How much had changed.
I held her, closing my eyes as she continued to plead, plead she was ready, plead this wasn’t Alicia’s fault, and plead I shouldn’t be mad. She pleaded I should forgive. She pleaded I should be as brave as she was.
“I want to go back, Dad,” she said to me, the determination her voice teaching me something. She wanted me to take her back to the school and finish the day. She wanted to face her fears and maybe if she could?
I could face mine.
Chapter Twenty
Alicia
The wind drummed hard on my aunt’s door, but the slams of a persistent knock still pulled me out of bed. I had lain down for a spell, stuck in my head, and the sound at the door I feared at first as it’d been so rushed and almost angry.
The storm-clad figure on the other side of the door matched the sound, the air dusky around him with the fray outside and his body rising and falling with rapid breaths.
I saw Gray well through the translucent glass, and upon realizing my visitor was him, I shut the curtain right away.
Breathing, I didn’t know what to do at first, but one thing wouldn’t be to lose my nerve to him. He’d already made me feel weak enough, so bravely I unlocked the door and tugged it open.
He was on me in the next breath.
Lips pressed steadfast to mine, Gray swept me away in a breathless kiss, causing me to let go of the door and fall back into it, his arms wrapping around me and tucking, snuggling underneath my bottom.
“Gray…?”
I couldn’t get it out, his mouth, his hands…
His fingers skated up the back of my thighs and into the underside of my nightgown.
“Gray.”
His name a moan on my lips, I dizzied. Gray reached behind and freed me from the door. He cupped me in a single strong hold, closing the door with his foot and carrying me over to the wall.
He pressed me against it, using his big body to lock me tight and I didn’t understand.
I braced his arms.
“Gray?” I forced into his lips, his name very much a question again. “Gray, where’s Laura?”
She’d been the reason for him pulling away, as well as the reason for the coldness he’d encroached on me. She had been his main concern, but at the present, no unease was in this man.
Only our lips, his lips as a smile slid across them when he guided my mouth open.
He cupped my head.
“She’s fine,” he said, the words so soothingly true. She was fine. I heard it in his voice.
I felt it in his kiss.
His body encompassing mine, he mentioned his daughter was with someone, that she was safe but the urge to still stop him, stop this rang at the forefront of my mind.
Until it wasn’t, until I fell into him in a way I always had, and like the moans of his name my hands fell into the same dizzying trap, the vice of Gray and everything that he was the continued culprit. I loved this man.
I just couldn’t help it.
Even though he’d hurt me beyond belief I still loved him, actual tears stinging my eyes as his tongue fell softly upon my neck.
He was even softer with his hands, his fingers a secure grip but touch as distinct and precise as if he was doing something as finely as opening a delicate bar of chocolate, his hands working in a similar way with every lovely and beautiful revision he did with his hands. He knew his hands. He knew how to use them.
He knew how to love with them.
He knew how to love with his mouth, his lips opening and closing on the underside of my chin. He was speaking to me, undeterminable words at first since he was so in the moment, but when I heard them, I felt them.
The first “Forgive me” he slid down my neck and the second pressed to my mouth again. He pushed them into me, made them a part of me as he lifted my arms and pressed his erection between my legs. It was like he was trying to fuse himself with me, both his words and his body.
The hardness between his legs hit again when he lifted me by the back of my thighs. He was trembling now, holding onto me just to be still.
“Please,” he begged and tears were in his eyes as he kissed my lips, not fallen but glassy none the same. “Please, Alicia. Please forgive me.”
He sounded as if he was in agony, unable to move forward until he heard from me and I accepted him. What had happened to this man to make him feel this way, what did he have inside him to make him feel unworthy of me, unworthy of love?
I’d felt that for a while with him, a hum in the air that hovered over him like a dark cloud. He took it with him everywhere and I wondered if it went back to that guilt he expressed to me at the lake, still holding onto that.
My arms wrapped around him, I kissed him back, expressing my acceptance as I opened my eyes and skated my lips along his.
“Yes, Gray,” I said, my hips pressing to his. My thigh wrapping around his, I eased up my silk gown, causing us both to moan when I pressed my heat against him, my panties thin.
I breathed. “Please, yes, Gray. Yes.”
I’d forgive him forever. I’d forgive him always. I just wanted him to touch me now, give himself to me in ways he never had before, and after I removed my robe, then reached down and slid my nightgown off, exposing myself to him, he did the rest.
Two fingers pulled my underwear down from behind, the material sliding down my thighs when he lowered them. He didn’t start at my breasts like I believed he would, simply pushing hot breaths across them before going straight to my core.
My legs pushed open, he pressed his mouth between them, reaching up to cover and grip me with his hand. He loved on me, his tongue spreading me open and mouth tunneling and accepting my taste. He flicked like the best of them, and like his kiss, he’d done this before.
But maybe he hadn’t done this as it felt so different to even me, so much more intimate, my body completely exposed to him and in the open air. His dark head between my legs, I gripped him, widening my legs as I ground against him. He hadn’t shaved down the scruff of his beard in a few days and it only proved to stimulate me more, my mouth falling open.
