Stoker's Serenity: The Virtues Book IV

by A. J. Downey

  I was just so stoked to have her here. God, I’d missed her, and now I had her for the entire weekend.

  Fuck, yeah.

  17

  Serenity…

  I let out a breath nice and slow and braced for the onslaught of sound from the garage. I wasn’t disappointed. It was loud. At the same time, the vibration of it was some kind of soothing. I got into my purse at my hip, and I pulled the headphones out of the little pocket I kept them in and plugged them into my phone.

  I had to turn my music up kind of loud, but it worked for me. Something about metal music, if I wasn’t in the right mood for it, could completely set my teeth on edge. So, I plugged my music into my head and laughed at the four waiting plastic pitchers on Stoker’s kitchen counter.

  He really liked my tea.

  I stretched and tucked my phone into the waistband of my layered handkerchief skirt, the black gauzy material shifting against my bare and freshly shaven legs. I wore it paired with a black, form-fitting, spaghetti-strapped cami and a pair of black, strappy sandals.

  It was the height of my version of casual and made me look modern and chic. Probably it was the most modern-looking outfit I owned, aside from my work clothes. I sighed and went to the dining room table, and pulled out the two boxes of tea bags, and the milk-carton-style box of superfine baking sugar. I liked how it melted better in the hot water.

  I rooted around in Stoker’s kitchen and found the absolute bare minimum. Like, really, it was painful. He, at least, had a set of dry measuring cups and one wet. I found the three-quarter dry cup, four cereal bowls that would do, and set the tea kettle on to boil.

  I worked to the sounds of Florence + The Machine, measuring out sugar, unwrapping an insane amount of tea bags and using the little binder clips I had to fetch out of the grocery bag to secure the bags to the sides of the pitchers so I didn’t have to go fish.

  I went through five kettles of water. Once the tea was set to brewing, I set a fifteen-minute timer on my phone and went to see if I had room in the fridge to put them all in when they were done.

  I swear someone needed to be standing by with a camera to catch the look on my face when I opened that fridge. I started laughing, probably way harder than I should have, at the discovery I made.

  The fridge was empty except for a few condiments in the door and some lunch meat and cheese slices in one of the vegetable drawers. So, yeah, there was plenty of room for the pitchers of tea – once I removed the brand new pressure cooker with the big red bow holding a note to it from the top shelf.

  Hopefully having one here buys my sorry ass some cooking lessons.

  It was hysterical, but in that way that told me I was ridiculously tired, and definitely needed a break from life. That was supposed to be what this weekend was all about: a break, from my life, and a further introduction to Stoker’s.

  I took the cook pot from the refrigerator and set it on an empty expanse of counter, plucking the bow and the note from the front of it. I still giggled about it. It was pretty funny. A light touch fell on my shoulder a moment or two later, and I jumped, shrieking, pulling the earphones from my ears.

  “It’s okay! It’s okay! It’s just me.” Stoker stood in the middle of the kitchen, his hand pressed to his own chest as we panted in unison from our mutual frights and laughed nervously.

  “Food’s here,” he said. “We ordered pizza, thought you might be hungry.”

  “Oh, my god, you’re a lifesaver. I’m starving,” I said.

  “Figured that might be the case.”

  “Yo, man! We good?”

  “Yeah!” Stoker called out, and the rest of the men from his band filed in.

  “Oh, sorry, um, let me get that,” I said hastily, and rushed to get my bags away from the four-person table.

  “You’re cool, we got it.” Finn waved me down and winked one vivid amber eye at me. I hadn’t looked too closely at any of their faces in the garage. He was handsome, his light brown hair in dreadlocks to his waist and held back by one of the ropes wound around the mass of them at the back of his neck.

  Gideon looked perpetually dour, his long, dyed black hair shaggy around his face and in dire need of a cut, to lose the split ends, and a deep conditioning treatment, to deal with the uncontrollable frizz of damage to it. He had a deep, five o’clock shadow that shaded the hollows of his cheeks, making his already-sharp cheekbones into razors. He could be handsome, if he only didn’t look so angry and miserable.

