Unconditional

by Tyler, Q. B.

  “Cal…” I interrupt, “can we not?”

  He stops and I take a minute to admire his looks. Dark jeans that hug him in all the right places and a Police Academy hoodie makes him look like a young college student and not a thirty-three year old man. His eyes seem to be doing the same to me because when mine find his, they’re glued to my chest. I feel myself getting hot under his gaze and just when I thought I couldn’t get any more turned on, he takes a step forward. “What’s going on with us, huh?”

  You mean besides the fact that I’m so desperately in love with you that I can’t fucking see straight? Nothing.

  I think about blowing him off. Making him feel like he’s crazy and that nothing had changed between us. I think about sidestepping the question with a joke. But inevitably, I go with the truth.

  “I don’t know.” I bite my bottom lip and stare up into his stormy eyes. Eyes that for the first time seem like they may not have all the answers. His hand reaches out and pulls my bottom lip from between my teeth and I gasp. I stare at his hand as he lowers it slowly and I feel his eyes on my face, but I don’t meet his gaze. He takes another step towards me and my heart begins to race. A loud thumping in my chest that matches the one between my legs. He’s right in front of me at this point and he lifts my chin slowly to meet his gaze. His thumb finds my bottom lip again, and he traces the skin so lightly I barely feel it. But I see it.

  “Cal.” My voice comes out like a whimper. He must have been in some sort of trance until now, not realizing how dangerously close he was to taking us over a line we couldn’t come back from because a growl leaves his lips and he takes a step back.

  He shakes his head. “I need to go in for a little while. Will you be here?”

  “I…I was going to go to the grocery store with Margie…since Thanksgiving is next week?” I say weakly, my body fully preparing to give out the second that Cal isn’t in the room. I feel like I’m wound so tight that I’m seconds from shattering into a thousand confused pieces that I have no hope of putting back together.

  “Right.” His eyes dart to my necklace, just like they always do when he knows I’ll be away from him. The heart pendant around my neck is actually a tracker that Cal gave to me when I was about nine. There had been a flare up of gangs a few towns over that were crossing into our small peaceful county. Cal didn’t have jurisdiction there, but he was moving up the ranks fast, and there was talk that a man he’d put in prison was the brother of one of the gang members. Within hours of the first threat, I had around the clock protection, and I was told I could never take this necklace off.

  “Cal, I’m scared. What if the bad guys get me?”

  He kneels in front of me and pulls his sunglasses off, allowing me to see his concerned eyes. Like always, my eyes move to his shiny badge and I touch the metal. “You know I would never let anyone get to you. I would die before I let anything happen to you.”

  My eyes widen and I throw my arms around his neck and let the tears flow at the thought of him dying. “You can’t die. If you die, who will take care of me?”

  “Hey hey. We’ve talked about this.” He pulls me away and gives me a kiss on my forehead. “Aria and Henry will always take care of you. Or Margie. Okay? You have a family now, Maddie. One that would never turn their back on you or hurt you.” Until Cal, the only experiences I really had with family ended in death, so I wasn’t too big on the term ‘family.’ But I was big on the sweet man that had taken me in and let me turn his life upside down the past two years, so if he said we were family, I was in.

  “You’re my family.”

  He smiles and taps the necklace he just put around my neck. “This stays on, Maddie. No excuses.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m serious. Sleep. Bathing. Doesn’t come off, ever. Got it?”

  “Okay, but why?”

  “It has a tracker in it, so if anything ever happens…” He trails off and shakes his head. “If we’re ever separated, this will tell me where you are, okay?”

  I hold the magic necklace in my hand and squeeze it. “Ooooh. Do you have one too?”

  He chuckles. “No.”

  “But how am I supposed to know where you are?”

  “For now, I think only you need the tracker, alright?” He raises an eyebrow and I furrow mine.

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Language, Madeline!” His eyes widen but I can see the humor in them, and I put my hand over my mouth and giggle.

  “Well, it is!”

  I finger the necklace and he nods in response, like a language that only we can understand. “Say hey to Mom for me.”

