by Ella Roane
She sucks her lower lip into her mouth. It comes back out wet. I don’t even know if she knows she did it, but the sight damn near kills me.
“Stella—”
“Take them off,” she says, interrupting me. I don’t even know what it was I had been going to say. Possibly she’d heard the uncertainty in my voice and was having none of it. “Take them off,” she says again, this time ripping her gaze from my bulge to my eyes. “Do it, or I’ll get the scissors and cut them off.”
My lady has spoken.
I undo the top button of my jeans, then slowly slide the zipper down. The release of pressure on my swollen cock hurts as much as it feels good. With the zipper flap open, I slide my hand in to cup my length and guide it out.
When I pull my hand away, letting Stella see me fully for the first time, she gasps in shock. I know what she sees. I’m a little longer than average, but I’m as thick as an oak. I can barely ring the thing with my fingers. It’s a beast… or so I’ve been told.
Stella slides off the couch onto her knees. Her eyes haven’t left my saluting cock since I pulled it out for her to see. Now it’s clear that she wants to do more than see. She wants to touch.
She doesn’t bother to get to her feet to get to me. She crawls, her round hips swaying mesmerizingly from side to side and her breasts hanging ripe and heavy from her chest. I damn near blow a nut watching her.
“Stella,” I say again, wanting to warn her to play by the rules, but what is there really to say. I’m helpless now. She can do anything she wants to me. I won’t tell her no. I can’t.
When she reaches me, her hands go to the waist of my open jeans rather than touch my cock. A part of my brain breathes a sigh of relief, but it’s short lived as my jeans are stripped away.
“So strong,” she whispers, taking in the sight of my muscled thighs. I used to lift weights. The physique has mostly stayed with me.
I step free of the jeans, and she shoves them to the side. Then she lifts onto her knees, her mouth a mere inch from the tip of my cock.
“Stella,” I say again, this time saying her name like a plea. But then all words cease to exist when her hand reaches up and wraps itself around my base. Then when the tip of her tongue peeks out to tease the delicate underside of my head, my ability to think shuts down. There’s only her and my cock. I do nothing to stop her when she swirls her tongue around my head, then sucks me in like a lollipop. She can’t fit much of me inside her mouth. My thick helmet head has her lips stretched. But then her cheeks sink in as the suction starts.
“Oh god, Stella.” I sink my fingers into her hair. I urge her to take my length just a little deeper. Her lips stretch a little more, and then the stroking begins. She strokes my shaft with her hand at the same time that she bobs her head on my cock’s head. Her teeth never scrape. Those glorious, plump lips of hers make sure of it. Her mouth is so hot and wet. The suction is so perfect. There’s no condom between us. Just her flesh against my flesh. That’s new for me. A first time. And it’s heaven. She’s heaven.
But my angel is a devilish vixen. Her delicate hand tightens its hold on my shaft and adds a twist to its stroke. Her mouth pulls off so that only my head is inside. The suction intensifies as she plies the bottom of my head with the flat of her tongue. When she starts to bob again, she keeps the strokes short.
My girth grows. My balls tighten.
If I spill my load inside her mouth, her womb will still be empty. I hate that. I hate it with a passion. She needs my baby inside of her. I need my baby inside of her. But that’s not what she’s going to do to me. She plans to drink me down.
“Stella,” I growl through gritted teeth, gripping her hair tighter. My hips pump even though I don’t want them to. “Marry me, Stella.” It’s not a request. It’s a demand. I’m doing everything I can to keep her from getting what she wants from me. My seed. It’s not hers. Not yet. She hasn’t agreed to be mine.
That’s when her other hand cups my balls—and squeezes. Gently… but firmly, too.
My thighs shake. A surge of pressure moves up from my balls, and a grunting moan escapes my chest. I hold her head between my hands and pulse short thrusts into her mouth. But I’m not in control. She is. Her mouth’s suction is a vice from which I would never willingly pull myself free. I grunt again, and a tremor runs through me from head to toe. But it’s the intense surge of exquisite pressure that has me draining every drop of my juices into her mouth. I watch, helpless, as my girl drinks me down.
