by Nicole Casey
My heart exploded. Suddenly, I didn’t just need to consider how Jordan felt about me, I had to consider how I felt about Jordan.
“I know that you feel like you’re falling in love with us,” I told her, not expecting the words to come out of my mouth. I wasn’t sure what my plan was with saying it to her.
“Yeah?” she replied. “How do you feel about that?”
“I feel that I wish I’d followed my instincts and kissed you back when you first came to my office.” Again, I wasn’t expecting to say what I was saying.
Jordan’s eyes shimmered with happiness, and I knew why. Based on the way I’d said what I said, didn’t it sound like I was saying I was in love with her too? Was I?
I was just leaning in to kiss her when, out of nowhere, a downpour of rain started to drench us and our picnic. We jumped up, I grabbed the blanket and we went running back up the trail towards my cabin, laughing the whole way.
When we got into the cabin, Jordan started to peel off her drenched clothes, but I stepped up to her and pulled her hands away. I pushed her jacket off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor, then I slid my arms up her sides and took her shirt off as I moved. She didn’t argue and relented to my movements as I started to undress her. I kissed her cheeks, then her jawline, then her neck, and worked my way down her body. She clasped the base of my shirt with her hands and pulled it over my head, and dropped it into the growing pile of wet clothes on the floor.
"You know what would feel good right about now?" I asked her.
She smiled, kissing my bottom lip and holding onto my waist. "I can think of several," she replied.
I hummed. "We'll get to that, but why don't we start with a nice, hot bath?"
She kissed me again. "That sounds marvelous."
I wrapped my arms under her legs and lifted her from her feet and carried her through the cabin, to my favorite part of my getaway home, the bathroom. I'd had a huge, black porcelain, basin tub crafted that was large enough to fit four people, and then I had the bathroom built around it. I set Jordan down on the counter in the bathroom, and tried to pull away to start the bath, but she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and kept me locked in place. We were like teenagers who had finally gotten the chance to escape their parents and get some alone time. My heart was racing and my skin was sizzling. Jordan made me feel like I was a superhero going a mile a minute.
I broke away from her long enough to get the water running in the tub. I dropped in a few beads of lavender and honey scented bubble bath and then made my way back over to Jordan to pull her pants and underwear from her body, and pull my own from mine. I climbed into the water, and held out my hand and then Jordan climbed in as well, placing her back to me and sitting between my legs. She settled in against me, and though I did intend to just enjoy the warm water with her in a moment of relaxation, the second her body was wet and shimmering, my dick decided it wanted something else.
I wrapped my hand around and dipped it into the water in front of Jordan. She wrapped a hand behind her and wrapped it around my neck and leaned her head back against my shoulder. I cupped my hand over her pussy and started to massage it gently. Jordan let out a shallow moan into my ear and it turned me on so much more than I already was. She laced a hand between us and wrapped a hand around my dick and started to stroke it. We worked in tandem, pleasuring one another at slow, but wonderful pace. She turned her head to face me and I set my lips on hers. We made out while giving one another hand jobs, just letting the water wash over us and melt us into one another.
Jordan was typically a very dirty talker, but the only sounds around us were the sloshing of water as Jordan repositioned herself and lined me up to her hole. She lowered herself over me, and the heat of the water mixed with the heat of Jordan's pussy was like the best kind of therapy. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close to me as she started to roll her hips back and forth, pleasuring herself on my dick. Ordinarily, I was primal during sex, but something about Jordan made me want to take my time and make sure that I'd taken in every bit of her.
"Let's go to the bed," I said.
Jordan nodded. "Yeah."
She stood up, and I let out a light huff as I dropped out of her. I wanted to be back in her as soon as I could. I led her to my bedroom and she pushed me to lay me back onto the bed. Our bodies were still dripping wet from the bath, but neither of us could be bothered to care. Jordan climbed on top of me, and was about to place herself back on my cock, but I pulled at her legs until her pussy was hovering over my face. She grabbed onto my dick and started to work it up and down in her hands and I stuck out my tongue and started to slurp up her clit.
"Yes, Rogan," she moaned. I smacked her ass lightly, intentionally trying to keep things romantic and calm. I flipped my tongue back and forth and she started to rock her hips back and forth on my mouth. "I have to have you."
She slid backwards until she was directly over my dick. She pulled on my muscular arms and I sat up. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me again slithering her tongue into my mouth. I used my hands to guide her pussy back down over my dick. It had been chilled from being wet and exposed to the air, so when Jordan dropped down, the heat from inside was intense.
I breathed out. "Shit, that feels good."
Jordan didn't let me get many words out. She kept her lips latched to mine as we thrusted our bodies against one another, making love without a care for anyone else in the world. I wrapped my hands around her back and hugged her close. I thought about how Jordan had admitted to me that she thought she was falling in love with us, and it made the moment even more special to me. I could feel that I was falling for her too. I didn't ever want the night to end.
"I'm gonna come," Jordan sang, to the sound of thunder starting up to match the rain outside.
