The Reward

by Jade A. Waters

  “That’s good. I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I’m glad I’m coming home tomorrow.”

  A soft smile touched my lips. “You’re so good to me.”

  “I love you so much, Maya.” Dean was quiet for a stretch of time. I listened to the sound of his breathing, wishing it was near me but thrilled I’d see him tomorrow. “I hate that you’re going through this alone.”

  “It’s okay. I’m okay.” The reassurance was for both him and me. “There’s nothing you could do, anyway.”

  “I could be there. Protecting you.”

  “He didn’t do anything,” I said, in spite of the shivers that still distracted me every time I thought about how he might have sent the flowers, but I couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t an aggressive move, but it creeped me out. “Besides, you can’t be with me every second.”

  “I know. I...” I heard the sound of him moving around, then, “I don’t know what to say except that I want to wrap my arms around you. Hold you tight and kiss you. When I get back, whatever you need, I’ll do, okay?”

  “Okay.” He was so sweet and wonderful, just the sentiment swelled my heart and pushed the rest of my discomfort aside.

  “Hey, do you have anything planned this weekend? I know I was originally booked to be gone, and I figure you might have scheduled something.”

  I shook my head, though he couldn’t see it, my wet hair rubbing against the pillow. “Not really. I worked on more packing last night, which was all I was thinking of doing in general. Good news—there’s not much left to do there until I have your help.”

  “So you’re free?”

  “I am. I’m here, looking forward to seeing you.”

  “All right. Then I can smother you in love this weekend. How does that sound?”

  “Like you’re the biggest sweetheart in the world.” I grinned.

  “It’s the least you deserve. I’ll cook you dinner, and we can, I don’t know, watch movies or something. Snuggle.”

  I snickered. “Listen to you...all mushy.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “No.” I tugged my knees into my chest. “I like you caring for me. It feels good. You make me feel good.”

  “I’m glad. I want you to feel good. Especially right now.”

  For a few seconds, I took comfort in lying in our bed, knowing he was through the line and returning tomorrow.

  Dean said, “So my flight lands at two-thirty, and Dylan’s going to drive me back. I’ll be waiting for you when you get home from work. Does that sound good?”

  “It sounds great.”

  “Okay. I should let you sleep. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

  “You either, Dean.”

  “I love you, Maya.”

  “I love you, too.”

  I rested the phone on the nightstand after the call ended, then flipped off the light.

  For the first time that week, I slept the full night through.

  * * *

  As promised, Dean was waiting for me after work Friday. I walked through the door to his arms circling fast around me, his lips sweet on mine and then the top of my head before he clutched me tight.

  “God, I missed you,” he said.

  His body felt protective, as if cocooning me in love. I melted into him in a heartbeat, and after I dropped my purse to the floor, I let him clutch me like he was willing our bodies into one. All week, I’d felt better and better, holding strong and braving the emotional storm in my head that I’d wrestled into some semblance of calm. But with him, I was safe to break. The tears I’d shoved back for days came spilling out of my eyes. Dean’s lips were soft across my forehead.

  “Maya, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s fine. It is.” My words were muffled against his shirt, broken by sobs determined to shatter the steel armor I’d built around me. Dean didn’t let me go. I breathed him in while his hands roamed my back, and I squeezed my arms around his waist. I hadn’t been prepared for the dam to break like this, but Dean wasn’t fazed by my tremble in his arms.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m here.”

  For several minutes, we stood there together. Once I calmed and took a series of deep breaths, I drew back. Dean cupped my cheeks to run his thumbs beneath my eyes, wiping away the wetness there.

  “I’m ridiculous,” I murmured.

  “No, you’re not. I can understand how this shook you up.” He flashed me a concerned smile, his arms sliding down to my sides, and I marveled at how much better I felt close to him. Though my body was determined to shake with the emotional overload I’d battled all week, Dean’s care overrode it with the soothing sound of his voice and the touch of his skin. I lifted my finger to the top of my cheek and rubbed, and when I pulled it away, mascara had blackened my skin.

