No Regrets

by Vivian Ward

  “My, aren’t we turned on?” he rumbled. “Let’s see how wet I can make you.” He tugged my panties down, “I’ve wanted you for so long, babe.”

  He pushed me flat on my back against the mattress, shoving my thighs apart with his knee. I gulped, anticipating what was coming next. He was about to enter me. For the first time in years, I was giving myself to him all over again. He grabbed the base of his throbbing cock, pre-cum was already pooling at the head, lined it up with me and buried himself balls deep.

  Grabbing my hips, he thrust himself into me over and over again as his finger dug into my skin. If my brother did kill us, all the pleasure was worth it. Tilting my hips, I spread my legs wide, giving him full access to me. I wanted every last inch of him inside of me. I reached down to his waist, grabbing the edge of his shirt and tried taking it off.

  “No,” he growled. “The shirt stays on.”

  “Why?” I moaned. I wanted to feel his skin, his chest pressed against my bare breasts that bounced beneath him. “I want to feel you.”

  He sat up, dragged me to the edge of the bed and grabbed a hold of my hips. “Feel this,” he plunged himself deep inside of me.

  My nails dug into his outer thighs as I wrapped my legs tightly around him. Arching his back, he buried himself further into me, thrusting in perfect rhythm. I could feel myself getting close to orgasm.

  “More,” I begged, squeezing my legs around him.

  He switched positions and threw my ankles over his shoulders as he continued to stand at the edge of the bed. With my legs in a perfect “V”, he had prime access to my G-spot. Drilling into me over and over, I couldn’t take it anymore. He didn’t let up until I was cumming and begging him to stop, but he wasn’t finished yet. Pulling my legs around his waist, he repositioned me and gained momentum with a rhythmic pace. I bucked my hips, matching his movements until I felt him beginning to swell inside of me.

  “That’s it, baby. Cum inside me,” I mumbled.

  After recuperating on the bed for several minutes once we were finished, he sat up.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I have to take a leak.”

  I nodded, trying to keep a straight face. I knew what was coming next as I watched him make his way to the bathroom across the dark room. I counted—one, two, three, boom! He went down like a ton of bricks.

  “What the fuck, Stephanie?” he grunted, picking himself up off the floor.

  I couldn’t help it. I busted up laughing. It was so funny! Watching him trip over that tiny fishing wire was the funniest thing I had seen in a long time. I flipped on the light and looked at him lying half-naked on the bathroom floor. “You might want to watch what you’re doing,” I snorted.

  “Ha-ha! Very funny.” He stood up, wiping his hands as he examined the string. “I guess you got your payback from the other night, huh?”

  Chapter 13

  Matt

  The sunlight spilled in through the heavy wooden blinds, waking me earlier than I would have liked. I reached out, feeling the empty spot where Stephanie had been. She hadn’t gone far because I could hear her and Andrew talking. Climbing out of bed I slipped on my pants and made a beeline for the bathroom, checking for any invisible string before I entered.

  Making my way into the kitchen, I could smell bacon and coffee. It was nice and was something I could get used to in the future if everything worked out the way I wanted it to. The two of them sat at the kitchen table, talking while sipping on orange juice. Watching from the doorway, I could tell how much the two of them loved each other and how much she adored him.

  “Mornin’,” I said. Her head whipped around, and she grabbed her chest.

  “You scared me. I wasn’t expecting you to talk,” she laughed. “Want some coffee or juice? Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”

  “Coffee, please.” I looked at Andrew, who was watching me. “How’s it going lil’ man?”

  “It’s Drew,” he corrected me.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. How is your morning Drew?” I glanced at Stephanie as she smiled and shook her head at him.

  “Did you spend the night here?”

  Shit. I didn’t know what to say. Stephanie and I looked at each other for a minute. I decided to let her answer as I slowly sipped my coffee.

  “Andrew, it’s not polite to question grown-ups. Do you want cereal or bacon with French toast?”

