We’ve been in this position before, discovering one another, but tonight feels different. The kisses linger, speaking without words. I want this woman more than anything in the world. Only her and this night.
I press her to lay on her back, and then travel down her body, sprinkling kisses on her shoulder, at her neck, and down her chest. I suck each breast once before continuing lower. My teeth find the band of her underwear, and I tug one side while my fingers pull down the other. My nose skims over her hip bone. She’s too thin, and I suck at the projection a moment before continuing to lower.
“Honey,” I state, knowing she’ll be sweet and dripping when I meet her center.
“Oh God,” she moans, and I haven’t even touched her.
“You ready for this, Bee?” I ask, a smile curling my lips, which latch onto her before she even answers. I delve into her, savoring the nectar and devouring her essence. She whines and whimpers, combing fingers through my barely-there hair. Without cognizant words, she begs me to take her to the edge, but there’s no way I’d stop until she reaches it. Her heel presses into my shoulder blade as her thighs tremble and then she cries out my name in a soft, thrusting purr. With a last lick and a final kiss, I rub my nose down her thigh before climbing back up her body. She’s melted wax from a hot candle, and her smile says it all.
“Did you enjoy that?” I flirt, knowing the answer. The foot that found my back hooks over my hip, nudging me toward her.
“Condom?” I ask, knowing this is a tricky question. I don’t carry them around lately, and I’m assuming Beverly doesn’t have them stashed in a drawer.
“It’s been too long,” she states, her voice low and choked, embarrassed by her lack of practice. My fingers find her chin as I roll to my side, forcing her to look up at me.
“None of that matters.” I’m actually thrilled I’ll be her first in a long time. “But we need to be safe.”
It’s been a while for me as well, though not near as long as Beverly.
“I can’t get pregnant,” she states, her eyes closing with the thought. “After losing a few, the doctors tied my tubes. I didn’t want to risk any more failures.”
“Not failures, Bee. Angels not ready for this earth.”
She nods and swallows thickly.
“I’ll need you to trust that I’m clean.”
Her eyes pop open, giving me a long look.
“We can stop if you want,” I offer. I’ll get a test, I’ll prove myself, but her eyes tell me there’s nothing she wants less than more time.
“I’m good, if you’re good. I…” I swallow back my own admission. “I’ve never done it like this.” Never been tempted before, knowing no one would last with a man on the road.
“Let me be your first.” She has no idea how many firsts she’s already been.
I roll over her, spreading her legs with the width of my hips. Resting just outside of her, I return to kissing her, assuring her with my lips there’s no one I’ve ever wanted more. Her hips roll upward, searching for friction, and I smile at her impatience.
“You’re going to need to assist me.” I press up on one arm, but I need her to lead me home. Her fingers tentatively wrap around me, and I jolt. She squeezes, and I scowl.
“Bee,” I warn. A smile graces her face, knowing what she’s doing to me. She brings me to her entrance and then releases me as I work my way in. My breath hitches at her warmth as I slide freely into her depths. Slowly, I press forward, feeling my heart race within my chest, feeling her clench around me. It’s too much. She’s too much.
“Bee,” I strain, wanting to rush but enjoying each minute thrust as she brings me into her. Once sheathed to the hilt, I pause. My arm quivers as all the strength of my body works to resist pulling back and slamming into her. Reckless and wild like the broncos I train, I want to be free with her, but I also want to absorb this pleasure. “You okay?”
“Hmm….” Her head rolls to the side as her fingers dig into my hips. “Move,” her lips say although there’s no sound.
“Anything for you, honey.” I pull back, teasing her to the edge. Her heels dig in just under my ass, hinting to return, and I give in, pushing forward to fill her once again. Her head tips as her back arches. She’s a cat in heat, no longer curious but craving. Her fingertips tickle up my back, and I repeat the rhythm of dragging to the end before delving deep. We continue this beat, and I notice Bee’s eyes open, staring off to the side of the room.
