by Skye Warren
“Fine.” I handed her over with a sigh.
He lifted her and—BAM!—tiny elbow to the eye.
“I’m sorry,” I said, though I couldn’t sound too sorry. I had warned him.
“She does have an arm on her,” he said but managed to wrangle her onto his shoulders.
Bailey squealed in what I guessed was both excitement and fear of her new height. Her legs crossed tightly around his neck, and her arms wrapped around his forehead, leaving only a slit for his eyes.
I bit my lip to avoid laughing. “Having fun yet?”
“I’m okay,” he wheezed.
He wasn’t the only one. Around us a sea of men held children on their shoulders or in their arms. Fathers, one could assume. Though in our case they’d be wrong. How many of these men were the biological fathers of these children, and how many were just father figures? Because that’s what Colin was to Bailey, a father figure, even if it had only been for a short time.
This was a side of men that had been unfathomable during my monthly date nights at the club. How many of these men had once been, or even now were, the guys at the club? How many of them were like Andrew, with a horrible mistake in their past? For that matter, did Colin have a mistake like that in his?
There was nothing for it but to wonder. The smiling faces and caring gestures painted only happy portraits. I wanted to believe in it. Here, amid the laughter and shouts of children, I almost could.
Before the show was over, Bailey grew fidgety, and we wandered over to the children’s section. She let out a shriek. I followed her reaching hands to the carousel.
With a groan, I wondered how I could get out of this without a screaming fit. Even if I let her have a ride, she’d only want to go again and again.
It turned out that Colin had the answer to that. When he left to go get tickets, I figured he’d get two, one for me and one for her. He came back with twenty.
“What are we going to do with twenty tickets? That’s ten rides.”
He shrugged. “If she doesn’t want to, we can save some for later.”
Of course she wanted to. By the third ride I was ready to throw up, so Colin offered to take her. While I had firmly insisted she pick an animal to ride and stick with it, Colin helped her bounce from horse to zebra to otter in the minutes before the ride started. She chattered endlessly to him while he danced attendance.
Good Lord, was that how he and I looked together? For all his trouble, that man needed to get laid way more often.
They went round and round and round, until both Colin and Bailey had turned a sickly green. Turns out when you gave her exactly what she wanted, she didn’t want it anymore. She was her mother’s daughter.
Two hours and a detour through the petting zoo later, it was past time to leave. Despite the brisk air, the smell of sweat and tiredness trailed us. Bailey was coated with sticky residue from a slush drink and peppered with salt from a soft pretzel. I might as well have tried to scrub off the city’s graffiti for all the good the baby wipes did.
Bailey cried all the way to the car. Actually the parking lot was filled with screaming children. There was probably no better torture device invented for children than a superfun outing. No matter what, it always ended in tears.
Chapter Twelve
At home I gave her a rushed dinner and warm bath. And the very good, somewhat unexpected benefit to the whole excursion was that she fell asleep almost immediately. I was still gross and exhausted, but it was freeing, nonetheless, to have her down so early.
I found Colin in his bedroom. “You hungry?”
“A little bit,” he said. “Come here.”
He drew me to him and pressed a soft kiss to my lips. I pulled back and made a face. “I’m gross.”
He pulled me back and kissed me harder. Well, okay, if he wanted me this way, he’d have me. I wouldn’t say no. I’d learned long ago what a mistake that was.
“Shower?” he asked.
“Um,” I said. “You or me?”
His lips curved into a smile against mine. “Both.”
Oh. Of course. Not that I had ever done that before, but even I knew that’s what lovers did. I suppose it was because I’d never had a lover before, not really. Andrew had been my first, and then the date nights had been about the opposite of cleanliness. I knew Shelly would laugh at me now and call me innocent, and maybe she’d be right, but I wanted to learn. I wanted to experience everything with Colin.
“Come on, then,” I replied, donning my slutty persona. She’d know what to do.
He cocked his head as if I puzzled him.
