by Cathryn Fox
“I love watching you take me like this,” he growls, and his cock thickens impossibly more in my mouth. I wiggle my tied hands, wanting to touch him all over, but they’re restrained. A strange thrill goes through me. My God, I’ve come so far so fast under this man’s care. “That’s it, take me deep. Show me how much you love my cock.”
His dirty words turn me on even more and I writhe beneath him, wanting him inside my body again. He must sense it, because he pulls out, slides over me and in one quick thrust drives his cock into me, seating himself high.
“This where you want my cock?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, and move my hips. He pumps into me. “I want your cock in me, everywhere.”
He stills for a brief second, then picks up the pace again. “Everywhere?”
“Yes.”
“You ready for that?” he asks quietly.
“I’m ready for everything with you, Jaxon.”
With that he pulls out of my sex and reaches up to untie my hands. I catch the intensity in his eyes and nearly forget how to breathe.
“In my bag,” I say. “I brought lubricant.”
His eye latch onto mine. “You planned this?”
“Yes.”
“You’re full of surprises, babe,” he says softly. He reaches into my bag and produces the lubricant. He places it on the nightstand, grips my hips and flips me over. Warm fingers trail down my spine, and I quiver.
“Take me, Jaxon.”
“Oh, I plan to,” he groans, and slides a pillow under my hips to lift my ass to him. I should feel vulnerable and exposed, but I don’t. He kneads my ass for a few moments, as he presses hungry kisses to my back.
My body goes cold when he shifts, moving off me to grab the lubricant. The top flips open and he peels the foil off.
“This might be a bit cold,” he murmurs as he presses a finger into me.
“Ohmigod,” I murmur against the coldness and the pressure.
He stops moving. “You okay, babe?”
“Yes, more.” I wiggle to encourage him and his agonized groan makes me smile. I like being here with Jaxon like this. I like what we’re doing, and the way he makes me feel as I give myself to him in a way I’ve never given myself to anyone.
You weren’t supposed to give him your heart, Rach.
But that thought is for another time. Right now, I need to concentrate on the way he’s taking his time with me, preparing, widening, stretching me for his girth. He plays with me for a long time, but I’m ready for him. I just know my body will adjust to his. We’re such a good fit together.
“Please,” I whisper.
He lifts my hips a bit more and positions himself. I suck in a sharp breath as he presses his crown into me. I tighten, and he stops.
“Am I hurting you?”
I try to relax, and when I do, the pain subsides a little. “No,” I say. “I want to feel you inside me.”
He goes slow, inching in and then giving me time to catch up. We continue this for a long time, and when he’s finally all the way inside me, he lets loose a groan unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.
“Now I’ve been everywhere inside you,” he says, so much pleasure in his voice my heart squeezes.
He moves his hips slowly, and I get used to the pressure. His chest presses against my back as he lays over me and kisses my neck. As he applies weight, my hard nipples press against the sheets, and the stimulation races to the needy spot between my legs. Jackson moves, a little more urgency with each thrust now and I love the hot little grunting sounds he’s making in my ear.
He shoves a hand between my body and the pillow, and presses his finger to my clit. I exhale hard as pleasure centers on my sex. My body rocks as he thrusts, and my clit grinds harder against his finger.
“I’m…” My words fall off as a mind-exploding orgasm rockets me into space. I close my eyes against the flood of heat, and pant, desperate to catch my breath. Jaxon grunts again, and my entire body burns as he fills me with his hot cum.
He collapses, and presses all his weight on top of me. I can’t breathe, but I don’t care. I’ve never felt closer to anyone in my entire life. Jaxon shifts slightly and pulls out of me, and I instantly miss him inside my body.
“Are you okay?” he whispers into my ear as he gently brushes my damp hair from my face.
“Define okay?” I ask and he laughs.
“I’ll get us water. Don’t move.”
I stretch out on the bed, and remove the pillow from beneath me. His bare feet slap the floor as he rushes down the hall. I rake my nails though the sheets, a content cat stretching. I think I might even be purring, too. That makes me chuckle.
