by Selena Kitt
Then he stood too, sliding the silky robe over her shoulders, holding it so she could slip her arms into the sleeves. Dorian wrapped his arms around her from behind, both of them looking out at the view of the city below. She smiled, leaning back against him, not cold anymore. He nuzzled her neck, gently biting her earlobe, his breath warming her all the way to her toes.
“Champagne?” He went over to the table, pouring them both a glass.
Jodie took it from him, already too drunk, but she didn’t know if her buzz was from alcohol anymore.
“To ex’s,” Dorian said, clinking his glass to hers. “Karma is sweet, but revenge is sweeter.”
She sipped her champagne, looking at him thoughtfully over the rim. He’d made her think about Jason again, but for the first time since she’d found out, she didn’t feel like dying. In fact, she felt very much like living.
“Strawberry?” he nodded toward the tray. “I’m too full, but help yourself.”
She wandered over, picking up a ripe berry and biting into it, sweet and juicy—and chocolaty. Dorian stood by the window, towel around his hips, looking out at the view, drinking his champagne.
“So are you going to tell me?” she asked, licking her fingers clean as she moved toward him, feet silent on the white carpet.
“Do you really want to know?” He didn’t ask her what she was inquiring about—he obviously already knew.
“Of course I do.” She stood beside him, resting a cheek against his shoulder.
“It’s the same old story. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy and girl spend six years planning a life together. Boy proposes to girl. Girl cheats on boy. Boy loses girl. Sound familiar?”
Jodie nodded. Boy did it ever!
“So that was two years ago?” she asked.
“Three.” He slipped an arm around her waist. “I spent a year whoring around and then decided to go off women altogether.”
“Six plus three… how old are you?”
“Thirty.”
“Jason and I were together for eight.” Jason. He felt far away from her now. Like a distant star. She knew it wouldn’t always be that way, but she was grateful for this man and his ability to make her forget.
“And you’re… what? Twenty-five?”
“Twenty-six,” she countered. “You know, what you did… swearing off women. That was probably wise. Relationships suck.”
“No, they don’t.” He put his empty glass on the night table and turned to take her into his arms. “See, that’s where I got it wrong. I chose the wrong path—and I didn’t even realize it until…”
“Until?”
“Until I kissed you.” As if on cue, he tilted her chin up and he pressed his lips to hers. It was magical, still, giving her a heated thrill that curled her toes. He gave her a lazy, half-lidded smile when they parted. “And you… kissed me right back.”
“How could I resist?” she teased.
“When I heard what happened to you.” His face darkened, like storm clouds rolling in on the horizon. “Well, I know how easy it is to want to retreat. To give up. But I didn’t want you to give up. I wanted you to do the right thing.”
“The right thing?” she blinked up at him.
“What are you supposed to do when you fall off a horse?”
“Cry?” she offered. “A lot?”
“No.” He laughed. “Get back up on the horse and try again.”
“So… you’re the horse.” Jodie smiled slowly, sliding her arms around his neck.
“And I’m going to take you for a hell of a ride.” His eyes darkened as he undid her robe, looking at her fully naked in the dim light. Then he slid it off her shoulders, letting it puddle at their feet in a pool of satin.
“Let’s christen that bed.” He nudged her toward it, taking her hands in his and planting them on the mattress so she was bent over.
Jodie gasped in surprise when he knelt behind her, sliding his hands up over her ass and spreading her open. He had dried her off, paying close attention to the area between her thighs, but she was already wet again, anticipating his mouth, and she didn’t have to wait long for it.
“Oh my god,” she whispered, arching her back as he buried his tongue between the fat lips of her pussy. He lapped up and down her slit, down on his knees, worshipping the swollen flesh of her labia, exploring the pink labyrinth inside, even sliding his tongue up and plunging it deep into her pussy.
“Ahhh!” She cried out when his mouth found her ass, tongue probing, making her quiver, his hands gripping her hips. Her pussy was sopping, sloppy wet now, her thighs wet with her juices, and she wanted his cock so much she couldn’t even see straight.
