Man in Queue

by Shandi Boyes

  She tugs her blouse sleeve over her hand before using it to clear a few tears stranded on her cheeks. Once she is confident her face is moisture-free, she cautions, “You shouldn’t say stuff like that to me.”

  “Why? Does it make your insides all gooey?” The jest in my tone lightens the tension in the room.

  “No.” Regan arches a brow. “It makes me want to run for the hills. I don’t do. . . this.”

  The gag she releases when forcing “this” out of her mouth makes me smile. “This? You don’t do this?”

  I tug her in close before dragging my bristle-covered jaw down her neck. Although she squeals, the extra thump of her heart is the only thing I hear. She wants this. She’s just too scared to admit it.

  “What about this, do you do this?”

  Her girly squeal switches to a moan when my teeth graze her budded nipple through her shirt.

  Throwing her head back, she moans, “Oh yeah, I definitely do that.”

  I give her a look, a glaring stare that warns of my bubbling jealousy.

  “With you. I’ll do that with you,” she whimpers, reading me better than any woman ever has.

  I bang my chest with words instead of my fists. “That’s right. Me and only me.”

  Ensuring she can’t protest my underhanded demand we go exclusive, I seal my mouth over hers. Our kiss starts out innocent, a flurry of playful nips and furled lips, keeping it somewhat harmless, but the instant Regan’s tongue slides along mine, things become out of control.

  She coaxes me to the dark side with gentle strokes and prolonged tastes of her mouth. Then, when I think our exchange can’t get any hotter, she drags her cheek down my beard, combining our scents in a way that can’t be seen as any less than unified. I knew she wanted this. She wants it as badly as me.

  When her hands move to the buttons of my shirt, we stumble toward her bed. Our movements match ones we made when rolling in the grass earlier today. They are fast and with purpose.

  As our tongues tangle, I grind my erection against her pussy. Her desperate breaths allow me to explore her mouth, tasting and sampling every inch of her, loving the moans rolling up her chest.

  Just when she thinks she’ll never breathe unaided again, I lower the devotion of my lips to her erratically thrusting torso. I bite her nipple through her thin blouse before lavishing it with my tongue to lessen the sting.

  When she moans my name, sparks fly as desire makes our exchange snowball. I toy with her breasts, biting, sucking, and squeezing them until the intoxicating scent of her pussy becomes too great to ignore.

  I drop my lips to her under-boob, then her stomach, until they come to a stop at the top of her milky white thighs. I’m about to tell her I want her sweet pussy on my mouth, but she beats me to the task. With a smile that has precum seeping into my trousers, she drags up her skirt until it bands around her waist like a belt before hooking her panties to the side. The sight of her naked pussy nearly makes me lose my mind.

  Fuck me. She’s saturated.

  My hand darts up to cover her cries of ecstasy when my tongue spears her glistening pussy lips. I understand her wild response. I’m overcome with pleasure, by the seductive flavor stimulating my taste buds.

  “Oh god, yes,” she purrs, her thighs parting wider.

  Getting carried away in the phenomenal sensation, I knead her breasts through her shirt while completing a rapid set of licks to her swollen-with-need pussy. We’ve been so impatient, we haven’t removed an article of clothing. I’m still in my despised JC Penney suit, and Regan is wearing the black skirt and white fitted blouse she wore to Luca’s memorial.

  My cock hardens more, aroused by the brave, strong woman she represented today. She didn’t shed a single tear—not one!

  Wanting to ensure the only cries she releases today are ones made in pleasure, I grip her ass with my left hand before guiding her legs over my shoulders with my right. She moans my name in a throaty groan when I blast her pussy with greedy licks and pulse-quickening plunges of my tongue. I eat her as if she is the most decadent piece of dessert I’ve ever tasted, because she is.

  When I slide two fingers inside her, her back arches off the mattress. “You’re so wet for me. So tight and snug. I fucking love it.”

  My assurance relaxes the strain of her thighs, allowing my fingers to glide in and out of her without hindrance. I increase the speed of my pumps, finger-fucking her until she is on the verge of orgasm.

