by S. E. Rose
“You feel so good, angel, so good,” he murmured as he kissed her. “I don’t ever want to stop.”
“Then don’t,” she whispered against his lips. He grinned and started moving faster, harder. She let her eyes drift closed again, reveling in the sensations that were new but old all at the same time. She had never felt a connection like this before, and she knew in her heart that she never would feel another one again, just this, just Amery.
The thought put her spinning toward her release and as she regained consciousness, she felt him give a final thrust. She could feel the heat of his seed inside of her and fuck if that wasn’t the hottest thing ever. She felt marked by him, but instead of being repulsed by that thought, she felt comforted by it.
They lay like that for a few minutes, just being one, staring at each other in awe. Amery traced her lips and nose. She ran her hands up and down his biceps.
“Breakfast?” she finally said, breaking their silent bubble.
“Need refueling?” He grinned.
She smiled. “Yes, and I want to meet your sister.”
He was still semi-erect inside of her and when he pulled out she felt empty. She could easily have stayed in that bed with him all day, repeating that exact performance, over and over.
“Shower?” he asked as he held out his hand. She accepted it and they grabbed the world’s fastest shower until she went to clean him. He picked her up and slammed her into the wall, impaling her in a single movement.
“Oh my God!” she cried out as his mouth captured hers, and he began thrusting up inside her with such speed and force, she knew her ass would have a bruise. But she didn’t want him to stop, she needed another release, needed him. He was like a drug and she was an addict.
She knew when he was getting close, she felt the head of his cock swell, and he leaned down and sucked on her neck while grinding his pelvis against her clit. That was all it took. She came in a blinding flash of white light and barely recognized that he had found his release until he was gently allowing her to sink back down to the ground.
They stood staring at each other again and grinning like two fools, but that was cut short by the ringing of the hotel’s phone. Cursing, Amery rinsed off and got out of the shower and made his way to the phone.
“Hello?” he answered. “Oh, yeah, sorry. We’ll be done in a minute.”
She knew that it was Lizzie, and she was probably wondering what was taking so long, or maybe she wasn’t wondering. Lyla felt slightly embarrassed about that.
“It was just my sister. She’s getting antsy. She has a flight this afternoon,” he explained as he came back in. They got ready in record time and made it down to the hotel restaurant in under five minutes. Lizzie was sitting at a table with a mimosa, reading something on her phone.
Lyla examined her from a distance. She resembled Amery but had lighter hair and darker eyes. She was tall as well and very thin. She was also very beautiful.
Amery
Amery watched as Lizzie nursed her mimosa. She was the party sister for sure, the baby, who got whatever she wanted. But she was also a sweetheart. Her heart was gold and her brains were...well, too smart for her own good. She was also a giant pain in the ass, but he loved her anyhow.
“Hey, Lizzie,” he said, leaning down and kissing her cheek.
“Hey, Am, is this your friend?” she asked, her eyebrows rising in appraisal.
“Yes, Lizzie, this is Lyla. Lyla, Lizzie,” Amery introduced them. He felt awkward not introducing Lyla as his girlfriend, but what if she thought that was too soon? And he didn’t want Lizzie tattling on him the second she left to go home.
“Nice to meet you, Lizzie,” Lyla said as she extended her hand to his sister.
They shook hands and Lyla surprised him by taking the seat next to Lizzie instead of him.
“Sooooo...is everything OK?” Lizzie asked. Yep, that was his nosy sister.
“Yes, it’s fine. Thanks for asking. Your brother here was my knight in shining armor. He had to rescue me from a bad situation with my former boss. But I’m fine and all is well,” Lyla said, leaving it vague.
“Oh? OK. Well, glad you’re alright,” Lizzie said. He knew she was dying to know the details, but one stern look from him had her shutting up.
“Yep, totally good,” Lyla said as she waved over the waiter to get her a mimosa. Amery ordered one too. When in Rome...he thought to himself.
Lizzie gave him a curious look, and he rolled his eyes. “So, what time’s your flight, kiddo? We can drop you off at the airport before we head home.”
“I have about two more hours before I need to be there,” she said, swirling what was left of her drink.
“Great, that’ll work out perfectly,” he said.
“So, Lizzie, spill the stories on your brother. I need to know all the juicy stuff, so I can hold it over his head,” Lyla said. Amery nearly spat out the mimosa that had just been set down in front of him.
Lizzie clapped her hands together like an excited child. He rolled his eyes again. “I like you. Well, let me see. Oh, there was this one time that Am papered the house next door, and he got caught but claimed it wasn’t him and he was just looking for toilet paper. Mom and Dad made him clean up the entire yard by himself, even though we all knew two of his friends helped him. Oh, and one time he snuck a girl in his room, and—”
“I think that’s enough storytelling for one day, Lizzie,” Amery said, glaring at her.
