Once Upon a Time

by Luna Doerr

I delve into her folds to find that magic bud. I run my finger over it lightly for awhile, increasing the speed and pressure as her breathing grows more ragged. When her eyes get that unfocused look in them, I skim my fingers over her entrance, teasing her, drawing her close to the edge but not letting her go over it.

  With my free hand, I stroke my thumb across her cheek and mouth. They’re already flushed a deep shade of rose with her impending orgasm.

  “You are so beautiful, Caterine. I cannot imagine the men you have been with, if they didn’t want to see this. Sim and I will treat you better than that.”

  But she isn’t listening anymore. Her ears are filled with the sound of her own rapid breathing.

  “Come for me, beautiful girl.”

  I plunge two fingers deep into her, thrusting in and out. My other hand drops from her face to stroke her clit. My eyes are locked on her face, on her soft lips open and panting. Her hips buck back and forth on my lap. Every time her hips thrust forward, she gets dangerously close to my erection. It takes all my willpower to keep from plunging my cock deep into her liquid heat.

  I want to fuck her even as I know I shouldn’t. It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted a woman this strongly. My desire for Caterine surprises me—and scares me.

  I feel her begin to clench around my fingers as she grinds her clit harder against my hand.

  “Ah ah ah,” she pants. “Alaric. Please.”

  “Come for me, sweetheart. Even harder than last night.”

  With my words, her pussy spasms and a deep shudder rolls through her body. She is exquisite, all porcelain skin and spun silk hair, her cheekbones stained with the heat of her rapture.

  “Alaric,” she gasps and lets her head fall against my chest. “Oh.”

  I know what she’s looking at. My erection is at full mast and, damn, it’s painful. I gently lift her off my lap so I can retreat to the bathroom and take care of it. But before I can stand up, Caterine wraps her hand around me.

  Fuck, it feels good.

  My body is screaming to keep going. My brain is slamming on the brakes.

  “Don’t.” I pull her hand from my cock.

  She lifts her head from my chest and looks me in the eye. “You need it. It’s only fair.”

  “This isn’t about fairness.”

  “You did it for me. Let me do it for you.”

  “No, Caterine. That’s not how this works. I call the shots. If you’re going to work for me, you’re going to have to get used to taking direction.”

  “Who said I was going to work for you? Maybe I haven’t decided.”

  I suck in my breath sharply. She has to work for me. She is Erica. I need her for the book. I need her hands on me.

  Fuck. That’s what I want. There’s no point in denying it to myself. I want Caterine touching me. I want to toss her back onto the bed and spend the morning fucking her. To hell with the hotel’s checkout time.

  What is going on here? Normally, I’m not terribly attracted to the women I hire and, after a month or so, usually stop fucking them for research and let Sim take over exclusively. Sim’s a sex god anyway.

  And since I write all of my books in the third person, watching Sim fuck the assistant gives me a more writerly perspective. It’s hard to find the right words to describe the expression on someone’s face or the sounds they’re making as they come when I have a rock hard erection screaming for release. Not to mention, the women tend to get pissed when I stop mid-stream to take notes.

  Caterine slowly lowers her head to my lap and runs her tongue along my hard length, from my balls to the crown. I groan. My resistance is nearly gone. This is a bad idea, a terrible idea, but all I can think of is Caterine’s mouth on me, her soft pink lips closing around me, her tongue licking up my cum.

  I try one last time, tipping her face up to mine. “Please don’t. You’ll get to do this later. If not for me, then for Sim.”

  “I’ll say yes to the job if you let me do this now.’

  “You’re not going to decline just for that.”

  She lifts one eyebrow as she looks at me.

  Would she? Would Erica put on her clothes and walk out the door? Can I risk it?

  “You don’t know that,” she says. Her fingers curl around the base of my cock. “You could be out both an assistant and a blowjob.”

  Fuckfuckfuck.

  My resolve is hanging by a thread here. She bends her head over me again, this time licking off the bead of moisture on my tip. This is a bad idea, I remind myself.

