Just a Kiss

by Caitlin Ricci

  I steadied myself with a hand on either side of his hips and I loved the extra weight he carried there. I’d been with plenty of guys, most of them fit or skinny. Even Carl hadn’t known that my type was the average guy, the kind I’d seen in Target buying the latest video games for his kids. I liked the normal guy that didn’t whine about the calories in a cheeseburger but instead ordered the extra slices of bacon and maybe some avocado too. I liked a guy that could keep up with me, but I didn’t exactly run marathons either.

  I leaned down and kissed El on his back, right on his spine, and I felt him sink into the couch. “You’re doing fine,” I told him encouragingly. “Just fine.”

  He nodded. “I was worried you wouldn’t like me. Without my clothes on, I mean. I’m overweight.”

  I bit him and he gave a surprised little yelp before looking over his shoulder at me. I smiled at him and kissed away my bite mark. “You’re fine. Just the way I like my guys actually.”

  He looked shocked, and more than a little like he didn’t believe a word I was saying. “But you’re completely buffed out. You’ve got a six pack and a perfectly round ass.”

  I laughed and kissed his back again. “Yeah, and I know what it takes to maintain both. I’d rather not have a carbon copy of myself. I’ve done that before, thank you very much. No, I really do prefer to date guys with your type of body. You’re natural and you lack fuss.” I moved my left hand to cup his closely shaved balls then circled his cock with my hand. He wasn’t hairless, but then again, I was glad about that. Because I didn’t want to be with someone who looked like they couldn’t even grow a beard. I liked the light hairs that covered his body, and the coarser ones that went over his chest and a little ways down his stomach.

  “You’re not lying?” He still didn’t sound that certain.

  “Nope.”

  “This isn’t just because I was here and threw myself at you and you took pity on me?”

  Did he really think that? I wrapped my free hand around his stomach and laid myself over his back to let his warmth seep into me. I hoped to take away some of his insecurities along with his body heat. “No, it’s not.” I began stroking into him. My angle wasn’t perfect while I was laying over him, but I felt the tension sliding out of him with each slow thrust I made. Soon he was sighing softly as I took him, and I kissed his shoulders and his spine. How could I make this lovely man believe that I wanted him? He cared about my kid and wanted me to tell him what to do. He made the best noises when I was inside of him, and I loved his body. I kissed his back and ran my hand down his stomach. My hand around his cock, I kept still, just keeping it tight as I pushed myself into him and pushed his cock against my palm to stroke him.

  “Be mine,” I told him.

  He nodded. “I will.” I smiled against his back and decided to stay just as I was because I didn’t want to stop kissing his back or rubbing his stomach while I had sex with him. I was no longer just fucking him, I realized, as I stroked myself into him and felt him responding to me in the gentlest of ways. El was a soft, beautiful man, and I wanted to keep that part of him alive forever. I wanted to cherish his gentleness and his compassion.

  I closed my eyes and bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep my pleasure at bay, but that did little when El was so hot and tight around my cock, and when every little noise out of his lips was seemingly designed just to drive me mad. He was perfect without even realizing it as he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead into the cushions as he fought back his own pleasure. “Come for me,” I whispered against the soft skin covering his left shoulder.

  He whimpered and cried out seconds later as his come splashed over my hand and against the floor. He was shaking, and gasping, and muttering words of thanks as I leaned back and ran my clean hand over his back. I grabbed his hips with both of my hands and began thrusting into him in earnest. He’d reached his pleasure first, which was important to me, but I couldn’t hold back much longer either.

  I came moments later with my fingertips biting into his hips. I slid out of him and we both sat down in a tangle of our legs just smiling at each other. We were fighting to breathe and sated. He looked blissfully happy as he supported himself half on the couch. I got to my knees and kissed him long and slow. I ran my hands down his chest, ignoring his come on the one. He touched me too, brushing his fingers over my arms and shoulders. He squeezed my muscles and brought his hands up to my chest.

  “Your heart’s beating so fast,” he told me.

  I laughed breathlessly. “So is yours.”

  He laughed, too, and once we were both able to stand, I took his hand and brought him up to the master bathroom where I tossed out the used condom and we showered together. He leaned back and let me explore his body. I petted him under the hot spray, enjoying every inch of his skin.

  We couldn’t stay in the shower forever though. Eventually, once we were dry again, I took his hand again, and we put our pants back on. Our shirts could be worn another time, but I didn’t want any more clothing between us than what was absolutely necessary in the event that Gwen came home unexpectedly because she’d forgotten something. It had happened more than once before.

  I checked my phone to make sure I hadn’t missed any messages from Carl. I got comfortable on the couch, and he turned on the TV. There was one text from Carl telling me that Gwen would like to go see a movie sometime soon as a family. I texted back letting him know I’d like that.

  “Do you want anyone knowing about us?” El quietly asked.

  I nodded. I wasn’t about to start keeping secrets from my daughter or Carl and Mike. “I do. How much are you comfortable with the school, my daughter, and her other dads knowing?”

