“Proximity,” Eddie said. “Closeness. You’re a natural flirt, Brent.”
Brent laughed. “Who? Me?”
“Yeah you! And me too. Both of us like the ladies. But you can’t pull that shit with your main lady right under your nose. Women claim to be all liberated, but she will not be amused.”
Brent had a reputation around town as a ladies’ man, but most of the ladies who were claiming to have slept with him were lying. Before Makayla came along, he was very discreet and discerning with the way he gave it out. Since Makayla, he wasn’t giving it out at all. She was all he needed or wanted. “We’ll be okay,” he responded.
“I don’t know now,” Eddie said doubtfully. “You’re a confirmed bachelor, Brent. You said yourself countless times that nobody was tying you down. Now that she’s coming to town, you are, by definition, tied down. What changed?”
Brent knew what changed. When Mal left D.C. and moved back to Maine, he knew what a sacrifice that was for her. And to give up even more to move to Jericho? She showed him what she was made of. She showed him that she was not going to break his heart the way every woman before her had done. And now he was ready to make her his. Officially. He had changed.
“What gives?” Eddie asked.
Brent frowned. “Who are you? Fucking Oprah? You ask too many questions.”
Eddie studied Brent, as if he was wondering if there was some daylight there; if there was an opening for him to exploit now that the lady was coming to town. “But you’re certain she’s the one?”
Brent frowned. “Of course she’s the one! What do you think I’ve been doing for four years? Playing games with her?”
“You haven’t married her, I know that.”
Brent exhaled. Then nodded. “True.”
“And until that happens, she’s fair game.”
Brent looked at his friend. Eddie was a hard guy to figure out, but he’d stab Brent in the back over the right woman. Brent knew that. He also knew that Makayla, in Eddie’s eyes too, was that right woman.
“What if she gives you an ultimatum?” Eddie asked, still fishing, it seemed to Brent. “What if she demands marriage or she’ll leave you?”
Brent hesitated. The very idea of losing Makayla, even in some hypothetical way, was a terrifying suggestion. “Then I’ll be getting married sooner than I thought,” he said, and patted Eddie on his back. “I’m out of here. If you need me, don’t call me.”
Eddie laughed, and Brent left.
But Eddie exhaled. Brent wasn’t fooling him. It was one thing to have a woman in another town. He still had that space he cherished. It was another thing to have her under your nose, watching your every move, listening to women talk about the good old days when they had you too. Makayla was a special lady to Eddie. She wasn’t going to take anybody’s bullshit. Not even Brent’s. And when it happened, when Brent messed up, he was going to be waiting in the wings for his chance with Makayla. Brent was more than his boss, he was his friend, but all was fair in love and war. The pickings were too slim in Jericho for it not to be.
But Brent wasn’t thinking about love or war by the time he got back in his truck. He was thinking about fly fishing. Until he realized he had left his cell phone on the passenger seat, and a message was waiting. When he saw that the message originated out of the Attorney General’s office in Augusta, he smiled and retrieved it. Makayla almost always called him on her cell phone, but every now and then she’d call from her office phone. Apparently this was one of those times. Until he heard the message.
“Hello, Brent, this is Joan.” Joan was Makayla’s friend. “I don’t know how to tell you this, and please don’t panic, but there’s been a shooting here at the Capitol, in Makayla’s office. Neal Grassley, I don’t know if you remember him,” she continued, but Brent’s heart was already hammering. And he had already shifted gears and was taking off even before he heard the full message. And even after he heard the full message he was driving like a madman through the streets of Jericho. He was driving like a man with nothing left to lose going to see about the one and only woman capable, just by being in harm’s way herself, of decimating him.
CHAPTER FOUR
She showered, put on her pajamas, and got into bed. Not because she was still shaken, she was surprisingly calm, but because Makayla Ross was grateful to be alive. Four hours ago, when Neal fired that gun, she thought for certain her life was over. She had gone from her highest high to her lowest low. But when she realized he had not shot her, but had shot himself, she couldn’t help but feel relief. And when the doctor declared that Neal, although in very serious condition, was expected to recover, she rejoiced. And phoned Brent. And told him she was fine, that Joan was wrong to worry him by calling him, and that he didn’t need to come to Augusta at all. He said okay, and she thought he meant it, but apparently he didn’t.
Because now, in the four hours it took him to journey from Jericho to Augusta, she heard what sounded like a high-revved truck on her driveway. When she got out of bed and looked out of her bedroom window, she saw that it was Brent. And suddenly, just seeing him step out of that truck, filled her heart with joy. She had asked him not to come because it was such a long drive and she was concerned for him. He came because of his concern for her.
“He came!” she said like a kid, as she hurried toward her bedroom door, her heart pounding with excitement. But when she remembered how Brent loved to do her whenever he showed up, no matter what the circumstance, she stopped, pulled down her pajama pants, and quickly stepped out of them. She tossed them onto a chair, leaving her big pajama shirt as her only clothing, and then ran out of her bedroom and down her stairs. Her staff and the other attorneys in the AG’ office had this button-down image of her as all business all the time. But they never saw her with Brent. Brent brought out the kid in her.