Time to distract him. I pulled off my shirt with a small flourish. Then my jeans with a shimmy, until I stood in only my bra and panties. It worked—he came at me.
“Uh-uh.” I stopped him. “I thought we were going to shower.”
He reined himself in with a small shudder.
I turned on my heels and sauntered into the bathroom, satisfied when I heard him enter behind me. Still facing the shower, I undid the clasp of my bra at the back and let it drop before me. Then I wriggled the panties down my legs. At last I threw a glance over my shoulder, letting him see the arousal on my face.
He’d somehow beat me to naked. God, that body. I wanted to eat it up, and if this night went the way I wanted it to, I would. Lines of muscles crossed with male hair. And that cock, long and hard. The complement to my body. I’d never been a religious person and probably never would be, but if there was anything that could convert me, it would be this. That much perfection couldn’t be an accident.
I wasn’t sure what should happen next. My whorishness failed me, eclipsed by inexperience. Should I start the water? And what did we do while it turned to hot? All of a sudden I was awkward and gangly, the virgin teenager again.
Impervious to my quivery indecision, Colin reached around me and turned the shower on, testing the water until it was the right temperature. Then he stepped under the spray and put his hand out. I followed him in and shivered under the warm water. The dampened skin of our bodies kissed tentatively, while our lips above remained parted. Steam encased us, muting the outside world and hiding us from it.
Our eyes met. I breathed and felt his breath on my lips. Something passed between us, a tether that both sides grabbed hold of, never to let go. Silly thoughts. I’d turned soft and without even the excuse of alcohol. It was all me. Stupid, vulnerable, loving me.
My throat tightened.
Don’t let me fall.
And then he was kissing me, holding me—no, he wouldn’t drop me. He turned me around, so that the spray of the shower fell on my breasts. From behind he roamed the curves and dips of my body. I reached my arms up to rest in his hair, anchoring myself to him.
Both his hands cupped my breasts, his fingers massaging my nipples. They felt swollen and sensitive, like they had after Bailey had been born. The tap, tap, tap of the water on my breasts fused with his touch. Pleasure tipped over into almost pain and wrung low moans from me. His cock lay slick and warm against my ass, but it never pressed me. No, it was my hips that rocked back, desperate and wanting.
Please, they begged.
Have patience, his leisurely caresses admonished.
His fingertips traced the lines of my belly and down. Down across the crease where the gentle curves of femininity leveled into the velvety skin of sex. I was bare. I’d shaved myself every day since I’d moved in, instead of just in preparation for my date nights. I’d had more sex here with Colin than I’d had in the sum of all my date nights. Years’ worth of sexual experience overwritten in a week.
His hands on my sex were familiar now. They knew me, what rhythms pleased me, and how I liked to be touched. The knowledge was an intimacy so much greater than the fitting together of bodies.
The shower decorated my skin with droplets. Colin lapped them up with openmouthed kisses to my neck and shoulders. I felt luxurious, sensations assailing me from both sides. I felt worshipped, Colin’s hands and mouth reveri
ng my skin. I felt protected, wrapped tightly in his arms, his shower, his home. God, I felt loved. This was love. Fuck.
Suddenly that bursting feeling felt all too literal. There was too much. Too much happiness, too much love. Too much fear. My body shook as it struggled to contain the explosion. However it would come, it wouldn’t be pretty—I never was.
I turned in his arms, needing the intimacy of face-to-face. He resisted at first, wanting to continue his assault on me, but I was insistent. It was his turn. Or really it was mine. Nothing felt better than pleasuring this man.
The air was thick with moisture—that had to be why my breaths were shallow and my eyelashes wet. His eyes were the potent black of a lake, drowning me, but his arms rested at his sides. I surveyed his body like an explorer does a map. I wanted to visit each place if only I could decide where to go first.
I sprinkled my fingertips across his shoulders, then trailed them lower to his flat, brown nipples. Leaning forward, I licked one of them, then nibbled across to the other. I started to kiss my way down. I knew where he wanted my mouth, of course. I wanted it there too.
