by Kay Harris
Alice laughed. “No. We’re not close like that. He’s like a brother to me. It was you who brought us together, actually.”
“What about the candle spokesman guy? I saw that you came to the party with him.”
Alice turned the glass in her hands, the sweat streaked off on her palm. “It’s complicated.”
“How so?”
“We’re friends. But he did something that really pissed me off recently. We came here together because we made the plans before…But now…”
Greta reached a hand across the space between them and set it gently on Alice’s knee. The touch was comforting and friendly. “So just forgive him.”
“You make it sound so easy. He nearly destroyed a relationship that is very important to me.”
“Okay. First of all, I think it is that easy. After all, you’re sitting here talking to me, right?”
Alice let out a breath. “I walked into that one. But, it has been like two years since all that went down between us. It’s been less than a week since this happened.”
“So why did he do it?”
Alice shrugged.
“Was he jealous?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then why?”
Alice took three deep breaths. The answer sat on her chest like an unopened box. She knew it. But she hadn’t yet admitted it to herself. “He…he wants me to be happy.”
Greta leaned back on the lounger. Even through the dusky night air Alice could tell she’d surprised her. “Well, shit, Alice. If that isn’t a good reason, I don’t know what is.”
Despite the anxiety crawling in her stomach, Alice laughed. “I guess you have a point.”
“Hell, yes, I do. Come on, girl. I think a week is plenty long. Let the guy off the hook.” Greta patted her knee. Her gaze reached past Alice’s shoulder and she grinned. “It looks like you’re about to get the chance, too.” She stood. “I’m gonna take off.”
Greta leaned over and kissed her cheek. Then she was gone.
Seconds later, Darius sat in her place, perched on the side of the lounger. “May I?”
“Not to be critical, but people usually ask before they sit down.”
He chuckled. “Good point. Should I leave then?”
“No. Stay. I need to talk to you, anyway.”
Darius leaned back, resting his broad upper body on straightened arms propped behind him. “Who was that?” He jerked his chin in the direction of the door.
“One of my ex-girlfriends, actually.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“Why she told me to be good to you as we passed.”
Alice looked behind her, but Greta was gone. “She’s a good person. Though there was a time I didn’t think so. Not that it matters now. I forgave her.” She turned back to Darius, trying to find the sparkle of his blue eyes in the dim light, but failing. “And I forgive you for telling Kyle about me.”
His sigh of relief was heavy in the night air. “Thank you.”
Alice pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “You should thank her, actually.”
“I will.” Darius moved his large body swiftly so he sat beside Alice, thigh-to-thigh, hip-to-hip.
She could see him better with his face just inches from hers. His handsome features were thrown into sharp relief by the dim lighting.
“Hi,” she said.
“Alice. I really like you.”
A giggle escaped her lips. “You sound like you’re in high school.”
“I know. That’s what I wanted to tell you when we were both in high school. “I’ve been waiting like ten years to say that.”
“I still can’t believe you wanted scrawny, little me back then.”
Darius put his thumb and forefinger on opposite sides of her chin and moved closer. “We really have a lot of work to do on that self-image of yours.”
“Hmmm. Help me out.” Alice closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his.
****
Kissing Alice was everything Darius had ever dreamed it would be. Her small body pressed against his. Her mouth and tongue were aggressive. She pushed at him with her tiny hands until he was lying back on the chaise lounge and she was straddling his muscular thighs.
He was on fire. Alice crawled on his body and moved her hands against him frantically while their mouths melded together. A soft groan escaped his throat and it only seemed to spur Alice on.
Her smooth fingers made their way under his waistband. Roughly, she tugged his cotton shirt out and pressed her palms against his abs.
“Oh, wow,” she whispered against his mouth.
He pulled back, just the tiniest amount. “What?” Amusement danced in his voice.
“They feel just like I imagined they would.”
Darius ran his hand over her back and stopped just short of cupping her perfect bottom. “What does?”
“Your abs. I’ve been looking at these things.” She gave them a squeeze. “All oiled up and on display for weeks now. And I have been dying to get my hands on them.”
Darius chuckled. “Glad I could oblige.”
Alice grinned at him. “I like this making out stuff.”
Darius nibbled on her ear. “Me, too.”
“Here’s the thing.” Alice pulled her hands off his stomach then propped herself up on his chest.
Darius moved his head back and met her gaze in the darkness. “I’m listening.”
“I want to make a deal with you.”
“Okay. What are you offering?”
“I will stop screening potential spouses.”
“You mean you’ll stop going on dates?”
Alice nodded. “Yes.”
“I love it. What’s the deal part?”
“We have to take things slowly, you and me.”
“Of course.”
“I mean, I’m just…This is a curve in the road, you know.”
Darius tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “You never struck me as a planner when we were kids. I mean, you were always ready to do whatever at the drop of a hat, you agreed to marry Kyle on a whim, you ran off to California just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“All that changed when I got out on my own. Didn’t my list prove that?”
