by Marika Ray
Here being Amelia’s parents’ house after I got cleaned up after work.
“We have to officially tell them we’re dating. I know they’ve heard it through the gossip going around town, but they deserve to hear it from us.” Amelia turned my face toward her. “Why are you being so weird about this? You’ve been over here a bazillion times.”
I shifted in her seat and if it wasn’t for my current nerves, I’d bitch about how small her sedan was, an argument we’d had over the years more times than I could count.
“Being here as your friend is one thing, but telling your dad to his face that I’m boinking his little girl?” I screwed my face up and Amelia laughed.
“Um, you may not want to deliver the news like that. Just a suggestion.”
I gave her a look. “In all seriousness, I don’t think he’s going to take kindly to you and me dating. He’s arrested my brother more times than I can count.”
She scratched her chin. “Hmm. How many times has he arrested you?”
My leg started bouncing up and down, rocking the whole car with my nerves. “You know what I mean.”
Amelia laid a hand on my knee and I instantly stilled. “I do know what you mean, but give my dad some credit. He knows you aren’t your brother. Hell, he’s got five daughters. He’s well aware that we’re all different.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t convinced.
“Look, why don’t we video chat your parents first and tell them the good news. Your mom always loved me and hinted around at the two of us dating. Their happiness will be a good springboard for telling my parents.”
I squeezed Amelia’s hand and fished my phone out of my back pocket. “Great idea. You’re the brains of this partnership, you know.”
She rolled her eyes. “Then we’re screwed.”
I chuckled and dialed my parents, my mom answering right away, the camera showing an angle of her nostrils that wasn’t exactly flattering.
“Hey, Mom. Hold the camera out in front on you, not in your lap.”
The screen moved and we finally saw her face, her blond hair showing no signs of gray yet. She was a pretty woman, possessing the genes behind my perennial sunny personality. She smiled even wider when she saw Amelia pressed against me.
“Oh, Amelia. So nice to see you, dear. How goes it?”
“We’re good, Mrs. Jackson. Florida sure seems to agree with you.”
“Oh, call me Wendy. We’re all adults now.”
Mom’s face dipped on the screen and then the phone jostled before settling. Dad had joined her on the couch.
“My boy! How are you?” His rich baritone rang through the phone speaker.
“Hey, Dad, we wanted to call you with some good news.”
“Oh?” Mom practically cooed into the phone. Mothers always knew.
I put my arm around Amelia. “Amelia and I are officially dating.”
Pandemonium erupted on the other end as the screen flashed to a shot of the white popcorn ceiling. We could hear Mom laughing and possibly crying while Dad laughed at his wife’s antics.
Amelia and I grinned at each other until their faces came back on the screen and Mom wiped happy tears from her cheeks.
“I have waited years for this day. Congratulations, you two.”
Dad nodded along. “We wish you the best. Why don’t we have you two come out and see us for the holidays. Nothing like Christmas at the beach in Florida. Have you thought about moving out here? The taxes are so much lower.”
“Oh, give me that.” Mom wrestled the phone back before Dad could go on his usual rant about California taxes. “We’re just happy for you kids. Enjoy your time together.”
“Thanks, Mom. I’ll call you soon, okay?”
“I’ll hold you to it, sugar.”
We hung up and exited the vehicle, all smiles. I put my arm around Amelia again and we went up the walkway to the front door together.
“It’s going to be okay. You’ll see.” She smiled up at me.
The door swung open and Amelia’s mom looked at us like a Cheshire cat. “Well, hello. What brings you by today?” She stepped back and we went in, the smell of something wonderful baking in the kitchen.
“Is, um, Dad around?” Amelia asked, suddenly sounding nervous despite her confident words just minutes ago.
Her mom beamed, gesturing for us to go sit on the couch in the living room. “He just got home from work. Let me go get him before he comes down in just his boxers.”
Amelia flinched. “Ew, gross. Since when has he started doing that?”
