by Sherie Keys
James’ grin didn’t change in the slightest. “Then let’s go to bed, then,” he said, and without further comment he picked her up, lifting her weight completely to deposit her on top of the comforter. Minnie squeaked, not exactly in protest, as he did so.
“You didn’t have to do that!”
James climbed up onto the bed next to her, smiling, even though it was obvious that lifting her had taken quite a bit of effort. “But I wanted to. It’s my job to make you feel like a princess as much as I can, after all.”
A princess – the word caught in Minnie’s mind, made her think of the huge bed back in her room, the drafting table he’d given her for her birthday that was already piled up with sketches. “You already have,” she told him firmly.
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, taking her hand and squeezing it briefly. “But I think I can still do better, if you’ll let me.”
Uncertain what to say, unsure what he had in mind, Minnie just nodded. James released her hand and reached around, his fingers gently probing and sliding between her legs. She lifted her hips up to him – it felt good, and he knew what he was doing, rubbing the back of one knuckle against her clit for a moment before continuing lower. For the first time, she was glad he had had so many girlfriends. No doubt they had been the ones to tell him where to touch and what to do.
She wanted to reciprocate, especially as he started to work a finger into her, but the angle of his body put his crotch well out of her reach. From what she could see, though, she didn’t need to give him much help; James was fully erect and looked to be ready as soon as she was.
Minnie shivered as he slid another finger into her, her muscles trying to clamp down on his hand. It felt good, not just in sensation but as reassurance, that this was happening at her pace and James was okay with that. Still, she wasn’t really getting any wetter, and there was still a bit of friction when his knuckles moved in and out of her. Maybe that lube on the table was a good idea.
A third finger, and this time James increased the speed of his movements, just enough that Minnie could notice. Her hips bucked upwards and the rest of her squirmed; she finally leaned back against the pillows, letting James work at her as he would for a little while. When the first small moan escaped her, he looked up.
“Think you’re up to the rest?” he asked, and she nodded, reaching over for the bottle on the table.
“I’ll take care of this part,” she said, before following up with handing the condom to him. “You handle that.”
The liquid in the bottle smeared quickly across her hand, and she reached down to apply some to the parts of her sex where she felt there might be problems. Even as she did that, James watched her the same way she watched him, unwrapping the condom and rolling it on with a practiced gesture.
She leaned back into the pillows, and he climbed on top of her, kissing her hard before he made any motion to touch her anywhere else. Minnie kissed him back eagerly, their lips and then tongues meeting, a union that was as much passion as it was a familiar kind of comfort. They had been friends first, would always be friends first, and that was enough of a departure from most of Minnie’s other boyfriends that it added a new element, rather than being something to overcome.
Finally, their kiss broke, and James brought his hips down flush with hers. Since he was using both his arms still to support his torso over her, Minnie was the one who reached down to help guide him in, adding a little more lube to the outside of the condom so that he slid in easily. The first few thrusts were shallow, but still enough that she squirmed against James, tilting her hips up to change the angle so that he could push deeper into her.
And so he did, without much more encouragement – one, two, three strokes and then she was filled, her muscles squeezing around him as she gasped, and he stopped, briefly, until she could breathe again. “Keep going,” she murmured to reassure him. James bent his head and kissed along her neck before starting again.
He did, slower, then faster, then slowing down a bit again until he found a steady rhythm that worked for both of them. Every slide of their bodies drew Minnie a little higher – the hand that she had used to help James into her remained between her legs, rubbing at her clit, until James shifted his angle slightly and slid against something inside her that made her want to scream. It was dizzy and disorienting for a moment – not a full orgasm, but something close – and James was kissing down her neck again as she moaned, putting all his energy into her. Some small part of her that wasn’t distracted by pleasure had a growing respect for his stamina, but the rest of her had focus for only one thing. For once, there wasn’t a worry or anxiety on her mind at all.
And then James brushed against that spot again, and again, and then more firmly, and all she could see was stars. The orgasm was a rocket that made her lose any sense of the world around her except where she was being touched, James inside her and his lips on her neck the only two grounding points. She moaned, and then came back to earth, feeling like a charged vat of gel, something still electric inside her even though she wanted nothing more than to flow over the edges of the bed into a puddle.
When she could be aware of it again, James too was groaning, close. He came within her in only a few more strokes, his arms failing and dropping the weight of his chest onto hers. She waited until he had ridden out the last of his release before wrapping her arms around him, squeezing his shoulders as she kissed him.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For being willing to wait.”
The expression on his face was one of comfortable bliss, one that put a fuzzy blanket over her heart to calm the nervous beating. “It was worth it.”
*
Epilogue
It seemed strange to Minnie that it had taken still most of the year for her to be able to meet James’ father. But here they were, having a small family Christmas, and the man had finally been convinced to take time off work to meet his son’s steady girlfriend of nearly a year.
