by Natalie Ann
Her hands went to the button of his jeans and undid them, sliding in and gripping his cock. “You’re still hungry after all that food you put away today?”
“That’s not very nice to say to a woman. I might have to tell your grandmother on you.”
“She’d probably just laugh and say you could stand to put a few pounds on anyway.”
“Says no woman ever,” she said back, then started to stroke him. “No more talk unless it’s dirty talk.”
“Do you want dirty talk?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t done much of it in my life. I feel like I haven’t done a lot in my life until I met you.”
“Is that a good or bad thing?”
“You be the judge,” she said as she started to turn and wasn’t letting go of him but playing with him while they made the climb to her room. She was behind him reaching around and stroking him as he moved forward and he wondered how long he could last at this point.
They got to her room, she moved in front of him and gave him a little shove on the bed, then told him to lower his jeans.
He lifted up and pushed them down around his ankles, then kicked them away.
She wasted no time getting on her knees and putting that luscious mouth of hers to work.
“Whoa there, slow down.”
“Nope. Better than your grandmother’s pie today.”
“I’d prefer to not talk about my grandmother right now while you are doing this.”
She sat back and looked at him, her eyes laughing, her tongue coming out and tracing her lips. “You just don’t want to say I was right when your grandmother started to talk about Frank in the retirement community and how all the ladies loved him.”
“Don’t go there,” he said. “Just get back to work.”
If there was anything to make his dick go limp it might be that. Except Emily’s mouth was going to town and not about to let that happen.
The sight of her head bobbing up and down on his cock was sending all the blood rushing even more to that part of his body making him want to burst.
He wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to hold off and gripped her by her hair and pulled her up. “You need to stop.”
“But I don’t want to.”
“Another time. Right now I just want your legs around me.”
“Oh, I like that too.”
She stood up and started to undress, so he reached down for a condom in his jeans. By the time he was covered, she was naked and moving toward him, putting her knees on each side of his hips while he sat on the edge of the bed.
He helped line her up and then pulled her down on top of him. She moaned low in her throat and then started to ride him with the same enthusiasm as she was giving him a blow job.
Women in his past did this all the time. But it was fake. It was to try to get what they wanted by putting out.
But he learned with Emily that the only thing she wanted was him.
“You feel so good,” he said.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
She shifted so that her legs were now around his back, but her ass was almost hanging off the bed. When she lifted up, gravity pulled her back down, making her work a little harder for it.
Since she was more aggressive tonight, he let her go while he made sure she didn’t fall.
She didn’t seem to mind, moving up and slamming back down each time. He was so close to the edge right now.
“You need to slow down, Emily.”
“No, I don’t,” she said, huffing out a few breaths. “I need to get to the end because it’s such a nice place to be.”
“It is,” he agreed, grinding his teeth because he didn’t want to finish before her but had a feeling that was going to happen.
To push her along he latched onto her nipple in front of him and started to nibble. She seemed to enjoy that so he did it a bit harder and then she took off almost in a gallop.
“Jesus, Emily. Slow the fuck down.”
“No,” she said. “I want you there. I’m getting there and I want it now. Just like this. Hard.”
Did she say hard? He was afraid she was not only going to wear herself out but that she might break him if she missed on the way down.
It didn’t seem to matter though because she was exploding around him and then still. Nope, couldn’t do it. He was still holding her hips and started to thrust up into her as frantic as she was slamming down into him until he stiffened and then let it all go.
He was hugging her tight to his body while he tried to get his breath back and then lay backwards, her on top of him.
“That was nice,” she said.
“Just nice? I feel about as weak as I was after the flu.”
“Do you need me to take care of you again?”
It was said as a joke, but it still warmed him and reminded him that he never really knew what he was getting into with her when he bought the date but found this was so much more.
And before he could stop himself, the words just tumbled out of his lips. “I love you, Emily.”
She stilled and he realized he probably should have held them back. At the moment he wasn’t sure what would be worse, no response at all, or if she started with something like, “Thank you.”
But she didn’t. Instead she leaned up and looked in his eyes, then kissed him lightly on the lips. “That’s good to know, Crew, because this high-priced escort whore is in love with you too.”
Two hours later he was walking back into his house. He hadn’t wanted to leave right away because then his grandmother might have figured out what he did quickly. But staying longer she might think they just wanted to relax and talk.
“I wasn’t sure if you were coming back tonight. You were gone long enough to roll around in the sheets a few times.”
He wanted to slap his hand to his forehead when she said that. Why didn’t he remember his grandmother being like this before? But then he realized she never was. This was getting odder.
“I told you I’d be back,” he said. “Is everything okay? I thought you said you wanted to watch some game shows.”
