Imperfect

by Ari Reavis

  We get out of the pool after an hour and shower to get ready for dinner. Damir didn’t pack an outfit for me for dinner, he bought one. When I see him pull the lavender dress out of the bag, my smile grows so big, my cheeks begin to hurt. I practically snatch it from his hands and step into it. From the top of my breasts to my neck and the sleeves are lace. The dress brushes the floor at the bottom and literally makes me want to twirl around in the mirror.

  “It’s beautiful.” I breathe.

  “When I saw it, I knew it would look amazing on you. And these.” He pulls a box out of his bag and opens it.

  “Damir!” My hand goes to my mouth.

  Inside are lavender studs and a matching white gold tennis bracelet with lavender stones throughout it. I forcefully shove down the worry over how much he spent on all of this as Damir puts the bracelet on. When he’s done, I put on the studs and reach into my bag for my hair straightener, only it’s not there. Damir’s hand goes to the back of his neck as he gives me a nervous smile, as if he knows exactly what I’m missing.

  “Is it horrible to say that I like your hair curly better?” he asks.

  “So sabotage then?” I arch a brow.

  He smiles. “More like purposely forgetting anything that would interfere with me seeing those curls.”

  “I will forgive you on account of this amazing surprise. Please tell me you at least brought the rest of my hair products.”

  “I basically threw whatever I could fit in there.” He chuckles.

  I take out a brush and a few sprays before going back into the bathroom and basically just making sure my curls will actually stay looking as nice as they do now all night. When I step back out of the bathroom, Damir is dressed in an all-black suit and damn if he doesn’t look so good my panties get instantly wet.

  “You looking this handsome is a present within itself,” I say.

  He grins at me, straightening his tie. “I’ll remember that for next year.”

  “And just when is your birthday?”

  “It was in July, so you’ll be waiting a while for that one. Ready to go?”

  “Just need to put my shoes on.”

  I step into the black heels he brought along and reach for Damir’s extended hand. We get into a different limo, and the driver takes us to a restaurant about fifteen minutes away. When we walk inside, Damir gives them his name, and we’re escorted to a table near the back with a few candles already burning on it. Damir pulls out my chair and pushes it in after I sit down. From behind me, he places a black box on the table.

  “Damir.” I groan. “You’ve already given me too much.”

  “Never.” He kisses my temple and sits down. “Plus it kind of all goes together, so you can’t refuse it.”

  I open it and find a necklace. A lavender heart, framed in dark purple, hanging from a white gold chain.

  “Thank you.” I look up at him to see him beaming.

  “You more than deserve it.”

  The waiter comes back, and we order drinks and appetizers before he leaves, and we look at our menus.

  “So what else do you have in your bag of tricks for the weekend?” I ask.

  “Not much. I didn’t pack anymore nice outfits because once we get back to the room, I don’t plan on us leaving it again until Sunday.”

  The look in his eyes when he says that makes my pussy clench. I have to swallow just to speak.

  “That sounds like something I might be interested in,” I say. “You’re gonna have to make it really good for me to want to stay in the room.”

  “Not a problem.”

  The waiter comes back with our appetizers, and we both order a steak with different sides. When dinner comes, I barely concentrate on the food as Damir flirts with me the whole meal, smirking and grinning, knowing just the way he’s affecting me. Do I want dessert? Yes, but getting back into that limo is more important.

  The moment we’re in the backseat, I grab Damir’s tie and pull him towards me. I crash my lips down on his and he returns the kiss just as hungrily. He hikes my dress up until it’s pooled around my waist, and he can get his hand on my panties. I shiver when he rubs my clit through the wet fabric. In the next breath, my panties are pushed aside and his finger is stroking along my pussy until it’s at my opening.

  “Please.” I plead.

  He thrusts his finger in hard and fast as our tongues circle each other’s. I reach down and press the palm of his hand harder against my clit, riding his hand. He nips at my lip while his finger slides out of me. Then he brings his finger to my lips, rubbing my wetness across them. My tongue whips out and tastes myself as he slides off the seat and to his knees between my legs.

  He looks at me with pure sin and desire in his eyes while he drags my panties down my legs, then he’s spreading my thighs, and his head disappears beneath my dress. My head falls back when he slowly licks from my opening to my clit. I grip the edge of the seat as he circles it. My hand flies to his hair when he sucks it into his mouth. I moan my pleasure, my legs clenching the sides of his head. His tongue leaves my clit and licks through my lips to my opening. When he thrusts it in, I explode, gasping his name and grinding myself down onto his mouth.

  The car stops, and Damir gives me one last lick before taking the seat beside me again. He has to straighten my clothes because Lord knows my body feels useless. I see him tuck my panties into his pocket before he kisses me.

  “Need me to carry you to the room?” he asks when the driver opens the door.

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, I do.” I arch a brow.

  “You know I will.”

  And he does, ignoring the stares as he walks through the lobby and down the hallway to our room. Once we’re upstairs in the bedroom, he stands me up and begins slowly undressing me. First, dragging the sleeves down my arms and exposing my shoulders before he kisses them. Then he brings the dress down to my hips, licking down my spine as his hands trail across my skin. He drops to his knees to take my dress down my legs so I can step out of it.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says gruffly.

