Touch Me Once

by Anne Kyle

  The turn was coming up fast and I saw a minivan approaching from the opposite direction. This was going to be close. Mandy’s car was right behind me, and smoke was pouring out of the hood of her car.

  I barely slowed down—as I cut in front of the minivan, so close that I could see the shocked expression on the face of the soccer mom who was driving. I let out a scream as I made the turn with squealing tires, silently thanking Gerald’s Tires and Brakes.

  The minivan had hit the brakes, and Mandy’s car clipped the front of it, shattering both headlights with the side of her car but still coming up behind me. I prayed that there weren’t any children in the street as I sped through the neighborhood, easily violating the twenty-five mile per hour speed limit.

  I could see Alex standing in the street in front of his house with his baseball bat. For some reason, I thought that he looked very cute holding the bat down next to his leg. Just then, I was flooded with relief as I heard the most beautiful sound in the world— police sirens.

  Behind me, I saw that Mandy’s car had slowed because her front bumper was dangling into the street, throwing up sparks, while smoke continued to belch out from beneath her dented hood. If the situation were a little different, I would’ve said the sparks looked pretty.

  About fifty feet from Alex, I put both feet on the brake pedal and fishtailed to a smoking stop in front of him, my car stopped sideways across the road. I jumped out of the car and ran to him. I threw myself into his arms—well, one arm, since the other one was busy holding the bat. Before we could say anything, the sound of the police car sirens was muffled by the ear-splitting crash of Mandy plowing into the side of my car, pushing both vehicles another twenty feet down the road.

  Alex and I broke our embrace, and as soon as my feet hit the ground, he pushed me behind him and took the bat in both hands. The sound of hissing steam and the smell of spilled antifreeze filled the humid air as we saw Mandy emerge from the destroyed Focus.

  In her right hand, she held a large hunting knife—the same knife she must’ve used to slash my tire. The look in her eye was like a cornered wild animal, and she held the knife out in front of her as she walked towards us.

  She stopped about six feet in front of Alex, pointed the knife at me, and screamed, “Get away from him, you bitch, or I swear to God I’ll cut you.”

  I was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, so I was astonished when I heard the calm tone of Alex’s voice. “Just settle down Mandy, you don’t want to cut anyone. Do you hear those sirens? The police will here in seconds, so just drop the knife and step back.”

  A confused look washed over Mandy’s face, then the anger and ferocity returned as she stepped closer to Alex and hissed, “If I can’t have you, then nobody can.”

  She took one step forward, and I could tell she was about to charge with the knife pointed straight at Alex. I felt his body tense as he held up the bat. I didn’t know what to do, because I didn’t want Alex to knock her head off, but this had to end before one of us got hurt.

  She shot forward, and I screamed Alex’s name. He brought the bat to his shoulder, and when she was just a few feet away, he swung. I closed my eyes and prepared to hear the sound of the bat striking flesh. My eyes shot open at the unexpected ring of wood on metal. The bat struck the knife with the sound of a hammer on an anvil, and it flew out of Mandy’s hand.

  I looked up as I heard cars braking and doors slamming. We were bathed in flashing red and blue lights, and one of the cops yelled, “Drop the bat, sir!” Alex threw it in the yard and wrapped one strong arm around me. I almost fell to the ground with relief, but Alex held me up as we faced the two police officers.

  Mandy looked left, then right, and turned to run as one of the officers grabbed her and slapped on the handcuffs. He turned to march Mandy to the back of one of the cars and she yelled, “Fuck both of you, and your restaurant sucks.”

  After she had been placed in the back of the police car, we explained the situation. The police were very understanding and told us that the chase through the street would result in a whole bushel of charges against Mandy. They said that she wasn’t going anywhere, but we needed to come down to the station in the morning to make a statement. We promised that we would be there first thing. The police called a wrecker for Mandy’s car, and Alex called a tow truck for my poor little Toyota.

  Finally, Alex and I went inside his house and held each other until I stopped shaking. “Next time I come home, why don’t you just get me a nice fruit basket,” he said and kissed the top of my head. We both let loose with a cathartic laugh and held each other even tighter. We broke our embrace, and Alex asked, “Would you like a drink?” I told him I wanted a drink the size of Charleston Harbor, and we moved to the kitchen.

  “I was really scared out there,” I said. “But for some reason, I knew that if I could just get to you, everything would be all right. I can’t thank you enough for handling that lunatic the way you did. As soon as you took me in your arms, I felt safe.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “All I could think about was making sure that nothing happened to you.” Then he lifted my chin to look deeply into my eyes, “That’s what you do for people that you care about. You protect them no matter what’s in your way.” He pinched my nose gently and grabbed two glasses.

