America’s Geekheart

by Grant, Pippa

  I’ve never wanted to be gorgeous.

  It’s superficial and unnecessary.

  But having the most gorgeous man on earth gazing at me with utter adoration for just being me makes me feel beautiful.

  And strong.

  And so very, very sexy.

  I’m half-naked, with my dress gaping in front, my split Slimzies curling down, and my legs still stuck in a dress, with hair that’s probably sticking up, and no makeup to hide my blush or my birthmark.

  And he makes me feel like an irresistible goddess.

  He touches my cheek with a light finger, and then he’s kissing me.

  But it’s not a normal kiss, just lips and tongues and teeth.

  No, this is like our souls are saying hello.

  I unbutton his shirt slowly. He shifts my body as he peels my dress down over my hips, kissing me and plucking hairpins out. I reach his pants and unhook them too.

  He groans into my mouth as I push them over his hips and they slide to the floor. My hands curve around to cup his ass, and my already wet panties get positively soaked.

  My dress hits the floor, and he grips the edges of my Slimzies and yanks, and they split in two.

  I shudder in relief as my body’s finally fully free, and then I realize I’m completely naked.

  Except for a small pair of RYDE panties.

  “You are so fucking gorgeous,” he whispers as he cups my breasts, then bends to press a gentle kiss to each nipple before suckling one into his mouth. I gasp at the intense shot of pleasure that radiates from my breast, through my ribs, and down to my center. I clutch his head in place, my fingers in his thick hair, and I spread my legs, because I need him to—

  Yes.

  To touch me.

  He strokes his thumb over the fabric covering my clit, and I gasp again and arch into him.

  “You like?” he whispers against my breast, which makes my skin pebble everywhere his breath touches.

  “Yes,” I manage.

  He still has his shirt hanging open, tie dangling low on one side, with a white undershirt and black boxers.

  I’m still in my strappy heels.

  He straightens and guides my legs around his hips, and then he’s carrying me into his bedroom, hands kneading my ass, kissing me again, lowering me to his bed, where his hands roam over my body. “Tell me to stop and I will,” he whispers.

  “Take your shirts off.”

  He smiles as he does as asked, the dress shirt flying one way, the tight white T-shirt beneath going the other. “Better?”

  I crook a finger at him, and he lowers himself onto his arms above me. I cup his cheeks, then move my hands down his neck, around his shoulders, over his chest, and I smile back at him. “Much better.”

  His stomach growls, and we both look down at it.

  “You didn’t get enough dinner,” I whisper.

  “I’m about to fix that,” he replies, and then he’s kissing his way down my body, from my neck, between my breasts, over my belly, beneath my belly button, until he stops short at the top of my panties. “Sarah Dempsey, you’re wearing my underwear,” he breathes against the elastic band.

  “Yes,” I manage, because it’s all I can say. He’s teasing the edges of the panties with his thumbs, taking his time, his mouth drifting lower to press kisses to the top of my mound over the fabric.

  “I like you in my underwear. But I think I might like you more out of them.”

  “Yes,” I gasp again.

  He breathes in my scent, and I strain to open my legs wider.

  I’m so wet already, and the anticipation of Beck’s mouth on me is making my heart throb in my clit. “Want—you,” I manage.

  “How mad will you be if I tear these off?” he asks my pussy.

  “Beck.”

  “What? I can get you a new pair.” He blows on the fabric, and my hips lift off the bed. Everything’s buzzing and shimmering in anticipation.

  He guides my legs so he can tug the panties off—“Too awesome to waste,” he says, which makes me laugh despite myself—and then pauses at my feet. “Fucking hell. Don’t these hurt?”

  “Nothing hurts right now.”

  “Sarah. They’re cutting into your feet.” He mutters to himself while he undoes the small buckles and pulls them off, then lifts my feet for inspection.

  My toes glitter in the low light, and he lifts a grin to me that goes dark and hooded when his gaze locks on my bare pussy.

