by Naima Simone
But this is Nikki’s battle, and not only would she not appreciate me fighting it for her, I shouldn’t. Still, I can have her back while she does.
I stiffen as she slips her cell back in her bag and turns toward the shop. My stomach clenches as I study her face. No pain. No sadness. Relief courses through me, and even before she opens the door and strides through, I know she’s won the war.
“You did it,” I say, not ask, and I don’t add anything more. Don’t need to.
She nods. Then after several seconds her mouth spreads wide in a smile, like the sun breaking through thick storm clouds. I shift closer to her, wanting to warm myself in that smile, feel her heat against me.
“Can we talk?” she asks, glancing around the crowded lobby.
“Yeah.”
I press a hand to her lower back and guide her past the front desk and down the corridor toward the break room. After a quick scan to make sure it’s empty, I lead her inside and close the door behind us. My palms itch to pull her close, thread my fingers through those beautiful curls and take her mouth, try to get my fill of her. And I say try. Because I doubt that’s possible. She’s a well that can never quench my thirst, but the only one that satisfies it.
“To answer your question, I did it.” She smiles again. “And for now, I blocked her. Maybe one day…” She shrugs, but there’s no grief weighing down her voice, just resolve. “But when I hung up with her, I came to another decision.” She pauses, and unease coils inside me. I brace myself, because I know what I’m expecting. But damn if I’m going to let her do it. “I’m going to administration tomorrow morning and let them know about us. I’ll explain the circumstances, that we met before I started working there. I don’t know what their response will be, but I’m willing to face it. Sneaking around with you is no longer an option. You don’t deserve to be anyone’s dirty secret, and I’m not ashamed of you. To be seen with you.” She thrusts a hand through her hair, and exhales while I do the same, but for very different reasons. Mine is packed with relief and a joy that I haven’t felt in years. “So,” she continues, “you should probably be pre—”
“Nikki,” I interrupt.
She holds up a hand, shaking her head. “No, I’ve made up my mind about this. I—”
“Woody,” I interrupt again. And surrendering to the need to touch her, I cross the floor and cup her face between my palms. “You don’t have to do that because I withdrew from Wellington this morning and enrolled at the community college. It’s why I wasn’t in class today.”
She stares at me, her eyes wide in shock. “What?” she whispers. “Dean, no. What about your promise to your mother? You can’t just leave. Especially if it was because of me. I won’t allow you to do that…”
“No, baby,” I murmur, bending my head and brushing my mouth over hers. Lingering to dip inside for a quick taste. “I didn’t leave because of you. Well, not completely. I’m taking business courses at the community college that will help me here, in the shop. And for the place I want to own one day. And I’m still keeping my promise. I’m in college, but on my terms and still being true to myself, to my passion. I think if Mom was alive, she would appreciate that and be happy for me. But, yes,” I add, shifting until her breasts are crushed against my chest and our thighs meet. I’m tearing open my chest and putting my heart, my soul on display. For her. “I didn’t want to give you up, and with me no longer a student at Wellington, we can continue to see each other. Woody, I don’t know where we will end up, but I want to find out. And I know where I hope we will be. I don’t give a damn about age, about you being my professor—or ex-professor. I just want you. In my life. For however long you’ll have me. However long we’ll have each other.”
She circles my wrists with her fingers and holds on tight. As if I’m her anchor in a perfect storm. Our perfect storm. “What if that’s a long while?”
“Then that gives us more than enough time to catch you up on all things Woody Woodpecker.”
She laughs, and the carefree, joyous sound of it echoes inside me. Lowering my head, I cover her mouth, tasting the laughter on her lips, treasuring it.
Treasuring her.
Epilogue
Two years later
Dean
“You sure ‘bout this, Woody?”
