by ANDREA SMITH
“Thanks again for the lift, Trace.”
My eyes lowered to his very stiff hard-on, then flickered upward to his face. I gave him a wink then turned towards the house.
I traipsed up the sidewalk to the front door, trying to make sure his too large sweats didn’t fall to my ankles while I wore the only shoes I had: my four-inch heels from the wedding.
I could feel his gaze burning a hole through my backside.
Mission accomplished.
CHAPTER 3
(Taz)
Jesus Christ! What was that about?
The whole way back to my place I tried like hell to push the vision, the feel, and the scent of Lindsey from my mind. My hard-on was making that very difficult to accomplish.
What had she been thinking coming on to me like that right there in the front yard of her home?
Shit!
Her grandparents had probably been watching out the window. They probably thought she had spent the night with me. Technically, she had, but not in the way that their dirty minds were playing it. Hell, they were probably grilling her right now about it.
Then there was the matter of Slate.
He was like a brother to me but I knew damn well he wouldn’t appreciate me so much as thinking the wrong thoughts where Lindsey was concerned. He was taking this whole step-parent thing very seriously.
I thought back to the previous night when I had to strip her naked to get her into the shower and clean her up. I was thankful in her drunken state she hadn’t seen just how hard my cock had been for her then.
Geez!
I imagined she was getting plenty of that college cock being the way she looked. Perky little ass, nice full tits, her pussy shaved except for a narrow little landing strip at the crack.
I knew what I had wanted to land there last night. I thought about my tongue tracing that landing strip and then going into a full dive.
Stop it, Taz my inner voice said. Despite the difference in age, she is not your type of chick.
She eventually would settle down with a nine-to-fiver that left for work in an Armani suit every morning, played golf on weekends at the club, and gave her suburban sex two to three nights a week.
I chuckled out loud as I pulled my truck into the garage at home. Little Miss Co-ed would definitely not be in to the type of play that I enjoyed. Not one little bit. Still, it might be fun to have a tussle with her just once to teach her a lesson about randomly kissing a dude she knows nothing about.
I needed to brush all thoughts of sweet, sexy little Lindsey from my mind. I had three chapters to study this afternoon for a major exam tomorrow night at school. I hadn’t cracked a book in several days. It wasn’t like me to backburner my studies. They were important. They were going to get me where I wanted to be within the agency.
As I came around the side of the house from the backyard to the front porch, I suddenly realized I wouldn’t be cracking that book for at least a couple of hours.
“Hey, Taz,” Roxie greeted me, perched up on the railing of the porch seductively. “I was beginning to think you’d never get home. Rough night?”
“Nothing I couldn’t handle, babe,” I said giving her a smile.
Oh yeah. The timing is perfect.
I had been fighting off this hard-on since Lindsey had kissed me and pressed that sexy little body of hers up against me.
I unlocked the door, and Roxie followed me inside.
She was the perfect chick for me. There was nothing high maintenance about Roxie. She worked as a nail technician at the mall. She loved sex of any caliber. She didn’t whine about where “this or that” was going, or when I was going to call next. We just took it as it came.
Roxy was a few years older than me. She was probably around the same age as Slate. I had known her since right before I graduated from the academy in Quantico, which was five years ago. We had met at a night club called “Run Amuck” in Quantico. Roxy had a thing for “G-Men” as she called us.
Slate had done her first. Naturally all the chicks gravitated to Slate with his dark, rugged looks. They liked his swagger is how Roxie explained it to me.
Whatever.
After that, Slate wanted no part of her. He claimed she “howled” like a coyote when she came, and it drove him nuts. I had no particular problem with that, being as vocal as I tend to be. In fact, I kind of like novelty shit like that.
I met up with her a couple of weeks after that at the club. We drank, danced a bit and then headed to her place. I typically don’t like chicks knowing where I crash until I’m certain they aren’t bona fide sociopaths. I’ve had my share of run-ins with crazy bitches that like to stalk.
Roxie and I had pulled a pretty interesting all-nighter at her place. The howling wasn’t enough to turn me off. I liked the assortment of toys she liked to bring to the bed. I made damn sure none of them went into me though. I don’t take those kinds of risks with my health.
Roxie loved the fact that my cock had never been circumcised. She said it had a more threatening look to it that way. She sure as hell knew how to suck it. She was a swallower too, which always takes a chick up a couple of notches in my book.
I looked at her now, taking her jacket off and tossing it on the chair in the living room. She wasn’t half as sexy as Lindsey, but she would do.
“Ready?” I asked as I kicked my shoes off onto the living room floor.
She nodded and followed behind me to my bedroom. I hadn’t bothered to make up my bed yet.
The sheets, blankets and bedspread were still all tangled in knots from my restless night. I hadn’t been able to get the vision of Lindsey out of my mind after I had tucked her safely away in the guest room.
I must have debated for an hour as to whether I should creep in to where she was sleeping to check on her.
Hell, I knew if I did that I would have been hard pressed to leave it at that. I would have been sorely tempted to crawl under the sheets with her and fuck her like she’d never been fucked before.
