by A. C. Arthur
He grinned. “I’m definitely down for that.”
“I’ll remember you said that,” she whispered and laced her arms around his neck.
She nuzzled her center right up against his awakening dick, not giving a damn that they were both still fully clothed, just wanting the contact anyway she could get it at the moment and traced her tongue over his lips. Del moved his hands up her back and then down to cup her ass and press her even closer to his length. She sucked his tongue into her mouth and loved the sound of him groaning in response. He grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and forced her to break contact so he could lift it up over her head. His palms immediately cupped her breasts through the fitted t-shirt she wore beneath and she arched her back to give him unfettered access.
“You have great hands,” she told him.
“You have great breasts,” he replied.
She chuckled and moved in for another kiss. Their tongues dueled like long lost friends and her fingers gripped his shoulders. She was so ready to rip all his clothes off and ride him on this couch until they both exploded with pleasure. But a beeping sound, followed by a door opening and an unmistakable, “Oh shit!” interrupted them.
11
Del returned to the living room after walking Rylan upstairs to his bedroom and leaving her there. The television was still on. The trays with their empty plates of food and glasses still sitting in front of the couch. Lance stood by the window staring out into the evening.
“Guess I should give your key back,” Lance said when he turned to face Del.
Del picked up the remote and turned the television off.
“I’m not usually in my living room about to have sex with a woman,” he snapped before moving to the tables and gathering the places and glasses.
He heard Lance folding the tables as he walked into the kitchen. A few seconds later, Lance was in the kitchen too.
“So, you and Rylan, huh?”
Del closed the dishwasher after putting the dishes inside.
“Is that a problem for you?”
Lance shrugged. “Nah, not me. But what about Camy?”
Del didn’t pretend he hadn’t thought about how his sister would feel about him sleeping with her best friend. But truthfully, he hadn’t given it a whole lot of consideration either. He and Rylan were adults, they could do whatever they wanted.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” he said but noted how hollow and dishonest the words sounded to his ears.
“You said the same thing about Shannen,” Lance said.
Del shook his head. “Don’t do that!”
Lance didn’t flinch at his brother’s raised voice.
“You don’t know anything,” Del said. “You always think you do, but you don’t. First, you want to tell me how I should feel about how things went down in D.C. and what I should and shouldn’t feel guilty about. And now, you’re here talking about who I should and shouldn’t sleep with. There’s no comparison to Shannen. None. At. All.”
When he was finished Del had headed out of the kitchen, but he stopped when only silence followed.
“Shannen should’ve never happened.” Those very true and still awkwardly painful words came quietly. He didn’t turn back to Lance because he didn’t want to look into a face similar to his own and talk about the worst time in his life. Not again. “And this thing with Rylan, it wasn’t supposed to happen either. But I feel like this is different, man. I can’t explain it, but it just is.”
“Then go for it,” Lance told him. “If it feels like something you should pursue, then do it. But don’t lie to yourself in the process. That’s not going to end well for either of you.”
Lance pushed past Del at that moment.
As he walked away, he told his brother, “I’ll ring the bell first from now on.”
Del didn’t respond. He knew that Lance was right. He also knew that there wasn’t much he could do about it. After locking up the house, Del headed upstairs. He wasn’t sure what Rylan’s reaction to what had just happened was going to be, but he knew that he would have to address it. Today had been a hell of a day, and each time he’d thought things were getting a little brighter a big fat monkey wrench was tossed into his plan.
She was sitting in his recliner, one leg crossed over the other, flipping pages in one of his photo albums. And she looked as if she lived there. Like they shared this room and this was part of her normal evening routine. He shook his head at how surprisingly good that thought made him feel and walked further into the room.
“Sorry about that,” he murmured and sat on the edge of his bed. “We all have keys to each other’s houses.”
Rylan let her hand rest on the album and nodded. “I know. Camy insists that she always knocks or rings the doorbell first because her eyes wouldn’t be able to stand what she might see if she didn’t.” Ryland laughed. “I’m almost glad it was Lance that decided to stop by instead of her or you might be responsible for blinding your sister.”
He was glad she could laugh about this. Come to think of it, he never really recalled seeing Rylan overly upset about anything. She had a very relaxed and confident personality, one that Del knew for certain had rubbed off on Camy. Well, at least the confident part had. Camy could still go off like a firecracker at any given moment. He wondered how she would react if he told her everything.
“Well, Lance is cool with this. I mean, his eyes certainly aren’t going to suffer. He’s seen far worse than what he walked in on,” Del told her.
“I’m sure both of you have in the line of work you used to be in. Look, Del, I know we didn’t plan for this…ah, this…thing between us. And I can totally understand if your intention was to keep it under wraps.”
“Stop,” he told her and held up a hand just in case she didn’t follow his word. “No, we didn’t plan for this. But I’m absolutely not embarrassed by it.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Before I left the DEA, I was involved with a woman,” he started.
Rylan sat back in the chair and closed the photo album slowly.
