Catching to Win (Over the Fence #3)

by Carrie Aarons

  Clint fists himself and squeezes, painfully so, while all of the air whooshes out of my lungs. Jesus my boyfriend is fucking gorgeous.

  “Come here and let me do that.” I squirm on the bed, wanting to press my thighs together but also spread them far apart simultaneously.

  He moves to kneel in front of me on the bed, a curious glance on his face. “I…can we try something new?”

  So cute. He always asks permission each time he wants to try something he’s never done. And of course I always give it. I don’t answer, just give him a small nod as I die a slow death because his hands still aren’t on me.

  Clint lays down, spreading his legs and placing his head on the pillow.

  “Straddle my face, and suck my dick.”

  His crude words almost make me come on the spot. Just a few carefully placed words, that’s all I need to tip me over the edge and Clint has learned that well.

  So he wants to try 69. I’ve never been a huge fan of this position, but of course I’ll do anything for him.

  I do as I’m told, position myself and backing up until I can feel his hot, damp breath blowing against my slit. And then his tongue is stroking up my dripping sex, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. Okay, focus Kelsey. I zero in on the huge cock in front of me, so close to my nose that it’s like he’s bobbing up and down waving hello. I take Clint in my mouth, tentatively at first, slow licks and kisses to his head.

  I feel the low growl of pleasure from Clint all the way through my pussy, and it causes me to draw him further into my mouth, gulping him down as far as he’ll go. When his massive cock hits the back of my throat, I feel Clint bite down, not so gently, on my clit. I see stars.

  It’s one of the most elicit, intimate experiences I’ve ever had. I’m spread open and vulnerable for Clint, and each time pleasure rocks one of us, the other feels it to the core. 69. My new favorite position.

  We feast on each other, mutually fulfilling with each kiss, suck and lick. I’m sucking him so deep and hard that my orgasm sneaks up on me, starting in my fingers and toes and rippling toward the center of my body until I implode. I’m crying out with my lips still wrapped around Clint’s rock solid staff.

  I don’t even realize he’s moved me until my back hits the bed and he’s pushing inside me, hot and heavy and throbbing.

  I gasp again until he covers my lips with his swollen ones. We taste and lick, our sex on each other’s mouths. And then he is speeding up, pounding and thrusting like if he stops he might cease to exist. My brain shuts off and it’s just me, Clint and the darkness.

  21

  Clint

  Finding a real job is a job.

  I’d spent the entire week researching and applying to every non-profit that concerned childhood obesity that I could find. I reached out to camps, counseling programs, basically any job out there that was in the realm of what I'd figured out I wanted to do.

  And still no calls back. So this is what adulthood felt like.

  The weeks had dwindled down to nothing, and in four days we had to be out of the house. Some new set of knucklehead jocks were coming to take our house over. This was going to be their kingdom for the next two years. I envied them so much. I didn't want to grow up. I wanted to stay in the craphole college residence with my best friends and my girl, sitting on the couch and watching sports all day then venturing out to Sammy's at night.

  But at the same time, I was looking forward to moving on. Helping children who were currently in the place I'd been in. Those who felt down on themselves and didn't know how to change that. I was damn excited to get started.

  I was also pumped to start this new chapter with Kelsey. We hadn't talked much about where we would be, if we would live together, how this would work. As of now I was planning to head back to Alabama for a month or so to get my ducks in a row, check up on my parents. She was going to stay here, work at the preserve and crash with Jackson until we figured something out.

  Jackson. I hadn't had time to think about what to do with the tidbit of suspicion that had been nipping at my brain for two weeks. Until today.

  I was on my way over to the preserve in my shitty old SUV to confront him, ask him some questions, and get some real information for Kelsey. It’s bad enough her mother lied to her for this long. But to have Jackson, the one parental-type figure she trusts in her life do that to her? She will be crushed.

  A pang of guilt hits me in the ribs. If she finds out I've been keeping my suspicions from her, she might be royally pissed at me. But I needed to protect her from the pain of this as long as I could. No sense in hurting her if I am wrong, which I very well could be.