  “Cereal,” he rolled his eyes and sighed. “Lucky Charms.”

  Stephanie’s phone started ringing and vibrating on the counter. Her eyes bulged when she looked at the screen, and she put her finger to her mouth, telling me to be quiet. I nodded.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  There was a brief pause before her mouth fell open. “What? Slow down. What do you mean it happened on the boat?”

  My eyes grew with concern as I watched her facial expression. She looked shocked, but I didn’t know why.

  “Okay, sure. I’ll be here,” she hung up the phone.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Lance, he’s on his way here. You’ve got to go,” she chucked my shoes at me. “They were drunk last night, and he fell off the back of the boat while they were on their way to their campsite. The blades from the motor cut up his arm and leg really bad. He was released from the hospital this morning, and they’re bringing him home. They’re not too far away.”

  “Shit,” I scurried to collect my keys and guitar. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “The wounds are really deep,” she hesitated for a moment. “Joe is bringing him. I didn’t know he had gone on the trip, but he said that it almost completely severed his arm and leg.”

  “Damn. Okay, I’m going. Call me if you need anything,” I kissed her. “Bye Andrew. I’ll see you later.”

  I should have known as soon as I got back to the station, the guys were going to lay it on thick and give me shit for being gone all night. Not wanting to hear it, I tried to quietly sneak in, but my guitar hit the railing of the metal banister as I climbed the stairs bringing all eyes on me.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Matt. Say, Matt,” Byron started, “I don’t remember seeing you last night.” He turned his head to Zack, “Did you see him? Was he in his bed?”

  Zack put down his newspaper; a wicked grin crept across his face as he leaned forward. “You know, now that I think about it, I don’t think he was. His bed didn’t even look slept in this morning when we got back from that fire on Burke Street.”

  “I’ll be.” He looked back over at me. “So Matt, where were you last night?”

  “Ha, ha. All right, quit busting my balls. You two are assholes. Real, grade-A, American assholes.”

  Byron grabbed his heart, “Oh, but Matt,” he said in a high-pitched voice, doing a piss poor imitation of a woman. “It hurts my feelings when you call me names.”

  Zack stood up, wrapped his arms around Byron, coddling him. “It’s okay, sweet thang, I’m here for you.” They both puckered their lips, pretending to kiss.

  “Fuck off,” I said to them.

  “White!” That’s when I saw our chief walking around the corner. He’d missed the little duet that the guys had put on, but came out just in time to hear me telling them to fuck off. “Is that how you talk to your brothers?” he pressed his mouth into a hard line as he waited for an answer.

  “Chief, I’m sorry. They were, I didn’t—”

  A dry, laugh bellowed from him as he smiled at me. “I’m bustin’ your balls, White. I heard everything from my office. Maybe your grumpy ass will be a little more bearable now.”

  I shook my head. “You’re all a bunch of assholes. I’m going upstairs to put my stuff away.”

  I was trying to get some shut eye before my shift later that night when the chief came to talk to me.

  “White?” he called my name. “I want to talk to you for a minute.” I rolled over and sat up.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve heard you have a lot going
on. A new lady? With a kid?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who is this lady?”

  “Her name is Stephanie. We dated a long time ago and ran back into each other.” I didn’t see any reason to explain the long, complicated story to him, especially since I was almost asleep.

  “You know; you’ve lived here at the station since you were in training. Now it’s no secret that you’ve hardly been around. I know the other day you barely made it in to show up for your shift. I’m counting on you, son.”

  “I know, Chief. I’m not going to screw it up.” I had a reputation for screwing shit up. From the moment things ended between the two of us, my whole life went to hell in a hand basket. But I had gotten it back under control and now, I was climbing to the top. With her by my side, I knew that I could do anything I set out to achieve. She brought out the good in me, made me stand a little taller, be a little stronger.

  “Make damned sure of that, son. I want you to have this promotion more than anyone else. When it comes time to review your file, I want everyone to see what an excellent recommendation I’ve made, and I want them to recognize your accomplishments.”

