Sneaking my hand down into his underwear, my fingertips brushed hair there. The wide, hard base. The smooth, smooth skin covering it all, and he grunted, his laugh unexpected and rough. “Not too much of that.”
I kissed the line of his jaw, the tip of his chin, and gave him a squeeze anyway.
He pulled out one of the hands he had inside my underwear and cupped my breast with it, taking its weight. “How am I so goddamn lucky?” he groaned. “How can you feel this good already?” His mouth gave my neck a soft kiss that had me shivering.
“I’ve been thinking about this for so long,” I told him, stroking both hands up and down his spine, nipping at his chin in a way that had his hips rolling straight against the seam of my body. “You don’t even know how many times I’ve made myself come thinking about you sucking on my nipples.”
He groaned, broken and loud.
“Or just pushing deep, deep in me.”
He panted as I circled my hips into his.
“And pictured you coming in me, every inch of you stuffing me full.”
He growled.
Those big hands went to my butt, and then we were up and he was dropping me in the middle of his bed. He yanked my leggings off and threw them over his shoulder before sneaking his fingers beneath my undies and pulling those right off too.
I smiled at him, arching my back and reaching for his jeans when he crawled over me. I kept on smiling at him as I pushed his pants down over his butt, copping a handful on the way back up, and then doing it again, but this time under his boxers, stroking once, twice.
He groaned deep at the touch, then groaned even deeper when I wrapped my hand around him too.
I wasn’t sure who was more surprised, him or me.
Because I looked down at what I had my fingers on. I’d only gotten to touch the base of him. I hadn’t gotten… the whole thing.
His laugh was husky as he dipped down and kissed me before saying, “I’ve thought about this every night too.”
It was my turn to gulp as I risked a glance down at the thick cock I was holding.
It was perfect.
I gave him a squeeze, and he gave me another groan, a dreamy look in his eyes. He kissed me again, and I gave him yet another squeeze that had him swiveling his hips like he wanted me to do it again.
So I did.
“I’ve got places I want to put my mouth… my fingers….” He dipped his mouth back toward my breasts and sucked a nipple softly, slowly. “It’ll be so damn good for you….”
Patience had never been a virtue of mine.
So as he sucked and licked at my breasts, I stroked up and down the thick cock bobbing between our bodies, rubbing my thumb through the drop of precum that pooled at the deep-red tip I wanted to put into my mouth at some point, and jerked him off slowly, kissing the parts of his head I could reach. His hair. His ear. My other hand stroked his back as he kept on sucking the tips of my breasts before eventually easing a hand to the side of mine and stroking the pads of his fingers up and down the seam of my body.
The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Is it terrible that I hate knowing other people have seen you like this? That I’m jealous I’m not the only one who knows how big you are? What you feel like in my hand?”
The noise Rhodes made in the back of his throat was fucking savage. His breathing was deep, his fingers not stopping their petting movement up and down my lower lips. But his voice was harsh and deep as he said, serious, “They don’t matter. They’re never going to again. Understand me?” Rhodes pulled back and met my gaze with his stormy, bright one. “And you’re not the only one jealous.”
“There’s nothing for you to be jealous about,” I promised.
That must have been the perfect thing to say because then we were kissing again, and I’d licked my palm before going back to teasing him slowly when one of those big fingers finally dipped between my lips and pushed inside. I’d been wet from the moment he started kissing me, groaning as he pulled that long finger out and pushed it back in, pumping slowly, steadily.
“I’m on birth control,” I whispered. “I went to the doctor and I’m good,” I told him, needing him to know.
His voice was hoarse as he replied, “I go every year, and I haven’t done anything in a long time….”
“Good.” I bit his throat. “Then you can come in me as deep as you want.”
Rhodes growled in his throat before he slid another finger deep, his sawing motions consistent before they started scissoring. And finally a third finger joined the rest, and I whimpered at the stretch, at the fullness that somewhere in the back of my mind I recognized was necessary for what we both wanted.
Rhodes whispered into my ear what he was going to do to me—telling me all about how he was going to bottom out, about how good he knew we were going to be together, about filling me up with more than just his dick. But what I loved the most was what he said about how much he wanted me, how good I made him feel, about me molding to him. With that bristly face between my thighs, my hand buried in his soft, brown and silver hair, his tongue dipped as deep into me as possible, lapping and twisting, his lips sucking and possessive. And Rhodes told me all about how he loved the way I tasted, and how he already couldn’t wait to do it again.
Eventually, his hips dipped down between my legs, and I wrapped them around his hips, and with my hand around his root, guiding him where we both wanted him, he pressed all of those inches in me.
I was grateful for those three fingers he’d used, but I was more grateful for the gift he’d been given because, even though it took a minute to get used to the magnitude of his girth and how long he was… it was incredible.
His dick twitched the second his slow pumps had our groins completely meeting, and he groaned against my neck, his body covering mine completely except for where my legs anchored him to me. Rhodes was breathing hard as he pulled a couple inches out and pushed back in. The mattress squeaked lightly. His voice was savage as he growled, and his hips pumped him in to the root.