  I find Jackson filling plastic tubs full of raw steaks near the tiger dens. His instincts must be razor sharp, because he turns before I'm even within 30 feet of him. He straightens and waves, shielding his eyes with his weathered, tan hands from the sun in his face.

  "Clint, nice to see you back so soon. Where's Mother Nature?" He shakes my hand, his eyes peering around me to see if Kelsey is just behind me.

  "Just me today, I'm afraid. I thought maybe you and I could talk."

  Jackson's face molds into worried frown lines, and I know he knows this isn't going to be a good chat.

  "Sure, let me just take this food to the den. How about you meet me up in my office?" He points to a 1980's style trailer that sits just on the crest of the hill. Figures a rugged type like Jackson would refuse to be in the shiny office building down near the front gates.

  I nod and make my way up as he carries the red hunks of meat to what I can only assume is going to be a feeding frenzy. Swinging open the rusty, metal door when I reach the trailer, I walk into what has to be an exact replica of Kelsey's bedroom, only office style. Papers and water bottles litter the desk and spill onto the floor. One end of the burnt orange couch is covered in back issues of National Geographic, and the walls are plastered in diagrams of the animal kingdom and species charts. Now I know where my girl got her impeccable tidiness from.

  Jackson lumbers in as I'm leafing through a November 2013 copy of National Geographic that features a piece on the O'Brien's. Go figure.

  His lean, wiry body moves effortlessly over the mess on the floor. Jackson looks exactly like what you picture when you think of a zoo keeper. He wears nothing but khaki's, has a continual scruffy brown-blonde beard, and his skin is always the color of polished leather. He's like Steve Irwin's clone, except he's got a bit of vintage cowboy mixed in there. And of course, the facial features that match Kelsey's so much its uncanny.

  "So what can I do for you, son?"

  A weird sensation has my neck hairs standing on end at the word son.

  "How long have you known?" I'm not one to pussyfoot around. Especially not when it comes to matters concerning Kelsey.

  I see the recognition in those worn brown eyes, but he doesn't play along. "What's that now?"

  Deep breath, Bellows. "I know you're her father."

  Jackson sucks in a breath and then blows it out. But I can tell in his body language. He's been waiting for this day. Waiting for someone to finally call out the one thing he's been hiding for so long.

  "How did you guess?"

  I snort, still not knowing if I should have my defenses up with this guy. "How could I not know? You practically cloned her. She has all of the same mannerisms. Jesus, she's got your damn nose. I don't know how she's never noticed."

  "Because I've managed to stay just far enough out of reach for all of these years."

  "You're an asshole. Lying to her like that. I thought you cared about her."

  Rage sparks in his eyes as he slams his palms flat on the cluttered desk. "Don't walk onto my preserve, into my office, and pretend to know something you have absolutely no idea about. You have no clue just what it’s been like to lie to her. To live 20 years of my life orbiting around my child who I can't even claim as mine. Don't you dare accuse me of that."

  I back down, dropping into a chair as a sign of peace.
"So then tell me. Why lie for all of these years?"

  Jackson slumps, all of the energy leaving his body. As if telling his secret has left him bereft and empty. "Well, I'd have to start at the beginning."

  He pauses, his face drawn up into a thinking scowl. "I met Madeline O'Brien just a year after I'd graduated college. I had spectacular dreams of traveling the fields of Africa, saving animals from extinction and all that. She'd just burst onto the scene with Hugo, the wonder couple who was blazing the trail in zoology. I was smitten, and she was lonely. Late nights in the lab led to a talking, which led to a friendship, and then you know what happened after that. I was in love with her, although I never knew her feelings in the whole matter. Then one day, things just stopped. She wouldn't even look at me, left to start research in Panama. Hugo approached me, told me I could keep my job and a place in their empire if I promised never to breathe in the direction of his wife again."

