The Fisherman Series : Special Edition

by Jewel E. Ann

  Sighing, I narrowed my eyes. “She wants a husband and a houseful of babies. A dog. Two cats. And a minivan.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “Not yet.”

  “So …” Reese gazed up at the ceiling and laughed. “You are looking for someone to mess around with until you decide you’re ready for wife material. That’s awesome, Fisher. Rory comes home in a few days. What’s the point? I’m not having sex with you. And why are you so anti-family? You’re twenty-eight. Do you know how many men have a family by the time they’re your age?”

  “No.” I continued closing in on her. “And neither do you. So what’s your point? You’re eighteen. The whole point of your life should be to live in the fucking moment without caring if everything you do makes complete sense.”

  “Stop.” She shook her head as the pool table behind her stopped her from getting away from me.

  “I don’t want to stop. Do you? Do you really want to stop?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  We hit the very edge of her comfort zone. As much as I physically wanted her because she was a fucking cruciverbalist unicorn, I couldn’t push her too far. But then … she kissed me.

  Hard.

  Passionately.

  Tongue-down-my-throat kind of kiss.

  So I kissed her back. I was a decent guy, but far from a saint. Then more just happened.

  She wasn’t Rory’s daughter …

  She wasn’t eighteen …

  She wasn’t my employee … as I unbuttoned her shorts and lowered to my knees, sliding them down her long legs—along with her panties. Her lips parted as her stare weighed heavily on me like she was drunk, yet completely sober.

  “Fisher …” God. Seriously. My name falling from those full lips did things to me, things so much stronger than any drug.

  Was that my excuse? She drugged me with her voice? With my own fucking name? Did I need an excuse? We were consenting adults. Why the hell did anything else have to matter?

  I kissed along the slight curve of her hips, working my way down. “Do you want me to kiss you here?” My mouth hovered a fraction of an inch from where I felt certain no man had ever been before me.

  “I … I … don’t know,” she stuttered between labored breaths while gripping the edge of the pool table.

  “No?” I couldn’t help my slight grin as I pressed my lips to the exact spot without affirmative permission.

  Her breath hitched, muscles in her legs clenching as I rested my hands next to hers and tasted her fanfuckingtastic tits before shrugging off my shirt. “We’ll go until you tell me to stop?” I said—I asked because I did need her consent even if I didn’t need Rory’s or Angie’s or my family’s … or God’s for that matter.

  Her gaze made a slow ascent up my body before she wet her lips and nodded.

  That was all I needed. Grabbing her face, I kissed her again like she had kissed me. A deep moan worked its way up the back of my throat when her hard nipples teased my chest. Another moan escaped when her fingers ghosted along my abs down to the waist of my jeans until her shaky fingers found my dick. I couldn’t help it; my hips jerked into her touch as she teased me. Control had never felt so goddamn torturous.

  I lifted her onto the edge of the pool table and wedged myself between her spread legs, rocking my greedy hips into her—once, twice. A tiny whimper left her lips as I sucked the warm skin along her neck while unbuttoning my jeans. My hand claimed a fistful of her hair, but it did little to calm my surging need to be inside of her, to consume her in every way possible. The only thing that felt wrong at the moment was the cotton of my briefs preventing me from fucking the life out of her as I wedged myself as far as possible between her legs … as I felt her warm and wet against me.

  Control was scarce, virtually extinct, when her fingers teased the waistband of my briefs. I lost a good five years off my life when her finger slid beneath it, exposing the head of my cock. I tore my mouth from hers, both of us breathing heavily as we stared at her hand nudging my briefs down another inch.

  “I need a condom,” I managed to whisper with very little control.

  Reese’s head moved side to side slowly. “I want … I just want to feel you.”

  “God … feel me, Reese.” I barely recognized my own desperate voice. No woman had ever unraveled me so slowly. I questioned if I’d die before we finished whatever we were or weren’t about to do.