  You want her too much.

  It’s going to interfere with the writing. But I don’t stop her as she slides her mouth over me.

  I don’t stop her when the tip of my cock brushes the back of her throat. Fuck, she’s taking me deep. I need to stop. This is my beloved Erica who would never … Caterine is sucking now, long and smooth and deep. A thought rises up, tries to gain purchase in the firestorm that is currently my brain.

  She’s done this before.

  Her mouth is too confident, too relaxed. An urge to murder the other men who have fucked her luscious mouth swells in my chest. My stomach burns at the thought of sharing her.

  My thoughts are jumbled now.

  I am going to have to share her.

  How am I going to get any work done with her around?

  Sim is going to love her.

  I need to stop her.

  I need to think all this through …

  She pulls back and swirls her tongue around my tip. I feel it building now, slithering along my spine. I thrust my fingers roughly into her golden crown of hair. I need the wet heat of her mouth around me again.

  “Caterine. Please.”

  She obliges. Her mouth engulfs me, the suction even stronger and tighter, then the climax barrels into my hips and races up my cock.

  Fuck.

  I can’t hold it off. I loosen my grip on her head so she can avoid swallowing.

  “Caterine. You have to stop before I—”

  But it’s too late. I come hard into her mouth, pulsing over and over before she finally relaxes her pretty pink lips and lets me slide out.

  I grab her shoulders and pull her up, closing my thighs around her hips to hold her fast. She moans softly as I kiss her hard. This is no sweet kiss, not even a grateful thanks-for-blowing-me-kiss. This is … I’m not sure what it is, only that I have to do it.

  I am either drunk or losing my mind. Or dreaming. I’m not sure which. When she opens her mouth to me, I know it has to be all three. I thrust my tongue into her mouth, and she lets me tangle it with her own.

  Fuck.

  Her mouth feels as good on my tongue as it did on my cock. Hot. Wet. Hungry.

  You never kiss your assistant.

  No, I don’t. I know what it’s like to kiss a woman, know what every kind of kiss feels like. No research needed there. Only … this is different.

  I’m not kissing her so much as I’m devouring her, trying to open my mouth and swallow her whole. My entire body aches to be filled with her. It is not an unpleasant feeling, but I don’t have the detachment necessary to ponder it beyond that, to put words to it.

  In fact, I want no detachment. I want zero distance between me and this woman’s body right now and I don’t give a flying fuck if the alarm bells going off in my head strip me of my hearing. The damn bells can leave me completely deaf for all I care.

  My. Control. Is. Gone.

  And I don’t care. It all just feels so fucking good. She feels so fucking amazing in my arms.

  A whimper penetrates the crackling electrical storm in my head. Then another.

  Fuck!

  I release her mouth, but keep my legs wrapped around her. I cradle her face in my hands. Her lips are swollen and … bleeding.

  “Shit! I hurt you. I’m sorry.” I look away from her bruised lips. “Fuck. What got into me?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see her tongue flick out and wipe the blood away.

  “It’s okay,” sh
e says quietly.

  “No, it’s not okay, Caterine. Promise me, if I ever behave like that again—if I’m ever biting you—you’ll push me away.”

  Not going to be another time now, loverboy. I’ve scared her away, I know it.

  “It was my fault. You didn’t want me to do that and I did it anyway.” Her eyes are dark with regret.

  I let my hands caress her shoulders and arms, as much to soothe myself as her. My palms cup her soft bottom and for a moment an image of me turning her over my knee flashes before me.

  It was her fault. I asked her nicely not to and promised her she could do it at another time. She had disobeyed me anyway. It would feel so good to punish her. I feel my cock stiffening again.

  Not that I’m normally into that sort of thing. But my editor asked me to write it into the storyline three books back. So I did.

  Sim has taken to it more than I have. I’ve always suspected that particular assistant had gotten “punished” more in the carriage house than in my book. But that was Sim for you. If he wants to turn a lovely ass red, women will let him do it.