  He wipes a hand over his face, trying to erase the grief so evident in his features. "Of course, years later I realized what had happened. She'd gotten pregnant. We'd gotten pregnant. And instead of stay with me, she chose him. She chose her career and greatness and all of the things it meant to stay married to Hugo O'Brien. The first time I saw Kelsey..."

  Jackson's voice cracks. Its then I know that this secret has been eating away at him for decades.

  "Madeline and Hugo came for this new exhibit being put in, gazelles I think. And they'd brought the baby. Of course I'd heard she'd given birth years ago, I tried not to follow them too closely. It’s easy when your bosses are traveling to different continents every week and you're just a lowly employee in their Virginia preserve. But seeing Kelsey for the first time, Christ. I knew instantly. She was probably four or five, with these fire engine red locks that were down to her butt because she wouldn't let anyone cut her "lion's mane." She ran right up to this pack of elephants and began playing with their trunks. No fear, just joy. I knew then that she had to be mine. I felt like I was seeing a ghost, a long lost piece of my heart that I had only just discovered was missing. I confronted Madeline immediately. At first she denied it, but I pressed her. Told her I'd take her to court for a paternity test. That's when I really pissed off the ice queen. She told me I'd be hurting my own daughter, dragging this scandal through the press. So I used it as leverage. Told her she had to settle close by with Kelsey, someplace where I could see her often. That's why they chose Mitchum. And so I started a relationship with my daughter. A friendship. I looked after her as best I could, all the while slowly cutting out my own heart that she was living under another man's roof."

  I see tears in his eyes. In the middle of this shitty metal can, this man who seems so solid and formidable, is crumbling like an ant beneath the glare of the microscope. I hear the wind squealing in through the crack in the trailer window, and don't know where to go from here. "You have to tell her, she deserves to know."

  "This secret, it’s become a part of my soul. I wouldn't even know where to start..."

  The door cracks open violently behind my chair, sending shockwaves through the entire metal tube. And in the opening stands Kelsey.

  "Baby-" It’s the only thing I get out before she silences me with a finger. I know better than to speak again.

  Jackson and I stand there, two idiots caught with our proverbial pants down as she glares at us. It’s more than a glare. Those hazel eyes are onyx, all of the rage has been sucked from the world and transplanted into this gorgeous pixie. Red tendrils stand up this way and that, her face shines with a fresh coat of glossy tears. She must be tearing holes in her palms by how hard she's clenching her tiny fists.

  "You can start by getting the fuck out of my life." Kelsey's words are venom, meant to cause bodily harm to Jackson.

  "Kelsey, I can explain...I never, I never wanted you to find out this way. Please, can we just talk?"

  A biting laugh bubbles up from her throat, sarcastic and cruel. "You had 20 years to talk to me. 20 years! You lied to my goddamn face my entire life. When I was crying to you about my parents, about Madeline. You knew how alone I felt, how misguided I was."

  Jackson makes a strangled noise in his throat, but Kelsey presses on.

  "And you!" She rounds on me, her nostrils flaring and voice breaking on a sob. "You promised me. You told me to trust you. How long have been keeping this from me? I guess that honesty only applied to situations you decided were important."

  I move for her out of instinct, trying to wrap her in my arms. "Roo..."

  "No! Do not touch me. I never want to see either of you again. You are not my father," she shouts at Jackson, who whimpers. "And we are over."

  I feel like I've been smacked in the face. Gutted. My chest has been flayed open and fried.

  Kelsey's halfway down the path to Jackson's trailer when I shake the body-numbing grief I'm currently under the spell of. Sprinting from the office, I shout her name, trying to catch the sand that's quickly slipping through my fingertips.

  Before I can reach her, she's throwing her Jetta into reverse, the tires kicking up lung-filling dust into my face. And then she's gone, speeding out onto the main road through the gates.

  I bend at the waist, feeling like I've been socked in the gut, the balls, the throat. I can't breathe properly. What the fuck did I just do?

  But I know what I did. I committed the one sin I promised her I'd never commit. I broke her trust. And now the gypsy is in the wind again, running from anything that might hurt.

