by Snow, Nicole
My blood runs ten degrees hotter, my cock pulsing in time with the flutter of her pulse against her throat, and I lean in, drawn by her magnetism.
We hold each other’s eyes in tense silence.
We haven’t had a minute alone. Not with packing and getting the fuck out of dodge with Em always around, and the last time we kissed was a quick stolen thing while I was busy swapping the plates on the Wrangler with a loaner pair from Landon, just in case the Pilgrims had mine.
Liv’s somehow become such a deep part of me that just a few days without her leaves me feeling like I can’t breathe, but now those parted, soft lips are offering the very air I need.
But even as I lean closer, Liv breaks back, snapping the trembling thread between us. With a reluctant smile, she pats my arm, glancing over her shoulder. “We should behave. Em might walk in.”
Right. Reluctantly, my chest heaves, and I sink back against the couch while Liv puts a little more distance between us, curling up in the corner of the couch and hugging a throw pillow to her chest.
I have to figure out what I’m doing here. I have to talk to her about what we’re doing, if this is going somewhere. If it’s just a dalliance for as long as this assignment lasts or if Liv wants a permanent place in my life. In our lives, I should say.
Fuck. I can’t keep sneaking around Em like this, but I’m not risking more chaos in my daughter’s life.
It would kill her if I told her Liv was staying, that Liv and I were together, only for Liv to suddenly just up and leave.
Leave, just like Crystal.
I tilt my head against the back of the couch, looking up at the crossed beams in the ceiling, and drag my mind back on track. “So, you going to tell me what I’m not understanding about my own daughter?”
“Mm. It’s about girls in general.” Liv hugs the pillow tighter and looks away, into the fireplace, the flames flickering in her eyes in flashes of gold on blue. “One day, boys are just kids we play with like everyone else...and the next we’re told they could be boyfriends, lovers, husbands. Even heartbreakers. They’re going to touch our bodies. They might hurt us, too. Boys can bring heaven or hell, and there's no way of knowing which one it'll be until you're up close and personal. Two worlds colliding. We’re told everything men do means something, mysterious as ever. And the only way we’ll decode it is to act this way and dress that way and do this little dance of enticement, flirting, loving.”
I stroke her arm, loving how thoughtful she seems. Her voice is soft, melancholy, her face half-hidden by the pillow by now, voice muffled. “It just...changes how we think about ourselves. It changes how we think about the men in our lives, and how safe it is to talk to them when they might speak this weird boy language we have no idea about, too.” I can’t see her mouth, but I can still hear the bitter smile in her voice. “Including our fathers.”
I want to say it’s not true. I want to say that won’t happen for Em, but can I really?
“I never wanted it to be that way with Em,” I whisper. “Never wanted that kind of thing to hold her back from being who she is.”
“And you did great with that. But now...” Her gaze shifts to me, something dark and hurting in her eyes, old and buried deep but slowly rising to the surface. “You can’t control how other people around her influence her, Riker. You can help, but it's hers to find out. At her age, she’s probably dealing with it right now. All her peers suddenly focused on this crazy boy-girl dynamic, making her painfully aware of this imaginary difference between how we think and who we are.”
I wonder at Liv when she was Em’s age, now. Wonder at her life, her father, and the pressures placed on her to be just this way or that, to fit herself into the tidy little box her old man had already chosen for her long before she was even old enough to recognize the walls closing in.
I hate thinking of any walls closing in on Em, too. Knowing the only thing I can do is teach her to be strong enough and proud enough and certain enough to push those walls back until they break.
I just don’t know if I can do it alone. Suddenly I'm realizing something insane.
Em may need Liv just as much as I do.
A woman who sees the things I can’t, who knows everything I thought I knew but now I’m not so sure of. A friend who can tell her where the weak points in those walls are.
And someone who'll show her just where to strike to send them crashing down.
But Liv is quiet now, her lashes trembling, and even with Em just in the other room, I can’t just leave her like this. I offer my hand, beckoning.
“You sound sad,” I say.
“It’s just something I think about sometimes. Heavy stuff.” She takes my hand, hers soft against mine, small and slim and sweet, and after a moment she uncurls to tuck herself against my side again, nestling her head to my shoulder. “That’s why I like you, though. You see me as a woman, but you don’t treat me like this alien outsider. You don't lay on burdens. You don’t expect games, and you don’t play them with me. You read me well, and you let me do the same.”
Fuck. That hits somewhere strange and deep.
I smile, rubbing her wrist. “Damn. Always thought I had this walled-off thing down.”
“You're closed, but not enigmatic. That means a lot, Riker.” She smiles, resting her chin on my shoulder, the tip of her nose nuzzling my jaw. “Or maybe I just speak your language.”
I know it’s not the right time for it, but I want to distract her from that ache in her eyes, to see the light come back to her smile.
Without stopping, I lean down and kiss her. Just a slow, soft collision, a melding, yet somehow I want to tell her through the kiss that I’m here. That I don’t need her to squeeze herself into a box, that I don’t need her to restrict herself or to be some imaginary person some strange, archaic rules tell her she should be.
I just need her to be herself.
