by Celeste, B.
Bex picks a piece of lint or something off my dress. “Truthfully, I think I was unfairly comparing him to my late husband. I found myself thinking about whether I liked certain things or not about Todd simply because he was so different than Billy.”
Expression easing, I squeeze her hand tighter. “That’s natural, though, Bex. If you decided that there were too many cons with Todd, it was all for the best. The right guy will come around when he’s meant to, and then I’m sure you won’t be comparing him to anyone because nobody will match him.”
She blinks, her lips stretching into a slow, wide smile. “My, my, sweetie. You’ve grown quite a bit since I’ve met you.”
It’s my turn to blush at her compliment as we step apart and look at my reflection in the mirror again. My hands go to my dress, my eyes roaming from head to toe in appraisal. “It’s in part because of you, you know.” My eyes go to her in the mirror. “You were always honest with me, telling me what I needed to hear instead of holding back. In a way, my mom does that too, but she’s a bit…harsher with her points.”
Her smile is sad. “She must love you very much then. I know I show Mary tough love more than I probably should. She’s a stubborn girl. Reminds me of someone else I know.” She pokes my side and winks at me. “But I hardly did anything. This journey, where you are now, it’s because of you. You’ve let yourself love again.”
Love. The L-word I never thought I’d use again in the context of another man. Family, sure, Friends, yes. My job, even. But when it came to admitting that there was a man out there that fit into my life like a missing puzzle piece, I never would have believed it.
Until the friends I made here.
Until seeing Fletcher again.
Until Hunter showed back up.
It’s ironic how our hearts can be hurt by the things we saw coming. And I had.
I’d put together all the moments leading up to the papers being served to me and knew what the outcome would be. Hunter had shown me he’d fallen out of love long before he’d gotten the nerve to say it.
I just didn’t want to believe it.
To see it.
But now that I do… “I have,” I agree with Bex, my smile warm and genuine. “Let myself love again, that is. Fletcher makes me love myself in a way I think I might have forgotten how to do in the past. He never makes me feel unworthy or self-conscious by being who I am or showing what I want.”
My face heats thinking about him coming over to my house during his walk with Admiral. He’d only meant to stop to give me a kiss and see how my day was before going back home to check on Dominic, who he’d left alone to finish up his homework before they had dinner. But before he left, the kiss had deepened, and the desire grew as our tongues twisted and hands roamed. Before I knew it, I was on my knees in front of the door, unbuckling his belt, unzipping his pants, and taking him in my mouth until he was panting my name and thrusting between my lips. Admiral had gone off to play with the toys I kept at the house whenever they visited. After I’d made his owner come in my mouth, I almost had to remind Fletcher about his waiting son when he gave me that heated look that went straight to my core.
There have been other times. Him planting me on the edge of my kitchen counter and lifting up my skirt to reacquaint his mouth with the center of my body.
Me grinding on him on the couch until I made us both come while Dominic slept upstairs after Fletcher had put him to bed.
Even the make-out sessions we had like two teenagers who couldn’t get enough had brought me to the brink of insanity.
Each little moment we’d stolen with one another had built and built and built until the dam nearly flooded.
All leading up to tonight.
Nicki is with Traci and Jacob. He’d brought Admiral with him after his father’s suggestion, which means Fletcher and I will have an entire house to ourselves.
No kid.
No dog.
No interruptions.
Bex snickers, breaking me away from the dirty memories I was having of a very hard piece of Fletcher. And not just his muscles. “I don’t need to read minds to know what’s on yours, my dear.”
My cheeks only blaze hotter, making her laugh louder. “Sorry.”
She pats my butt as I turn to head back to the dressing room and change into my regular clothes again. “Don’t be. We’ve both been married women. I know a thing or two about what you’re thinking.”
I can’t help but laugh along with her, not letting the embarrassment get to me. We’re both adults—both know what it’s like to not want to keep our hands off the men we love.
Through the curtain, Bex adds, “Can’t say I’m not a little jealous of you. What I would pay to see what that man looks like naked.”
My laugh turns into a snort. “I’ll try snapping a picture.”
It takes me over an hour to get my hair just right, loosely curled and sprayed to stay in its shape, and apply just enough makeup to highlight the green in my eyes, emphasize my cheekbones, and the outline of my fuller lips. When it’s all done, I can’t help but smile at my reflection before slipping on my dress, sliding on my heels, and giving myself one more look in the mirror when the knock sounds from downstairs.
Because of our late-night meetings, Fletcher has a key to the front door to get in easier when he’s free. So, I’m not surprised when I hear the lock click and the door open as I walk from my room, down the narrow hallway, and stop at the top of the stairwell.
Taking a deep breath, I count to three, flatten my dress, and finally walk down when I hear him call out my name.
I’m on the last step when he stops and stares at me with unblinking eyes, the color darkening, lips parting slightly, and a sound I’ve never quite heard made before rising from his throat.
The moment I step onto the wooden floor in front of him, his head begins shaking back and forth in disbelief. Those eyes take me in slowly, raking over my entire body from the careful way I did my hair, to the makeup applied to my face, to the fabric wrapped around my body, hugging all of the right curves, and down to my shoes that make my legs look longer.
