Best I've Ever Had

by Abbi Glines

  I reached over to brush the lock of hair that was about to fall into her eyes out of the way. “I do little else but watch you when you’re in a room.” There, how was that for honesty.

  The way her eyes softened then darkened made my cock harden. She didn’t say anything, but after a moment of looking at me with that sultry fuck me gaze, she moved a leg over my lap then lifted herself up with one graceful shift that left her straddling my lap.

  I put my hands on her bare thighs. The shorts she was wearing had ridden up and I could slide my hands easily inside the legs until I reached the satin of her panties. But I didn’t. I kept my hands just above her knees and waited. She’d made this move and I was going to fucking enjoy every minute of her seduction.

  She ran her hands through my hair as her eyes stayed on mine. Her nails slightly scraping my scalp until they reached my neck. Then they left me and with a tug, she pulled her shirt off and dropped it beside us on the sofa. I didn’t even get to appreciate the view before she was pulling at my shirt. I lifted my arms and leaned up to help her in undressing me. When it was gone, she started getting rid of her bra. My attention was caught up in that process and I watched in awe and adoration as her breasts bounced free of the lace.

  I wasn’t going to be able to wait on her next move, not with those perfect pink tipped full tits that close. Reaching up, I cupped them one in each hand and massaged each nipple with the pad of my thumb. She made a sound of pleasure and arched her back to give me complete access.

  I slid my hands behind her back and pushed her closer until my mouth was close enough to taste the sweetness in front of me. Ophelia began to rock in a rhythm that pressed her clit directly on the bulge in my jeans. She was panting and softly repeating my name among other things. Everything else forgotten but the building pressure inside of her. She was going after the release and I had a front row seat to the event.

  I trailed kisses along her collarbone and the side of her breast. It was for my own pleasure though. Ophelia was almost to her climax and her eyes were closed as she began to ride my lap harder. I lifted my head to watch as the first tremor coursed through her body. Her hands grabbed onto my shoulders, her mouth falling open as she cried out, and her bouncing tits began their own erotic jiggle with her trembling body.

  I memorized her like this. Every detail of her face, the curve of her neck, the valley between her breasts. I wasn’t romantic. Not anymore. I was a realist. But in that moment, I was positive Ophelia Finlay was the most beautiful creation on Earth.

  Watching as she came back to me and her eyes blinked several times while a slow smile spread across her lips, I knew I’d never be the one to walk away from her, but one day she’d leave me. Her beauty wasn’t enough to heal the damage inside me.

  “I may have been dealing with some pent up sexual tension,” she said as her flushed cheeks darkened. She ducked her head then and laughed softly at herself before leaning forward and resting it on my shoulder.

  Enjoying having her this close and holding her against me, I pressed a kiss to the top of her head and inhaled her coconut scent. “I’m not complaining. It was one of the most erotic things I’ve ever experienced.”

  Ophelia leaned back and looked up at me skeptically. “My humping you like a teenager was erotic?” she asked with a touch of humor.

  I shrugged. “The complete unrestrained pleasure I watched you get lost in was by far the most erotic thing I’ve seen.”

  The corners of her full lips lifted, and she studied me. I saw when her eyes began to go from amused to sultry. When she began to move from her perch on my lap, I wanted to grab her and hold her there but the way she was looking at me I decided to let her do whatever it was she was thinking about.

  She stood up in front of me and started to slide her shorts down her hips then with a little sexy shake they fell to the floor. With a nudge from her foot, she moved them aside. Then she knelt down between my legs and looked up at me with a challenge in her gaze.

  I was afraid to breathe.

  Her hands touched my thighs then she eased them inside until her palms were pressing my inner thighs. With a push, she opened my legs wider then slid her hands up to the snap on my jeans. I was mesmerized as I watched her unzip slowly. That was all she could do without my help. Her gaze lifted back to meet mine and I lifted my hips just enough so she could tug the jeans down along with my boxers.