I glance up at the woman sitting in my tattoo chair, and like every time my eyes have touched her in the last two years, my heart contracts like someone thrust a fist into my chest and squeezed it. Jesus, how is it that Nikki gets more beautiful, more fucking vital every day that I wake up to her? I tighten my fingers around my tattoo machine. Either that or say screw this and get my mouth on her. It’s been over twelve hours since I woke her up with my tongue in her pussy. And I’m famished, damn near starving for another taste.
“I’m sure.” Nikki smiles, staring down at the outline of another woodpecker on her thigh. This one carries a ring with three ornate keys on them in its beak. Each key bears a name: love, peace, family. I designed this tattoo specifically for her when she told me a couple of days ago that she wanted more ink. It went without saying no one else was going to do it but me. I’d given her the first one—the one that had brought her into my life—and if it was up to me, I would be the only one who would ever touch her lovely skin. “Now stop stalling. Before I remember how much I hate needles.”
I chuckle, turning to the caps on top of my station that hold the red, brown, orange and black ink. “That’s not how I remember it.” I smirk, the memory of the first time she was under my needle branded into my brain. “Unless by ‘hate needles’ you mean they get you hot as hell.”
She narrows her eyes on me, but the corner of her mouth quirks as if she’s trying to hold back a smile. “I’m thinking that had more to do with the man.”
“You might not want to say things like that to your man. Unless you want me to fuck you in this chair instead of ink you.”
Her brown eyes dilate, and I catch the soft hitch in her breath. I feel it on my already thickening cock. I know this look. Know that sound. And I also know if I tucked the rest of her skirt in the waistband, bared both of her thick, sexy thighs and slid my fingers through those pretty feminine folds and sweet slit, the tips would come away wet. Soaked. That’s how she always gets for me. And I stay hard for her.
“We never did get to do that, Woody,” I murmur, watching arousal darken her gaze. “It’s just you and me in here, just like before. No one to see us. No one to stop us. We can finish what we started two years ago.”
The breaths breaking over her parted lips come harsher, quicker. Her tongue slicks over her full bottom lip, and I want to catch it between my teeth. Nip it. Tangle it with mine.
“I don’t want to finish anything with you,” she whispers. “No endings. Just beginnings.”
It requires every ragged bit of control I can scrape together not to fall on her and take that sinful mouth. Even now, there are times I’ll wake up, feel her curled up against me, inhale her vanilla scent, see her beautiful face and still can’t believe she’s mine. This intelligent, strong warrior is mine.
Our road hasn’t been all smooth. The whispers and rumors when our relationship became public knowledge. Travelling back to Westchester to testify at her mother’s trial because she refused to plead guilty despite the irrefutable evidence and the images caught on the bank’s video camera. Merging our two lives and finding a balance between work for both of us and school for me. So no, we’ve already faced some things. But we’ve faced them together. And for the family she lost, I was able to give her mine. My brother and sister adore her almost as I do. Almost. Because Nikki Barber is it for me.
Lowing my head, I place a reverent kiss on the inside of her knee.
Then, I turn on the tattoo machine and get to work.
She stiffens at that first touch of the needle to her skin, but moments later, she relaxes. I fall into a rhythm, and she loosens even more. At first, anyway. About halfway through, Nikki starts to shift a little, restless.
I can practically feel her vibrate, but it’s not pain. One glance at her face verifies this. Glazed eyes. Parted lips. Soft pants. Just like the first time I gave her a tattoo, she’s getting hot on the bite of the needle. The tiny edge of pain.
My hands on her.
“Easy, baby,” I murmur, lifting the tattoo gun and shutting it off. Setting it down on my station, I turn to her and snap off my gloves, dropping them in the wastebasket. “You need me to take the edge off?”
My cock throbs behind my zipper, already offering up its vote. I palm her knees but wait for her decision. Nikki sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and fisting her skirt, scrunches it up until her beautiful thighs and black, lace-covered pussy are exposed to me.
“Wider,” I growl, lust churning up my voice like it’s been jackhammered. “Show me where you want me stop the hurt.”
