by Amy J. White
Over the last few days, Destiny has warmed up to me, letting her walls down the more I let her talk and tell me about her life back in Miami.
I curse at the sudden bout of drama which stands between me and making Destiny more than just my roommate. No doubt remains in my mind; it’s what we both want. Destiny just hasn’t made a move to make it a reality.
My hand scrubs over my face to wipe away the sweat. I’m going to do it. I’m going to ask her and make her mine.
I finish with the last few bolts to secure the bars to the window and run to my truck like a man on with his ass on fire.
My last stop of the day is to the convenience store where I sit in my truck, my thumb trembling over the keypad.
I squeeze my eyes shut, jaw closed hard enough to crack a molar. Just do it. Send her a text to ask her out.
The words fly in the small box and I hit send before I can talk myself out of it. Waiting feels like torture. Within a few seconds, Destiny’s reply appears, making my heart stall.
Yes.
No one in the world could celebrate like I am from that one little word. I clench my fist, pumping my elbow. All of the hours spent pining over her, all of the hours fighting the throbbing in my cock and doubting she would ever be mine. All of it is worth it to read that one word over and over.
She said yes. Destiny Williams – hard core, sexy cop, Destiny Williams -- said yes to sharing dinner with me!
I open the door, jumping out and fighting the urge to skip like a happy school boy into the convenience store. As far as I knew, nothing could ruin this day for me.
My eyes fell on a sporty Cadillac I’d never seen in the town before. It doesn’t register as strange because of the euphoria I’m feeling and our pension for having people drive through, sometimes staying the night, on their way to their destination.
“You look happy,” Marcus Balfour, another one that our other local singles women fawn over stocks the shelves, beaming at me from the top of the short ladder. I guess it was the heavy Brazilian accent, tanned skin and dark head full of curls that gets their panties moistened.
He recently came back after serving in the Marines, the only thing he ever wanted to do when he graduated high school, following in his mom’s footsteps.
Rumor has it he only left the Marines because of a severe injury he endured after getting shot, getting honorably discharged and a few medals.
“I finally found a woman worth my time, man,” I say with a half-chuckle.
Marcus offers his own chuckle. “No! You! Really! I began wondering if you would ever find a lady to sweep you off your feet.”
I didn’t know Marcus well in high school. He wasn’t bookish like me, mostly a recluse delving into his physical prowess and running on the track team.
“Shut up,” I say and make my way to the freezers in the back to look for something we can drink to couple well with the steaks I have in my truck.
Marcus leaves the ladder when the door dings and makes his way behind the glass of the counter. Makes me sad to see him do something I feel isn’t worth his skills, but he seems to like it so I don’t say anything.
Three men come into the store, sending the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing. They don’t seem to notice me yet, so I duck into the back area and keep quiet, watching Marcus who appears to have the same feeling I do.
Muffled words are exchanged, followed by screaming and the breaking of glass.
Damn it, I think. The robbers from the news!
Even with the training Marcus has, he can’t be expected to take on all of them at once. Something inside me says they’ll kill him if he refuses to comply with them.
I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing my friend needs help, thinking about what Destiny said to everyone when she was interviewed on television. Don’t be a hero, she said, call us immediately.
Sorry, babe. My friend needs help. I quickly dial 911 and give them the information, hang up and slither from my hiding place around the shelves.
My eyes find Marcus who is holding his hands up. The one restraining him is distracted so Marcus offers a subtle nod.
I lunge at the man restraining him, using my full weight to push him to the ground, wrestling the gun from his hands.
What happens after that is a blur. Fighting, screaming, someone yelling “shoot him” and then a sting in my side.
All I can think as my vision blurs is about the woman I haven’t gotten to be with yet…..
Chapter 8
Destiny
The scene is a madhouse by the time I arrive with a team of deputies. Luckily, it doesn’t take us long to subdue the burglars since one of them is injured, one killed and the other on his knees with his arms above his head.
Over the radio, I heard someone had been shot. My heart rate soars once I see Eric’s truck in one of the parking spaces but no Eric.
No. No. No. No. No. No… I push by the deputy next to the door to see two EMTs loading a man onto a gurney. Another, one as handsome as Eric, leans next to the counter, his hands gripping the edges enough to white-knuckle.
The man sees me, waving me over. “I’m sorry,” he says in a heavy accent. “He tried to help me. Did a hell of a job of it!”
I turn my attention to the deputy who lowers his eyes.
Pushing by him, I make my way to the gurney to see Eric. His eyes are closed, face covered with an oxygen mask. An IV is held by the other EMT.
“Talk to me!” I say in a yell, following alongside them out to the ambulance.
“GSW to the side, just below the lung! He’s losing a lot of blood.” The EMTs load Eric into the back. “Are you coming, we need to go!”
I waste no more time, lunging into the back, sitting on the bench while the EMTs finish prepping Eric for traveling.
As if on their own - my hands reach out to take his. Why? Why did you have to be the hero?
Tears I haven’t shed in many years pool in the corners of my eyes. When did this man bury himself so deep within my soul, I didn’t know. Somehow, in a matter of days, he managed to whittle away my walls and settle into the place I thought I guarded better than any other within me.
