And as all of those sparks faded, only leaving wisps of pleasure in their passing, I found myself clutching Ryker’s hair and squeezing his cheeks with my legs. But I didn’t give one good goddamn. Not one scrap of embarrassment to give in the after-math of the ecstasy he’d given me.
“I’d ask you if you liked that, but you body kinda told me you did,” he chuffed sliding himself up so as to drag his hard length up and onto my belly as his swollen lips reached for mine. I tasted myself on his mouth while my body reverberated in delicious beats, sent my thoughts a different direction. As my heart and body edged to my brand of normal, I felt bold and had no problems hooking a thigh around one of his to flip him onto his back.
Eye to eye and nose to nose I told him, completely and sincerely, “Now, though? It’s my turn, Mr. Man.”
Loving his look of surprise, I took full advantage as I ravished his mouth with mine as I straddled his hips, rubbing my slickened core over the steel jutting up between his legs. But I only kept that position for a minute before I slid down, my mouth trailing down the length of his neck, his pecs (albeit with stops to swirl my tongue over and around the sharp points of his nipples), then over the hills and valley of his abs.
He must’ve figured out my goal, though, because he brought a hand to either side of my head and whispered harshly, “You don’t have to do this, Phoebe.”
But I wasn’t going to be deterred from my goal. To my mind, we were either in this fifty-fifty, or not at all. “Oh yeah, honey. I do,” I moaned as my mouth and tongue explored every ridge, every dip of his trembling, muscled stomach.
Which was only seconds before the fingers of one of my hands found him and lifted his length upright. Without thinking twice, I covered the mushroomed tip of him with my wet, hot mouth. And felt every bit of him tense, not only in what I held between my lips, but also the stomach muscles beneath my forehead, and the thighs I’d inveigled myself between.
“Fuck, baby,” he growled with a palm on either side of my head, giving me the first bleep of alarm at how he could control me when I’d thought I held the upper hand. “Madre de Dios, mi cariña.”
I paused and removed his hands. I wasn’t going to be able to do this if I was afraid. “Just relax, honey.” As soon as his palms fell away, I went back to it gaining another growl of, “Fuck, baby.”
Oh yes. I was getting to him, and from the fervent yearning note in his words, I was doing it in a big way. So I continued. Licking and sucking, sliding my lips down and around and when I found I was unable to take the fullness of him completely into my mouth, employing a hand to follow my movements.
I did it all slow, and hot to my way of thinking.
But Ryker needed something more as his hips began to thrust, shoving himself fast within, inside the cavern of my mouth, my tongue no longer able to swirl and dip against what was fiercely invading. My only consolation was in the fact he wasn’t ramming himself down my throat.
“Oh fuck yeah, Phoebe,” he groaned lustily, his butt lifting off the mattress before dropping away. “Take it. Take all of me.”
But it was only a few seconds before his hands came back my head, only this time to remove me, to take me off of him. And as my chin cleared the touch of his skin, I watched, glued in fascination as I saw white streams shoot out from tip of his deeply throbbing member, coating his stomach in spurts that left him breathless and writhing.
As for me?
Oh yeah, seeing Ryker explode over what I’d enacted, at what my mouth and hands caused was very arousing, although I wished he’d allowed me to finish as I drank him in, like he’d done for me when I’d come. Not only because it had felt so amazing but also to contain the mess.
Sitting back on my calves, I gave him a smile before climbing off the bed and went to grab a washcloth, my head filled with the visions of what we’d done. Hot, sexy visions creating a renewed wetness between my legs.
When I climbed back up on the bed though, I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I clean him up or would Ryker want to do it himself? Saving me from having to decide, he took the cloth from me and did the deed with a rueful grin.
I didn’t like the silence between us though. “Did I do that right?”
“Couldn’t you tell?” he mumbled, chin down as he swiped at the last of his emissions before tossing the piece of terrycloth to the floor. When done he twisted to grab me, taking me to my back and half-covering me with his body. We were nose to nose when he gave me what I wanted to hear. “Absolutely perfect, baby. Watching and feeling you work me with your mouth was a fantasy come true.”
