by Fiona Archer
“Working?” I sipped my milkshake, the cool sweetness doing nothing to quench my thirst for the woman across from me. The longer I spent in her presence, the more immediate my need to touch her—to have her—became. But I wouldn’t tease Melinda or myself. If I couldn't have her—for real, for good—I’d walk away again.
“A little. I’ve been angry at you for years now. It’s my happy place, I guess.”
I absorbed that, imagining her hating me for the last few years as I’d thought yearningly of her, her body, her mind. That sharp tongue of hers. My cock grew stiffer still.
The cornbread came, and we ate it together, dropping the conversation completely until it was gone, and Melinda looked at the gold watch on her slim wrist. “I need to get going. Take me home?”
Melinda
I told myself I’d send him away. When I’d come out of the church and he was still there, I wanted to absorb my anger, form it into a spear and hurl it at him. But instead, my anger had morphed into something soft and familiar. And it was more satisfying to believe I might be able to love him again—might have never stopped—than it was to be angry.
So we’d eaten cornbread, and I’d listened to him talk. And then I’d invited him to the reception.
And while people milled around my childhood home, music ringing from the walls as people took turns spinning Dad’s favorites, I watched him. Adam talked to the people we’d grown up with, laughed and cried with those who wanted to remember my dad. Because Adam had known him well—had practically grown up in our house. In some ways, I wondered if this wasn’t kind of like a party for his own parents, who’d never gotten a funeral. They’d died, and Adam had stayed away. I’d sent him a card, but never heard anything back.
I hadn’t been there for him, and I regretted it.
But I found myself wanting to make up for it now. I found myself wanting to make up for so many things now.
“He looks good,” Mom said, coming to stand next to me as we watched Adam talk to the pastor out on the back patio, throwing his head back and laughing at something the man said.
“He always looked good, that was never the problem.”
“So what is the problem?”
I turned to look at my mother, still beautiful and elegant, even with the lines around her eyes that Dad’s long illness had brought. “He lives in San Diego.”
“Geography is a subject taught in school, not a problem to be solved.”
I sighed. “I work here.”
“You’re brilliant. They need pharmacists in San Diego too.”
“You’re here.”
She looked to the portrait of our family over the fireplace, then around at all the people who loved her. “And my reason to stay here is gone. Let’s have a new adventure, Mel. I got my great chance. Let’s take yours.”
“What chance?”
“At happiness, darling. My chance at love. It was once in a lifetime, just like yours. Go take it. And let me know when we’re leaving. I have a lot of things to pack.”
My mind reeled as Mom walked away, and I turned back to find Adam watching me through the screen door.
Could I really do this? Just like that, could I reverse the last few years and turn my life down a different path?
That night, when everyone had left and Adam was picking his suit jacket off the back of the armchair near the front door, I made my decision.
“Can I give you a ride home?” he asked. We hadn’t spoken since we’d arrived, but there’d been a conversation between us all night, transmitted through the charged atoms flinging between our heated gazes and echoing laughter.
I nodded, kissing my mother on the cheek and heading out onto the porch with Adam into the still night air.
We climbed into his car, and I guided him to my apartment, neither of us saying anything else.
The lobby was well lit, and Adam walked me to the elevator, pressing the button and then stepping back. “Shall I say good night here?” he asked.
I marveled at his ability to make it sound like he might just walk away again. The enormous bulge in his pants all night suggested it might not be quite that easy for him, though. “Or upstairs,” I suggested.
We stepped into the elevator, both of us watching the doors close after I’d punched the button for the sixth floor. And once we were really and truly alone, the stomach-dropping swoosh of the elevator adding to the giddy excitement pooling inside me, we turned to one another. There was a second of hesitation, and then the tide flowed over the sea wall, our mouths crashing together like a storm, my arms wrapping that strong solid body and holding on with everything inside me.
His mouth took mine with force, with possession, with the claim of all the years we’d missed. We struggled apart when the door chime sounded, and I led the way to my apartment, my hand shaking as I opened the door and stepped inside.
And then he was there, his body surrounding mine, his scent heavy in my nostrils. He claimed me, owned me, pulling my dress from my body and pushing me down onto the soft rug in the living room. His chest glistened in the light from the window as he hovered above me, staring down at me like prey he’d stalked and captured.
I was desperate for him to consume me.
“You’re fucking gorgeous, Melinda,” he said, his voice gravelly and caustic. “You’re more beautiful than I could have ever imagined you would be.”
My hands were scrabbling at his belt, pulling apart the fly of his suit pants, pushing at his waist. I worked until I was rewarded with the glorious sight of his massive cock, the one I remembered, the one I ached for. The one that had been my first.
