At just barely 5’3” I have to crawl into the back of my mother’s Lincoln to reach the packs of bottled water. Tugging them inch by inch until my foot meets the bumper. One second my toe touches the concrete garage floor and next I find myself being caught beneath my arms with nothing but a piece of plastic in my fingertips.
“Whoa there princess! I got you.”
Sterling.
Without an ounce of effort he steadies me on my feet.
Righting my clothing, this time the smile on my face is anything but fake. I’m always happy to see Sterling, a little giddy actually. I bestow a slight bow of my head as I pretend to curtsy before him. “I thank you for saving me kind Prince.”
He chuckles a quiet laugh before leaning in and whispering “never a Prince, Katarina.” Tucking some fallen strands behind my ear he continues, “some are born Kings…I’m one of them.” Not sure if it was his words or the warm contact I felt when his fingertips met my temple, but my skin pebbles with goosebumps.
“I do believe that when a King saves a Princess she’s indebted to him.”
There’s a look in his eyes that intrigue me. Maybe I’m seeing what I want to see, but then again maybe not. “Oh really?”
“Mmmhmm.” He replies.
“What kind of repayment are we talking about here?” I ask while reaching out with hesitant fingers and take his left hand in my right and start tracing each of his long fingers with my much smaller ones. His eyes look down to where our flesh touches, slowly turning his hand over he rubs his finger back and forth over my palm. This is the first time we’ve shared such an intimate touch.
“Kat where’s the water—Uncle Sterling!”
I jump when my sister comes through the back door of the garage, pulling my hand away from Sterling’s. But, before I can put more distance between us he brings my hand to his mouth and kisses the same palm he had just been caressing.
Angelina looks between him and I as if she’s questioning what she’d just seen.
“Uhh yeah, they’re right here.” I point towards the packs still in the back of the vehicle like she couldn’t see them for herself.
“I’ve gotta grab the napkins. Get the water out there, daddy wants the coolers restocked…even though they’re drinking more booze than water, but whatever.”
“Yeah, whatever.” I say as she walks away leaving Sterling and I alone once more.
Reaching for the water Sterling nudges me aside and picks up both packs. “Where do they go?” he asks.
“I can do it—”
“Katarina?” his voice taking on an authoritative tone that stops my words instantly.
“Yeah?”
His face sober, and tone stern. “Where do they go?”
Clearing the sudden lump in my throat, I try to ignore the way my tummy flutters whenever he looks at me. The man’s not only my father’s best friend but he’s twenty-three years my senior. But, there’s always been this underlying attraction, a draw I’ve had to this man. He was never my uncle, I’ve never called him uncle like my sisters do. What I took as a silly childhood crush morphed into something so much more, and it’s still far from fleeting.
He follows me through the backyard towards the coolers, towards my father.
“Sterling!” My father slaps him on the back. “Where’ve ya been?”
His eyes meet my own and he answers without looking away from. “Seems there was a princess that needed rescuing.” My blush warms my face and it takes all I have not to giggle like a child. He’s flirting with me, the man is actually flirting with me, and in front of my father no less.
Bending down I hurriedly put the water bottles into the coolers, pushing them beneath the ice the best I can.
“Katarina.” Sterling offers me his hand, I take it and stand in front of him.
“Sterling, happy to see you. About time too.” My mother hugs him and it’s impossible not to notice how he keeps ahold of my small hand in his much larger one. “I was sorry to hear about it not working out with Sarah.”
What? He and Sarah had broken up? My pulse picks up and I know he feels it when his finger rubs over the pounding pulse point on my wrist.
“What can I say? We’re better off as friends.”
“With benefits, right?” My father laughs at his one joke like a total schmuck.
Sterling’s eyes meet mine briefly before he looks at my father, and accepts the beer my mother hands him—which of course causes him to release my hand. “Not really my thing any longer. I’m not some horny college kid, Ron.” He takes a long pull from the beer in his hand. “I can wait for what I want.”
“And, what’s that?” I say before my brain has enough time to keep up with my mouth. “Sorry, none of my business.”
“No, no, I’d like to know the answer to that as well.” My mother says. “There’s been Tracey, the beautiful accountant—”
“Just wasn’t the right fit.”
“Rebecca the redheaded bartender with the big—”
“Mom!” I yell when she motions towards her breast with her hands. She’s obviously had more than a few glasses of wine.
“Just wasn’t the right fit.”
“Umm who else was there?” Her freshly manicured red tipped fingernail taps her teeth making me cringe at the clicking sound the acrylic nail makes on the teeth. It’s a habit, and she does it often, I cringe often in other words.
My father interjects. “There was Michelle, Sandra, Kelly—the blonde, and Kelly the brunette,” he laughs. “And…Sarah.”
