Reckless: A Bad Boyz Anthology

by Anthology

  A long silence followed that factoid. “Why didn’t you call when you got here?”

  There was just a hint of something in her voice that made me tense and feel all bad and shit.

  “I wasn’t sure that you wanted me to.”

  It was the truth, but I probably shouldn’t have said it. I was overly sensitive that way. We’d fought the last time we were together, moved on to never talking about it again—Rachel was a cool kind of woman, not at all like those chicks who never let go of anything—and for reasons beyond my comprehension it had the opposite result on me. I worried about the most trivial things between us too long and panicked whenever things felt out of whack with her.

  Which was stupid.

  We were fuck-buddies.

  I’d made it clear long ago we could never be more.

  I could hear her breathing and not talking. Fuck. “Listen, about the last time I was here—”

  She started to laugh. “Are you really going to go there? God, Dillon. It’s been a year. Forgotten. If my answering your phone calls while you were out on the road didn’t give you a clue, the sexting should have told you we’re fine. I don’t just sext with anyone.”

  My lips puckered to hold back the smile stirred by a flood of memories. I knew she was teasing to make me feel better about everything, and since she liked it when I got a little possessive, I added, “You better not be sexting with anyone except me.”

  Another long pause. Then, “How long will it take you to get over here?”

  “How soon do you want me?”

  “Now,” she growled in husky exaggeration that was followed by a click.

  That the call ended abruptly didn’t bother me. We were usually effortlessly on the same page and since we were both obviously willing and wanting, why waste time with superfluous words and pleasantries?

  I shoved my feet into flip-flops, took some condoms from a drawer, grabbed my car keys, and headed for the door.

  It was a quick eight-block drive to her house, but it was like changing geography altogether. I’d always found it amazing how different a few blocks could make the neighborhood, even in Sacramento. I lived in a high-rise, fully secure condo in a section of the city packed with trendy lofts, cafés, artists, and political elite. And a handful of minutes away there were small mid-century bungalows with metal security front doors, bars on the windows, overcrowded on-street parking, and dimly lit pavements.

  I didn’t know why Rachel still kept a home here. She’d been living in the same house since high school, and had stayed behind when her mom hopped to the bay area to retire. She claimed she didn’t like change. Pooh-poohed my concerns over the neighborhood—shit, you didn’t need combat instinct to know it was dangerous and growing more crime-ridden each year—and no matter what I said I’d never been able to convince her to leave.

  I’m dug in, soldier. Not you or anyone else is forcing me out of here. This is home and I’m staying.

  She said obstinate junk like that in a cutesy, pert way, but Rachel wasn’t the least bit malleable and only a foolish man would try to push her to do anything—even if entering this area of town put my nerves on edge.

  I found a spot on the street in front of her house, parked, double-checked the time I needed to feed the meter—8 a.m.—and hot-footed it to the door.

  I was on her stoop when my phone dinged. I pulled it from my pocket, intending to turn it off, but the notification was from Rachel. For a second, disappointment shot through me as I wondered if she’d made a last-minute cancellation.

  Maybe we weren’t cool, even though she told me we were, and she was having second thoughts about seeing me this trip. Both my mood and my dick drooped, and I paused for a moment before swiping open the text because being confronted with the possibility of maybe not seeing her forced me to admit to myself how much I wanted to.

  Out of nowhere, worry and trepidation flooded me. It wasn’t just great sex that lured me here first thing every trip home, but her, how much I felt for her, and how good the time we shared felt.

  Being with Rachel was the total package—mind, body, and soul fully awake, generously fed, lovingly tended—and though my fucked-up life made it impossible to make more out of us than what we were, I grew sharply aware that I needed the little drops of what we had more than I’d been willing to admit to myself.

  Parts of me went into deep hibernation on the road; she breathed all parts of me back to life and fused me together.

  For some reason, standing in the dim light of her porch, I was desperately ready for that, more than usual. Maybe it was because the last couple of months on the road had been rough and I never felt as content or steady as I did than when I was with Rachel.

  Fuck, I didn’t want to be brushed off, though I probably deserved it, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to change it if she decided it was time to kick me to the curb. If I’d finally pushed her to the point of letting go, I had to let her. It was the only fair things to do. But the thought of losing Rachel was devastating.

  I stared at my phone. There was no point in stalling any longer—she’d already decided what was going to happen. So I bit the bullet and checked the text.

  My heart and dick made a nice little flutter.

  Use your key and come in, soldier.

  The ‘soldier’ made me smile and my blood start to boil. If I’d learned anything in fifteen years with Rachel, when she called me soldier I was in for a wild ride. The first nights back from a deployment we were always at our best.

  After shoving my phone back into my pocket, I slipped my key into the lock, stepped into the house, and froze.

  Well, well, well…

  The breath caught in my throat. She was sitting on the floor in the center of the room, reclined on a hip and arm. Candles blazed atop every surface, and beside her were an opened bottle of wine, two glasses, and carefully arranged trays of fruit and cheese.

  Christ, when did she have time to do all this? It was only about five minutes door-to-door. Then an errant thought shot through my head—fuck, she’d gotten ready for me last night—but I quickly pushed it away because if there was going to be future fallout for me showing up a day later than I told her I would, there wasn’t evidence of it on her face.