I squeezed his sides tight, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and tilting up my hips a little. The mattress squeaked again, and I swore I’d never heard anything so erotic in my life. That soft creak, creak, creak burned itself into my brain, especially when he moaned into my ear. His breath was hot, his body hotter.
Dragging my palms up and down his back, I loved everything about him.
And that’s what I told him.
His dick twitched in me, and he breathed heavily. “You want to end this before we’ve even really started?”
“It sure feels like we’ve started,” I panted as he retreated and then pushed back in with a smack of his balls against my ass, earning another louder creak of the mattress. And that was how he moved, slowly, then hard, teasing me with the girth of his tip before pushing fully in and then starting all over again.
We kissed and kissed. I bit his neck, and he sucked hard at my shoulder, at my ear. The hair on his chest abraded my nipples, and I loved it. At some point, he slipped his hands under my ass and tilted my hips up even more, his pelvic bone hitting me perfectly. We were sweaty and quiet; I muffled my mouth against his shoulder, and he kissed his groans across my lips.
“You’re incredible,” he said.
“You’re perfect,” he whispered.
“You feel so damn good,” he growled as his hips picked up speed just as I started to feel the heat building and building at the center of my body.
Rhodes pounded inside of me, holding me off the bed and on top of his thighs, and I squeezed my legs tight around him as he ground and ground right against where I wanted him. I cried out my orgasm against his cheek. His hands gripped my butt hard as his hips became erratic and he came, pulsing and groaning so deep from his chest, I felt it against mine.
That big, sweaty body slumped against mine as he lowered us onto the bed, still inside of me, between my thighs. Rhodes laid his cheek against the top of my head, his lungs pumping for br
eath. I wrapped my arms around him, sliding over his slick back, breathing hard too.
“Wow,” I panted.
“Jesus,” he said, kissing me right above my breast.
“Merry Christmas to me.”
Rhodes’s sudden laugh filled my chest and heart, and I swore he cuddled me closer, lifting my head to brush his lips against mine. His gaze met mine, and he was smiling, this bright thing that made my chest fly, that made those three little words flare deeply in my chest. “Merry Christmas, Aurora,” he whispered tenderly.
“Merry Christmas, Tobers,” I repeated, and in some small part of my heart, I hoped this would be the first of many. “You’re the best, you know that?”
I felt the curve of his mouth, felt the smile he made against my skin.
It really was the best Christmas I’d ever had.
Chapter 28
“Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop, Am,” I moaned from the passenger seat the very next night.
Our student driver, who was currently behind the wheel of my car, didn’t even bother looking at me as he shook his head in dismay and said, “We left half an hour ago!”
He was totally right. We’d left his aunt’s house exactly thirty minutes ago. I’d even peed right before we’d walked out of her doors. But what he didn’t know was that I’d chugged a cup of coffee right before all that just in case I’d had to drive home since Rhodes had drunk a couple of beers. “You know I have a tiny bladder. Please, you don’t want me to have to pay you to clean my car because I peed in here.”
From the seat behind mine, Rhodes made a sound that had to be a bark of a laugh.
“You don’t want to smell pee for the next hour.”
The teenager finally glanced over with an alarmed expression.
“Please, Am, please. If you love me—and I know you do—stop at the next station. At the next pull-off. I’d be happy going just over to the side of the road right here, and I’ll be fast.”
That time, Rhodes definitely didn’t muffle his laugh or what came afterward. “No peeing on the side of the road. A state trooper will drive by, and I won’t be able to talk him out of giving you a ticket for indecent exposure.”
I moaned.
“Am, there’s a gas station coming up in about five or ten minutes. Can you hold it ’til then?” Rhodes asked, leaning forward between the seats.
I squeezed my muscles—noticing again how sore that area in general was from last night—and gave him a tight nod before pressing my legs together even closer.
His hand came up and settled on my forearm, the thumb rubbing along the sensitive skin there. I grinned at him, which more than likely looked like a sneer from me squeezing my muscles again to ease the urge to pee.
Today had been a great, great day. We’d left right at eight in the morning, with Am saying five words until eleven mostly because he’d been passed out in the back seat. Rhodes and I had talked about Colorado and some of the things he’d learned while in training, explaining how there was a game warden, or a DWM as he called himself when he was being fancy, that handled all the areas closer to Montrose versus the southwest of the state like he did. We listened to some music, but mostly, he talked and I ate up every word and especially every sly smile he sent my way.
He didn’t need to actually tell me, but I could tell he was thinking about last night too. Hopefully thinking about how we should have a repeat ASAP. I’d settle for draping myself over his bare chest again like we’d done afterward, too.
Am’s aunt had been just as nice as I remembered from Thanksgiving, and I’d had such a nice time crashing their party, talking a ton to Rhodes, a little to Am who mostly hung out with his Uncle Johnny and his dad, and helped out in the kitchen as much as possible. I’d ducked outside in the cold for a little while to call my aunt and uncle and wish them a Merry Christmas, and talked to my cousins for a bit too.