Her lips are swollen and wet when I pull her head off of me by her hair. She doesn’t let that deter her, though, and her tongue flicks out to lick away a final drop of cum from the tip of my head.
The power has shifted. It’s all hers. She’s had me, taken what she wanted.
Now will she want the rest?
Chapter 13
Stella
I lean over the bathroom sink and study my face in the mirror, making sure it’s actually me staring back and not some doppelgänger.
I’m an idiot. This guy wanted to marry me minutes after meeting me. And like the fool that I am, I invited him to my home in the middle of the night for a booty call. As if his delusion needed any help.
The words “I love you” still echo inside my brain, a remnant of something said earlier. But the echo isn’t his voice. It’s mine. Those words had actually left my lips.
I’m such an idiot!
I’d only said those words because of the moment, because of the pleasure he was giving my body, because of the endorphins rushing through my brain. I was feeling good, happy. Not in love.
I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my face. Then I grab the nightshirt I’ve got hanging on a hook on the back of the door. I slip it over my head but pause with it pooled around my shoulders as I study my image in the mirror.
I’m not skinny. Not athletic. I’m pretty enough, but I’m no great beauty. I’ve got fleshy arms, a pudgy belly, and thick thighs. The guy waiting for me in my living room has six-pack abs, a porn star’s cock, and the rugged, hard jawline of an outdoorsman model. He’s handsome, smart, and, okay, maybe a little bit insane.
Is that why he wants me? Because he’s nuts? Maybe he thinks I’ll be so dazzled by his good looks and his interest in me that I’ll ignore the red flags.
I blow out a breath and finish pulling on my sleep shirt. My lady bits are still throbbing from what he’s done to them, but it’s a happy throb. A satisfied throb. Sort of like the sore muscles you get after a really good workout.
But that’s as far as this little thing between us should go. As in, he’s got to go. He needs to leave. Now. I can text him later and tell him I’ve got a headache or something to get out of our upcoming date.
My face scrunches as my head fills with images of him showing up at my door with a headache care package of cold compresses, Motrin, chicken noodle soup, and the promise of a foot rub. That won’t do. Everybody knows that a headache needs matzo ball soup.
This proves it. We aren’t a match at all. Completely incompatible.
Time to break the bad news.
I square my shoulders and open the bathroom door. I make my way toward the living room. My mind is made up. He’s got to go. I won’t let him talk me out of it.
But when I round the corner into the living room to see what’s waiting for me, my resolve falters. I immediately notice two things. First, Brad truly is oh so wonderfully handsome. Swoon-worthy handsome. Second, he’s fully dressed. His jeans, his shirt, his shoes. Even his jacket. They’re all back on. All I’m wearing is a flimsy sleep shirt. That’s because he’s ready to go—and I’m not.
“You’re going?” I ask, my heart suddenly racing as panic, abandonment, and disappointment war inside of me. The asshole is leaving. He’s gotten what he wants; now he’s taking off.
No no no no, I’m in control. I’m the one who invited him over for some late night fun. Of course, he’s leaving. This isn’t his home. It’s mine. He’s getting the hell out asap
because he doesn’t belong here. He knows that. He’s simply respecting the rules of a booty call. He’s being a gentleman by getting his shit together and his ass out the door.
That’s the rant my brain has, but my body is taking longer to get the memo. The oxygen has left the room, and my head feels swimmy.
I lean my hip and shoulder against the living room entrance’s doorframe for support. I even nonchalantly cross one leg over the other. Anything to keep him from seeing me come undone. He doesn’t get to have that kind of effect on me. No man does.
“Yeah,” he says in answer to my question. “I think it’d be best.”
