by Dee Ellis
“Oh baby, you don’t need to beg. Do it anyway; I like the way it sounds on you.” Hunter followed that up with a long, deep lick. Then nothing.
I squirmed, my thighs settling on his shoulders. I even inched further towards his mouth. I didn’t speak though. I could feel the heat of his mouth right where I needed his tongue. My fingers scraped gently at his scalp, urging him closer.
“Tell me you want to come in my mouth. Tell me you need it.” Hunter’s words vibrated against my core and I cried out.
“Hunter!” Again, that chuckle before he slapped my throbbing clit just once. Hard.
“Fuck! Please. Please, Pumpkin.” His nose nudged closer, his fingers spread me, but he didn’t obey.
“Mmm, please what, Darlin’? I want the words. Want those filthy fucking words from your beautiful fucking mouth.”
“Hunter!” Another slap rang out and my eyes rolled back. I dug my nails into his traps, urging him closer.
“Oh Darlin’, I plan to eat the dessert you’re offering me. I want that pussy in my mouth. Bad, too. Need the words, Lola. Need to know you want it bad enough to tell me what you need.” I was shuddering on the edge, my skin hot and flushed, my breath erratic.
“Please, baby,” Hunter loomed over me, shoving my thighs open, cocking his head as he waited, “Make me come on your tongue. Lick my pussy till I come in your mouth.” Hunter’s nostrils flared and he growled. Actually growled.
Then, he obeyed. I let out a strangled sound as he sucked my lips, my clit, all of my sex into his mouth. His teeth came out to catch my clit, tugging and teasing.
My back arched up from the table and he slid his hands up, cupping my breasts. It was just moments of his skilled tongue working its magic before heat plumed through me. Down my back, through my limbs, all centered where he suckled at my pussy.
“Fuck yes! Hunter...oh God baby, I’m coming!” My nails pierced his skin as I bucked on the table beneath him.
“Give me your sweetness, Darlin’.” Hunter made a loud, crude but hot as fuck meal out of my pussy as I came.
I lost time for a few moments. Because suddenly, I was on his lap, straddling his thick thighs. Totally naked. Hunter was naked too, his heavy dick sliding between my thighs. I shuddered and bore down, seeking the fullness he gave me.
“Greedy girl. Give me that mouth, Darlin’.” I didn’t like being told what to do. And yet, I obeyed if it was Hunter telling me.
We kissed lazily, as if we’d always been together. Would always be together. As if time didn’t matter and we had no other place to be. Just as he pressed that cold piercing to my wetness though, I realized otherwise.
“Fuck. Not now.” Hunter growled, bucking his hips to slide just inside.
“Oh...oh shit.” My head fell back as the shrieking alarm rattled my ear drums.
Damnit! Hunter gripped my hips and slammed me down on him. Seated deep inside me, he murmured curses against my mouth. Then he broke away, tangling his fingers in my hair. Hunter pumped his hips a few times, his eyes dark and hungry. I was gooey as fuck. He roared as the alarm sounded again.
“Fuck. Cockblocked by the city of Chicago. Fucking hell. Gotta go, Darlin’. Keep this pussy right here for me, you get me? Goddamn, I don’t want to leave it, or you.” Hunter smirked, kissing my nose when I frowned playfully.
“Go; before I Kegel the shit of your dick and refuse to let you.” Hunter laughed, tossing his head back with it. Fuck, he was beautiful.
“I’d never leave if I had the option to stay, Darlin’. Fuck,” Still deep inside me, he thrust once and I tightened as threatened, his hand slapping my ass, “Better let me go before I can’t.” Hunter stood, our bodies still connected, and set me at the table.
Slowly—so slowly it ached—he withdrew from me. We both watched in rapt fascination. I shuddered around him, on that edge I was sure I’d always teeter on with him.
Hunter smirked, running his length through my folds just once. Just a tease. Then he kissed me sweetly, deeply; the look in his eyes when he pulled away giving me an entirely different type of ache.
And then he was gone. He kept his place chilly, at least too chilly for me, so after feeding Gerdie, and explaining my MIA act, I donned new, fluffy purple sweats. Grabbing my sketch pad and inks, I headed back over. I had been at the new place just a few weeks, but somehow, I felt more at home in his place.