“Whatcha looking at, honey?” I ask, wanting her attention on me. I’m worried I’m losing her even though her body keeps pace with mine. When I turn my head, I see what she sees. With the moonlight streaming in her room, there’s a vision reflected in the floor-length mirror of me over her, entering her. My arm pillars me upward, giving only a hint of her breast near my forearm. Her hip hides my thigh, but there’s no doubt where we join, where one body leads and the other accepts. It’s a vision, and our eyes meet in the mirror. “Like what you see?”
Her sly smile grows as her eyes spark like polished silver in the sliver of light illuminating the space before the mirror.
“You’re so beautiful,” I say to her reflection. I turn my head back, so she’ll look up at me over her. “You’re everything to me.”
“Jedd,” she quietly moans, and the sound sets me off. I increase the pace, tapping into her with more enthusiasm. “Jedd, Jedd, Jedd,” she repeats my name, matching the thrusts as her eyes roll back again.
“I want it all,” I demand. “Touch yourself.”
Her eyes pop open, hesitation in them.
“Get there. Help me.” If I move my arm, I’ll collapse over her, putting all my weight on her in this position. I don’t want to rotate. I don’t want to move. I just want to feel her explode around me.
“I’ve never…not like this…I just…”
“Do it,” I demand, my hips rushing, my heart racing. My back prickles, and I’m getting close. Her fingers skitter down her belly, pausing near the fine hairs before slipping lower. I’m losing control as I watch her hesitate, watch her experiment. Her fingers brush against me entering her, and I can’t hold it together any longer.
“Dammit,” I hiss, stilling the majority of my body as only two parts pulse: my heart and my dick, both racing out of control. Her fingers are trapped between us, and then she groans. A tightening occurs. A clench. A clasp, and I experience something I’ve never experienced—utter bliss.
Bee holds me inside, refusing to release me until we both are drained. When I feel her relax, I collapse over her. Pressing my nose to her neck, I give her a brief kiss and then tug us both to our sides. Her leg hitches over my hip, keeping us attached as I pull her to my chest.
Her lips move near my left ear, and I feel her breath, but I can’t hear what she says, if she’s even speaking. Her arm tightens around my neck, and she presses to my chest. My brows pinch, sensing I’m losing her to her thoughts while her body continues to hold me.
“Don’t let me go,” I say, and her lips move on my ear again, but I don’t know what she’s said.
Chapter Thirty
[Beverly]
Never, I whisper in response, knowing he can’t hear me after whispering other things I don’t think he’s heard.
I love you.
Nothing else will ever be enough.
Don’t leave me.
The second we finish, fear consumes me. Will he regret this? Will he change his mind? Will he leave me behind? These are ridiculous thoughts after the passion of the moment, yet my mind can’t stop racing as I hold my body tight against his. His fingers trace up my spine, tickling my skin, and I shiver.
“What’s this?” he mutters, and I shake my head, blinking back loose tears. I’m overwhelmed by everything. His closeness. His words. What we did. “Beverly, look at me.”
Releasing my arms from his neck, I pull back, thankful for the darkness, although the moon still illuminates a sliver of the room. My eyes catch the brightness reflected by the mirror. I
’d never done anything like that before, watched myself. Watching Jedd do what we did, it was out of body, otherworldly, and definitely a little dirty, yet I don’t feel soiled. I feel liberated, my body loose and relaxed despite my galloping heart and stinging tears.
“Whatcha thinking, Bee?”
I love you.
“Just a little…” I don’t know how to explain myself. “Overcome is all.” I expect a sarcastic retort. Some joke about coming and such, but his thick thumb brushes my cheek as if he understands.
Then, he says, “I’m not going anywhere,” like he’s read my thoughts.
I nod to acknowledge I heard him, but he still asks, “Did you hear me, Bee? Are you listening? I’m. Not. Going. Anywhere.”
The dam on my tears breaks, and more rebellious drops escape. Jedd pulls me back to him, scooping one leg over his hip and securing me to his chest with his arm around my back. He doesn’t speak, and I’m relieved as I can’t find the words to talk.