I close my eyes, uttering a silent prayer to whoever might be listening. Please. Please if you let him live, I’ll do whatever I can to have this man in my life. I’ll forgive whoever for whatever. Whatever I have to do! Just please, don’t take him from me.
The ride is agonizing, though I know it’s needed for me to finally get a grip on myself and realize that I need Eric Stanton more than my next breath.
“Destiny!” I recognize the voice as the one Eric calls Ryley. She comes in with a man I have come to know as Ethan, another man – Chaz, maybe? – With two others.
Ryley sits next to me, placing her hand on my arm. “My God, we came as soon as we heard. How is he?”
My tongue won’t respond. I only heard from the doctor moments before they arrived.
Eventually I find my words. “They said one of his lungs collapsed and started filling with blood. He’s not out of the woods yet but he is stable which is good.”
Ryley wraps her arms around my neck, tears dripping onto my uniform. Everyone does what they can to support me through this awful pain I feel threatening to strangle me.
The woman who introduces herself as Lilah sits next to me. Together she and Ryley talk to me, doing and saying anything they can to distract me from what’s going on.
Around three in the morning, they leave, promising they’ll come back in the morning. All I want to do is go into the room and be next to him, touch him, and beg him to come back.
“Are you Deputy Williams?” I look up to see a woman with hair the color of fire. Her nametag says Faulkner.
“I am,” I say.
Nurse Faulkner instructs me to follow her, stating she is a close friend of Lilah’s who worked out a way I can see Eric since he has no family in town.
We walk through the double doors to where Eric’s room in the ICU is. My eyes fall on a
man almost buried beneath the wires and tubes coming out of him. It’s nothing like the perfect skin I’ve gotten used to seeing when he worked out or cooked in the morning.
His eyes are taped closed, a thick tube coming from his mouth. It becomes hard to tell which parts are him and which are parts of the machines.
Nurse Faulkner tells me to take as much time as I want.
“Are you sure? I might not leave.”
She nods with a sad smile on her face. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
I get confused at her words, shrugging them off before going to take a seat in the chair next to the bed.
My hands reach to take Eric’s. With no restraint, I raise it to feel his warmth against my now moist cheek. “Eric. If you can hear me, I want to apologize. I should’ve stopped fighting and said yes earlier. I should’ve told you exactly what you do to me every time I see you in the morning.”
I know I’m rambling, though I don’t care at this point. I’ll say anything to get him to open his eyes, to hear his voice or feel him grip my hand.
Please come back to me. I don’t think I can live in a world without you in it.
I’m not sure how many weeks pass. It doesn’t matter when I receive a call from Nurse Joy Faulkner, the nurse I have become friends with through this, saying Eric was awake and begging to see me.
Using the sirens, I make it to the hospital in no time, race through the doors to the elevator, press the button and ride it to the floor I know Eric’s room is on.
Once the doors open, I nearly run into a nurse, apologizing, then continuing to the room where I’m able to look into the tired eyes of the man who stole my heart and a smile capable of melting me into a puddle at his feet.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” The words are scratchy. I don’t care.
I cross the room to stand next to him, blending his cracked lips with mine. “Eric, I still want that dinner.”
Epilogue I
Eric
I sit on the couch still feeling the soreness of the bullet wound in my side. It’s been almost two months since the convenience store robbery and I can’t be more happy to see the woman I pined for so long round the corner of the gorgeous house we called ours.
The nurse told me Destiny was in the room with me every second she could be until I woke up and practically screamed for them to get her for me. When she finally arrived, I felt my heart fall through my chest as if I saw her beauty anew all over again.
That’s how I feel now when she carefully snuggles into my side, burying her face into my chest. Her hands roam over the muscles under my shirt down to the treasure trail leading below my shorts.
Feelings of relief as she presses a gentle kiss to my cheek, nibbling her teeth along my jaw where she moves to kiss my lips, run through me.
When her heated gaze meets mine, I know we’re both thinking the same thing. I watch her hand go to my crotch, rotating over the hardening cock she finds there.
I grit my teeth when she squeezes, staring at me and rolling the tip of her tongue along that full bottom lip I’m fixing to suck, lick and bite until it swells.
How we got to this moment, I still don’t know, but it worked. Maybe it was the chance of finality of things that finally broke that last wall Destiny guarded her aching, loving heart.
She shouts when I’ve had enough of her teasing, turning my body so she’s lying flat on her back beneath me. Those gorgeous, thick thighs I place around my waist, lowering to smash our lips together.
Our kiss isn’t sweet. It isn’t celibate or for gentle emotions of “I love you.” It’s fierce and passionate, and as I devour Destiny’s mouth, each moan I pull from her sends the blood straight to my cock.
Both of move our hands in wild motions, pulling clothing off and throwing it to the floor of our home.
Our home… This place I worked so hard on since I started putting down payments on it, waiting for what I thought I’d never have, hoping against all other truths I might have what I wanted so badly. A family…
I waste no time fumbling with the cotton pants, yanking them down her legs, leaving her in nothing but her white socks.