And it would be my last.
As he slid inside me, inch by almost-painful inch, I knew it was true.
“I missed you,” I whispered when he was inside me completely, stone and blood, fire and thick, pulsing emotion. “God, I missed you.”
Adam
I couldn't think, I couldn’t breathe. She was all I knew—her floral scent, her silk skin, her heat, her wetness, the fucking words she was saying.
I moved inside her, missing her even as I took her, knowing what I’d let go all those years before, knowing I was wrong.
“I love you,” I told her, not caring about the time that had passed, about whether it was the right thing to say. “I’ve always loved you,” I said, timing my words with the thrusts that were undoing us both, that had her writhing and panting beneath me, my own body hanging by the thinnest of filament.
“I love you too, Adam,” she breathed. “But just fuck me right now, okay? We’ll talk later.”
The laughter bubbled out of me, mixing with the pure feral need pressing my cock in and out of that tight hot channel I’d imagined so many times over the last years.
And I fucked her then—touching, kissing, licking and loving every single centimeter of her perfect body—knowing I’d never, ever get enough of this and hating myself for letting three years of it escape us. I’d spend the rest of my life trying to make that time up.
As we lay together after, her limbs wrapped over my chest, my legs, and her heart beating close to mine, she said, “Now talk.”
“I love you, Melinda,” I told her. “I’ve known it my whole life, and I don’t know why I made the wrong choice back then…” I thought about leaving the game. My heart ached a bit at the thought, but I knew leaving her again would kill me. It was the only choice.
“You should never have had to make a choice. I did that to you. And I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
I pressed up onto my elbow, resting my head on my hand so I could look down at her. “What do you mean?”
“You love the game. And you love me. So I’ll come to San Diego.”
Shock made me sit up straight, and Melinda let out a little shriek as she slipped from my arms. “What?”
“You don’t want me to come?” She looked uncertain.
“Of course I want you to come,” I said, the idea of having both the girl and the game begi
nning to take seat inside me. “Of course I do. Would you really do that? Your mom…”
“She’s ready for an adventure.”
“Your mom would come too? Have you talked about this?” I shook my head in happy disbelief.
“We have.” Melinda sat up to face me. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you get away again, Adam.”
I took a deep breath, giving myself a moment to feel out if I was making the right move, if this next step was too much. But I knew it was time. It was past time. “Marry me, then.”
She nodded. Slowly at first and then rapidly, tears streaming down her face as she laughed. She threw her arms around me, and I pulled her into my chest, the world stilling in that moment to reassure us both that this was meant to be. That this was fate and glory and written on some stone tablet or in the stars or in some crazy book buried at the bottom of the sea.
“I love you, Melinda.”
“I love you too.”
I pulled her close, nestling my nose into her hair and breathing deeply.
She said something else then, pressed tight against my shoulder, and I must have misunderstood her, or maybe caught only a little of what she said because she was chuckling to herself as she said it…but I swear, the woman I was meant to love, the one I was about to marry, had just whispered, “Cornbread.”
Copyright 2020 Delancey Stewart
About Delancey Stewart
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Forbidden
by
Eden Bradley
Chapter One
It was after midnight when Brie Oliver stepped into the elevator of the small, elegant boutique hotel in Malibu where her older brother Derrick was getting married. It had been a long day, and she’d had to work late—she couldn’t wait to get to her room to shower and collapse into bed. Summers in L.A. were always hot, but over a hundred degrees for the last week had made everyone’s life hell, and she was overheated and cranky.
She blew out an annoyed breath when a hand jammed the elevator doors. But when she saw who was stepping in, the annoyance shifted to a flurry of butterflies.
He looked startled, but then his lush mouth curved into a slow, sensual smile. “Brie, hey.”
Jaden Thomas, her schoolgirl crush, and her brother’s best man.
Brie’s fingers flexed on the handles of her tote bag as her temperature soared until she thought she might spontaneously combust.
“Jaden. You just getting in?” she asked, faking a calm she didn’t feel.
He was as gorgeous as ever, with his gleaming hazel eyes and his dark locs brushing the tops of his bare, muscular shoulders. The white tank top he wore with low-slung jeans looked too damn good on him.
“Yeah, I am.” His smile widened, making her pulse race. “Perfect timing too.”
God, this man!
Jaden had been the object of every fantasy she’d had since middle school. But more than that, he was one of the best men she knew. And his natural air of command, which went beyond simple confidence, was just so…hot. She couldn’t help but compare every guy she’d dated to him, and they’d all come up short. But Jaden had always treated her like his kid sister—even though he was only three years older—which had made her feel as if something was wrong with her for feeling the way she did about him. And after he became the drummer for Ink & Iron a few years ago, attaining rock star status, he could easily have any woman he wanted. How could she ever compete with that?
