Chloe claps her hands. “Of course, Mama has already been talking wedding venues. I kind of want to do it at the SAB theater, how cute would that be? And you all will be wearing pink!”
“Oh, Christ no. You’ll have to drug me before you get me into that dress.” I take a long swig of my drink.
“Maybe it will help to know that Clint will be walking you down the aisle. How are things going with you anyway?” She flicks her long black mane over her shoulder. She looks amazing. It must be the pre-wedded bliss sex and the shiny diamond.
My heart surges at the mention of Clint walking me down the aisle. “He told me he loved me.”
Both of my best friends screamed “What!” at the same time. I take that opportunity to polish off the rest of the bitter cranberry juice.
When I slam the glass back down on the table, four eyes, two violet and two chocolate brown, are staring me down, waiting impatiently.
“Well, did you say it back?” Minka is incredulous.
“I couldn’t … not then. He didn’t want me to anyway. Told me to wait till I was ready. Perfect bastard, always knows the exact right thing to say.”
Chloe leans back, a smug grin on her perfectly pouty lips. “I think you love him. I think he pushes all your buttons, and you love that. I think you want to have his babies.”
“Let’s take it down a notch, Mrs. Wedding Crazed. I don’t know. I’ve never told anyone I loved them. Especially a guy.”
“You love us,” Minka points out.
“I know, but that’s easy. And when I get sick of you bitches, I just travel to Africa. If I have a boyfriend, if I’m in love with him, I can’t run. And that’s what I do.”
And now I’m the one who is getting teary.
“Oh, Kels. Maybe the problem is, you don’t want to run anymore. And that scares the shit out of you.”
Trust Minka to tell it like it is.
“Let him love you. And let yourself love him. You deserve it.” Chloe grabs my hand, and Minka adds hers in.
We all stare at each other for a minute, soaking in the gravity of adulthood on our heels.
Finally, I wipe the tears from my ducts. “Oh my God, enough of the soap opera. This is a bar. And we’re here to celebrate. Another round of vodka crans!” I lean into Chloe. “And tell us, how amazing is the sex now?”
They both laugh as the men join us at the table.
“What’s so funny?” Miles asks, but only looks at Chloe.
“Oh, we’re just talking about your dick, Farris.”
Clint narrows his eyes at me and motions for me to join him on the dance floor. I might be in trouble. And I love it.
Hours later, we all stumble back to the house, drunk off booze and celebrations. I can tell everyone is in a frisky mood, and when Clint wraps his arms around my waist and hoists me up until I’m straddling him, all I can do is hang on and let him take me where he pleases.
As he walks, his rough jeans scrape against my exposed thighs. The shorts I’m wearing ride up, pulling the seam so hard against my throbbing clit that I groan into Clint’s neck.
Licking and sucking at the spot just below his earlobe, I catch a whiff of his scent. Pure male and fresh soap. Clint is uncomplicated, he doesn’t bother with cologne or lotions, and for that I’m happy.
“Let me at least get to the bedroom before you make my knees go weak.”
His voice is a plea and filled with needy lust. But he’s made me a wanton creature. I need him to be touching me. I hold tighter, making sure to grind my exposed skin down onto his already swelling cock.
Clint’s stride grows wider and faster until we reach the bedroom at breakneck speed.
He throws the door closed, still caring me in his burly, muscled arms and deposits me on the bed.
I scoot back, careful not to break the eye contact hypnotizing both of us right now.
“Take off your clothes.”
Clint’s voice sends shivers of lust and need zinging down my spine and hitting me right in the swollen button between my legs. I love it when he’s bossy.
I start to peel out of my clothes, my skin damp from the heat and his dirty command.
We can’t take our eyes off of each other as we rip away our clothes. He reaches behind his neck and pulls his T-shirt off in one fluid motion the way that insanely hot guys always do. Just that action alone has me flushing hot and greedy below the waist, my nipples pebbling despite the air being swampy with lust.