I spent the night texting Hunter and facetiming with Gigi and Charli—who high fived when I told them I’d spent the last two nights in Hunter’s bed.
“I knew it. I win!” Gigi giggled as they shoved each other around for camera space.
“Win? I got the dick-down of a lifetime. I think I am the clear winner.” I laughed, and Charli rolled her eyes.
“We took bets, Lola Bird. Think the boys did too. You two spent the past few months’ eye-fucking each other; it was salacious. Pretty sure the only people who didn’t see you two were going to happen was you two. Idiots.” I laughed and stuck my tongue out at the camera.
“Shaddup, bitch. I was playing hard to get.” I was really playing impossible to get, but, semantics.
“You were not. Impossible, maybe,” I made a face as Charli read my mind, “Anyway. I heard a rumor. That...your man...has piercings. Spill.” Both girls playfully took sips of their lattes, brows raised.
My man. There it was again. We hadn’t talked about it, even with all our talking. But Jesus Christ, I hoped that’s what he was. I smirked and cocked my head, making a face at the camera.
“You heard…correct.” I laughed as a blush flamed my cheeks, my hand flying up to cover my face.
They wanted more details and that’s when I knew I was in trouble. Because before, with other guys, I’d given them. I just wanted it all for myself. Because they were bad bitches, they realized and didn’t push.
Instead, we talked about their coming weddings, and they were a riot of bridezilla’s in the making. Too soon, I was alone and wondering if I was being a fool for waiting for him.
Until he texted me and told me how much he missed me. How he couldn’t wait to get back to me. I didn’t feel so foolish after that. Instead, I waited for him by sketching and binge-watching Friends episodes on Netflix.
Sometime later, I woke in bed, naked, with a warm Hunter wrapped around me. It was gray out, and I was cold, only half covered by his thick leg, with the blankets twisted around me. Instead of bothering him, I snuggled into him contentedly.
The rest of the weekend went like that. We talked and ate and fucked, and then he went to work while I waited. I didn’t even mind; in fact, I liked waiting for him and cooking dinner together. It was adorably domestic.
Come Monday, I hated the idea of leaving his place to go back to mine. Especially since we hadn’t talked about us. Were we even an us? Was us enough for what that weekend had felt like? I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t have the guts to ask.
“Where, exactly, do you think you’re going, Darlin’?” Hunter husked after a long night of firefighting and fucking.
“Gotta work today, Pumpkin. See you later, maybe?” I was halfway out his bedroom door, back in my sweats again.
“Get that ass back here.” Hunter cocked his head at me, bending one beefy arm behind him on the bed.
“While the library certainly is not in flames, and thus, no danger is on the horizon, I too have people to save. From a life without words.” I laughed, uneasy because I didn’t know what the fuck this thing between us was.
“Come say goodbye to me proper-like, Darlin’.” His eyes were heavy and laced with darkness that set my belly on fire.
I crossed the room, just out of reach at the side of the bed. Hunter made a tsking sound and yanked me by the strings of my sweats until I tumbled over him. I let out a yelp when he swatted my backside. Hard. Then, taking a handful of it, he yanked me higher on his chest.
“I’m on for the next four days. You can stay here,” Hunter’s eyes darted away, and I saw vulnerability that shook me, “I mean, if
you’d like to. I can try to come back.” I knew as house captain, he had more freedom to come and go; I also knew he had always stayed at the firehouse during his shifts.
Once again, panic bubbled on the surface of everything else, because I didn’t want us to change. Didn’t want us to alter who we were, or how we had been, for something so uncertain. I smirked and pecked a closed mouth kiss to his lips, shoving away.
“Maybe. Need to get going, Pumpkin. Text me, handsome.” I start to turn, but his hand digs roughly into my backside.
“It’s not going to be like that, Darlin’. Look at me, Lola Bear.” His other hand comes to the nape of my neck, tangling in the tiny bun my hair is shoved into.
I obey, right after I do my best to wipe emotion from my face. Except, Hunter sees it. Because he always fucking sees me. His face softens, and my chest tightens as the room goes quiet. I can hear my heart thudding. I can feel his pulse beneath my hands pressed to his massive chest.