  “Make this night one to remember.” I whisper.

  He walks me backwards to the bed, unsnapping my bra as we go and bringing it down my arms. When he lays me on the bed, he leans over and sucks a nipple into his mouth. I hear his belt being unbuckled, then he stands up and takes off his shirt. His broad chest and shoulders have me rubbing my thighs together in anticipation of having them above me as he drives into me. Then he takes off his pants and boxer briefs and my eyes are on nothing but that dick. The dick that’s only for me.

  “Fuck me.”

  This time I get to watch him shiver before his feet eat up the little bit of space between us. He goes between my legs and drags me down the bed to him. My eyes go to his as he lines himself up and thrusts into me. He stills inside me, and I watch his eyes close, loving the feeling of his hands tightening on my thighs.

  “You feel so good. Every. Single. Time,” he grits out.

  I clench around his dick, and he sucks in a sharp breath before opening his eyes and looking down at me. There’s no warning other than the lust that fills his eyes before he begins slamming into me. My body moves with each thrust, but he holds me tight to him, his hands bruising my legs, but God I want his marks on me so bad.

  I reach forward and drag my nails down his chest while the tension builds inside me. He leans over and brings his lips to my neck, sucking and biting my pulse point before kissing me. His tongue circles mine as my nipples rub against his chest, and his dick hits all the right spots to make me go crazy.

  It’s when he sits back up and lifts my legs up onto his shoulders that I come, my head thrashing back and forth as I tighten around him. He rubs my nipples, making my climax last longer, and my pleasure so intense that I see bright spots behind my eyelids. When I come down, he slides out of me, turning me around until I’m on my stomach, legs spread and trying to catch my breath.

  He drags his dick through my wetn
ess for a while, kissing along my back. When he reaches my shoulder, he bites down on it as he thrusts into me. My back immediately arches, needing every inch of him inside me, needing him to get as deep as possible. His hands hold my hips, tilting my ass up while he begins pounding into me. I feel like I barely breathe, only able to feel him filling me, and my hands clawing at the sheets.

  “God, don’t stop,” I beg.

  “Not until I feel you coming on me again.” He pants.

  “Take it from me. Take it.”

  He grunts and somehow speeds up even more, moving his hands to my ass and gripping tightly as he spreads my cheeks. His finger goes under me and rubs circles into my clit for a few seconds before it leaves me. I whimper at the loss at first before I feel him press his finger to my anus. He stops there, waiting.

  “Yes.” I sigh, arching my ass up more, seeking his finger.

  He doesn’t waste any time after that single word leaves my mouth. His finger slides in and out of me, the flex of his hips slowing down to match the pace. My eyes close at the sensation of having him in both my holes, the tension in my clit becoming unbearable. Both his finger and thrusts speed up, the force of them enough to move my body up the bed, but I grind back on him instead.

  When he gives a brutal thrust and slams his finger into my ass at the same time, I come, spasming around his dick and moaning into the sheets. His hand goes to my shoulder and keeps me tight to him. Then he’s groaning my name and coming inside me. Moments later, he falls to the bed beside me, his breaths huffing against the side of my neck.

  “I swear you feel better each time I’m inside you,” he says.

  “Well I’ve got to keep being better to match you.” I chuckle.

  “Did you have a good birthday?”

  “The best.” I turn my head to look at him. “Seriously, the best ever.”

  He smiles and kisses me before moving me to his side, where I drift to sleep.

  We barely leave the room for the rest of the weekend, ordering room service when we get hungry enough and using the pool when my body is too sore for one more round. After we finish our last dinner here, I put the plates back on the cart it was brought in on. When I turn around and find Damir on his phone, I use his distraction to wrap my arms around him from behind.

  “If that’s your parents, tell them I said hi,” I say.

  He pockets his phone and turns to face me. “I was just checking the cameras at the site.”

  I look at him with furrowed brows. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah. I had them installed here because I had some stuff stolen at the last site.”

  “You’re kidding me. How much did they steal?”

  “Enough that if I hadn’t been insured, it would set me back a lot more than I could have afforded.”

  “And the cops never found out who did it?”

  He gives an exasperated face and I realize none of the cops were probably too helpful to him.

  “The officers who came out to do the report had insinuated I had stolen it myself, to get the insurance money. They were asking me where I was when my own equipment was stolen. I’m not surprised in the least that they haven’t found who actually stole it yet because I’m sure they haven’t even looked. I honestly wouldn’t even have called them if it weren’t for me needing the police report to send to the insurance company.”

  I look at him a little closer, noticing how his muscles have tensed up just talking about this. That isn’t all they’ve done to him. It’s more than this, more than the tickets I know he’s continued to find on his car. More he isn’t telling me.

  “And? What else have they done?” I ask.

  He swallows. “I don’t need to worry you with all of that.”

  “But I want to know.”

  “It’s your birthday weekend. I don’t wanna spoil it talking about that.”

  I take his hand and lead him to the couch, pulling him down to sit beside me.

