by Ali Parker
Wes ran two fingers under the fabric of my bikini bottoms and played with the strip that covered my pussy.
“Tease,” I whispered.
“I’m just waiting for you to tell me to stop.”
Wes was playing games with me and I liked it.
“I don’t want you to stop,” I whispered.
Chuckling softly, he tugged my bikini bottoms to the side. He ran two fingers through my folds and my thighs trembled. My legs gripped him tighter as he eased one finger inside me, and I clung to him with my arms wrapped around the back of his neck. I freed one so I could rub him over his swim shorts while he fucked me with his finger nice and slow.
We hardly made any ripples. The solarium was calm and tranquil and it made our breathlessness seem even louder. All I could feel, see, and hear was Wes. He consumed my senses until I forgot about everything else. I forgot we were breaking rules as the desire for more washed over me. I rocked my hips, daring him to give me more, and Wes obliged.
He filled me up with two fingers.
I bit down gently on his bottom lip. Wes groaned. It was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard. I rocked my hips more vigorously, practically fucking myself on his fingers, and scrambled to undo his shorts.
Wes turned us around in the water so that my back was pressed up to the pool wall. The lip of the edge dug into my shoulder blades but I didn’t care as I worked to pull him free of his shorts. Wes braced himself with a hand planted on either side of me as I pulled him in close so that the tip of his cock rested against my clit while I rubbed him under the water.
I knew I held power over him in this moment. His cock was hard, but his will was supple, and I liked having him at my mercy like this.
I hooked one leg around his. He inclined his hips and eased inside me. I moaned. He growled. He filled me up with his cock and the risky, edgy feeling of being caught made the pressure feel even more delightful. The excitement rushing through my veins mixed with sheer pleasure as he rocked his hips slowly.
Water lapped at the edges of the pool. His breath was hot on the side of my neck when he leaned in and rained kisses down on my wet skin. I wrapped an arm around his neck and held him there, whimpering breathlessly into his ear, pleading with him to fuck me harder, deeper, faster, and rougher.
Wes obliged.
Soon, I was a trembling mess in his arms. He held me up and sealed a hand over my mouth when I came to keep me quiet. He wasn’t willing to give up on our fuck session in the pool and clearly didn’t want us to be discovered.
I liked the way his hand sealed over my mouth.
He let his hand fall away once I recovered and it rested at the nape of my neck. I tilted my head back, exposing my throat, and Wes took the hint. He gripped my neck under my jaw and applied a euphoric amount of pressure.
“Yes,” I said, unhooking my leg from his so the only thing keeping me up was his hand around my throat. The weightlessness of the water made it easy, and Wes groaned before sealing his lips over mine and stifling more of my cries with his own mouth.
He pulled out when I was done and released me. His cock was still rock hard and I knew he hadn’t finished. I reached for him, but he backed away, a coy smile playing on his lips.
“If you want more, I think we should take this back up to the room,” he said.
I made a beeline to the ladder and Wes’s laughter echoed around the solarium as he followed suit.
Chapter 36
Wes
I selected two bottles of red wine from my wine cooler and closed the glass door behind me when I was done. I turned back to the kitchen, stopped, and took a moment to watch the woman I was in love with as she worked tirelessly at the stove.
Briar’s back was to me. She was wearing a knee-length black velvet dress with ruffles on the short sleeves and a silk sash around her waist that made her look curvy as hell with dangerously long legs. She wore sheer black nylons under the dress, and for the moment, she was barefoot, but a pair of black heels sat beside her chair at the dining-room table, which I knew she’d put on before our guests arrived.
A dark green apron was tied around her waist and at the nape of her neck. Her hair, freshly dyed red again two days ago, was curly and tied up in a messy bun that she’d likely let down at the same time she put the heels on. But her mane of hair hardly seemed practical with all the cooking we’d been doing today.
I smiled to myself as she paused and reached for the glass of wine she was working on. We’d had a half full bottle to get through on the counter that we decided to polish off before Briar’s parents, our Thanksgiving dinner guests, arrived around six o’clock. We had another half hour or so before that and there were some last-minute fixings to see to.
Presently, Briar was throwing together a salad and I was on potato mashing and gravy duty.
I came up behind her and pressed a light touch to her lower back as I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going,” she said as she set her wine glass down and returned to dicing cucumbers and red peppers. “Remind me again why we decided to cook Thanksgiving dinner?”
I chuckled. “Because we wanted to have a feast for your parents. Besides, if I’d been in an airplane and airports for the last twenty-four hours to get back home, I wouldn’t mind making a pit stop for turkey.”
Briar licked her lips. “True. I just didn’t realize how much work this would be.”
I smiled. “We’re almost done. Besides, you don’t get to be the stressed one tonight.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“No, it’s not fair. I’m the one who’s supposed to be stressed.”
“Where do you get off with that logic?”
“Well,” I said slowly, “I’m the one meeting parents tonight. Not you. I want them to like me. All they know about me is what they’ve read online.”