  When he had said that he cared about me and wanted to protect me, I felt guilty that I had seen the email that Tina sent him. I wanted to ask him to explain, but after what he had just done for me, I knew that he would tell me when the time was right. I couldn’t question his motives, so I would do what accountants do best—I would compartmentalize. For now, I was just going to be happy with this moment and this magnificent man I was with. I would just let go and trust.

  With that in mind, I couldn’t help but get turned on watching him make our drinks. When he went to the fridge and bent down to grab a lime, I was once again impressed with his firm ass. He turned around and caught me staring. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those girls that gets turned on by danger.”

  He set the drinks down on the butcher’s block, and I said, “It’s not the danger that turns me on, it’s the way you handled the bat that does.”

  “So, you’re a sports nut,” he said, and we both took a huge drink. “Would you like to see the data that I brought back with me?”

  I tossed back the rest of my drink and said, “There’s something I’d rather see first, if you don’t mind.” I moved to stand in front of him, and we gazed at each other until we leaned in for a long, wet kiss.

  We started slowly, but our momentum increased quickly. Our tongues swirled together in a delicious mating dance. Our bodies were pressed so tightly together that I could feel his erection poking into my stomach. He moved his hands to my ass and gently squeezed as I rubbed against him.

  Our mouths parted long enough for him to say, “I haven’t had a chance to tell you how magnificent you look in that dress.”

  “You can look at it later,” I said as I slid the tiny straps off of my shoulder and let the dress fall to the floor. He let out a small gasp while his eyes slowly travelled from my breasts to my tiny, sheer thong.

  “Would you like to go to the bedroom?” he asked while I pressed my palm against his dick.

  “I don’t think I can wait that long,” I told him as I began undoing his pants. We threw our mouths together, and Alex moved his hands to my breasts. I was so turned on that I thought my nipples were going shoot through the thin material. He squeezed my buds through the lacy fabric, and I moaned gently into his mouth.

  He reached over and slid our drinks to the end of the butcher’s block, then wrapped his arms around me and slid his hands to my ass. He squeezed my cheeks almost roughly and lifted me up onto the block so that my wet pussy was pressed against the massive erection that was straining through his pants. I spread my legs and reached down to free his cock.

  Before I could push his pants down, he reached into his front pocket and pulled out a condom with a litt
le ta-da gesture. We both laughed as his boxers followed his pants to the floor.

  “I just love a man who thinks ahead,” I told him and reached for the condom.

  His whole face lit up in a smile, “I’m going to start carrying these things with me wherever we go, just in case.”

  Alex reached behind me and hooked his thumbs underneath the straps of my thong then pulled it off of me and let it drift down my leg until it dangled on my ankle. I moved my thighs apart and he took his cock in his hand and rubbed it back and forth across my clit.

  “You are the sexiest woman I’ve ever met,” he told me while he moved the fat head of his dick over my slick nub. “My God, you’re so wet.”

  All I could do was whimper as an electric current shot through the center of my body to the top of my head. I tore the condom open and said, “Here, let me hold that beautiful thing for a second.” He watched as I unrolled the thin latex down his shaft. He released a small breath and a brief giggle when I reached the base of his dick.

  I positioned the head in front of my slick opening and coated it in my juices. “Push it inside me, fill me up,” I told him in an almost-panting voice.

  He placed his hands on either side of my hips and slid into me so slowly that I thought, and hoped, it would never end. When he was all of the way inside me, we both moaned so loudly that I thought the windows might just shatter. The height of the block was perfect for having sex, and I could feel my ass move slightly on the smooth surface in rhythm with Alex pumping in and out of me.

  Every time he slid into me, I could feel the tip of his cock against my G-spot, and I knew that I was going to come any minute. As if he could read my mind, Alex almost shouted, “You feel so good, you’re going to make me explode!”

  I could barely form words because I was so overcome with pleasure, but I managed to say, “Oh yeah, make us come!”

  He increased his speed, and I could feel his balls slap against the wet, sensitive lower part of my pussy. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and with one final plunge, my orgasm blossomed and we both cried out as the heat filled me from my toes to my forehead.

  Alex pulled me into a tight embrace and we just panted for a few seconds until both of our bodies started to shake with laughter. “Holy shit,” he said. “That was some kind of wonderful.”

