by Knox, Abby
I feel aroused and elated and stuffed full of Thai food. He might be the perfect man. “How in the world did you know I liked Mary Poppins?”
He laughs and stands up, taking my hand as I get to my feet.
“I don’t know, Jewel, Charmer of Small Children. Lucky guess.”
18
Vince
I try my best to keep my eyes open while sprawled out on the bed, but the truth is I hate musicals. I’m not a huge fan of watching them on a stage but watching them on TV is some kind of torture. How does everyone burst into song in the middle of a conversation?
Too much…soul searching for me.
“Vince…Vince?”
I snort awake. I actually snort. Such a catch, I am.
“Sorry, what? What did I miss?”
She’s laughing and the way she’s covering her mouth is so damn cute.
“Nothing. We’ve only been watching the movie for about fifteen minutes. Let’s watch something you like. What’s your favorite movie?”
“No, no. This is your night.”
She presses. “Bullshit. What’s your favorite movie?”
I study this precious, innocent modern woman and wonder for a moment whether I think she’ll be able to handle it.
“All right, what the hell,” I say. I heave myself off the bed and pop the disc of Cannonball Run into the DVD player. Yeah, it’s basically ready to go whenever I’m in the mood.
Jewel makes a curious face after a few minutes. “This is your favorite movie?”
“Yes, ma’am, Burt Reynolds is the greatest actor of all time. He—and my dad, of course—taught me everything I know.”
“Huh.”
Eventually she curls up on the bed and nestles into my shoulder. And it’s nice. Cozy. I haven’t felt cozy in, well, in a long time.
After a while, I put my arm around her and she inches closer.
She makes good-natured comments, but I can tell she doesn’t really enjoy the film. She asks. “I’m kind of attracted to Dean Martin in a clerical collar. Is he going to sing anytime soon? …Ooh, Peter Fonda…you know I can see why you like this, I don’t hate looking at Farrah Fawcett.”
I squeeze Jewel’s shoulder and inform her, “I’m not watching for Farrah Fawcett. Burt is the man.”
She considers this. “Well, he does have a lot of hair, which I find sexy. And he has a real bad boy grin. You two have that in common.”
I swivel toward her and brush her hair out of her eyes. “That’s the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me.”
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t get a lot of compliments, so I don’t have a lot to compare it to,” I say.
She angles her sweet face up at me and twists her lips doubtfully. “Well, I don’t see why. You are a total stud muffin.”
She nudges me with her stockinged foot.
I have to laugh. “It’s been a while since I heard that.”
“Hey,” she says, her hand petting my leg. “Whatever nice thing I say about you is one hundred percent true.”
I swallow. “I have to confess something.”
“Confess, my son.”
I close my eyes in shame and wait for a bad reaction. “Max isn’t on a play date. He’s spending the night at my cop friend Barry’s house.”
I wait for the ax to fall, but it doesn’t.
She’s confused. “Oh. Well is he OK? Do you need to go pick him up?”
“No, he’s fine. He loves it over there. Barry’s daughters shower him with attention; he probably won’t want to come home tomorrow. No, the confession part is, my motive for bringing you over here. I arranged for him to stay over at Barry’s because I want to sleep with you.”
I hold my breath. Finally she says, “Oh, thank god you brought it up. I was starting to think I’d done something to turn you off.”
I blow out the breath I’d been holding. “Not at all. I was trying to show you a proper date.”
She laughs and playfully nudges me in the ribs. “I don’t need a proper date to know that I’d like to get smushy with you.”
I can’t imagine what I’ve done for the universe to send me a woman this eager. My lips land on her cheek, then travel across her jawline and over the temptingly soft area in front of her ear. Her hand journeys up my leg. We each pivot toward the other on the bed, kissing and petting over our clothes. I’m getting hot as fuck.
Breathing into the kiss, I ask her, “Are you sure you’re ready for this? Because I’m not huge on people and I don’t have a ton of friends. So once you let me sleep with you, I could get very attached.”
“You already are,” she murmurs teasingly into my mouth between soft kisses.
I can’t help but laugh. “You’re right.” My hand covers her breast and her sweet nipple rises to meet my palm through the layers of her bra and sweater. “You’re not ever getting rid of me.”
She sighs and traces kisses down my neck. “That’s good news because I have a lot of friends and it’s hard for me to tell who are the real ones and who simply want something from me.”
I still her head between my hands and capture her eyes with mine. “I hope you don’t ever think I’m one of those people who want something from you. All I want is your consent…to be there for you, protect you, do filthy things with you.”
She bites her lip and nods. It’s the friggin’ sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.
“And your consent to really, really be into you.”
She smiles wide, her nose crinkles, and her eyes clamp shut. I was wrong—she somehow got cuter. “I’m already super crazy about you, Vince. Now. Let me see your Nimbus, big boy.” Her hand palms the bulge in my jeans and my breath hitches.
“Do I want to know what that means—”
She shakes her head and grins up at me while her hands are busy on my fly. “Nah, it’s best if you don’t ask those kinds of questions.”