“Hunter…I just…I don’t think I can make promises or...whatever I…. I don’t know.” I sigh, bowing my head and trying to look away.
“Who asked you to? Besides, you started promising me shit the minute you walked in here Friday night. We both knew this thing was coming, Darlin’. It’s not going to just go away. You thought a weekend was enough for me? Was it enough for you?” I bite at my lip because I want to say no. I want to say I want a hell of a lot longer than a weekend.
“I know…I mean, I knew about you, Hunter. How you were. Who you were. I don’t expect…I don’t do relationships, either. I mean, yes, this was totally going to happen, but that doesn’t….” I yelp as he swats at my ass then yanks me over his lap.
“Cut the shit, Darlin’. We don’t do relationships? Who says? Who says this has to have a fucking label? It is what it is until it isn’t. That’s what this is. You get me?” Fear replaced the panic from moments before; I didn’t want a label, because then it could be ruined.
“Fine. Whatever you say, Hunter. Look, I need to go. I’ll text you later. Be careful at work for me, please.” I don’t look at his eyes as I bow to kiss him goodbye.
The kiss is not full of the warmth I had grown used to. He tries to pull me close, but I refuse. I can’t breathe, and I push at his chest. I smile, but it feels foreign on my face because it’s phony as shit. Sliding off the bed, I see the pain flash in his eyes.
I want to stop. I want to stay there and figure out what we could label it. What it could be. Instead, I am across the hall, slamming the door to my place before he can respond. Tears are running down my face because I haven’t been so scared since I came to Chicago. And I am not ready to let someone have that kind of power over me again.
After feeding Gerdie, and her telling me what a dick I am for leaving her alone, I shower and dress for work. I rush from the apartment two hours before I need to be there. Once there, I duck Charli, who’s giggling with Sara about wedding plans at the front circulation desk.
I came to Chicago to escape Seth. To escape the abuse, the control, the destruction he had wrought on my life. For a few months, I was certain he had followed me. We were married, after all. What a fucking joke that had been. The Elvis impersonator who had overseen the ceremony had asked me half a dozen times if I needed help. It was that obvious.
The honeymoon ended four weeks later when a few pink lines and a beating that changed everything, had landed me in the hospital. I’d changed my name, filed for an annulment, and fled.
Those first few months had been amazing, even if I lived on ramen and hope. I thought I was free. Thought I could find myself again; the person I’d been before Seth had torn her apart.
Then, torn sheets of paper showed up in the mail, with a letter and no return address. I saw figures in the shadows. Heard my name—my real name—carried, carried in harsh whispers. I knew just what it meant.
It was Seth; the torn papers were the remains of our divorce decree, along with a note about how he’d never sign. I was his property. Thankfully, I didn’t need him to sign it for it to become final. The day it did, I was mugged and beaten between the short trip from the L to my dingy apartment above the takeout joint.
“Married or not you will always belong to me.” Seth’s whisky scented breath had warned.
A lapse into borderline alcoholism had started after that. I was with a new man every night for weeks; only I didn’t sleep with them. I used them, just like all the men in my life before had used me. I got a safe walk home, maybe a little foreplay, an orgasm if I was lucky. But, before they got theirs, I sent them on their way.
Looking up that night and seeing Hunter, it had woken me up. Not because I had wanted him—although that had woken up parts that a dozen less than one night stands hadn’t touched—but because of how safe I had felt with him looking at me across the bar. In the months before the run in at the Cooper family Thanksgiving, I had seen him. And every time, it had felt different than I thought it ever could.
Whenever the six of us got together, or eight if Levi and his whore wife tagged a long, Hunter and I were like magnets. If it was game night, we ended up on the same team. If we were drinking, we got handsy and wildly inappropriate.
Hunter had come to mean more to me, in less time than I thought possible, than he knew. Than I had known. And, the safety he flooded me with had grown and changed and become something else entirely. Now, he was trying to change things again and I just wasn’t ready.
Since moving so close, I’d expected something to happen. We wanted each other too much; enough that I believed Gigi’s joke about bets being placed. It was painfully obvious.