  I guided her hand down the front of my briefs. For the record, nothing felt better than a woman’s warm, delicate hand wrapped around my cock for the first time. “Fuuuck …” I fought to keep from losing it all right there as my abs tightened, and I watched her hand slowly—fucking painfully—explore my dick like it was her first time. I was her first time, and that made it infinitely worse in a good but excruciatingly painful way.

  “Reese …” I pinched my eyes shut. “Let me get a condom.”

  “No. I … I just want to feel you.”

  “Fuck …” I kissed her neck and palmed her breast, probably a little too hard, while tweaking her nipple. So much pent up energy and no place to release it.

  I was. DYING!

  “You are feeling me, and it’s killing me,” I said without trying to actually sound like a badly wounded animal. I would have settled for anything at the moment. I would have dropped back down to my knees, buried my face between her spread legs, and rubbed one off had I known the path of torment she had planned for me.

  “No. I want to feel you …” She forced my briefs down until I was free, until she could position my erection in the direction of her spread legs. “Here. I want to feel you here, but … just … on the outside.”

  Fuck my life.

  And fuck Rory.

  And while we’re at it, fuck all religions that teach abstinence, thus creating a sexually frustrated society filled with suicidal virgins.

  Okay, she wasn’t technically suicidal, but pressing the head of my dick between her legs was like pointing a gun to her head but instructing me not to shoot while my finger rested heavily on the trigger.

  “Reese …” I dropped my forehead to her shoulder and released her breast, bracing my hand next to hers again on the edge of the pool table so I didn’t accidentally fuck her. It could have happened, my knees were weak and sheer gravity could have pushed me all the way inside of her.

  As I took a tiny step closer, she gasped, “Stop …”

  I was there … between her legs. Everything was so warm, wet, and intoxicating—like a few more shots of tequila got dumped into my bloodstream—as she gipped me tighter, rubbing the head of my dick against her clit and a little lower.

  My lips pressed to her shoulder again as I resisted the urge to dig my teeth into her flesh, but I couldn’t resist the urge to rest my hand on her knee to spread her legs a little wider, to press into her a fraction of an inch more. My hips rocked slowly, teetering on that edge.

  It wasn’t sex, but goddamn … it was better than sex in some ways. Torture. The really fucking good kind.

  “God …” she moaned, closing her eyes as I rocked into her over and over, just enough to stroke her clit. It was torture to stay in control.

  “Fisher!” she gasped, fingernails digging into my shoulders.

  I stopped. Completely froze. It slipped. The head was inside of her—just the tip.

  “I’m so—” I tried to retreat.

  “No. Don’t … move.” She panted, her breath hot over my lips.

  “Reese … I can’t fucking stay here.” I bit her lower lip a little harder than I should have and growled. It was her indecisiveness that crushed every last ounce of my control. If she wanted to stop, that I could have done. But it was the way she seemed hell-bent on living for eternity with just the head of my cock inside of her that obliterated my control.

  “Lean back.” I pressed my hand between her breasts and guided her back onto the pool table.

  She silently fought me on it.

  “I’m not taking yo
ur virginity … tonight.” I grinned.

  She relinquished control and leaned back. Pressing my hands to her knees, I spread her legs wide.

  “If you let me put my mouth on you…” my gaze affixed to her spread legs—it was hard to tear it away “…I could make you scream.”

  After a few breaths, she pressed her lips together and inched her head side to side.

  Kill me. Just kill me!

  I was an inch inside of her, but no oral sex?

  Swallowing my reaction, my disappointment, my mouth found her breasts, and I used my erection to get her off. It wasn’t completely selfless. But then she shifted her hips.

  “Fuck!” I made myself stop, but it wasn’t easy. Again, I was inside of her a fraction. “You can’t move like that,” I pleaded through a heavy pant.

