by Natalie Ann
Travis walked to the fridge and helped himself and grabbed one for Brock too.
“Thanks for the beer,” Brock said.
“You’re welcome,” Ella said, finding that statement strange at the moment.
“He means for telling Mason to give him beer,” Travis said.
“Oh. No problem. Remember, you promised me some secrets.”
Travis rolled his eyes. “There isn’t anything Brock can tell you that will embarrass me.”
“I don’t know about that,” Brock said. “But still, Mason gave me a couple of cases to take to the Outer Banks for the family vacation.”
“I figured he would,” Ella said. “Have a seat, both of you, dinner will just be a few more minutes. I had Aiden prepare most of it and I’m just cooking it.”
Travis walked over and opened the oven where she had the burgers finishing up with blue cheese on them. “I love your brothers.”
She burst out laughing. “You are the first person to ever say that.”
They were finishing up dinner when Brock leaned back and said, “Okay. Are you ready to know the most embarrassing thing that I know about Travis?”
“Yes,” Ella said, rubbing her hands together.
“When Travis was in high school—”
“Oh shit,” Travis said. “That’s wrong. Talk about a betrayal!”
“What?” Ella asked, knowing this was going to be good. “Did you two go to school together?” She’d had no clue about that.
“No,” Travis said. Then he turned to Brock. “You aren’t supposed to throw a man under the bus when he’d been drinking.”
“Ella just gave me an awesome dinner and got me some beer. Sorry, I’ve got to share,” Brock said. “One night Travis was drunk.”
“So were you. I can’t believe you even remembered what any of us said,” Travis said.
“This was just too funny to forget,” Brock said. “Travis had the biggest crush on this girl in his class, but she didn’t want anything to do with him. She thought he was this big ogre.”
“Hmm,” Travis said. “That sounds familiar.”
She laughed. “But you ended up with me. I’m not sure I want to know if you ended up with this crush of yours.”
“He didn’t,” Brock said. “But he did end up with a broken leg.”
Travis groaned, but Ella had to know. “Go on.”
“They were in gym class. She was a soccer player and he was trying to show off at how good he was. He was running after the ball and went to kick it away from her, but she kicked it at the same time. Between their speed, both their feet hitting the ball at the same time, and the angle of his foot, he broke his leg.”
“My tibia. A fracture,” Travis said.
“A fracture is still a break,” Ella said, grinning.
“Especially because he was in a cast for six weeks and everyone was busting on him how a little five foot nothing of a girl managed to break his leg by kicking a soccer ball.”
Ella burst out laughing. Travis’s face was beet red. “I might have to get you even more beer after learning that.”
Special Bond
“I like your friend,” Ella said the next night. She’d gotten out of work at four—which was early for her—then she came home and started dinner for Travis.
She liked having a meal with him a few nights a week when she never thought she’d need someone’s company like this before. If she thought back she’d realize this might be the least amount of time she’d worked at her job in years and yet the company wasn’t collapsing on her. Imagine that. Maybe her mom was right. Maybe she should try to get an assistant that the family could all trust and she’d be confident in so that she could have somewhat of a normal life too.
“I like him too,” he said back, grabbing the spoon from her hand and stirring shrimp into the pan with the vegetables she’d been stir-frying. “But you’re just happy that he told you a deep dark secret of mine.”
“Speaking of which,” she said. “You told me you didn’t have anything embarrassing to share.”
He laughed. “I thought I could get away with it since I didn’t remember even telling Brock. It’s not like I’m scared of soccer balls like you are of a clown.”
She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Not funny, Travis.”
“Sure it was,” he said, leaning down to kiss her.
It was, but she wasn’t going to admit it. She let out a little huff and said, “So how many embarrassing things have happened to you while you were trying to impress a girl?”
“That was it.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, winking.
“You’ll just have to take my word for it. How many things have you done to get a guy’s attention?” he asked.
She wasn’t about to say. “I haven’t dated much, you know that. And I didn’t do anything to get a guy’s attention. They ran from me half the time because of my brothers.”
“I don’t believe as many ran from you as you’d like me to think. I bet plenty talked to you first.”
She sighed. “They did. But if I ever showed any interest in them and my brothers found out, then they’d start running away like they were trying to outrace a gang of ten-year-olds on the way to a boy band concert.”
She was happy that she’d found out something about Travis that was both a childhood event and something funny, but she wasn’t ready to pull any more skeletons out of the closet of her life right now. She liked where she and Travis were at the moment. Anything more might go deeper and until she had a better grasp on him and them as a couple, she was staying in the shallow end of the pool.
“Brock liked you,” he said suddenly.
“That’s because I told Mason to give him some beer. Not that I’d have to tell Mason that because he would have done it anyway.”
“Your family is good that way.”
“Your family seems pretty good too,” she said, turning and putting her hands on the counter behind her. “Tell me about your mother.”
