by Erin Noelle
“Is there something you need to tell me?” she asks with a questioning look on her face.
“No.” I take a long drink of my beer. “Nothing you don’t already know.”
“So now that Adam’s gone, y’all are coming out as a couple? Just like that?”
I shake my head, not knowing a good answer. “I dunno, Stel. We haven’t discussed any of it. For once in my life, I’m just doing what I want, impulsively making decisions based on my wants and needs.”
A chuckle bubbles out of her as she throws her head back with amusement. “And let me guess: he falls under both categories—want and need?”
“More than you can possibly know,” I answer honestly. “The minute he walks in the same room, I have to clench my legs together to try and alleviate the throbbing ache he provokes. It’s like nothing I’ve never experienced. I crave him constantly.”
“Then what are you doing here with me? Go home and enjoy your young cock; it won’t hurt my feelings any.”
Drake chooses that exact moment to walk up; if nothing else, the kid has impeccable timing for entering conversations. “So that’s who y’all were talking about at Hashtag? Your young cock?” Heated embarrassment creeps up my neck into my cheeks, and I’m back on the killing Stella plan.
“I like him a lot more than that weird guy who showed up on Friday hanging all over you,” he continues rambling. “Did you see how he got all possessive when I said you were beautiful? He’s totally digging your chili.”
“I don’t have any chili,” I snap as I see Gray making his way back over to us, “and this conversation is over.”
Somehow, we make it through the rest of the dinner without any further references of last Friday night at Hashtag or young cock, but the minute we get into the Tahoe and pull out of the parking lot, Gray turns to me and asks, “What is Hashtag, and what happened while you were there?”
What is it about this woman that makes me feel like a complete Neanderthal asshole? The second that Drake guy called her beautiful and then mentioned something about being with her last weekend, I nearly fucking lost it. It took every ounce of self-restraint for me not to go up and over that bar and scream “Mine!” like a little kid not wanting to share his favorite toy.
The reassuring hand she placed in my lap did a little to help the possessive urges thundering through my body, but after seeing the way Stella interacted with him and his friend, it became obvious she was the one they were interested in…both of them, if I read the situation correctly, but whatever; that’s not my business.
I know I have no right to ask her about where she went and what she did last weekend while I was literally sharing a tent with another girl, but I have to ask. I have to know for some reason.
“Hashtag is a bar in Atlanta that opened last weekend,” Mia answers with her penetrating blue stare on me as I drive down the highway. “Stella asked me to meet her and her friends there after they had a tattoo expo at the convention center. So I went.”
“You drank a lot?” Again, a question that’s none of my business.
“More than I usually do, yes.”
“And you drove yourself home after?” Damn, which one of us is the responsible parent here? The thought of her putting herself in danger by driving under the influence pisses me off; she’s smarter than that.
Biting her bottom lip as she does when she’s nervous, she shifts her gaze from me to out the window. “No, I didn’t. Jonathan drove me home.”
“Jonathan?!” I roar, nearly driving off the road as my neck whips around to her, wondering if I really heard her correctly. “You said Stella and her friends. Why in the hell was Jonathan there?”
“He asked me out, I told him I already had plans to go there with Stella, and then he showed up,” she replies meekly, still not looking back at me.
“And you let him drive you home? Did he try anything?” Blood roars through my ears as I struggle to keep my focus on driving, afraid of her answer to my last question, but needing to know all the same.
She shrugs her shoulders faintly and sighs. “He tried to kiss me goodnight, but I stopped him and told him I wasn’t interested. That’s it. Then he went home, and I haven’t heard from him since. I think he got the message.”
“He better have gotten the message,” I grumble angrily as I turn into the driveway. Twisting in my seat before getting out of the SUV, I cup her chin in my hand and force her to look at me, still taken aback by the beauty she holds. “I’m not sharing you with anyone, Mia. Know that right fucking now. I can’t and I won’t. So you let me know. Are you in, or are you out?”
Her eyes drop down to my mouth, glazing over with a sensual lust that has me hard instantly. “I’m in,” she purrs.
And so am I.
“Spread them for me, baby. Keep your hands on the wall.” I coax Mia’s legs open with my knee as we stand together under the hot spray of the shower.
After I showed her my appreciation for being in by taking her against the door, finishing the scene we’d started the first night I’d kissed her, and then again on her bed, worshiping every last inch of her body with my mouth before wrapping her ankles around my neck and pounding her into oblivion, I offered to clean her up in the shower.
It wasn’t supposed to turn into sex, but my dick had a different idea as I scrubbed her from head to toe, the beads of water kissing her pink skin, begging me to bury myself in her slice of heaven yet again. When I’m with Mia, I’m a man out of control—a gluttonous, greedy, ravenous man with a limitless appetite for her. Only for her.
“Do you have any idea how perfect your fucking ass is?” I rasp huskily, squeezing both round globes in my hands as my lips ghost along the shell of her ear. “Do you like knowing I dream of this ass at all hours of the day? That you drive me fucking crazy, making me hard for you at the most inopportune times? I’m like a fucking addict counting down the hours to my next fix.”
