by Frankie Love
I take her hands, pulling her to stand, and then kiss the top of her head. Her hand is on my cock, like she doesn’t want to let go, and my hands wrap around her waist, feeling the stretch of skin between the hem of her sweater and her jeans. I could spend the rest of my life touching that sliver of skin.
“How did you know all that?” she asks. And I know what she means. The quotes.
I don’t want to change the moment; the moment where everything in the world made sense—and sure, I’m the guy who just had his cock sucked—so of course I’d say that—but she seems perfectly happy right now. I don’t want to change that.
Still, it feels dishonest not to tell her.
“Actually.” I pause, clearing my throat. “I’m A. Stone.”
She pulls back, looking confused. “Wait, like the author?”
I twist my lips, then confirm with a nod.
“You wrote Sarah’s story?” she asks, her voice hushed.
I nod, scared to speak, scared of whether she is going to slap me or kiss me.
She swallows, her beautiful eyes filling with tears again. “You … your words … they got me through the hardest … the most impossible days. You saved me, Ansel.”
I shake my head. “It was a story—I’m no savior.”
She steps away, a hallowed look on her face. “No, Ansel, you are. How can I ever repay you?”
I give her a soft smile, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “You thanked me plenty with that blow job. Now let me do my part—show me your bedroom.”
She blushes, but leads me down the hall to the master bedroom.
“I haven’t been with anyone since Luke,” she confesses, standing in her doorway.
“If you don’t want me to come in, I totally understand.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not that I don’t.” She exhales. “It’s just, I get nervous that you might get halfway through … whatever … and look around my room and see stuffed animals littering the floor and half-empty sippy cups on my bedside table and rethink this evening. Because the thing is, Ansel, I really want to go out with you tonight. To smile and laugh and have fun with you. Hell, I even shaved.”
“And you think me seeing your real life is going to scare me away?”
“Well, doesn’t it? You’re this successful author, living the dream and I’m.…” She shakes her head, covering her face, like I could never understand.
I step toward her, pulling down her hands, and looking into her eyes. “I don’t know why this life of yours doesn’t scare me. But I look around this house and see a life that is being lived, that is full of joy. I’m just a guy living in a condo I never even liked, typing all day in a sterile Seattle coffee shop. My life is dull and redundant. Even if you don’t see it, Greta, you’re life is painted in watercolors. Bold and beautiful.”
“And messy.”
“A little chaos is good for the soul.”
She laughs, unable to resist giving me a smile. “You’re quoting your book again.”
I shrug. “I’m just trying to get in your pants. Is it working?”
She reaches for my belt, this time her eyes no longer nervous; suddenly she’s all warmed up.
“Yes, A. Stone, it’s working.”
Then she pulls me in her room, knowing we don’t need a trail of breadcrumbs to lead us anywhere.
We’re already exactly where we want to be.
Chapter 11
Greta
Later, we walk down the street toward a small cafe that tourists frequent. I figure it is best to avoid as many locals as possible considering the fact no one’s seen me on a date in years.
Ansel holds my hand as we walk, and my stomach flutters, as if filled with butterflies—it’s like I’ve suddenly forgotten how to talk. I want to ask so many things at once.
When we get to Main Street, though, I pull out my gloves, wanting an excuse to let go of his hand.
“Too much, too soon?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
I nod, appreciating that he seems to understand. “It’s a small town, and people talk.”
“You got quiet since we left the house,” he says. “Everything okay?”
I bite my bottom lip, standing under the light of a street lamp. “It’s strange, you having written my favorite book. I feel like I know your deepest thoughts. The words you wrote were so bare, so raw.”
“Does that scare you?”
“I think I’m most scared of being hurt. Of falling for someone who won’t be there to catch me.”
“Are you saying that you’re falling for me after one day?” he asks, smiling down at me. His long hair falls in his eyes, and he brushes it away so our eyes can meet.
I feel heat rising to my cheeks because that is exactly what I mean. “Maybe I’m just infatuated with the idea that you’re a famous writer.”
He laughs, but it’s a sad laugh. “I hate leading with the truth—people hear I wrote that book and they see me differently.”
“I understand. That’s what happens when I tell people about Luke. They get this sad look in their eyes, which I understand—it is sad. But you, Ansel, didn’t act like everyone else when I told you.” I shake my head, not knowing if I’m making sense. “And the thing is, I do see you differently, and that makes me feel crappy, because I’m doing to you what I hate people doing to me.”
“Greta,” he says, reaching for my hand, small-town gossip be damned. “It’s not the same.”
“Why not? I want to ask you why you wrote Sarah the way you did—I want to ask what inspired you and what spoke to you … a million things I’m sure you get asked all the time. I’m a cliché.” I close my eyes, feeling so basic all of a sudden.
“You’re not a cliché. And it feels different when you say you want to know those things, because I want to know all about you, too. It’s a two way street.”
“But Ansel, after a day, why do you care?”