We shared a long, wet deep kiss that went on forever, so filled with heat, I found myself rubbing my thighs together in an attempt to create friction for the bludgeoning desire he built a second time.
Pulling back, he smiled lazily. “Seems my girl needs more.”
I blinked as my blush rose, unwilling to admit it.
His eyes went from my face to the nightstand, to the pump bottle of hand cream I kept there. “You up for trying something else?”
“So-something else?” I struggled to imagine what else we could get up to and failed. He went up and over me, reaching to snag the container before coming back to my side.
“Why don’t you show me how you touch yourself when I’m not around?”
I parted my lips to protest his scandalous proposal, but my body took to his idea with a heavy throb of delight. Could I do it, allow him to observe me in solo play? Then I had another idea, one even more thrilling. “Only if you let me watch you do it too.”
Ryker’s eyes flared and he quickly scrambled up onto his knees before sitting back on his heels. “You’ve got yourself a deal, woman.”
So it was, I found my shoulders propped against the headboard, my handsome, seductive boyfriend by my side as I played with myself, while he played with himself, our eyes devouring what the other was doing there in the morning after one of the worst days of my life.
And it was beautiful.
Chapter Twenty
When Tonya first called about the group of us getting together for dinner, I initially balked since it hadn’t been that long since our time at the Surly Snowman. But the reality was, I wanted to spend my all off hours with Ryker whenever possible. Somehow he’d created a safe barrier between me and the rest of the world, much like my lights did.
But when Tonya pointed out we hadn’t had a chance to really talk that night at the Surly, I caved knowing she was right.
Back in the day, my sisters and I kept each other up to date on what was happening in our lives, sharing our triumphs and sorrows easily. However, over the last six months our gatherings were few and far between. Plus, none of them knew about Ryker. Maybe it was time to expose my relationship with him and to take the teasing I knew the girls would dish out in heaping spoonfuls.
I was one of the last to arrive at Tonya’s tiny house and as I rang the bell, I could hear the all-girl party was already in full swing with feminine laughter overriding the sound of the soft-rock Tonya liked to play. When no one answered, I adjusted the hold I had on my casserole and breezed inside to a chorus of, “Hey, Pheebs!”.
Coco took the dish from my hands as Beta used her fingers on my forearm to steer me to the sideboard where an impromptu bar was set up. “What’ll it be, girl? We have plenty of booze and a wealth of mixers, so just name your poison.” But with the memory of my hangover after our last get-together, I still couldn’t face alcohol and just went for a bottle of water instead.
“Phoebe!” Vonnie yelled from the stove, holding a spoon as she waved her free hand my direction. “You’ve gotta taste this stuff.”
Making my way to where my former roommate stood, I made a point of touching each of my ‘sisters’ as I passed by them. I did it mainly to let them know how happy I was to see them, to be a part of their lives but also to reconnect with them if only in the briefest of touches.
All except for Vonnie of course. She’d never been a touchy-feely person, eschewing h
ugs or the occasional hand-clasp of empathy even as a young girl. So for her, I used one of her moves of affection and bumped my arm against hers. “What’s going on, Von?”
“Here, try this,” she replied, shoving a spoonful of a light-colored sauce towards my mouth. “It’s freaking ambrosia.”
Blowing on the steaming spoon, I sipped at it, the delicate flavors of lemon, rosemary and garlic exploding on my tongue and I closed my eyes to better savor the combination of flavors.
“It’s only the lemon gravy for the chicken,” Tonya countered, coming to stand on the other side of me. “Geez, Vons. I swear those taste-buds of yours are gonna just up and die if you continue eating nothing but fast-food.”
Tonya was a chef. And not just one of the run-of-the-mill variety, but one of the chefs at the Roses, Grantham’s fanciest dining establishment. A career she’d planned on since we were youngsters, much like I’d done with nursing. As girls, we’d shared Diana’s kitchen, which hadn’t been such a good thing in the beginning since Tonya and I were both very competitive. A fact that got one or another of us, sometimes even both, banned from helping with ‘family’ meals.