Susie chuckled, and if I wasn’t mistaken, her cheeks took on a rosy glow. “Since most of you girls moved out.” Then she went up the stairs, leaving us to ponder that new insight into their marriage.
Amelia shuddered against me as we sat on the couch. “Oh my God, no child needs to hear that about their parents.”
I bit my lip and took a deep breath to keep from laughing. “I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it.” I paused. “But didn’t Lenora give your dad some massage oil when the Hardware Store opened?”
Amelia gasped and I couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that escaped. The Hardware Store was the sex toy shop Lenora and Jayden had opened recently in town. There’d been an uproar, considering this was a small town and Lenora was the preacher’s daughter, but it had all been resolved quickly. Gifting out free sex toys in a modest brown box helped turn the tide of public opinion. People riding high on the glow of orgasms don’t protest, they just don’t. Endorphins or something.
“Please tell me you two didn’t get yourselves into some trouble.” Sheriff Waldo’s gravelly voice boomed as he entered the living room, his wife hot on his heels.
“Dad! Why do you always assume I’m in trouble?” Amelia hopped off the couch.
“’Cause you usually are?” he said wryly.
He took a seat on one of the recliners and Susie sat in the other, that same happy look of expectation on her face. Hopefully it was still there after we told them our news.
Amelia sat back down and put her hand on my knee. Mr. Waldo’s gaze flickered to the movement, his thick neck turning a mottled red hue.
“Okay, so…Titus and I are officially dating.” Amelia made a weird noise out of the side of her mouth. “Rip it like a Band-Aid.” She chuckled awkwardly and I cringed. The delivery could have been better, but at least it was out there.
“Ohh…” Susie hopped up and gave us a hug, seemingly happy.
“I see.” Sheriff Waldo had a blank expression on his face. He was one tough nut. His gaze snapped to me. “May I have a word with you outside, Titus?”
I gulped. Amelia squeezed my knee. I stood and followed him out the back door, my heart hammering in my chest. Was he taking me out here to kick the shit out of me? With his expertise, he could probably bury the body and all evidence before Amelia started to get worried where we were. Then an even more terrifying thought occurred. What if he forbade me to date Amelia? How could I tell the man politely to go fuck himself?
He led me to the same bench under the sycamore tree that Amelia had sat on when she agreed to go out with me. I hoped my good luck continued on that bench, though that seemed a bit farfetched given the look on the sheriff’s face. He could make inmates cry with that stone-cold gaze.
He sniffed and looked around the yard, his hands automatically drifting to his belt, even though he’d taken off his utility belt when he got home from work. He didn’t look inclined to sit down, which made it awkward for me. I felt like ten-year-old Titus, staring up at the big, bad policeman while I got my ass handed to me for something Dom did that I got blamed for.
“I’ve known you a long time, Titus,” he began, staring at the bark peeling off the trunk of the tree. “Seen you grow up into an adult. Seen you come around here with my daughter for years.”
His gaze snapped to my face and the moderate fall weather suddenly got chillier. I froze, wondering where he would go with this whole thing.
“I’ve al
so seen her around town with that jackass Daire. Can’t say I’m sorry to see that guy go, but doesn’t mean I’m happy about her dating again so quickly. You treat her right, Titus, or I’ll find a way to straighten you out and I guarantee you won’t like it. Understood?”
I swallowed hard and stood up, finding a tiny kernel of delight when he had to look up to keep our gazes locked. “No problems there, Chief. We’re on the same page as far as Amelia is concerned.”
The guy didn’t even blink for a full sixty seconds. Just stared me down as if time would reveal the lie in my statement. He must have seen something, or maybe his eyes just started to burn, because he reached over and thumped me on the back of my shoulder.
“Good. Let’s get inside. Colder than a witch’s tit out here,” he grumbled, ambling toward the back door of the house.
I had no idea the temperature of various anatomy on a witch, but I was glad our little chat was over. He hadn’t exactly approved of us dating, but then again, we weren’t looking for his approval. At least, I knew Amelia would say she wasn’t. But deep down, we both wanted our parents happy for us.