Eventually, Jedd gives in to the embrace, settling slowly into sleep while I remain awake. My body is tired but not my thoughts, so I continue to lie against him. At some point, he slips free of me, and I snuggle to his side, the damaged limb between us. My fingers stroke over his bicep, noting the difference between his two arms. He’s still bulky, but I can feel how one is leaner than the other, which isn’t noticeable on sight. Cupping my palm over the stump, I outline the tug of skin, the severed bone, and my heart aches for new reasons.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Jedd works so hard. His thoughts are constantly positive, his outlook carefree. I don’t want to question his nomad spirit as he’s planted in the stable on my property, but a familiar tug in my chest tells me not to invest in him. Take tonight for what it was—a desperate woman seducing a beautiful man after a romantic gesture.
I sigh as I release his arm, tucking my own to my chest. Still wanting to touch him, I loop my ankle over his leg, and he adjusts his foot in his sleep, allowing us to hook feet, roots entwining.
I wake when lips brush over my shoulder.
“Good morning,” I whisper, though I’m uncertain Jedd hears me. His lips linger on my skin as I clear my throat and try again, but still, the greeting comes out groggy and rough.
“A man could get used to this,” he responds, rubbing his hand down my arm before reaching up for my hair and pinching the ends with his fingers. His eyes eventually land on mine, and he smiles, which lights up his face. I reach up to cup his jaw, drawing him to me, and we kiss. I’m not a fan of morning kisses—because morning breath—but I wouldn’t dismiss this tender exchange for a tube of toothpaste.
As with previous kisses, we start out slow, taking out time, but something in me snaps, and slow turns to brisk, then a shift of my hips, and the next thing I know I feel like I’m sprinting—over his lips, over his pelvis. Jedd settles to his back as I straddle him, his solid length underneath me.
“Bee.” Jedd chuckles through the nickname but doesn’t stop me. His hand swipes through my hair before slipping down to my hip, encouraging me to glide over him. After two slow drags, it isn’t enough. I tip my hips to find the edge of him and press. Jedd easily slides in.
My eyes roll back as my hips jut forward, drawing Jedd to a new depth. Sitting astride him, he’s deeper in a sense, filling me in a different way, and I sit up, holding the position while I adjust. Adjust to his strength, adjust to his look, adjust to this man under me. My heart doesn’t race as it did last night but sputters and stops, trying to catch up as I collect images of him to store in my memory. As if reading my mind, Jedd’s hand presses over my heart, resting heel to breast as he lingers.
“Watch yourself,” he states, but at first, I think he’s warning me. Don’t get ahead of yourself, Beverly. You’ve done that before. Love at first sight shouldn’t exist. Love at twenty-thousand blinks shouldn’t either.
After a short minute, I understand what Jedd really means. He nods toward the mirror, and I take in the vision of myself over him. A woman with tussled white hair, looking reckless and wild, sleek to the point of almost too thin. Tiny breasts—one of which is cupped by a large male hand—and eyes filled with determination and desire. The bedcovers haphazardly fold behind my backside, exposing my thigh at Jedd’s hip and it’s clear from how I sit what we are doing. It’s a work of art in an unstructured form.
“Take what you want, honey,” Jedd groans, and I rock back, watching the movement in the mirror, watching myself take control. I’m methodical and a bit rigid at first until I’ve set a rhythm in which I can no longer look. I want to see Jedd’s reaction.
Gazing down at him, he locks his eyes on me, and a sly smile grows, hinting he liked watching me watch us.
“It’s like riding a bronco,” I tease.
“Honey, you on me is nothing like that, but if you want me to buck, I’ll give you all I have.”
I laugh at his response until he jerks up at the hips, thrusting into me and hitting a spot that forces a yelp.
“Did that hurt?” he asks, but his eyes spark despite their dark color. He knows his way around a woman, but I’m not going to consider how I’m not his first. I shake my head as my hands fall to the sides of him. He lifts one for his chest, and I follow his lead with the other, massaging at the firmness under my palms as I continue to ride him. He bucks upward again, spearing me. My trigger spot presses at his pelvis bone, and something in me takes over. My hips move. My eyes close. My mouth gaps open for air as I enjoy Jedd.
“Take all of me, honey. This is the full cookie.” I don’t know what he means, and I’d laugh if I wasn’t so in my head, so into him, and taking him as if I were possessed, and in a way, I feel like I am. I want every part of him. His body. His mind. His soul.