“Fletcher?” I ask, trying and failing to hide a smile.
His head finally stops shaking as he steps up to me, one of his hands wrapping around the small of my waist before trailing to my lower back and pulling me into him.
“Forgive me,” he whispers, kissing me lightly before those lips move from my jaw to my throat and nipping over my pulse.
“For what?”
“For having to miss our date.”
I blink, instant disappointment filling my stomach as I place a hand on his chest to push him away gently. “Is everything okay? Is it Dominic? Is everything—”
“Baby.” He all but growls the word as his eyes flash with lust. “There’s no way we’ll be leaving this house after I’ve seen you like this.”
My eyes widen.
He kisses me again, his lips crashing into mine, nipping, sucking, his tongue bending and twisting with mine in a raw hunger before he pulls back and says, “But don’t worry. I’m about to make it up to you. We’ll just make a reservation another night. Because the second I take this dress off you, you won’t be putting anything else on until tomorrow.”
And before I know it, his hands are gripping the back of my thighs, hauling me up until my legs are wrapped around his hips. With my dress hiked up exposing my lace thong, he moves us upstairs to my bedroom.
All I can manage to say between the hungry way he devours my mouth is, “I forgive you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Fletcher delivers his promise like he always does, stripping me in record time until I’m in nothing but skin and makeup. I’m not even angry that I spent so much time on my appearance because the way the man hovering over me is touching me slowly between my legs makes it impossible to think about much of anything.
Squirming for more as his thick fingers make passes along my wet seam, I pant and arch when his trimmed beard scrapes against my
bare breast, taking the rosy nipple between his lips and sucking. My hand curls around the back of his neck, fingertips tightening and massaging the flesh there as he switches between the hard, pebbled nubs and enters me with one of his fingers. Moving in and out slowly to build me up, he inserts a second finger and hooks them until he hits the perfect spot that has my back lifting off the bed with each thrust.
His lower body rolls against the mattress to get friction against the steel tenting his briefs as he works me over. “You’re dripping down my fingers, baby,” he groans, moving his mouth from my nipples to my lips as the wet sounds pick up the quicker his hand flicks and moves between our bodies.
Sucking his tongue between my lips, I sneak a hand between us, taking my time to take in his impressive chest with my fingertips, and then dip my palm into the elastic of his briefs and wrap it around the base of his hard cock until I feel the bristles of coarse hair there as I give him a gentle squeeze. He lets out a primal noise that breaks our kiss as I begin stroking him from base to tip and back down again, making him falter with his own movements.
“Please, Fletcher,” I plead against his lips, moving my hips to match the rhythm he creates with his fingers.
He gives me another kiss, a peck on the jaw, the cheek, before nipping my earlobe and sucking it between his lips. “Are you sure?”
“I promise.”
My knuckles brush his hot skin as I work his shaft, tightening my hold and squeezing below the tip before trailing back down until I can feel him leaking.
When his fingers leave me, I want to cry, but he repositions himself to yank down his briefs until that very impressive, very hard, hot organ is free at last and looking even more massive than I remember from the many other times I’ve seen it over the past month.
Every time we had to wait, to reschedule, has led to this, making us even needier than the first time.
“Fletcher,” I say when he’s settled back between my legs, one of his palms guiding my leg up and around his waist as his cock nudges my entrance.
This time when he whispers my name in his heated, low tone, I don’t freak out.
This time, when he pushes in, first one inch, then another, I don’t lock up.
He works slowly as his lips pay attention to every inch of my face. First pressing against my cheek, then the other. My nose. One corner of my lips. The opposite side. One eyelid, then the second.
My fingers trail down his back, stroking up and down his spine as my leg hooks tighter around his waist. Then, finally, I lift up and feel him seat himself fully inside of me, causing both of us to groan when our pelvises meet. He pauses for a moment or two to kiss me, taking my top lip into his mouth, then the bottom, before parting my lips and teasing my tongue with his own. The kiss is slow, exploring every part of my mouth, my tongue, swiping my teeth, tracing my lips, all while he twitches inside of me.
“Please,” I whisper, my lips trailing down the underside of his jaw, then to his throat and biting down on the damp skin there.
That’s when he moves.
He withdraws until only his tip is still inside me before pushing back in, filling me in one hard thrust.
Then he does it again.
And again.
Faster, harder, each time until our skin slaps together in a delicious harmony.
Our breaths, tongues, and teeth clatter together as he makes love to me with everything he has. The noises that mix between us make my body feel worshipped—the sounds in the air, the scent thick with sex and passion as he grabs my other thigh and lifts it until both legs are wrapped around him. The angle hits me deeper as he rises on his knees, feeling like nothing I’ve experienced in the past.
I feel cherished.
Loved.
“God, baby,” he breathes, his hands gripping my hips as he slams into me. “You have no idea—” His voice cuts off as I lift my hips to meet his movements making him cuss and bend down to capture my lips again.
Teeth biting down on his lip, I wrap my arms around his neck and say, “Fuck me.”
Two words.
Words I’d never spoken before.