Together, we peel off her sweater and bra, and then I tumble her onto her back. I gaze down at the half-naked angel on my bed. Her expectant eyes are now hooded. She wets her lips while I let my hands enjoy her tits — just as I knew from the first day we met, they are the perfect size to fit in my hands. And so soft, I could spend all night petting them, memorizing every curve.
Jewel murmurs my name. “Vince, I need you.”
I cover her mouth with a sensuous, hot, wet kiss while my fingers make quick work of hiking up her skirt. I look down and see she’s wearing a flimsy thong and my dick feels like it grows three sizes.
My pants are hanging open, and my cock is ready to be released from its cotton cage but I have to have my way first. “Just a taste.” With my face between her milky thighs, I inhale her sweet honey scent, which intensifies my hunger for her tenfold.
My fingers pull aside her thong and I kiss her swollen cleft. She gasps, her body trembling under me. My mouth teases her from her opening up to the hood of her clit before splitting her wider with my fingers to taste her arousal.
“Jewel, you’re soaked,” I murmur against her skin.
The chatty kindergarten teacher seems at a loss for words as she squirms underneath me, rocking into me, wanting to feel me fill her up. How I can I deny her any longer?
I take a second to quickly wrap up my dick with a condom I picked up specifically for tonight and have been keeping in my back pocket. Returning to her, I nestle myself between her legs and tease her entrance with my achingly hard rod.
She hums and grasps my ass to urge me on.
I sink in a few inches. My mouth caresses one nipple, and teases the other.
Her legs wrap tightly around me. She wants to waste no more time. I press all the way in and she yips in pleasure, rocking into me. She so fucking tight it almost hurts.
I grab on to those luscious hips of hers—just like I’ve been thinking about doing—and give her the one hard thrust she's craving. Jewel whimpers, moans. Her channel squeezes me like a vise as she bucks into me, urging me to thrust deeper, harder, faster.
She gasps loudly. “Oh, yes, right there. Deeper. My Luna Lovegood wants every bit of your Nimbus.”
I let loose, plunging my cock all the way into her, covering the crown of her head with my palm as the wooden headboard starts to slap a rhythm against the wall.
I don’t miss a beat as I ask her, “You named your pussy Luna Lovegood.” I pull back and ram her again.
She cries out. “Oh god, that’s good! Well, I couldn’t very well call it Bellatrix. That would be insane. Oh my god! You’re not a Nimbus! You’re a fucking Firebolt! Again! Harder!”
I roar against her yielding tits, fucking her, giving her exactly what she wants. “Yeah. Calling it Bella-whatever would be the insane thing.”
It’s getting hot and messy. I can feel her dripping despite the presence of a condom between us.
Fuck, I really want to do her bareback.
Did I really just think that? Yes. My beast brain wants to do her with no protection, fill her up with my baby batter, and make a dozen or more tiny balls of sunshine.
My nuts seize up and I’m ready to burst. I slow down, then, nudging her clit over and over with the pad of my thumb while I keep pumping into her. Her moans grow louder. I keep going; I want her to feel as good as she makes me feel.
Jewel shrieks and pummels my back with her fists. “Yes!” she cries. “Vince! I’m coming!”
I jet my hot release as her tight pussy clamps on my cock and her thighs clench around my hips, seemingly trying to cut me in half. I’ve sweat through my clothes.
“You’re mine. You are it for me, Jewel.”
Jewel meets my gaze as she trembles out the remains of her shattering orgasm with a throaty sigh. “You better be ready for what that means. I may be sunshine, but I’m a tad crazy.”
Yes, this is what I need. I need more sunshine, more chaos, more crazy.
She is everything I didn’t know I needed.
19
Jewel
The warmth of Vince’s arms is about to lull me to sleep when my brain jerks me semi-awake.
“Jewel,” he whispers. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I tap his beautiful, tattooed forearm that’s wrapped around my midsection. “You never answered the question!”
I hear him rubbing his face to wake himself up. “Huh? Question?”
“You never answered the question, ‘What have you learned?’”
He grunts and sighs as he props himself up in bed. He sleepily kisses my bare shoulder and idly skims the pads of his fingers over my shoulder blade. The pleasing shivers this creates make me want to nestle deeper into him.
“Oh. That,” he croaks.
Vince’s rough, I-just-woke-up voice next to my bare skin gives me gooseflesh.
“‘K. Let me think…oh yeah. Here it is. What I’ve learned is that I can’t hold everything inside, which is saying a lot because I hold everything inside.”
Vince pets my hair while he talks. “Hmm. That’s lovely,” I murmur, meaning both the hair stroking and what he’s just said to me.
He continues the petting and the talking. I wake up a bit more and turn to lie on my back to face him. He’s on a roll with all of the words, so I’d better pay attention.
“And,” he adds, “more recently, I’ve learned that every moment I’m with you, I need to touch you. When I’m away from you, all I want to do is listen to you talk. I’m a pretty stubborn asshole about most things, but on this one thing I’m certain: I feel happy when I’m around you. I think what I’m learning is that …well, that you’re good for me.”
Vince kisses away the tear in the corner of my eye before it can reach my cheek. I don’t know if he actually answered the question within the parameters of the game, but I’ll take it.