Sterling has the decency to redden from the long list of women he’s sampled in the last year or so. But, why shouldn’t he? He’s handsome, successful, and sexy as hell. Of course women fall over themselves just to get to him. Or in my case they fall out of a Lincoln Navigator.
“Just,” his eyes are locked on my own. “None were the right fit.”
“And, why not?” My mouth is on a mission to embarrass me tonight apparently, and the rest of me is merely along for the ride.
My mother interjects. “Really though, Sterling. What are you looking for that none of these women had?”
He rubs the back of his neck and looks flustered. A feeling I know all too well under my mother’s interrogation tactics. When he looks up I don’t even attempt to look away when he speaks. “They were all beautiful women. All wonderful in their own right, but not for me—”
My father interrupts, “since when is a gorgeous woman not your type?”
“Gorgeous? Yes.” Sterling releases a deep sigh as if he’s defeated. “I want a woman who needs me as much as she wants me. All those women you named were beautiful creatures but none of them allowed me to care for them like I wanted.”
“Sexually?” My mother smacks my father in the chest as soon as the word leaves his mouth.
“Sexually, emotionally, financially, every way you can think of. Call me a caveman, but I want to take care of my woman.”
“Like how?” Dammit why can’t I shut-up?
“Run her bath in the morning before I leave for work. Light the candles, sprinkle the bath salts, leave her with pancakes and…a smile. I want to come home and she’s there waiting for me, actually excited that I’m back with her where I belong. Her wishes, her dreams will become mine to give to her. That’s what I want.
I won’t apologize for wanting a princess. Every woman until now has been a woman I thought I should have, thought I could love, but didn’t. The thing is I don’t want children—not only now, but ever. Call me selfish but I don’t want to share the woman I love. Just her and I for the next eighty years or so.” He smiles at me and I nearly melt. “She’ll want for nothing that I won’t get for her. She’ll need nothing I can’t give her…all I ask is that she lets me.”
Nobody says a word. We’re all shocked by his words. None of us knew he was such a hopeless romantic—even if a bit unconventional. And, never and I mean absolutely never has my heart beaten faster than it is at this moment.
I coul
d be that woman.
I want to be that woman.
Chapter Three
Sterling
Sitting on the edge of the pool with my legs in the water, I finish the last of my beer. As if on cue Ronnie sits next me handing me another bottle as he cracks open his own.
“Quite a crowd showed up tonight.”
“Another success.” I say as I tap the neck of my bottle against his. “You land the Micheal’s account?”
“He wants to meet first thing Monday morning, so I’m thinking it’s in the bag.”
We tap longnecks once more.
Everyone has left for the night. It’s just Ronnie and I by the pool, his wife and daughters are picking up the lone glasses, bottles and plates scattered around the yard. I try my damnedest not to stare at Katarina as she traipses around in the tiniest pair of denim shorts and flimsy pink camisole that has a rainbow colored unicorn on it that reads: I fart glitter! It’s so stupid it’s funny.
“Night, daddy.” Angelina says as she kisses Ron on the cheek before waving to me. “Nice to see you, Sterling.” I nod my goodbye.
“She leaves for Columbia in two weeks.”
“Last year right?”
“Yeah, and she’s only part-time this year. She could’ve wrapped it up this next semester, but why rush her, I figure. College years are some of the best after all. Isabella is switching her major—”
“Again?” I laugh.
“Yes. I don’t even know what the hell she’s doing now. Something about Medieval and Renaissance history or rather.” He shakes his head but still wears a smile. “She’ll find her way eventually, I’m sure of it.” His sigh is loud and clearly frustration is pouring out. “It’s really Kat who worries me.”
Kat. I’ve always hated that her family calls her that. It’s not as beautiful as Katarina. “How so?” Staring at the bubbles that swirl around my feet I ask nonchalantly. “Why are you worried about Katarina?”
“Look at her, Sterling.” I do as he says and pray that the twitch in my pants remains secret. “She’s a girl in a woman’s body.”
“Ron, come on man. Katarina’s twenty years old. She’s a woman in a woman’s body.”
“Is she though? She sunbathes by the pool most days soaking up cotton candy clouds or some shit she always says. Christ she’s wearing a farting unicorn shirt.”
I chuckle. “Come on Ron, it’s funny.” He rolls his eyes at me.
“She has one with the Pillsbury Dough Boy on it that says: Poke me…I don’t even need a ring first.” Shaking his head he slips deep into dad mode. “She doesn’t want to go to college—even though her mother and I have practically bribed her to do so. There’s been one job after another. The girl expects the world to revolve around her, we’re merely here to cater to what Kat wants. I know, I know, Rosemary and I did it to her.” Ron runs his hand through his hair something he does when he’s nervous. I’ve known him long enough to recognize the gesture for what it really is. “She was just so small, and nine weeks early. For weeks—no, for months we weren’t sure if she was going to make it. Then, she turned one, then two, and three. But, she was always so much smaller than the other kids her age. She was just so…”
“Delicate.” I finish for him.