I flashed back to when I’d tried to go down on him the very first time we’d had sex. He’d stopped me. I hadn’t understood what he was about, then. He’d wanted to give me pleasure; that was nice. But he didn’t want to receive pleasure, and that was just perverse, especially for a man.
I realized something. He’d been respectful and generous, not things I’d expected nor even wanted from a guy at the club. But something he hadn’t been was open. He’d kept himself closed off from me, piercing my walls but not letting me in himself. I’d been so distracted by his invasion, his domination of me, that I hadn’t noticed his own reserve. It had been okay, then. We’d been strangers.
But not now. Oh, he’d let me blow him now. I’d already done it several times, and I was sure I’d do it again tonight, but he still held himself back from me. As horrible as the last time we’d had sex had been, at least I had reached him inside then. Of course, I’d reached him through pain and shame in a way that neither of us wanted to repeat. Could I reach him this way, through pleasure? I could try.
Tugging on his arm, I made him turn around. He looked a little bit confused and a little more frustrated he wouldn’t be getting what he wanted. Have patience. I grinned at him.
I placed his hands against the wall at the back of the shower so that his body canted forward. And then I did what I wanted to do, hoping it would please him too. I licked along the seams of his muscles, starting on his back as high as I could reach on my tiptoes, and making my way down. I took my time, stopping to explore every path, every route, sometimes backing up to taste another. I used my hands to mark my progress along his backside, occasionally slipping them around front to stroke his erection, like an erotic compass.
I roved over his ass, tracing the indents at his side and even slipping my tongue in the crease. Then lower, across the backs of his thighs. I knelt behind him, a supplicant with all the power. Above me he shook and groaned into the wall, but I barely heard him over the rush of water in my ears.
I had just reached his calves when he snapped.
Without warning he turned. One hand behind my head and the other on his cock, he guided my mouth to him. He pushed his cock inside, held it there, and then pulled back. Then again. In and out, he thrust. I rested my hands on his thighs and let him use my mouth.
And Colin, my taciturn, reserved Colin, spoke to me in words of sex and love. “Fuck, yes,” he said. “I love your mouth. Jesus…Fucking…Christ, take me. That’s right. Deeper. Christ, Allie. Fuck!”
I could feel the shudders that worked through him, telling of restraint, but he wasn’t gentle. I felt no respect or generosity, kneeling here on the hard tub bottom as he fucked my mouth, but he’d let me in. This was Colin, harsh and demanding. Open and beautiful.
“You’re so fucking sexy,” he said. “Jesus! Beautiful. There, suck on the tip. Now open, deeper. All the way, hold it. Yes.”
The words tumbled out of his mouth. I’d opened the floodgates. Even though I knew they’d close again eventually, this was as close as I’d ever be to him, here with his cock in my mouth.
“I want to hold it in,” he said. “Just for a little while. Take a deep breath. Now, there. Ahhh, Jesus. You’re okay. I’ve got you. Fuck…fuck.”
He pulled me back, and I sucked in breaths. I’d gagged, and tears had streamed down my cheeks, but thank God, he hadn’t stopped. We did it twice more, my nose to his groin while his cock pulsed inside my throat. There could be no greater gift than my breaths. No greater sign of trust than my life in his hands.
Then he was pulling me up and out of the shower. We both dripped buckets onto the floor, but neither of us cared. He tossed me onto the bed, and I laughed. Then he spread my legs and put his mouth on me—yes, there, down, lower, yes!—and I forgot everything.
He’d lost any tenderness, but with rough strokes and kisses edged with teeth, he made me violently come. Before I could even see again, breathe again, he was over me and inside me. Our still-wet bodies rammed together, too hard and too fast, making squishy sounds that would have been embarrassing if I could think.
He fucked me so hard I couldn’t have said a word, but he was talking again. In between thrusts and on his exhales, he gave me more.
“Allie…you’re…so…fucking…beautiful…I…never…want…to…stop…fucking… you.”