  “No problem, Chief. You have my word. Nothing will screw this up. You’ve always had my back, and now I have yours. I won’t let you down.”

  “Good,” he rubbed his chin for a moment. “When do I get to meet this woman? She seems to have quite an effect on you.”

  “Soon. Her son loves firemen; maybe I ’ll invite them up to the station, show him the trucks and our equipment.”

  Chief smiled as he patted my leg. “You do that son. We’ll need more good men like you in the future.”

  Chapter 14

  Stephanie

  Taking care of Lance has been a pain in the ass even though I love him to death. Between trying to juggle my brand new full-time job, a three-year-old, a 33-year-old and myself has been a challenge in itself. I missed this week’s women’s support group meeting, and I’ve barely talked to Susan. I promised that I’d fill her in on my overnight date with Matt, but I haven’t had the chance.

  One thing that’s been bothering me is that Matt doesn’t seem to want me to touch him. He’s fine if I’m just touching his arms, face, neck, and things like that but I’ve never met a man who was so insistent on not letting me put my hands up his shirt or take his shirt off. There’s nothing sexier than scratching up a man’s back or chest, but it seems impossible with him, and I don’t remember him being sensitive about taking off his shirts when we dated.

  The doctors said that my brother will likely need the next three weeks off of work to allow his wounds to heal properly. They were particularly concerned about his leg wound because it looked like it might be starting to get infected. Apparently, your legs don’t receive as good of blood flow as the rest of your body because they’re in your lower extremity and are the farthest from your heart. With his blood supply being somewhat limited in that region, his leg wound was taking a bit longer to heal.

  When I got off work, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some chicken to make for dinner. That was one good thing about Lance being off work; he could watch Andrew for me. It saved me money, and it let them get in some male bonding. While I was getting in line to check out, I saw Susan shopping in the produce section. I got out of line to go over and talk to her.

  “Susan,” I called her name as I approached her.

  “Stephanie! How are you doing? You missed church last night.”

  “I know. I’ve got a lot going on.”

  “Yeah, you still haven’t told me about,” she looked around and swooped in, “your date,” she whispered.

  “It was amazing,” I smiled. “We had dinner, talked, he played the guitar for us and we,” I leaned in, “had sex.”

  Her eyes bulged. “Where?”

  “Lance’s bed,” I laughed.

  “Girl, do you have a death wish? Your brother would KILL you if he found out!”

  “And that’s why you’re not going to say a word. You’re my BFF. I can’t tell anyone else.”

  “When are you two going out again?”

  “I don’t know,” I sighed, rocking the cart back and forth. “I don’t have a babysitter since Lance needs care and my parents have been busy renovating their house.”

  She huffed, “Bring him over to me; I ’ll watch him.”

  “You will? What about—”

  “They’re gone. She and her girls found a place of their own. I’m all by my lonesome.”

  “Really?” hearing that they’d gotten their own place was music to my ears.

  “What? Why do you look so happy?”

  “Susan! If they got a place, that means people are moving on the list. Maybe I got a little bump in there, too. I’d love to get out of Lance’s house—not that I don’t love my brother, but it’d be nice not having to sneak around so much.”

  “What are you going to do if and when—and you know it’s going to happen at some point—your brother, and heaven forbid, Joe, find out about the two of you?”

  “Ugh. I don’t even want to think about it.” I rolled my eyes. As much as I wanted to be with Matt, I wasn’t ready for the fight ahead with my family and Andrew’s father. Any time he came to the house, I tried to avoid him. Ever since their camping trip, he’d been coming around more and more, using Lance as an excuse. He was ‘just checking on his friend’, but I’m not dumb. He was checking up on me. He’d find any reason to insert himself back into my life.

  “Well, whenever you need me to watch him, you just bring him on over. I’ll be home.”

