Over the Fence Box Set

by Carrie Aarons

  She looks up at me, her almond eyes unblinking, mesmerized by something I can’t see. She shakes her head slowly, indicating she doesn’t want to be here.

  “Have a good night, fellas.” I don’t even glance back as they groan. I take careful steps as I hoist Chloe up. It doesn’t help that she’s stumbling for her footing in her high-as-fuck heels. Why the hell do girls wear those?

  I get her outside and maneuver us to the side of the house where the lawn is less full and there is actually a pocket of quiet. When I try to lean Chloe against the stucco wall, she grabs onto my waist instead, causing me to stumble into the side of the house with her leaning on me.

  Her black hair cascades down her arms like a waterfall as she leans against me, nuzzling into my chest. I stand there, arms limp at my sides, not sure where to go from here.

  “You’re always saving me.” She sighs, resting her head in the middle of my chest.

  “Huh?” I’ve lost all ability to think or speak with her rubbing against me like a happy feline.

  “You always protect me. Miles my hero …” she sings this and giggles while jabbing a pointy pink fingernail at my nipple. “You saved me on the playground, and you’re saving me now! How funny is that?”

  Her syrupy sweet drunk voice makes me smile. “What do you mean I saved you on the playground?”

  Chloe rolls her eyes, and it’s so unlike her that it makes me snort. Eye rolling is definitely a Minka thing. “Oh, I knew you wouldn’t remember, silly! From stupid Bruce Nichols, he was calling me ‘praying mantis.’ And you pushed him! Just pushed him down … you were sooo cute back then, with all your curls. Not that you aren’t now … but you’re sexy, not cute. But anyway, you are always saving me! It makes it hard to try not to like you …”

  Her little confession sends me flashing back … to a time when I hated Bruce Nichols. Not that I still don’t, guy is a dick, but I do remember pushing him. I just didn’t know it had been her I was defending. So that’s why she’s always tried to get with me.

  “I’m sexy, huh? Then why would you try not to like me?” It’s sort of wrong to pull information out of her like this, but I’m at a disadvantage. Being an asshole early on definitely didn’t help her act openly toward me now, and if drunken Chloe is how I’m going to get some answers, so be it.

  “Because you hate me. You even said so. Miles hates me, yep. He doesn’t want to talk to me and definitely doesn’t want to hook up with me. I’m not pretty enough for him or something … I don’t know.” She hugs my waist tighter to comfort herself. I don’t even think she knows she’s talking about me, to me.

  “I don’t hate you, and I never said that. And I don’t think you’re pretty, I think you’re gorgeous.”

  Chloe looks up at me, her eyes shining in the shadowy moonlight. Then, her face crumples. “I don’t feel good.”

  Next thing I know, she’s hunched over, her hand clutching my forearm, puking into the grass. Normally, I’d leave. I don’t do vomit, and I definitely don’t do girl vomit. Or girl consoling.

  But I don’t even think before I’m in back of her, holding her waist to keep her from falling over and rubbing circles into her back to soothe her. “It’s okay, that’s it, get it all out.”

  When she’s done dry-heaving, she starts to make whimpering sounds. “Chloe, it’s okay, I’m going to take you home.”

  This seems to calm her, and instead of hoisting her up as I walk us back to my house and figure out what to do next, I scoop her up. She’s light as a feather as I carry her the two houses over to mine. I think she’s nodded off because she isn’t moaning anymore.

  When I get her into the house and deposit her on my bed, I dial Owen to see if they’re on their way back. Maybe Minka will know what to do. No such luck when it goes to voicemail.

  “Shit,” I mutter to myself. Glancing at the bed, I see Chloe curled up in a ball in the middle of my California king. She looks so small and delicate on the cavernous piece of furniture. Maybe I should just leave her be, let her sleep it off instead of trying to move her again.

  Sitting next to her, I unstrap the skyscraper heels from her feet and slip them off, revealing her battered and bruised toes. Fuck, that looks like it kills. Tossing her shoes on the floor, I then try to remove the leather jacket she’s wearing. She protests as I try to wrestle it off of her, but I finally pry it free, leaving her in a tiny white tank top and a black skirt. It’s as far as I’ll undress her. One, because she’ll probably be pissed if she wakes up in her underwear, and two, I don’t think I’ll be able to control myself.