His low voice reverberates over me, and I wish we were having this conversation in the bedroom. My heart feels as though it’s bleeding out. I want to ask him to stay, but I instead say, “Okay.” I say it with a shrug of my shoulder and with a tone that implies that this moment is nothing to me, though nothing could be further from the truth.
All the while, my brain reaches for reasons for his sudden departure. The one it lands on is that he thinks I’m an easy slut. A woman to be discarded, just because I’ve got a libido. Well, fuck him. Figuratively and literally. Fuck him. He can go to hell.
“Will I be seeing you again?” The words come out of my mouth. They’re laced with stupid hope and a need to matter.
“Will you be seeing me again?” Brad parrots, his brows lifted in surprise. “Women,” he says and takes a step forward. But then his feet plant themselves heavy on the floor and he holds a palm out between us, as if shielding himself from me. “No,” he growls.
The bottom falls out of my stomach, and my legs go numb and weak. I want to slide down the door frame. He’s fired a death shot. I’ll need time to recover, if I recover at all.
“I can’t come any closer,” he says through gritted teeth. “If I do, I’ll never leave.”
Huh? My heart starts working again. The room floods with breathable air. My legs regain their strength.
“We have a date tonight,” he adds, the words thrown at me like an accusation. “I’m taking you out to dinner, maybe a romantic walk. There could be slow dancing.”
“Uh, okay.” I’m feeling stronger by the second.
“You will be here. You will be dressed and ready to go. And we will make it past your front door without having sex.”
I nod.
Even though I haven’t said much of anything, Brad seems placated. He squares his shoulders and nods. “Okay, then.” His eyes drift down my body and over my bare legs. There’s longing in his expression. “And put some damn clothes on. You’re… you’re naked under that thing, and it’s not fair.”
I put my back to the door frame… and arch. The nightshirt’s thin fabric does nothing to hide the shape of my jutting breasts. “You’re naked under all your clothes, too,” I say in a silky voice.
Brad’s eyes slam shut, and he turns away. “Tonight! Eight sharp,” he says as he heads toward the way out. “And lock this damn door!”
It slams into place behind him.
I’m left to my giggles and happy smiles. When I hear an engine rev—an engine that’s got to be his—I rush to the door and jerk it open.
Sure enough, there he is on his motorcycle, helmet on. He lifts a hand and mimics turning a lock switch.
I nod, smiling ear to ear, then dutifully close my door and flip the lock into place.
His motorcycle zooms away, and I do a gleeful happy dance.
I’ve got a date tonight with a handsome man who’s wild about me.
A man who says he loves me.
A man who says he wants to marry me.
I know I told him I love him too, but I was under the influence of orgasm-brain when I said it. So, it doesn’t count. Its meaningfulness is right up there with a hiccup or a sneeze.
I swear. It is. That’s the truth.
And yet…
“I wonder what cut of wedding gown would look best on my curves?” I ponder aloud.
Okay, so maybe his delusion is contagious. Still, it has me smiling. And he promised me dinner. I might as well go on the date. There could be more orgasms involved.
I smile wider, and then I think of my closet.
“What will I wear?” And just like that, my smile falls.
Chapter 14
Stella
“I found it!” my six-year-old niece Samantha cries from somewhere outside my childhood bedroom. “I found your wedding veil!”
I’m standing in front of a wood-framed, full-length mirror, and I’m dressed head to toe in an antique lace wedding gown. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful. The sun filtering through the window is gentle. The day is perfect.
Yet…
The sound of Samantha’s stomping run reaches my ears before she comes into view, reflected in the mirror. She’s got my delicate veil held triumphantly and proudly out in front of her.
I turn to face her just in time to see her trip face first. The girl catches airtime. Panic has it happening for me in slow motion. Samantha is fine, but when she stands back up and holds the veil up in front of her, the handcrafted lace is ripped nearly in half.
I hurry forward and grab the lace, hoping it can be fixed, but my fingers close around a newspaper. It has a picture of Brad and me. The tear goes through the picture, ripping the two of us in half. Not separate, but in half, as if a magician’s saw trick went very, very wrong.