  Rory looked the least ‘rock star’ of the four of them, his hair a nice and orderly business cut and a light brown. He smiled at me and gave a nod, setting the two extra-large pizza boxes on the table.

  “Gonna put this in the bedroom,” Stoker murmured, and hefted my overnight bag. I’d packed light – as in my lightest, airiest dresses and skirts – I was prepared not only for hot weather but also a ride if Stoker decided to take me on one. The weight of the bag was pretty much solely my jeans and a pair of boots that I had packed just in case.

  I went and got plates and a roll of paper towels from the kitchen while the guys took seats at the table. I had planned to just get a slice and return to stand at the counter while the guys sat, but Stoker pulled me onto his lap instead. I laughed nervously, certainly not overly used to public displays of affection.

  “Best seat in the house,” he told me with a wink.

  Dinner was pleasant. When the timer went off for the tea, I squeezed out the bags carefully, as they were hot, added the simple syrup to each pitcher, and then filled them the rest of the way from the cold tap.

  “Any of that good to drink, now?” Rory asked.

  “Um, yeah as long as there’s ice.”

  “About the only thing I keep well-stocked in that freezer,” Stoker joked, and he got up and helped me by filling glasses with ice.

  One pitcher was gone between the five of us, and so I put more water on to boil; might as well refill it now while I still had the bags out.

  “Holy shit,” Gideon said, after taking a drink. “That’s good.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured.

  “What is this?” Finn asked.

  “Pear and ginger white tea.”

  “It’s real fuckin’ good. I thought Stoker here was batshit having you make four pitchers like as soon as you got here.”

  “Ah, yeah. He knows me pretty well, I guess,” I confessed. “I’m happiest in the greenhouse or the kitchen. I asked him what I could do while you practiced and he asked for tea, and so, tea he shall have.”

  “And I surely do appreciate it,” he said, and I smiled down at him. He puckered his lips and I felt my own split into a smile as I bent to smack mine against his.

  “Mm.” I chewed and swallowed a piece of pizza. “You guys going to be a while yet?” I asked.

  “Probably another hour, why?” Gideon asked. “Want us to hurry our asses up?”

  I shook my head. “No, not at all. I just wouldn’t mind getting off my feet and I didn’t know what the plan was.” I looked at Stoker, who didn’t look pleased as he stared at Gideon.

  “We don’t have to go anywhere tonight, Orchid. You do you, mi casa es tu casa.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He smiled at me.

  “If you’re tired, you don’t have to wait up on my account. You know where the bedroom is. Crawl in, get some sleep. It’s cool.”

  “I think I might take you up on that.”

  “Long day, long drive, ain’t none of us expect you to keep us entertained,” Rory said with a wink.

  “Last time I checked, we were the entertainment,” Finn chimed in.

  Gideon snorted. “Not if we don’t practice.”

  “Well, don’t let me keep you.” I stood with a wince.

  “Want me to tuck you in?” Stoker asked.

  “No, it’s fine. I don’t want to keep you.”

  “You sure?”

  No, I really wanted him to tuck me in, it sounded wonderful, but I was pretty sure Gideon would be
come murderous if I took him away from practice for any longer than necessary, so I tried to elegantly and graciously decline again.

  “No, it’s alright.”

  “Okay.” He gripped my hand lightly and gave it a couple of squeezes, and I hoped like hell I hadn’t hurt his feelings. I would die if I hurt him in any way.

  “Good night,” I said. “It was very nice to meet you all,” I said, adding hastily, “Again.”

  “’Night,” they chorused, and laughed a little. Even Gideon cracked a smile. I wandered through the little one-story rambler to Stoker’s room and shut myself inside. Their playing started up a little bit later and it wasn’t nearly as loud through walls and at the other end of the house. I could likely manage to fall asleep.

  I slipped out of my skirt and took my bra off from under my cami. I wasn’t comfortable being completely nude with the other men in the house. It just didn’t feel right.

  I set my bag from the bed to the floor in an out-of-the-way corner, switched out the light, and slipped between the crisp cotton sheets with a sigh, closing my eyes.