  Gently moving her willowy figure to the side of the bed pushed against the wall, I shed my clothes and don a pair of gym shorts over my boxers. Climbing in next to her, I try to adjust my body so that none of my limbs are touching hers. Not because I don’t want to touch her. I want to, badly. But I never would like this.

  It’s weird, sleeping with a girl in my bed. It’s been a long time. Olivia rarely slept here even when our relationship was good. Said it smelled like dirty jockstraps. Which it probably does.

  Chloe stirs, kicking the covers off in her sleep and exposing a bigger slice of skin as her skirt hikes up. I shut my eyes, trying to will myself to sleep as my cock jerks to life in my boxers.

  It’s going to be a long fucking night.

  14

  Chloe

  My mouth feels like the Sahara Desert threw a party in there. I try to swallow past the dryness, but moving my throat only brings the horrible nausea I am trying to clamp down on back up. I roll over, hoping the re-positioning will help the little vomit gnomes kicking at my stomach lining. Except, that when I do, my arm connects with something big and warm.

  Peeling my eyes open, I stare into the early morning light, which shades this unfamiliar room in dark purples and grays. I pull my arm back and use it to prop myself up to see the other person in the bed, their back turned to me. And that’s when it hits me that I’m in Miles’s room. Sleeping in his bed. Half-naked, next to a half-naked Miles.

  “Oh, crap,” I grumble, flinging myself back down onto the bed.

  “That’s the first time I think I’ve ever heard you curse.” Miles’s gravelly voice shocks me in the dimly lit room. He rolls over and I’m treated to the most magnificent sight. Sleepy, bed-tousled Miles.

  My heart does an actual dip all the way down to my feet. His curls are haphazard, molded to one side of his head. More than a dusting of five-o’clock shadow covers his face, and I find it so sexy that I have to fight from running my tongue across his jawline. His eyes, one bright blue, the other bright green, are hooded, and I can imagine this is how they look in the middle of a slow, sensual moment. He’s naked except for a pair of basketball shorts, and his humongous limbs dwarf me in the bed. A huge bed for a huge man.

  “S-Sorry if I woke you. I … um … did we?” I hold my breath, glancing down at my long legs which are clad only in my underwear. Thank God I wore a nice pair; blush lace with a bow in the middle.

  Miles gives a sleepy, adorable smile. “Come on, girl wonder, you don’t remember?” Noticing my underwear, his eyes flash with drowsy lust.

  He’s baiting me, I know it. Ugh, why did I drink so much last night?

  “Don’t worry, nothing happened. Except you throwing up in Travers’s backyard and me carrying you home. And undressing you. Except not down to those babies. You must have done that yourself. Although I’m not complaining.”

  I can feel my face burn bright red in the dark. Hazy images of last night come back to me. “I didn’t throw up on you, did I?” Please, God, I hope not.

  Miles chuckles. “No, but you did gush about my heroic abilities. What a good savior I am.”

  I bury my face in my hands. While I don’t remember what I said to him, I can only imagine. The thoughts about him that have crowded my brain for the past eleven years could fill hours of conversation. “Can you just forget I said any of that.”

  “Oh, hell no, princess. That stuff is stored up here for
future ammo.” He taps a finger to his temple and smiles.

  A few beats of silence go by, and I’m painfully aware of just how exposed I am. We’re lost in each other’s smiles, and I know I should really leave. He’s probably waiting for me to leave.

  “What time is it anyway?”

  Miles twists his upper half to check the clock on his cell phone, and the script running across his ribs stretches taut as he leans over. “It’s five thirty a.m.”

  He twists back around to catch me staring at the inscription in his skin. “Oh, okay. Well, I should probably get going.” I sit up, scooting myself off of his massive king bed. But I stop just before my feet land on the floor, his hand catching my arm.

  “Chloe, where are you going to go at this hour? You don’t even have a car here. Stay.”

