“Is not,” she huffed.
“Sure as fuck is.”
“It’s your home.”
“Our home.”
She stopped and turned around. “Is your name on the paperwork?”
“Yes.”
Her eyebrows raised. “Is mine?”
“No.”
She spun around and started walking. “Case closed.”
I wanted her to view the home as ours, but I realized she didn’t. I hoped that allowing her to decorate would help her feel that she was taking part in something bigger than simply laying her head to rest there.
I was convinced we were going to spend the rest of our lives in that home, and that belief alone made the home ours.
I simply wanted her to feel the same way.
“Remember the day we shared that malt?” I shouted.
“Sure.” She turned to face me. “How could I forget that?”
I took a few steps toward her. “I was just checking.”
“What about it?”
“Was that my malt, your malt, or our malt?”
She crossed her arms in mockery of me. “It was ours.”
I nodded as if considering her response and then looked right at her. “Who bought the ice cream?”
“You.”
“The milk?”
She let out an exhaustive breath. “You.”
“The malted milk?”
“You.”
“What made it ours?” I asked.
“Because we shared it.”
I unfolded my arms. “We’re sharing the home. Case. Fucking. Closed.”
“You’re impossible to argue with.”
“Because I’m right.”
“You’re stubborn.”
“Stubborn and right.”
“Stubborn and wrong. It’s your house.”
She took a few more steps and then gasped. “Oh, my God. Look at this one. When I am King.”
“Is that the name if it?”
She put her hand on her hip and stared. “Uh huh.”
I caught up with her, and looked at the piece of art. It reminded me of something on the ocean. A reflection of a ship, maybe. I found it peaceful. “I like it.”
“Like it or--”
“Love it,” I said.
“Enough to buy it?”
“Yep.”
She took a few steps toward it, and then sighed heavily.
“What,” I asked.
“It’s $2,100.”
“So.”
“Isn’t that too much?”
“After what I paid for that house? I don’t think so. Quality is more important than anything.”
I looked at the painting, and then at her. “One paining in that house is going to look like a stamp on a huge envelope. We need at least three or four for the front room.”
“Two,” she said.
“Okay. Two.”
“We don’t have to find them all today,” she said.
“Good point.”
“So, can we get this one?”
“We can,” I said.
“I can’t wait until we get home and hang it on the wall.”
“What wall?” I asked.
“The wall in our house, you dork.”
I tossed my hands in the air in victory.
It might not have been much to some, but for us, it was the perfect start.
Chapter 35
Taryn
We were walking hand in hand along the beach behind our home waiting for the sun to set. A quarter of a year had passed since we decided to start our relationship. Twelve weeks. Eighty-four days. 2,016 hours, and counting. I knew the numbers, I’d calculated them.
I couldn’t imagine a day without Marc in it, let alone a life without him. For the first time, I realized the difference between making a choice to be with someone, and settling. In the past relationships I’d been in, I’d settled. Driven by nothing more than the emotion that surrounds having sex with someone, I’d convinced myself that I was in love.
Now that I was in love, I could look back on my past and scoff. I chose to be with Marc after a month-long courtship, and he chose to be with me. Sex didn’t dominate our decisions, and I admired Marc for having what I originally believed to being the most ridiculous rule I’d ever heard. I now viewed the relationships of others and wondered how many of them would be together if they refrained from having sex for the first thirty days.
Very few, I was sure.
Lucky for me, the sex was exactly what I preferred. Even if it wasn’t, I’d be in the same place. Our relationship wasn’t about sex. It was about love.
But. The sex was like coffee.
Icing on the cake.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
I was wearing cut-offs and a tee shirt, and he wore nothing more than board shorts. “No. Are you?”
“No.”
I hesitated. “Why’d you ask?”
He tugged on my hand. “Just wondering.”
Away from the pier, and along the stretch of beach that was lined with homes, the beach was empty on most nights. Conversely, the public areas of beach were busy most all the time. I liked that we had our own stretch of beach. The privacy, even if it wasn’t private, was nice. I took a long stride and caught up to him.
“I want you to meet someone,” he said.
He’d already taken me to meet his parents, and I knew he had no siblings. I wondered who it might be.
“Who?”
“A girl.”
My face went hot. I didn’t want to meet a girl. I didn’t know that he knew another girl, unless he worked with one. If he did, he’d sure failed to mention her. I could handle him working with a female detective. If he had a girl who was a friend, I wasn’t going to be very happy about it.
“Who is she?”
“A friend.”
I kicked my toes against the sand.
Son of a fucking bitch.
“Where does…uhhm. Where does she live?”
“Vista.”
Oh, great. A girl in a remote city, away from home.
I was far from thrilled. “What’s special about her?”
I probably sounded like a bitch, but I really didn’t care. Once bitten twice shy, that’s what I’d always said about being cheated on.
I released his hand and crossed my arms over my chest. He paused and turned to face me.
“Are you cold?”
“Yeah. I’m cold,” I snapped back.
I wasn’t. I was mad. “What’s special about her?”