“Something funny?” he asks and when I roll over, catch sight of his cute dimple, my damn heart can barely take it.
“Not really. Just thinking about how good I feel.”
He hands me a glass of water, and touches my face. “Yeah, you do feel good.”
I take a big drink and wet my parched throat, and he takes the glass from me and finishes it.
“More?” he asked.
“I’m good.”
“Shower?”
“That would be perfect, but my legs aren’t moving.”
“I got you,” he says and scoops me up. He carries me to the shower, adjusts the temperature and climbs in with me. I’m so lethargic, I’m sure I’m going to fall asleep in his arms. Once we’re clean, he turns the water off, and covers me in a big fluffy towel. I catch my second breath as we exit the bathroom.
“Want to finish your wine, or straight to bed?” he asks.
“Let’s sit in the living room for a bit. See what’s on TV.”
He ties his towel at his waist and we stay close as we move down the hall. I examine his living room before I sit, and smile when I see a few of Cassie’s toys laying around. Jaxon flicks the TV on, and I snuggle in next to him. He flicks through the channels, but when I look up at him, I find him looking back.
“Rach?” he begins.
“Yeah?”
“Tonight at the bar, when Jericho said I was lucky he didn’t find you first. You seemed really put off by that.”
I sit up, cross my legs and face him. “He’s a married man.”
Jaxon touches my face, and I lean into his warm palm. It’s rough from years of manual labor yet warm and gentle against my skin. “He’s was only kidding, babe. He and Marissa are totally in love.” I look down at my lap as painful memories bubble to the surface. “What is it?” he asks so quietly, so damn affectionately, that for the first time I feel that maybe here, with him to anchor me, I can talk about the past. I close my eyes and take a breath. It wasn’t as steady as I’d have liked, but when I blow it out and open my eyes again, Jaxon is there, patient and calm. I draw from that and begin.
“My father…” I pause for one second, then go on. “He was an alcoholic. A mean one at times.”
He shifts closer, and lets his hands drop to the towel covering my legs. His thumb moves gently over the terry cloth. Soothing. “I’m sorry.”
I nod, and swallow hard. Tears burn my eyes. Here I thought I’d never cry over my father again. “Mom tried to protect me from the things he used to do, but she couldn’t.”
“Can you tell me what he did?” Jaxon asks softly. His hand moves up and closes over mind. A simple touch, yet the strength that flows into me from that gentle caress fills me with the courage to go on.
“So many weekends he’d disappear. Mom would keep me busy to keep my mind off it, but I always felt the tension she tried to hide from me. I’d see her smile falter when she thought I wasn’t looking.” I pause as a tightness grips my stomach, and my throat fills with acid. “He’d stumble home on Sunday, the same clothes he left in and smelling like cheap perfume.” I pull my gaze from his and look over his shoulder as the past rises up and engulfs me. “I hated those women, Jaxon, almost as much as I hated my father. I didn’t know who they were, had never laid eyes on them, but I hated them.” My other
hand lifts, palm up. Empty. I look back at him. “How could he leave his family and sleep with other women? How could they sleep with a man who was married?” A sob catches in my throat and spills from my lips. Jaxon’s hand on my leg tightens. “I hated how much that hurt Mom, you know.” I look away again and dab at my eyes, and fighting back the tears.
“It’s okay to cry for your mother, Rach.” A long pause and then, “It’s okay to cry for you, too. What your father did was pretty shitty. A girl needs her Dad.” I glance at him and it dawns on me that he’s talking from experience. “He’s her first true love, and it’s up to him to set a good example and show her how she’s supposed to be treated by guys.”
A noise crawls out of my throat, a half laugh, half cry. “I guess that’s why I ended up in a relationship with Dylan.”
“Dylan?” he asks, and brushes my tear away with his thumb.
“My ex. He was…so much like my father.”
“He hurt you?”
There is real pain in Jaxon’s eyes as his gaze searches my face. Behind that pain is also anger. My body quivers, almost violently. “Yes, he hurt me,” I whisper. “He was violent, and he threatened to kill me if I left him, or went to the cops. I was terrified.”