  I slide my hands back up to her waist, a safer location. I’ve fucked this up enough already, no point in getting charged with assault too.

  Caterine places her palm lightly on my chest. “I’m sorry, Alaric. I didn’t realize you would react like that. None of the other guys … they just came and it was over.” She sighs and lets her hand fall from my chest. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

  If she mentions the “other guys” again, I truly will turn her over my knee. Then hunt them down.

  “Can I still have the job?” she asks quietly.

  I snap out of my BDSM daydreams. She wants the job.

  She. Fucking. Wants. The. Job.

  I have my Erica. I found her and she’s coming home with me to Maine. A heavy weight lifts from my heart. Life is good again.

  “Yes. Of course, you may have the job, Caterine.” I smile warmly at her, a happy warmth I feel from head to toe. “I never wanted anyone else.”

  10

  Alaric

  Kristin rushes at me the minute I step into the hospital’s waiting area. I give her a tight hug and kiss her on the cheek. She looks like hell, though I don’t say so.

  Her hair is coming loose from its ponytail. Her normally bright and lively eyes are shadowed with dark circles. Her khaki shorts and button down shirt are as wrinkled as a Shar-Pei’s face.

  “Have you been sleeping here?” I ask, stepping out of the hug.

  “I did last night. He’s in terrible shape, Alaric.”

  I glance around the spacious, airy waiting room. “Has anyone else been in to see him?”

  Meaning any of his old paramours, his bastard offspring … mine and Kristin’s half siblings.

  “A couple board members. His old assistant. You remember Jack, right?”

  I nod. I remember Jack vaguely. I try not to remember much about my childhood or my father or White Chocolate. If it weren’t for Kristin, I would have cut all ties years ago.

  “He wants to see you. By yourself.”

  I sigh. Best to just get this over with. Caterine is at her house in Greencastle, packing. I told her not to bring much. If she needs something she didn’t bring, I will purchase it for her. As soon as I leave the hospital, I will backtrack down I-81 to pick her up.

  Fuck it.

  Nothing my father can say at this point will dampen my mood. I have my Erica. My book is back on track. The funk Sim has been in all summer—well, ever since Annabeth left—will lift. A woman’s presence always brightens his mood.

  Although I haven’t told Sim yet that I am definitely bringing Caterine home. I don’t want to give Sim two whole days to prepare and work himself up into full Sex Zeus mode. I’d rather catch Sim drunk and in his ratty old college sweats. He’s somewhat less attractive in that state.

  “Okay.” I kiss my sister on the cheek again. “I’ll go see him.”

  I push open the door to my father’s room.

  When I’m old, I’m going to drown myself in the frigid Atlantic off the coast of Maine.

  I hate hospital rooms. My father’s room is a private one, naturally, but even Weston White’s immense fortune can’t make death significantly more luxurious for him. The wallpaper is nicer, the television bigger, the meals probably tastier.

  But he’s going to die in an ordinary hospital bed, hooked up to the same kind of IVs that the little people suffer.

  My father’s eyes are closed, his breathing raspy under the thin green gown. I try to control my anger. I take a long, deep breath—and nearly choke on the stale, antiseptic air in the room. The perfume of sickness. Of death.

  I’m not here to fight old battles with my father. Nor to make peace with the old man. I have no desire for that. I’m here simply to hear out whatever my father has to say. I doubt it will involve writing me back into the will.

  Nor do I care about that, either. I don’t need his money. Most likely my father has summoned me here to intone something utterly banal like, “Take care of your sister, son.”

  I will do that, if the day ever arrives when Kristin needs taking care of. So far, she’s been pretty good at taking care of herself. She runs White Chocolate and does … well, nothing else really. She runs the business. She has never married nor showed any inclination to.

  I understand why. She’s terrified of ending up like our mother, trapped in a union that would slowly, year by year, kill her.