“Are you still cold?” he asked.
“No,” she murmured, although she was still shivering.
He pressed her onto the bed on her hands and knees, spreading her thighs apart with his own. His towel was gone, his cock riding up against the rise of her ass, throbbing there, as he ran his hands over her curves.
“Do you want me to fuck you?”
Oh my god, he had to ask? She was soaking wet, so very ready for him.
“Please.” She arched her back, pressing her cheek to the bed.
“Tell me.” His fingers brushed lightly over her ass, making her quiver. “Tell me you want it.”
“Oh my god, yes,” she insisted, reaching back with both hands, shoulders against the mattress, spreading herself for him. “Fuck, yes! Put it in me! Fuck me!”
He gave a low, throaty groan, positioning himself, the head of his cock at the entrance of her pussy. Jodie whimpered, wiggling, squirming back toward him, but he grabbed her hips, moving her own hands out of the way. His slide into her was so excruciatingly slow she thought she might pass out in anticipation. When he was fully inside of her, buried to the hilt, she sighed deeply, squeezing the walls of her pussy around his length.
“Fuck, baby.” His hands caressed her ass, thumbs spreading her, exposing her to his gaze. “You look so good around my dick.”
She half-smiled at the wonder in his voice as he slowly began to move inside of her, but soon she was lost in sensation, drowning in the thrust and growl and rut of him. The sounds of sex filled the room—his low grunts, her cries of pleasure, their flesh meeting again and again in the dimness.
“Oh Dorian,” she moaned, meeting him, grinding back, working toward her climax. Her fingers rubbed her clit from underneath, fast, faster, circling her orgasm in a quick moving spiral. “Fuck me hard! Harder!”
He gave a low grunt and shoved in deeper, pounding into her. Jodie whimpered and arched, spreading wider for his cock. Her whole body felt like a spring, tight, coiled, ready to pounce. Dorian’s fingers dug deep into her hips, bringing her to him with each thrust, impaling her again and again.
“Fuuuuuuuck!” He moaned, slowing for just a moment. Jodie’s fingers were a blur between her legs, thighs shaking with her impending orgasm.
“Fuck me!” she gasped, feeling the first spasm overtake her, like a tidal wave, she was drowning, going under. “Oh fuck! Fuck! I’m coming!”
He let out a low roar, thrusting into her so hard he drove her forward onto the round bed, fucking her deep and hard right into the mattress, filling her spasming pussy with a white hot eruption of cum, a geyser exploding in her belly. She closed her eyes as her body quivered beneath his, her muscles clamping down around his cock again and again, milking him with every velvet snap of her pussy as she came all over his cock.
Dorian groaned, collapsing onto her, and she welcomed the weight, the heat of him. He was still inside of her, still pulsing, and they stayed that way, breathless and panting, neither of them wanting to break the connection. When he finally rolled off her, Jodie turned, reaching for him, resting her cheek against his chest, both of them damp with sweat.
“So was it as good as you remember?” she inquired with a smile, her fingers moving through the hair on his chest.
“Far better.” His lips brushed her hairline. �
�But I knew it would be, the moment I kissed you.”
She snorted. “That was a ballsy move, by the way.”
“I was just helping a girl out.” He chuckled. “But then… my god, the way you responded…”
“Not my fault.” She flushed at the memory. “It was all that celibacy juice you had built up.”
“No. It was just you.” His hand moved in her hair, stroking gently. “That’s when I knew I was going to get lucky tonight.”
“Two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars lucky,” she reminded him.
“Not what I meant. I can afford to lose money.” He lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. “Some things are too precious to lose. And there are people in the world who know that… and people who don’t.”
“People who don’t.” She made a face. “Like Jason… and… what was her name?”
“Melissa.”
“I bet she’s kicking herself now that you’re a big shot, rich billionaire.” She touched her finger to his lips.
He smiled. “I was a billionaire when I was with her.”
“Oh.”