  When I suck her clit into my mouth, I nearly see a blistering of stars form in front of her eyes. “About fucking time,” I growl against her soaked sex, pleased by the way she roughly yanks my hair while succumbing to a climaxing trance.

  Waves of pleasure cascade down her body as violent shudders reduce her to a quivering, sticky mess. Her orgasm seems to command the use of every muscle in her body, but instead of fighting against it, she submits to the madness.

  My chest swells, confident this is the first time she’s ever submitted. The cries tearing from her throat expose her inability to deny me, but just in case she isn’t hearing things as lucidly as me, I up the ante.

  Her thighs continue trembling in the aftermath of orgasm when I place her onto her feet before spinning her around to face me. After tugging my trousers to my knees, I sit on the edge of her bed. With our eyes locked, I perform a long, determined stroke of my cock.

  I’m not trying to get hard—my cock is thick and covered with angry veins. I’m not even teasing her as she always does me. I’m forcing her to respond—to show me what I mean to her. If I am going to give up everything I have for her, I need to make sure she’s willing to do the same for me. That includes her need for control.

  “See something you like, Rae?” My voice hitches when my thumb glides over my knob to gather a sticky bead of precum pooled at the end.

  Regan hesitates for barely a second before she nods.

  “Then come get what you need.”

  The raw huskiness of my voice intensifies the dampness between her legs. She is dripping wet, her sheer panties unable to contain all the moisture. Her eagerness adds to the girth of my cock.

  “Nuh-uh,” I groan when she slips her panties to the side before attempting to straddle my lap. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it evenly. Right?”

  The confused cinch of her brows smooths when I nudge my head to the carpet beneath my feet. I brace myself in preparation for her to dart to the door, so you can imagine my surprise when the only response I get is a ball-clenching smirk.

  Pleasure shoots through me when she falls to her knees to replace my hand with her own. She didn’t protest my demand for a minute—not even one damn second.

  A groan of satisfaction vibrates her tongue when she laps up my precum before sliding her pillowy lips down my shaft. When her mouth stops halfway down, I grunt, “Close, baby, but I think you can do better.”

  Regan rolls her eyes at my term of endearment, but her lips stay circled around my cock—where they belong.

  After scrunching her hair into a tight fist, I slowly roll my hips forward. I watch her closely, ensuring the pain fettering her features is more from taking a man of my size to the back of her throat than actual pain. The delicious moans ripping from her mouth assure me she is finding this as pleasurable as I am, but the moisture in her eyes keeps my peacock feathers tucked away.

  I must tread lightly. Today has been tough on her.

  Regan is the most confident woman I’ve ever met, but it flourishes even more when I praise her stellar cock-sucking skills. She strokes and sucks me harder, which only increases my grip on her hair.

  I use her hair as leverage to guide her speed, my pumps as frantic as my lungs are sucking in air. “That feels so good, baby. Your mouth sucking my cock as greedily as your pussy does is pure fucking heaven.”

  Another surge of blood rushes to my cock from her throaty garble of approval. She takes me deeper, her cheeks hollowing as she sucks me so fiercely my knees wobble.

  Just as
the sensation drawing from my balls to the crest of my cock becomes too great to ignore, Regan’s lips move to my sack. Her nips and sucks cause them to grow heavy with need, aching for release. She works me as if she’s been dying for this day as long as I have, as if her attraction is just as intense.

  My plan to hold back until surrounded by her warmth comes undone when she rakes her fingernails across the sensitive skin between my balls and ass. She smiles when my cock begins to jerk in the seconds leading to it coating my knob and her curved lips with a milky substance.

  While her tongue laps up my spawn, one of her hands cups my balls while the other works my shaft. She doesn’t give in until every drop of my cum has been spilled. It is pure fucking heaven. The best head I’ve ever been given.

  Until we’re interrupted by a grizzly bear.

  “Daddy, don’t. . .”

  Regan’s plea comes too late.