He scrunched his nose. “What do you mean?”
I let out a sigh. “It’s a simple question. What’s special about her? Why do you want me to meet her?”
“She’s intelligent, articulate, snarky, and fun to be around. I eat breakfast with her every morning.”
Mentally, I was ready to kick him in the nuts. Instead, I cocked my hip and shot him a laser sharp glare. “Excuse me?”
“Whoa,” he said. “Settle down, killer. She’s a little girl. An 8th grader. She’s 13 years old.”
“You eat breakfast with a 13-year-old?”
“I eat breakfast at that shitty little diner I told you about. She sits in there until school starts, and we talk every morning. She reads literature, and we discuss it.” He gave me a half-hearted scowl. “What were you thinking?”
I felt like an idiot. I kept my arms crossed, nonetheless. I thought it might make me look a little more innocent.
“I was just--”
“You thought I was talking about some chick I was eating breakfast with? Like a woman?”
I dropped my arms. “I didn’t…I was…”
The words got jumbled between my brain and my tongue and came out in pieces of what I was thinking. I couldn’t lie to him. I swallowed heavily and simply shrugged.
“What?” he snapped back. “You were just what?”
“I did,” I admitted. “I thought you were talking about being with a woman for breakfas
t.”
He folded his arms over his chest and shot me a sideways look. “Do you trust me?”
“I do. I swear--”
“It sure doesn’t look like it.”
I tried to put the blame on him. It seemed like a better idea than accepting it myself. “You’re the one that brought it up. You said, I’ve got a girl I want you to meet who is articulate and cute and I eat breakfast with her every day. I might have jumped to a conclusion, but I didn’t have to jump far.”
“I didn’t say she was cute. And you jumped about as far as a person can.” His eyes fell to my waist. “Take off your shorts.”
“What?”
“Your shorts.” He motioned toward them with his eyes. “Take them off.”
“Why?”
“Because you trust me.”
I glanced over each shoulder. “Here?”
“No, Taryn,” he said sarcastically. “I want you to take them off in Encinitas. Yes, here. Where else?”
“What are you going to do after I take them off?”
“Spank your ass.”
“Spank it through my shorts. I deserve it.”
I didn’t care if I deserved it, or not. He could spank my ass anytime. Hell, I’d dream up accusations on a daily basis if that’s all I had to do to get spanked.
“Off, Taryn,” he said dryly.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Off.”
I checked over each shoulder again. It wasn’t dark yet, but it wasn’t far from it. In about ten minutes the sun was going to set, but for the time being, it was still daylight.
I decided my panties were more tasteful than most of the bikinis I’d seen throughout the summer, and really wasn’t risking much by exposing them. I could rock my panties on the beach like a boss.
I peeled off my shorts and tossed them to him. “There. Now what?”
He gestures toward my crotch. “Panties.”
I lowered my chin and cocked an eyebrow. “You want me to take my panties off? Right here?”
After turning toward the ocean, he took a long breath, and let it out. He then turned to face me. “Yes.”
“Seriously?”
“Take. Them. Off.”
With reluctance, I took them off. I had acted like a turd, as he often called me. If he wanted to spank my bare ass, I’d let him, and then get dressed. If he hurried, we could still see the sunset.
I twirled them on my finger. “What now, March?”
“Face the horizon.”
“What is this,” I asked. “A hazing?”
“Something like that.”
I looked to my left. The beach was bare. I looked to my right. A few hundred yards away, a couple stood at the edge of the water, staring toward the horizon. They were too far away to be able to tell if I was wearing a bikini or not. My risk was nil.
I wadded my panties in my hand, turned to face the horizon, and prepared for my non-punishment.
He held out his hand. “Panties.”
It seemed ridiculous, but I handed them over.
He positioned himself behind me. “Bend over.”
It seemed unnecessary. I glanced over my shoulder. “Seriously?”
He pressed his bare chest against my back and moved his mouth to my ear. “Seriously. And, if you know what’s good for you, you won’t turn around again.”
I bent over and planted my hands in the wet sand. Oddly, I found the naked Down Dog on the beach to be quite exhilarating.
And arousing.
While I waited for him to spank me, I gazed toward the horizon. A sliver of sky was all that prevented the sun from beginning to melt into the ocean. I clenched my jaw in anticipation of a bare-handed slap, and waited for it to disappear.
Instead, I felt a finger being poked in my pussy.
“What the--”
“Don’t. Turn. Around.”
I repositioned my hands and gazed at the sunset as he slowly fingered me from behind. Not a bad way to spend the evening, as far as I was concerned.
The sliver of sky disappeared and the sun slowly began to lower itself to the wet horizon.
I gasped – and almost tipped over – as I felt the pressure of his cock against my pussy.
“Marc What the…” I stammered.
He gripped my waist firmly and forced himself into me with one brutal shove. I stumbled forward and somehow caught myself just before I topped face first into the sand. As I braced my hands against the sand, the waves dribbled forward, covering my hands and feet.