"Me too," I responded.
Jordan continued to ride me until I was grunting and groaning. Her hips twitched and her pussy tightened around me as she came, and it was enough to take me over with her. I thrust up into her until my own hips went weak and my legs started to feel like they were made of jelly. Jordan laid her head against my shoulder and I leaned back, taking her with me until we were laying in the middle of the bed. I grabbed one of the throw blankets nearby and pulled it over us, with the storm rumbling on outside, and us both basking in the afterglow of our passion, we both drifted off to sleep.
17
Jordan
I was simply and purely elated with the way things were going in my life. On days when I didn’t have to work, I was wishing I was at work, and when I was at work, I was wishing it could be my all day, everyday life.
The guys seemed to take any opportunity I wasn’t with the kids to spend time with me themselves, but they also had to be careful to make sure they were still using some of their free time to be with their children as well, and it sometimes left me on days like the one I was currently on, when I was without any kids and any men. I didn’t like it.
“Ma’am?”
I snapped out of my cogitation and remembered I was standing in my favorite local coffee shop waiting for one of their seasonal drinks.
“Yes,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Santa Claus Frapp?” the barista on the other side of the counter said, holding out a drink for me.
“Yes,” I replied, taking it from him. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Happy Holidays,” he said with a wide smile.
“You too.” I took my drink and made my way to the exit.
The streets of Dallas were officially ‘Christmas.’ Folks in Dallas in particular loved decorating for the holidays, and there wasn’t a road you could drive down that didn’t have shimmering lights covering all their trees and hanging from their store fronts, and there was even a maladie of tacky, blow-up creatures. I loved it. Christmas just made me feel warm inside, and with the kids and their dads in my life, I had every reason to be totally at peace with my life.
But one should always fear being too happy, beca
use inevitably, someone will come along to ruin it.
I didn’t know who my someone was. I was approaching my apartment door and at the same time, a delivery person was walking away from it. He had a large, Manila envelope in his hand and tilted his head when he saw me.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Jordan Kent?” he asked.
“Yes?” I replied. “Can I help you?”
He held out the envelope to me. “This is for you, but it was signature required.”
“Oh.” I looked down at the envelope, and it did indeed have my name and address on it, but there was no return address or indicator of who it was from. “Do you know who it’s from?”
The delivery man shook his head. “I just drop em.” He held out an electronic, signature system. He scanned a barcode on the back of the envelope and then handed me the small pen that was attached to it by a twisted cord. “Sign for me.” I signed my name on the screen and then he took the system back and shoved it in his pocket. “There’s a sticky on your door saying I’ll be back tomorrow. Just disregard it. Have a wonderful day.”
“Thanks, you too.”
I made my way down to my door, removed the sticky note, and entered my apartment. I looked over the envelope, but was mostly confused. I didn’t know anyone who would send me mail, certainly not someone who would send me something that needed to come in such an official envelope, and unmarked.
I thought back over all the bills I had to pay for the month. I was no stranger to working the system a little bit, especially when I was trying to make a paycheck do way more than it could. I was a master at due date extensions, payment plans, and even the lesser known ‘I paid it online, if you don’t see it, it’s because there was a problem with your system.’ Typically, when bills got seriously past due, the bill collector would send an important looking piece of paper warning that if the bill wasn’t paid by a certain date that the service would be interrupted. I gave it a look over, thinking that might be what it was, but those always had a return address on them, because they wanted to be paid, and they weren’t typically mailed certified because they didn’t need to be.
I was stumped.
I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and tucked it into the corner of the envelope and slid it across the envelope’s mouth. I pulled out the contents and a chill ran down my spine. The top document was a blank piece of paper apart from some typed letters dead center on the page.
‘He MuRdErEd HeR iN hEr BeD aNd yOu’Re NeXt!’
I tossed that page down to the table to see what was under it, and I was horrified at what I found. There were half a dozen pictures of some woman, who looked a terrifying amount like me, laying in the middle of a large, lavish bed. Her blond hair was a mess across her head, and her eyes, though open, were totally vacant. She was dead. There was the remains of a dribble or foam at the corners of her mouth, and there were a couple of patches of dried blood just below her nose and streaming down her chin.
My stomach turned and my mind became instantly dizzy. I dropped the pictures and bolted for my bathroom, only just barely managing to make it as what I had consumed of the Santa Claus frapp came spewing from my mouth. My head was pounding and I had no idea what to do or think. I sat on my chilled, bathroom floor simply trying to wrap my mind around the situation and figure out who could have sent me something so terrible.
The note referred to a male. My dad left me when I was child, and I didn’t have any siblings. If I did have cousins, I didn’t know them, and I almost exclusively hung around women, making the rare exception for boyfriends or siblings of friends, but that was it. The only men in my life were the men in the Single Dad Club; my men. But there was no way the note was referring to one of them. I knew them. They were wonderful parents, and wonderful lovers, they wouldn’t kill someone.