Eugene Sanders – just Gene, to his wife and friends – was very much a blend of his wife and son. He had Flor’s adventurous attitude, and in the same way that Minnie could see the relaxed atmosphere between herself and James, she could see the energy that passed between the two of them, even at their old age. But like James, Gene had the habit of taking a little bit of work everywhere with him, even on vacation. Minnie laughed hard, in fact, when she realized that the two of them used almost identical clipboards to carry their “business homework” around, the only difference being the color.
“Like father, like son,” Flor said as she handed Minnie a cup of hot chocolate, still steaming, and Minnie could only nod in agreement with the older woman, as father and son, across the room, stood on matching ladders to pull down a string of lights from across the curtains that hung in front of the grand windows of the entry hall. It was three days after Christmas, and soon James’ parents would be leaving to go back to their own home, and his father back to the frantic pace of work that seemed to be the best way to keep him happy.
The next night was a party, but a bit different in scale from the ones she was used to attending with James. Rather than it being their age group, it was mostly business people and their spouses, plus a few of their children, ranging from bright-eyed toddlers who tugged happily on the skirt of any dress that caught their eye, to moody teenagers who lurked in the back of the hall, showing with every motion that they would much rather be elsewhere.
“It’s a networking opportunity,” James said, somewhere in the middle of introducing Minnie to a couple of his father’s old business friends. “Go network.”
Minnie laughed at him. “I almost think I’d rather babysit,” she said, looking off to the side of the room, where one mother in a cocktail dress was trying to keep control of a six-year-old boy who wanted nothing to do with his little suit except to get stains on it.
Her nervousness had hardly vanished, after all. James, following her eye, gently nudged her towards the woman. “Then go babysit.
If we ever decide to have some of our own, the experience will help.”
Minnie blushed a little, but actually did wind up going over to help the woman, whose name was Jeanette, with her son, Kadin. Jeanette, in turn, introduced Minnie to a few of the other mothers who had brought along children of similar ages, some of them with older or younger siblings. “We could have found babysitters easily,” Jeanette was saying, as an explanation, “but the kids are mostly friends, so even if they get into trouble, it’s good for them.”
Even as she said that, her head whipped around, just in time to catch Kadin and his best friend, Jeremiah, attempting to crawl under a table. Before she could move, though, Jeremiah’s father – Alastair, the odd male duck in the group of mothers, whose wife was actually vice president of one of the animation studios Minnie had been looking at for after she graduated – grabbed one boy around the belly with each arm and lifted them both out from their planned hiding place.
“And more eyes working together makes it easier to keep track of the whole batch,” Jeanette added, clearly amused, as Alastair deposited both boys back on their feet.
By the end of the party, Minnie was starting to feel, for the first time, that she could actually fit in with this world of glamor and sparkle. She’d made a lunch date with Jeanette for after the New Year, after Kadin was back in school, and so for once had something to talk about on the ride home.
When they got home, it was already kind of late, but Minnie made them both hot chocolate and brought it up to James’ room. She had started sleeping there once in a while, but still usually preferred her own room. She was starting to think that even if they got married – or when, if they stayed on the path they were on – she would still probably keep that room for herself. There were certainly enough bedrooms that they wouldn’t run out any time soon.
She snuggled up against James while they drank the hot chocolate, and it seemed that, in some way, he was reading her mind, because after a few sips he said, “So, have you decided how many of those bedrooms we’re going to fill up with children?”
Minnie nearly choked on her cocoa. “You’re thinking about that already? Aren’t you supposed to propose first?” The second question was accompanied by her lightly slapping him on the leg, more of a scolding gesture than anything.
James just grinned at her, his tone of voice teasing. “Well, I figured that since you spent so much time with the kids at the party tonight, you must not completely hate them.”
Minnie couldn’t argue with that. “Maybe three,” she said after some thought. “A couple boys and a girl. But I guess that’s kind of up to luck, isn’t it?”
“It’s a kind of luck I can put faith in,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her on the forehead. “After all, it was luck that brought me a stranger who wound up fitting so neatly into my world. We only met because of the word of a friend and the fact that we both had something the other needed, and look at us now.”
Minnie smiled and set her empty mug down before snuggling up closer to his chest. “And it turned out that we were what each other needed.”
“Exactly,” James said, putting his cup on the table in turn. A moment later, a wicked thought must have passed through his mind, because Minnie could see the plotting on his face. “So do you want to get to work on those children or not?”
Minnie, completely shocked, grabbed the nearest pillow and tried to slam it into his face – but James was too quick, sliding out from under her when she leaned to grab it. She chased him all the way to the bed, laughing, before throwing it on his face.
“I take it that’s a no,” he said, shoving it off to the side, but then she slid into his lap and kissed him.
“I wouldn’t say that,” she said after they broke apart. “Just… Say that I’m willing to find out more about the arrangement.”
“It’s worth waiting for,” James answered, smiling, and that was the last exchange they had before Minnie curled up against his chest, content.
The End
Note from author:
Hi
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SHERIE KEYS
“The flagship series by Sherie Keys”
After moving to a quiet town in order to escape her maniac ex-boyfriend, Charmaine Robinson finds trouble is still managing to follow her around and soon enough her life is in danger once again.
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