A shiver ripples through her, but she releases her hold on the arms of the chair and slides one over her full, heavy breasts and the other down over her belly and under her panties. Although the underwear hides her pretty sex from me, I can see the motions of her fingers slipping between her folds. Circling her clit.
Like a struck match set to a powder keg, I explode from my stool. Burrowing both hands into her chocolate curls, I tug her head back and capture her mouth. And like always, this giving, beautiful woman opens for me. Surrenders to me. Holds nothing back. Not her pleasure. Not her reaction. Not her need. Our lips meet, cling. Our tongues tangle, suck. It’s messy. Wild. Raw. Just like us.
Swallowing her moan, I keep a tight hold on her hair with one hand but smooth the other down her cheek, brushing my knuckles across her flawless brown skin. Then lower to the slender column of her neck. Lower still to the rapidly rising and falling breasts. Unable not to, I circle a taut nipple. Pinch it. And her cry is the sweetest melody. She arches into my touch, craving what I have for her.
But I want to give her more.
Give her everything. Just like she’s so selflessly offered me.
Hunger for her is a beast that claws at me, and I submit to it. Circling her wrist, I drag her hand from beneath her underwear and replace it with mine.
Fuck.
I don’t care how many times I’m sliding through this warm wet or buried deep inside her, I’ll never get enough. It’ll never stop being new. Never stop being a gift.
Her fingernails dig into my arm, denting my skin, sending pricks of pain-laced pleasure running over me, up and down my spine. Tearing my mouth from hers, I lean back and stare into her eyes. Spying passion. Greed.
Love.
On a groan, I thrust two fingers inside her. A keening wail breaks free of her, and her thighs clench tight around my hand. Concern for her penetrates the lust fogging my brain, and I loose her hair to gently lift one thigh and then the other over the chair’s arms. Not only do I protect her partially inked leg, but I spread her wider for me.
Hooking the panel of her panties, I jerk the soaked material aside and watch my fingers fuck her. Those swollen folds, glistening with liquid proof of her desire for me, coats my skin. Her pussy squeezes my fingers, and my teeth snap together, clenching against the sizzling electrical currents that crackle through my veins, down the length of my cock.
Muscular and soft. Delicate and whip strong. Sweet and musky. Her pussy is my haven. My paradise. My reward for something I must’ve done so incredibly right in this world. But honestly, I don’t know what I could’ve done to deserve her or the ecstasy her body gives me.
I’m a dirty sinner. But this woman... She washes me clean. Makes me worthy.
The need to be inside her surges within me, a screaming storm that has to be answered. But not tamed. There’s no way this can possibly be restrained.
Ripping at my belt and jeans, I yank down the zipper and free my cock. I waste no time in pushing forward and sinking inside her. Filling her. Feeling that sacred and wicked embrace. We stopped using condoms months ago after verifying it’s what we both wanted, and she went on birth control. And now as I do every time I’m surrounded by her, I give thanks that nothing separates me from her. Her silken grip strangles me even as it lights me up.
“Baby,” I rasp, grabbing the back of the chair on either side of her head. I sip from her lips. Taste. She scoots forward toward the edge of the seat, planting me more firmly inside her. And her whimper relays that she loves that. Loves me being a part of her.
Using the chair back as leverage, I draw back, slow, slow, slow. Savoring her tiny muscles clinging to me as if bemoaning me leaving. But not for long. When only the tip remains just inside her pussy, I plunge back in. Indescribable pleasure blazes a path through me. The only thing I can do is grunt, knowing I sound more animal than man, and I don’t give a damn. Not when this beautiful, lush pussy is sucking at me, quivering around me, coaxing me to hand over everything I am.
And I surrender to the call.
My control snaps, and I ride her, driving into her, shoving her back into the chair with the force of each thrust. Slender arms wrap around my back, cradling my shoulders. She hangs on, and I throw us both into the wild wind.