  22

  Kelsey

  I don't even stop at home to collect any of my belongings. I just steer my car in the direction of the airport and put my mind on autopilot.

  I don't want to think. To feel. Feelings are raw and they hurt like an elephant's tusk being shoved through your sternum. Which is why I always fucking avoided them.

  Why couldn't I have just stuck to the plan? Live like a free bird, never fall in love, fucking protect myself.

  I can't even process what I'd just heard. It’s like my internal hard drive is crashing bit by bit.

  Jackson is my father.

  It’s a sick, cruel joke and the universe is laughing at me. He's been planted two feet in front of my face this entire time.

  My heart has been cleaved in two and then shoved into a blender. I'm not even sure I can feel it anymore, except every time I picture Clint's face it does this dramatic twist that makes me feel as if I'm going to vomit.

  I park the car in overnight parking, not even bothering to realize that it will probably be towed when I don't return for it. People pass by in a rush, bags and spouses and toddlers in tow. Cabs screech to a halt in front of each gate, and a cop's whistle blares over the entire ecosystem of the airport.

  I realize I don't have my passport on me, which means escaping the country is out of the question. I don't know where to go. Minka is back at the house, with Clint. So that's a no. Mitchum is definitely a no, too obvious and my parents could always unexpectedly stop in. Right now I have no desire to be on one of their preserves; Jackson will surely get word of it.

  The lightbulb in my head finally shines bright. New York. I'll go to Chloe.

  The flight to the Big Apple is a blur. I have one too many gin and tonics. The stewardess looks worried when I ask for a fifth, but she still brings it. I don't know if the haggard expression on my face wins her sympathy, or if she's regarding me strangely because I'm in zoo keeper khakis with dirt from the grounds still smeared on my face.

  As soon as I hit the terminal, I felt swarmed. I’d forgotten how crowded New York was. My senses went into overdrive, taking in pixels of the noise and motion around me. I felt that at any moment I’d have a full on breakdown.

  Hitting the pavement, I hailed a cab. Only to realize I had no idea where Chloe and Miles lived in the city. A sob broke from my lips, and I could feel the dam I’d so carefully laid into place start to give under the weight of my emotions.

  Chloe picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Kels!”
/>   At the tinkling, cheerful note of her voice the tears started to rush out. I relayed half of my story in hurried sobs and hiccups, with Chloe confusedly shouting into the phone. Finally she gave me the address, promising to meet me out front of their building.

  I practically cry on the shoulder of the cab driver when I hop in, but somehow discerns the garbled address I give him.

  Chloe is waiting, her long black hair swaying in the wind. Those pink ballet pointe shoes are slung around her shoulders, almost like another organ.

  I run out of the yellow taxi and into her arms. Thankfully, my best friend doesn’t question me. Just puts her arm around my shoulder and ushers me inside.

  * * *

  For the first few days I crash in Miles and Chloe's second bedroom, I simply sleep. The pain of finding out the truth coupled with Clint's lie is too great. I can't let it prick the surface of my skin, so I invest in some great sleeping pills and give myself over to the bliss. By the fourth day, the grieving-binger stage hits. Good thing New York is the city that never sleeps. Which means I can order pizza, Chinese food and milkshakes to my heart's desire, and they'll be dropped of on my doorstep at even the latest of hours.

  I hear Chloe and Miles whisper-arguing late at night when they think I’m not listening.

  “We have to tell him where she is!” Miles hisses at her, clearly concerned about his best friend. His best friend who also happens to be a lying sack of shit.

  I haven’t turned on my phone since I got here, refusing to tell anyone where I am. From what I can tell, Miles and Chloe haven’t tipped Clint off.

  “She trusts us. I’m not betraying that. And we haven’t even gotten the full story. You have no idea what he did to send her running. What if he cheated on her?”

  “Clint!? Yeah right! I’m pretty sure he was a virgin before he met Kelsey.”

  Right on one count, Farris.

  I wish he cheated on me. That would have been easier to swallow than what Clint had actually done.