  “Fisher …” Her heels dug into the edge of the pool table, and she lifted her hips again.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Stop!” I grabbed her hips, pushing them back down to the pool table. “I don’t have a condom.”

  “Then get one.”

  God. I hoped she didn’t ever tease another guy like she was teasing me. It took herculean control to keep from going all the way and dealing with the consequences later.

  “They’re upstairs,” I said with clipped words while closing my eyes and shaking my head.

  “Fisher …” Again she tried to lift her hips.

  Again, I held her down while pulling out of her.

  Before she could protest again, I pressed my thumb to her clit, making slow circles while using my other hand to get myself off. She covered my hand with hers like she wanted me to show her how to do it. As I sped up, her hips jerked off the table over and over. Just seconds after she arched her back and closed her eyes while releasing a long moan, I came on her stomach, breaths labored, body a little achy from resisting it for so long.

  “Damnation is in your future, little girl.” I pulled up my underwear and jeans . Then I grabbed paper towels to clean her up.

  “Then you’re going with me,” she murmured.

  I shook my head. “Only after Rory murders me.”

  Why was I so conflicted? Reese said it a million times—she was an adult. An adult with her V-card. I didn’t force her to do anything. She wanted it too. She told me to get the condom. I could have gone upstairs to get the condom. Angie probably would not have heard me.

  I could have whispered a bunch of sweet things over Reese’s lips to convince her to let me take her virginity, promising to pull out, using words that made her feel special and loved.

  I did no such thing. She wanted to get off and so did I. So that was what we did, and we did it while keeping that V-card mostly intact. Honestly, I wanted to have sex with her, but I had no desire to be her first.

  Who am I kidding? I’m going to Hell.

  Fisher

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rose knew.

  It was only a matter of time before Rory knew. We were friends. The three of us, but I wasn’t delusional. I knew Rose was too loyal to Rory to keep something like that from her.

  The next morning, Reese hopped into my truck with a marginally confined smile. “Morning.”

  “Morning,” I said, attempting to act unaffected about our fate as I pulled out of the driveway and turned up the music, hoping she’d get the hint that I wasn’t in the mood to talk.

  Eventually, I broke the silence. “What’s your car situation?”

  “Car situation?”

  “Did you talk to your grandparents?”

  “Yeah,” she murmured as we pulled to a stop at the light.

  “And?”

  “And they’re not going to give me the money for the Porsche, which is stupid because it’s my freaking money.”

  “So you get the Forester?”

  She sighed with a half shrug. “I suppose so.”

  “Great. Get the money in your account and we’ll go get it tomorrow if it’s still there. Or you can go with Rory or Brendon. I don’t really care.”

  I cared.

  I cared too much. But my caring wasn’t what Reese needed at eighteen with no direction. Rory losing her shit wasn’t what either one of us needed.

  After the longest pause, she grabbed her backpack from the backseat. I thought she was retrieving her sketch pad of puzzles, but then she unfastened her seat belt and bolted out of the truck before I knew what was happening.

  “Reese!”

  The light changed and people started to honk their horns.

  “Fuck …” I sped through the light and took the first right to try and cut her off, but I lost her. I called her phone over and over, but she didn’t answer.

  I sent off a string of texts.

  Where are you?

  Answer your phone.

  I’m sorry.

  Please pick up your phone.

  Don’t make me call Rory.

  Or the police.

  When she didn’t respond, I didn’t call the police or Rory. Instead, I silently went out of my mind, driving around looking for her before ending up at the office.

  “Have you seen or heard from Reese?” I asked Hailey.

  Her brow wrinkled. “No. Why?”

  “Because she ran off like a fucking child, and I don’t know where she’s at.” I grabbed a water from the cooler and chugged it.

  “Did you call Rory?”

  “No. And I don’t want you to either. She’ll show up. I just …”

  “Why did she run off?”

  Resting my hand on my hip, I dropped my chin and sighed. “Just … stupid stuff. Call me if she shows up.” I tossed the bottle into the trash and headed out to look for her again.