Her cries bathe my ears, and the relentless quivering of her pussy tells me she’s close. So am I. Right there. But I’m not going without her. Reaching between us, I find that perfect little clit and rub it. Pinch it.
Her sex locks down on my cock, and I shout with the force of it. She milks me, pulling me deeper, and burrowing my face into the base of her throat, I explode, spilling into her. Emptying myself.
And she takes it all.
When the last shudder eases from her body, and my brain winks back online, I slide free, already missing being inside her. Minutes later, I have both of us cleaned up and our clothing restored to rights.
Nikki stares at me, eyes bright, curls a little wilder from my hands and a small smile curling her mouth. She cups my face, and I turn into her palm, pressing a kiss there.
“I don’t know how sterile that was for a tattoo shop,” she teases. “But damn, do I love the perks of getting tatted by you.”
I grin, grabbing my bottle to spray tincture of green soap and water on her thigh and wipe her skin of excess ink and sweat. Moments later, I’m gloved up and the tattoo gun is back in my hand. But instead of turning it on, I tip my head up and meet her eyes.
“I love you, Woody,” I whisper.
“I love you more, Dean.”
***
Nikki
“Tracy Randall.”
I sit in the audience of the town’s convention center, my knee jumping in nervous anticipation. My thigh itches from the healing tattoo Dean gave me last week, but even that can’t distract me from my jittery excitement. Below me, and the hundreds of others in the center’s auditorium, sits this year’s local community college graduating class.
Including Dean.
My heart thuds against my sternum, and I press a hand there, as if that can still the pounding beat. It’s crazy, really. As a professor, I’ve attended several graduation ceremonies. Yet, here I am, as anxious as if I were the one wearing the cap and gown and about to receive a degree.
But Dean is a part of me. So that makes sense.
“He’s almost up,” Carrie, Dean’s sister says, squeezing my hand. “I’m so excited.” Shaking her head, she rasps, “God, I wish Mom were here. She would be so proud.”
On the other side of her, Michael, their brother, gives his sister a one-arm hug. “Best believe she’s watching. No way she would miss Dean’s big day.” He glances over at me and smiles.
One of the best gifts Dean could’ve ever given me was family. Carrie and Michael accepted me into theirs with wide open arms and hearts. They didn’t care that I was—am—older than Dean. Didn’t care that I just seemed to come out of nowhere with baggage. Instead, they welcomed me and have become like my own brother and sister. They’ve plugged the gaping, bleeding hole that my own brother left when he disowned me for going through with letting Mom face the theft charges. A hole that only widened a
nd deepened when he refused to even look at me during her trial.
I sigh, but a squeeze on my hand draws me from my thoughts, and I look back at Carrie.
“He’s next,” she whispers.
Switching my attention back to the raised stage, I easily spy Dean. He stands next to the short flight of stairs, the vibrant tattoos on his arms peeking out from under the sleeves of his black gown. Though I can’t see his beautiful blue eyes, his sharp profile is familiar and so loved. My fingertips tingle with the need to touch his hard, clean-shaven jaw. God, I adore him.
“Dean Shaw.”
Carrie, Michael and I leap to our feet, clapping, hollering and whistling. As Dean climbs the steps and crosses the stage a smile flashes across his face that we can see from our seats. Pride and love swell within me so hard and so full, I should be floating somewhere near the skylight. Dean accepts his Associates Degree in Business Administration, and we scream louder.
He did it.
He earned his degree and fulfilled his mom’s wishes for him.
Not that I ever doubted he could—or would.
Dean Shaw can do anything he sets his brilliant mind to.
A half-hour later, we find him in the lobby of the center, and after hugging his siblings tight, he sweeps me into his arms, lifting me off the floor. I wrap my arms around his neck, embracing him just as tightly. How is it possible to love a person this much? I don’t know. And I don’t waste any more precious time questioning it. Somethings just are. Like my devotion to him. And my heart that that belongs to him. Forever.
“You did it,” I breathe into his ear.