As they receded, his hand came down hard on my ass. “Face the horizon, Taryn.”
Oh. My God.
My ass was on fire. I wanted to scratch the skin or rub it, or something, but I didn’t dare. Then, it happened again.
Slap!
It stung like hell, but for whatever reason, it caused my pussy to open up like a flower. As the juices flowed through me, he began to fuck me with a pleasurable ease.
I lifted my chin. The sun was one-third of the way gone, and the sky directly above the platform of water was turning shades of purple and pink.
He continued to fuck me slowly as I watched the sunset. He may have thought what he was doing was punishment, but I found it to be beautiful. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the evening.
Stuffed full of my lover’s cock, and watching the sunset.
At the same time.
He gripped my shoulders and pulled me upright. Awkwardly standing in front of him, and attempting to focus on the sunset, I fumbled to find my footing. Obviously aggravated by my poor sense of balance, he lifted me from my feet, and dangled me a few inches over the sand.
With his hands on my waist, he lifted me and lowered me like a toy, shoving me full of dick each time my ass met his hips.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Uh…huh,” I grunted.
He suspended me over the beach and fucked me while the sun set. Together, we watched it melt into the horizon.
Then, he pushed me over, onto my hands and knees.
He whispered detailed instructions into my ear on how I was to rub my clit, and I complied. While I rubbed myself into a frenzy, he worked himself in and out of my wetness, pushing me closer to the tide with each stroke.
At the moment when the sky went dark, I bellowed my pleasure out into the night’s sky. We had created yet another memory of testing our limits, and learning one of life lessons, and I loved every minute of it.
Marc was different. There was no two ways about it. He was right. He wasn’t a Dom. He wasn’t even close.
But he was sexy as fuck without really trying.
He lowered me to my feet. “That was hot.”
“Yeah…it…was,” I said breathlessly.
I pressed my hands to my knees, and heaved to catch my breath. “What about my shorts? And panties?”
It wasn’t easy to see in the moonlight, but it appeared that he raised them in his clenched fist. “These?”
“No, goofball. The other panties. Yes, those.”
“I told you I was trustworthy,” he said. “And, that I wouldn’t cheat on you. Don’t ever doubt me again.”
And with those words, he took off in a dead sprint toward our back deck, leaving me on the beach, naked from the waist down.
As he screamed like an idiot and ran toward the house in a zig-zag pattern, I realized that he’d opened up considerably since we met.
And, I couldn’t help but love every ounce of the man that he’d let me see him become.
Chapter 36
Marc
I pointed to the fifth booth on the left. “Right over there.”
“Okay,” Taryn said.
Halfway to the booth, Charlee sat up and peered over the top of her seat. Upon seeing us, she straightened her posture and set her book to the side.
“Is that her?” Taryn whispered.
“That’s her.”
“She’s adorable.”
“Don’t let her age fool you,�
�� I said. “She’ll lure you in with her curls and her smile, then she’ll crush you with her intellect.”
“I’ll be careful.”
We sat across from each other in the booth. I pushed the silverware to the side, tossed my newspaper on the seat beside me, and leaned over the edge of the table. “I really like your hair that color.”
It had grown to the middle of her back and was fixed in an almost straight style, with just a slight curl twisted into three-fourths of the length. Over the last three months, her hair had been three different colors, but I liked the dull gray the most.
At least for the time being.
“Thank you. I can’t decide if I do or not.”
“When it’s that color naturally, you’ll want to change it,” I said. “For now, enjoy it. Personally, I like it. A lot.”
I glanced at Charlee. She was wadded into a ball in the back of the booth, eyeing Taryn from head to toe. After a hardened inspection, she unfolded her legs, scooted to the center of her booth, and then volleyed a compliment over.
“I like your hair.”
Taryn looked at her and smiled. “Thank you. I just did it. I can’t decide if I like it or not.”
Charlee inspected her hair one last time. “When I’m eighteen, I’m going to do that. If it’s still cool. If it’s not, I’ll do something else kind of like that. Something trendy.”
“Tell me when you’re ready,” Taryn said with a smile. “I’ll do it for you.”
Charlee edged closer. “Do you do hair?”
“I do.”
“Cool.”
“Marc tells me you’re a reader. What are you reading?”
Charlee lifted her chin slightly. A look of uncertainty followed. “Do you read?”
“I do. Probably not anything you’d read, though.”
“Like what?”
“Romance novels.”
Charlee flipped her hair away from her face and slid a little closer. “I don’t read romance novels. Not today’s romance novels, anyway. Romance doesn’t really exist anymore and here’s why. Boys are dumb. And, dumb people do inherently dumb things. Girls are smart, but we’re intrinsic dreamers. Therefore, when boys lie to us and tell us what we’ve come to expect from reading romance novels, we believe them. We trust them because we want to believe in the concept of love. I’m no longer receptive to their comments and pre-prepared pickup lines. In the end, they’ll break your heart. Bradley Prescott broke mine. I’ll never recover. At least not totally. The way it stands now, I’ll be single forever.”
His Rules Page 21
