by A. J. Downey
I nodded, and closed my eyes, thinking sleep would be an impossible thing, but Golden’s presence fought my demons and I fell asleep once more and there was nothing fitful about it this time, but only by virtue of my exhaustion.
I slogged through work the next day. When I’d woken up that morning to my alarm, it’d been to an empty bed. I’d been disappointed, but that disappointment quickly evaporated when I found the note on my bedside table.
Respecting your space, like you asked. I get it. I’m right across the hall. Kiss me before you go.
-G.
I’d gotten ready for work, showered and dressed, but lost my nerve when it came to actually waking him up to kiss him good-bye. It seemed silly waking him up, disturbing him, just for that. I’d dropped my hand from where it had been poised to knock on his door, but I only made it as far as the leading edge of the dining table when his door opened.
I turned around and looked over my shoulder. He leaned against the doorjamb, hair tousled, in just his boxer-briefs, looking warm and inviting. He smiled, a sexy little smirk, and asked me the same thing I’d asked him the night before: “Aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye?”
I’d practically run to him and had kissed him with everything I’d had in me. His arms had gone around my body and hauled it up against his much stronger, much firmer one, and I’d melted all over again. When he’d let me go, I’d been dizzy, almost drunk, on his kiss, but he’d wisely sent me on my way, but not without a light smack on my ass.
That kiss and the gentle, patient, strength he’d shown me the night before, when I’d been nearly at my absolute worst, carried me through the day. At every turn when I’d looked at the clock and realized it’d only been moments since I’d looked the last time, I’d draw from the pleasant memories of the weekend and let it carry me through.
I was on my own in the shop today, and it was slow, so I’d worked on fresh arrangements for the wedding coming that Tuesday, wondering to myself Who got married on a Tuesday?
At long last, it was quitting time, and all I wanted to do was go home and go to bed. I was starving, and I probably should eat something, but I was also too damn tired to care. I locked up the shop and, my hands buried deep in my jacket pockets against the cooler evening air, set off towards home. I made the turn at the proper corner, and blue and red lights lit up behind me and a siren chirped. I jumped and damn near came out of my skin at the unexpected noise and sound, to masculine laughter.
“You all right?” a familiar voice called. I turned and looked.
“You scared me half to death!”
Golden, who was in the passenger seat and leaning out the window said, “We paced you from the shop, Chica. Didn’t know how else to get your attention. I called your name a few times.”
I scrubbed my face with my hands and groaned, “Oh, God! I’m sorry. I’m just so tired.”
“Come on.” He jumped out of the car and opened the back door, waving me in. “We’ll give you a lift home.”
“You can do that?” I asked, frowning.
“Call it in, Pruitt,” Golden said, and his partner, Pruitt, picked up the radio and said something about a meal break into it.
“Now, come on, we have a half an hour and need to eat, too.” He waved the door back and forth on its hinges and I slid into the back seat of the patrol car, snorting a giggle when he put his hand on the top of my head to guide me in.
“Shit, sorry,” he muttered and my smile grew.
“Habits are habits,” I said, and he flashed me a smile before shutting the door. I was honestly just grateful not to have to walk the last four blocks.
The seat was hard and plastic, warm from the engine somehow, and I was surprised to find there were strange slots in the back that made getting comfortable leaning back impossible. I blinked stupidly when it dawned on me that the grooves in the back of the hard seat were meant to accommodate someone with their arms cuffed behind their back.
Pruitt pulled up smoothly against the curb in front of our apartment building in the loading zone and put it into ‘Park.’
I realized there weren’t any handles to open the car door back here, Because, of course, there aren’t, but Golden didn’t waste any time jumping out of the car and opening the door for me.
“Thanks,” I murmured and he smiled at me.
“No problem, Chica.”
“Hey, grab the food,” Pruitt called, and Golden gave a little start.