  “Great. I’m a mess. I should go wash up.” I eased my hand into his. “Will you join me?”

  “Of course.”

  He trailed behind me up the stairs, quiet. In the bedroom, I changed my mind and slipped into his arms again, knowing his touch would make me feel better, more normal. I canted my lips to his, and instead of a soft kiss like the one he’d given me downstairs, I pressed harder. Dean followed my lead, his hands remaining gentle on my shoulders and tracing over my back. He was being cautious. I closed my eyes and pulled back to rest my forehead against his chin, and he didn’t try to move us along, despite my hands fluttering to the buttons of his shirt. I couldn’t see his face with mine angled like it was, but as I unbuttoned him down to the waist, my ache from his absence started to rise up, overpowering everything else. Chemistry always thrived between us, electric and hot, and I ran my hands over his naked chest then, craving it. Craving him.

  “Kiss me,” I whispered.

  Dean did, his lips firm to mine while I caressed the flesh of his stomach. I circled my hands around to his back and clutched him tighter, aware of his growing excitement pressed this close to me. The urge to feel him blazed within me, and I parted my lips for a deeper kiss. When his tongue met mine, I moaned and stripped off his shirt. His hands played gingerly over my back, but I grabbed the hem of my blouse, quick to lift it over my head and toss it aside. I pined for my skin on his, and with the feel of it, my heart pounded. Dean could keep me safe. Dean was here. He could wash it all away.

  I reached for the button of his slacks, needing him more than I’d ever fathomed. He sucked in a gust of air as I kissed him harder and guided us to the bed. I didn’t care that I had raccoon eyes or that I needed a shower; the sole thought pervading my mind was the desperate need for him to bury himself inside me.

  “Please.” I sat on the bed, unfastening his pants and nudging them down his legs. Dean rested his hands on my shoulders, and I kissed the top of one before meeting his gaze. “I want to feel you. Please.” I pitched forward and unbuttoned my own slacks, and while I wrestled them down with my underwear, I mouthed the bulge in Dean’s boxer briefs.

  He gasped, his eyelids fluttering. “Are you sure?”

  My answer was a hook of my thumbs beneath his waistband to tug down the fabric that barred him from me. Yes, I was sure. Sure I needed him fucking away every fear, as close to me as he could get, nested in the deepest parts of me. I wrapped my lips around his cock, sucking down to the root of him while he firmed in my mouth.

  “Oh, Maya...”

  I ran my tongue along the underside of his cock, cupping his balls and taking eager strokes up and down his length. He tasted musty but good, and I loved the way his belly flexed with the slide of my mouth down to the base of his shaft. But he pushed me off, and though I pouted, he guided me onto my back. He kissed my neck, his fingers barely touching my skin, tracing up my thighs and between my folds in a whisper of a graze. When he circled my nipple with his mouth, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, tugging him down to me. E
very inch of me ached for him, for the glue of his skin to mine.

  “Please,” I begged. Dean’s chest was hot, his cock hard between my legs. I grabbed on to his shaft and rubbed his swollen head along my slit.

  Dean groaned and stared into my eyes. I arched up, teasing us both with the slippery sounds of his entire length sliding through my wetness. “Fuck...” He laced one hand up my back and into my hair, not pulling, but grasping it, firm, and his other hand remained between my back and the mattress to hold me tight. Dean didn’t thrust. He watched the look on my face while I rocked my hips to feel the slick of him along me, the motion shooting tingles through my pelvis. I was moaning already, worked up from anxiety and tension.

  When I could take it no longer, I guided him inside. His cockhead slipped past my entrance to the grunts we both uttered, loud. “I’ve needed you, Dean. Missed you. Fuck me, please.”

  Dean lowered his mouth to my neck, kissing my skin and sinking deeper. His motion was slow, so slow, every nerve ending within me shrieking for more. He reached my depths, staying ensconced and holding me close with his breath pouring heavily against my neck. “You’re so hot inside.”