  She stopped when my now completely rigid cock broke free from its confinement. I wasn’t sure if she was planning on climbing back on my lap or if she had other ideas when her hands curled around the hot sensitive flesh and began to carefully pump it.

  I no longer had to remind myself to breathe. The quick deep intake of oxygen was the first of many. I didn’t want to close my eyes and miss the sight of her hand on my dick. Her long blonde hair resting against my thighs and her breasts brushing the insides of my thighs. My thoughts kept going to her climbing on me again and getting to slide up into her tight wet pussy while she bounced and rocked on me. I throbbed thinking of how amazing it would be to unload inside her like that.

  Just when I was about to tell her to get back on me, her head lowered and before I had time to register what she was doing, the warmth of her breath touched the tip of my cock, her plump lips slid down over it, her slick wet tongue playing along the veins bulging until I felt the head hit her throat. The slight choking sound she made caused all rational thought to fade.

  “FUCK!” I groaned and grabbed her head to hold it there. That didn’t stop her though. Her head began to bob up and down as she wrapped a hand around the base of my dick. The sounds of her sucking were driving me almost as crazy as the feel of it all.

  My head fell back on the sofa and I fought to catch my breath, but Ophelia then sucked hard on my oversensitive head. “GOD! Yes, baby. Suck it,” I encouraged. No other thought able to penetrate. I was gone. Completely in her control. She owned me with her mouth.

  The end of her tongue ran up the side of my erection then she grabbed it again and pumped it before lowering her mouth over it and taking me all the way in again. This time I felt the back of her throat and then some more. She was gagging as she pushed it deeper. Motherfucker she was going to kill me in the best possible way.

  “Holy fuck, baby, that’s it. Take it all,” I growled as I spoke and grabbed her hair to push her farther down. She moaned then and the way the vibration on my dick felt caused me to begin to shake. This was too fucking incredible. I wasn’t ready for it to end, but it was almost there. I didn’t know how much more of the sweet torture I could take before I exploded.

  She began kissing the head then running her tongue around it. I tried to catch my breath, but there wasn’t enough time because she was sucking me in harder this time. Aggressively. As if this excited her. JESUS! That was going to send me over the edge.

  “I’m about to come, baby,” I warned her.

  She became wilder while squeezing the base with her hand as if she was hungry for it. The sight of her taking me into her mouth so desperately was it. I couldn’t take any more.

  “FUCK!!” I roared and just as my release burst free, she moved her head back and used her hand to shoot my load all over her bare chest. My body jerked almost violently as I watched my semen cover her. “GAAAAH!” was my last shout before I fell back onto the sofa gasping for air.

  JUNE 16 / 11:28 AM

  Ophelia Finlay

  THERE WAS A slight part of me that felt guilty for monopolizing Eli’s weekend, but it was very small. I was more selfish than I’d realized. I knew he had to get a job and tomorrow he’d be taking his gran to chemo then staying with her the rest of the day. Still when I mentioned leaving so he could get things done he hadn’t wanted me to go and I didn’t argue.

  After breakfast then sex in the shower, we’d decided to come out and lay on the beach. I needed some sunshine. Being lazy on the sand with Eli sounded perfect. However, we hadn’t been out here long when my brother had called him and said he had a job
he might be interested in. Eli had asked me if I was okay with him leaving to go see what Nate had in mind while Bliss kept me company. Of course, I’d rather be with Eli but if he got a job, then I would stop feeling guilty from keeping him from looking.

  I wanted to ask him about where he had been working before, if he was going back to it, and about where he had been living. But I didn’t because I was scared of the answer. If he said they were holding his job for him or that he’d have a place to live when he returned, that would mean I’d lose him. I knew I should ask. I should be aware of what I was walking into but I’d already leaped right on in and I was in love with Eli.

  It was too soon. I’d have made fun of anyone else that told me they were in love with someone they’d just started seeing this recently. I let myself care without any details on his plans. He didn’t share them and the fool I was I didn’t ask.