I was pulling my tee shirt up over my head.
“Did you bring your toys?” I asked Roxie.
“Of course,” she said, giving me one of her naughty little smiles. “You know I don’t leave home without them, Taz.”
“Let’s get to it then,” I said smiling, pulling Roxie over to stand before me next to the bed. I was going to get this blasted hard-on relieved one way or the other.
“There is one thing you need to know, babe,” I said, as she was slipping out of her tight jeans.
She stood there, tall, slender with coal black hair that fell to her waist looking at me.
“What is it, Taz?”
“I am going to thoroughly fuck you this afternoon. Just so you know, I will be thinking about someone else when I do.”
She shrugged and nodded.
I knew she would be okay with it. I felt she needed to be forewarned though since I get pretty vocal when I’m fucking a chick.
She finished unpacking her leather satchel of toys we used, while I pulled several condom packets out of my nightstand drawer.
Oh yeah; my studies were definitely going to be temporarily delayed this afternoon.
CHAPTER 4
I had just finished classes for the afternoon and was on my way back to the apartment I shared with two other students when my cell phone rang. It was Mom.
She and Slate had returned from their cruise about a week ago. She had phoned me right away, telling me how exciting it had been to see all of those Caribbean islands. She followed up by emailing me about a zillion pictures of her trip.
“Hi, Mom,” I answered on my headset.
“Hey, Lindsey, just checking to make sure that you are still going to be here tomorrow evening, as planned.”
“Yep,” I answered. “I’ll hit the road right after my last class.”
“Great,” she said.
I could almost feel her smiling from the other end.
“Your grandparents are traveling to Florida so the
y won’t be here with us this Thanksgiving; it will just be the four of us.”
“What about Slate’s mom?”
“No, Katy can’t get away again, what with spending that week here before the wedding. She doesn’t have too many people she can totally depend on to take care of the restaurant.”
“I promise I will be there by four o’clock to start helping you with the preparations, Mom. I know how crazy you get when you cook for the holidays.”
“Thanks honey. I appreciate it. Bryce is just at that ‘into everything’ stage so I can surely use your help. Oh, and I think Eric is going to ask Taz to join us for Thanksgiving dinner so I guess that makes five of us.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Taz’s family lives out in California somewhere so he doesn’t get back there often. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”
“No, Mom. Why would you ask that?”
“Well, I know he can be a little rough around the edges, I just wasn’t sure if that would make you uncomfortable.”
“Not at all, Mom,” I lied. “Besides that, I’m kind of used to that with Slate.”
“Hey,” she said, laughing, “oh, never mind. I guess you do have a point. Listen, I needed to ask if you have ---.”
“No, Mom,” I replied, cutting her off, “I haven’t heard a thing from Daddy. You know that I would tell you if I had, right?”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I know I continue to ask that question. I guess I’m not totally at ease about all of that, even now. I just wish we knew for sure that we were free of it all.”
The subject of my father was still a very painful one for me. Aside from the brief letter he had commissioned someone to mail for him after he left the country, there had been nothing. I never would have dreamed he could have deserted me that way with no second thought.
“Hey, Mom, I’m pulling into the parking garage at my apartment so I’m going to lose the signal. I will see you late tomorrow afternoon.”
“Okay, Lindsey. Drive carefully.”
I let myself into the apartment.
Darcy was already home, sprawled out on the sofa, getting her daily fix of the Jerry Springer show with a bag of Cheetos resting on her firm, flat belly.
“Hey, Darce,” I greeted, kicking the door to the apartment shut behind me.
My arms were loaded down with my books. The strap on my back pack had broken earlier in the day.
“Hey Linds,” she answered, muting the television. “What the hell happened to your back pack?”
“Strap broke due to heavy load. I bring my textbooks home.”
“Oh, don’t start with me,” she laughed, tossing a Cheeto at me. “Just cause you’ve got that ‘studious’ thing going on 24/7 doesn’t mean the rest of us have to. My back pack is four years old and looks new.”
“My point exactly,” I replied, dumping my books on the kitchen table. “Is Jill home?”
“Been here and gone,” she replied from the living room. “I think she went somewhere with Gabe.”
Gabe was Jill’s boyfriend in Charlottesville. She actually had what she referred to as her “real boyfriend” back in her hometown of Seattle.
Jill figured being at opposite sides of the country justified having Gabe while she was on the east coast. The problem was it appeared as if Jill actually loved them both. That was her triangle to figure out, I guess.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Darcy yelled from the living room. “You’re thinking she is going to get burnt by burning the candle at both ends.”
“No, smarty,” I hollered back, going to the fridge for bottled water, “I have decided I don’t judge what people do anymore.”
“Really?” she asked, poking her head into the kitchen. “Why the change in philosophy, may I ask?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I guess the only reason I voiced an opinion on the matter was because someone is bound to get hurt eventually.”
“And now you don’t believe that?”
“Oh I absolutely believe that,” I replied. “But I guess one could argue that who goes through life without getting hurt at one time or another? I mean, she’s having the time of her life, right? Maybe at the end of the day, it will have all been worth it. Maybe I should be so lucky.”