Briar turned to me and braced one hip on the counter. “My parents don’t care if you write romance books or flip pancakes for a living. So long as you make me happy and treat me right, they’re going to like you. And I can guarantee they’ll be able to tell how happy you make me.”
I grinned.
She turned back to her cutting board. “So just be yourself. Forget what’s online.”
That was easier said than done.
The reporter who’d caught up with Briar at the coffee shop a few weeks ago had run her story in her literary magazine, and some media outlets had picked up on the story and published it as well. Nobody knew what my face looked like or what my full name was, but I couldn’t help but feel like my days of being an anonymous writer were limited. As it was, people were freaking out that it had been confirmed that I was, in fact, a man.
It didn’t matter. I had Briar. So long as she was by my side, I could face any potential career changes and shifts the future had in store for me.
I tried applying that logic to her parents and their opinion of me. So long as Briar’s opinion didn’t change, I’d be happy. And why would it? She was an independent thinker. Besides, her parents had raised her and done a bang-up job. By default, I was guaranteed to like them.
Right?
While Briar continued dicing vegetables, I fished a fork out of the drawer and poked one of the diced-up potatoes boiling in the pot. It was the perfect softness, so I poured them through a strainer before returning them to the pot to start mashing and adding the butter, milk, salt, and pepper.
While I mashed to supreme smoothness I breathed in the smell of cooking turkey, stuffing, and bubbling cranberry sauce on the stove top.
“It’s going to be a feast fit for kings,” I said.
Briar grinned. “I hope so. I can’t believe this is my first Thanksgiving where I did the cooking. I always figured it would be in a shitty little apartment with a four-pound bird. And yet here I am in a luxury townhouse preparing something way out of my depth.” She giggled and slid the diced vegetables on the cutting board into a bowl of lettuce. “It’s kind of fun.”<
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Briar had been thoroughly enjoying living together and so had I. She gave this townhouse life. There were fresh-cut flowers on the island at almost all times, as well as new candles in the kitchen, living room, bathrooms, and bedrooms. Several of them smelled like cinnamon and pumpkins, and when they were lit, my house smelled like nostalgia.
There were more blankets and pillows on the sofas than there ever had been and she’d rearranged certain kitchen drawers to create what she called a flow. I didn’t know what that was, but she’d been excited to do it, claiming she never dreamed of having a kitchen big enough to do such a thing with in the first place.
I was just happy she was happy.
The doorbell rang.
Briar let out a giddy sound somewhere between a squeal and a yelp, wiped her hands on her apron, and rushed over to her shoes waiting for her in the dining room. She stepped into her heels and pulled her hair down. It tumbled around her shoulders and framed her face.
“How do I look?” she asked, smoothing out the skirt of her black velvet dress.
“Too good for the likes of me.”
She blushed, pinched her burgundy-painted lips between her teeth, and smiled. “You’re going to be rewarded for that later tonight.”
I fanned my face. “Don’t say things like that to me before your parents walk in, woman. What are you trying to do to me? We don’t need a pitched tent in the kitchen when they walk in.”
She laughed and shook her head at me. “Stop it. Come on. Let’s go greet them together.”
We abandoned our work and moved down the hall to my front door. Through the windows of the door, I could see two people standing outside. One was significantly taller than the other.
Briar caught my hand when we were three feet from the door and pulled me in for a kiss. “Ready?” she asked, giving my hand a squeeze.
“Absolutely.”
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open.
Before I had a second to process the faces of the parents of the woman I was confident I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, Briar’s mother shrieked like a feral cat and threw herself into her daughter’s arms. The pair of them bounced up and down on the balls of their feet while they hugged and Briar’s father, a tall man with gray hair swept to one side, looked on, grinning happily.
Briar broke apart from her mother and hugged her father as her eyes filled with happy tears.
“I’ve missed you guys so much,” she said into her father’s shoulder.
He hugged her fiercely back. “We talked about you every day that we were gone.”
Her mother rubbed her back. “We had a wonderful time but we don’t ever want to be apart from you for so long again.”
The warmth and love of this family was something to behold. Briar stepped back and wrapped her hands around my right arm. “Mom, Dad, this is Wes. Wes, meet Mom and Dad.”
Briar had told me in advance that her mother’s name was Marilyn and her father’s name was Walter. I held out a hand to shake, but Marilyn descended upon me with an equally aggressive hug as the one she’d given her daughter.
“We’re huggers, Wes,” she said, patting me on the back before she released me. Then she pumped her eyebrows at Briar. “You said he was handsome, sweetheart, but you didn’t say he was this handsome.”
“Mom,” Briar said with sharp but bemused exasperation.
Marilyn giggled much like her daughter did.
Walter clasped my hand. “It’s good to meet you, son. Thank you for letting us spend a couple of nights here.”
“My pleasure,” I said. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you both. Briar has told me so much about you.”
Briar beamed at me and clasped her hands together under her chin. “I’m so happy we’re all under the same roof for Thanksgiving.”
“Let me help with your bags and coats,” I offered.