“Oh, right.” He ducked back in the passenger-side door and came up with a plastic grocery bag tied at the top, holding three Styrofoam clamshells. I smiled and he winked at me. I led the way into our building, the guys following me. I stopped and got the mail and we went upstairs. As soon as we were in the apartment, Pruitt went to the fridge and pulled out three sodas.
Golden silently pulled out a chair for me at the dining table and I sank into it grateful for food I didn’t have to cook myself, and that I wouldn’t be crashing hungry. He set one of the clamshells in front of me and I opened it to a heavenly French dip sandwich, a side of au jus in a Styrofoam bowl with a plastic lid on it.
“You guys really know how to treat a lady,” I said dryly and Pruitt smiled, dropping into a seat of his own across from me. Golden took a seat at the head of the table between us and I smiled as I took a bite. He opened up the can of Coke in front of me for me and I smiled a little more.
I had once complained how I was always afraid of breaking a nail when I opened a can of soda and he’d been doing it for me ever since. Now any time I went for a can of anything anymore, if he were home, I would just take it to him and he would open it and hand it back. I tried to remember when we’d started doing that, but I couldn’t. It just felt like something that always was.
We ate in comfortable silence, and I appreciated the fact that Golden and his partner didn’t feel the need to drag me into a conversation to fill it, that they just let me be and didn’t make me try to think, because I was seriously all out of brain left to brain with. Thinking, beyond dragging myself out of my clothes and into bed, just wasn’t going to happen.
“Mm, we gotta get back on the clock,” Pruitt muttered and Golden sighed, sitting back from his demolished sandwich and fries.
“Go, go, go,” I said, waving them off. “I’ll clean this up. It’s the least I can do after the rescue you provided me. I’m dead on my feet.”
“Thanks,” Pruitt said. “I’m gonna use the can and we can get out of here.”
“First door on the right,” Golden told him. He ducked into my bathroom, turned on the light, and shut the door. I turned back to Golden, who was looking me over, a soft look in his eyes, genuine affection radiating from them.
“Do me a favor, if you’re up to it?” he asked quietly, so as not to be overheard by his partner.
“Sure,” I murmured.
“Go find one of my shirts, and let me find you in my bed when I get home, one of these nights.”
I smiled gently and nodded. “I think I can do that,” I whispered.
He smiled and leaned in, pressing his lips to mine gently in a gentle kiss. He whispered against them, “Bonus points if it’s one of my uniform shirts.”
I laughed and he leaned back with a smug look on his face as Pruitt came out of the bathroom.
“What’s so funny?” Pruitt demanded.
“Inside joke,” Golden said immediately and winked at me. I rose and quickly began to clear the table, so I could keep my back to Pruitt to hide my blush.
“Right,” Pruitt said like he didn’t believe him. I bit my bottom lip and threw the Styrofoam in the trash before putting my leftovers in the fridge.
“See you when I get home, Chica.”
“Nice to see you again, Lys.”
“Be careful out there, boys,” I said, and smiled at them both affectionately.
“Always,” Pruitt said, tipping his patrol cap at me. As soon as Pruitt turned his back, Golden pursed his lips in a kiss and winked at me. I bit my lips together, t
he feel of his last real kiss still lingering on my lips.
As soon as the door shut behind them, I felt my shoulders sag and the last of my mustered energy fled. I leaned heavily against the nearest countertop and heaved a tired sigh, trying to rally just enough to finish the meager cleanup left before I could drag myself off to bed.
As I drifted down the hallway just a few moments later, I paused outside our bedroom doors. I took a deep breath, and twisted the doorknob to Golden’s room and let myself in.
I felt strange standing in his space. I’d never come in here before, both as a sign of respect for his boundaries, and because I didn’t feel as if I belonged here at all, especially with the parade of women that had been through.
I swallowed hard, knowing there was something different when it came to me, that he had broken almost all of his rules when it came to us and that he was serious about me where he hadn’t been serious about any of the other women he’d brought here but still… I may have managed to let myself into his closet, I may have found one of his uniform shirts, but I didn’t think I was ready to spend any more time than that in here. Not yet. I fled to my room, shutting his bedroom door tightly behind me.