Stepping back into the house, Amelia jumped up and took my hand in hers, the litany of questions she wanted to ask easily read on her face. I squeezed her hand and pasted on a smile. The sheriff hadn’t come right out and said it, but that brick settling in my stomach told me everything I needed to know.
He’d tolerate me dating his daughter, but I wasn’t good enough for her.
Exactly what I feared when I was honest with myself.
Just meant I’d have to work doubly hard to prove myself.
17
Amelia
Amelia: Can you come over after work tonight? I miss you.
Titus: Depends. Are you going to make me fix something again?
Amelia: It was just that one time, no need to keep bringing it up. And no. I wanted to seduce you.
Sure, I wanted to tell him how I felt, but I wasn’t afraid to use my body to lure him over here. Had to work that angle while I could. Decades from now when all my skin was heading south, I didn’t want to have any regrets about not using the banging body I’d had in my youth. I was a long-term planner, dammit.
Titus had said he loved me two weeks ago and I hadn’t reciprocated. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to say that yet, but I did want to be honest with him. He deserved to know that I was in the process of falling for him. Now that I’d pulled my head out of my ass as far as he was concerned, I was finding it all too easy to dive into the deep end with him.
Titus: I’d come over tonight even if you just wanted me to fix something. You know that, right?
Amelia: I do.
Titus: Let’s get back to you missing me. Tell me more.
Amelia: *eye roll emoji*
Titus: I’m serious. That’s probably the sweetest thing you’ve ever texted me.
Amelia: shut up
Titus: There’s only one way you can get me to shut up.
Amelia: What’s that?
Titus: I’ll come over and show you.
Amelia: Okay….?
I shut my phone off and called downstairs to let the front desk know I was off for the night. There really wasn’t anything for me to do tonight anyway, so I was confident they could handle the handful of guests we had on property for one evening.
Stripping down, I climbed in the shower before Titus got there. I knew he’d take me any way he could have me—and didn’t that leave a nice glow in my belly—but a girl had to have cleanliness standards. The pipes groaned in the wall and sputtered out cold water before turning scalding hot and then finishing off with a round of ice-cold water.
“Stupid Wayne.” I rolled my eyes and stepped out to grab a towel. I’d been telling him for months that there was something wrong with the plumbing in the hotel. Being the cheap bastard he was, he turned a deaf ear.
I wrapped the towel around me and stepped out of the bathroom, coming to a screeching halt when I saw Titus lounging on my bed, boots kicked off and hands stacked behind his head. His long body almost didn’t fit on my bed, making it look kid-sized in Titus’s world.
“Well, do come on in,” I said sarcastically.
He smiled smugly. “You gave me a key when I was here working on the guest room after the tree fell. Figured why give me a key unless you wanted me to use it?”
I raised an eyebrow, taking in the way his work shirt stretched across his broad chest. “Um, for emergencies?”
He picked up quickly and stripped the T-shirt over his head, a wide grin on his face. “Figured this was an emergency.”
I took a few steps closer, wanting to see that muscled chest up close. “How so?”
He ran a hand down his chest, abs, and then grabbed ahold of the bulge in the crotch of his jeans. “My girl texted about seducing me. Seems she needs the Big D something bad.”
I dropped the towel to the floor and watched the way his eyes heated as he swept me from head to toe like he couldn’t take me in fast enough. “A dick emergency?” That was a concept I could understand.
He swallowed hard and reached out his hand. I let him tug me over to the side of the bed. “Climb on, sweetheart.”
My nipples tightened just looking at him and that rush of expected pleasure started up in my stomach. How could I have looked at Titus for sixteen years and felt none of this sexual tension? And now, just two weeks into dating him I couldn’t seem to keep a clean pair of underwear on from simply glancing at him? I reached for the button on his jeans, but his hands stilled me.
“Nah-ah. Climb on, sweetheart.” He pointed to his face, his words scraping over jagged rocks of desire.
