“I…” I paused as I sat up, thinking. “I…” I was stuttering.
And he was… laughing.
That little…
“Oh man.” He laughed as he rushed me, play tackling me to my back and situating his big body between my thighs. “You’re so fucking cute and just… sweet.”
His hands moved up my sides, tickling my skin as he moved, causing me to squirm and Dax to pause.
“Was that a flinch?” he teased.
With him in this mood, I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit my intense ticklishness. It didn’t seem like the greatest idea for my sake.
What did seem like a good idea was him getting to work.
Him sticking that cock of his into me and doing some good with it instead of torturing me.
“No,” I said. “No flinching here. Why?”
He chuckled, his hand once again trailing down my side.
And I told myself not to do it. Even tried counting to fifty in my head when he did, his eyes intense on my face, but fuck.
I was just too ticklish. I couldn’t help it.
I started to giggle and flinched away, but Dax’s body pinning mine down didn’t let me go far.
And then recognition lit his eyes.
“Where else are you ticklish?” he asked, his hands once again roaming.
I was already shaking my head.
“Listen, Champ.” I caught his hand and pressed it in between my breasts. “I’m going to tell you this once, and once only because I love you. I’m not a nice ticklee.”
“Ticklee?” he asked, voice sounding strangely strained.
“Ticklee. You know, like trainee. The person accepting the tickles,” I explained.
His grin was one that I knew well.
He was about to test it.
“My brother tested it once,” I told him. “I kicked him so hard in the balls that he had to go to the emergency room to make sure one of his testicles hadn’t ruptured.”
Dax winced.
“You wouldn’t do that to me,” he countered.
I was already shaking my head.
“I can’t tell you what I’d do, to be honest,” I admitted. “I’m just a little bit crazy when it comes to being tickled. I go wild because I just… it tickles so bad. And eventually after telling you to stop for the eighteenth time, I get mad. And then I start hurting when I don’t intend to hurt.”
That he could understand, I was sure.
“Do you now?” he wondered.
“I’d rather you stick your cock inside of me while you still can,” I admitted.
“While I still can?” he teased.
I nodded once.
“You’d be able to stop me? You’d be too mad at me to allow me to continue?” he asked teasingly.
I was already shaking my head.
“I’d probably hurt you, then you’d have to go to the emergency room,” I admitted.
He leaned forward until his mouth was only inches from mine, then said, “Yeah?”
I nodded once with utmost assurance.
“Yeah.”
His cock, his very hard, erect, I want it inside of me now, cock was pressing against my clit in the most delicious of ways.
He ground his cock against my pussy, dragging it up and down the split of my lips, coating his cock in my excitement.
It wasn’t fast movements. It was the slowest, most torturous ones he could manage.
They were delicious and debilitating all at once.
I wanted more, and I wanted him to never stop.
It was a lesson in control, that was for sure.
“Are you even listening to me?” he asked, his hand going to my side, his fingers digging in lightly.
I tensed, now fully back online.
“I was thinking about… stuff,” I admitted.
He snorted and dragged his mouth down the length of my breastbone, causing my nipples to pebble.
His beard felt like a steel wool pad, causing me to squirm.
“Your beard’s rough as hell,” I panted.
“Yeah?” he asked. “Want me to shave it?”
I brought my hands down so hard on his face that they made a smacking sound when they hit each of his cheeks.
“Don’t you dare!”
His startled eyes met mine, then he burst out laughing, pressing his forehead against my sternum as he did.
I tilted my hips up, hoping that he’d take the hint.
He didn’t.
He rubbed his bristly beard over my sternum, then moved up until he was dragging it along my nipples.
“Listen, Mr. January,” I said, doing a quick move that had him on his back with me on top of him. “This delayed gratification thing isn’t going to work. I’ve really been needing this so if you could just hurry it right along…”
Before I could finish my sentence, he was lifting my body.
The next second he was positioning his cock at my entrance and pulling me down hard onto him.
My head went back as euphoria rocketed through me.
My hands went backward for purchase, and I found Dax’s powerful thighs.
Clamping my hands down on them, I squeezed tight, my nails digging in, and groaned.
“Dax,” I breathed. “Yes!”
“No more Mr. January?” he teased.
I couldn’t even process his words.
He wanted me to call him Mr. January now? While I was trying my best to breathe?
“I…” I panted, twisting my hips.
He chuckled darkly and started to lift me up only to quickly pull me back down. Over and over he did this, working my body over his as if it was his to do with as he pleased.
I didn’t care.
Couldn’t, really.
Because he was doing everything that I wanted him to do and then some.
His hands were on my nipples. My hips. Trailing down the length of my stomach.
And still he was somehow guiding each and every plunge and retreat.
“Come down here,” he ordered. “I want to suck on your nipples.”