  He blushed and laid his arm over my stomach as he snuggled up closer against me. “I’d love them to know as much as you’re comfortable with.”

  If he wanted it left up to me, I could definitely work with that. “Like I said earlier, if you want to continue this, then you’ll be my boyfriend or my partner. I’m certainly not going to order you to your knees and have you sit at a pillow at my feet when we’re out at my ex’s favorite seafood restaurant. I’ll keep things professional and not kiss you while you’re at school, but I don’t want to not be able to hold your hand when we’re out to dinner with the rest of my family. And, just so you know, Gwen’s other dads are included in that. Carl is my ex but we are still friendly.”

  “Do you play with him still?” El asked me quietly as if he was afraid of the answer.

  I quickly shook my head. “Not at all. Not anymore. He was the person you would have seen me at the club with, though.”

  El nodded. “He’s hot, too.”

  “Don’t let him hear you say that. He takes his body very seriously and will tell you all about his regimen,” I said with a laugh. “Then he might even make you one of his superfood protein powder smoothies that taste horrible.” El laughed with me and I hugged him tight against my side. “Thank you for coming over tonight.”

  El turned over so that he was laying on top of my chest and I ran my fingers lightly through his hair. Now that our need for each other had been sated, I was able to appreciate just how good of a cuddler he was turning out to be. “Thank you for letting me. This evening turned out to be much more exciting than I had planned.”

  “For me, too.” I realized I wanted El to be in my life in a big picture kind of way, which meant talking to Gwen sooner rather than later. If I was just going to casually bring him over whenever she wasn’t around this wouldn’t have been an issue, but I wanted El to be more than that to me, and that meant letting her know. “I need to call Gwen and let her know about us.” He started to get off my chest, but I put my hand firmly in the middle of his back, stopping him from going anywhere.

  He looked worried. “And if she doesn’t approve of one of her dads dating her previous teacher?”

  I ran my hand down the middle of his back as I tried to soothe the worry out of him. “Then I’ll t
alk to her. She’s a smart kid. You showed me that more than ever with that essay of hers.” I took out my phone and quickly called her.

  “Hi,” she said, picking up on the second ring. I could hear Carl and Mike talking behind her.

  “Hey. What are you up to?” I asked her.

  “Making pizzas. Carl doesn’t eat meat on his pizza. I don’t think he realizes how weird that is.”

  I chuckled. I’d argued about that with him plenty of times over the years and ended up realizing it was always better just to have a pizza for myself rather than try to fight with him to even make half of his with meat. “I have a question for you, and it’s a pretty big deal to me that you tell me the honest truth, okay? Even if you think I won’t like it.”

  “Am I in trouble?” She sounded so scared asking me that and my heart broke a little for her, and a big part of me wanted to hurt whoever had put that kind of fear into her.

  I made my voice as soft and sweet as I possibly could. “No, baby, no. Of course not. I wanted to talk to you about El for a few minutes.”

  “Yes...” She sounded hesitant. “Is he okay? Nothing happened to him. Right?”

  I brought my hand to the back of El’s neck and began to lightly rub him. He turned his head to the side and relaxed a bit more against me. He was so tense while waiting for my daughter to say whether or not she approved of us being together. “No, he’s fine. But I am wondering how you would feel about us being together?”

  “Like Carl and Mike are?”

  “Someday maybe. But they’ve been together a long time and El and I just met each other. Your comfort and happiness are important to me, though, and I want to make sure you’d be okay with the two of us dating. And, if you’d like to, we could even go out together, the five of us.”

  El sighed lightly on my chest like he was content. At least one of us wasn’t a ball of nervous energy as I waited for my daughter to make up her mind about us.

  “I think I’d like that. Could I share books with him? He mentioned liking Brontë and I just read a movie synopsis for Jane Eyre and then we could watch it.”

  I thought that was an excellent idea, but El had his head up and he was cringing. “She has to read the book first. Movies always ruin the book,” he whispered to me.

  “I’m sure he would like that,” I told Gwen.

  “I would, too.” She sounded happy in a way I wasn’t used to hearing her sound. “And... thanks for asking. I guess. Um. I know why you did. And thanks.”

  I smiled and knew that I was lucky to be her dad. “You’re welcome. Thank you for being okay with me dating him. You should probably go back to your pizza now.”

  “Okay. Will you try to get Carl to eat pepperoni? It’s too weird that he doesn’t even like pepperoni. Everyone likes that. Unless you’re a vegetarian, of course. But he’s not.”

  I laughed. “Believe me, honey, I tried and that ship has long since sailed. I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  She sighed dramatically. “Okay. Bye.”

  “Bye.” I hung up the phone and put it aside so I could give El my full attention again. “So, as you probably figured out from the conversation, she said yes.”

  He nodded and smiled at me. “I’m glad.”

  “Me too.”

  On Monday morning I took Gwen to school, only I ran through the coffee house drive through to get El something.

  “Can I have some of those little sugar cookies?” Gwen asked me as I pulled up to the speaker.

  “The madeleines?” I asked her. She nodded, so I tacked those onto my order.