“Yeah. I guess it did.”
“I’ve been thrown a lot of curveballs lately. And I need to regain a feeling of control in my life. And you make me feel a little out of control. So just be patient with me, okay?”
“Of course.”
Alice pulled herself off Darius. He immediately felt her loss. She held her hand out to him. “Let’s go find Everett. If we’re going to start something up, we better get the big brother thing over with.”
MAY
Chapter 11
“Are you planning to actually spend time with your family?”
Alice huffed and easily ducked under Darius’ arm to move into his condo. “I spent all damn day with them.”
He closed the door and approached her slowly. He had not been expecting her, and his place was a bit of a mess. He picked up loose items scattered about on his way across the room, depositing them in a pile on a small table out of the way.
Alice plopped onto his couch. Her expression held the same look of frustration she’d had since her mother and two aunts had come to stay with her last week. Darius desperately wanted to wipe that look off her face.
“Today we went shopping for things to fill my new place with,” she said.
Darius sat down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I thought you didn’t want them making those kinds of decisions. You said they always railroad you.”
Alice tucked herself into his side. “They do. And I don’t want them decorating my home. But they have been here for four days, and they haven’t stopped complaining that my existing stuff is not sufficient to fill the new place.”
“I guess that’s what you get for upgrading from a studio to a two bedroo
m, Babe.” Darius kissed the top of her head and wondered again how she was able to change her financial situation so drastically. She was either really frugal, had gotten a big bonus from Tranquility lately, or both.
Alice sighed and reached up to bury her face in the crook of his neck. Darius rubbed her back gently.
“Only two more days and they’ll go home. You might miss them when they’re gone,” he said.
Alice ignored his comment and went to work on nibbling a path from his shoulder to his ear with her soft mouth.
“You are so good at distracting me,” he said.
Alice snuck her small hand under the hem of his shirt and rubbed his abs. “Good. Kiss me.” She looked up at him with liquid eyes and perfect lips, and there was no way he was going to resist.
He fell back on the couch, letting Alice crawl on top of him, just the way she liked. She wrestled with his shirt until he reluctantly stopped kissing her long enough to pull it off. As he laid back down on the couch, she sat on his thighs and ran her eyes and her fingers over his chest and stomach.
“Honestly, Darius, this is ridiculous.”
“Not to be a dick, but I’m out of shape. My muscles were much harder and more defined when I was playing.” Alice let out a soft moan and started to lean down, but he stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Wait. What about your shirt?”
She grinned at him, reached for the waist of her blouse and pulled it off in one spectacular move. Darius ran his hands from her sides, up her ribcage, to her bra. He ran large thumbs over her small, hard nipples.
Alice maintained eye contact with him even as she shivered. “I like the less in shape version,” she said softly.
“What?”
“Alice ran one hand slowly from the base of his neck to the top of his jeans. “I think the football player version would be a little too much for me. Retired quarterback is perfect.”
“Are you just saying that to make me happy? You are a notorious people-pleaser, Alice.”
Her eyes grew wide and she shook her head. “No. Do you…do you think I say things I don’t mean just to make people happy?”
“Yes.”
Alice bit her lip. She seemed to be mulling that over. All the while her hands continued to make a path across his torso, and his thumbs continued to explore the boundaries of her bra.
“I guess I do. But not to you. I am pretty brutally honest with you, wouldn’t you agree?”
Darius remembered all the times she’d turned him down flatly, and he chuckled. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.”
Alice leaned down and brought her lips within a breath of his. “Poor Darius.”
“Yeah. Poor Darius,” he whispered before leaning up and taking her mouth with his again.
Eventually, he coaxed the lacy bra off her. She unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. Their kisses were frantic and deep, their bodies rubbed roughly against one another.
Panting, Alice pulled away and stared down at him again, her legs balanced on his large thighs. She reached into his jeans and took hold of him. Darius threw his head back into the couch and groaned softly.
“I know we said we’d go slow.” Her voice was soft and rough. “But I really want to watch you come.”
Darius almost came right then. He took hard breaths. “Only if you come first.”
“Okay.” She agreed, but she didn’t stop touching him.
Darius sat up quickly, forcing Alice’s hand out of his jeans. “Then you have to keep your hands to yourself for a minute, Babe.”
Alice weighed less than half what Darius did, and he easily stood up with her in his arms and turned them so she lay on the couch and he towered over her on his hands and knees.
Alice didn’t speak as he kissed a path from her shoulder, over both breasts, and down to the top of her leggings. Her heavy breaths were all that accompanied his movements as he stripped the cotton pants off her slowly, kissing and nuzzling the exposed skin as he went. A sharp intake of air was all she gave him as he pulled off her bright purple panties and settled his broad shoulders between her thin thighs.
But when he put his mouth on her, she started talking. She called out his name. She told him how amazing he was. She listed his attributes, his lips, tongue, and incredible skills at using both. Darius paused a few times as she came close to climax just because he didn’t want the litany of praise to stop. No commentator, no fan, no coach had ever made him feel so good at anything as Alice did about this.