  I hung back and just stared at her. She was stunning and proof positive that the right woman could wear anything and be agonizingly alluring. As weird as it sounds, seeing her swallowed up in one of my old t-shirts sent me from low-lit fire to flame thrower faster than that pricy lace and leather crap too many women think necessary.

  I was almost afraid—almost—to step into the room.

  “Hi, beautiful,” I said, still not moving.

  She smiled. “I thought a reunion celebration was in order, and since you gave yourself away letting me know you’re still feeling bad about our last time together, I might just let you throw in some makeup sex as well.”

  I sank to my knees in front of her and took her face in my hands. “You’re amazing. Do you know that?”

  She made a face. “Then apologize already. It’s been a year. We need to move on from there.”

  I ran my thumb down her cheek. “Right now you could move me anywhere.”

  “Then start moving, Dillon.”

  Lightly I started to roam her face with my kisses, and in between the touches of my lips, I asked, “Are we alone?”

  She bowed her neck for me to travel those spots she loved. “Cody is with Mom in Monterey—”

  That was all the green light I needed. My mouth lowered to worship her breasts and my hand slid up her thigh to her clit. My eyes widened. “Oh, someone missed me and is happy I’m here. Not even wearing panties.”

  She started to laugh, a ragged purr deep in her chest, and there was a pleasant kind of heavy silliness between us despite the heatedness of our flesh.

  Her fingers fluttered on the fastening of my jeans and that’s all it took to get me undressed in record time. My body was on overdrive, quickening to each taste
of her, and while I was really touched by the scene she’d set, I couldn’t think of anything better than being inside her quickly.

  When she lay back on the pillows scattered behind her, watching as I rolled a condom down my length, she opened her legs. “Please.” The word slipped from her lips and I didn’t need any more coaxing to go full steam ahead. I sank myself into her like a starving man.

  It was hard to contain my excitement with my cock slick with her juices, and she was so warm, wet, and ready I wondered if she’d masturbated as she’d waited. A vision of her teasing her bud and fingering her slit, making herself slick for me, nearly made me come.

  I propped myself on my elbows to get a better look at her, and the hunger inside me was mirrored in her eyes. I pumped my cock back and forth in her then stopped it somehow. She gasped and I could tell she was seconds from losing it, but we’d both come too soon, sooner than I wanted, if I didn’t restrain myself a bit.

  I gave it to her slow before I picked up speed because only one of us had been fucking regularly, and it wasn’t her since she nearly came as I rubbed my fingers against her slit. A moan sighed through her lips, seconding my thoughts—it’d been too long since we’d been together and how the fuck had I let over a year pass without this?—and as her inner walls tightened and shimmied around my thrusts, the mounting heat inside her quickened my pace.

  Her breathy whimpers turned into loud moans and pleas. “Don’t stop…Dillon…I…God, I’ve missed you. Have you missed me?”

  I could only manage a groan in response because her pussy was so wet I was shaking in want of release. Open mouthed in silent exaltation, I was racing us both toward orgasm when I felt a change in her, an emotional detachment even as her hips thrust into my continuing pursuit.

  “Have you missed me?”

  Her voice was rough. Controlled. But shaken.

  I opened my eyes and my vision filled with the beauty of Rachel. My hips were still flexing and my cock was about to explode. Forming a safe, cogent response just wasn’t going to happen, and this was Rachel—even a jerk like me couldn’t mouth a slick line with how she stared at me—so I said words as they came into my head.

  “Yes. I missed you every second. I missed us every day. Say the word, baby, and I’ll come home.”

  In honesty, I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d mumbled. I’d spoken without thought because my full focus was concentrated on the howling demands of my cock. And yep, men said things while fucking they didn’t remember or even hear. Things that might have been true at the time—or untrue—but it didn’t matter which so long as it got the job done and the fucking resumed.

  She reached up, gripping my shoulders and pulling me close, and dug her heels into my ass, pushing me beyond the thin hold of restraint I’d managed thus far.

  My mind went blank after that, but in the best way, with Rachael letting go and dragging me into an inferno that took hold of my soul and made me her own.

  Those elusive words from a few seconds earlier rose to taunt my conscience, shocking the hell out of me, but I told myself it didn’t matter. As she quivered against my flesh and dragged me over the edge with her, I fucking believed every syllable of it.

  It wasn’t difficult to rationalize it into something comfortable and unthreatening. As I plunged into her, she felt so good. We felt so good. Being between her thighs felt like home.

  *`~`*

  We shared Rachel’s picnic—eventually—but I think it heightened the flavor being naked, sex-drained, and wrapped around each other on the floor.

  The darkness hours passed in quiet talk and laughter and wine as we caught up on each other’s details from the past year. In fact, it rapidly started to feel like I’d never been anywhere other than here.

  But that was Rachel.

  The second I touched her everything beyond the door blurred and held the strange feeling of not being real. Nothing else interested me when I was with her.

  I turned into her on the pillows and started kissing her neck. It was nearly morning, but I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to stay or go. I gave her a deep, thorough kiss, filling her mouth with the twirling tease of my tongue before I eased back. “Can I stay until morning?”