“I’m surprised you’re staying here. Don’t you live nearby?” she asked.
“Yeah, I bought a house in Venice Beach last year, but I wanted to be on hand for the wedding.” He stepped closer until she could smell the earthy scent that had been engraved on her brain forever. “And actually, I’m really glad—”
The lights flickered and the elevator came to a grinding halt, so suddenly she fell against him—and stayed there as the lights went out, leaving them in blackness, except for the dim amber glow from the button panel.
“Shit,” he said. “You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
His strong drummer’s arms were around her, holding her close to his chest. God, his chest was a solid wall of muscle that made her feel…safe. And hot.
Down, girl! He’s not for you.
She pulled away and swore she felt him resist for a moment.
“Now what?” she asked, more rattled by being locked in the dark with the one man she’d yearned for and could never have than she was by being stuck in a broken elevator at midnight.
“Here.” He punched the call button. Nothing. He pressed again. “Okay. Don’t panic. Someone will check the elevator if the power’s out. It would be one of the first things they’d do, right?”
“Maybe. Except the one guy at the desk looked like he was stoned out of his mind.”
Jaden chuckled.
“How is that funny? Are you stoned?”
He shook his head. “You know I gave all that shit up a long time ago.”
“Crap. I’m sorry. That was stupid of me.”
“It’s okay. It doesn’t trigger me the way it used to.”
She knew what that trigger was. When Jaden was in high school, his older brother Cody had died in a boating accident while he and his friends were loaded. Jaden had never really gotten over it. Of course he hadn’t.
“Um…maybe try the call button again?” she asked.
He punched it a few times, but there was only the sound of their breathing in the dark. “Looks like we could be here awhile.”
“It’s late. We could be here all night. God, Jaden, what if we’re here all night?”
Panic was beginning to take hold, which wasn’t like her. It had to be Jaden’s presence setting her nerves on edge.
No, this wasn’t simple nerves. It was a volatile combination of burning desire and years of pent-up frustration at being thought of as his sister when what she really wanted to be was his.
“We’ll be okay. Wanna just talk? Pass the time until the power’s back on? Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
“Sure. Okay.” She paused to collect her thoughts. “Um, I started my own interior design business, and it’s going well. I just rented a new office.”
“Derrick told me you’ve been making a name for yourself. I’m proud of you, Brie. What else is happening in your life?”
His approval made her burn with pleasure.
“That’s pretty much been it since college,” she admitted, “but I really love it, so I don’t mind. What about you? I know the band’s been touring.”
“Got a new sponsorship from Zildjian cymbals, but I won’t bore you with that. And I still love to work on cars—I finished restoring that '72 Cadillac Cody was working on all through high school.”
Hmm, no mention of a relationship…
Stop. He’s never going to be yours.
“I’d love to see that old Caddy,” she said quickly.
“Come out to my place sometime, and I can show you.”
Her heart beat faster at the unspoken demand in his tone. “Okay…”
&
nbsp; “I mean it, Brie. We should hang out.”
“Hang out?”
“Yeah.”
Just one word, but he exuded confidence. It wasn’t that he was a rock star—he’d always been this way.
Then he pulled her closer, and the command in his touch made her knees go weak.
Yes, touch me.
Stop it!
“I’ve been thinking about you. A lot.” His voice was all smoke and whiskey. “And seeing you now only brings that home. We should spend some time together.”
She could hardly believe what he was saying. “Me?”
He leaned down until his lips were right next to her ear, his breath warming her cheek. “I think it’s long overdue. Don’t you?”
“Um…”
Even in the half-dark, Jaden could make out the wariness in her expression and the tension in her body. The body he’d wanted—needed—to touch for years. Brie had blossomed when she hit high school, and it had taken every ounce of his control to get her off his mind. He’d always had the sense that under all her competence and ambition was a woman who craved the kind of control he loved to exert, but she was too young, and back then, he’d had the potential to be a very bad influence.
Not to mention Derrick would have killed him if he’d hurt her.
But now, she’d grown into the amazing woman he’d always known she would be. Derrick still might not be thrilled—he knew Jaden was into kink—but grown-up Brie was worth any consequences.
Now he just had to make sure they were on the same page.
“I’ve seen you at my shows, at family gatherings over the years,” he said. “But to be honest—fucking finally—it’s never been enough.”
“What are you saying?”
He ran a hand over her shoulder, and she trembled, desire emanating from her like some tangible, delicious perfume. “That you’re the only woman I’ve ever really wanted.”