Vonnie answered Tonya by sticking out her tongue, making me and the black-haired chef giggle. Only adding, “Says you,” afterward.
Tonya’s arm snaked around my waist for a hug but her words were meant for our petite girl sporting neon-green highlights in her short red hair. “Great comeback, kiddo.”
I heard a sharp bark of laughter from behind and turned to see Coco leaning up against the bar that stretched across the wide length of Tonya’s kitchen. Also petite, Coco (aka Nicole) was dainty and all girly-girl with her warm brown eyes and deep brown, wavy shoulder-length hair. “Feels like old times. But wasn’t it Phoebe and Ya-ya who used to trade insults?”
I’d forgotten our old nickname for Tonya, the one Beta had come up with to describe the tall, thin girl with the stick-straight black hair.
“Surprised you didn’t compare them to the animals you work with,” Vonnie mumbled with a glance to the woman behind us, dipping her spoon again, only interrupted by Tonya’s light slap.
Coco was a veterinary assistant while going to school at night to become a full-time veterinarian, so Vonnie’s comment wasn’t far off the mark. Although, how the tiny girl could wrangle some of her larger, furrier patients was a mystery. “Oh, I’ve thought of you all as animals throughout the years. And you, Vons, I see as a cantankerous gerbil.”
Although the words themselves seemed like an insult, Coco’s tone didn’t allow it to be. And luckily Vonnie didn’t take offense. But my two shorter ‘sisters’ kept up their banter as Tonya tried to shoo them away from the stove.
Moving back from our small group, I made my way to the other side of the bar to sit next to Maizie who was availing herself of the selection of hors d’eourves and crudités on display. Smearing a cracker with some port wine cheese, I nodded then swallowed. “Hey, May. What’s up?”
“My weight,” she returned on a sigh, crunching on a unadorned celery stick while eyeing the pot of ranch dressing with longing. “Swear to Dios, seems like no matter what I do, no matter what diet I try, I can’t lose a pinche pound.”
In my opinion, she didn’t need to lose an ounce. Maizie was round, sure, but carried all those curves in all the right places. Well, maybe she had more booty than boobs, but that was just the way she was built. And on her, it looked good.
“How’s this year’s class?” I offered, trying to get her off the subject of her body, one I knew she could wax on about for an hour and not in a good way as she ran herself down.
“Hellions, the lot of ‘em,” she intoned on a sigh. “You’d think parents could teach their little darlings common courtesy before kindergarten, but no. They expect me to guide their tiny demons in the ways of normal, social interaction as I also prepare them for first grade.”
I leaned her way while dipping a tortilla strip into a bowl of creamy guacamole. “Aw, you love that stuff. Go ahead and deny it, but you were made to be a kindergarten teacher.”
She sighed again but I saw her lips tip up as she tried to swallow her grin. “Yeah, I do. It’s just that the first couple of months of their formal school years are freaking hard.” Her words were spoken with a note of pride in them, if I wasn’t mistaken. But then, Maizie was a nurturer, one of those rare breed of women who really wanted to see others not only grow but thrive, giving her charges the ability to learn from whatever life threw at them and build on it.
As she’d always done for each of us in the group she called ‘hermanas de la corazón’.
Sisters of the heart.
Cutting into all the talk swirling around her well-appointed and kick-ass kitchen, Tonya began giving out instructions, assigning each of us a task to perform. Mine was to set the silverware in place on her huge dining room table. The one she’d spent eight months of eating almost nothing but ramen noodles in order to afford. But in the end, it had been worth it.
Eight feet long and a good three inches deep, the table seemed to be cut from a single piece of wood, buffed and polished until it gleamed beneath the trio of lights, much like you’d see over a pool table. It was large enough for our group of six with space enough for four to six more. But even better, it was the table of Tonya’s dreams.
Once we’d all done our bit, we sat and I found my eyes roaming over every beloved countenance, remembering their younger faces as I admired the beauties each of them had become. Not only in physical appearance, but in spirit as well.
These were my girls.
My family.