  “You painted the universe on your toes.” He releases my foot, but glides his hands up my legs as he stretches back out to center himself with his mouth over my hips. “Beautiful.”

  I don’t know if he’s talking about my toes or the rest of my body, but it suddenly doesn’t matter, because his tongue is teasing my clit and his thumbs are drawing lazy circles on my inner thigh, and oh my god, why did I ever doubt this man?

  My hips lift, my toes curl, my shoulders arch, a pin in my hair digs into my skull, and I’m chanting incoherently while his mouth explores my pussy until I’m beyond capable of breathing.

  And just when I can’t take it anymore, he sucks my clit between his teeth, and everything clenches hard, and I come apart in a starburst of blues and purples and reds, sparks shimmering behind my eyes, Beck’s mouth coaxing me higher and longer while my body shudders out transcendent sensations that rock me from my roots to my toenails, with pleasure radiating so thick and heavy from my clit that I will most definitely never be able to walk again.

  I sag against the rumpled sheets as the waves gradually subside, and he peppers kisses to my inner thighs that tickle enough to make aftershocks jolt through my ovaries.

  “So fucking gorgeous,” he murmurs, and when he lifts his gaze again, there’s so much heat in his eyes that I almost come a second time just from that giddy feeling of knowing, without a doubt, that he really does think I’m beautiful. And irresistible. And sexy.

  Until he suddenly frowns. “Does your hair hurt?”

  “Wha…?” Huh. Now that he mentions it. “Oh. Yash. Yesh. Mm.”

  He shoves up to sitting, and guides me to do the same. I get an eyeful of the strain in his boxers—holy yes, please—but then he’s behind me, plucking more hairpins out, his erection pressing into my lower back, his lips dropping to my neck between untangling the unholy mess. “Did they put an entire pin factory in here?” he murmurs as half my hair finally falls down my back.

  “Mom—massages—buttered me up—no will power,” I murmur.

  “I’ll give you massages. And I’ll get you a spa pass. And your own personal massage therapist. Just—fuck, Sarah. Don’t let them do this to you.”

  “Beck?”

  “Mm?”

  “When you talk like that, I want to jump you.”

  His hands still in my hair. “Like the good kind of jump, or the taser kind of jump?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I murmur, my fingers lifting to rub my nipples.

  He laughs into my hair, and then his fingers join mine.

  Just one hand.

  The other’s still searching out random hairpins.

  But he’s quite talented at teasing my body one-handed.

  Especially when his hand trails down my belly to tease the curls just over my clit. “Still sensitive?” he murmurs into my neck while he plucks one more hairpin out.

  “Touch me,” I reply.

  His cock swells harder against my back, and I’m instantly aroused again.

  There’s something so powerful about being wanted. And even more so for being wanted for me.

  All of me. The good and the bad.

  His fingers drift lower, and I groan and let my legs fall open while I drop my head back against him.

  “Sarah,” he whispers, so reverently he might as well have whispered I love you.

  I twist in his arms and go up on my knees, then grab his cheeks and kiss him.

  Hard.

  Deep.

  Desperate.

  I didn’t expect him.

 
I didn’t ask for him.

  But I can’t imagine ever letting him go.

  I’ll have to—his life is out there, globetrotting around the world with photographers chasing him, while mine is rooted here—but not tonight.

  Tonight, he’s mine.

  I straddle him there, with his back against his headboard, and I free his cock from his briefs.

  He groans into my mouth as I stroke his hard length, and then he’s fumbling for a condom in the nightstand.

  “I want you,” I whisper while I help him roll it on.

  His breath is ragged, his eyes dark midnight under heavy lids, his lips parted, and when I sink down on him, taking him deep inside me, we both shudder in relief.

  “So fucking perfect,” he grits out.

  I clamp my mouth shut, because otherwise, I’ll start chanting I love you, and it’s not something I can take back, and love scares the hell out of me.

  But Beck?

  Beck doesn’t.