  “Are you awake?” he asked me, and I turned my head to the side facing him before I opened my eyes.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Here come Nate and Bliss,” he said, nodding his head in the direction behind me. “I need to go inside and get changed.”

  I was already missing him and he was right here. I knew it wasn’t the short amount of time he was going to be gone today that had me feeling this way but the future. When he’d go. Questions I wouldn’t ask because I was too scared of the answers.

  “Okay,” I said smiling even though my chest felt heavy from the direction of my thoughts.

  He studied me a moment then glanced back at them before asking me, “What’s wrong?”

  I was great at avoiding things but terrible at guarding my facial expressions. “Nothing,” I lied.

  He didn’t look convinced. I couldn’t say I blamed him since that hadn’t sounded entirely convincing.

  “Guy I’m taking you to meet would probably rather you wore a shirt.” Nate’s voice interrupted anything else that could have been said. I was relieved he was here now.

  “Jeans might be nice too,” Bliss added with a teasing lilt to her voice.

  Eli barely glanced at either of them as he continued to study me before he finally stood up. “I was headed in to get dressed,” he said, his tone sounded tense. I hated that I was the reason he wasn’t more welcoming.

  “Do you mind if I join you?” Bliss asked. She was wearing a poppy blue swimsuit with a white see-through cover-up. A beach bag that matched her swimsuit was on her shoulder.

  “I’m happy to have the company,” I assured her. I must have been mimicking Eli’s frown unknowingly.

  She turned toward my brother and went up on her tip toes to kiss him. I glanced away while he slid his hand around her waist. I didn’t want to stare at their little affectionate embrace.

  Eli didn’t come over and kiss me, touch me, or anything for that matter. He simply walked back toward the apartment not even waiting on Nate to follow. I kept my eyes on the waves wishing I didn’t feel so disappointed, or hurt was probably a better way to describe it.

  Eli and I were not what Nate and Bliss were. Comparing the two was unfair. But was my wanting what they had wrong? Couldn’t I want that too? Wanting it with Eli was the biggest issue. He was all I wanted but I knew very little about the past year of his life.

  How dangerously I’d fallen for him without any walls to protect me.

  Bliss took the seat beside me that Eli had vacated. There was a large umbrella between the two chairs but leaning more in my direction than hers. Eli had only mentioned that Nate knew a man who owned restaurants and needed a bartender at the one that was just opened in Pensacola. Eli had a degree in business, but he wasn’t looking for a permanent job. Something he could go and do then leave when the time came.

  The man Nate was referring to was my uncle Cope’s business partner. I didn’t say that to Eli since he hadn’t said anything about who it was and I thought there could be a reason Nate left that out. I figured he’d find out when he got there about the family connection.

  I glanced over at Bliss and at that moment some other force took over my mouth. Because I surprised myself by blurting out, “Do you know where all Eli went and what he did this past year?”

  Bliss seemed a little shocked by my sudden outburst too, but she recovered quickly as a frown formed not only on her mouth but in her eyes. There was worry there and concern. That didn’t make me feel better about anything. This was what happens when you ask questions. You find out things you don’t want to know.

  “No, he’s definitely . . . different,” she paused, and I could see the uncertainty in her eyes. Either she knew something, or she was reluctant to talk about Eli like this. As if their friend code said they couldn’t. I let her think it over and finally she sighed. “I don’t know this Eli. There is . . . there was . . . whatever happened with him this past year was bad.”

  That got my attention. I sat up straighter. She wasn’t going to say something like that and let it go. “Why do you think it was bad?” I probed.

  She looked down at her hands that were clasped together in her lap. “Eli has always been a rule follower, but he has saw the good in everyone. He was positive. He believed in things. He had”—she glanced up at me and said—“hope.”

  I waited as she seemed to think about it some more. Although I hadn’t known Eli that well before, I could see what she was saying. The guy I’d been around a few times had appeared to be all those things.