Standing just inside the threshold to my own space, I felt like a coward. I felt marginally better when I raised the shirt in my hands to my nose and breathed deeply. It smelled like him, subtly of clean laundry and his cologne, the scents I had found so comforting the night before, after my bad dream, which I couldn’t for the life of me remember. Just that there had been yelling and arguing and pain.
I stripped swiftly and slipped into the long-sleeved uniform shirt. I rolled the sleeves to my elbows and buttoned it from about the third button all the way to the bottom. It didn’t fit like one of my nightshirts. It was loose on me, but wasn’t nearly long enough. I felt naked and vulnerable from the waist down, so I went to my panty drawer and selected a pair of simple black cotton bikini-cut briefs and slipped them on.
I lit my salt lamp by the bed by thumbing the little dial on the cord’s switch and turned out the overhead light. The light from the little lamp was soothing, and not bright enough to keep me awake, but bright enough to see by. I left my bedroom door wide in invitation like we had discussed and climbed into bed and I swear I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
25
Golden…
I leaned against her open doorway, still in my uniform, and watched her sleep. She was out, but so beautiful, so serene, and she was wearing my shirt. She wasn’t in my bed, but the invitation was clear. I couldn’t drag my eyes off of her to get a shower and a change of clothes for myself. She was just too much and I couldn’t stop staring.
Fuck me.
I had it bad for her and the sharp, sweet ache in the center of my chest as my heart swelled looking at her was echoed by the deep throbbing of my cock in my pants. My eyes swept over her sleeping face, her long dark hair fanned out over the pillow behind her, following the curve of the one lock of it where it lay against the collar of my shirt, down to where the neckline plunged, giving a tantalizing glimpse of her cleavage.
I don’t know how I managed, but I finally pulled myself away. I went across the hall and got myself into a hot shower where I gripped my dick in one hand and stroked it, the vision of her lying there, waiting for me in my shirt, halfway to what I asked, burned into my brain. I grunted, biting my bottom lip and bowing my head as my cock surged, spurting my load, hot and sticky, over my fingers.
Somehow, I didn’t think jerking off was going to be enough tonight. I wanted her, needed her like I’d never needed anyone before. I closed my eyes and let the shower water beat on my head, but there was no getting Lys out of it. I didn’t want to wake her, but I didn’t know if I would be able to sleep next to her looking like that and not take her. I’d give anything to see her stretched out beneath me again, or better yet, above me.
I let out a breath and finished washing up, making sure to shave off the rough five-o’-clock shadow that’d come in on me. I wiped off my face and checked for missed spots in the mirror and, satisfied, dried off completely. I whipped a quick comb through my hair and went out to my bedroom, looking through my open doorway, leaning back to look through hers. Just a short, less than three-foot width of hall between my door and hers, yet it might as well be worlds apart. Patience wasn’t my strongest suit, but I managed to hold onto it where she was concerned.
I pulled on a pair of boxer-briefs and padded barefoot across the floor and into her room. I closed the door gently, silently as I could, and turned to drink in her beauty from the soft amber glow of her pink rock light. She hadn’t moved an inch. She was sleeping so peacefully, like an angel, and it took me three tries to get my feet to work, to move me around the foot of the bed and up the other side, between it and the dresser.
I watched her back rise and fall as she lay curled on her side, closing my eyes and listening to her soft breathing, like music from another room, gentle and indistinct, but still beautiful in its faint cadence. I lifted the blankets and got between her crisp, lavender sheets, carefully scooting across the bed closer to her, settling behind her, a big spoon to her little. When I draped an arm over her, she sucked in a breath, her voice tremulous as she asked, “Golden?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Chica.”
“What time is it?”
“A little after twelve-thirty.”