  I leaned back to look in his eyes, “Nobody has ever made me so damn hot before. I thought I was going to pass out.” We both chuckled, and I think I might have snorted.

  He held me tightly and slowly pulled out of me. We held onto to each other like our lives depended on it, and in a way, I guess it did. Warmth flooded over every inch of my skin, and I felt like the sun had dried me off after I had just come out the ocean.

  “That’s going to be hard to beat,” Alex said as he pulled his pants up.

  I leaned back on my hands, still naked from the waist down with my thong hanging off of the tip of my shoe, and replied, “I hope that doesn’t mean we have to stop trying.”

  He chuckled, “Oh, hell no. It just means we’re going to have to raise the bar higher.”

  I jumped off of the block and put my panties back on, then picked up my dress off of the floor and slid into it. I kicked off my shoes and said, “I don’t know about you, but I could use another drink.”

  “I think my hands have to stop shaking before I can be trusted with a knife,” he said as he leaned his back against the sink.

  “You pour and I’ll cut,” I said, grabbing a knife and moving to the half of a lime that was still on the cutting board. “With all of that activity, I can’t believe that the glasses didn’t fly off of the block.”

  “We make a good team, and I’m impressed that that the whole damn block didn’t go flying across the room,” he said, holding out the glasses. I dropped a slice of lime in each glass, and we went to sit on the couch in the living room.

  We sat quietly for several minutes while we sipped our drinks and smiled at each other. We held hands lightly, and I exhaled, saying, “Well this has been quite an eventful evening.”

  “You can say that again,” Alex said, laughing. “I don’t want to spoil the mood, but would you like to look at the evidence that will probably keep you out of jail?”

  My mouth dropped open, and I probably snorted again. “To tell you the truth, with everything that’s happened tonight, I haven’t even thought about it. That being said, yes—I would like to see what you found out in California. I guess that’s one more thing I should thank you for.”

  “Why don’t you thank me after you’ve looked at what I have,” Alex said and got up to get his laptop and the thumb drive. “Besides, I’m not the one to thank. If there’s anything on here that helps you, it’s because of Robo.” He handed me the computer and the drive and said he was going to take a quick shower.

  I had a brief moment of temptation to check his email to see if there was another message from Tina. Instead, I started scrolling through the screens of familiar-looking numbers and spreadsheets and could clearly see a pattern emerging. There was a lot to go through, and I knew I couldn’t look at everything tonight, but I felt like the key to my salvation was hiding in these numbers. For the first time, I really felt like there was a way out of the hell that I had been trapped in for months.

  Alex came out of the bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. His hair was slicked back, and the muscles of his chest and arms were firm and what I can only describe as manly. I realized that I had more to be thankful for than just a way out of my legal problem.

  “I hope that smile means that you found something that will help,” Alex said, taking a seat beside me.

  I ejected the drive and shut down the laptop. “Your friend was right. It will take some time, but the evidence is in there—I can feel it.”

  “That’s great, I really mean it,” he said grasping my hand and giving me an award-winning smile.

  I grinned back at him and squeezed his hand, “And it’s all because of you, Mr. Westfield. I must be the luckiest girl in the Lowcountry.”

  “Then having you in my life now must make me the luckiest guy in the whole damn state,” he told me, placing his arm around my shoulder and pulling me to him.

  We nestled together and formed one perfect whole out of two separate parts. After sitting like that for several sweet minutes, Alex said, “While I was in the shower, I was thinking. Your little drag race this evening is probably going to be on the news. They have your name, and I know you wouldn’t want your parents to worry about you, so why don’t you give them a call?”

  I sat up, “Shit, you’re right. They’ll freak out if I don’t tell them I’m okay.”

  “Before you call them, can I ask you one thing?”

  “I would say that after all you’ve done for me, you can ask me anything you want,” I replied.

  “Well,” he said, looking me straight in the eye, “I was really hoping that you would spend the night here, with me, in my bed. I can’t think of anything I’d like more than to wake up in the morning and have your beautiful face be the first thing I see.”

  Without hesitation, I said, “I would love nothing more than to fall asleep in your arms and wake up next to you. I don’t want to be away from you any more than I have to.” I picked up my phone and thought about what I was going to say to my parents that would put them at ease.

  I didn’t have to think very long. I looked at the gorgeous man sitting just inches away, a man who had put himself at risk to protect me. Alex may have his secrets, but don’t we all? I knew that all I had to tell my parents was the truth—that I was safe. And I was.

  I just wish I had known how short-lived that safety was going to be.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  />   Anne Kyle, Touch Me Once