There’s a headline above the picture. It reads, “Man with eight wives adds ninth!”
My heart drops into my stomach. My mouth opens to cry out, but the sound that comes out is an annoying trill-like bleep. I open my mouth to try again. More bleeping. I try to yell, but all I manage is…
Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.
My hand starts slapping around next to my head before my mind figures out what my body is doing. It finally sinks in. The alarm on my phone is going off.
No no no no no… I just went to bed!
It feels as though no time at all has past.
That’s when the next layer of awareness inside my head sparks. It’s not my alarm clock. It’s my phone’s ring tone, but not just any ring tone. It’s the one I assigned to my partner, Marcus.
I push through the remaining cobwebs of sleep, get the phone to my ear, and mumble as intelligibly as I can.
“Yeah, what?” I sound terser than I feel. I’m worried, not upset. Thankfully, Marcus isn’t put off by my gruffness.
“Finally! We gotta get in to work.”
“Huh? What’s wrong?” I wake up a little more as my adrenaline surges. My mind fills with scenarios that could trigger extra hands being called in. A massive pileup on the interstate. A plane crash. A bomb in a crowded location. Images of carnage flash inside my head.
“Rubin and Granier’s rig crashed.”
“Was anybody in it?” I know that Marcus will understand what I’m asking.
“No, Rubin and Granier were heading to a call. No passengers.”
I blow out a breath, relieved. “They okay?”
“They will be. Minor scrapes and bruises. Rubin got a good knock to the head. Anyway, we’re getting tapped to fill in for them. How soon can you make it?”
I do some mental math before answering, then say, “Thirty-five.”
“See ya there, partner.”
I get to work in thirty-two minutes instead of thirty-five. Marcus is already there. He hands me a tall cup of coffee, we check the supplies in our rig, then we roll.
We respond to two heart attacks, one broken leg, and one asthma attack before catching our breath. The calls have fallen silent at the end of what had been Rubin and Granier’s shift.
Fatigue settles over me. I’ve been holding it at bay for hours. In the quiet silence that fills the cab of our truck, I fiddle with the rim of the window seal as I stare out at the hospital’s red brick wall. It’s close enough that if I were to roll down the window, I could touch it.
“You expecting it to move?” Marcus asks, pulling my attention back to him.
<
br /> “Huh?”
“The wall. You’ve been staring at it for almost five minutes.” He pauses as his gaze takes me in. “What’s got you?”
I take a deep breath and blow it out with a sigh. I could lie to Marcus. I could tell him that nothing’s on my mind, or I could trust the person I trust with my life on an almost daily basis.
“I’ve got a date tonight,” I tell him.
Marcus’s look of concern morphs into a big grin. “I knew it! You and Todd can never stay broken up for long.”
My mouth falls open, and my brows go up. “Uh…” I don’t know what to say.
Marcus catches on. “You’ve got a date… but not with Todd.”
I confirm with a nod of my head.
“You’ve got a date with…” He takes a moment to ponder the possibilities, then his brow goes up. “You’ve got a date with that maniac firefighter?” he asks, his voice full of surprise.
I shrug, and he barks out his laughter.
“Oh, this is fresh. You dump Todd because he doesn’t value his own life, so you hook up with a firefighter with a death wish.”
“He does not have a death wish!” I shoot back.
“I don’t know, Stella. Chuck told me all about him. After Chuck woke up from his sugar coma, he wanted to know who pulled him out of the house. I told him. That’s when Chuck filled me in on how great—and how insane—Brad is.”
This is news to me. I knew he took risks on his job, but I’d thought they were the type of risks that could be considered simply going above and beyond for his teammates. What does it say when the people who do the same things you do call you out as being the one who's over the top?
Boundary pushing.
Risk taking.
Reckless.
Insane…
They were descriptions I’d heard before.
About Todd… before I’d broken up with Todd.