  “Tell me Damir. Not just what they’ve done recently. I want to hear all of it. Are you really going to say no to me during my birthday weekend?”

  He narrows his eyes. “Not fair.”

  I smile, but then sit back, laying my head on his arm. “Tell me.”

  His chest moves with his deep breath before he begins. “When I worked for Mr. Roberts, they’d come to any site I was at, making sure everyone there, my co-workers, even the people who’d hired Mr. Roberts, knew that I was a felon, trash, or their seemingly preferred word, criminal.

  “There was always a cop car near the sites, just watching. I knew I couldn’t go work for anyone other than Mr. Roberts because no one else would put up with the drama I’d bring to their site. Which is why I told you before, some of the people he worked for would ask him to remove me from their projects because they didn’t want the negative attention me being there bought. He always stuck up for me though, told them I was a good man, even if he couldn’t keep me on the job.

  “But he was sick and couldn’t run his business anymore. I knew I wouldn’t be taken on by anyone else, even if he vouched for me with them. He pushed me to start my own business, told me the only way to ensure I could continue in this field and not risk getting fired from jobs because of the police was to be my own boss. So I took his advice. It worked in some ways, but in others, not so much.

  “When I first started doing jobs under my company, they’d come around, issuing me citations for any tiny thing. $1600 fines for men not wearing hard hats, even though they were. Having a city official come out saying he’d gotten reports that there were unsafe conditions at my sites, so many things. But I paid the tickets, took it all in stride because at least I was making money, and they couldn’t stop that.

  “But then, last year, I had come to place my bid for a project building a new community center, but had been met there by good old officer Miller. He seems to have it out for me most. Even when other officers bothered me, they sometimes made sure to let me know they were there on his behalf. But that day, Miller had come himself, to let the developers know that having a criminal working on building something that would be so important to the community wasn’t a good idea. Needless to say, I didn’t get that job.”

  “What an asshole,” I hiss.

  “My thoughts exactly. Since I became a part of the outreach program like the one that brought me to Mr. Roberts, the police are taking that route to try and mess with me. Sometimes the probation officers will tell me they’ve had cops telling them not to allow their cases to work with me. I haven’t actually seen Miller for a while before I did at the bowling alley, but there’ve been other officers coming to my last site and this one, telling my employees they’re working for a drug dealer, and it’ll get them into trouble, and a bunch of other bullshit. It’s damn near constant.”

  “Is it just work? I know they give you tickets, but is it more than that outside of work too?”

  “The police have let some of my landlords know they were renting an apartment to a criminal, which has gotten me evicted twice now. They would say I lied on my application or something like that, even though if they bothered to check, I have nothing on my record. I haven’t been arrested or been in any trouble since I turned eighteen, as hard as they’ve tried to catch me doing...anything. But that doesn’t seem to matter to them.”

  “But why? Why you? Why are they so stuck on you?”

  My head lifts with his shrug. “I wish I could tell you. Wish I knew the answer myself. I won’t act like I didn’t give them hell when I was younger. Them chasing me, me being a little prick when they arrested me, between cursing them out and resisting everything they told me to do, but I was just a hardheaded kid, a little asshole really. But for them still holding that against me all these years later, to this extent, seems extreme. Especially when they clearly see I don’t still hang with any of the same people or do any of the same things.”

  “And there’s no way to get it to stop?”

  “None that I’ve tried so far.”
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br />   “Then move, like your mother suggested.”

  “I have considered it, but I meant what I said about my business being here. I’ve built a reputation for myself, as hard as the police have tried to damage it at every turn. I won’t really have that somewhere new. And a part of me feels like leaving means they win. I turned my life around, am helping other people do the same, so it feels pretty hard to accept that they win when I’m doing the right thing, you know?”

  “I do. But sometimes letting someone else think they’ve won, really means you win in the long run.”

  “I guess. But another part of it is I don’t really wanna leave the people in the outreach program either. I know how hard it is for them to get a good job after having been locked up. Right now, I have two guys, Carlos and Stanley. Carlos was looking for a job for months before I took him on. Although I don’t think he has any interest in construction, he’s such a good worker, but is anyone else gonna see that, look beyond his record to let him prove what he can do? And with Stanley, he can go so far, has so much potential. He just needs time away from all the bullshit to realize that. He’s great on the site, steps up and gets things done. With him taking a leadership role at the new site, he’s really become my best worker.

  “I feel like if I leave them or anyone else I might get through the program, without that chance to better themselves, who else is gonna give it to them? If it weren’t for Mr. Roberts, who would have given it to me? And that chance he gave me changed everything for me.”

  “You mentioned he was sick. Did he...”

  He nods. “He passed away last year.”

  “I’m sorry.” I hold his arm a little tighter. “I understand everything you’re saying, but just...be careful Damir.”

  “I am. I will be.”

  “And no more hiding what’s going on from me.”

  “I wasn’t hiding it. I just didn’t wanna burden you.”

  “That’s what we do for each other now, isn’t it? Help each other carry our burdens?”

  He smiles down at me before kissing my forehead. “You’re right. Now, enough of that. Let’s get one last swim in before we leave in the morning.”