Words I’ve always wanted to but felt too ashamed to because of the partner who’d made me feel that way from the start.
This is how it’s supposed to be.
Love.
Making love.
Fucking.
It’s all the same when it’s with the right person. Not dirty, but right. Perfectly right.
The words unleash the soldier inside Fletcher that’s been dormant since his retirement. If it’s possible, a version of him that I could never have in even in my wildest, dirtiest fantasies picture takes complete control of my body.
Of my breasts.
My hips.
My pussy that tightens and clenches around him as he goes harder, jackknifing as his arm ropes around my lower back and picks me up until I’m straddling his lap with my legs on either side of his body.
“Oh God,” I moan as he lifts me up and drops me down onto him, using my body to fuck himself until we’re both panting. Each movement brings a sting of delicious pain between my legs, and I have no doubt I’ll need medicine tomorrow if I want to walk. “God, Fletcher. I can’t—” I shake my head and tighten my arms around him, burying my face into the crook of his sweaty neck as I try matching the rhythm he’s creating.
It’s too much.
Too fast.
Too hard.
Too everything.
But I love the uncontrollable nature he’s showing me, giving me, because he can’t help himself. Can’t stop himself.
The only thing that gets me to look him in the eyes is when he says, “I love you, Stevie,” as both his arms hold me to him, pressing our naked. sweaty chests together so nothing can get between us.
My eyes are wide as I stare at the piercing eyes he’s watching me with, my breath catching in my throat.
He kisses me, holding my lips against his, breathing me in, tasting me, still moving his hips upward and filling me methodically slow. “I’m not saying that because it’s the heat of the moment. I mean it, honey. I love you so much it hurts my chest, fills my head every goddam day. It drives me crazy. You drive me crazy.”
He holds my stare, making this moment that much stronger. I nearly come undone from his firm statement alone, but then he says, “I love you so much that I hope to fucking God your birth control fails tonight.”
I lose it, clenching him as I come harder than I’ve ever come in my entire life. Blackness takes over, and white spots dot my eyes as I tip my head back and feel him twitch inside me and then enter me one more time before burying himself deep and pulsing until I can feel the hot warmth fill me as he groans loudly into my neck.
Sweaty, sated and feeling on the verge of passing out, I let him lay us down, still connected as intimately as we can be. He brushes his fingers through my damp, ruined hair, kisses me once, twice, a third time, before pulling me into him and hugging me against his chiseled body.
“I love you too,” I whisper, voice hoarse.
“You’re everything I’ve ever needed,” is how he replies before pulling out, grabbing a wet washcloth, and carefully cleaning me before pressing a kiss on my overly sensitive clit, and then crawling back in bed.
That’s how we fall asleep.
Until he wakes me up for round two by whispering in my ear, “Need to fuck you from behind, baby girl.”
And I let him.
Twice.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Except for one, all of my kids disperse from class when lunch and recess rolls around with an aide guiding them to the cafeteria. I smile at Dominic as he stops in front of my desk and twists his fingers together, his gaze flickering between a stack of papers to me to the floor.
“Is everything okay?” I ask him.
He hasn’t been fully paying attention all day but did answer at least one question when prompted, which told me he’d heard enough to absorb some of the information I was feed
ing the room. But more times than not, I’d seen him looking at the marble pinched between his fingers instead of the papers or books in front of him he should have been focusing on.
“Nicki?”
“I think my dad is going to leave,” he says, eyes trained on the floor like the first time he’d walked into the classroom.
I kneel in front of him. “Why do you think that?” Worry is carved into my tone as he lifts his gaze to me for a brief moment, those circular eyes lined with the same thick lashes Fletcher. The contact lasts longer than normal, raising red flags.
“I overheard him talking to Cooper on the phone last night about seeing him.”
Blinking over the unfamiliar name, I give the little boy a confused look. His sad features make me want to hug him, but we haven’t crossed that line, and I’m not about to in school. “You’ve lost me, Nicki. Who is Cooper?”
“The man who took him away before!” he exclaims in exasperation, his sadness turning into anger quickly. “Mom told me that Cooper always wants to steal Dad back and that, one day, Dad will probably go because he always does what he thinks is right. And I heard him tell Cooper last night that he’ll meet him.”
Take him away? It doesn’t take me long to put the pieces together, and when I do, I can’t help but shake my head. In disbelief. In doubt. “Dominic, I don’t think your dad is going anywhere. From what I know—” From the conversation I’d had with him not that long ago. “—he has no intentions of reenlisting or going anywhere. He wants to be here with you. Home with you to see you grow up.”
“He’s said that before,” he grumbles.
“When?” It’s not my business to pry, but it’s obvious Nicki is getting more distressed by the second, and curiosity gets the better of me.
“When I was little.”
“I think it’s best if you talked to your father about this. I’m sure it’s a big misunderstanding. Your dad talks about how much he loves being home, getting to see you every day. I highly doubt what you heard is what’s really going on. Maybe Cooper—” I still don’t know who this Cooper guy is. Not somebody Hunter knew, at least not well or whenever I was around. “—is just going to see your dad and catch up. They’re probably friends.”