Marilyn and Walter came inside. I relieved them of their jackets and hung them in the entryway closet. We tucked their bags to the side to be brought up to the spare bedroom later this evening as the night wound down. Briar had worked tirelessly over the last couple of days to get the house ready for the arrival of her parents. Her emotions had ranged from completely and utterly overwhelmed to downright giddiness in a matter of seconds and I’d been there to enjoy the show as we set up the guest room with new linens, candles (of course), and some complimentary items like skincare, toiletries, slippers, and robes.
I’d become so used to an easy lifestyle with dispensable money but this was all new to Briar, so being able to go all out for her family had been special for her. I’d caught her sitting in the guest room crying yesterday morning because she was so grateful.
I’d had to pinch myself to make sure all of this was real. What had I done to deserve a woman like her?
We moved down the hall toward the kitchen.
“We have your bedroom all set up,” Briar told her parents. “There are some nice little extras on the bed for you for later. Honestly, staying here is like staying at a hotel.”
“Your home is stunning, Wes,” Marilyn said.
“Very impressive,” her husband added as we emerged in the kitchen.
I offered everyone a glass of wine and received nods from everyone. I poured the glasses and we gathered around the kitchen island as I made a toast. “Here’s to family,” I said.
“And being together,” Briar said.
Marilyn smiled and raised her glass. “To new beginnings.”
“And good food.” Walter grinned.
Briar giggled. “Daddy, your priorities never change.”
Marilyn smiled lovingly up at her husband and I was reminded of the way Briar had looked at me.
“What’s more important than family and food?” Walter asked.
“Not a damn thing.” I chuckled.
“Amen.” Walter nodded. “Amen.”
And just like that, I felt like my house had become a home.
Chapter 37
Briar
Despite a late night last night, I woke early on Friday morning. The sun was shining and birds were chirping outside Wes’s bedroom window—our bedroom window. I stretched, yawned, and cuddled deep under the covers after rolling over to face Wes.
He was sleeping on his back. His face was turned away from me and I could see his pulse fluttering just under his jawline. I smiled and cupped one hand under my cheek as I watched him sleep.
Last night had been the definition of perfection.
Dinner went off without a hitch. Every dish was delicious, and so was the wine, which we all nursed well into the early hours of the morning while sitting by the fireplace in the living room. Mom and Dad told Wes and me all about their travels and the places they’d go back to and suggested we try to visit ourselves. Places like Croatia, Singapore, Ireland, and Italy.
Wes and I had recounted the events that led to us getting together and me moving in. I’d been a little concerned about what my parents might think because of how quickly things had moved along, but I didn’t detect any notes of concern from their place on the sofa as they listened intently. I did notice how diligently my father paid attention to Wes, and I assumed he was calculating whether or not he was a good enough man for his baby girl.
I suspected by the way the pair of them drank well into the night and laughed like teenage boys that Wes had received the stamp of approval.
We had enough leftovers to last us about a month and I planned on making everyone leftover turkey sandwiches with a cup of tea later this afternoon for lunch. For now, however, I wanted to take things slow and have a leisurely start to the day.
It was already off to a good start as I lay all cozy in bed watching the man of my dreams dream.
I heard no sounds of movement down the hall where my parents’ room was. They were likely still sleeping and I hoped when they woke up, they took advantage of the rain shower in the attached bathroom and the plush robes Wes and I had left out for them before they made the
ir way downstairs for coffee.
Coffee, I thought.
That sounded good.
Quietly and carefully, I extracted myself from the bed. I threw on a pair of sweatpants, sneakers, and one of Wes’s shirts before slipping out the bedroom, silently shutting the door and padding as quietly as I could down the hall and the stairs to the front door. I put on one of my heavy jackets and a pair of sneakers, slung my purse over my shoulder, and snuck out, looking an absolute mess, into the cold November air.
I hurried down the sidewalk three blocks and took a left. I’d discovered the little coffee shop around the corner a few days after I moved in with Wes, and we’d made a pact that we’d only go there for coffees on Sundays. Otherwise, we’d both get fat because their recipes were so buttery and deliciously dangerous.
But today was a special occasion.
I stepped into the shop while the rest of the neighborhood still slept off their turkey comas. There was nobody in line so I moved up to the register and ordered our usuals, an Americano for Wes and a half sweet caramel latte for me. I decided not to get breakfast because truth be told I still felt a little full from dinner and all the wine last night.
The barista made my coffees and called goodbye after me as I left the shop. I was back home—it still felt so surreal and wonderful to refer to Wes’s townhouse as my home—within fifteen minutes of leaving. Before I went inside, I checked the black mailbox attached to the side of the house to the right of the front door. I found three envelopes inside. Two were banking envelopes for Wes, and the third was a wedding invitation. I pushed inside and left my shoes, purse, and jacket at the door. I set the banking mail down on the table where Wes kept his keys in a bowl but tucked the wedding invitation under my arm and made my way back up the stairs to the master bedroom, where I found Wes still peacefully sleeping the exact same way that I’d left him. His chest rose and fell with every deep, steady breath as he lay in the stripe of sunshine that shone through the crack in the curtains on the bedroom window.