  He thrusts up into me, neck straining, his eyes locked on me while he fills me and stretches me and pumps into me and I ride him hard, taking him so deep that he’s hitting that special spot over and over, building that tension, my walls tightening in anticipation, until I’m so, so close.

  “Sarah,” he gasps. “I’m—can’t—need—come, Sarah. Come for me.”

  He flicks his thumbs over my nipples and, groaning, lets his head fall back. I feel the pulse of his release, and it carries me over the edge too, clenching hard around his spasming cock while he wraps those long, strong arms around me and holds me so tight, buried so deep, connecting so thoroughly that I can’t imagine a time we’ll ever be disconnected.

  No matter the miles.

  No matter the mountains or oceans between us.

  I didn’t even know I wanted him, and now I can’t imagine ever letting him go.

  “Sarah,” he gasps again into my shoulder as his body begins to relax, and I wrap my arms around him and hold tight too.

  Beck doesn’t just have a piece of me.

  He has all of me.

  And it’s the scariest and most thrilling feeling I’ve ever known.

  Thirty-Six

  Beck

  She’s mine.

  I called her. You can’t have her. You snooze, you lose. I licked her. She’s mine now.

  Okay, okay.

  It’s more like I’m basically going to spend the rest of my life as putty in her hands, because holy fuck, she’s everything.

  “Oh my god, I think I’m drooling on your shoulder,” she murmurs as we sit—lay? Slump?—in my bed.

  “Mm, drool.” My arms are jelly. So are my legs

  My cock’s awful damn proud of itself, and still buried deep inside her, and why did I think I wanted to live in a car with her when we can just stay in bed like this forever?

  She’s laughing a breathy laugh, and it makes her walls squeeze my dick again.

  He grins proudly and sits up straighter.

  I’ll high-five him later.

  “You want a grilled cheese?” I ask. “I can go for giving you four orgasms, but I need a grilled cheese first.”

  “Four might kill me.”

  “You’re getting three whether you like it or not, because I don’t tie. I come in first.”

  “You’re already in first.”

  “Nuh-uh. Don’t stroke my ego. I’m earning this one.”

  “Beck.”

  “Sarah.”

  She lifts her head, and god, her hair. It’s crazy, sticking out every which way, still full of hairspray and probably some kind of animal sacrifice, and I fucking love her like this. Real and sleepy and fucking gorgeous.

  “You…know me,” she says quietly. “I’ve never slept with anyone who…knew me.”

  I stroke her wild hair. “Their loss.”

  She sighs and snuggles in closer again. “Thank you for showing me what I’m capable of.”

  “We haven’t hit three yet,” I remind her.

  “I meant with facing the world and not hiding from it.”

  “You would’ve figured that out in your own time if I hadn’t been a dumbass.”

  She shakes her head, but doesn’t reply.

  And then my stomach rumbles, and we both crack up.

  “Okay, fine. Food,” she says.

  I get her a robe and dispose of the condom, and we spend the next hour eating gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches with brie and bacon and pears, and she tells me about her favorite projects that she’s worked on, and I tell her about the biggest mishaps we’ve ever had on various shoots.

  We check in on Persephone, and Sarah squeals with glee at the sight of the baby nursing. “Look! Look at that spot on the baby. Doesn’t it look like George Washington’s head?”

  I squint closer, and she’s not wrong.

  “It’s a sign,” I tell her. “This baby will save the giraffe population of the world.”

  She laughs and kisses me, and we both have orgasms over my culinary creations, which, no, doesn’t count as her third.

  I take care of that in the shower afterwards.

  And then I carry her to bed and rub her back until she falls asleep, and I drift off too, with my arms wrapped around her, because this.

  Sarah’s what my life has been missing.

  The piece I never thought I’d find.

  That I never even thought existed.

  Life is pretty fucking awesome. And it just keeps getting better.

  Thirty-Seven

  Sarah

  We’re having mint tea and waffle-omelet sandwiches on Beck’s patio Sunday morning, lounging side-by-side on the wicker couch and debating names for Persephone’s baby girl, when both our phones blow up.