All of us had been placed in Diana’s care for a reason. Or should I say, reasons, some too heartbreaking for mere words.
But we’d survived, grown up and were finding our own unique place in the world, connected by heart-strings woven in the sweet web of loving kindness we’d discovered in our foster-mother’s home.
So it was me who raised my water bottle to offer the toast. “To us, the Broken Girls. And to the woman who glued us back together.”
“Hear, hear,” I heard from one of the others, though I couldn’t say who spoke. All I knew is plastic holding my water was soon joined by other glasses and bottles in the middle of the table.
*.*.*.*.*
To say the dinner was good would be the understatement of the century. Beta’s salad started us off, teaming with the freshest of veggies and tossed in a vinaigrette of nothing more than oil and red wine vinegar.
Tonya’s chicken and lemon-herbed gravy went perfectly with my white cheddar and peppered potatoes, Maizie’s amazing corn-bake and Coco’s steamed broccoli seasoned with red pepper flakes.
But it was afterward, when the plates and platters were cleared and Vonnie brought out dessert that an audible sigh was heard in the room. “Since you guys know I can’t cook for shit, brought something from the bakery for dessert.”
And as she shyly placed a towering darkly-iced cake in place of pride before Tonya, she continued, her cheeks coloring as she spoke. “There’s raspberries and whipped topping to go with.”
I found myself murmuring my appreciation along with the others, more than shocked Vonnie had gone to such trouble. Usually at these kind of things, she’d slide a tin of overcooked (or undercooked, take your pick) brownies our way. But this? Man alive! Causing me to wonder what the hell was up with her, or more to the point, what was going on her life to cause her to put forth such effort.
After Tonya raced to provide dessert dishes and more forks, we all dug in, diving into Vonnie’s contribution with more than a few moans of scrumptious delight.
“Okay, so you’ve worked the room and the table,” Beta started and I looked her way only to find her eyes on me. “But now it’s time for you to cough up all the deets of what you’ve been up to, dear Phoebe.”
Oh shit.
“Yeah, girl,” Vonnie mumbled over a mouthful of food. “Seems you’ve been extremely…,” she waved her empty-but-for-chocolate-smeared fork in th
e air. “Busy of late. And closed mouthed, to boot.”
“I, ah—.”
“And don’t give us none of that stuff about multiple shifts at the hospital,” Coco added with a giggle.
“We all saw Mr. Tall, Dark and Latino at your place when you moved in and want the scoop.” Tonya popped a whipped-creamed topped raspberry in her mouth as she shot me a smiling stare. “The full of it, if you don’t mind.”
Holy freaking hell.
I’d planned on telling them, wanted to tell my girls about Ryker, but I’d thought to do it my way, in my own words. Easing into a conversation where I was sure to catch some shit about the derailment of my timeline and checklists. “Uhm, yeah—,” I started again only to be cut off by Maizie.
“She’s seeing someone?” At the shocked note in her voice, I turned to look at her, my eyebrows furling with my scowl. “No one said anything about no guy. And he’s Latino? God help us all, because I can’t see our innocent Pheebs with one of my kind.”
Wait a second! Was the thought of me having a man in my life so surprising?
Much less a handsome, seductive Latin one? And just what the hell did Maizie mean by ‘one of her kind’ since I knew for a freaking fact she was only half-Hispanic as evidenced by her honey-colored hair yet so-brown-they-were-black eyes?
I didn’t even want to think about, much less touch the ‘innocent Pheebs’ portion of her question!
So I turned my frown back down to my wedge of cake as I tried to find a way to start. “It’s true. I am seeing someone.”
“Oh my god,” someone breathed into the stunned silence, as I heard a fork clatter to a plate before the room erupted with the sound of a lot of feminine voices.
And as I waited for their exclamations to end (not listening to a word of what they contained), I thought about how to continue, how to describe my dream-man-to-come-life to my girls. As soon as they were done reacting, I gave it to them. “Yes, he’s tall, very handsome and Latino. But he’s also smart, amazingly tender and too hot to describe.”
Phoebe: Book One of Broken Girls Series Page 19