  “There is a sorrow at times then an emptiness at others when I look at him now. He rarely smiles. He has secrets, Ophelia. I can see them there behind his dark gaze and I love him like my own brothers. I always will no matter how he changes. But I don’t want you hurt.”

  The words “probably a little too late for that” popped in my head.

  “You don’t think the darkness is about his grandmother?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t all of it even if it was some.

  Bliss inhaled deeply then gave me such a sad look my chest ached. “No, I don’t. Eli was the brightest most positive person in my life when I was battling cancer. He never allowed any negativity. He talked about the future like it was a given. That’s the Eli I know. This pain inside him was there before he came back. It had changed him already.”

  I would have to ask him. If I was going to love this man, I needed to know what had changed him. Even if asking him caused me to lose him. The deeper I sank, the harder this would be. How did I love this man so much yet I didn’t completely know him?

  JUNE 20 / 8 AM

  Eli Hardy

  I WAS AWAKE contemplating a run for the first time since Alice’s death when the phone rang. It was early and my mood lightened as I walked over to pick it up from beside the bed where I’d left it charging. The thought of hearing Ophelia’s voice made me hopeful. I’d woken up with my thoughts on her. My dreams had been sweet instead of the nightmare that had once plagued me every time I closed my eyes. She was solely to thank for that even if she didn’t know it.

  The Atlanta phone number that lit up my screen made all the peace vanish as quickly as it had come. In its place came the heaviness that I tried so hard to push back into a dark corner and forget. The number I had deleted from my contacts months ago, but it was burned into my memory. I recognized it. I’d seen it so many times over the past six months.

  That part of my life was over. I had closed the connection. Ended all attempts at trying to understand. There was nothing that could make the truth easier. None of it had been real. It had been a façade and, in the end, taken the only real thing it had given me. My son.

  I ended the call without answering, dropped the phone on the bed this time just as quickly as I had picked it up wanting to get away from the memory. The need to run was now clawing at me in a way it never had. Walking back to the closet, I grabbed the running shorts that had been neglected for so long. Once I had run daily for fitness but the need to run from the demons that I would never be free from pushed me now. The phone call reminding me of what I’d never forget. Choices I c
ould never go back and change.

  I’d come to rely on Ophelia to keep me from getting lost in the horror that haunted me. Ophelia couldn’t always be here when the memories came. She made me feel centered and I was depending on her presence more and more every day. It was unfair to her. I had to find my own salvation from the past. Being with her shouldn’t be based on her easing the pain. I was using her, and I had to find a way to stop. Relying on someone else to cope with anything was unhealthy. The more I told myself this, the deeper my need for her grew.

  The phone rang again. I didn’t move, standing still, unable to look in the direction of the phone I listened to each ring waiting for it to end. When the last ring faded, I exhaled. I didn’t go check the number. I didn’t want to see it. Grabbing my running shoes, I put them on and laced them tightly. Before I was finished with this task, the chime alerting me to a voicemail broke the silence. The pounding in my head began. It was a familiar reaction. I inhaled deeply and exhaled preparing for the sorrow to pull at me.

  When only the bearable ache lingered inside me at the memory, I took another deep breath. It was confusing and almost relieving. My panic had been a habit. Seeing any reminder from my past had always triggered so many emotions I’d expected it to take over like it always had. This time the power of it was weak. The struggle to breathe hadn’t plagued me. I was standing here in my room alone and I was normal.

  Walking over to the phone, confused by the ability to suddenly handle something that normally triggered the pain, I felt stronger. Able to face the memory. No longer hiding from it all but accepting it. I picked up my phone and pressed the voicemail notification. Putting it to my ear, I heard the familiar voice I expected.

  “It’s Annie, but you know that. I have some things of Alice’s you might want . . . and Eli, there is something you also need to see. I can’t make you talk to me. But you need to see this and see the truth. Hating her won’t change the past. She paid for it all with her death. Shit. Whatever. Just call me back.”