His fingers pushing inside me, he said my name as his unruly whiskers brushed raw against my sensitive lips. My thighs aching, I couldn’t spread any wider for him.
“Gray, I can’t.”
It felt so good, and able to contain it, I gave into it, Gray holding me up while I spilled into his mouth.
Using his tongue, he accepted each taste as if it was the sweetest gift and, perhaps, it was to him. He stayed for a little while even after I stopped, spending time to kiss me and ease some of that burn between my legs. Upon standing up, he took me with him, wrapping my legs around him as he took me up the stairs. He kissed me the whole way, even partially undressing as he kicked his boots off in the hall and ripped away that plaid shirt he often wore over his t-shirt. Holding me by the waist, he took me to that large bed in the master, hovering over me as I climbed to the center.
His dark hair hanging over his eyes, he simply watched me as I got acclimated and like downstairs didn’t do anything for a moment even after I got situated, his gaze traveling over my body from my head to my toes. He didn’t spend any particular amount of time over any of it I noticed, like no sight was better than the rest. It made me feel some type a way under his gaze.
Especially when he pushed his lips between the valley of my breasts.
He smiled when he did this, like he was so, so grateful for this moment.
Like he was grateful for me.
The tears came in what seemed like a river and he stopped when he noticed them, his mouth lifting from my cheek. I’d actually become one of those women who cried during sex and couldn’t help laughing through my tears when his finger curled underneath my chin, lifting it to look at me.
“I’ve just never been looked at that way before,” I admitted to him, pushing some of those tears away. Because I never had, not once.
The wrinkle always hard in the corner of his eyes sof
tened, his lips coming down to the shell of my ear.
“If it’d been me,” he said, pushing his hand over my shoulder, then down between my legs. “If it’d been me every time…”
I wished it had been. I wished it always had been this way, but then again, if it had I might not have been able to value this the way I was. I wouldn’t be able to get the full experience of it or him.
His large hand touched and fondled my breasts, his tongue flicking and pulling my nipples into his large mouth. Pinching my lips below, he got a rhythm with his fingers in me, my hands tugging at his t-shirt before he pulled it off.
The broad, muscled physique of a man exposed himself to me, dark hairs smattered along his pecs and down his abs. No gym saw this man, pure, unabashed labor the result of his impressive form. He was giving it to me, allowing me to have it when my hands explored down his chest. Undoing his belt buckle, he let his pants hang at the base of his cock, coming over to me and kissing my neck.
The bubble of his ass hung out the back and I shoved his pants down, letting him rub himself against me, my thighs falling apart and searching for him to be inside me.
“Gray…”
He cupped the back of my neck when he kicked his pants off and grabbing his cock, he explored, finding his place and once he did…
He filled me, his name seeping into the air at the welcome release of this man finally between my thighs. Slow at first, I knew he was holding himself back, as if almost scared to do what he wanted and feel what he wanted to feel in me.
“Please,” I called to him, my fingers in his hair and face buried in his neck. “Please.”
I wanted him fully. I wanted him to have what he wanted to have.
My words like a grant of permission, his powerful hips drove, smacking and hitting with the force of a wanton hunger. Caging my cheeks with his thumbs, he watched me, studied and gave a give for every one of my takes. He worked with me, taking no more or less than he felt he should. Upon kissing me, he pressed his abs against my tummy, going as deep as he could until he couldn’t anymore.
Until it was too late.
We both expelled, his seed spilling inside me and my body milking around him. The fact he hadn’t worn a condom became an afterthought in my mind, Gray raw, Gray inside me.
I grabbed his hips, keeping him there, wanting him there forever and his mouth on mine, he apparently thought to do the same. He didn’t fall out when we finished and instead he remained inside me, his hips moving slowly while he pressed soft kisses to the underside of my jaw.
“We didn’t use protection,” he said at one point, peeling away. Searching my eyes, the air of concern was in them.
“I’m sorry, Alicia. I don’t have anything. I…”
He didn’t have to say it again like he had that first night he kissed me. He never did things like this and I got that, but I had thought about it and I smiled before I kissed him.
“We’re good,” I told him, knowing I was on the pill. “We’re good.”
He took that for what it was, only taking seconds to clean up both of us before he was pulling me on top of him.
“Ride me,” he said, closing his eyes and pressing his unruly hair back into the bed. “Ride me.”
Massaging my hips, he held me to him, letting me give him pleasure, which he took. At one point, he braced me from underneath, loving me from below and I pressed my hands into my hair, unable to discern all the feelings I had. I singled them all down to love. I was in love and being intimate with someone I was in love with—felt different.
It felt amazing.
Eventually, I found myself in my aunt’s bathroom, cleaning up after our second time. Gray joined me when I took too long, his beautiful body standing behind me.
He wouldn’t allow me to see him completely, his body behind mine in the mirror.
His hands on my lower back, he pushed up, forcing my breasts out, my dark nipples peaked in the cool air. Bringing his large hands over the tops of my shoulders, he kissed my neck in the reflection and I watched him, his hands so gentle, intimate.