By the time she made it downstairs, hurried across the foyer, and opened her front door, Brent was just heading up the walkway. And her heart leaped with even more gladness. He wore a suit, but man did he wear it well. He looked fine as wine to her with his thick, wavy black hair, his bright, grass-green eyes, and that athletically-built body that turned her on in every way. Even as she stood at her front door, with that Maine wind whipping her in her brown face, she couldn’t help but admire the man coming her way. Her eyes even trailed down to that bundle between his legs, a bundle she could already feel pleasuring her as he approached her, a bundle that she always craved whenever he wasn’t with her. But he was with her now. Her man was in town. It felt like Christmas to her!
When Brent saw her standing there and saw for himself that she was alright, he smiled a smile that lit up his face.
Just seeing him smile made her love him as much as she desired him, and she couldn’t help herself. She ran to him. In only a pajama top that barely covered her behind, in the cool Maine air, she ran to him.
“You came!” she said excitedly as he took her into his arms, and lifted her up.
“Are you truly alright?” he asked her. He looked into her eyes, as if that would tell him the real story.
“I’m absolutely alright now that you’re here,” Makayla said, and Brent relaxed. Since he first received that phone call from Joan, he relaxed.
“And that prick is going to pull through?” he asked.
“Yeah, thank God. But he’s in a lot of trouble.”
“You mean with me? You’re right about that.”
“No, silly. With the Feds. My supervisor said he’s been under investigation for money laundering and they were closing in on him.”
“Geez, what a lovely man.”
“I think he came here to try and rekindle his past, because he knew he had no future. But he wanted it the way it used to be, before he went to D.C., before he decided to accept bribes and indulge his greed. He’s got a world of trouble, but none of it includes me.”
“I know,” Brent said, rubbing down her hair, “but I still hate what he put you through. I still hate that he had to bring hi
s sickness to you.”
Makayla nodded. She agreed. Then she smiled. “I’m just so happy you didn’t listen to me, and came anyway.”
Brent smiled too. “No way were you going to go through this alone,” he said, and stared at her mouth. He wanted to kiss her desperately, and was about to, but Makayla stopped him.
“We aren’t exactly in the privacy of my home,” she said, and Brent suddenly remembered where they were. He looked around, saw an old lady standing on her stoop staring at them, and then he smiled and carried Makayla inside.
It felt as if it had been so long, when it hadn’t been that long since they were together, and he wanted to relish feeling her in his arms again. He had so many women in his lifetime, so many different women, but none of them held his heart the way Makayla did. Not one!
He carried her across her threshold and closed the door behind them. As soon as that door closed, she wrapped her legs around him. He could feel the nakedness between her legs press against his cock, and he placed his hands beneath the bottom of her pajama shirt and cupped her bare ass. And they began kissing like the star-crossed lovers they sometimes felt they were, in the foyer of her quiet home.
“You’re certain you’re okay?” he asked her when his mouth finally gave hers a break and began kissing her face and neck.
“I’ve never been better,” she said as she lifted her neck to give him fuller access.
“You’re alone?” he asked as he continued to kiss her.
“Always when you aren’t here,” she replied.
And that was all he needed to hear. He began carrying her toward the stairs. He stopped, at the foot of the stairs, and sat her on the second stair. She leaned back as he lifted her pajamas top off of her body, rendering her completely naked, opened her legs, and began to lick her.
“Ooo yeah,” she said with unbridled passion as her hands rested in his hair and her legs opened wider, nearly touching the side of the rails. It had been so long since she felt his tongue that she nearly laid back on the stairs, arching and pulsating, as he went down on her heartily.
For several minutes all that could be heard was the sounds of his tongue gliding across her womanhood with those lapping sounds, as he gave her the kind of pleasure that felt as if a ball of fire had been unleashed throughout her entire body. She cried in ecstasy as he went down on her. He was taking her to the brink of cum with every lick. It became so intense that even he could barely contain himself, as his penis began to expand to the point of near-cum itself. And it became more desperate.
He lifted her into his arms and began carrying her further upstairs, kissing and sucking her big, bobbling breasts as he did. She was well-endowed top to bottom, and he missed her fullness. She was the first woman he’d ever had that actually looked womanly in every way, a body type he had never experienced before he met her, but was now the type he preferred.
“Makayla,” he kept saying, as he rubbed his lips against her breasts and lips and face and hair. “Makayla!” And he was sucking her breasts again.
She held on as he sucked her. Nobody did her like Brent. And when he took her into her bedroom, and tossed her on the bed the way he always did her, he watched her breasts bounce up and down in a way that made him groan with lust.
He tossed off his suitcoat and lifted off his shirt, revealing his thick pecs and his six-pack. And when he dropped his pants and briefs, and revealed his already stiff cock pointing straight at her, Makayla’s eyes lit up as brilliantly as the sun. Brent was her gold standard. He was the man she compared every other man to, and none of them came close to passing the test.
And when he laid his naked body on top of her nakedness, and began sucking her breasts all the more, and fingering her with one and then two digits, pushing his fingers so deep inside of her vagina that she became saturated in her own juices, she understood why there was no comparison. Brent handled her with care. He cared about her. He wasn’t there just to get his rocks off and hers be damned. He was there to give to her as good as he took from her.