“And I did. I like my game shows. Everything okay with Emily?”
“Of course,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
She angled her head at him and then said, “You love her, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said. “I even told her tonight. I figured if she could sit here and be insulted by you and then still want to roll around in the sheets after, then she must be the woman for me.”
He wanted to see if she’d blush but she only laughed at him. “Crew, I’ve been around the block way too long for you to think I’d be embarrassed.”
He wasn’t about to address her comment about being around the block. “My point is, I’ve felt it and why not say it? It seems to me she feels the same way.”
“Of course she does,” she said. “How could you think otherwise? It’s easy enough to see without finding out that she put her high-priced job on hold to care for you when you were sick.”
“I don’t know how putting her job on hold for one day proves anything,” he argued. But when he thought back he realized that though she’d said her engagement ended partially because she put the hotel first, he didn’t always find that a problem.
He’d never been someone that had to be around a woman nonstop...even if he did want to be with Emily.
Or maybe she was more than willing to spend time with him because he didn’t ask? Could it just be new right now and then things would change?
No. He wasn’t thinking that. He’d be closing on the house soon and would have things to do and would need time too. It’d be nice to not have to worry about having his girlfriend annoyed he wasn’t with her.
What they had worked for him and it seemed it worked just fine for her too.
“Yes, there is more to it,” his grandmother said. “And now that you said the words, there are more you should be telling her.”
He didn’t
need the lecture. “I will. I just need to figure out how. You don’t just lead with, ‘hey, guess what? I’m worth fifty million.’”
“She’d probably think you were joking.”
“She would. And it’s not like I’m going to start showing her my portfolio either.”
“As you shouldn’t. But she’ll be working this week and we’ve got some time to ourselves. So what is the plan?”
“I’m going to drive you around the island and try to convince you to move here.”
She laughed. “We’ll see, Crew.”
That was more than she’d said before.
31
All Yours Now
A few weeks later, he’d felt everything was going just fine in life.
He was going to close on the house in two weeks. They were just waiting for Carm to be able to move into his new apartment. He’d told Carolyn he wasn’t living with them, but was fine going into a retirement apartment complex.
When Carm told him where he was going, Crew looked it up online to see if it might be something his grandmother would be interested in. But it wasn’t nearly as nice as what she had. He didn’t care if she wasn’t on the island with him, but as long as she was within driving distance or a one-day trip, he’d be thrilled.
There were plenty to choose from in Boston, but when he’d sent her the link she’d laughed him out of the room saying there was no way she was staying with a bunch of people that she couldn’t understand their accent or rich snobs that wouldn’t look her way.
He supposed she might have had a point, but he wasn’t going to admit that to her.
Then he was thinking maybe she could move into his current house and he could go into the new one. She did seem to like it here. But he worried she’d get bored on her own. He’d hold off suggesting that until he could find out more for her to do or other retirees on the island she could meet.
He was just walking in the door after finishing his shift. It was a beautiful sixty degrees out today with the sun shining. Spring on the island was a lovely sight indeed.
Or maybe it was that he was in love and everything looked better through those glasses. Amore Island glasses, he thought and laughed.
Then he wondered if he got hit on the head by some stupid lore or legend hammer to be having these wuss thoughts.
So to feel more like a man, he changed into workout gear and then went to the spare room where he kept some weights and started to pump iron.
By the time he’d worked up a massive sweat he was positive his testosterone was back in check.
He shook his head wondering what the hell was going through his brain. It had to be this island.
When his phone rang, he reached for it but didn’t notice the number from Texas and sent it to voicemail. Sure he’d lived in Houston for a year before he moved here, but he didn’t form any attachments to anyone enough to put their numbers in his phone. Or keep them there when he moved.
After his shower, he checked his phone and noticed a voicemail, then hit play.
“Crew. It’s Laurie. We need to talk. Call me back as soon as you can. It’s important.”
He was trying to think who Laurie was. If it weren’t for the fact that she’d used his name, he’d think it was a wrong number.
Didn’t matter. Couldn’t be that important if he couldn’t remember her. He put it from his mind while he looked around in the kitchen for some food.
Emily was working late as far as he knew. They didn’t keep tabs on each other and he was fine with that. She’d text or call him when she got home at some point. They always talked before they went to bed, even if it was a short text to say how their day went.
When his phone went off again, he figured it was Emily and reached for it. Instead it was a text from the same Houston number that left him a message.
He opened it up and saw a picture of a woman holding a baby that read. “Remember me now? We need to talk.”
Fuck!
Yeah, he remembered her. She’d come on to him in a bar one night when she was out with a friend. They’d spent a few weeks together right before he moved. He’d told her he was moving too and that he didn’t want any attachments and wasn’t looking for one.