She squeaks out a distorted reply, arching her back into my touch, just as desperate as I am to intimately join our bodies for a third time in as many hours. Pressing my steeled shaft into the cleft of her ass, my hands smooth around her hips to the front of her body, meeting just below her belly button and then sliding in opposite directions, one drifting north to trace teasing circles around her stiff nipples, the other trailing downward to the apex of her thighs.
Leisurely dragging my middle finger through her heated center, I plunge it deep into her core, relishing in the racked sob that escapes her throat. God, the noises she makes are the sweetest sounds my ears have ever heard.
I add a second and then a third finger, working them in and out of her at a painstakingly slow pace, while I continue to caress and massage her breast with my other hand and glide my cock in between her butt cheeks as if I was driving upwards inside of her.
“Please, Gray,” she whimpers. “I want you. God, I need to feel you again.”
Unable to resist her pleas, I remove my fingers from her tight slit and spin her around by the waist to face me, needing to see her face when I sink deep into her heat. Crushing her mouth with mine, our tongues twine together mercilessly as we swallow each other’s moans, stealing each other’s breath.
My brain turns into a clouded haze of desire as the steam from the shower engulfs us, our bodies melting together as one breathing, pulsating lust-fueled form. Guiding one of her legs up on the side of the shower, I position the tip of my erection at her throbbing opening and plunge completely inside her with one surging stroke.
“Fuck, yes,” I cry out, my guttural groan bouncing around in the shower stall as I withdraw slightly, only to ram my full length back inside her.
Her nails dig into my back as she begs for more in my ear, encouraging me to fuck her harder. My hands pin her to the wall, holding her steady as I forcefully thrust in and out of her juicy pussy, giving her everything she asks for and more. I recognize her climax is near as her inner thighs begin trembling uncontrollably around my hips and she tosses her head back ag
ainst the tile, so transfixed on the pure pleasure coursing through her, she’s oblivious to any pain she might normally have felt.
Digging my fingers into her flesh possessively, her powerful orgasm rips through her body, prompting me to briefly tear my eyes away from her face and glance down at where our bodies are fused together. The sight of her swollen pink lips clamping down tightly around my bare cock incites the most primal, sensuous, raw myriad of emotions I’ve ever felt. It’s the most mind-blowing display of perfection I ever could’ve imagined.
Sinking my teeth into the sensitive, slick skin covering her collarbone, I thrust into her one more time before I surrender to the potent sensation rippling through my body. The intensity of the orgasm assumes control over my body for quite some time as I unapologetically shoot my hot release deep inside of her, claiming her as mine.
She slumps against me, clinging to my arms to keep from falling as the exhaustion from our night sets in. Lifting her up in my arms, I carefully step out of the shower and dry us both off with the towels she’d laid out prior. Then, carrying her to the bed, I lie her listless body down on the sheets and crawl in next to her, holding her close to me until I join her in dreamland minutes later.
WAKING UP MONDAY MORNING ENGULFED in Gray’s arms, our legs tangled together with our naked bodies huddled close, is a bit surreal. I lie there awake, but keep my eyes closed for a little while, savoring the secure warmth of his solid body, relishing in the soreness between my legs as the images from last night flood my memory…the entryway, my room, in the shower—all different, but equally mind-blowing. Just the thought of the things he does to my body sends a wave of moisture rushing to soothe the ache, causing me to squirm slightly against him.
“G’morning, belleza,” his deep, scratchy morning voice vibrates in my ear as he nuzzles his face into the nape of my neck. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did,” I reply contently, twisting in the sheets to face him. “How about you?”
He hums his yes against my throat while feathering kisses up to my jaw. His rough hands trail down my ribcage, landing firmly on my hips, and then in one forceful motion, he rolls onto his back, swinging me up to straddle him.
“You gonna make me some pancakes, woman?” he asks, playfully slapping my ass. “You need to replenish all the energy you sucked out of me last night.
Giggling, I lean forward and tickle his sides. “I sucked from you? I think it was the other way around, Mister Insatiable. Why don’t you cook me breakfast?”
He captures my hands with his and pulls me down on top of him, my breasts flattening against his chest, the tips of our noses touching. “I’ll cook you breakfast whenever you want, mi cielo,” he whispers sweetly, his eyes full of honest emotion, “but first, we have to talk about something.”
“Okay. I’ll go down and make some coffee so we can talk.” I try to push up, to put some space between us, suddenly anxious over what he wants to discuss, but he grips my hands tightly and shakes his head.
“You’re not going anywhere. We’re going to talk right here, naked, face-to-face,” he says matter-of-factly. “We need to get a few things out in the open.”
I stop moving once I realize he’s serious and isn’t going to let me go. “All right, I’m all ears.”
He shimmies his body up into a sitting position so that his back is resting against the headboard and I’m still seated in his lap, my legs bent at the knees astride his. Our fingers are interlocked between us and his erection is nestled directly into the apex of my thighs, skin-on-skin. If I lift up a few inches, I could…
“Mia, look at me,” his gruff voice grounds my wandering thoughts as I snap my eyes up to meet his. His face relaxes with a soft smile as he squeezes my hands. “There’s plenty of time for that later.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, my cheeks glowing with embarrassment. “What did you want to talk about?”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, almost as if he’s a bit apprehensive about what he’s going to say. Then, finally, he blurts out, “Us…you and me…what’s going on?”