I beat him in our race to get naked, and he’s devouring me with those eyes like I’m his next meal. Clint undoes his belt buckle slowly, pulling the leather out of the loops one by one. Each time the strand of material clears, making a freeing smack, I feel it like a lick against my sex. I can’t stop watching him. I’m so turned-on and hot from the muggy temperatures that it feels like I’ve been drugged; all of my reflexes are working a second slower.
Finally, Clint is pushing down his jeans, his boxers joining them at his ankles. His impressive member springs free, hitting him in the stomach where a drop of pre-cum sticks and rolls down his abs. I want to lick the spilled juice into my throat, sink to my knees and worship this beautiful, shy man.
Because as sexy as he is, I still see the doubt in his eyes, the way he shuffles his feet. I find it endearing and hot as hell that he is commanding one minute and adorably lost the next. I’ve always found it obnoxious when a guy is too confident in his ability. With Clint, I feel cherished and adored, but we are also having fun, testing things out with each other.
Clint fists himself and squeezes, painfully so, while all the air whooshes out of my lungs. Jesus, my boyfriend is fucking gorgeous.
“Come here and let me do that.” I squirm on the bed, wanting to press my thighs together but also spread them far apart simultaneously.
He moves to kneel in front of me on the bed, a curious glance on his face. “I … can we try something new?”
So cute. He always asks permission each time he wants to try something he’s never done. And, of course, I always give in. I don’t answer, just give him a small nod as I die a slow death because his hands still aren’t on me.
Clint lies down, spreading his legs and placing his head on the pillow.
“Straddle my face and suck my dick.”
His crude words almost make me come on the spot. Just a few carefully placed words, that’s all I need to tip me over the edge and Clint has learned that well.
So he wants to try sixty-nine. I’ve never been a huge fan of this position, but of course, I’ll do anything for him.
I do as I’m told, position myself and back up until I can feel his hot, damp breath blowing against my slit. And then his tongue is stroking up my dripping sex, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. Okay, focus Kelsey. I zero in on the huge cock in front of me, so close to my nose that it’s like he’s bobbing up and down waving hello. I take Clint in my mouth, tentatively at first, slow licks and kisses to his head.
I feel the low growl of pleasure from Clint all the way through my pussy, and it causes me to draw him farther into my mouth, gulping him down as far as he’ll go. When his massive cock hits the back of my throat, I feel Clint bite down, not so gently, on my clit. I see stars.
It’s one of the most illicit, intimate experiences I’ve ever had. I’m spread open and vulnerable for Clint, and each time pleasure rocks one of us, the other feels it to the core. Sixty-nine. My new favorite position.
We feast on each other, mutually fulfilling with each kiss, suck, and lick. I’m sucking him so deep and hard that my orgasm sneaks up on me, starting in my fingers and toes and rippling toward the center of my body until I implode. I’m crying out with my lips still wrapped around Clint’s rock-solid staff.
I don’t even realize he’s moved me until my back hits the bed and he’s pushing inside me, hot and heavy and throbbing.
I gasp again until he covers my lips with his swollen ones. We taste and lick, our sex on each other’s mouths. And then he is speedin
g up, pounding and thrusting like if he stops he might cease to exist. My brain shuts off and it’s just me, Clint, and the darkness.
21
Clint
Finding a real job is a job.
I’ve spent the entire week researching and applying to every nonprofit that concerned childhood obesity that I could find. I reached out to camps, counseling programs, basically any job out there that is in the realm of what I figured out I want to do.
And still no calls back. So this is what adulthood feels like.
The weeks have dwindled down to nothing, and in four days we have to be out of the house. Some new set of knucklehead jocks are coming to take our house over. This was going to be their kingdom for the next two years. I envied them so much. I don’t want to grow up. I want to stay in the craphole college residence with my best friends and my girl, sitting on the couch and watching sports all day then venturing out to Sammy’s at night.