He just stared at her. “She always smiles. Even now, if she is aware of someone around her, she smiles for no other reason than it’s probably muscle memory.”
“Unlike her son?”
“I smile plenty around you,” he argued.
“Now,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. Months ago she could have never imagined she’d be in her kitchen talking to Travis, let alone her hands around his rock hard body and never wanting to let go.
“You scared me before.”
She burst out laughing. “I find that hard to believe.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said, kissing the top of her forehead.
She chose to ignore that statement. It might be too early to have that conversation. “Aside from smiling, tell me more about your mother. Only if you want to.” She pulled the pan of shrimp off the stove and set it aside, then emptied the pasta she’d just drained and started to toss it around.
“I don’t mind talking about her. She worked with my father for years. She ran the office and did the books. Little by little, we noticed she was forgetting things. She’d walk into a room and not remember why. But it was happening more and more.”
“No. Tell me something good about her,” she said. “Not when she got ill. A good memory.”
He laughed, his eyes getting all soft and dewy. “She was a rock. My father worked a lot, but she always had food on the table for him. She always kept the house calm and organized in the chaos. She taught me how to cook.”
“That’s a good memory. Why did you want to learn?” she asked.
“To be with her. I got the feeling she was lonely at times. That I was so close to my father and I wondered if it hurt her feelings. When I was younger she and I did everything together, but when I hit the teenager stage, I just went with my father.”
That was so sweet, but she didn’t want to embarrass him and say that. “My brothers are closer to my mother than my father.”
“You’re th
e Daddy’s girl, aren’t you?”
“I am. Don’t get me wrong. My brothers are close to my father too. It’s just my mother seems to steamroll her way through us all, but my father and I have this special bond.”
“Same here with my mother.”
***
Travis was trying to figure out how they got on this topic and though he didn’t really want to talk about his mother, part of him knew it might be a good thing.
“I think she remembered me when I visited with her the other day.”
“Really?” Ella said, setting plates on the table.
“Every once in a while she makes a comment. A few weeks ago she asked if I was the boy that mowed her lawn and she remembered that boy didn’t like to do it.”
“Travis, that’s something,” she said, reaching for his hand.
“It is. I went to see her a few days ago and she asked if I was in the service. I told her I used to be. She said I had a look to me that screamed military.”
“You do have that look to you. It’s a nice sexy look too.”
They sat down and started to eat. He had to put food in his mouth before he voiced something stupid like it killed him that his mother remembered something about him that wasn’t part of his life anymore, but maybe she remembered how much it meant to him. He wanted his mother to remember something that was current but knew he most likely wouldn’t get that wish.
“Anyway. When I walked in this week to see her, my father was there playing cards with her. She was beating him. I wanted to laugh because she always won at cards. It’s odd to me how she forgets memories but remembers how to play cards at times. So it was a good thought.”
“I bet your father has a lot of patience with her.”
“He does. It was so hard for him to make the decision to move her, but he couldn’t do it anymore. He was terrified she was going to start cooking something and forget, or walk out the door and lose her way when he was at work. Twice she’d gotten up in the middle of the night and started cleaning like it was daytime. He heard her in the kitchen pulling out ingredients and it was a wakeup call for her safety. This way he can enjoy her without the stress.”
“And isn’t that what love is supposed to be about?” she asked, then dipped her head down.
“There is always stress in love, Ella. How can you say that?”
She looked up and held his stare. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“You’ve never been in love?” he asked, shocked but knowing he shouldn’t be.
“No,” she said quickly. Too quickly and he wondered if she was telling the truth.
Been So Wrong
Ella had enough chitchat. She didn’t want to talk about the past. She didn’t want to talk about the future. She just wanted to deal with the present.
Together they cleaned up dinner and then she grabbed the dishtowel out of his hands, put it on the counter and pulled his shirt out of his waistband, her hands going to his six pack abs that she loved looking at when he wasn’t watching her.
“Something on your mind, Ella?” he asked, his hands sliding under her shirt also.
“Oh, I think you know what is on my mind. The question is, are you thinking the same thing?”
“I’m a man. I’m always thinking about this.” He reached down and swung her up, startling her and making her wrap her arms around his neck fast and tight. No man had ever picked her up before and she wasn’t sure she ever wanted one too either.
He set his lips to hers and cradled her, making her realize she didn’t feel weak like she always thought she would, but rather strong knowing that she was causing this reaction in someone so big and rugged.
She often confused herself in life. She never wanted anyone to take care of her. She never wanted to depend on anyone. Yet she wanted someone large and tough like her father. A presence in a room that demanded attention when he walked in by doing nothing more than being himself.
Her father always took care of all of them, yet her mother wasn’t a weak woman by any means. At some point she was going to have to analyze what she really wanted in life.