He leaned back on the bed and settled on my pillow, tugging me some more. I sucked in a breath and almost pinched myself to make sure this man was for real. Not being an idiot, I didn’t wait for another invitation. If the boy wanted me to ride his face, who was I to turn him down? I lifted a leg and straddled his chest, pausing to kiss him and inhale the scent of Titus after a day of honest work. Wood, sweat, and soap. Delicious.
His hand came around my backside and urged me forward. I crept upward until the juncture of my legs was directly over his mouth and my hands were on my headboard. My knees dug into my soft pillows, a counterpoint to his rough stubble. His hot breath hit me and my legs began to shake.
“This is how you get me to shut up.” His blue eyes darkened to the shade of a starving man.
Before I could comment on his choice of muffling methods, he dove in. His chin provided the hard surface on which to sit, his tongue for delicate flutterings in all the right places, and that five o’clock shadow proved to be just the friction a girl needed. A sharp jolt of pleasure hit right away and I tossed my head back. Not sexy-like, but more of a convulsion to the onslaught of sensations. Titus’s hands clenched on my ass and I knew I wouldn’t get off this ride until I was in a million pieces. Most of which would be all over his face.
I didn’t know where he learned to do all that and I didn’t want to explore that thought. All I could do was grip the headboard with all my might and try to contain the pleasure coursing through my veins. My arms began to shake and I just hoped I didn’t smother him before all my muscles gave out. I did that thigh machine at the gym regularly, the one where you sit on it with your legs splayed out and squeezed your inner thighs to move the weight, all the while winking at the hot guys and making them drop a weight on their toes. But I’d never done it with a live man between my legs with a god-like tongue reducing me to putty. My muscles weren’t up for this kind of challenge.
If confessing my feelings was my goal for this evening, Titus had stumbled onto a surefire way of getting me to do it. Sexual pleasure was the ultimate cork popper to my mouth. Give me an orgasm and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.
He soon found a rhythm that ratcheted up the pleasure to the tipping point of pain. All thought left my brain and I was just a bundle of nerve endings waiting for him to set me off. His tongue flicker
ing over my clit, followed by the rough scrape of beard, then back to the clit. Over and over again, just building and building until something broke loose and pleasure shot straight from between my legs out through the top of my skull. I cried out and nearly face planted on the edge of the wood headboard. My arms had lost all ability to function. Everything shook and clenched and tried to contain the waves that assaulted my whole body.
Titus slowed his lapping, but didn’t push me off. Peeling one hand off the headboard, I got a good grip on his hair and tugged with all I had left in me.
“I-I’m tapping out,” I sputtered, surprised I could still speak.
He gave me a final closed-mouth kiss and rolled us over, releasing his hold on my backside to pull me in for the snuggles I was starting to enjoy almost as much as the main event. My brain was still fuzzy, not quite firing on all cylinders yet. All I knew was I felt damn good with Titus. Cared for. Seen. Respected. Loved. I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face even if I was offered millions of dollars to try.
Titus jostled me as he grabbed his shirt off the bed and swiped it across his face before tossing it to the ground. He pulled me close, my back now nestled up to an oven.
“That’s all I had to do to get you to shut up, huh?” I teased him when I could speak.
He drilled a finger into that spot high on my hip he knew was the most ticklish. I flinched and giggled, but still he didn’t let go of me, his long body creating a cozy cocoon around me.
“Stay with me tonight?” I whispered.
Titus, with his face buried in my hair, took a deep breath in. “I was hoping you’d say that. Let me take a shower real quick and then we can eat the dinner I brought with me. Then maybe I’ll eat you again for dessert.”
“Okay, you win.”
Titus sat up on an elbow and peered down at me. “What’d I win?”
I turned over to face him. “World’s best boyfriend award. Duh.”
He smirked. “Yeah, you liked shutting me up, didn’t you?”
I lost the grin and shook my head. “No. You brought me food.”
Titus huffed out a breath. “You may think it’s the food, but it’s the orgasms. I know you, woman.” Then he spanked me on the ass—none too gently, I might add—and rolled out of bed, stripping off his jeans as he walked to the shower.