“Oh shit, Lindsey, there you go. There are so many fucking guys that want to take you out. Your problem is that you are too picky.”
“I just seem to pick the wrong ones,” I said.
“Hey, not to change the subject but I’m going to Falls Church tomorrow for the holiday weekend. What are your plans?”
Darcy came from a fairly affluent family in Georgetown. She was the only girl and the baby of the family. Her parents fell all over themselves to make sure she wanted for nothing.
She was my best friend since coming to Virginia. I knew we would always be friends even after college.
“Actually, I’m going home too. I’m skipping my classes tomorrow and leaving when I get up.”
I rolled my eyes at her, shaking my head with a smile.
“Don’t judge me,” she replied grinning. “I’m passing everything.”
“Barely,” I said, laughing. “So, I guess we won’t be driving up together.”
“No but hey, let’s get together Friday night and go clubbing. Sound good?”
“Yeah, I’m up for that. I just need to make sure I still have my fake I.D.”
Darcy had turned twenty-one in September. She had put me into contact with one of her male friends who had made an extremely authentic looking fake student I.D. for me.
“Okay, then,” she said heading back out to the living room to watch the rest of Springer, “I will call you Friday to make plans.”
I got through my classes the following day then headed to Falls Church.
I had packed the night before and loaded my car so that I could leave directly from school. Jill was going to spend Thanksgiving with Gabe in Atlanta; Darcy had left this morning, texting me that she was on the road and would call me Friday.
I made good time and pulled into the driveway before 5:00 p.m.
Slate was right there, as always, being the perfect step-father, hauling my suitcase into the house and upstairs to my room.
Mom was in the kitchen feeding Bryce some sort of baby food from a jar. Most of it appeared to be smeared on his cheeks. He immediately brightened into a big smile when I came into the room.
“Hi sweetie,” Mom greeted, getting up to give me a hug and kiss. “You look great.”
“You too, Mom. I can’t believe how long your hair is getting.”
She smiled sheepishly, fingering through her below the shoulder length locks.
“Eric forbade me to cut it,” she replied. “He wants it as long as it was when I wore that wig. Do you believe it?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s Slate.”
“Why do you still call him Slate?”
“Why don’t you call him "Slate" is the better question?”
She shrugged, wiping Bryce’s face clean.
“I don’t know, I guess because the name "Slate" was what I knew him as when I was someone else. I’m not that person, anymore.”
“Maybe so, Mom, but Slate is still that person.”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. I was curious as to why it seemed to be a big deal with her. Was she ashamed of being ‘Diamond’ for that period of time? Maybe I should ask Taz since he was studying to be a shrink.
Taz, there he was once again in my mind for the hundredth, strike that, for the millionth time since our brief, non-sexual interlude a few weeks back. I had to confess, the thought of seeing him again gave me butterflies.
Bryce was fussing now. Having finished eating, his chubby little hands were gripping his sippy cup while it sounded as if he was smack dab in the middle of squeezing one out.
“Uh oh,” Mom said, her thoughts temporarily interrupted.
“I’ve got this, Mom,” I said, unlocking the tray from his high chair so t
hat I could lift him out.
“Come on big boy,” I cooed to him, planting a wet kiss on his chubby little cheek. “Big sissy is going to change that nasty diaper.” He gave me a gummy grin sporting a couple of new teeth.
His bedroom was downstairs, next to the master suite.
I passed Slate on my way in coming out of the master suite. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a tight black tee shirt that accentuated his muscular physique.
Instantly, a memory of Taz dressed in jeans and a black tee that Sunday morning a few weeks back came to my mind.
“Hey, Lindsey, do you want me to change him?”
“It’s okay, Slate. I need some bonding time with my baby brother.”
He chuckled, his dimple making a rare appearance. “I’m not too sure what you have signed up for with my little man here could be classified as ‘bonding.’ You’re a good sister, Lindsey.”
He gave me a wink and headed down the hall towards the kitchen where I heard him bellow playfully to Mom: “Come here woman, feed your man.”
I had to smile. I never would have thought those two would make a couple. Now I couldn’t imagine Mom with anyone else. They were perfect for each other. He was her lobster, she was his.
I gave a wistful sigh as I placed Bryce on his changing table and prepared myself for some toxic bonding.
Much later, I lay awake in my bed upstairs thinking about seeing Taz the following day. I had heard Slate on the phone with him earlier in the evening, reminding him what time dinner was planned for the following day.
I flushed crimson when I heard him tell Taz to make sure he utilized proper manners because his sweet, impressionable step-daughter was home from college.
Really, Slate?
I smiled into the pillow that I was hugging close to me now, wishing my arms were wrapped around Taz. I guess this is what a 'crush' felt like.
I had just dozed off into a peaceful slumber when sounds from below awakened me.
They were knocking sounds that got progressively louder, then faster. It took me a few moments to figure out that my room was just above the master suite downstairs.
Oh God! I so do not want to hear this!
In the eighteen years that I had lived under my parents’ roof, I had not once heard or even suspected that they were having sex.