What I didn’t want was to lose the safety I had never felt with anyone else. If we pursued this, and it fizzled out, he would walk away. Like I had seen him do a dozen times with more than a dozen women before me. I could take the rejection; it wasn’t about my pride.
It was about wondering how I would cope with the shadows after I ruined things between Hunter and I. The shadows, whether Seth was in them anymore or not, didn’t scare me now. I owed that to Hunter, even if he didn’t know it, and did nothing to make it fact. I didn’t want to lose the safety blanket Hunter had become. At the same time, I had to question myself.
Was I ready to throw away what we had spent all weekend finding in each other?
9
Pretty sure I needed to up my game. It had been nearly a week since I’d seen my lady, and it was pissing me off. Somehow, I had let her walk out of my place on Monday doubting she was my lady. I’d had the best weekend, with hands-down-no-doubt-it the best sex of my fucking life. Lola had walked out like it had meant nothing.
At first, I had been devastated. Had I read her wrong all those months? Was this thing totally one sided? That weekend—with her in my bed, in my place, in my fucking life—said otherwise. Come Monday morning, and real life, Lola had left with a promise to text me.
Lola: Miss you. See you soon, I hope.
That was the first text I’d received. On Tuesday evening, after a shit-storm of political headaches at work had kept me busy all day Monday and most the next morning. I had texted her back and gotten no response. I had hinted that I would come home to her if I could. And, to be honest, I could have if I wanted to. After that brush off, I needed time.
“Figured you’d be locked up at your place with Lola Bear.” Finn, who knew nothing about subtlety or filters, taunted one day.
“Are we doing this? This feelings shit? Talking about our dicks and shit?” We’d come back from a rescue on the Loop, and I was on edge.
The radio silence from Lola and that cold dismissal Monday had stunned me. I thought we were figuring shit out, but now I realized we hadn’t figured a single thing out. We fucked. We talked about everything that wasn’t us. What we were, or what we were going to become. Until right before she had to leave.
Of course, I fucked that up. Instead of telling her she was my lady, that the entire weekend had changed everything, I played it cool. Mostly because I could
see the fear in her soft lavender eyes. I liked her soft, and that fear threatened to harden her softness. Lola was scared, and I couldn’t risk demanding more.
“Fuck yes, we are, Byrne. You are in deep with Lola, and the only idiots who don’t see it are you two.” Finn punched me square in my balls, and I doubled over in pain.
The entire crew, Levi and a new rook included, were lounging in various states of exhaustion in the common room. The station had changed over the past few months. I never realized how much those women changing Cage and Finn had changed the dynamic. We hadn’t even been taking the rook to the pubs to acclimate him to the badge bunnie ways.
First, because Charli Dixon would have my balls if I took her fiancé back to O’Malley’s. Secondly, Gigi Cooper…same story. Lastly, Levi was still going through a rough time with his own badge bunnie. We’d all taken turns trying to stop that shit show, but Levi had stars in his eyes for Isabella. Too bad she was proving us all right.
Now, if we hung out, we were here. At the station, drinking a few beers, talking about weddings and babies and grown up shit. I was a little older, so it should settle just fine with me. But at first, it didn’t. I was uneasy talking about marriage and the future. I didn’t think I believed in that shit anymore.
Spent a few months wanting Lola, one night terrified I’d lost her before I had her, and now, I thought differently. Since that fire, I saw everything differently. I wanted a chance with Lola, no matter what it took to get it. Including that bullshit she pulled inviting Tori into our first night together.
“Left your lady a note,” Tori murmured as I saw her out that night, “for her eyes only. Don’t fuck it up, Hunter. Last time wasn’t your fault, but this time…don’t give her an excuse to fuck it up either.” Then, with a chaste kiss pressed to my cheek, Tori slid an envelope into my hand and left.
I’d been aware the moment Tori had left us alone. I vaguely heard her moaning her release after watching Lola find hers while we watched. Moments later, I was taking Lola for the first time, and I knew, without bothering to look, that we were alone. When I’d said it was just us, I had truly meant it. Tori had left us once she realized this wasn’t just another night with another girl.