Laurie wasn’t looking for anything more than a man to throw some drinks back with and then toss her on the bed.
He zoomed in on the kid. He’d been here about ten months now and that kid looked to be a month or less old. It sure the hell didn’t look like him.
Shit, the kid had black curly hair. Not dark brown and straight like his. This was more like African-American black curly hair. The child’s skin tone was much darker than Laurie’s paleness that matched her blonde hair and blue eyes.
This had to be a joke.
Rather than text her back, he called her. “I knew that picture would get your notice.”
“The only notice it got was that April Fool’s was several weeks ago.”
“Is that any way to talk about your daughter?”
So she was trying to pull this off on him. Son of a bitch. It seemed like it was never going to end. He’d never even told her about his wealth. No one knew in Texas.
“That kid is no more mine than it is the Pope’s.”
“You don’t know that,” Laurie said in a high-pitched whine. He really remembered her now. The only way he could tolerate her was when they were in bed together.
“Any idiot would know that. What game are you playing?”
“I’m not sure who Sarah’s father is. I was with a few guys at that time and you were one of them. I really believe she is yours.”
“You’re smoking crack,” he said. He started to wonder if she somehow found out about him and that was what prompted this.
“I’m not. Unless you want to be served with child support papers, you’ll have to take a paternity test. Or you can just give me a settlement to go on my way.”
Yep, she knew about him. “How did you find out?”
His straight-talk question seemed to make Laurie decide to not play with him. “When I found out I was pregnant I was trying to figure who the father was. As I said, it was between a few people.”
“So you were fucking someone else while you were me?” he asked. Might as well call it what it was.
“You said you weren’t looking for anything other than fun. I took that as I could do what I wanted when I wasn’t with you.”
“I wore a condom every single time,” he said.
“So did the other two men. Yet I still got pregnant.”
“How many Black men did you sleep with?” he asked. “My guess is that’s Sarah’s father.”
“We don’t know that for sure.”
“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it, right?”
“Yep. As I said, this can all go away if you want. Imagine my surprise when I was trying to find you and did a little research online. It took a lot of digging, but I finally realized you were the Crew Ackley whose parents won the lotto and then died. My guess is, it’s all yours now.”
He knew if someone wanted to look far enough they’d find it. It just went to show that no one in the Bond family had and they had the resources to find out everything on him much faster than the internet alone.
“I’ll be there on the next plane that I can to take the test and put an end to this,” he said.
There was silence on the other end as if she didn’t think he’d do it. “Fine. I’ll send you my address.”
“I don’t need to see you or the baby. I’ll just be contacting my lawyer once you tell me what lab to go to. I could do it here and have the results sent there, but I’m not playing that game to find out it might get lost. You want to play this way, we’ll do it. As you said. I’ve got money. A plane ticket and hotel is a drop in the bucket to get you out of my life.”
He hung the phone up and started to pace. There was no way he could keep this from Emily, nor would he.
He was so pissed off he had to tell someone and she was the first person hi
s mind went to.
Not tonight though. He needed to get a flight and then work it out in his head after he called his lawyer.
What did his grandmother tell him? That he was going to back himself in a corner?
He wouldn’t call this a corner, but it wasn’t the way he wanted Emily to find out.
32
Before My Time
“You’re joking,” Emily said, her face pale.
“I’m not. I have to fly to Texas tomorrow to get this squared away. It’s not my kid,” he said. “Look. You can see right away it’s not.”
She took the phone out of his hand and zoomed in on the baby and started to laugh. “Is this a joke?”
“That’s what I asked. She’s being a bitch about it,” he said.
“But you dated her?” This was the type of woman he was with before? What was she missing?
“No. I was leaving and she knew it. It was a few weeks before and we had some fun.”
“Sex?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s it. As she kindly pointed out, she was sleeping with other men too. I had no idea. Though what I had with her wasn’t serious, I’m not the type of person dipping my wick in multiple candles.”
“Talk about crude.” Guess he got that from his grandmother.
“I’m sorry. I’m extremely aggravated over this.”
“I get it. I’m annoyed for you. I mean even if this kid looked like you and you just found out and it was your kid, I’d have to understand, right? It was before my time.”
“You’re taking this awfully well,” he said.
“I think it’s because, as you kindly pointed out, there is no way this is your kid.”
“Yeah. And even if it was, what you said is true. It was before your time. Like a lot of things.”
She wasn’t sure what he meant by that. “Why do you have to go to Houston though for the test? Can’t you just go get one in Boston and have the results sent there?”
“I could, but I don’t want to take the chance it’s held up or lost. I want this over with.”