  His request is simple but loaded. He wants me to stay?

  “Only if you’re sure …”

  “I’m sure.” He pulls me back up the bed and uses his big hands to guide me back onto the pillows. “Much better.” He smiles.

  It’s awkward, lying here with him. We have so much history between us, and yet we haven’t really ever sat down to have much of a conversation. When we grabbed pizza the other night, the conversation had been light and airy, just fluff. But here, in the darkness of his bedroom, half undressed and lying next to each other? I have no idea how to handle this.

  “You want to know what it means?” Miles points to his tattoo, and my fingers itch to reach out and trace it.

  “If you want to tell me.”

  “It’s for my brother. He passed away … when I was seven. A car crash. But he always used to read Winnie the Pooh to me. So it’s a line from those stories. The full quote is ‘I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.’”

  I try to conceal the surprise on my face. My heart warms at his openness. “I’m … so sorry that you lost him. I never knew you had a brother. The tattoo … it’s meaning is beautiful.”

  “Most people don’t. He was a lot older than me, and the accident happened so early into my time in grade school that a lot of people don’t even remember it. I miss him every day though. Jason … that was his name.”

  He’s talking quietly and cautiously, almost as if he thinks I’ll react in some repulsed way. “Of course, you do. It’s only natural. I’m sorry you lost him, it’s an awful thing to go through. But you know that he’s watching over you. You have a special angel looking down on you.”

  Miles closes his eyes and gives a blissful nod. “You believe in all that stuff? God and heaven and all that?”

  I answer immediately. “Of course, I do. I know it might be hard for some people to believe because they can’t see it, but go to church one Sunday. The feeling that you get, with all of those people from different walks of life gathering to pray in one room, that feeling will make you believe in miracles. So, yeah, I know that there is a heaven and that your brother is there.”

  He picks up my hand, and I jump from the sudden contact. “I’m sorry for how I treated you all those years. And I’m sorry about the past couple months. I know I already said it, but, you didn’t deserve that.”

  “Thanks,” I whisper. He’s splaying my fingers wide, running the backs of his nails up and down my open palm. The simple touch is sending waves of pleasure through my body.

  “And you didn’t deserve how I treated you the other night. I can’t promise you anything, Chloe, not anything like what you would probably want from me. But I’d really like to make up for the other night. And if you’ll let me, I’d like to keep making up for it.”

  As he says this, he scoots closer to me, both of us lying on our sides in the middle of the bed. His chest is so close to mine that I can feel the smattering of hair there tickling my exposed collarbone. I know what his words mean, and they should throw me into a panic. He wants to be hookup buddies, friends with benefits. He can’t promise me dates, or romance, or a relationship. Or anything else that I’ve pictured with him.

  But despite all that, I don’t pull back in the slightest when he brushes his top lip over my bottom one.

  Normally, in this situation, I’d be worried about morning breath, my hair, whether I had smudged makeup under my eyes. But with Miles, all I can focus on is the way his slightly chapped lips sweep over mine, coaxing my mouth open at the same time his hands work down my navel, squeezing my hips gently.

  “You taste so sweet, like sugar.” He breathes into my mouth while he presses his forehead to mine, his nose nuzzling mine in slow Eskimo kisses.

  He moves his head back in for more, nudging my lips apart and swiping his tongue tenderly over mine. Kissing a line down my chin and over my jaw, Miles angles his mouth to slide his wet lips over my neck, sending tiny tremors skittering over my flesh.

  His big hands are stroking the skin on either hip, and I feel so close to that sought-after peak that I’m trembling with anxiousness. He’s already ruined me for anyone else after the other night, and his gentleness now is only adding to that.

  “You’re so responsive to my touch. Especially, when I kiss you here.” He bows his head to the spot on my collarbone that makes everything turn to liquid, and bites gently. I let out a strangled moan. “Mm, yes, that spot right there.”

  I run my hands through his unruly curls, savoring the feel of their soft springiness. I pull a bit too roughly, dragging his head back up to mine. What starts as an easy, delicate kiss turns explosive. Miles is kissing me with such reckless abandon that I start to see fireworks going off in front of my closed lids. I feel him, hot and hard against my thigh, and I know I’m affecting him just as much as he is me.