As our mouths part, I nip her upper lip, teasing gently, before whispering, “What language am I speaking right now?”
Her eyes glitter warmly, and a gentle understanding I don’t need words to decipher spills out. Maybe if there’s some coded language between us, it’s one only we know.
One only we understand.
“Something I can’t say out loud with Em in the other room,” she teases, then pulls away, tugging at my arm to pull me off the couch. “C’mon. Help me start dinner.”
“Wait,” I say, catching her hand. “I know we just got here, but…how do you feel about another trip into town?”
* * *
Sometimes, I don't know what the hell I’m doing until I’m already doing it.
And I’m not sure what’s bugging me until I’m parking the Wrangler outside a Bed, Bath, and Beyond in Yosemite, and staring in through the brightly lit windows at the displays.
This late, we only have an hour until closing. I probably should've put this whim off until morning, but fuck.
I don’t want to spend another night in a house haunted by ghosts.
“Dad?” Em asks. “What are we doing?”
“We're...” I fumble for an excuse. “The house smells a little musty. Don’t want anyone getting sick. Figured we should replace all the linens, and that’s a good opportunity to redecorate, right?”
Em perks. “Can we do blue?”
“Sure,” I say, watching her fondly in the rear view mirror as she scrambles for the door. “Blue sounds great.”
Liv watches me knowingly, then smiles and reaches over to touch my arm. “It doesn’t smell musty in there at all.”
I glance at her, grateful for her understanding. “Old then, maybe. You know what I mean. Why don’t you and Em have some fun? Do whatever you want. Redecorate the place. Buy anything you need.”
Her eyes glint. “That, sir, is a dangerous proposition.” With Em looking away, Liv leans in and steals a kiss to my cheek, then tugs at my arm. “Come on.”
I follow my girls inside. From there it’s a total circus – and I think the shop staff
would hate us with every fiber of their being for showing up this late, if we weren’t buying so much.
I’m just along for the ride, while Em and Liv patter back and forth with everything from curtains to bedding to knick-knacks for the shelves. There’s just something about seeing them together – how well they get along, how effortlessly they blend – that puts wicked thoughts in my head.
Ideas about family and impossible forevers that shouldn't be there.
It’s worth every penny of the huge amount we spend in the store to see them like this.
Back at the cabin, though, it’s all hands on deck.
I join in, stripping down the bedding, putting up new curtains, laying out new throws and pillows on the couch, lining up decorations along the fireplace mantle.
By the time we’re done, it looks like somewhere different. Never erasing the memories steeped into the wood grain walls, but simply quieting them to make room for something new. Something brighter, breezier, without pain and loss haunting every corner. It feels right, I realize, as I collapse onto the couch in an exhausted heap next to my tired but very satisfied girls.
It feels like home.
* * *
With the whole place redecorated, it’s surprising how well we settle into cabin life.
After a day or two of tension, constantly on the lookout for intruders, I start to feel safe letting Liv and Em go hiking as long as they promise to stay out of sight of the road and promise to come back if they spot other people – no matter how friendly they seem.
I’ve taken my own precautions, with weapons strategically stashed both inside and outside. Unloaded, of course. I’m not having a loaded gun around my daughter unless it’s holstered on my person, and you’d better believe my ankle holster is strapped at all times, but there's always a hidden magazine close by.
We might be enjoying ourselves playing house.
The days drag on, shorter as the season burns away and the sun sets sooner.
Em makes a few new friends on our family hikes and shopping runs, local kids who hang around a park playground with their parents on the edge of town. You'd better believe I run a background check on all of them.
It takes three weeks before I let her go off bowling with Juanita McReynolds for a couple hours, and that's only because the girl's old man, Ken, retired from NORAD last year and doesn't have so much as a speeding ticket on record.
I'll pick her up soon. That leaves Liv and me blissfully alone, her humming this soft, seductive tune to herself when I come back to the cabin and find her in the kitchen.
She's just pulled a huckleberry pie out of the oven and placed it on the cooling rack.
It's a dangerous thing seeing her bent over, then turning around with a perky little smile and a sunbeam in her eyes that tells me she's glad to see me.
Dangerous, because for the past few weeks, we've barely had a chance to sneak out to my truck long after Em's asleep. We've had to fuck quickly, quietly, more like satisfying a savage animal reflex than taking the time lovers should to explore, to savor, to own.
The second we're alone, I'm not the Riker she thought she knew.
I'm more man than beast.
I need her the fuck under me now.
“Liv,” I growl her name, nipping at her ear, then trail teeth and tongue down her throat until she gives up that sweetness, that whimper I need to safeguard my own sanity. “Still can't fathom what you do to me, can you?”
She shakes her head, shy as ever. Consider me slayed.
Something about her adorable aloofness just makes me throb that much harder.
“Bedroom, woman. Now.” I lead her by the hand in a headlong rush.
We tumble into the darkness together, barely pausing long enough to switch on a lamp. I can't take this a second longer, so I push her onto the bed, hiking up the knee-high skirt she's had on since morning. “Riker...yes.”
Fuck, do I love my name when she announces it in that breathy half-moan.