  I nod. He turns around and moves out of the room, and just as I’m about to let out a sigh of relief, he stops. His back is to me and, even under the sweatshirt, I can see the tension creeping up his back. “For what it’s worth, I don’t plan to see her again.” My mouth drops open at his statement. “It is your business, Maddie, and for you to be upset…it didn’t sit right with me.”

  He doesn’t wait for my response before he’s out the kitchen and heading up the stairs. A part of me, a very large part, urges me to follow him. To confess to him what the last three years have meant for me. What I could potentially want in the future. I’ve taken two steps before I freeze, realizing that an impulsive move like this could have catastrophic results. Cal will flip one way or the other.

  In a good way or a bad way.

  Am I ready for everything I’ve ever known the last ten years to go up in flames?

  The front door slams open so hard I think the door has come off its hinges. I jump what feels like three feet when I hear footsteps moving up the stairs. What the hell? I wonder if he’s looking for me but doesn’t realize I’m lying on the couch, reading. “MADDIE!” The scream shakes me to my core, a scream so tortured that it speaks to the young girl that hid in a closet while her father murdered her mother. I’m off the couch in a second and flying up the stairs, only to see Cal sitting against the wall in front of my door. His elbows are resting on his knees and his head is in his hands.

  “Cal…what…?” I start when his eyes dart up to meet mine. It all happens so fast, but within seconds, I’m up against the wall, his tall frame towering over my small one.

  “Maddie…” He lets out a breath. “Fuck. You’re…here.”

  “Of course, I’m here. I texted you when I got home from the store…”

  “No, I mean…” He presses off the wall, grabbing his hair and turning his back to me. “DAMMIT!” he screams again.

  “What’s wrong, what happened?”

  “I would literally die if something happened to you.” He turns his head slightly so I can see his profile. “Do you get that?”

  “Hey, I’m fine, okay? I’m here.” I wrap my arms around him and press my cheek into his back. His hands find my arms and begin to rub them gently.

  “This girl was so young. Your age when we met.” My blood runs cold, thinking about what could have him reacting this way. No way. He always finds them in time. He’s a Superhero. “He got her too.” I feel myself being dragged to the ground and before I realize what’s happening, I’m in his lap. “I couldn’t save her, Mads.” His voice is broken and laced with anger, sadness, confusion. “Why…why couldn’t I get there?”

  “It’s not your fault, Cal.” I press my hand to his cheek and stroke the spiky stubble. “You can’t save all of us.”

  “What if I couldn’t get to you? What if…”

  “You can’t think like that, Cal. You did get to me. You saved me…in so many ways. Who knows what would have happened to me if I went into the system? If I didn’t have someone looking out for me…” The tears spring to my eyes just as they always do when I think about what could have been.

  “I can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if I was too late. If he got to you before he killed himself…”

  “He didn’t.” I grab his hand and lace our fingers. “I’m here, see?” I’m acutely aware of the fact that
I’m straddling his lap and I think he’s starting to realize it as well because he shifts slightly and clears his throat.

  “I got you,” he whispers and I nod in agreement.

  You’ve always had me.

  “Right. Well…” he starts as he tries to move me, but I stop him, pressing my hands to his shoulders to halt his movements.

  “Cal,” I whisper. My lips are so close to his, I can taste the coffee and the mint from the spearmint gum he always chews. I’m staring at his lips, wanting a taste so badly that I bite my lip to stop from acting on the primal urge. “I got you too.”

  “Maddie…” His heart pounds underneath my hand and when he tries to move, I hold my ground and push him so that he’s lying flat on his back, with me hovering over him. “Madeline,” he croaks. His voice is hoarse and I wonder if it’s because he’s literally straining to keep his dick from rising underneath me. I’m not sure how I ended up in this position, me straddling the man that had raised me since I was seven years old, but I knew I had no intentions of getting up until I rubbed against him just once.