“She was a confidential informant, so I should’ve steered clear from her, but I didn’t. I also didn’t tell anyone I was seeing her. Not just because I could’ve lost my job, but because I felt uncomfortable being with a person who sold drugs, especially in my situation. But when I learned that she was selling drugs to pay for the nursing home where her mom lived, I thought differently of her.” He ran his hands down his face. “Anyway, things went south on a raid and she was killed. I blamed myself for not being able to protect her and for not being more sensitive to what she may’ve needed out of our relationship.
“That’s not what I’m doing here, Rylan. You’re right, we haven’t discussed what this is between us and I guess we should at some point. But I really need you to know that I could never be embarrassed by you.” He meant those words with everything that he was.
She sighed heavily. “That’s good to hear.”
Her words may have sounded nice, but he didn’t like how she looked when she’d said them. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she told him. “You have no idea how hard it is growing up in the shadow of a beauty pageant winning sister and a gorgeous and vivacious best friend. Sometimes I feel like I get lost between the two of them. But as I grew older, I realized that wasn’t really the case. Everybody has their own cross to bear and light to shine. Mine is in the auto mechanic business, that’s why I’m fighting so hard to keep my dad’s shop.”
Del could only stare at her for a few seconds. The woman that she’d grown into amazed him.
“Your dad’s losing the auto shop? I can’t imagine that place not being there,” he said. Up until a few days ago he may not have visited it much, but Kent Automotive was a landmark fixture on the corner of Maple and Valley Roads.
“Me either. Between there and your mom’s house, I don’t know which place I stayed at most as a child. But he and my mom are divorcing and, in the drama-filled
back and forth that comes from a decades’ old relationship, the body shop has become the bone that each want to claim.”
He was a bit confused by the logic of that scenario. “Your mother never struck me as the body shop type.”
“Oh, she’s not,” Rylan continued. “She’s the money type. Her and Naomi, hence Naomi’s NBA player fiancé.”
Del nodded. He could definitely see that in Naomi’s personality, which is why none of the guys he knew had ever thought about asking her out. Naomi Kent had made it perfectly clear from around the time that she was thirteen years old that there would never be a guy in Providence that was good enough for her. Rylan was nothing like her sister or her mother, for that matter. She was unique.
“I guess we’ve both got baggage and are damaged in our own ways,” he said and stood. “There’s only one solution for that.”
He held out a hand to her. She looked at that hand and then pushed the photo album off her lap to rest in the side of the chair before she put her hand in his and stood.
“What’s the solution?”
“We do whatever it takes to make each other feel good, for as long as we possibly can,” he said bringing her hand up to kiss each one of her fingers.
She tilted her head, until her ponytail did this flopping thing that was together child-like and alluring.
“I think I can co-sign that,” she said and stepped closer until he wrapped his arms around her waist.
She could co-sign and she could ride.
It had only taken a few minutes for both of them to get naked and less time than that for Rylan to sit on the edge of the bed and take his heavy length between her hands. Del’s whole body tensed. He could do nothing but stare down at her as he held the condom packet in his hand. She was looking at his dick as if it had been part of the meal they’d purchased from Margie’s and he swore he’d never seen anything sexier.
“Put it on,” he told her, practically thrusting the condom in front of her face.
He was afraid that with her holding him the way she was and staring at him the way she did, that he would come in her hand at any second totally embarrassing himself.
But she shook her head.
“Not yet.”
She licked her lips and parted them, leaning forward to touch them to the tip of his dick before Del could even blink.
“Fuck!” He moaned as pleasure shot through his body like lightening with the touch of her tongue.Her mouth was so freakin’ hot, her slim fingers so damn strong as she gripped him at the base and stroked upward while her mouth covered him. She moved fast, as if she thought he might stop her before she could finish. It was a fleeting thought in Del’s mind, but he was afraid he might actually be paralyzed at the moment. He watched as her cheeks hollowed and she took long drags on his dick. She bobbed her head, one hand moving to his heavy sac, kneading until he could see starbursts behind his closed eyes.
His hands went to her hair, fingers pushed with pressure until that infernal ban slipped off and her hair was finally freed. Del raked his fingers over her scalp, gripping her soft hair in his fingers and hold tight as he started to pump with the ministrations of her mouth. His breathing was frantic as her mouth made a loud sucking sound over his rigid length. He pumped faster, she sucked harder. He was going to come. She wasn’t stopping. He couldn’t do it. Not to Rylan. But damn, how he wanted to. And if she didn’t get her mouth off him, he certainly was going to blow.
With all the strength he possessed at the moment, he pushed Rylan’s head away and stepped back.
“Put. It. On. Now,” he said through clenched teeth without chancing another look down at her.
He knew her lips would be swollen and wet, just as his dick was still rock hard and probably glistening from her mouth. He needed to get inside her as soon as possible. Relief flashed through him as he heard her tearing the condom packet and felt her fingers on him once more, this time sheathing him. Del was about to push her back on the bed, but Rylan moved fast. She stood, wrapping her arms around his neck and then turned them both until Del fell back on the bed and she landed on top of him.
“Tricky.” He grinned while looking up into her warm brown eyes.
She licked her lips. “You have no idea.”