I shrug my shoulders, suddenly feeling uneasy. I’m not sure what the right thing to say is, and I don’t want to scare him away. “We’re having fun, exploring an attraction we had for each other?” My words sound more like a question than an answer, and based on the crease in his forehead, it wasn’t what he was hoping to hear.
“That’s it? Just fun?” His dark gaze is piercing, almost as if he’s penetrating my soul, searching for my true emotions. “Last night, you let me come inside you and then sleep in your bed, and it’s only just for fun?”
“What more can it be, Gray? I’m your best friend’s mom, nearly twice your age, for chrissake!” I exclaim, shifting my weight uncomfortably on his lap. “It’s not like we can have a normal relationship.”
“Why not?” he demands. “I’m good enough to fuck every which way to Sunday, but not to introduce to your friends?”
Hearing the muffled pain of rejection in his voice tugs at my heart, and I realize he thinks I’m embarrassed of him. “Gray, babe, if anything, it’s the opposite. I’ve introduced you to all my friends; Stella is the only person I do anything with, other than you and Adam. But you...you don’t want to bring some old woman to hang out with your buddies and their girlfriends.”
My voice softens substantially as I pull our joined hands up to my mouth and tenderly kiss his knuckles. “You’re young; you still have your whole life in front of you. One day, you’re going to meet someone you want to marry, have a family with...I’ve already done those things.”
“You’re thirty-eight, Mia, not dead,” he contends, keeping his tone light. “Just because you’ve done those things doesn’t mean your life is over, that you can’t do them again.”
Dropping his guard completely, his eyes brighten to a melted caramel, warm and gooey, his emotions swimming freely on the surface. “I know it sounds like a corny cliché, but I feel something different when I’m with you. You’re funny, easy-going, and not to mention, hot as hell. When I’m with you, I feel full, yet like I can never get enough, all at the same time, and I’m still not sure how the hell that happens.”
He pauses for a breath, wetting his lips with his tongue. “And when I’m not with you, I can’t get you out of my mind. When we went to the lake, we met some girls camping next to us, and as everyone paired up, I ended up sharing a tent with one of them, but I didn’t even think about touching her. I just couldn’t, and not for any reason other than all I could think about was you. When that bartender guy called you beautiful, jealousy sliced through my middle like a sharp knife, something I’ve never felt before in my life. When you told me about Jonathan driving you home and kissing you, I wanted to use that same knife and cut his tongue out. And when I saw the bruises on your arm the other morning, I went and beat the shit out of him.”
“Gray!” I shout, my eyes growing as wide as sand dollars. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I should have and I did, only I should’ve done it the night before,” he rumbles. “He disrespected you, and he touched what’s mine. He deserved more than he got.”
Although I never thought I’d like a possessive guy, hearing him call me his does funny things to my insides; my pulse picks up speed as butterflies wildly flap their wings in my belly. I want him to say it again.
He releases my fingers and moves his hands up to frame my face, our stares locking on each other. “I know we’re a long way from talking about marriage, kids, and all that stuff...shit, we haven’t even gone on a real date,” he chuckles lightly, “but all I’m asking for is a shot, a real chance at seeing where this goes. Tell me you don’t feel it when we’re together.”
My thoughts are a jumbled mess of warring emotions, filled with hope, want, uncertainty, and fear. I can’t tell him I don’t feel the connection, because I do, but I’m scared of so many things. Too many to even think about...
“What about Adam?” I ask, voicing my primary concern.
Stroking his thumb across my mouth, he follows the action with his lips, kissing me softly. “Give me these six weeks while he’s gone. I know we’re going about it kinda backward, seeing how we’re having this conversation butt-ass naked and we already live together, but let me take you out on dates; let’s hang out without it always leading to sex. When Adam comes back, if we want to continue exploring this...us, we can tell him then and go from there. If not, then we move on, no hard feelings. At least we’ll never have to wonder ‘what if’.”
I ponder his proposal for a few minutes, trying my best to make a mature, level-headed decision in the best interest of both of us, though the modest rock of his hips pressing his shaft against my sensitive core is quite distracting.
Relax and have fun.
Time for a fresh start.
It’s time to do something that makes you happy.
Stella and Adam’s words reverberate through my head, encouraging me to step out of my comfort zone and follow my heart. After all, how attached could I get in six weeks if it doesn’t work out?
Gray waits patiently, allowing me time to think about everything he’s said, most of which makes perfect sense. And when the smile spreads across my face as I nod my head, he lunges forward and flips me onto my back, his body now hovering directly over mine.
“I agree to your proposition, but I have one change to your terms,” I announce as he peppers kisses along my jaw.
Pushing up to look down at me, he tilts his head and asks, “What is it?”
I wrap my legs around his hips and grind against him with an impish grin. “Let’s leave the ‘always leading to sex’ part in there. I’m kinda fond of it.”
He laughs hard, the amusement dancing in his eyes before he lowers his mouth back to mine.