  I couldn’t fall asleep right away. I was terrible at it. Instead, I lay in the close dark of Stoker’s bedroom, breathing him in, the bass thump and alternating hum of the muffled music through the walls lulling me a little bit more. I wished they would wrap it up, and immediately felt guilty for the selfish thought.

  You should be grateful he pays any attention to you at all. It’s a miracle you’re even here. Funnily enough, the deriding voice in my head sounded an awful lot like my mother’s. Imagine that.

  I tossed and turned for a bit, but must have fallen asleep, because I didn’t notice when the band stopped, or when the bedroom door opened, or when Stoker apparently got undressed.

  The next thing I remember was him sliding up to my back, pulling me further into the shelter, the solidness, of his chest, an arm around my waist. He cuddled up to me, kissed the back of my shoulder and settled in behind me. I smiled, threading my fingers through his, and lo and behold, I went right back to sleep after only a few minutes.

  I woke to his arms tightening around me, a hand up my shirt, kneading my breast, and to find myself subconsciously rotating my hips to rub myself against his erection. I moaned when he attacked the sweet spot on the side of my neck with his kiss, licking and sucking, sending cascading waves of sensation through my body. I pushed down my panties, pulled them off and dropped them off the side of the bed before reaching behind me, into the waistband of his boxer shorts.

  He moaned against my neck when I wrapped my fingers around his length and encouraged him with firm, long strokes of my hand. We writhed together, like horny teenagers afraid to seal the deal and go all the way, until neither one of us could take it anymore.

  “Fuck, Orchid, I need to be inside you,” he whispered in my ear, his breath, hot along my neck, sending shivers down my spine.

  “Please…” I begged, and he took his hand off my breast, from where he’d been deliciously pinching my nipple. He pulled it from beneath my cami and reached up above us, into the cubby of his headboard. Bringing out a condom, he tore the package open with his teeth and slipped the rubber disc free.

  I wished I could lay still, but I kept writhing, his cock falling naturally in line with the crack of my ass, my fingertips drifting to my clit, teasing it gently while he rolled the condom down his length. Good Lord, I was wet and ready for him, dying to have him, however he would take me.

  I didn’t have to wait long at all. He hooked an arm around my thigh, just above my knee and lifted my leg, pressing the head of his cock along my sex, looking for purchase. He found what he was looking for, his head sinking into me, the length following as he moaned out like a man finally given relief. It was a sentiment I echoed as he filled me, the thickness of him filling me utterly, completing me.

  “Stoker!” I gasped when he was fully seated, my pussy throbbing around him, just on the cusp of orgasm from the attention I gave my clit.

  “Come on, baby, I want to feel it,” he said, his arms going around me, holding me back against his chest.

  I made myself come around his cock and it was everything, light and sound, fire and ice flitting through my veins, showering me from head to toe in delicate sensation. I gasped, and he moved, pulling back and thrusting forward hard. The roughness of it was a delicious contrast, something new to explore and I wanted it. I wanted him any way he would have me, so I cried out, “Yes!”

  He fucked me beautifully, one hand on my throat, not squeezing, just holding me firmly, back against his chest, his other arm back up my shirt, kneading my breast with his big hand as he pounded into me from behind. It felt so good, but it was like he was just sort of missing the point, the one inside me that would take things from ‘this feels so good’ to ‘oh, my fucking God what are you doing to me?’

  I really wanted him to hit that point, but not enough to stop him, not enough to beg for it, not yet.

  He slowed down, making long, slow, deep strokes into me that still felt just shy of the mark, while I gripped the wrist of the hand at my throat with both hands, just for a place to hang onto him.

  “You good?” he crooned in my ear.

  “Yeah!”

  “You sure?”

  “Don’t stop!” I was desperate now, whipped into a sexual frenzy by the man whose body caged mine, invaded mine so sweetly.

  “On your stomach,” he ordered. “I’m too rough, you say so.”

  “’K.”

  He pushed me onto my stomach, gripped the hem at the back of my cami and stripped it off over my head, throwing it off to the side. I spread my legs and went to push off the bed to offer myself to him for doggy-style, but he pushed me back down, straddled the backs of my thighs and pressed my legs back together with his own.