Well… they could, but they would never. Oliver was a police officer, and could easily cover up a murder, and then Cade could make it so the DA’s office didn’t look into it. Lowe had access to tons of cars that could be used to transport something secretly, and Ethan was a structural engineer for the city, and Harrison was the C.E.O. of a construction company, they all knew the city like the back of their hands and could easily dispose of a body. Last, but certainly not least, Rogan was a hunter with his own cabin in the woods; the horror story writes itself.
I thought about how much the woman looked like me. Was I one of their type in a fatal attraction kind of way?
I shook my head. “No,” I said aloud. There was no way. My men weren’t murderers.
I shakily stood up off the ground and hobbled into the living room. I could feel my stomach start to churn again as I looked down at the pictures, but I quickly gathered them up along with the note and tossed them into my shredder. I allowed the buzzing to cut up the horrendous thoughts in my head. My guys didn’t murderer anyone. I knew that for a fact.
That didn’t stop my dreams that night from taking me to dark and scary places. I dreamt of myself on the bed, dead. I dreamt of one of my romantic nights with the guys going south suddenly, when they pulled out some sort of blunt object to whack me over the head with. I even dreamt of finding one of my poor babies in pain, bleeding and warning me to run. By the tenth time I’d woken up in a cold sweat, it was 3 o’clock in the morning, and I decided I best just throw in the towel for the night. I wouldn’t be getting a relaxing, dreamless sleep; that ship had sailed the moment I opened that package.
“Jordan? You okay? You seem a little out of it.” I shook my head and looked up to see Cade looking down at me.
How I got to his home was anyone’s guess. I must have fluttered through my day on auto-pilot, not realizing it until Cade’s hands were on my waist and his warm eyes were staring down at me in deep pools of concern.
“Um, oh, yeah, just worried,” I responded, being severely more honest than I intended to.
I really wanted to believe with my whole heart that none of my men were killers, but I couldn't help but remain a little cautious. No other packages had come for me, and I was keeping a close eye on all of my surroundings to see if anyone was following me; the sender had to have gotten my address from somewhere.
“Worried?” Cade asked. “About what?”
“M-my friend Khloe,” I stuttered out.
“The wedding planner?” Cade asked.
Well, good news, the guys were actually listening to me when I spoke, that’s one relationship box ticked, now I just had to pray I could tick the ‘not a murderer’ one.
“Yeah,” I responded to Cade, hating the way I was glancing around the room for items I could use to protect myself if I needed to. I loved him and I honestly felt like he loved me too. He wasn’t going to hurt me. “She’s having a hell of a time out there with some groomsmen on her current job. I’m just afraid she’s getting in a little over her head.”
“Do you need Oliver or I to check anyone out?” Cade asked.
It was an incredibly sweet sentiment, but all I could think about was how easily those powers could be used to exploit me or someone else. “No,” I said. “She’s a tough cookie. I think I’m just being overprotective.”
“That’s in your nature,” Cade responded. He placed a finger under my chin and tipped my head up and gave me a kiss on the lips. “It’ll be okay, and remember, we’re here for you if you need anything. Any friend of yours is someone we’d do anything to look out for.”
I smiled. How could Cade or any of the other men be killers? They couldn’t be. “Thank you.”
Talking with Cade calmed me down. To even think that the men were the kind of man who could do what I saw in those pictures was outrageous. They didn’t have an evil bone among them. I went home that evening confident I’d get a much better night of sleep, at least that was the plan until I got home and saw there was another envelope on my door. It wasn’t certified mail the second time around, it was actually taped to my door. Someone had been in my apartment building and had even come up to my door.
Heart racing, I ripped
the envelope down and rushed inside. I locked my door, shut and locked all of my windows, and even went the extra mile and hid anything I had that had a camera on it. Someone was watching me, and the violation and exposure of it was giving me a heart attack.
I didn’t take the care of using a knife, and ripped open the envelope with my hands shaking so wildly I could barely hold it. The top sheet was another blank page with only a single typed line, similar to the last one.
‘I hOpE yOu HaVe YoUr AfFaIrS iN oRdEr.’
Tears were already streaming down my face, but then I pulled the sheet away and started to sob in earnest. In the picture was the very same woman who’d been pictured in the photos I received the first time, except in the photo I had in my hand currently, there was a man standing over her. He was staring directly at the camera and had a splatter of dried blood on his hand.
The man was Harrison.
18
Harrison
I groggily awoke from my sleep to the sound of a knocking on my door. I glanced at the clock on my bedside table, and it was well after midnight. Whomever thought it was appropriate to knock on my door at such an hour was going to get more than an earful from me. As I passed by Trey’s room, I peeked in to make sure he hadn’t been disturbed by all the ruckus, and fortunately he hadn’t, for both him and whoever was on the other side of the door.
“You had better be a cop with a permit,” I hollered. I unlocked and opened the door and all the rage in my body fled in an instant. Jordan was standing there staring back at me, with a glossy paper gripped tightly in her hand, and tears streaming down her face, complete with running mascara.