  3

  I stop scanning the isolated surroundings for familiar focal points when the heat of a gaze captures my attention. Alex is watching me from afar, studying me as closely as my father is eyeballing him in the rearview mirror of his truck. He’s worried about my silence, petrified it’s based on the unbelievable connection we shared a mere hour ago.

  He shouldn’t be. My silence has nothing to do with the whirlwind of emotions he’s been hitting me with all weekend, and everything to do with haunted memories. They’re crashing into me hard, surrounding my heart with the four walls Alex has been trying to bust down since he waltzed into my life with a cocky grin and a skull-cracking head.

  For every step I take forward in my grief, I feel like I’m thrown back another three. Today’s trip to the airport is by far the biggest leap I’ve taken thus far. I’m just waiting for the repercussions to surface, knowing they will inevitably happen.

  The first ten miles of our trip was made in silence; even the tick of my dad’s jaw couldn’t be heard. The next ten miles was occupied assuring my dad he could take the most direct route to the airport so Alex and I wouldn’t miss our flight. And the final ten miles have occurred with Alex’s hand curled over mine.

  He didn’t speak when we drove past the tree that bears Luca’s name, but words weren’t needed to relay his empathy. Him squeezing my hand spoke volumes, much less how he pressed his lips to my temple.

  It was a bold move on his behalf. He barely survived my father’s wrath when he was dragged out of my room by the collar of his shirt. He may not have if Ayden hadn’t stepped in.

  I don’t know why Ayden felt compelled to assist Alex. More times than not, he’s dishing out the punishments with my father. There is only one reason he chose a different route this time: law enforcement officers can sniff out their own.

  Alex’s dominance, self-assuredness, and cunning ability to be two steps ahead of the game significantly narrowed down his possible job titles the past forty-eight hours. My list that was once a mile long now only has three occupations remaining. He is either an undercover cop, a CIA agent, or a fellow member of my brother’s new found career: an agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  Although I’m confident I could force the truth from him, I won’t. A person harboring a lifetime of secrets can’t ask others to disclose their own secrets. Until I’m willing to come clean about all the secrets I’m keeping, I can’t expect those around me to. For that alone, I rest my head on Alex’s shoulder, accepting the silent comfort he is offering me without hope of a reward.

  Ignoring my father’s warning growl, Alex’s lips brush my temple for the second time this evening. “Are you okay?” he asks a short time later, put off by my silence but longing to ease my pain.

  I nod, answering him with the same number of words we’ve shared since our foray in my childhood bedroom. I’m not quiet because I’m frustrated. Who in their right mind would be? Alex’s arrogant, controlling crash into my life frustrates the living hell out of me, but there isn’t a word in the dictionary that can describe what I feel when he devotes his attention on me.

  This afternoon, he was bossy and domineering—the hottest I’ve ever seen him. That notion should scare me. I’ve been on my own way too long to find dominant, superiority-seeking men appealing, but there is something about Alex that has me seeing things differently.

  He’s not assertive because he’s placing me below him. He’s striving to show me he can handle a woman as fierce and independent as me. He doesn’t want to change me; he wants to protect me. If that protection comes without a side dish of babying, I’m open to the possibility. . . maybe?

  Attraction is a scary thing. It bolts through your body without warning, exhilarating your veins with a lethal combination of thrill, excitement, and need. It makes you heedless. Giddy. Sometimes a little stupid. But once the attraction is requited, it generally moves on. We stop skipping down the street and making sickening ga-ga faces at random strangers who have no idea we’ve been jabbed in the butt by Cupid’s arrow. Life returns to normal.

  Usually.

  That hasn’t happened with Alex yet. The nervous butterflies in my stomach and the flighty feeling in my head are still present, so much so, I’m wondering if Cupid is peering down at me, laughing his ass off. He must have struck me more than once, otherwise what other excuse could I have for what I’m feeling? I don’t do. . . this.

  Ignoring my heart’s painful squeeze of denial, I clamber onto the sidewalk outside of the domestic terminal on Alex’s heel. After scooting past his wide shoulders, I throw my arms around my daddy’s neck. I hug him as fiercely as I did my mom and Ayden an hour ago. Mercifully, he returns my embrace. I wasn’t sure he would after what he walked in on.

