable. He pinned my shoulders, holding me down and moaning just loud enough for only me to hear. It was beyond intimate.
Through the walls of the condom, his cock flared. It was bigger than ever, throbbing with massive waves of lust. The ridge of his tip rubbed over and over, forcing me to come helplessly again. All of my brain... my mouth... everything was buttery… hypersensitive. I could have felt an ant sneeze.
I definitely felt him swell and lock up as he came. The condom might as well have not existed for how his spurts of hot seed filled it up, aching to reach me through the latex. I regretted the protection—briefly, but it was a primal regret for sure.
In the after-glow, naked and sticky, I laid there with him next to me. He said something, but crushing exhaustion had finally overcome me and my whole world was buried beneath billions of grains of sand. One last thought burrowed through my mind before I shamelessly passed out.
Veto just ruined sex for me with any other man.
Chapter 5
Calli
“Who are you?” I asked sometime later when we both woke up. I was nestled in Veto's shoulder, safe and warm in our tiny bed. I was rested, but even more than that. In his arms, I felt at peace. Veto was a stranger to me in almost every way, yet I couldn't deny the bliss I had in this moment.
This can't last. We were only ships passing in the night. I selfishly wanted more, but I'd never have the courage to pursue it. Besides... he'd just moved into my tiny, forgettable town. I was doing my best to escape that place.
“That's a pretty loaded question.” His voice was gravelly from just waking up. It was nice. I imagined hearing that every morning and felt a pang of sadness in knowing that it would only be a fantasy. “What defines who we are? Our jobs? Our values? Our actions?”
That was a bit deeper than I'd expected, but I didn't mind deep. It was refreshing, actually. Most of my conversations were surface-level pleasantries with customers or listening to Marcos grumble about how much better things used to be before his wife left him.
“I'd never thought of it that way.” I paused, then reorganized my thoughts into a less philosophic question. “What do you do for work?”
“Ask me something else,” Veto was quick to reply. “Anything.”
That only made me more curious. My mind went wild with speculations. Was he in the witness protection program? Or was he a spy? Maybe he was a mob boss! I wasn't an expert or anything, but I did watch all six seasons of The Sopranos.
“Okay. Hmm.” I thought it over as I drew little circles on his chest with my finger. “How do you know Zenya and Clint?”
He shot me a look, then stared up at the ceiling. “I used to work with Clint. What else you got?”
“Sorry, right. No work stuff.” Veto worked at Goldlock Industries? I didn't know much about the company aside from them being a global conglomerate. “Why move out of New York? And of all places, why the hell would you pick my crappy home town?”
“Roslington has a lot of charm,” he said softly. He kept his focus up above. I couldn't sense any sarcasm in his tone—he was serious.
“We're talking about the same place, right? I've lived there my whole life and the only charm I've seen is of the Lucky variety you find in the cereal aisle.”
“I think you're too close to it to see what's right in front of you.” He cracked a small grin, then washed down my body with his eyes. A little thrill coursed through me.
“You're telling me that a tired old mill town has more charm than Manhattan?” I raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Have you been to Pastiche Pastry Boutique? Their waiting line dividers are vintage cafe racer motorcycles.”
“That sounds a bit cumbersome. I believe the term is 'manufactured quirk.'” He took on a more somber tone. “This city has a way of grinding you down into your simplest form. You become your job title. Bartender. CEO. Lawyer. And then you get ground down even further. Consumer. Your town is different. There, I'm a story told over a coffee and then forgotten. Here? I'm just click bait, a headline.”
A headline?
“You're only worth what you produce, or what you buy.” Veto stared off distantly, talking more to himself than to me. “No one cares about who you are, only what you do.”
My fingers paused on his chest. “That's pretty bleak.”
He shook himself, looking down on me with a fresh new smile. “Is that too heavy for post-sex cuddle with a stranger? Alright. I think it's my turn anyway. Why is your car named Carrie?”
I started grinning even before he finished asking the question. “Every Thursday night, Zenya and I used to watch horror movies and scream at the characters, telling them what not to do. I don't know how it started, but we'd rate how much we liked a movie by how many 'Carries' it was. One Carrie was the worst and five Carries was the best. One year, for my birthday, Z bought me the vanity plate and thus the car was named.”
“Wait, I'm confused. Did you like the movie Carrie? You know what happened at the end, right?" he chuckled. “Things didn't exactly work out for her.”
“Yeah, it never made any sense.” I laughed, realizing how silly it all was once I said it out loud. “Zenya just had a way of making weird things stick.”
“Let me ask you a question.” He shifted, rolling his body towards mine. It was too dark in the room to see each other really well, but it didn't matter; I could feel his inquisitive eyes on me. “Last night I saw you dropping off food for your neighbor. What drives you to do something like that?”
My skin heated up—he'd seen me drop the bread off? How long had he been watching me before he came down to help fix my car? “Helping people is just the right thing to do.”
“That's awfully vague.”
“My restaurant has extra at the end of the night. It's not much, but I do what I can. I dunno, it makes me feel good, I guess.” I laughed. I was surprised that I'd never really given it much thought. “Does that make me weird?”
“I wouldn't know. I've never been the generous type.”
“Tell that to your tongue,” I said, flushing. “I'm pretty sure the way you went down on me could cure cancer.”
“Oh, you thought that was for you?” The smirk he wore crept into his voice.
I kicked at his legs in feigned protest. The kicks quickly turned into wrestling and before I knew it, I was back on top, kissing him furiously. It was crazy how easy it was to fall into him. The more we talked the more I wanted to know; he had more layers and depth than I'd been prepared to expect. Did this really have to end? Could it be more? If there was one lesson that was beaten into me over the course of my life, it was to be careful of hope.
Hope was a dangerous thing.
I sat up and gasped for air wh
en his hand snaked up my thigh. That's when I saw the alarm. Ten of eight. I was going to be late. Again!
“Ah... wait, wait,” I said, scrambling off of him. “I have to go! I'm so sorry, I really don't want to, I swear.” Rushing around, I opened a suitcase and quickly changed into some clean clothes. Why did this keep happening to me? Did I secretly try to sabotage everything important in my life?
I glanced back at Veto, taking in his beautiful nakedness one last time. His warm smile made me feel weightless. Veto was too good to be true. Please don't sabotage this, Calli, I pleaded with myself. Whatever THIS even is.
I lingered longer than I should have, then closed the door behind me and raced down the hallway.
Zenya was going to kill me!
I did my best to sneak into the rehearsal, but I was a solid forty minutes late. Zenya gave me the queen of stink eyes when I walked in. She impatiently waved me up next to the other bridesmaids. I mouthed that I was sorry about fifty times.
The rest of the rehearsal went fine. We went through all our steps and I didn't screw anything up too badly. I was a little nervous about forgetting my speech in the hotel room, but no one mentioned it, so I didn't bring it up, either.
Afterward, I said hi to Zenya's family and caught up with everyone. The event started to wind down and everyone went their separate ways. Left alone with my friend, she quickly cornered me. “You get lost?” she teased me.
“I'm so sorry! I just... got caught up and forgot the time.”
“Caught up in what?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me. When she leaned closer, her nose crinkling up, my heart froze. “Are those hickeys on your neck?”
I gasped, instinctively snapping my hand over my neck. Was I suddenly a teenager again? I sighed, dropping my hand. I couldn't walk around with it clasped over my neck all night.
Were we that rough? A thrill vibrated through me as I remembered the way Veto grabbed me and pushed me up against the wall. I started grinning subconsciously.