  I have no plans to marry either. For the opposite reason. I’m terrified of ending up like my father, unable to settle for just one woman, always on the lookout for the next prettiest, the next sexiest, the next most adoring thing. And with the money to get it, that’s a real danger.

  “Son.” My father’s eyes are open now but creased with pain as he turns his head to look at me.

  “Father,” I reply, though it fills my mouth with bile just to say the word.

  “I’m dying.” Weston White attempts a smile. “I lived a good life. Even if some would disagree.”

  I would disagree, but whatever.

  “We all go sometime,” he replies blandly.

  I try to think if I’ve ever had a real conversation with my father. Weston White isn’t a conversing kind of guy. Mostly he gives orders and people follow.

  “But I’ve made mistakes too, like everybody,” my father continues. “And I want to make amends where I can.” He falls into a gasping fit of coughs. I find the nurse’s button but my father recovers. “Before I go,” he ends.

  I suspect I know what my father is feeling so guilty about on his deathbed. I’m not sure, however, what there is to be done now. Establish a foundation or scholarship trust in my mother’s name? Buy some engraved marble benches for a library?

  Nothing could bring my mother back or retroactively make her life an easier, happier one.

  My father struggles to raise his arm. “Over there. On the table.” He sinks back into the pillows, clearly exhausted.

  I stride over to the console beneath the television. I touch a large kraft envelope. “This?”

  “Yes,” my father wheezes.

  “What’s in here?”

  A new will? At this late date?

  “When I was a boy—a teenager, seventeen I think—I saw this little girl at the pond,” he says. “You remember the old swimming pond outside town? And I don’t know. Something about her just bugged me. One day, when it was too crowded for the lifeguards to keep an eye on everybody, I tried to drown her.”

  “What?”

  “Almost succeeded, too. Fortunately,” he sucks in ragged breaths. “She survived. They revived her at the hospital. I managed to get away without anyone seeing me. No one ever found out who did it.”

  “She didn’t turn you in?” The Whites are hardly an anonymous family in the area.

  “No. She didn’t know who I was. She wasn’t local. She was just visiting an aunt for a few weeks.”

  I pick up the envelope. “What�
��s that got to do with this?”

  “Inside are all the newspaper articles about the event. With her name and some details about her. Where she lived, that sort of thing. I want you to find her and apologize for me.”

  “You couldn’t apologize yourself before now? When you were able?”

  Weston White snorts. “And have her sue me? And jeopardize you and your sister’s inheritance?”

  “I thought you wrote me out of the will when I went to college.”

  “The attorney has instructions for your inheritance if you do this one thing for me.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Your sister loses her inheritance, too.”

  I slam the envelope down hard on the table. “Fuck you. Kristin has nothing to do with anything between us.”

  Weston White looks coolly at me. Even on his deathbed, his glare could freeze a volcano. And I’m on the verge of erupting. My father is going to be a dick to the bitter end. As in life, so in death.

  “What if I can’t find this woman? She may have moved out of state. She might be dead. Then what?”

  “Anyone can be found if you look hard enough. If she is dead, then apologize to her family. You’ll figure it out.”

  “And how will the attorney know if I do this?”

  “You’ll take a video while you do it. Give that to him.”

  “You are crazy,” I’m nearly shouting now. I hear fast footsteps squeaking down the waxed hallway outside. The door to my father’s room bursts open, followed by a nurse and my sister.

  “What’s going on here?” the nurse barks.

  Kristin glares at me. I snatch up the envelope and make for the door.

  “I’m being blackmailed for your inheritance.” I stand between the open door and the doorjamb. “I’ll let you know what happens.”

  Fuck.

  It’s good the English language has a word with so many meanings, applicable to so many situations in life.

  I sit in my BMW in the hospital parking lot, my entire body trembling with rage. I’m in no shape to drive, but I have to go pick up Caterine. If I postpone our departure until tomorrow, she might think better of her decision. A really great orgasm could make people do stupid things. I have no doubt that her best friend, the one I signed the book for, is trying to talk her out of it right now.