  This had been my fantasy for the past three years and I was too overcome with lust to care that doing this would change everything with one gentle brush over his hardness between us. I wonder if he could feel the heat radiating from between my legs. I knew my panties were soaked and I was sure that the tiny shorts I was wearing over it weren’t doing much to control the deluge.

  He coughs, but I’ve watched enough porn to know that he’s trying to stifle a groan. I’m not sure what’s going on in his mind, but I’m fairly certain by the glint in his eye it is as depraved as what I’m thinking. He’s not your father, Madeline.

  He’s been more of a father to you than your actual one.

  I swallow as the words wash over me and spread like wildfire throughout my whole body and congregate between my legs. I bite down on my lower lip, making an effort not to move a muscle. “Yes, Cal?” My eyes bore into his as he lies on his back underneath me.

  “You should get up,” he tells me, and despite the foot and a half and eighty pounds of muscle he has on me, he doesn’t move me from his lap.

  Push him, Maddie.

  I press my hands to his chest gently and shake my head back and forth. “But…that’s not what you want.”

  “Madeline, up,” he growls and I curl my fingers into his shirt and dig into his chest as I move back slightly so that my sex is right against his dick.

  I try to ignore the racing in my heart as my pulsing clit has totally taken control, and before I can stop myself, I’ve rubbed against his cock.

  “Maddie, please…” His voice is pained and I was fully planning to stop—maybe, but when I open my eyes, Cal’s are closed and I can tell he’s gritting his teeth.

  “Just…do this for me. Please.” I beg as the fire between my legs becomes greater with each stroke. His cock is fully hard at this point and I feel my clit peeking out between the lips of my sex. Slick and swollen and desperate to be touched without two layers of clothes.

  “Maddie, we can’t…” His face is red beneath his beard, bringing out a trace of auburn in his facial hair. “Please…get up.”

  “You can make me.” It’s a gamble, yes, but one I’m willing to take. His hands tighten on my thighs and I know it’s time to up the ante. I rub again, stroking his dick with my pussy up and back slowly, teasingly. “But I think I can make you come.”

  “Madeline…”

  “Maybe you should stop saying my name. It’s fucking with your head.”

  “You dry humping me is fucking with my head. Saying your name is keeping me from leading us somewhere we can’t come back from.”

  I freeze. “Like what?”

  “You know what.” His voice is low and it vibrates through my body.

  “Like fucking me?”

  The magic F word must make him come to his senses because he’s sitting up in an instant and gripping my forearms. A familiar smell wafts around us and I wonder if he can sense it too. Sex. My sex. Arousal. My orgasm forming on my pussy and dripping into my panties. He licks his lips and his eyes darken from their usual brown to almost black.

  “Cal.” My eyes drop to his mouth and I feel his gaze searching my face.

  “Maddie.” His tone almost sounds like a question, but I’m not sure the answer. Is he asking me to stop? Or asking me to keep going?

  “I’ve wanted this…for so long.”

  “I don’t know what this is, but this is wrong.”

  “I won’t tell anyone. Not even Sasha, I swear.”

  “That’s not the point, Mads…I’m…”

  “Not my father.” Maybe that forbidden aspect of our relationship turns me the fuck on, but it might kill Cal.

  “I’m supposed to protect you.”

  “Who says you’re not?”

  “I can’t…like this.”

  “Would you rather I let another boy do it?” I’m pushing him and I know it. I know Cal is overprotective when it comes to me. He wants to keep me in a cage until I’m married.

  “You let another boy touch you and I’ll ruin the fuck out of his future,” he snaps.

  “Why?”

  “You know why, Madeline. No one is good enough for you.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m not an option.”

  “I think I get a say…” I move in his lap. “Your cock surely wants one.”

  He groans and falls to his back, shutting his eyes and putting a hand over his face and I note he still hasn’t moved me. “You can’t say things like that.”

  “Cal, I know you like to have control over every situation, but for once, I need you to just… relax.” His chest is rising and falling so rapidly, and I swear I can hear his heart pounding beneath my hands.