“I want to talk to you,” he said after awhile. I was tugged away and got to see his perfect, muscled ass with every step, his legs thick and firm like his backside.
The floor creaking with every step, he made his presence in the room known, lounging down to the bed with his beautiful cock between us. He sat back against the headboard, pulling me into his lap and allowing me to experience yet another thing I hadn’t.
I’d been snuggled, but never held. I sat in his lap with my legs over his and his strong arms around me. He was like a cloak of protection, security to the utmost extent.
Covers around us, Gray massaged my shoulders beneath them, his large hands roaming over them.
“You smell warm,” he said, leaning forward and pressing a kiss on my neck. He squeezed his arms around my waist. “So warm.”
I smelled of him and I told him, his lips smiling against my skin.
“Can I ask you a question even though it might seem silly?” he asked, the nature of his question using the humorous word but his expression completely serious.
Breaking all that down, he grinned a little. “What’s your last name?”
I supposed I hadn’t told him mine, nor received his and doing so at this stage was only a formality for me. I didn’t need to know his last name to know that I loved him and the fact he’d proceeded to believe the same by telling me back just showed me what was more important, not names or formalities.
Even still, he wanted to know so I told him, my last name Davey, and was surprised to find his to be Davenport. I knew a few in my work back home, but that was far away from here and in another world, somewhere I found myself letting go more and more each passing moment.
Especially, being in his arms.
He told me other things too, like his age, thirty-five, and like his name I’d been surprised at that too but in a different way. He looked several years older with the gray in his hair and age around his eyes, but knowing some of his history now I gathered the truth behind that. This man had been through something I’d been blessed to say I hadn’t experienced, nor knew anyone who had that admitted the fact to me. He’d been hurt, both Laura and he did and it’d been after I told him my age of twenty-eight, his daughter’s eyes found themselves in my memories, as well as the reason, which separated us earlier today.
The storm lifted behind Gray’s eyes as I asked him about his daughter and the smile that revealed across his expression sent my heart soaring in ways I didn’t believe was possible. I’d never seen him so happy, joyous and he kissed my brow when the sun came out over his face from my aunt’s veranda.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” he said folding his arms around me. Still naked, he was as warm and at home as he described me to be only moments before.
His fingers brushed the side of my arm. “She’s at school, Alicia,” he said, the location causing me to rise and look at him.
He used those fingers across my cheek. “She wanted to be there.”
“Wanted to?”
His nod had that smile going to himself. He dropped his hand and twisted his fingers up within mine, his eyes closing as he kissed the back of my hand. “She wanted to be there,” he repeated and when I asked him how that was possible, or how he even knew he told me something I believed had occurred in my dreams, but only proved to be sweet reality.
“She spoke?” I breathed and my awareness of my tears came at the touch of his fingers to my cheek again. He took them, brushing both sides away with the tip of his thumb.
He proceeded to tell me the story, how she’d come to find her voice and how she somehow found it for me, to defend me of all things to a person she and I both loved. She vouched for me and my tears didn’t scare me. They didn’t put me off or make me feel like a place with him or her wasn’t mine to have anymore. My heart had known the truth. It always had.
“Can we see her?” I asked Gray, smiling through my tea
rs now. They weren’t of sadness, but of a pure joy I myself hadn’t experienced in so long. It was true love and a feeling for a family I had somehow gotten the honor of being blessed to know and love.
I supposed I could thank a woman named Josephine for that.
Hands folded behind my neck, Gray kissed my brow, saying he loved me and it was time to go now.
We had to pick his daughter up from school.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alicia
“It is with great honor that I proclaim this establishment and once home to a dear resident of our community a recognized landmark to the township of Mayfield, Kansas, always to be seen as and will be from this day forward.”
The mayor of Mayfield cut the ribbon in front of my aunt’s home, a stout man I’d come to see around town on more than one occasion. One saw everyone here. They only had to be a part of it all and as I had been for the past six months I saw it all. I was a part of everything.
Grinning, I couldn’t hide the expression, the mayor placing his hand behind my back and presenting me, as well as the home that’d be cemented in time now. I still owned my aunt’s house for the time being and what an honor with the home turning out as beautiful as it did.
A flourishing display with new siding and a fresh coat of paint, my aunt’s home had a transformation, now powder-blue in tone instead of the faded green color of before. The roof ripped off and replaced, the shingles shined bright in the afternoon sun and with the flower arrangements planted throughout the landscape a wonderland was created, the outdoors just as magnificent if not more than the internal house revisions. Those had been in influx, everything replaced and shined for the day, this day.
I hope it makes you proud.
I actually talked to my aunt a lot since I visited her, found her, or I guess since she found me. She’d always been here it was just now I could actually visit her, which I did every week. I brought pictures and even flowers from the garden, her beautiful lake just as picturesque. We hadn’t gotten too much work done out there and frankly it hadn’t been needed. Trees trimmed and brush managed, an environment had been created that this town could be proud of, a bright star in a sea of country land.
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