“But, Amery, she was just getting to the good part,” Lyla lamented, looking over at him. He could tell those two together would be a lot of trouble. Lyla wasn’t much older than Lizzie. In fact, she was probably about the same age. He could just imagine the three of them, thick as thieves and gossiping away while sitting around his parents’ kitchen island. He paused at that thought. He really could imagine that. He smiled at them as they talked about Lizzie’s school and Lyla’s blog. Both were animated, silly, and bubbly and could have been a couple of sorority girls having a chat. Lizzie had spent a summer volunteering at an orphanage in Ethiopia. She was bright and talented, and he knew she would do amazing things in her future. He couldn’t be any prouder of his little sisters, even if they were at a slightly different stage of life than him.
“So, you gonna visit Mom and Dad soon?” Lizzie asked. “I was talking to them last night, and they were asking if you had mentioned visiting.”
He sighed. He loved his parents to pieces, but seriously, sometimes they drove him crazy. “I was thinking, maybe this year, you all could come up to my place for Thanksgiving,” he suggested. “Y'all haven’t ever been there at the same time.”
“True. I mean, I would be down with that, but talk to Pops, he may have other ideas,” Lizzie said as she sipped her second drink.
“Dad’ll come around to it,” he said, although he knew that would be like moving Mount Everest. “I just need to make him think that it was his idea.”
“Like I said, good luck with that.” Lizzie smirked.
“I don’t think that’s exactly what you said,” Amery said.
Lizzie shrugged. “So, tell me more about yourself, Lyla. You write a blog, which by the way, is super cool. I always wanted to write a blog,” Lizzie said.
“Oh, there’s not much to tell,” Lyla said. “I live with my grandmother and my best friend, Nate. After my boss was a big dick yesterday, I quit my job, so I guess I’m currently unemployed. I love movies and books, and I always wanted to go to Paris, but I haven’t been yet. I studied abroad in Chile when I was in college. I—”
“You speak Spanish?” Amery asked. He was starting to get to know Lyla, but this whole Chile abroad, speaking Spanish thing had never come up before.
“Si, yo hablo,” she answered.
He smiled. He was falling more in love with this woman by the minute if that was at all possible.
Lizzie got excited about the Chile thing and started grilling Lyla about her time there. Lyla was a good sport about it though and let Lizzie ask h
er a million questions. By the time breakfast or more like brunch was coming to an end, they had covered every possible Chilean vacation scenario.
Amery commented here and there, but mostly just sat back and enjoyed watching his sister and his...girl talk about the mundane. Something about the way she was with his sister, the way he’d felt last night, and this morning made him realize that this was serious. He wanted her to be his girlfriend. He wanted to introduce her to people as his girlfriend. The revelation was a life-altering one, which didn’t come to him like a lightning strike, but instead slowly grew over the course of one meal like a storm rolling in during a lazy afternoon.
By the time they were finished with the food, Amery grabbed Lyla by the hand. “We need to go get our stuff, we’ll meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes, OK?” he said to Lizzie. She nodded with a smile and got up as well.
They made it to the elevator and when the doors closed, he turned and pushed Lyla against a wall and kissed the ever-loving fuck out of her. She squealed in surprise, and he only used that as an opportunity to plunder her mouth and claim it as his, only his, forever. She sagged against him, and he supported her weight with his arms. Finally, the elevator door dinged. She pulled back and looked up at him.
“It’s our stop,” she said.
“Be mine,” he said.
“What?” she asked, confused.
“I want you to be mine,” he said quietly, nervously.
“Y-yours?” she stammered.
“Yes, mine, only mine,” he said.
“I kind of already thought I was,” she said, her eyes dipping down as she spoke.
He took his finger, ignoring the ding of the door, and pushed her face up toward his. “This is going to sound juvenile, but I want you to be my girlfriend. I want to be completely exclusive, no one else,” he explained.
“I want that, too,” she said, a giant grin spreading across her face.
“Good, now that we’ve got that sorted out, let’s get our stuff and get home,” he said and kissed her quickly before pressing the button for their floor once more.
Chapter 28
After dropping Lizzie off at the airport, they drove in silence for the first half of the trip. Both were deep in thought. Then, Amery remembered the conversation at breakfast. He wanted to know more about Lyla.
“What’s your favorite childhood memory?” he asked her.
Lyla’s head popped up, and she gazed at him in confusion.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked.
He grinned. “What’s your favorite childhood memory?” he repeated as he turned down the music in the car.
“Hmmm...that’s tough. I have two main ones that stand out. The first was the last vacation I took with my parents and brother. We went to the shore and rented a house for a week. We didn’t do anything particularly special, but it was fun, building sandcastles, playing in the water, just being together. And the other one was just a few weeks after they were killed. My grandfather picked me up at school. He told them I had a doctor’s appointment, but instead, he took me to a ballgame. He bought me crap food and made me promise never to tell a soul and I haven’t, well, until now,” she said with a wistful smile. “It was the first time I felt normal after the accident, the first time I actually thought things might be OK again, eventually.”
“He sounds like a great guy,” Amery said.
“He was,” she agreed. “What about you?”
“My favorite childhood memory?” he asked. She nodded and turned to face him.
“One summer, when my sisters were still very young, and my dad was no longer playing professional ball, he took me on a road trip. We went to a bunch of the major league stadiums, just me and him. It was a blast,” he answered grinning.
“That sounds like fun,” she agreed.