“Did you send Jason that photo?” he asked.
“I did.” She was embarrassed to admit it, but she didn’t want to lie to him.
He nodded, satisfied. “Then he’s just starting to realize what a terrible choice he made.”
“He sent me a hundred text messages.” She rolled her eyes. “I think he’s more than started to realize.”
“You know, you still owe me a selfie,” he reminded her, arm tightening around her shoulders.
“Here? In bed?” She raised her eyebrows and laughed. “That’s a little much, don’t you think?”
“No, not enough,” he countered, nuzzling her ear. “We’re going to take a selfie of the two of us on a beach in Barbados.”
“What?” Her head came up like a shot, eyes widening in shock. Barbados? She couldn’t go to Barbados! She had work on Monday and…
And what? What did any of it matter? She could call in. And there was nothing waiting for her at home, was there?
“You said, my choice, when and where,” he reminded her with a grin. “But first, after we sell your first edition Don Quixote for a cool million on Pawn Stars, I’m going to take my new little lucky charm gambling. Maybe we’ll get lucky again.”
“Maybe.”
But Jodie knew, sighing happily in Dorian’s arms, that there were no maybes about it.
She was on a roll.
Donnie and the Maid
A man doesn’t know himself or his own nature until he has a woman on her knees for him. Don’s ex-wife had never been on her knees since he knew her, wouldn’t think of it even if it had been suggested—not even to wash a floor. Anne was a cool little blonde with a lilting southern accent who had insisted on calling him “Donnie” from the first day he’d met her at a writer’s conference in Missouri. She was a spoiled little brat when it came down to it, but the truth was, he had liked spoiling her, at least at the beginning.
The problem was, it was hard to spoil a brat on a mid-list writer’s salary. His science fiction and fantasy novels were their bread and butter, but that’s about all they could afford on it. Poetry, his true love, didn’t even bring in enough to keep Anne in Starbucks. Now she was being spoiled by some rich lawyer type she had met on Facebook—his name was Robert, but their daughter said Anne called him “Robbie”—and Donnie had resumed calling himself “Don” in polite company.
Not that he had much of that anymore. He worked from home and unless he had to, he didn’t go anywhere. He kept the freezer stocked with Hungry Man dinners, the fridge stocked with beer, and when his twelve-year-old daughter, Diana—named after the Greek goddess—came to visit every other weekend, he’d take her shopping and let her buy whatever she liked. Diana had her mother’s taste in everything from clothes to food and she preferred fruits and vegetables to peanut butter and jelly or Hot Pockets. Don couldn’t fathom it, but food was just a necessity these days rather than a pleasure.
He thought it was all going along just fine, if a bit perfunctory, a year out from his divorce—eighteen months since Anne had confessed her affair, two years since it had actually started—until Diana made a comment about her mother’s opinion of his housekeeping abilities, or lack thereof. It probably wouldn’t have come up at all if it hadn’t been for spring. He knew he had an ant problem in the kitchen. As spring had sprung once again, the ants had come marching one by one into his kitchen to collect the Dorito and donut crumbs from the counter. But apparently spring had brought more nuisances than just bugs.
“Dad!” Diana screamed, jolting him wide awake out of a terrible dream of white dragons with long red tongues that burned like fire. “Dad! Dad!”
She was screaming like the kitchen was on fire and he stumbled into a pair of boxers and ran down the hall to find his daughter standing on a chair, pointing into the corner by the microwave. Apparently all those stereotypes about girls leaping onto the first available piece of furniture as soon as they saw a mouse were all true.
“A mouse! A mouse!” She screamed it at the top of her lungs as if he couldn’t hear her from all the way up there.
He sighed, grabbing the broom tucked, untouched for months, between the wall and the refrigerator, and stalked toward the corner. He jabbed at the overflowing garbage—pizza boxes, potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers—and a gray mouse sped out of the mess, following the wall, underneath the lip of the cupboards.
“Get it, Daddy! Get it!” Diana screamed, doing a little dance on the chair, pointing at the mouse as if he hadn’t seen it himself. “Quick! Quick!”