“Mm. I missed you.” She cuddled back into me and I held her close, sticking my nose into her hair behind her ear and breathing her in. She hummed in pleasure and I placed a light kiss there.
“I missed you, too,” I confessed.
She let out a little crooning hum of satisfaction and I smiled, kissing the side of her neck. She cringed slightly and giggled softly, and to take the tickle out of my kiss, I nipped her lightly. Her giggle turned into a sultry gasp of pleasure and if I hadn’t been hard already, it would have brought me around instantly.
“God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” I growled. “So sexy and tempting.”
She gave another sultry little laugh and asked me, “You know the best way to get rid of temptation, don’t you?”
“Hmm.” I ran my nose along the side of her neck and kissed the pulse in the side of her neck, gathering her hair lightly with my fingers and sweeping it away from her skin, taking the fragrant silky final barrier from between my lips and her skin. She held her breath and I flicked out my tongue, tasting her pulse. She gasped and it turned to a throaty little moan.
“What’s the best way to get rid of it, Chica?”
“What?” she asked, her voice far away.
“Temptation, what’s the best way to get rid of it?”
Her arm came up, her hand cradling the back of my head as she twisted and arched her back provocatively.
She met my eyes over her shoulder and whispered: “Give in to it.”
Fuck. It was all the permission I needed. I covered her mouth with mine and damn near devoured her.
I slipped a hand into the open neckline of my shirt and captured her breast, kneading it as she rocked her hips, grinding her gorgeous ass against my cock unconsciously, even as her hand pressed to the back of my head, holding my mouth to hers. Her body was taut, tighter than a bowstring, quivering, eager, and I wanted her so bad.
She tore her mouth from mine and begged in a raspy voice, rough with need and soft with desire, “Make love to me.”
I slid the arm pinned between me and the mattress under her neck, capturing her across her chest above her breasts and pulling her back, tight against my chest. She reached back and shoved down at the waistband of my underwear and I let her free my cock while I reached down the front of her panties and slid a finger between her legs.
Aw, fuck, she was wet. Wet and hot and slick, just waiting for me to be inside her. I swallowed my unbridled passion and forced myself to slow down and not get carried away, not too far, not too fast. Not yet. I didn’t want to scare her. I never wanted the prospect of more tomorrows to end. I n
ever wanted to hurt her or make her cry. I never wanted any look, but the one of desire and euphoria she wore now, cast in my direction during an intimate moment like this.
I shoved her panties down out of the way in front and had to bring my hand around back and pull them down so I could gain access. They didn’t need to go far. This was perfect. She was perfect, and the anticipation of pressing myself at her opening, that first moment of penetration had me damn near panting like a dog.
She whimpered and writhed so beautifully, like a vine twining along me, using me as a trellis. I reached between us and forced my cock down, she pressed back against me and I slipped into her hot waiting pussy like it was meant to be, despite the unconventional angle, and it felt like coming home more than I’d ever felt walking through my apartment door.
Her mouth dropped open and she made this sound, like her breath had been stolen, yet she couldn’t help but cry out. A light, gasping little cry that I found beyond sexy as I pumped in and out of her body, the heat between us and my pulse rising in unison. I drove into her balls-deep and she rode me, her pelvis shifting back and forth in a wanton, writhing dance that drove me absolutely wild.
Everything about Lys was organic. The way she moved, the way she breathed, the sounds she made, everything. It was beautiful to behold and something I think my soul craved. Her natural beauty in everything she did, everything she said, how she treated the people around her… I was drawn to it, watered by it, nourished. She was life and light, food for my soul and I hadn’t realized how starved I was for something like that until I’d opened myself up to her. Best decision I’d ever made.
“Golden!” She cried my name like it was some sort of prayer and I closed my eyes, concentrating on the feel of her in my arms, around my cock, against my lips. I breathed her in as my balls tightened and I was on the brink, as close as she was, hanging on by a tenuous thread.