“Jedd, I—” A sharp inhale cuts off the words, and I gasp.
“That’s it, honey.” He already knows my body, and the way I’m reacting to him. My knees tighten at his hips. My thighs clench, and then I give in. My head falls back as my channel squeezes, and I praise the moon and all the stars and anyone listening in heaven above.
Jedd responds with his own release, which drums and pulses within me, and my head lolls forward. A giggle escapes as I absorb the jolts and jerks inside me. The movements feel wonderful.
Jedd’s eyes meet mine, twinkling in the heavy darkness of dawn. The moon is gone, and somewhere near the horizon, the sun is waking up. The black within my room glows as impending daylight marks the night is coming to an end.
“A man could get used to this,” Jedd whispers in his not-so-able-to-whisper voice, rough from disuse through the night. I collapse over him, wrapping an arm around his neck. His heart thumps under my breast as our slick skin presses together.
“A woman could too,” I whisper into his left ear, the one nearly deaf, but as if he reads me without the sound, he turns and kisses my neck.
Jedd asks me to stay out of the yard for the next few days.
“Another surprise,” he warns, and I hate to admit the anticipation is killing me. I’m not one for gifts, but I do as he asks, curious when I hear hammering out of sight of my spying eyes. Hannah seems in on this one and only assures me I’ll love it. She’s become quieter with me but offers small pats of comfort, reminding me of when she was a child and saw too much, heard too much, of the unhappiness between Howard and myself. Her grandpa tried to remove her from scenes, often taking her out to the yard to distract her from the unpleasantries. Ewell himself never intervened.
It’s your marriage, he’d say to his son, but what he really meant was, you made your bed and now you have to lie in it.
I suppose I made that bed as well, and I should have checked it first for bed mites before I did. Thoughts of Howard haunt me in a way they haven’t for a while. Jedd continues to reassure me he isn’t going anywhere with a short kiss or sudden touch. I’ve been worried about Hannah as well, concerning this new relationship I have with another man. Jedd’s been equally reassuring to Hannah of
his intentions to be present for the long term. His interest in her life choices warms my heart, and whatever the two of them are doing out in my side yard, I appreciate the effort he’s putting into knowing my daughter. Although her life has been fatherless, she hasn’t been minus male role models. Ewell. Vernon Grady. Hank Weller, I suppose. A number of friends with decent fathers. But Hannah hasn’t had that one man who can guide her, support her, love her.
That’s not to say I haven’t tried as a single mother to do as best I can. Lord knows, I tried to balance the one-sided scale, but still, I hate thinking Hannah missed out by not having a dad. A girl needs her daddy, and as stern as mine had been, I still worshipped him as a child. It was my mother who strong-armed kicking me out of the house. As a preacher man of sorts, my daddy struggled to forgive but found acceptance eventually. My mother preached forgiveness while passing judgment to the final day. The hypocrisy wasn’t lost on me.
It’s wishful thinking Jedd might play a fatherly role to Hannah. Nearing thirty years old seems a little late for stepfather wisdom. Still, I hope Hannah can accept him and maybe find a friend in Jedd for his noble characteristics—kind, patient, understanding.
The mystique of the holidays has dwindled over time. There didn’t appear to be anything magical to celebrate, especially about ten years ago when Hannah was off to college, and Howard was rumored to be nearby. Hannah and I had lessened the enthusiasm by only including a small tree cut from somewhere out back, decorated with a popcorn string and a garland of old quilt straps tied together. One set of lights and we called it a day, as we decorated only on Christmas Eve. One night of remembering brotherly love, like Jedd recalled, and then back to the daily fight for life.
This year, I wanted something a little more, and Jedd agrees as he hasn’t had a proper Christmas in years. He’s told me he has a sister in the area, and while she’d invited him to dinner, he’d like to spend the day with us instead. On December twenty-fourth, I’m awoken by the thud of boots and the stomp of feet along with a set of laughter. Rousing from bed, I slip an afghan over my shoulders, hardly covering my nightgown, and find Jedd and Hannah struggling with a too large evergreen in the living room.
Love in Deed: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 6) Page 26