The only response I could muster was to relax my hips even more so that my thighs spread open farther. It was more than an invitation; it was a plea. The pressure built until I came. He rode it out, and I waited, blissfully mindless for him to come.
But he didn’t.
He thrust into me again and again until I lost track of the hour or the day. I came again.
And he didn’t stop.
“Can’t,” I gasped. “Can’t…anymore.”
“Yes,” he said. “You can. I’ll show you.”
And fuck, he did. I lost count, but by the end my orgasms were nothing more than a small spark. He groaned long and hard, and I thought then that if there were anything left in me, I would come just from the sound.
His body collapsed over mine, the only movements between us his heaving chest and the small twitches of his cock as it settled.
I couldn’t breathe, but then I’d already decided to give it all to him, even my breath. I’d been so sure I would never trust a man again, and here I’d trusted Colin more than should be possible. With my life and my future, even with Bailey. I trusted him more than I trusted myself, though that wasn’t much of a compliment.
He rolled off me but kept me with him, pulling me into a tangle of limbs. We shared the same air as we both caught our breath, neither of us willing to relinquish the intimacy for space.
Chapter Thirteen
I opened my eyes to find him watching me. I watched him back. Neither of us said anything. Sex was a pure form of communication, maybe the only honest one. I’d known that from my first time, painful as the lesson had been, and I’d sought the same honesty from each date night. But what we’d unveiled here tonight was so much more lovely than anything I’d found on my date nights, more than anything I’d imagined. I came for the adventure but found a bounty at the end.
His stomach grumbled. I smiled, and he smiled back. I’d learned he got hungry after sex that very first time. Only this time we wouldn’t be driving away from a motel separately but sharing a late meal in Colin’s home. My home too.
“I’ll get us something.” My voice resounded through the quiet. “Stay here.”
I slipped on a T-shirt and then realized it wasn’t my nightshirt but one of his white undershirts. It was shorter, almost to the top of my thighs, and my still-hard nipples poked out indecently, but it matched my mood. I padded downstairs, flipping on only a lamp in the living room so as not to disturb the night too much.
The refrigerator shone brightly, and I blinked until I could see the contents. Leftover chi
cken potpie from last night. An uncooked lasagna I had put together in anticipation for tonight. Ingredients for sandwiches. It was all wrong. The blackberry cheesecake beckoned, but it was for the restaurant. And besides, I couldn’t get away with eating sweets on an empty stomach. I wasn’t a kid anymore.
The squeak of the pantry door alerted me that Colin hadn’t listened. That wasn’t a surprise, of course. Colin could be extremely obedient…so long as he wanted to be. Any docility he displayed, it wasn’t so much an act as much as it was a complete lack of show. He’d do what he wanted. Sometimes the rest of us would like it, sometimes we wouldn’t, but his actions were his own, without any of the pomp and circumstance of rebellion or pride.
I liked to think we had that in common. I was happy to obey him when I could.
That he’d pressured Rick because of me, well, I didn’t like that. But that was Colin, and I had to accept it if I wanted him. I wouldn’t be so vulgar as to try to change him.
And me talking to Andrew, well, Colin wouldn’t like that. But I’d had to do that, and I wished he could accept that too. If only he’d heard me when I’d had the courage to tell him.
He held up a box of pancake mix and quirked his eyebrow in question. I supposed he’d used up his allotment of words.
“Sure.” I held out my hand.
He walked past me and got a bowl. I rolled my eyes. Stubborn man.
I heated the griddle and greased it with butter—liberally, because these hips didn’t fill themselves out—while he mixed the ingredients. He poured the batter, and when it was time, I flipped them over.
We made six pancakes, split two for me and four for Colin, and had just sat down to eat when Colin’s phone rang. I pushed back the resentment. At ten at night, it would only be Philip.
“Hi,” he said. “No, not sleeping.”
I made a face at him.
“Mmm-hmm,” he said.
With a wicked smile, I trailed my foot up the inside of his leg. If he was going to take calls during dinner, at least I could have a little fun.