Still, it's just half the reason I growl my approval in her ear, careful to rake my stubble against her skin. The rest has to do with what I'm ready to tear off her body with my bare hands, that flimsy skirt hugging her far too fuckable hips.
“This, sweetheart, I like. Want you wearing a whole lot more of these things. Going to buy you a whole damn new wardrobe if I have to for easy access.” I'm fisting her skirt, pulling it up over her waist, meaning every word.
A soft, longing sigh slips out of her heart shaped lips.
Lucky for me, she's done me one better than the skirt. I'm expecting to find something lace up under it, inviting me to tear it right off, but instead my fingers brush her soft, bare pussy. Already slick and wet for every inch of me.
Fuck.
“Tell me you weren't commando all morning?” I smile, push my forehead into hers, unable to resist when I catch the spark of mischief in her eyes.
“Only if you tell me you aren't hard?”
Like hell.
She's too adorable, expecting me to form coherent words when I'm hard as granite.
I can't even think, let alone remember how to talk. My hands go to my belt, undoing it, loving how she opens her legs before my belt is undone.
I need to fuck this girl. I need it bad. I need it because her black magic is turning every part of me inside out.
I also need to get a damn grip again. Time to remind her who's really in control.
That's why I drop to my knees, push her thighs apart, and ignore how sweet she moans my name again.
“Riker. Oh, God!”
That's what I hear echoing in my head when I hold her tight and move on her.
First Liv gets my breath, my lips, my tongue. My mouth works her swollen little pussy up and down, pushing her straight to the brink, knotting her up in that way I know she likes when she writhes, my licks fucking deeper in her folds.
She's tiny as ever. So delicate.
So small and tight and mine.
I savor every ripple, every taste, every low murmur in her throat when she begs for my cock. She does it wordlessly, bobbing her hips, her whole body wracked in a breathy swoon.
I'm so fucking hard it hurts. My dick jerks, my balls in full meltdown, seething like never before to empty their steaming contents deep, deep inside her.
So damn deep she screams.
But she's not ready for me. Not yet. I know this little pussy, and it needs to be trained to take me to her full, wonderful depths when I go hard.
So I take full advantage while she's like this. Turned over, thighs pushed apart, lush ass in my face, snarling as I drive my tongue deeper into her tight heat.
Deeper, faster, harder into everything I've claimed.
Everything I'll never give up
Come for me sweetheart, I think with a growl. Come until it hurts real good on my tongue.
Exactly eight seconds later, after I've sucked her throbbing clit between my teeth and smothered it with the tip of my tongue, she does.
My woman comes like the world's brightest, hottest, best firecracker.
Just a mess of flailing limbs and choked moans and convulsions. Face pressed into the mattress. Ass shaking, my hands holding her back on my face, demanding more, every ripple of her body for my tongue.
Liv comes beautiful for me while I eat her cunt alive.
When her gasping, mewling mess of an O finishes, I can't even see straight.
That goes double for her, so I rise, dick in hand, pushing my weight onto the bed. Her legs are still open, the backs of her thighs calling like two dangerous, flushed sirens.
I'm fisting her hair when I push in, mounting her from behind. Something feral leaves my throat the instant I'm engulfed in her heat.
“Gotta make the most of our alone time, gorgeous. Think you can come a few more times for me before we get Em?”
Liv makes a muffled sound into the sheets, but there's no mistaking it.
She's all heat. All want. All fiery, screaming need for my thrusts.
“Yes, Riker. Holy hell, yes...”
Holy hell. Must be one of her favorite terms, and it couldn't be more perfect when I throw my hips into hers.
We crash together frantically, all smoldering flesh and fire between her legs. I'm on her like a bolt in the night.
I slow my thrusts a few strokes in, marveling how bad she wants it.
Her sweet little ass rocks back against me, grinding every time she swings low, savoring the friction of my balls on her clit.
“Holy hell. Yeah, sweetheart,” I echo back. “Fuck me like you really want it. This is you.”
I add a crisp palm when she bends into me again and slow my thrusts. My hand flies over her ass cheek, leaving another apple blossom red mark, and I know she likes it rough because that gets her moving. She smacks back into me; faster, louder, harder.
I should feel like a dirty old man.
Here I am, with a woman almost half my age and millions richer, riding every inch of Riker Woods like it's what she was made for. And I'm holding back like a champ, barely keeping the fire in my balls from burning us both down.
Her pussy starts tensing on my dick before I give in.
Then I fucking bring it.
Melting. Snarling. Grinding. Thrusting.
Owning her from the inside out.
I level myself into her with powerful, long strokes that bring her over the edge. Her well tongued pussy opens nice and deep, accommodating my fullness, sinking to her depths.
It shouldn't be possible, but it is.
Liv comes even sweeter for me the second time. I'll never forget it as long as I live, her blonde hair gone amber gold in the dull light, our bed creaking like mad, this lunatic tempo between us that's only broken when her O hits so hard her limbs go rigid and still.
I hold her up anyway. Spread her legs apart. Push one hand between her legs and frig her clit wild while I hammer twice as hard, balls deep, one frantic fuck after the next through her convulsions.
Holy hell indeed.
Now here's the weird part – there's nothing dirty or old or wrong about this.