  I rocked up, but he didn’t move, staying buried as deep as he could be. I was ready to burst. I bucked my hips up again, my clit raw, achy, ecstasy a tease I needed to catch. I mouthed Dean’s cheek, pleading for more, faster, harder, but he was taking his time, easing out and gently shifting back in. I hooked my ankles over his hips to buck my clit against him, and this time, my world started to tilt. I dug my nails into his back, but Dean was making love to me, the heat of his measured glides searing through me.

  “Please, please...” I moaned, my toes curled tight at the friction when I rocked again. I longed for him harder, deeper, rougher. Needed him wild in me. Dean started to move faster, and I took advantage of his tight hold to grind against him. As he retreated and thrust in harder, my orgasm ripped me apart in a blinding flash. I gasped and shuddered, pawing at his back, calling out his name while I rolled my hips. “Fuck, yes!” I cried, but Dean didn’t fuck me as he often did in moments like these. He kept sinking inside at this mesmerizing, slow pace, working my spasming walls with tempered thrusts.

  “You feel good. I don’t want to be away. Don’t want to be out of you yet...” Dean latched his teeth onto my earlobe. The heat of our bodies made it hard to breathe. I didn’t want him to stop, not with my walls convulsing around him like they were, or with the prickles of sensation firing down my legs. Dean shifted a hand between us to strum my clit and took another drive inside. “I love you, Maya,” he groaned, my name guttural, deep.

  I held on, tantalized by his deliberate movements and the ecstasy dancing back into my brain at the knowledge that he was here, with me, filling me up and taking the bad away. I arched into the rub of his thumb over my clit, and Dean ground it against me in the hard way I loved when he caught my bottom lip in his teeth. He thrust, and I clenched my eyes shut, crying out as I came again. That’s when he sped up the tiniest bit, using his entire body weight to thrust all the way in. He banged hard inside with a gasp, holding there, and doing it again.

  “Yes. Yes! Come in me, please.” I buried my face in the crook of Dean’s shoulder, smothered in his body, his love. His hand stayed between us, and the other traveled down to grip my ass. He obliged with one last, deep thrust, and when the warmth of his come filled me up, I trembled in our clutch. We stayed like that to the sound of the waves washing ashore beyond our house. They were a soothing melody, sweeping in to remind me that we were here, together.

  Safe.

  * * *

  Dean and I spent the entire weekend snuggling, as planned. For most of Saturday, we alternated between curling up under our sheets together to lie in quiet, and slow, gentle lovemaking filled with breathy, comforting words. Other than getting up to eat for the meals Dean insisted on cooking for me, we hardly left our bed. It was soft, romantic and sweet, and the time together had started to ease my mind by the time we woke to the Sunday morning sunlight streaming through our bedroom window.

  So, much as I loved the curl up, I’d nudged Dean shortly after our shared shower and suggested we go on a walk on the beach or something to breathe in a touch of fresh air. At that point, we’d only made it onto the couch, where he’d tugged me in front of him after breakfast and tucked his mouth into the crook of my neck.

  “Maybe. For now, I want to keep you close.”

  I smiled in front of him and settled into the adjustments he made until I was his ideal little spoon. “You’re a sweetheart.”

  “Just looking after you.”

  “I’m okay, Dean.”

  “I know you are.” He hooked his arm around my waist to hold me tight. “But you smell good, and I want to hold you.”

  I swayed my head on the throw pillow beneath my head. “Do I smell like soap?”

  “You smell like you. Sexy, delicious you.” He sucked in a dramatic inhalation before burying his nose in the loose strands of my hair. At my giggle, he caught my hand and interlaced our fingers, then rested them together on my stomach. “And I’m going to keep you right here so I can enjoy it.”

  I wiggled to rub my ass against his crotch through both of our loose-fitting pants, but he wasn’t playing along.

  “Pick a show,” he said.

  “All right.” I grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, and after finding a home improvement channel with a remodeling reality show I watched on occasion, I got a grunt of approval from him.