At this very moment though, she wanted Travis McKinley. She wanted him to take her to her bed and do all sorts of wicked things to her.
“I’m a woman and though I don’t always think of sex, I seem to think about it a lot lately, so I guess it has to do more with you than anything else.”
He started moving toward her bedroom, taking the stairs two at a time. He had a light step for someone so big.
He set her on her feet at the foot of the bed and then started to quickly take her clothes off. “We’re not going to take this slow and steady are we?”
“We can do that later, but I’ve missed the hell out of you the past week and right now I’m going to prove it to you.”
Her hands eagerly went to his clothes deciding to help him out. Why not when he seemed to be in such a hurry to get her naked? She knew right now there was nothing more she wanted than to see his ripped and bulging muscles.
The minute they were both only wearing their birthday suits, she repositioned them so that she could give him a shove onto the bed. He raised his eyebrow and let out a laugh. Then she climbed on top of him, straddling his thighs.
“Seems like maybe I wasn’t the only one missing this,” he said.
“Not at all.” Her hands went to his chest, so vast and smooth. He didn’t shave it, she could tell because there was a sprinkling of hair that often tickled her cheek when she put her mouth to work on him. She liked that he wasn’t high maintenance, that he didn’t spend a lot of time getting ready to go somewhere, and that though he was just the opposite of her, she felt they belonged together like peanut butter and jelly.
Like beer and pretzels.
Like sunshine and rainbows.
Like a man she always wanted and he was right where he needed to be.
She lowered her mouth, her tongue coming out to trace all the grooves in front of her, the heat and steel length of him throbbing against her inner thigh. She was getting distracted by it.
“Ella,” he said, his hands going to her rear and kneading her. He was always touching her, massaging her, caressing her. For someone who always thought a package of batteries for her little drawer of toys was all she needed, she was wondering how she could have been so wrong.
Easy, she never had anyone like Travis before in her life and she was damn glad of the fact he was here now.
“Yes,” she said, her teeth grazing his waist. Those sculpted abs of his were just as yummy as a box of chocolates.
“Slow is for later. This isn’t later,” he said.
“No, it’s not. I don’t want to move from my spot to get a condom though,” she said.
“Then you shouldn’t have taken my clothes off as fast as you had and let me grab it out of my jeans.”
She sighed. “I might have to do something about this. It’s inconvenient to have to stop when I just want to go full force.”
He growled and flipped her over before she had a chance to say anything, then left her to fish around in his jeans.
He was back faster than she could have gotten it and he was ready to go. But rather than entering her like she wanted, he crawled over her, then turned and flipped her again, putting her right back on top of him like she’d been minutes ago. “See, you didn’t even need to get up. Go back to what you had planned.”
He didn’t need to tell her twice. She slid down a bit and gripped him tight, positioned him right at her opening and rather than slide down slowly, even tease him and wiggle down, she impaled herself hard, felt him stretching her and knew she wanted it like that again. She needed it like that.
She did the only thing she could—she rose up and did it again. Then again. And a fourth time.
His hands came up and anchored on her hips telling her that he liked what she was doing too. That he had no problem with her taking control and putting her own feelings first because right now all she was thinking of was getting to the end
. He could catch up when he wanted to, but she wanted to keep him slamming into her again and again.
She was on her knees bouncing up and down. Her breasts that were never that big were moving as if they were ten pounds apiece. When she glanced up, Travis’s eyes were right on them watching the action.
“Don’t just stare at them,” she said.
He lifted his eyes to hers. She hadn’t even stopped moving up and down when she said it, making her wonder how she found the breath to voice that statement.
“I’m afraid if I let go of your waist you’re going to break something with the way you’re going at it.”
She laughed. “I can be gentle if you want. I won’t dare break it. I find I like it way too much to put it out of commission.”
This time he laughed. “You can’t break me,” he said but did move one hand to her breast. He didn’t massage it though. Nor did he caress it.
Instead he pinched her nipple between two fingers to the point she actually yelped, but then said, “Do it again.”
He did. She never thought she’d like that either, but found she liked a lot of things she never thought she would before.
Then he leaned up and latched his lips on the other nipple. He didn’t suck. He didn’t even nibble. Nope, he bit her. He was pinching one nipple, biting the other and her body just took over in a series of reactions and movements that had her screaming out his name and convulsing everywhere.
How it was possible to feel like every muscle was pulsing during an orgasm was beyond her, but it sure the hell felt like one major cardio workout.
She hadn’t been paying attention to him or if he was even close. It was selfish on her part, but she was so lost in her feelings and not wanting to lose where she was, that she pushed everything out of her mind.
He obviously still had more to go and turned her back over again. “I feel like I should just be on a gym mat right now,” she said.
“You don’t have to do a thing but lie there if you want,” he said. He was still inside of her nice and firm.
“That would be a waste, but I’m so weak right now.”