  To be fair, his is always blowing up, which is why he keeps it on silent, but the screen has been lighting up all morning.

  Mine, however, just had three text messages waiting for me when I woke up—one from my parents just checking in, one from Mackenzie checking in, and one from Charlie asking if I wanted new clothes delivered this morning, or if I preferred that she dash over to my house to pick something I already owned.

  Yep. Just those three messages. Until the end of breakfast.

  I slide a look at mine and start to ignore it, because seventeen text messages in a minute spells doom, and I don’t want doom.

  I want to feed Beck the last half of my waffle-omelet sandwich and accidentally have to lick the crumbs off his bare stomach.

  Considering he feasted on me again this morning for first breakfast, it’s only fair that I eat him for dessert.

  But when my phone doesn’t stop, he picks it up.

  His brows furrow, and then he grabs his own phone.

  “Are you texting someone back?”

  He shakes his head.

  And he’s doing that silent thing again, which is always a little worrisome, especially when coupled with the frown and the subtle growl coming out of his lips.

  “Beck?”

  “Not bad,” he assures me.

  “Then why do you look like you want to tear someone’s arms off?”

  He hands me the phone, open to a news article with a huge headline. Meet America’s Geekheart.

  I half-smile. “Cute name,” I say, but when I scroll down— “Oh my god.”

  It’s me.

  There’s a picture from last night, at the top of the stairs in the planetarium, and I almost don’t recognize myself.

  I look like Sunny Darling and Judson Clarke’s daughter.

  And Beck’s in it too, and oh, the picture of Beck.

  He’s watching me as he climbs the stairs, and that look on his face—my breath catches.

  The man thinks I hung the moon.

  I glance up at him.

  He’s scowling.

  Beck Ryder.

  The man who didn’t even scowl when I tasered him, or when my father threatened to do unmentionable things to his manhood, or when his own mother chastised him in public last night, is scowling.


  “You…don’t like the nickname?”

  “I don’t like that as soon as you put on a dress and makeup and some fucking Hollywood-approved hairdo, suddenly you’re socially acceptable. This?” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ears, then brushes his thumb over my cheek. “This is you being gorgeous. That’s you putting on a show. And I hate the assholes who think the show is all that matters. Because this is what matters most.”

  His hand comes to rest on my heart, and if there was any doubt left how I feel about him, it evaporates like the morning dew. “I love you,” I whisper.

  And then I clamp a hand over my mouth, because I’ve never said it before, and if he doesn’t—

  He pulls my hand away and crushes my mouth with his, holding me tight against him until I crawl into his lap and straddle him. His hard cock presses against my clit, and I moan into his mouth and pump my hips to rub my aching nub against him.

  “Sarah,” he gasps.

  “I love you.” I can’t stop. I want to shout it to the world. And I’m on a rooftop. I could. I could shout it from this rooftop right here, and all of downtown Copper Valley will hear me, and they’ll know that I have fallen head over heels in love with Beck Ryder and I’m not taking it back, because he’s the kindest, biggest-hearted, funniest, sexiest, strongest man I know, and I don’t know how we’ll work out his travel schedule with my day job needing me here, but we will, because— “I love you.”

  I fumble with his pants, freeing his cock again.

  “Sarah, I don’t—”

  I ignore him and slide down his body, taking his erection into my mouth, and when his breath hitches and his hands tighten in my hair, I suck his hard length harder, rubbing the flat of my tongue along him, taking him deep and then pulling almost off him, then taking him in deep again, curling my tongue around him, over and over until he tries to pull back.

  “Sarah, I’m gonna—”

  I ignore him again and take him as deep as I can until he comes down my throat, his cock pulsing against my tongue while I swallow him down.

  When he’s spent, I release him, press a kiss to his tip, and tuck him back into his sweatpants, and then climb back up to snuggle him. Just as I get up to his shoulder-level, he explodes in a huge sneeze.