I bent down, my hands going to his chest for purchase as I leaned down and gave him my mouth instead.
“Not what I wanted,” he admitted between kisses. “But just as sweet.”
He slowly slid out of me, his thighs tensing underneath of mine, and I braced myself for the thrust he was about to give me.
I just knew it was going to be rough and deep.
“Now give me your tit,” he ordered.
I did, falling back onto his cock so softly that I would’ve laughed had I not already been moaning.
He fucked me like that, slow and steady, while he tongued my nipples.
I would’ve collapsed completely on top of him had he not been holding me up with one hand underneath my ribs.
“I wish I had hair,” I found myself saying. “I would totally let it drag over you right now, teasing your skin like you’re doing to me right now.” I gasped.
He bit down lightly on my nipple.
“You could have hair, or you could not have hair,” he said. “It’s not going to change how I feel about you. How bad I want you.”
I closed my eyes as tenderness swept through me at his words.
“Look at me,” he rasped.
I opened my eyes, my hands once again going to his chest to help me sit up.
The new position had his cock sliding in deep again, my eyes momentarily losing focus as he did.
He trailed his gaze down the length of my body, settling on where we were connected before coming back to meet my eyes.
“I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I’m not really proud of,” he admitted. “But that night when you came over? That night I was weak. I wanted you so bad that I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. You and your bald little head haunted my dreams. Awake and asleep. And when you walked out, at first I thought that I’d nodded off. But then I sm
elled you and realized my dreams had never been that good before.”
I clenched on his cock, causing him to growl.
“I’m not sure why the fuck Theo never noticed you,” he said. “But I thank my lucky stars every fuckin’ day that he didn’t. Because if he had, you wouldn’t have come home. I wouldn’t have found you. I wouldn’t have tasted you. I wouldn’t have known anything. And my life would suck.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “Your life would suck?”
He shrugged. “It would. Not gonna lie. I didn’t realize that I was being such a douche about what happened to me in high school. It was a long fuckin’ time ago, and I realize now that nobody cares anywhere near as much as I make it seem.”
I trailed my fingers down the middle of his chest.
Then resituated my hips so that I was more comfortable.
“You’re talking like this is you getting this gift,” I said, eyes on his. “It wasn’t just you. It was me, too. I’ve had all of three dates in my life. One sexual encounter that sucked. And honestly, no real desire to change that. Until you.”
He rolled us then, his cock never dislodging from his deep seat inside of me.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him in close.
“Finish me already,” I ordered. “We can talk more later.”
He did finish me then.
Just as slowly as before.
And he didn’t stop until I was a panting, exhausted mess on the floor.
“I’m fairly sure I have linoleum burn on my ass,” I informed him.
He snorted. “It was worth it.”
Right now? Yes. In the morning? Who knew?
Chapter 17
I wish I was Felicia. She’s always going somewhere.
-Coffee Cup
Rowen
I heard a thud as the door closed behind Dax, who was running late as usual.
Rolling my eyes at his constant lateness, I rolled over and buried my face into his pillow.
I had no clue what had taken him so long from the moment that he’d left the room to when he’d actually left the house, but I imagined that it had to do with him stopping at the refrigerator and reading my message.
I love you.
I’d said it before.
Sure, I could’ve waited until there was a better moment to say it, but waiting for perfect just wasn’t me.
I was spontaneous and brash. I did things, said things, that I couldn’t take back later.
That was part of what made me a good lawyer. I was quick on my feet, words spilled out before I needed to think, and most of the time they were what I would’ve said anyway had I had time to overthink it to death.
Another thud had me sitting up.
“Dax?” I called.
Nothing.
“Dax?” I called again.
Nothing.
I pulled out my phone and texted him, but he didn’t answer, meaning he was driving or riding.
Rowen: Are you at home?
I wasn’t sure which because I’d been in another orgasmic-induced fog as he was leaving. My brain’s light had been on, but nobody had been home.
Now, though?
That haze was gone, and it was working.
Curious, I got up and got dressed, finding Dax’s sweatshirt on the floor and slipping it on before moving to my leggings.
I fisted the sweatshirt, knowing that this one was going to be mine now, too.
I’d have to buy him more.
It wasn’t nice to steal and not replace.
Grinning to myself and loving the way his sweatshirt always seemed to swallow me whole, I made my way out to the living room and took a good look around.
Nothing.
Everything was quiet.
Nothing out of place. No unusual people in Dax’s living room.
Hell, there wasn’t even a random squirrel.
Not that there would be usually, but that’s always what the random bumps and bangs were if my imagination had any say in it.
Honestly, I expected to see more raccoons in my life, too, with the way I always accounted for them making the loud bangs at my apartment in San Antonio.