“Exactly. And now, she’s still delicate in my eyes. I can’t take care of her forever even if she is my baby. I guess that’s what worries me. Isabella and Angelina will take care of themselves. Both are strong independent women, even if Isabella’s somewhat flighty.” His laugh is weak and far from convincing. “But, Kat…she’s not like them. She needs someone to take care of her. She’s so naive, and still so immature in so many ways. I just don’t know.”
“Any man would be lucky to have Katarina’s heart, Ron. I think you’re worried about things that need no worrying. Each of your girls will find their way, give them time. There’s still men out there who are looking for a woman to take care of, look at me. Hell, it’s why I broke it off with Sarah.” What I don’t say is how I’d love to be the one to take care of Katarina. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do to hold that woman’s heart. Of course I don’t say those words aloud.
Ron slaps me on the back. “If only you were twenty years younger, Sterling.”
His words replay in my head as I watch Ron walk towards the house.
He’s right. I’m too old for her. Although, I don’t feel too old.
He’s my best friend, best friend’s daughters are off limits. Although, she doesn’t feel off limits.
“What are you sitting here thinking about all by yourself?”
Speak of the devil.
I think about lying, but I don’t. “You.”
Her eyes widen, and those full lips form the cutest little ‘O’ shape as she looks up at me. She’s sitting in the very spot her father just vacated, but I have to look down to speak to her.
“You look so surprised.” I say.
“Why would you be thinking about…me?”
Setting down my beer behind her I start to play with a string that hangs from the bottom of her cut denim shorts. “Why wouldn’t I be?” Her shrug is as adorable as the freckles that cover the bridge of her nose. “I was thinking that of all the women here tonight you were absolutely the most beautiful.”
“Nuh-uh.” She says and I chuckle.
Leaning into her until my shoulder hits hers I reply, “uh-huh.”
“Night you two!” Ron yells from the backdoor. “Sterling, you’re staying in the spare room right?”
“Yes, sir.” I yell back and wave. I’ve had a few too many drinks to drive home tonight. I’ll pass out in the spare room and head home in the morning. Nothing I haven’t done a dozen times before.
“Kat, make sure he gets to his room please.”
“Fall asleep in a lawn chair one time and nobody forgets.”
Ron’s laugh can be heard as he slides the patio door closed. Asshole. Shaking my head at how funny he thinks he is.
“I remember that day.” Amusement clear in her voice.
“You should it was your graduation day.”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, and my intoxication was your fault.”
“My fault?” her eyes widen. “You getting so drunk that you passed out on the lawn was my fault how exactly?”
“You had that boy with you. The one that kept copping a feel at every chance.” Her mouth drops open. “What? It’s true. I wanted to break both of his arms when he hugged you from behind. For chrissake I wanted to snap every one of his fingers when he slipped his hands into your back pockets. Who does that shit in front of an audience?”
“Boyfriends do that shh…stuff.”
Our eyes lock. “He was your boyfriend?”
“Uh-huh.” Those big blues of hers hold a look of innocence as she answers.
“You don’t have a boyfriend now do you?”
When she shakes her head, those wild strands hang in her face, and I once again tuck them behind her ear.
My height compared to hers is significant and has me looking straight down the line of cleavage between her ample breast. Katarina has filled out over the years, her father was right about that. She certainly does have a woman’s body. A soft, luscious woman’s body. One curve after another, all packed into her short frame. Dirty blonde tresses nearly brown rest atop her head in one of those popular messy buns, stray strands here and there wave in the breeze catching my eye. Her skin is sun kissed and holds a golden tan, no doubt the same way she got the freckles on her pert nose and full cheeks.
One well defined eyebrow arches when I let my hand curl around the inside of one thick thigh. “And, you don’t have a…Sarah now do you?”
She knows the answer to that already, but I shake my head anyways.
Her cheeks pinken, and she worries her bottom lip as she looks at the place my hand resides high on her thigh. My thumb stroking the soft flesh on the inside of her left leg only to let it wander to her right occasionally. Feeling such an intim
ate part of her body has my cock hardening, the way she’s nibbling on her lip isn’t helping me hide my erection. Soon enough my khaki cargo shorts are tented, and I know Katarina can see how she effects me.
“What’s that?” she asks as her eyes take in the bulge beneath my zipper.
“I think we both know what that is, don’t we?”
Her cheeks darken even more. When her bottom lip pops free from the confines of her teeth, her mouth stays parted as she stares at my hard-on like it’s bound to do something spectacular. There’s innocence written all over her body language, it calls to me, draws me in and holds me.
We Love Kink - Erotic Romance Anthology #1 Page 25