We’d left right after four, because Rhodes had to work tomorrow. He’d asked if it was okay if we let Amos drive, and I’d been all about it—at least until he started to get stingy with the stops thirty minutes in. The roads had been plowed that morning, and the temperature had warmed to a pretty perfect forty-five degrees, keeping the roads free of ice, so it hadn’t felt like a safety hazard to let him drive. Rhodes had only complained a little when I’d begged him to stop twice on the way up.
I was just about panting though when I spotted the sign for the gas station in the distance, having kept quiet because it was taking all of my effort not to pee myself, period.
“Finally!” I moaned when he turned right and headed for the pump.
“We’re going to get gas,” Rhodes said as his son parked.
“Okay, I’ll pay you back. I gotta go,” I hissed as I threw open the door, having taken my seat belt off while he’d been turning, and flew out of there.
I heard them both laugh, but I had better things to do.
Luckily, I’d been in so many gas stations by this point in my life, that I had an inner magnet for where the bathrooms were and spotted it instantly, pretty much waddling toward the sign because every step got that much harder. It wasn’t a huge travel center, but the station was a surprising size with a full-sized bathroom with stalls. I peed about two minutes straight, or at least half my weight in fluid, and got out of there as fast as I could. The employee behind the counter looked away from where she’d been focused outside and nodded at me. I nodded back.
And it was then that I noticed what she’d been looking at.
There was a huge class-A bus that had pulled into the offset section where I figured 18-wheelers in the area stopped at.
The door was open, and people were filing out of it, yawning and rubbing at their faces. It was too many people to not be a tour bus, I recognized.
Rhodes or Am had moved the car one pump over, and they were both hanging outside of it, Am staring at the pump and Rhodes leaning against the car, gaze on me.
I waved at him.
He shot me one of those low-key, devastating smiles that made me want to hug him.
And that was when it went to shit.
“Ora?” the unfamiliar voice called out.
Looking to my left, maybe ten feet away from the two men I loved and was in love with, were two other faces I recognized. Why wouldn’t I though? I’d known them for ten years. I thought they’d been my friends. And based on the pale expressions that had taken over their features, they were just as surprised to see me too. I was so caught off guard I froze and blinked, making sure I wasn’t imagining Simone and Arthur.
“It is you! Ora!” That was Simone who called out, tugging at Arthur’s jacket.
Arthur didn’t look all that excited.
I couldn’t blame him. I was sure he knew he was on my permanent shit list. And even though I thought I was a pretty decent person, I felt my facial features drop into a blank expression.
And I guess I decided to ignore them because I managed another two steps that brought me closer to Rhodes and Am before Simone’s hand wrapped around my inner arm just as she said, “Ora, please.”
I didn’t snatch my arm out, but I did glance at her fingers before meeting her dark brown eyes and saying, calmly, perfectly fucking calm, “Hi, Simone. Hi Arthur. Nice to know you’re alive. Bye.”
She didn’t let go, and when I met her gaze, there was something in hers that looked desperate. I didn’t even bother glancing at Arthur because I’d known him a year longer than Simone—I’d been in his wedding party for his first marriage—and I wasn’t about to let them ruin what had been a wonderful Christmas.
“I know you’re mad,” Simone said quickly, keeping her hand on me. “I’m sorry, Ora. We’re both sorry, aren’t we, Art?”
His “yes” was so sad maybe I would’ve played a tiny violin if I’d been in a better mood. If this had been any other day. Just maybe if I had been by myself.
One glance up had me meeting Rhodes’s frown. Amos I guess was watching too, wondering who the hell I was tal
king to at a random gas station in the middle of nowhere. I knew then in that moment, that I had to tell them about Kaden. That I couldn’t just keep giving them, especially Rhodes, vague details about my life. I knew I’d gotten lucky so far that he hadn’t poked at the huge holes in my life story considering how much we’d nudged at just about every other painful thing in our lives.
“Okay, I’m glad you feel bad. There’s nothing for us to say to each other. Please let go of me, Simone,” I said, giving her a long look.
She looked tired, and I wondered who she was on tour with now, who they were on tour with. Then I reminded myself it didn’t matter.
“No, please, give me a second. I was just thinking about you earlier, and it’s a miracle you’re here. Someone said you’d moved to Colorado, but what were the chances?” she rattled off, and I just kept on staring at her, but noticed out of the corner of my eye that Rhodes started heading over.
I lifted my arm and snuck it out of her grip. “Yeah, a coincidence. Bye.”
“Ora.” Arthur’s voice was quiet. “We are sorry.”
I’m sure, I thought, almost bitterly, but I really genuinely didn’t care much anymore. What I cared about was wasting my time talking to them when I could be around people who hadn’t turned their backs on me. People that wouldn’t just start ignoring my phone calls when their boss and I broke up, even though I’d technically been their boss too in a way. Because always, always, I had thought we were real friends. At some point over the years, I’d ended up spending more time with Kaden’s band than I did with him because his mom started to complain about how flimsy my excuse of being his assistant was.
These people, Arthur and Simone included, had… they had taught me how to play their instruments. They had told me when things didn’t work with my songwriting. We had gone to movies together, the theater, out to eat, birthday parties, bowling….
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