And that was the deciding factor for Makayla. That was why, despite their enormous differences, despite their long-term, long-distance relationship that had become so strained that they once had to separate to salvage it, she knew she was not going to find another man like him. Neal and her so-called friends could talk the talk until they were blue in the face. They could denigrate Brent’s career and elevate Makayla’s until there was no elevation left. Brent was one of a kind. A good man like this was too hard to find. Every woman who’d ever been with him knew it too, just like Makayla, who was nobody’s fool, knew it best. Their separation taught her a valuable lesson, and what happened with Neal, and what that high life did to him, only crystallized it for her. Brent was that bird in the hand that wanted her, and needed her. Her career were birds in a bush that may or may not be enough for her. She wasn’t about to lose a man like Brent to gain a career that could be as devastatingly lonely as it would be fulfilling.
Brent was thinking too. All he could think about was Makayla and what her mere presence did to him. He was overwhelmed with love for this woman. When she opened that door and he saw her beautiful face again, he could hardly contain himself. She was his. He was fooling himself for thinking otherwise. She belonged to him and would belong to him forever. And to think that she was in such danger just hours ago. He could barely contain his relief.
But as he looked at her beautiful brown face that was the perfect blend of roundness and chisel; at her big eyes that looked like pools of softness; at her naked body that was lying beneath him now, beckoning for him to take her to heights only they could go together, he was so enraptured, so completely enchanted with every inch of her body, that he knew he had to short-circuit this. He was going to cum if he did not put it in. He needed the big event. The ride over had been too stressful for teasers.
He guided his fully aroused dick inside of her wet opening and began a slow entry that felt more like a massage to her. He massaged her pussy. He pushed in and then almost out, he pushed in and then almost out, until he found his rhythm. Until he was fucking her with precision strokes.
Both of them groaned out the feeling of a long time coming as soon as he began to move rhythmically. He placed both of his hands on the side of her face, her long hair as beautifully bouncy as her breasts, and he stared at her with loving eyes. She was the woman he wanted above any other woman. He put up with this long distance affair as long as he had because she was the one for him. And the idea of giving her up, of giving this up, was too painful for him to even contemplate. If she decided her career meant more, how was he going to handle it? How was he going to live without her? If right now was any indication, he couldn’t. He would give up Maine and his own career, to keep her.
He laid down on top of her, holding her in his arms, and fucked her for longer than he thought he could keep it up. But that was the thing with Makayla. He always entered her with lust dominating his heart, always on the brink of cum, but as soon as he entered her his lust became love and it was no longer about cumming. It was about loving. And he didn’t want the feeling to end. He didn’t want to climax too soon.
He continued to make love to her. For well over half an hour he pumped into her, squeezing his ass with every push, and she held on, enjoying the ride.
But then she came. She leaned her head back and stretched her body, exposing her gorgeous neck, and began to moan out as hard as her pussy was pulsating against his penis. And that pulsation, and that tightening around his shaft, caused him to cum too. But if her cum had her shouting out, his cum had him straining out. His muscles tightened and his veins became exposed as he poured out his love, and covered her.
It took several minutes of cum, but they finally overcame. And even then, after they had climaxed and there was no cum left to release, they continued to hold onto each other as if they were holding onto a lifeline.
Brent moved Makayla on top, and continued to hold her tightly, but he was still unsettled. Sh
e could feel his unease.
She lifted her head and looked at him. “I’m fine, babe. I promise you.”
“You’re too far away,” he said to her. “It takes me four hours to get to you. It took me four hours to get here.”
“It’s only two more weeks and I’ll be in Jericho.”
He shook his head. “That’s too long. I want you there now.”
She smiled. “Brent, I can’t just leave my job like that. I have too many cases to close. You know that.”
He knew it, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
“And I still need to find a place to stay.”
“You don’t need a place to stay,” Brent said. “You’re staying with me.”
It was becoming a bone of contention with them. “I can’t stay with you,” Makayla said. “I told you I have to have my own place. My own space. It won’t work otherwise.”
“It’ll work,” he said confidently, kissed her on the forehead, and held her even tighter. And those same feelings of warmth that shot through their bodies like fire while they made love, now ran through his soul like ice. Because he knew the time was now. Not tomorrow night, not any other night. Now. “Makayla,” he said.
Makayla detected the serious shift in his tone. Was he finally agreeing that she needed a place of her own? She lifted her head. “Yes?”
When he saw her beautiful eyes again, and saw the sincerity in those eyes, he smiled. He was going to enjoy this.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We need to talk.”
Makayla’s heart dropped. When he said it over the phone, it didn’t sound as dire as it sounded now. Was this the last straw for him? Was she too much trouble to him? Was he having second thoughts about her move to Jericho altogether? “You told me that already,” she said.
“We need to talk now.”
Makayla hesitated. “I’m all ears.”
Brent continued to stare at her. She expected him to give some speech the way he was prepping, but he surprised her again. “Will you marry me, Makayla?” he asked her.
Brent Sinatra: All of Me Page 4