* * *
In the morning, Vince wakes me with his mouth.
And when I say his mouth, I mean he uses it to create the most achingly delicious suction sensation on my clit while his furry beard caresses my most sensitive and increasingly damp skin. The softness combined with the strength of his lips around my clit is almost too much to bear.
I giggle softly and he stops. “You OK?”
“I was thinking to myself, your beard is so nice I can’t bear it. Get it? ’Cause you’re like a big teddy bear? Hahaha!”
He grunts and sits up. “Why would you do that?”
Oh no. Now I’ve done it.
“Baby, come on, don’t stop. I’m so close!”
“I know. That’s what makes this such a painful decision for me.” An evil grin cracks through his angry exterior.
I sit up and cross my arms in front of my chest. “But why would you do that to yourself?”
Vince shrugs and gives me a smirk before cutting his eyes away from me and fiddling with the pillows. “Well I ain’t a big fan of myself, so—”
But he doesn’t get to finish that alarming sentence, nor do I get a chance to respond.
We hear the front door open and the pitter-patter of five-year-old feet storm across the living room, through the kitchen, and barreling down the hallway toward Vince’s bedroom.
“Shit!” I say, covering myself with a blanket.
Vince, who’s already in his pajama pants, tosses me my clothes. I bolt into the bathroom and shut the door. I get dressed while listening to their conversation through the door.
“Hey, kiddo. How was the sleepover?”
Max chatters away as they make their way back into the kitchen. “Whoa! Who did you make all these pancakes for? Can I have some?”
“For you and for…my overnight guest.”
I bite my lip. So he’s not going to lie about us. This feels good.
I slip out of the bedroom and sheepishly find myself in the kitchen, confronted not only with Max but with another pair of grown-ups.
“Did you guys have a sleepover too?” Max asks me.
“Busted,” the man sniggers. The woman with him slaps his arm and shakes her head at me as if to apologize for the man’s behavior. They are most definitely married.
“Shut up and eat some pancakes, Barry,” Vince says with a smirk.
“Yes. Yes, we did,” I say, reaching out my hand to the woman first. “Hi. I’m Jewel.”
Vince makes introductions. Barry pops off, saying, “If I had thought the date was going to go this well, I would have texted you to get the all-clear before bringing Max home.”
Shelley rolls her eyes and mouths to me, “I’m so sorry.”
I shrug and wave it off.
Vince explains that he’d picked me up himself, otherwise my car would have been parked in the driveway.
Max, for one, seems pleased with the discovery that I’ve spent the night.
“Good. I was hoping you would marry my foster dad.”
20
Vince
The natural consequence of dating not only a sunshine woman but also one who is a teacher is that sooner or later you’re going to end up adjacent to lederhosen.
“Please?”
My Jewel is looking up at me pleadingly.
I’ve come to have lunch with Max at school again, and by extension, I get to see my woman. We’re eating collard greens and brown rice and fried tofu. Max has really taken a shine to vegetarianism, so I guess that’ll save me some grocery money.
“You need help with what now?”
Jewel twiddles her fork and looks full of mischief.
Apparently my sullen demeanor does not intimidate her anymore.
“Tryouts are after school today for the winter musical. Our biggest donor for the arts, Mr. Rushmore, has been very hard to contact these days and I need as much help as I can get. Usually he provides us with a construction crew to build sets, pro bono. But now it looks like things have changed.”
I chew my tofu. I don’t hate it. Sorta chewy and salty and mushroomy. “I still don’t see what this has to do with me,” I say. In reality, I know exactly where this is headed. I just like to hear her talk to me.
“Well, I h
ave a couple of seniors helping with makeup and costumes. But I need someone to lead the crew and build sets.”
I blink at her. I consider whether it is wise to play the man card and pretend I don’t know how to do things in order to get out of doing it. But hell, look at her. I mean, look at that face. Her whole heart and soul is out there. Only an asshole would say no. And I am an asshole, but not to her.
“Of course I can help.”
“Yay! The woodworking and art teachers have already agreed to supply some students to help you. If you come to the auditorium during tryouts tonight you can meet your crew!” she chirps.
“I like the idea of having minions to boss around.”
“They will love you!”
“No, they won’t. I hate other people’s kids.”
“You’re right. They won’t like you. But it’ll still be fun!”
And then I remember something. “But I can’t come today,” I say, looking over at Max who’s sitting next to me and listening to every word I say. “Max has…uhm, supervised visitation with…”
Max cuts me off by slamming his fork down and shouting, “What?”
I close my eyes and breathe for a minute. I knew this would happen. “Max, it’s OK. If the social worker allows it, I can be there.”
He howls, “I don’t want to see her!” He starts to sob and soon, other kids are staring. I wrap a protective arm around his shoulders.
Jewel shoots me a knowing look and mouths the word “Grandma?” When Max buries his face in my ribs. I nod sullenly, and she gives us both a sympathetic look.
“It’s fine,” she says. “I’ll get you the schedule of the deadlines for the set building and whatnot, and I’ll have the shop teachers contact you. They can work around you. But this does mean you will have to get a background check.”