“Wait, Destiny, wait,” I say between heaving breaths. She looks at me confused. “I just…I don’t want you to do this if you aren’t ready.”
You masochistic bastard, I think to myself.
Destiny smiles, her eyes half-lidded, the irises darkened with unbridled lust. “Shut up and fuck me, Eric. Nearly losing the man she discovered she had more feelings for than any man in her life does tend to change a woman’s mind.”
I blink a few times, chuckling. This is so like her. Blunt, cold at times, and to the point.
If this little closet minx wants me to plunge into her, then dammit, I’m going to plunge into her in a way she’s never experienced.
She pulls me to crush our mouths together again; the grip around my waist tightens.
With a single move, I put my forearm between her legs and shove her until she’s braced against the pillows. “Get ready, sweetheart, because I’m about to give you exactly what those smoldering eyes are asking for.”
I’d dreamed of this moment, plotted how to eventually get it and now that I had it, I took my engorged cock between my hands, pumping it while sticking two of my fingers into my mouth.
Once I felt they were moist enough, my eyes met Destiny’s. Her message clear: Put them in me.
My soaked fingers slithered easily through the moisture of her crease. “Jesus, you’re wet, baby. How pent up are you?”
Destiny purses her lips, opening her mouth like she wants to say something. She doesn’t get the chance, however, when my fingers find her hot, swollen opening.
Thrusting them inside, I begin a slow pump. In and out... In and out…. The rhythm matches the rubbing of my cock.
Whimpers escape her as her pleasure grows. Velvet muscles, slick with her hot juices, squeeze my fingers like a vise.
“God, Eric,” Destiny says on a sigh. “Please. In me. I want you in me.”
That’s all I need to hear. Withdrawing my fingers, I line my cock up with her opening, rotating it and easing the tip in.
My eyes roll to the back of my head when I feel it opening to make room for my girth. Each steady push I take, I stop to feel her tight muscles opening, and then swallowing me like they’d been made to. God it feels amazing. I look down to watch Destiny’s body taking me all the way in like it was eating its favorite meal.
I lean over Destiny, lodged inside her, savoring her, and aware of the subtle shudders I see in her muscles. “Are you okay?”
Destiny opens an eye; a single tear drips down her face. “Yeah but I just wasn’t expecting you to be so huge. It’s been a while as you can probably tell.”
With a gentle kiss, I brush my fingers over her cheek. My hips start to move in the same slow rhythm I took with my fingers. If my woman is aching, I want the ache to be pleasant, not stinging or burning.
Each thrust makes Destiny’s body relax, accepting what I’m giving it. I continue like this until I know she’s ready for more, enjoying the bond forming between our hearts as well as our bodies.
Epilogue II
Destiny
“God, Eric!!” I shout his name in the confines of the bathroom where he’s taking me in a wild, untamed way he’s never taken me before since we started our honeymoon.
I feel his balls slapping against my ass with each thrust of his cock.
He’d surprised me by waking me in the middle of the night to tell me we planned on eloping rather than having the whole town barging into our private lives.
Things had settled down since the convenience store, though Eric still complained about an ache in his side from where the bullet penetrated him.
Christ, speaking of penetration. Where was this when he had sex with me the first time? Or the second, third, fourth or fifth?
“Eric!” My orgasm runs down my legs, up my spine.
Heaving a breath,
I fight to hold my body weight up to let him fill me for the third time since we got to this lovely island getaway.
“Hang on, sweetheart, I’m almost there,” He says.
I feel his hand on my lower back, the other holding me tight so I wouldn’t move. With a shout he does a final thrust, his massive cock pulsing, sending his load into me.
He pulls out, taking my shoulder in one hand to yank me so my back is pressed against his naked, sweaty chest. “You are worth everything we went through. I’m so glad you decided to be mine.”
I reach up to wrap my arm around his neck. He places a kiss on the pulse point of my wrist, raising a hand to take my breast and gently knead it.
If I was honest, I’m still not sure when my feelings for Eric became full on love. I think it might have been when I heard he’d been shot or when the doctor told me he might not make it.
Guilt pressed into me hard enough I finally broke and said, “Eric, I’m so sorry. I kept seeing you as the man I left behind in Miami. The man who cheated on me and shattered my heart into tiny pieces…”
“Destiny!”
I silence him with fingers to his lips. “No, you need to know all of it. His name was Chris. I fell in love with him at the police academy.”
Eric shushes me. “Let’s go sit down for this. I have a few things you need to know too if you plan on being my wife.”
I still can’t believe how quickly I said yes when Eric asked me to marry him in the middle of our bedroom at 4am in the morning. I joked with him about how tired he looked and how insane he was for not waiting until we woke up for breakfast.
Both of us leave our clothes where they are. No one is going to bother us on our isolated island getaway so we sit on the couch in nothing but our underwear.
I settle into Eric’s chest, taking deep breaths for the story I am about to go into. It never fails to drive me out of control when I let myself think back to the abusive relationship I believed was love.