  Pulling back, I can see the liquid fire burning in his eyes. “I need to see if your pussy tastes as sweet as your lips.”

  His dirty words stoke the thunderous flames already consuming my body. Miles is so uncensored when it comes to sex, he talks openly. No one I’ve been with has done that, but I find it drives me crazy. The great, orgasmic kind of crazy.

  Miles slithers his giant body down mine, and when he gets to the apex of my thighs, he rids me of my panties and hooks his mighty arms over my hips. They dwarf my body, and it’s like Miles has hijacked the bottom half of me. My anatomy betrays me, slick for him, belonging to him now.

  “Fuck, you’re perfect.” He stares at my wet folds, drawing his pointer finger down over my sensitive nub, down the moist slit.

  “So wet for me.” He trains his eyes on mine as his tongue darts out to lap at me. I shudder, the flames licking up my spine, goose bumps dotting my skin. “God, you taste like sugar. Like heaven. I could come just from licking your fucking sweet pussy.”

  His filthy statements make me shudder in pleasure, and I feel my walls clench as he inserts one finger inside me. He’s rewarded with a moan and a gush of wetness from my core, and he makes an appreciative growl. My head is spinning from the intensity, and I need him inside of me so badly that I think I might be drooling and suffocating at the same time.

  “Miles …” I moan as he works me over, plunging his fingers into me as he sucks on my swollen clit. “Now … please.”

  “What’s that? You can’t take how good I’m eating your sweet juices?”

  I writhe on the bed as he strokes the spot at the front of my wall, relishing in the bliss singeing my veins. “I want you now … please.”

  Miles pauses, his mouth mocking in a wolfish grin. He pounces onto me, reaching for the bedside table as I remove the rest of my clothing. “I’ll make sure to use one of these this time.”

  He stands up after retrieving the condom and pushes his shorts down his hips. I can’t help but stare as he frees himself, hypnotized by his engorged cock. How had that thing fit inside me? He’s huge, easily twice as big as any guy I’ve ever been with. Miles strokes himself, reveling in the attention I’m giving him. He’s so unabashedly bold, so dirty, yet I love it.

  He climbs back onto the bed,
rolling the latex over his length. He pulls my body down to his, positioning me exactly how he wants me. Then he’s pushing into me, his big tool spreading my walls wide open.

  “Yes …” Miles hisses and drops his forehead to mine, both of our bodies shaking in time with each other. He grinds his pelvis against mine while he’s lodged deep inside me, sending spikes of pleasure through my core as he hits my clit.

  “Do you know how fucking perfect you feel? So tight for me, Chloe.”

  Miles begins to move, pulling his cock out to the tip and then driving back in, sending seismic waves through my system. I’m so close as he rocks in and out of me, I feel the vibrations of an oncoming orgasm all the way down to my pores.

  And then he pulls out, flipping me over before I can comprehend that I’m on my stomach. Miles pulls my waist up, spreads my legs and drives straight into me, bringing a screaming moan out of my throat.

  “That’s it, princess. Scream for me. I know you’re right there. Come for me, come on my cock.”

  I’m blind with pleasure now, the only thing my body computes is the need for release. Miles wrenches my hips hard back onto him in rhythmic, driving motions, and I’m arching up into every slapping thrust. I could be shouting for all I know now, but I can’t hear a thing. My ears are ringing, every ounce of my concentration focused on the mind-numbing bliss about to crash in waves over my body.

  Then I’m coming, so hard that I fist my hands in his sheets, clawing at them like the orgasm is clawing at my insides. Miles feels me tighten like a fist around him, and he starts bucking wildly, curses ripping through the air.

  “Fuck!” He stills, pouring himself into the condom, and I can feel the veins around his cock rippling with his release.

  He collapses on top of me, both of us sated and sweaty, breathing hard.

  I’m in so much trouble. Because … I will do this again and again, despite the fact that he can’t promise me a thing.