  “Thanks, Susan.” I hugged her. “I better get out of here. I got two hungry boys at home waiting for me.” I turned to walk away but stopped. “I’ll call him to see when he’s got a night off so we can go out.”

  “All right. I’ll holler at you later.”

  On my way home, I called Matt to see what his schedule was like. Just hearing his voice made me excited.

  “Actually, one of the guys is going on vacation all of next week, and we’re short so tonight’s my only night off for the next week and a half.”

  “Tonight?” I had to think fast. It was almost 5:00 and I still had to make dinner, give Andrew a bath and get my things ready for work before I went to bed. “I’ll tell you what, let me grab some fast food real quick and get it dropped off at the house. I can come to the fire station in about an hour. Is that okay?”

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  I picked up some dinner for the boys, packed up some clothes for Andrew and took him over to Susan’s. Lance seemed a little surprised that I was heading out with him since I had work in the morning, but I explained that Susan wanted to catch me up on our meeting notes from this week since I had missed church.

  When I pulled up to the fire station, I found Matt waiting outside as he sat in a fold-up lawn chair by the big bay doors. The sun hit his hair just right, almost making it look blond. He stood and smiled when he saw me pulling in.

  “How’d you manage to get out on such short notice?” he hugged me as I got out of my car.

  “I ran into Susan at the store, and she offered to babysit anytime, so I took her up on it tonight. What do you want to do?”

  “How about dinner in the park?” he produced a cooler from inside the bed of his pickup. “I packed us sandwiches and drinks while I was waiting for you to drive over here.” He looked in the sky, “It’s a beautiful sunset.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  He parked on top of a hill overlooking the rest of the park where the trees were out of view, and we could admire the sunset. I helped him spread out the blanket and unpack our dinner. We were eating our food when he asked me something that I wasn’t ready to answer.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I sipped my tea.

  “I mean, us. What do you want to do about us? Where do you see this in a month, three months, a year?”

  “Right now we’re stuck unt
il I figure out how to tell my family that I’m seeing you again. I can’t do that right now while I’m living with Lance, but I’d like us to get back to what we used to be. We had something good, and I miss it.”

  “Same. I’d like to come home to you and Andrew after a long day of work. Cuddle you in my arms like this,” he grabbed me, pulling me back onto him. “Watch a good movie, tuck him into bed.”

  “I love the sound of that,” I said, leaning up to kiss him. “You’re such a good guy, Matt, and Andrew is crazy about you.”

  “Good.” He squeezed me. “Because I’ve always wanted a family. Actually,” he looked down at me, “we have always wanted a family together. You’ve already started one, but I’d like to add to it.” His hand floated down to my stomach, rubbing my belly. Every butterfly in my stomach stirred when his fingertips touched my skin.

  “I’d like to have more kids when I’m ready. When we’re both ready.” I turned to kiss him as he pulled me closer to him. I traced the muscles on his thick forearms, stopping when I got to the edge of his shirt at his biceps. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Hm?”

  “Why wouldn’t you take your shirt off the other night when we had sex?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he gulped. I couldn’t understand his sudden quietness; he wouldn't even look at me. Lowering my head so that our eyes made contact, I looked up at him in anticipation. He took in a deep breath before looking into the sunset. “Because I didn’t want you to see what I had become. It was a long time ago, and it’s not something I’m proud of.”

  “What do you mean? I’m not following you.”

  “The reason I met you, the whole reason I saw you at the church, it wasn’t by chance. I was at the church because I was going to an AA meeting, and I happened to see you. After you broke up with me, ignored all my calls and vowed never to see me again, I hit rock bottom. I finally bottomed out when I was in a drunken stupor and passed out on a park bench.” His eyes scanned the park; they stopped near a set of trash cans that surrounded the bench seats along a paved path that led to a walking trail. “These boys—three of them—dared each other to set me on fire, so one of them did. I woke up with my torso engulfed in flames. The scars,” he took another deep breath, “they twist and turn. They’re ugly, and I’m ashamed of them, just like my past.”