  Eventually, I got a text from Hailey. She’s here. It took me an hour to get through traffic. As I opened the door to the office, Hailey squeezed past me and whispered, “Go easy on her.”

  After the door shut behind me, I said, “You’re fired.”

  From my desk chair, Reese’s wide-eyed gaze lifted to mine.

  “The tile shop where I get most of my tile, they’re looking to hire someone to answer the phone. I got you an interview. It’s just a formality. They will offer you the job. I’m going to tell Rory I found you a new job because I don’t need you on the job sites where you could get hurt. And Hailey doesn’t really need your help most days.”

  She deflated before my eyes. I kept my reaction neutral. I liked her … a whole fucking lot. I liked her too much to be an enabler. She needed to really grow up.

  “Is this about yesterday? Or this morning?” she asked in a shaky voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Rose promised not to tell Rory,” she said.

  “She lied. Rose will absolutely tell Rory unless we end it.” Whether she liked it or not, I knew her mom and Rose better than she did. “Rory’s taking the morning off tomorrow to help you get a car. The interview with the tile shop is the following morning. You’ll be able to drive there on your own.”

  “Are you mad at me?” she whispered.

  Pinching the bridge of my nose, I shook my head. “No. I’m mad at myself.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. When one escaped, she quickly wiped it and turned away from me.

  “Fuck … this is what I wanted to avoid. Rory is my friend. Rose is my friend. I didn’t want to be the villain. The guy who broke Rory’s daughter’s heart.”

  Or mine. I felt it too. I felt it in my chest, and it hurt because I allowed myself to feel things for Reese that were more than the cat and mouse game, more than a physical attraction, more than a casual fascination.

  Reese stood and plucked her backpack from the floor, keeping her gaze on anything but me as she brushed past me to the door. “You’re such an arrogant asshole.”

  She wasn’t wrong. And she wasn’t entirely right either.

  “And you’re the most beautiful and infuriating woman I have ever met,” I said. “And in a different time … a different place in our lives, I’d tell Rory and the rest of the world
to go fuck themselves. I’d prove them all wrong. We’d prove the naysayers wrong. But … I don’t think they’re wrong. Not now.”

  “I’m beautiful …” She nodded while turning toward me. “A pretty face. Long legs. Perky tits. And I sucked your cock. No college education. No fantastic job. Nothing … but I’m beautiful. Young. Innocent. And maybe the perfect amount of naive. It makes sense now.” She laughed maniacally. “Stupid, stupid me. I thought we were this magical thing that couldn’t be described. We didn’t make sense because magic, fate, and serendipity don’t have to make sense. I actually liked that we didn’t make sense, yet my universe seemed perfect when it was just us. I guess the eight-letter word for that is illusion. You played me. You liked the chase. The game. And what better chase than the virgin wearing a cross around her neck?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She had no clue. Not. One.

  “Because I’m eighteen?”

  “Because you’re scared.”

  “Of what?” She narrowed her eyes.

  “Failure. Eighteen-letter word. Starts with K,” I said.

  She blinked several times.

  “Kakorrhaphiophobia. An abnormal fear of failure. That’s why you’re here and not chasing a dream. Not in college. Not making plans in your life. Your dad died. Your mom went to prison. And you’ve been left with a Bible that prepares you for death and makes you feel ashamed of anything you do in this life to truly live.” I opened the door and she waited for several more seconds before heading to my truck.

  As soon as I started it, I knew we weren’t going home. Not yet. We needed to make a trip to my parents’ house first.

  “Let’s go,” I said, hopping out of the truck after a silent drive to their house. I opened her door. She took a few more seconds of hesitation before climbing out of it. “They’re out of town. Let’s go.”

  Leading her to the basement, I retrieved a box from the utility room and carried it to the family room while Reese watched in mere silence. “Sit.” I gestured to the sofa.