“How about your favorite cartoon movie?” he asked.
“Toy Story,” she said.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yes, why so surprised?”
“I just would have pegged you as a princess girl,” he said.
She laughed. “Uh, that would be Nate, not me.”
“Touché,” he answered.
“What’s yours?” she asked.
He shrugged and laughed. “Toy Story.”
“No way!” she squealed in delight.
“Yes, way!” he answered and then pumped his fist in the air. “To infinity and beyond!”
She laughed. “I always loved that line.”
“Me too.”
“It really is a great movie,” she said. She paused and then grinned. “Although I had you pegged as a princess movie guy.”
He laughed. “Touché. What else don’t I know about you, Lyla?” he asked her.
She paused and contemplated that for a moment. “My closet is messy. I don’t like makeup. I love pizza, but only plain with extra cheese. I’ve never been to Disney World. I hated princess movies because the parents were usually dead or killed. Maybe I liked them before, but not after the accident. Every year on my brother’s birthday, I bake him a cake and then I take a piece and leave it at his grave—angel food cake because it was his favorite. My middle name is Elyse, same as my mom. And I hate cold weather.”
“What were your parents’ names?” he asked.
“Greg and Karen,” she said. “What about yours?”
“Brent and Vicky,” he said.
“Your turn,” she urged.
“For what?”
“To tell me about you. What don’t I know?”
“Let’s see. I always wore a brand-new pair of underwear before every game. I had a ridiculous amount of underwear back then. I hate hot dogs. I love Chinese food. My favorite pet was a mutt named Fred, who lived until he was seventeen. I’ve never been to South America, and I once won a poetry contest,” he said.
“Poetry?”
“Yep.”
“As in you wrote a poem?”
“Yep.”
“OK, let’s hear it,” she requested.
“No way. I don’t even remember it,” he said.
She gave him a look.
“I’m serious, but I bet my mom has it somewhere.”
“OK, if I ever meet her, I’m making her find it for me,” she said.
He laughed. “Noted.”
They spent the rest of the ride home exchanging funny stories, and by the time Amery pulled into his driveway, he knew he was so madly in love with this woman that he couldn’t let go, ever.
Lyla
The house was quiet when Amery opened the door, too quiet. And as the door opened, so did their visual of what looked like a full-on toilet paper job.
“What the hell?” Amery murmured.
The words had no sooner left his mouth when Onyx came sprinting around the corner with a sheet of toilet paper hanging from his teeth. There was literally toilet paper everywhere, around spindles on the banister, around legs of furniture, under tables, over sofas, around lamps, and everywhere else you’d never think of putting it.
“I do believe our shitten has decided to redecorate,” Lyla said as she began laughing. “Damn,” she added as she picked a long strand up off the top of a grandfather clock in the foyer. “He gets points for creativity, that’s for sure.”
“Ugh, I’m going to kill him. This is a mess! I mean look at him!” he said as he scampered down the hall to turn off the alarm system and proceeded to look for the “shitten.”
She laughed as Onyx sprinted around the room with toilet paper, completely enamored by the stuff. “Yep, he’s batshit and nuts for sure,” she said laughing again.
“Yeah, batshitten nuts,” Amery groaned. Lyla doubled over in laughter.
“Batshitten nuts? That’s classic,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.
Onyx was sitting on the kitchen counter, surveying his work. He looked quite pleased with himself.
“Onyx!” Amery yelled. Onyx didn’t budget. He was completely not sorry for whatever had happened. He, in fact,
looked sort of proud of himself.
“Come on, he’s just a kitten. Besides, you were the idiot that left all the bathroom doors open,” Lyla said as she walked over and picked Onyx up. Onyx practically leapt into her arms and began purring with such vigor that Lyla was sure Amery could hear it on the other side of the kitchen.
“You suck, buddy,” he said pointing at the kitten’s chest.
“Now be nice,” Lyla teased.
“I am being nice. I’m not killing him,” Amery huffed.
“Try harder,” Lyla said, giving the kitten a small squeeze. “Were you scared all by yourself?” she said in a voice reserved for babies.
Onyx looked up at her as though she was a god. Amery rolled his eyes, and Lyla giggled. She set Onyx down and took Amery’s hand.
“Come on, we’ll clean it up,” she said as she found the garbage bags and began to stuff one with the toilet paper that was littering the house. It took them a better part of an hour to unravel all the toilet paper from nooks and crannies in every corner of the house except the guest rooms because those doors had been shut.
Afterward, they stood at the kitchen island and looked at Onyx, who was curled up in a ball on the bed that Lyla had set on the counter.
“He’s probably going to sleep for a few hours. That was quite a show he put on,” Lyla said. “Can you take me to my house? I really should check in with Gran Mill.”
Amery didn’t answer at first. “Yeah, sure,” he finally said as they walked out to his car.
Amery was quiet on the drive over. She wasn’t sure if he was deep in thought or upset about the mess Onyx made or something else. She thought maybe it was something else. She decided to let him have his silence.
When they got to the house, she grabbed her bag and went inside with Amery in tow.
“Gran Mill? Nate?” she called out. She could hear voices in the living room and followed the sound.