Finally, he let her come. She cried out several times before falling into a pattern of deep, smooth breaths. Darius tried to match her demeanor by kissing softly up her belly, skipping her breasts and moving up her sternum, the touches gentle and calming.
But by the time he reached her lips, Alice had other ideas. She kissed him hard. “Your turn. Or rather, it’s my turn to make you come.”
She pushed at his chest. He obeyed her wishes by kneeling on the couch. Her hips fit between his knees easily as she scooted down. She smiled up at him as she pulled his jeans down over his ass, completely exposing himself to her.
He was harder than he’d ever been in his life, and when she took him in her hand his whole body reacted. Alice smiled wider. Her gaze turned to her work. He kept his focus on her face as she concentrated on her task. Her hands, arms, and even her shoulders moved. Her bottom lip was planted firmly beneath her teeth, and her eyes stayed on his lower half.
She looked like she was making a work of art, or fixing a clock, or writing a thesis. It was only enjoying this view that kept Darius from losing it earlier than he did. But with no way to resist Alice, he came hard, calling out her name over and over. He lost track of what he was saying as his orgasm hit him like a train.
It wasn’t until it was over that he realized what a colossal mess he’d made. “Oh shit, Baby. I’m sorry.” He leaned down and kissed Alice.
“Good God, for what?”
He looked pointedly at her chest. Alice laughed. “Sign of a good time, right?”
“Hmmm. You want to take a shower?”
She nodded. Darius moved to standing, then helped Alice off the couch. As she headed for the bathroom, she looked over her shoulder. “Wanna join me?”
He did. But he shook his head. “Not a good way to take it slow.”
She nodded and turned away.
Fifteen minutes later, Alice emerged from the shower. She was back in the clothes she’d come to his house in. Her wet hair hung heavily over her blouse, making little wet spots on it.
“Why didn’t your dad come to visit as well?” he asked.
She sat next to him on the couch and put her hand on his knee. “He and I don’t really have much of a relationship. In fact, I’m not sure he has a relationship with anyone.”
Darius understood what she meant. Robert Bando was a stoic man. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
She shrugged. “I have Everett. Big brother slash kind of father figure. I mean, I guess he’d be more of a father figure if he were older and more mature. He’s kind of an ass. Like a big brother.” She grinned. “What about you and your dad? What’s the story there?”
Darius picked up Alice’s hand and kissed the knuckles. Then he held it over his heart. “So, he’s one of those football dads, you know?”
“Is that like a pageant mom?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. Kind of. He was always on the sidelines. But he wasn’t really cheering me on so much as keeping the pressure on me to be the best. He played football in high school, but he never made the varsity team, never went anywhere. So when he figured out I was good, he pinned all of it on me, you know?”
“What about Derek?”
Darius tried not to let his surprise show as Alice said his brother’s name. “He got the best end of the bargain, though I doubt he sees it that way. With all the focus on me, Derek could do whatever he wanted, and my dad would be proud. No pressure. Derek made varsity, and my dad threw him a party. When I made varsity, I got a lecture about not fucking it up.
Derek decided to become a mechanic, and my dad paid for him to go to a trade school. I got a full ride scholarship to one of the top schools in the country, and my dad told me not to fuck it up.”
Alice tilted her head and frowned. “That’s not fair.”
“Life’s not fair. You know that better than most.”
“I don’t know. I don’t have much to complain about.”
He thought she did: cold father, a mother who’d never accepted her sexuality, a string of bullies waiting to make her miserable about it, and moving across the country all alone at a young age. It sounded pretty shitty to him. “No?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I have a good job that I excel at. I have a chosen family who loves me unconditionally. I have great friends. And I have a hot boyfriend to sneak off and make out with. I’m pretty lucky, actually.”
He leaned forward. “Well, when you put it like that…” Darius kissed the woman he was lucky to have.
****
Alice closed the front door carefully, cringing when the dumb thing squeaked just before clicking shut.
“So, who did you sneak off to see?”
Alice jumped and whirled around. Her mother perched on a brand new barstool, her arms resting on the island. Alice walked to the other side of the granite countertop and plunked the keys down. “Sneaking off. Mom, really? I’m an adult.”
“You left late at night, and you’re coming back at five-thirty in the morning. I would call that sneaking off.”
“What are you even doing up at this hour?”
Annaisha Bando, a small, quiet woman who went by Anna and bowed to her husband’s wishes, looked stern this morning. She inclined her head toward the counter behind Alice on the far wall of the kitchen. “Making coffee.”
Alice glanced behind her to see the coffeemaker hard at work. She turned back to her mother. “I have a…person in my life.”
Anna leaned forward, her skinny arms supporting her on the counter. “So tell me about them?”
“What do you want to know first? Gender, I suppose.” Alice knew the words had come out of her mouth with undisguised bitterness.