  “This is good.”

  For the rest of the morning, we hardly moved. I loved the feel of him against me, his breath on my cheek as he propped himself up to see above my head and his periodic grazes over the bare skin below the sleeve of my soft cotton tee. We made occasional comments on the workings of the shows we watched, and I asked sporadic questions about building things that he’d have the answers to. The time spent was pleasant and calm, though after a couple of hours, parts of me itched again to get outside or at least move around. We’d spent the entirety of yesterday in bed, after all, and both Dean and I were active people who rarely lazed around this much.

  Around eleven-thirty, my phone rang at a subdued volume from inside my purse. I’d left it on the far end of the coffee table Friday night and hadn’t bothered to reach for it since—but even muffled inside my bag, the interruption caused us both to jump on the couch. I sat up to dig inside, surprised the phone still had any juice in the first place. Dean’s fingers trailed down my back as I moved away, and once I hunched over the screen to see who was calling, I frowned and shoved the phone back within the folds of my purse.

  It was Ryan, and I wasn’t in the mood to talk with him yet. I lay back in front of Dean, pressing my palms together to tuck them under my face.

  “Wrong number?”

  “Nope,” I said coldly. “It was Ryan.”

  Dean stayed quiet. His fingers resumed their sweep on my arm, and I gnawed my cheek, thinking about the argument I’d had with Ryan that I had yet to bring up with Dean, never mind the blowup at dinner before Dean had left town. He’d escaped any explanation about his tense interaction with Ryan with the whole Charlie thing cropping up to take over everything, but reminiscing on all their drama scratched at the inside of my skull while we lay there doing nothing. Enough time had passed that I wasn’t infuriated anymore, but I still needed to understand what’d happened. After several minutes stewing on it, I squirmed around to face him.

  “I didn’t get to tell you this, but Ryan and I had a fight before he left.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” Dean frowned.

  I shrugged as best I could lying on my side, trying to curb my reaction to his subtle commentary. I needed to tread carefully, but his silence couldn’t go on any longer. I said, “It’ll be fine, eventually. But...he brought up the wedding thing again. And dinner. And something about the
fact that he cornered you?” Dean’s mouth grew taut. “Why didn’t you tell me that’s what was going on?”

  Dean’s eyes shadowed as though he was trying to figure out how best to say something he didn’t want to say.

  “Open and honest, remember?” I reminded. “I can’t not talk about this, Dean. Not with all that’s happened. Did he...did he threaten you?”

  The home improvement show host rambled on behind me, but I was fixated on Dean and the uncomfortable expression on his face. It bothered the crap out of me that Ryan was flipping out over who knew what and had supposedly cornered Dean and attempted to intimidate him, because he had no business doing so. I wasn’t fifteen years old, and though if it came down to it, Dean could knock Ryan out in a second, that was neither here nor there.

  I did not want a knock-down drag-out between my boyfriend and my brother, ever. Nor did I want another sparring match between them or, most importantly, Dean keeping any of this shit from me for one more second.

  He mumbled, “I don’t want to get in the middle—”

  “You already are.” I said it quietly, because I didn’t want another battle. I gave him the faintest smile to reassure him that wasn’t what I was after. “It’s clear to me that Ryan has come up with some sort of weird interpretation of what’s going on between you and me, but I’m in the dark on what went down. I love you, and I don’t care if he’s my brother. I need you to be honest with me.” I gestured between us. “Whether or not he and I are having a communication issue, that can’t affect us. Please tell me what happened. What do you know?”

  Dean squinted for a second before speaking, his hand soft on my hip. “Do you remember the night we went to dinner with Ryan? When I met him?”

  I nodded.

  “He overheard us talking in the parking lot.” I waited, not sure what Ryan could’ve heard that would be able to be misinterpreted in the first place. Dean wet his lips. “You and I were flirting about what would happen after the wedding, and how mushy you were being... I’d said I needed to slap some sense into you for acting out.”