And with that she straddled him, reaching between their bodies to grab his dick and guide him inside of her. When she sat atop him, acclimating to his depth, Del thought he’d died and gone to heaven. She looked like an African goddess sitting atop him with her gold and black hair and heavenly body. Then she began to move. Slow, tortuous movements at first before picking up her pace.
Del grasped her hips, holding on tightly as he lifted up from the bed to meet her pumps with his thrusts. They were loud, her screams, his moans, the slapping of their bodies. Loud and boisterous and the best he’d ever had.
Her legs trembled first and Del watched as her release claimed her.
“Beautiful,” he whispered knowing he’d never seen anything like Rylan before.
She collapsed over him and Del wrapped her in his arms. He rolled them over and began moving slowly in and out of her. She’d wrapped her legs around his waist and buried her face in his neck, her blunt-tipped nails pressing into his back. He moved methodically, loving the smooth and easy stroking and the undeniable build of desire trailing up his spine.
Had it ever been like this before?
No. Not even with Shannen.
But this wasn’t Shannen. There were no secrets between him and Rylan. They’d known each other too long for that. She was with him because she wanted to be, not because she needed him to save her. Hell, after tonight, Del felt like Rylan might actually be saving him.
He didn’t know what to do with that thought so he pumped faster, lost himself in her heated flesh and the tight suction of her muscles contracting once again around his length. He groaned, hugging her so tight to him he feared he might cause physical damage. His release exploded from him, jerking his mind and his thoughts until he was confused and blinded by any coherent thought. All he could think about was Rylan and how she’d changed everything he’d thought he was supposed to be doing with his life at this moment.
All he could think about was staying safely inside of her, enjoying her…loving… Del pulled back at that second. He looked down into her passion-riddled gaze and couldn’t figure out what to say. And because there were no words, he simply kissed her.
“You know we need to get a life when all we can think of to do on a Friday night is to go the bar where we know every guy that’s going to be there and none of them are prospects,” Camy said.
Rylan didn’t respond but pulled into the parking lot and cut the engine.
“Oh, I forgot, you’ve already got a guy to go home to,” Camy continued before reaching over to pinch Rylan’s arm.
“Ow! What did I do?” Rylan whined.
“You’re getting laid on the regular and I’m forced to keep batteries on hand for Mr. Morris and me to share our love,” she said and climbed out of the car.
Rylan got out and slammed the door. Mr. Morris was what Camy had named her high-powered vibrator. It was after her movie-star crush Morris Chestnut and quite frankly was keeping Camy company for a few months before Rylan and Del hooked up. But Rylan wasn’t going to remind her of that fact.
“And besides, it hasn’t been really on a regular. We’ve had a few new vehicles down at the shop so the last few days I’ve been working pretty late. And Del’s been on the night shift at the bar and by the time he gets off I’m already asleep so he doesn’t come over and—”
“You can stop now,” Camy said. “Just because I’m cool with you bumping uglies with my brother, doesn’t mean I want to hear the gory details.”
Rylan grinned because she hadn’t begun to give Camy details about her and Del’s amazing sex life. Instead, she held the door to the bar open and smiled sweetly at Camy as she said, “You used to always beg for details.”
Camy made a yuck face and walked into the bar le
aving Rylan standing out in the cold.
Chuckling, Rylan headed in behind her. They eased through the Friday night crowd, making their way to two vacant seats all the way at the end of the bar. Rylan removed her coat and crossed her purse over her chest. Camy had been texting her all day trying to figure out what they were going to do tonight. When they finally settled on coming to the bar for drinks and nachos, Rylan left work and raced home to change. No way was she showing up at the bar—where she knew Del was going to be—dressed in dirty old jeans and an even dirtier sweatshirt because everything from oil to antifreeze had spilled on her today.
The bar was really jumping tonight. All of the television sets were going, Ethan and Lance were behind the bar taking care of drink orders, there was a group in the Bullpen and the rope had been removed from the steps, so there was an event going on upstairs as well. The crowd made her smile because that meant Del and his brothers were doing good business. Rylan knew this place was important to them and she couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride at knowing the great guys who’d brought this idea to life.
“Hey Slick!” Rock said coming up behind her, clapping a hand on her shoulder.
Rylan leaned into his light embrace. “Hey yourself. Things are looking good in here.”
“Yeah, but then you two came in,” he joked.
Camy gave him the finger and continued to study the menu.
“She loves me,” Rock told Rylan.
Rylan wasn’t so sure about that. Camy and Rock always did have a love/hate relationship.
“What’s good on the grill tonight, Rock?” Rylan asked. “Jeret cooking up anything special?”
When the restaurant first opened, Jeret insisted that his experience only went as far as the four months he was a short order cook in Montana. As far as Rylan knew, nobody had ever figured out what Jeret was doing in Montana. And Jeret wasn’t the type of guy a person just rattled off questions to. Not if that person expected to live.
“He’s got some type of sausage wrap he’s been bragging about. I’ve seen a few people ordering it and when I went back around to check on them, their plates were clean and they said it was good. But I haven’t tasted it myself. Trying to cut back on my meat intake,” Rock told her.