  “Come back soon, baby girl, please?”

  Tears prick my eyes from the plea in his tone. “I will. I promise.”

  He clutches me for a few minutes longer, ensuring he gets a year’s worth of hugs in one visit. I understand his plight. Remorse has made my trips home very sporadic the past eight years, but I don’t see them being so few and far between anymore. It will always hurt coming back here, but with good memories replacing some of the bad, it will be easier to return.

  “Weston’s birthday is next month. His momma is organizing a spit. Why don’t you come back for that? He’d love to see you.”

  I pull back from my daddy’s broad chest. “I’ll try, but I have to check Isaac’s schedule first.”

  The squint of Alex’s gaze eases when my dad grumbles something under his breath. They’ve never met, but my dad’s disdain for Isaac is as profound as it is for Alex. Not knowing the entire story, he blames Isaac for my dwindling contact the past eight years.

  He couldn’t be further from the truth if he tried.

  I’ve lost count of the number of times Isaac has offered to charter me home in his private jet. He even said he’d drive me if my reason for not visiting centered around a fear of flying. He wants me to heal just as much as both Alex and my father.

  “Do you think Kate would mind me adding a plus one to the invitation?”

  Wild nerves take flight in my stomach when I shift on my feet to face Alex, ensuring my dad is aware who I’m referring to. “What do you say, Mister Fancy Pants? Are you up for some more farmyard antics?”

  “Rae. . .”

  My dad’s warning snarl quickens my pulse, but it is barely a blip on the radar when Alex nods without pause for consideration. I never thought I’d see the day. An olive branch offered and accepted between us without bloodshed. Who could have predicted this?

  After a final promise to return more frequently—and a wordless request for leniency—I give my dad one last hug before Alex and I make our way to the check-in counter. With my father’s lecture on being respectful under his roof exceeding its usual thirty-minute timeframe, we arrive at our gate with barely a second to spare.

  Fortunately, the airline representatives are more accommodating of tardiness when you’re a priority customer.

  “Welcome back to business class, Ms. Myers. Can we start y
our service with a beverage? Perhaps a glass of sparkling wine?” James greets after takeoff, his smile widening when he spots Alex sitting next to me, caressing my hand in his.

  “A drink would be lovely, but I’m more a martini girl. Shaken, not stirred. Skip the olives.”

  With a wink revealing he heard the underlying message in my request, James skedaddles to the back of the plane. With Alex and me the only business class flyers on this redeye to Ravenshoe, he has no other guests to accommodate.

  The fine hairs on my nape prickle when Alex presses his lips to my ear. “If you’re aiming to make me jealous, you missed the boat with James. His Tinder details are still in my wallet.”

  My eyes snap to his so fast, our lips briefly brush. “I wasn’t flirting with James. I was setting the mood.”

  Alex remains quiet, somewhat confused.

  It clears when I ask, “Care to become a member of the mile high club, Mr. Rogers?”

  His groan is as sexy as his sinfully handsome face. “Are you propositioning me, Ms. Myers?”

  “Depends?” I reply with a shrug.

  “On?”

  His quick reply reveals his eagerness. I just don’t know if it is eagerness to accept my invitation or discover my terms. I guess there is only one way to find out?

  “On whether or not you’re going to accept my proposal. I’ve never thrown out an invite like this before. I don’t want it tossed back in my face.”

  My teeth grit, hating the need in my voice. I’m not a clinger. I’m independent and strong. . . and horny as fuck, so I really hope he hasn’t misread my eagerness as vulnerability.

  My worst nightmare comes true when Alex mutters, “I don’t know if this is a good idea, Rae. Today has been tough on you. I already stepped over the line twice. I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of you—”

  “If you so much as mention the word vulnerable, or anything along those lines, I’ll stab you with my fork the instant James serves dinner. I’m a grown ass woman who has no troubles differentiating horniness from grief. I’m horny, goddammit, but since you’re clearly not up to the task, I guess I’ll have to take care of business the old-fashioned way!”