But at the same time, I am looking forward to moving on. Helping children who are currently in the place I’ve been in. Those who feel down on themselves and don’t know how to change that. I am damn excited to get started.
I am also pumped to start this new chapter with Kelsey. We haven’t talked much about where we will be, if we’ll live together, how this will work. As of now, I am planning to head back to Alabama for a month or so to get my ducks in a row, check up on my parents. She’s going to stay here, work at the preserve, and crash with Jackson until we figure something out.
Jackson. I haven’t had time to think about what to do with the tidbit of suspicion that has been nipping at my brain for two weeks. Until today.
I’m on my way over to the preserve in my shitty old SUV to confront him, ask him some questions, and get some real information for Kelsey. It’s bad enough her mother lied to her for this long. But to have Jackson, the one parental-type figure she trusts in her life do that to her? She will be crushed.
A pang of guilt hits me in the ribs. If she finds out I’ve been keeping my suspicions from her, she might be royally pissed at me. But I need to protect her from the pain of this as long as I can. No sense in hurting her if I am wrong, which I very well could be.
I find Jackson filling plastic tubs full of raw steaks near the tiger dens. His instincts must be razor-sharp, because he turns before I’m even within thirty feet of him. He straightens and waves, shielding his eyes with his weathered, tan hands from the sun in his face.
“Clint, nice to see you back so soon. Where’s Mother Nature?” He shakes my hand, his eyes peering around me to see if Kelsey is just behind me.
“Just me today, I’m afraid. I thought maybe you and I could talk.”
Jackson’s face molds into worried frown lines, and I know he knows this isn’t going to be a good chat.
“Sure, let me just take this food to the den. How about you meet me up in my office?” He points to a 1980s style trailer that sits just on the crest of the hill. Figures a rugged type like Jackson would refuse to be in the shiny office building down near the front gates.
I nod and make my way up as he carries the red hunks of meat to what I can only assume is going to be a feeding frenzy. Swinging open the rusty metal door when I reach the trailer, I walk into what has to be an exact replica of Kelsey’s bedroom, only office style. Papers and water bottles litter the desk and spill onto the floor. One end of the burnt orange couch is covered in back issues of National Geographic, and the walls are plastered in diagrams of the animal kingdom and species charts. Now I know where my girl gets her impeccable tidiness from.
Jackson lumbers in as I’m leafing through a November 2013 copy of National Geographic that features a piece on the O’Briens. Go figure.
His lean, wiry body moves effortlessly over the mess on the floor. Jackson looks exactly like what you picture when you think of a zookeeper. He wears nothing but khaki’s, has a continual scruffy brown-blond beard, and his skin is always the color of polished leather. He’s like Steve Irwin’s clone, except he’s got a bit of vintage cowboy mixed in there. And of course, the facial features that match Kelsey’s so much it’s uncanny.
“So what can I do for you, son?”
A weird sensation has my neck hairs standing on end at the word son.
“How long have you known?” I’m not one to pussyfoot around. Especially, not when it comes to matters concerning Kelsey.
I see the recognition in those worn brown eyes, but he doesn’t play along. “What’s that now?”
Deep breath, Bellows. “I know you’re her father.”
Jackson sucks in a breath and then blows it out. But I can tell in his body language. He’s been waiting for this day. Waiting for someone to finally call out the one thing he’s been hiding for so long.
“How did you guess?”
I snort, still not knowing if I should have my defenses up with this guy. “How could I not know? You practically cloned her. She has the same mannerisms. Jesus, she’s got your damn nose. I don’t know how she’s never noticed.”
“Because I’ve managed to stay just far enough out of reach for all these years.”
“You’re an asshole. Lying to her like that. I thought you cared about her.”
Rage sparks in his eyes as he slams his palms flat on the cluttered desk. “Don’t walk onto my preserve, into my office, and pretend to know something you have absolutely no idea about. You have no clue just what it’s been like to lie to her. To live twenty years of my life orbiting around my child who I can’t even claim as mine. Don’t you dare accuse me of that.”