He shakes his head, then exhales, looking up at the stars. “I wrote that book after dreaming of a woman, of her story.” He runs a hand through his hair, looking down at me. “Sarah experienced loss, and in order to understand that, I spent a lot of time interviewing people who had gone through really hard things to understand my character better. And I don’t know … maybe it sounds crazy, but it makes me feel like I understand you better too. Like, maybe I could be enough for you. And I know that’s insane and that love at first sight is for dreamers—but dammit, that’s what I am. I’m a dreamer. What are you?”
How do you answer a man when they put it all out there like that? I’m not used to speeches and heart-to-hearts. Luke was many things; solid and my anchor, for sure, but he wasn’t eloquent, he didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve.
And Ansel? He opened my heart up when it was most fragile, before he ever met me, the first time I read his book. That makes me trust him.
“I’ve spent the last few years being a survivor, Ansel. Dreaming seemed farfetched, heck, it wasn’t even on my radar. But I do know that I’m ready for more than just getting through my days—I want—” At that my voice cracks, and Ansel closes his eyes, wrapping his arms around me.
With my face pressed against his chest I finish my thought, “Ansel, I want more. I want another happily ever after.”
“Let me give it to you then,” he says. “Let me give you the ending you deserve.”
I breathe him in, and I know that cinnamon and sandalwood will forever remind me of this man holding me.
Holding my heart.
Chapter 12
Ansel
She tells me she isn’t hungry and I realize I’m not either. Instead she takes me to the bakery.
“I have an idea of what we can do,” she says. The vulnerability of our streetlamp confession has forced us to shed all of our pretenses. Right now, we are as real as any two people can be.
“I have a few ideas too,” I say, wrapping my arms around her waist as she unlocks the back door and kissing her neck.
S
he laughs against me, but shakes her head. “Here, let me show you.”
In the kitchen she shows me the beginnings of a gingerbread village. “I baked it last night, and started frosting pieces together this morning when we were slow.” There are about a dozen gingerbread houses put together, and bowls and bowls of every kind of candy imaginable. “The candy is from my sister-in-law, Hazel’s shop.”
“And your boss just lets you make whatever you want?”
She scrunches up her face. “I’m the boss. Maggie and I are co-owners. After Luke died I knew I needed to figure out a way to support my family. I always loved baking so I decided to open up a shop. I’m just glad I was able to rope my sister in, too.”
“Wow, that’s impressive, and resourceful,” I tell her. “Like Sarah.”
That last comment makes her smile. Already though, the wheels are turning in my mind. Greta is a mom of two, running a business, and lives three hours from where I reside. It may have only been a day, but I’m trying to work it out in my mind. How can we make a life together work?
“Your face doesn’t make me believe you’re impressed. You look worried.”
I force myself to relax. “It’s just, you have a whole life already.”
She laughs. “That is true.” She opens a fridge and pulls out a massive tub of icing. “Are you already second guessing your I’ll give you an ending you deserve lines?”
“Greta, those weren’t lines,” I say, frustration washing over me. “That’s not it at all.”
She begins scooping out icing and putting it in a pastry bag. “Then why the long face?”
“I was trying to figure out how our lives could merge.”
She shakes her head quickly. “Don’t, Ansel. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
I scoff. “Why not? Why not be crazy and go all in? A few minutes ago there was no doubt in your mind, what happened since then?”
She drops the icing bag, flustered. “What happened was I realized this isn’t a dream. This is real life. And—” She covers her face.
“And what, Greta?”
“And maybe you sweeping in here like this is too good to be true.”
“Maybe being too good isn’t a bad thing, sweet cheeks.” I won’t let fear rule her heart, not now. Not when what we both want is so damn close. I pull her to me and pick her up and then sit her down on the counter. “Maybe you need a man like me to sweep you off your feet more often.” I lift the hem of her sweater, pulling it up, over her head. Her gorgeous tits so damn tempting. “Or maybe you just need a man like me.”
She gasps, then, when I bury my face in her breasts. I pull down the lacy cups of her bra and sucking her nipples, inhaling her sweet honey scent. Her breasts are perfect globes and when I run my tongue over her bare skin, I know I’m getting a mouthful of the only tits I want. Hers.
“Ansel,” she pants, her hands running through my hair as I fall to my knees, inching her ass up so I can tug off her jeans. I slide down her panties, her ass cheeks against the cold stainless steel, but I’ll get her nice and hot real soon.
“Stop being scared, Greta,” I tell her, spreading her knees. “We will work out the details. I will fall in love with your kids. I will move here. I don’t know how it will all happen— but damn, it will happen.”
I pull her ass closer to the edge of the counter, needing access to her sweet cunt.
“How can you be so sure? How can you know this is real?”
I look up at her, her eyes so full of want and fear and hope and desire.
“I know because when I look at you I see the story I want to write, I see the life I want to live. When I look at you, Greta, I see the ending. Us. Together.”
“And what if you wake up and realize this was a rough draft? A book that you don’t actually want to read?”
I smile then, knowing whatever her and I have, has already been written in the stars. “I know, because we are Ansel and Greta— we’re practically a fairy tale. Now let’s make it something real.”
Those words melt her to me, and a smile spreads, taking place of all the worry in her heart.
“Damn, you really know how to talk to a woman,” she laughs, shaking her head.