  “You can stay forever,” she whispered. An expression I couldn’t read appeared before she smoothed out her features.

  I kissed her one more time, brushing my lips along her cheek. “I’m off the road for four months. Will that work for you?”

  “No, but it’s a start and I’ll take it.” She quickly tucked her head against my shoulder, but not fast enough that I didn’t see into her eyes and realize I’d been flippant and she’d been serious.

  Chapter Seven

  Sacramento, two months later…

  GOD, I FUCKING LOVE this woman. That thought pierced through my pleasure as I lifted my head off the pillow to watch Rachel’s mouth slowly run up my length. Her tongue twirled the tip of my cock before she sank to take me full length and, groaning, I collapsed back against the bed as my hips urgently pumped into the motions of her mouth.

  Her fingers went to work their magic on my balls and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold back much longer. I don’t even know how I lasted as long as I did. I’d been on fire since I’d woken to find my morning wood already pressed between her lips.

  I drove my dick into her mouth and she greedily took it. I brushed her wisps of hair, loving the feel of it on my fingers. I tried to take hold of her so I could drape her atop me to stroke her with my tongue, but she ran hers up my length before sucking so hard I blew my load.

  By the time she crawled back up my body to curl on my chest we were both languid and content.

  “Oh fucking God, Rachel, you drive me out of my mind when you do that,” I whispered, exhaling in exaltation and closing my eyes.

  “Better than coffee waiting on the bedside?”

  I laughed. “Better than anything on this fucking earth. Almost perfect.”

  Her eyes flashed but she was smiling. “Well, what do you mean almost perfect?”

  With a playful growl, I turned her on her back. “It will be perfect in about twenty minutes. I won’t have my woman saying I’m selfish.”

  She giggled as she squirmed into the play of my fingers on her slit. “Your woman, huh? You’re such a caveman at—”

  I closed my mouth over her and she rapidly sucked in air, losing her words. It didn’t take much to get her off and to be honest I was a little bummed she came so soon since I could have lapped between her thighs all morning.

  She was still breathing heavily when I settled on the pillows close to her. I didn’t want to move. Not for the rest of the day—well, unless it was to put myself balls deep in her again.

  Fuck, she was stunning in the morning, passion kissed, sex messy, and smelling of our flavor.

  “That was incredible,” she purred.

  “Which part?”

  Her eyes went wide. “All of it.” She grimaced, groaned, and sat up. “It’s a good thing you are very good with your tongue. You’ve already made me late this morning.”

  “Cody is at school. I thought we had the rest of the day alone together.”

  “No, one of us has got to work. I didn’t expect to stay here so long. I only came back after dropping Cody off to get my checkbook.” She turned to face me, her eyes twinkling. “But you make such a cute picture lying in bed in the morning”—her fingers fluttered over my contented cock—“both of you, that I made a detour.”

  Chuckling, I noted there was coffee on the night table and grabbed my cup. “Are you sorry you did?”

  “Hell no. You were mine for the taking. But now I’ve got to start moving double time, soldier. I’ve got that event at the convention center until Cody gets out of school. And I have to make an extra stop at his school to fix some foul-up over his tuition.”

  I frowned. “They charge to send a kid to kindergarten now?”

  She rolled her eyes. “He’s in private school, remember? The neighborho
od schools are terrible here. Like hell I’d let him attend them, but I’d be a liar if I said the tuition wasn’t killing me.”

  “How bad could it be?”

  “Can you believe fifteen thousand a year?”

  I made a low whistle and fell back on my pillows, only half joking. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Nope. And I was lucky to get him in Adams Academy. I signed him up and pretty much have been flying by the seat of my pants month to month to pay for it.”

  For someone in Rachel’s circumstance that was a hefty bill. From another woman I would have taken her unexpected status update as a not-so-subtle setup to hit me for money, but I knew Rachel well enough to know that even if she did need help she wouldn’t ask for it. Not from her mom, me, or anyone. Stubborn, resourceful, and determined; that was my gal.

  In truth, I wasn’t totally clear how she supported herself since it was one of the few areas of her life she didn’t talk freely about with me. What I’d managed to piece together was she worked from home as a virtual assistant for several authors, each paying her a small monthly fee, and she did some blogging, though how she monetized that was anyone’s guess. Oh, and she helped at promotional events like the book signing she was off to today at the convention center.

  Somehow she made a living at this, she’d run the business since Cody’s birth, but the math never worked in my head. Maybe there was more money in indie publishing than I thought. What the fuck did I know?

  Once she was dressed, she went to an armoire and started rummaging through things, picking up papers then setting them down as she gnawed on her lower lip.

  Watching her made me feel useless and a bum of a man. “How much do you need, baby?” I asked, surprising myself as much as her, but it was the right thing to do.

  She laughed. “Zero, thank you very much. I just need to find my other checks. I paid the tuition from the wrong account and it bounced. Not a crisis. Just stupidity.”

  Nope, wasn’t buying that. “I have plenty of money, Rachel.”

  “How nice for you. You should spend it on something you want.”