  He gave me a gentle, but still stingy, slap on the ass and my hips rose off the bed as I cried out, deep, throaty, the sound sultry and wild. I barely recognized the voice as my own.

  “Good girl, Orchid. Stay just like that,” he ordered as he pressed the head of his condom-wrapped cock at the apex of my thighs, questing for the entrance to my pussy.

  He found it, sinking into it easy, crying out, “Oh, God!” as I purposefully clenched tight around him.

  “Yeah, like that, baby. Just like that, keep that pussy nice and tight for me.”

  I gripped fistfuls of the sheets near my shoulders and hung on as he pulled back and drove into me and, holy fuck! That was almost too much, too hard, too tight, too powerful, too everything. I gasped and opened my mouth to ask him to go a little easier, when he surged into me again, only this time it hit all the right things.

  My voice emanated in a cry for more rather than a cry of protest, wordless, yet carrying the intent I wanted it to just fine regardless.

  He gripped my shoulders and pulled down on my body as he surged forward, and I slid across the sheets just the tiniest bit and felt my eyes roll into the back of my head. The friction against my clit – oh, God. Holy shit. I could come like this. I could totally come like this.

  “Oh, God, like that! Just like that! Harder!” I begged, the anticipation winding to a fever pitch, driving me wild and right up the wall, right along with up his bed.

  “Yeah? You like that?” he demanded through gritted teeth, his breath panting, his voice dark and husky, his tone soft, his inflection hard as iron as he mercilessly drilled me into the mattress.

  “Oh, God, Stoker,” I gasped, my voice breathy.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m gonna come, keep doing that, I’m gonna come,” I warned him, I begged him, and he kept fucking me just like that, and to no one’s surprise, I came. I came so hard around his cock, so suddenly, so fiercely, it was like a goddamned hurricane making landfall. I screamed, he cried out, and he drove into me so hard and with such finality, I just knew he’d come too.

  I had never come practically in unison with anyone ever before. I honestly didn’t actually think it was a thing.

 
I came back to myself with the weight of Stoker’s body on top of me, pressing me into the sheets. Both of our bodies were dewed with sweat, though mine was somehow cool to the touch. We panted, both of us trying to breathe, my pussy throbbing pleasantly and occasionally with these wonderful little aftershocks.

  Stoker was still inside me and every time my pussy twitched from within, he made a little surprised, “Ah!” and shuddered above me, his cock still oversensitive. I knew the feeling, I didn’t want him to withdraw from me yet, a little overwhelmed and just not quite ready to feel anything else yet.

  He kissed across the back of my shoulders, sweeping my hair out of the way so he could kiss the back of my neck and I melted, my eyes drifted shut, and I shuddered with a head-to-toe wave of post-coital bliss.

  “God, you feel so fucking good, Orchid,” he whispered in my ear, before sucking on my earlobe.

  I cried out, my body’s sensitivity turned up past high, every touch rocketing along nerve endings, using them as a superhighway to reach the parts of me still on fire, throwing gasoline on the flames.

  I could totally stand to come again. I wanted it. I needed his body on mine.

  “I want more,” I finally gasped out.

  “What my lady wants, my lady gets.” He reached between us and held the condom on himself as he pulled out and oh, man, that felt so fucking good, but it wasn’t enough. I turned over on my back and sat up, reaching for him, grabbing him by his bearded cheeks, pulling his mouth to mine, feeding at him, drinking him down, my soul parched for his affections.

  He kissed me back, pulling the used condom off his cock and tying it off without looking, dropping it somewhere off the side of the bed. I heard it hit plastic, like the rustle of a grocery sack, and smiled and giggled against his mouth even as he reached for another one.

  “Shit,” he gasped against my lips. “Gimme a minute, babe. I need a bit more recovery time.”

  “Mm, just don’t stop kissing me.”

  “Never,” he swore, before plunging his tongue past my lips and capturing my mouth, ravaging it with the same intensity he’d just fucked me with, stoking the flames of my desire even higher for him.