“No, Greta, I know how to talk to my woman.”
I spread her knees apart, and blow hot air against her pussy. She moans as I run my tongue over her wet folds, her body so needy now. She tastes sublime, and I enjoy making her squirm, her knees buckling as my tongue fucks her the way she was meant to be enjoyed. My hands squeeze her waist and ass, holding on as I devour her pussy. It sings for me, her cunt, dripping and desperate and so damn close to orgasm.
When she is close enough to taste, I stand, dropping my jeans, my hard cock throbbing to feel her bare cunt around it.
“Take me, Ansel,” she begs. “Wherever you want.”
I roll on a condom and pick her perfect ass up, needing her to sit down on my cock, to move her hips as I thrust in her tight pussy. I unclasp her bra, needing her tits free, wanting them pressed against me, needing them to bounce as I fuck her against a wall. Against the back door, I thrust inside her dripping pussy, her arms wrapped around my neck, begging for more.
“Harder, Ansel,” she whispers, her head thrown back and her legs tight around my waist. I could fucking take her forever.
We come, both of us, but we aren’t through. “Your pussy is so fucking perfect,” I groan, rolling on another condom, and pinning her to a prep table. Her tits move as I enter her from above, and we shake the table as my cock moves deep inside her. Bowls of candy fall to the floor, tiny pieces of red hots and candy canes and jellybeans skittering against the linoleum. We laugh at the insanity, at the fucking high we are riding.
Her pussy keeps begging for more, and I won’t end this night until she’s out of breath. After I come inside her for the second time, I start using my fingers to get her off. Her slick cunt is so damn ready, and as I press a finger inside her, I look over her bare body, so damn beautiful.
“Don’t look too close,” she moans as my thumb presses against her throbbing clit, teasing her in the most delicious way. “I have stretch marks and I gave birth to two babies… it’s not a perfect body, Ansel.”
“Fuck that,” I tell her, my eyes are enraptured with the body before me. This flesh that made two children, that brought them into the goddamn world—her skin is perfection—because it’s her skin, her flesh, her bones. “You’re gorgeous, Greta, and I vow to make sure you know that.”
“Oh, God,” she moans, so close, my hand moving so hard against her. Before she comes completely, she begs me to fill her up. I pull her from the table, turning her around, and putting another condom on as my eyes feast on her creamy ass. I take her from behind, spreading her cheeks as my cock moves toward her cunt. It’s tighter when I fuck her this way, and she bends over the table gasping as I fill her up like she needs.
As I take her, the table moves, hard, and the gingerbread houses start to fall. I start to pull out, not wanting to destroy her creation, but she reaches around, grabbing my hip. “Don’t stop,” she begs, “Let them fall. This is more delicious than those gingerbread houses could ever be.”
Chapter 13
Greta
The next two weeks are a sugar high. Christmas is only a week away, and Ansel has extended his stay. His friends understood, of course, because they seem to get that whatever has happened between us is the real deal.
Everything about it is surreal—we take a sleigh ride through the snow, and we watch Christmas movies on my couch after the kids go to bed, and we go out for drinks with his friends before they returned to Seattle. Everything about it is a fairy tale.
So much so that my family thinks it’s a complete joke. They even refused to let me bring Ansel to get a Christmas tree. I organized this event the day after Milo and Lucy had made it so clear how important it was for them.
Even though coming up here scared me, I was determined to be brave. To put one foot in front of the other. In our
winter boots and snow parkas, handsaw in tow, we’re all on the mountain looking for trees.
The fact he wasn’t invited had upset Ansel. And I don’t blame him. But the last thing I wanted was for the kids to be around bunch of unhappy adults. Right now, they are all smiles, making snow balls as we walk, and when Milo tags Lucy with one, she shrieks in delight. They run up ahead, which, gives everyone else the perfect time to start their version of an intervention.
“I just think we need to get to know the guy better,” Clive says.
“Agreed,” Charlie says, placing a hand on Maggie’s back. “The fact you introduced him to the kids worries us, Greta.”
“Well, don’t worry. The kids think he’s great. Because he is great.” We had a super special time making gingerbread houses a few days ago. The entire kitchen was a flurry of candy and smiles and Christmas music. We made a memory together—there is no way I’m letting my family convince me I did something wrong in that. “And besides the fact he’s good with the kids, he’s good for me. Great for me. And he’s not going anywhere.”
“You’ve known him two weeks,” Hazel says. “It just seems fast.”
“Oh my gosh, don’t even with that. How long were you and Clive together? Or you and Mags, for that matter, Charlie? Why can’t my story be the same?”
“Because you’re more…” Maggie’s sentence peters out.
“More what?” The family goes silent. “Just tell me.”
“You’re more fragile. You and the kids have been through so much—”
I cross my arms in a huff. “Which is why we deserve to be swept off our feet as much as anyone.”
“Look, we know you’ve been having fun. Clearly, considering the mess you made with the gingerbread houses—”
“Stop,” I say louder than intended. “I told you that was private, Maggie!”
“Well, sorry. Our circle of trust is pretty tight. And what if the health department had shown up? The kitchen was—”