  “Keep your fucking clothes on.” He growls and I nod. Fair. I close my eyes and begin to rock back and forth against him again. “Open them.” I assume he means my eyes and when I do, his gaze locks with mine instantly. His hands move to my hips, gripping them as I move back and forth.

  “Fuck. That feels good.”

  “Does…it?” He chokes out, and I nod.

  “I’m going to come.”

  He clears his throat, and when I meet his eyes, they’re filled with lust. “Tell me when.”

  I nod and his hands move up my hips and rest under the t-shirt I’m wearing. He strokes the skin just above my belly button as my hips begin moving more erratically as I chase the orgasm that was just out of reach. “I’m going to come, oh fuck!” He wraps his hands around my waist again, moving my body faster against his cock. “I want to wait for you.” I whimper as my toes begin to curl.

  “No. Come, Madeline. Come for me, right now.”

  Come for me. Those three words are so much louder than the rest and have a direct line with my clit which feels like is about to splinter into a million pieces. “Oh, God, Cal!” I scream as I squirm and writhe on top of his cock. My body feels like I’ve stuck my finger in a light socket and I’ve short-circuited every single nerve in my body. I drop to his chest, my head resting over his heartbeat. My limbs feel like they weigh a hundred pounds, boneless and useless, and I’m fairly certain I’ve lost my sense of sight because when I open my eyes everything’s blurry and unfocused. It isn’t until a tear trickles down my cheek that I realize that I’m crying as my body searches for the equilibrium after the most intense orgasm of my life. “Oh my God, that was incredible,” I moan.

  “Holy fuck,” I hear before I’m flipped on my back and he’s rubbing against me between my open legs. I wrap my legs around him hoping that he’ll get the message and move closer to me, and he must be driven by his cock, in this moment, because he leans down and hovers over me. His lips an inch from mine. “I kiss you and it’s over.”

  “What is?”

  “Everything we’ve ever known.”

  “I’m willing to risk it.”

  “You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone. No one can know I touched yo
u like…this.”

  “I know.”

  “I’d lose everything. I’d lose…you.”

  “I know that too.” My heart hammers faster at the thought of being away from Cal. He’s been my hero, my knight in shining armor, and the love of my life for so long and the lines have been blurry for a while now. But from the looks of it, he’s catching up. “I won’t tell anyone. Our secret.”

  I see the very smallest hint of a nod, and then his hands are moving up my body and cupping my face. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

  “When did you notice?” I ask, dying to know when things changed for him. When I was no longer the girl that he saved from the most horrific tragedy of her life.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “A year ago…”

  I gasp. “What…?”

  “On your seventeenth birthday. You ran over to me and jumped in my arms to thank me for the car…I…I almost dropped you.” My heart skips in my chest and a thousand butterflies shed their cocoons in my stomach. He rubs against me again and I feel my body start to hum with pleasure as it builds again.

  “Do you think about me when you touch yourself?”

  “Yes, but I never let myself come…not thinking about you. Never about you.” He lowers his head almost shamefully and I press a hand to his cheek.

  “Why is that a bad thing?”

  “I’m a monster, Maddie. I can’t believe I’m doing this to you. I promise, I’ll pay for a really good therapist one day.”

  I chuckle. “Don’t make jokes while your dick is pressed against me.”

  “I make jokes when I’m nervous. You know this.”

  “Why are you nervous?”

  “Because this is…you, and I’ve been fighting the urge to come since you first straddled me ten minutes ago.”

  “Stop fighting it, Cal. Let go.” I grab him by the back of the neck and pull him closer to me and lean up slightly, letting him know what I plan to do and then our lips touch.

  Not in an awkward way like most first kisses are. Not in a slow passionate way like when you kiss your lover after not kissing them in so long. But in a rushed, frenzied way that is aggressive and hard and rough. He bites and I bite back. His tongue sweeps between my lips, and I meet him with rabid urgency. I’m so desperate for his taste on my tongue, I explore every inch of his mouth. It’s sloppy and wet and loud and, quite frankly, the hottest fucking kiss of my life.