The mouse hesitated under the edge of the dishwasher, whiskers twitching, clearly contemplating his options. If he ran straight again, he’d be out in the open, completely vulnerable.
“Diana, open the back door,” Don said, still wielding the broom.
“No way!” She shrank back against the wall, hugging herself. “No freaking way!”
He sighed, edging around the mouse, hoping his movement wouldn’t frighten it in the other direction. He didn’t feel like chasing a rodent around the kitchen all afternoon. The back door opened into a little postage stamp of a backyard where Anne’s roses grew unchecked on a trellis in the corner. He propped the screen door open too, turning back to the mouse with his broom, ready with a plan.
“Okay, little fella,” he said under his breath, sweeping the business end of the broom toward the mouse still crouched under the cupboard. The mouse didn’t wait for the broom to hit him—he took off running toward the middle of the room, under the kitchen table. Diana screeched, clutching and clawing at herself as if there was a way to escape her own skin, hopping up on one foot as the mouse ran under her chair.
“Daddyyyyyy!” she wailed, literally trying to climb the wall beside her.
“Hang on, honey.” He poked the broom under her chair, the mouse scurrying in the right direction this time, heading for the back door. “Almost got him.”
He didn’t really need to, since the mouse was already heading that way, but he gave it a good shove with the broom, sweeping it onto the porch before yanking the screen door closed behind it. Then he attended to his daughter, helping her climb unsteadily off the kitchen chair and hugging her with one arm as he swung the back door fully closed.
“Okay, Di, it’s gone,” he soothed.
She glared up at him and huffed away, stalking over to the toaster, where the bread she’d put in had popped up during the mouse incident. Don went to the fridge, opened it, and took out a beer, twisting off the top and tossing it onto the counter next to a bowl still half-full of popcorn from their daddy-daughter movie night—The Hobbit—where he saw ants gathered around a splotch of grape jelly.
“Dad, this kitchen is grody!” Diana exclaimed, attempting to coat her dry, cold toast with butter straight from the fridge, making a crumby mess on the plate. “I told mom last week about all the ants and she said—”
He hes
itated, beer halfway to his lips. “She said what?”
“She said she had half a mind to call social services.” Diana’s lower lip trembled as she nibbled her toast, rather mouse-like, and looked at him. “I don’t know what she’d say if I told her I saw a mouse!”
He took a seat at the table which they hadn’t eaten at since Anne left. It was piled with papers—bills, junk mail, local circulars and newspapers brought in from the mailbox and tossed there without a second thought. He sat and looked around the kitchen with new eyes—social worker eyes. The place hadn’t been cleaned since Anne left, not that she had been the world’s best housekeeper—she’d always insisted on having someone in twice a month to do the heavy lifting. But he had to admit, the place was a pigsty, even to guy standards.
“Come here.” He called his daughter over and she came, reluctant, looking afraid, like she’d said too much. She resembled her mother, blond hair and blue eyes, but he didn’t mind. Anne was a beautiful woman and he often thought of Diana like Anne’s second chance. He might have enough influence on his daughter, he reasoned, to give her an opportunity to be a better woman. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen if he continued to neglect things. Like his mess of a house.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean it,” Diana gushed. “Don’t tell her I told you.”
He shook his head, pulling his twelve-year-old into his lap, an act he wouldn’t be able to do for much longer. She put her arms around his neck with a sigh and snugged her head under his chin.
“I’ll hire someone to clean up,” he said, giving her an extra big squeeze.
“Good idea.” She brightened, lifting her head to kiss his cheek. Then she made a face. “Are you ever going to shave?”
“What?” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “You don’t like the beard?”
“I hate it.” She wrinkled her little nose. “I think it’s time.”
Maybe she was right, he mused, watching as she got up to go tend to two new slices of toast, as she’s slaughtered the other two trying to spread cold butter on them. Maybe it was time to clean up his act.
* * * *
The third time was the charm.