One time I’d even asked the super, and he’d explained that we had a family of raccoons that were making a home in our spare utility closets. They’d be kicked out of one and would move to the next one on the next porch, though I’d never actually seen them in mine.
My phone rang, but since it wasn’t a ring tone that I knew—yes, I was that loser that assigned ringtones to my friends and family—I didn’t bother rushing to answer it.
It was probably a telemarketer.
I was being punished as an adult for all the random prank calls that I used to make with Katy when we were kids.
Nine times out of ten, if my phone rang, it was some random person ghosting my number and heavy breathing into my ear.
The random calls had been going on for months now.
To the point where I’d just assigned everybody special ringtones and didn’t bother answering anything else unless they left a voicemail.
The phone finally stopped ringing, and I walked to the front window and looked out through the blinds.
I grinned when I saw my brother mowing his lawn.
I stepped out onto the porch, leaving the door wide, and walked to the end of Dax’s front walk.
I waited until he finally looked over and then grinned at him.
He ignored me, going back to mowing.
The next time he looked at me, I pointed at my lawn.
He rolled his eyes, but I knew he got the drift.
My lawn would be mowed.
Dax’s? No. Mine? Hell yes.
Did I say that I loved my brother?
Because I so totally did.
Sometimes.
Other times, he annoyed the hell out of me and got off on doing it.
Waving at him on his next pass, he flipped me off, causing me to snort.
Turning back around, I made my way back into Dax’s.
Then almost turned around and went into mine.
But I wanted to read the fridge message.
After that was done, I would go back to mine.
I slammed the front door closed behind me and made a beeline straight to the fridge and stared at the letters that were there.
It was almost a habit at this point just to see what he’d say.
I looked forward to it.
Today’s message?
At first, I was confused.
‘I hope you die.’
“What?” I asked.
That was a little harsh for calling him Mr. January, wasn’t it?
“You know.” The woman’s hissing voice sent chills down my spine. “I watched you do that three times during the day yesterday.”
I slowly turned to find Shondra there, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
“It’s sickening.”
Then my confusion slowly slipped away and only understanding and fear resided there now.
“What’s sickening?” I asked, voice rough.
“You and him,” she said. “Your obvious love for Theo is sickening.”
I swallowed hard. “I don’t… I don’t have any feelings for Theo any longer, if I even had them in the first place.”
“Lies!” she cried out. “You’re lying!”
I wasn’t lying.
In fact, I was so far away from lying that I couldn’t stand it.
“I’m not lying!” I burst out. “I can’t stand Theo anymore. The only person I care about anymore is Dax!”
Shondra scoffed, shifting.
That was when I saw the fucking hammer in her hand.
Son of a bitch.
“You know, you were the one that introduced me to Theo,” she continued. “You realize that, right?”
What?
“I saw you talking to him one day after work. He w
as at a station across the street from where you were visiting. Why do you go to the spa so much?” she asked.
“What?” I asked.
Her change of direction was confusing to say the least.
“You go to the spa. You go to the salon. You get your nails done. You get facials to do on yourself every Friday night. You buy fucking skin cream from Sephora every six weeks. You even change your mascara like clockwork. Why do you change your mascara so often?” she pushed.
I… didn’t know what to say.
“I saw Theo for the first time and I just knew… he was mine.” She focused her eyes on me once again. “Then you kept talking to him.”
Then I kept talking to him?
What?
“I’m sorry, Shondra,” I apologized.
I mean, what else could I do?
I wasn’t the one in the wrong here.
Obviously Crazy Cathy was.
And why did she have a hammer?
I kept talking to Theo?
What in the hell did that mean?
“You’re not sorry.” She sniffed. “You’re trying to get out of what’s about to happen.”
I didn’t know what she had planned for me, but I knew that I couldn’t let her do what I thought she was going to do. And what I thought she was going to do had a lot to do with that hammer in her hand.
My biggest hope was that she was hanging up a picture, which I highly doubted seeing as the one time I’d asked Shondra if she had a hammer I could borrow at the office, she told me she didn’t hang her own stuff up. Maintenance did. Why the hell would she have a hammer?
No, I could only see one reason why she had a hammer in her hand, and that wasn’t going to end well for me.
Meaning I had to try to distract her.
“Theo and I aren’t together anymore,” I tried. “Never were. He always had a thing for my sister, and he could never get over her enough to even look at me.”
“He does not have a thing for your sister,” she hissed. “He has a thing for me!”
Okay, don’t mention anybody but her being with Theo. Noted.
“Yes, yes.” I nodded, placating her. “You. You’re having his baby.”
She narrowed her eyes but nodded her head as if she agreed with that statement.
“I am having his baby.” She looked wired. “I had to go off all my meds. The ones that I was on weren’t safe for the fetus.”
The fetus, not the baby.
Jesus Christ.
Just Kidding Page 18