  We were at her high school five minutes later and I walked in with her. “What if he’s busy? Or in a meeting?” she asked me as she munched on her cookies. She’d had French toast for breakfast so she wasn’t hungry again so soon, but I hadn’t said anything when she’d opened them and started eating them in my car, either.

  I shrugged and balanced the tray of drinks in one hand as I opened the door for her with the other. “Then I’ll wait, or I’ll leave his drink with someone. We didn’t have plans, so if he doesn’t have a few minutes to share some coffee with me, it won’t be the end of the world.”

  I saw some kids rolling their eyes at her and I stared right back at them, which got them to walk away in a hurry. “Hey, Gwen, are you having trouble here? Anything that a teacher or the principal should know about?”

  She shook her head, but she wasn’t smiling as she looked up at me. “Not really. I mean, some kids are mean, but El told me not to worry about them because people always make fun of what they can’t have or what they don’t understand.”

  Okay... that El was telling my daughter not to worry about some mean kids surprised me. I wanted to know everything that he did about the situation right that second. But that she’d gone to him for advice, or at the very least, had listened to him when he’d said something, told me about just how much she liked him. “And what is it that they don’t understand?” I asked her.

  “What it’s like to have three dads instead of one, or none. I don’t have a mom... not anymore, anyway, but I do have three dads. And that’s special. At least I think so. I mean, I didn’t really have a dad before so I didn’t know what I was missing out on. And I like having you all now.”

  I was careful as I balanced the coffees and bent down to kiss her on top of her head at the same time. “I think you’re pretty special, too.” She giggled. “But don’t you have some class to be in or something?”

  She smiled up at me. “Maybe, but I could also just have some coffee with you and El. Right?”

  I was quick to shake my head. Not only because I wanted some time with just El, but because in my opinion, which really was the only one that mattered in this situation, Gwen was too young to have either of the caffeine laden drinks in my hand. She was allowed to have drinks that were mostly milk and caramel sauce, but these two were not that. “Go on. Get to class.”

  She pouted. “Carl and Mike let me have coffee.”

  “Carl and Mike can do lots of things, but I’m not them and I don’t want you having this much caffeine before you’re thirty.”

  Gwen laughed and headed away from me. I watched her go and was surprised to see her head over to the boy with the leather jacket. They laughed about something together and I was left smiling as I went to El’s office. His door was open and he had his head bent over a stack of what looked like essays done by idiots if the red ink covering the first page was anything to go by.

  “Hey. Bad timing?” I asked him.

  He smiled up at me, then his eyes darted over to the coffee, and his smile turned into a grin. “Not at all. Close the door behind you, please.”

  I did, then sat down across from him. I handed him the simple vanilla latte, which I figured I couldn’t go wrong with, then sat back to sip on my chai. It had been an experiment to get a different drink than I was used to, but I was enjoying it so far.

  “How was your Sunday night?” I asked him.

  “Unfulfilling. I would have rather been filled.”

  I snorted and was glad that I wasn’t drinking my coffee at the moment he’d made that little joke. “I’m sure you would have. My bed missed you.”

  “Only your bed?” he asked me.

  I gave him a wink. “The pillows might have, too.”

  He laughed and sipped his coffee. “Is Gwen back with Carl and Mike next weekend?”

  “She’s with them every Friday night until Sunday night,” I told him with a smile. I was sure that I knew what he was getting at.

  “So are you free to come over this weekend?”

  Getting to spend time with him in his house in five days was definitely going to help me get through the week. “I’d like that. Do you have dinner plans tomorrow night? We’re all going out. It’ll be the five of us, and for once it would be nice to have a date.”

  “Haven’t you had men that you took out with your family before?”

  El was looking a
t me like he expected the answer to be an automatic, absolute yes. But that just wasn’t the case. “No. I’m careful about who I make important in my life, because those people are going to be important in Gwen’s. Since Carl there hasn’t been anyone that I wanted to be in that position.”

  He leaned over the table and gave me a gentle kiss. “That’s very sweet. I’d love to go out Tuesday. I wish we weren’t at my job right now so I could show you just how much that means to me.”

  I sipped some more of my coffee. “Why don’t you tell me then?”

  El smirked and came around in front of me to be able to kiss me again. I settled my hands on his hips, then moved them to the front of his pants where I squeezed him through his slacks. He was already hard for me and he moaned softly against my lips. “I want to suck you,” he whispered.

  “We’re at your work,” I reminded him.

  He groaned and I smiled. “Friday night you’re all mine. I’ll have you strapped down and stretched out under me,” I promised him.

  As he pulled back from me, he grinned. “I can’t wait.”

  Neither could I.

  The End

  About the Author

  Caitlin was fortunate growing up to be surrounded by family and teachers that encouraged her love of reading. She has always been a voracious reader and that love of the written word easily morphed into a passion for writing. She comes from a military family and the men and women of the armed forces are close to her heart. She also enjoys gardening and horseback riding in the Colorado Rockies where she calls home with her wonderful husband and their two dogs. Her belief that there is no one true path to happily ever after runs deeply through all of her stories.