I back down, dropping into a chair as a sign of peace. “So, then tell me. Why lie all these years?”
Jackson slumps, all the energy leaving his body. As if telling his secret has left him bereft and empty. “Well, I’d have to start at the beginning.”
He pauses, his face drawn up into a thinking scowl.
“I met Madeline O’Brien just a year after I graduated college. I had spectacular dreams of traveling the fields of Africa, saving animals from extinction and all that. She’d just burst onto the scene with Hugo, the wonder couple who was blazing the trail in zoology. I was smitten, and she was lonely. Late nights in the lab led to a talking, which led to a friendship, and then you know what happened after that. I was in love with her, although I never knew her feelings in the whole matter.
“Then one day, things just stopped. She wouldn’t even look at me, left to start research in Panama. Hugo approached me, told me I could keep my job and a place in their empire if I promised never to breathe in the direction of his wife again.”
He wipes a hand over his face, trying to erase the grief so evident in his features. “Of course, years later I realized what had happened. She’d gotten pregnant. We’d gotten pregnant. And instead of stay with me, she chose him. She chose her career and greatness and all of the things it meant to stay married to Hugo O’Brien. The first time I saw Kelsey …”
Jackson’s voice cracks. It’s then I know that this secret has been eating away at him for decades.
“Madeline and Hugo came for this new exhibit being put in, gazelles I think. And they brought the baby. Of course, I’d heard she’d given birth years ago, I tried not to follow them too closely. It’s easy when your bosses are traveling to different continents every week and you’re just a lowly employee in their Virginia preserve. But seeing Kelsey for the first time, Christ. I knew instantly. She was probably four or five, with these fire engine red locks that were down to her butt because she wouldn’t let anyone cut her ‘lion’s mane.’ She ran right up to this pack of elephants and began playing with their trunks. No fear, just joy. I knew then that she had to be mine. I felt like I was seeing a ghost, a long-lost piece of my heart that I had only just discovered was missing. I confronted Madeline immediately. At first, she denied it, but I pressed her. Told her I’d take her to court for a paternity test. That’s when I really pissed off the ice queen. She told me I’d be hurting my own daughter, dragging this scandal through t
he press. So I used it as leverage. Told her she had to settle close by with Kelsey, someplace where I could see her often. That’s why they chose Mitchum. And so I started a relationship with my daughter. A friendship. I looked after her as best I could, all the while slowly cutting out my own heart that she was living under another man’s roof.”
I see tears in his eyes. In the middle of this shitty metal can, this man who seems so solid and formidable, is crumbling like an ant beneath the glare of the microscope. I hear the wind squealing in through the crack in the trailer window and don’t know where to go from here. “You have to tell her, she deserves to know.”
“This secret, it’s become a part of my soul. I wouldn’t even know where to start …”
The door cracks open violently behind my chair, sending shock waves through the entire metal tube. And in the opening stands Kelsey.
“Baby—” It’s the only thing I get out before she silences me with a finger. I know better than to speak again.
Jackson and I stand there, two idiots caught with our proverbial pants down as she glares at us. It’s more than a glare. Those hazel eyes are onyx, all the rage has been sucked from the world and transplanted into this gorgeous pixie. Red tendrils stand up this way and that, her face shines with a fresh coat of glossy tears. She must be tearing holes in her palms by how hard she’s clenching her tiny fists.
“You can start by getting the fuck out of my life.” Kelsey’s words are venom, meant to cause bodily harm to Jackson.
“Kelsey, I can explain … I never, I never wanted you to find out this way. Please, can we just talk?”
A biting laugh bubbles up from her throat, sarcastic and cruel. “You had twenty years to talk to me. Twenty years! You lied to my goddamn face my entire life. When I was crying to you about my parents, about Madeline. You knew how alone I felt, how misguided I was.”
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