His teeth clench and the sound reverberates through me. “Where is he?”
I shake my head. I’m not going to let Jaxon put himself, or his daughter in harm’s way for me. Nothing good could come from it, of that I’m sure. “Not around here.”
Jaxon’s eyes narrow, turning the strangest shade of blue, as his eyes narrow. “Does he know where you are?”
“No.”
He relaxes a bit, and so do I. “He was so nice at first, and I was a little flattered that he liked me. I usually have my head down and fly under the radar, you know?”
“I know you keep your head down, Rach, but you hardly fly under the radar. You were on mine the second you moved in next door.”
“Oh,” I say, totally surprised by that.
“So you never liked to be noticed, even before Dylan.”
I shake my head and Jaxon peels a wet strand of hair from my forehead when it sticks. “I wanted to make something of myself, be independent. I never wanted to find myself in a position like my Mom, stuck in an abusive relationship, with no way out. And I want to protect all the children.”
“You are an amazing woman.”
The corner of my mouth turns up. “Thank you.”
“You showed up here in the middle of the night. No family, barely any luggage, always looking over your shoulder. I pretty much figured out you were on the run.”
“His threats were getting more violent, so I summoned all my courage and went to the police. Turns out there were some outstanding charges against him in other states. They were going to arrest him, and I knew he’d come after me for that. I had no choice but to leave.”
“You did good, Rachel.”
I slide my fingers through his. “I’m still scared.”
He shifts closer and turns me, until my head is rests on his shoulders. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“He’s dangerous, Jaxon.”
“So am I.” He absently runs his fingers up and down my arm. His touch is like a healing balm and a sense of security that I haven’t felt in…ever, falls over me. “Tell me about your mom.”
“She died of cancer. She swallowed down my father’s betrayal and I think it killed her from the inside out.”
“What else did you two do, besides knit together?”
I sit up again, and meet his eyes. I miss my mother more than words can say, but as I conjure up the happy times we had, warmth soothes my soul. “You would have loved her.”
“If she was anything like the amazing daughter she raised, then yeah, I would.”
“She tried to make my childhood as normal as possible. Every Sunday we’d bake these cookies. Ohmigod, Jackson they were so good. Just a simple sugar cookie, but I can almost taste them now.” He smiles at that.
“That’s a great memory, Rach.”
“After baking, we’d go to the park, have a picnic, fly a kite. We didn’t have a lot but she’d always have those little gummy green leaf mints for me as a treat.”
He groans. “I haven’t had one of those in years.”
I lean against him again and let the happier memories push out the demons. My eyes slide shut, exhaustion from a long day and even longer night pulling me under.
“Rach?”
“Yeah.”
“You never did tell me what you wanted for your birthday.”
“One more day with my mom,” I whisper.
A lifetime with you.
14
Jaxon
Jaxon
Jaxon
It’s Sunday afternoon and upstairs, the sound of Cassie’s feet running down the hall, followed by Rachel’s, put a big smile on my face. I put my wrench away and glance at the calendar hanging over my workbench. We’re halfway through November which means it’s been two weeks since we were at Jericho’s pub, two weeks since he warned me that Sarah was finally clean, and coming home. Apparently, as Jericho explained, Jessica had stopped into the bar and he overheard her telling a friend that she’d texted Sarah about my new freshman—Jessica’s words, not Jericho’s.
But I’ll believe it when I see it and while I’ve always wanted Sarah in Cassie’s life, Rachel, Cassie and I have fallen into an easy routine. Rachel left her job and has been helping me out around here. We fall in bed together every night, and every morning we get up well before Cassie and carry on as if there is nothing going on between us—that what we have is a business arrangement only—with a few added perks, of course. Only problem is, I want more going on between us, which has my thoughts drifting back to the night she opened up to me. She’s still afraid of her ex, which means she could so easily run again. But no way is he going to find her here, right? And if he does, he’ll have me to deal with.
Then again, are we even enough for her to stick around?
The door to my shop opens and in walks my in-laws. My head rears back in surprise. There are no plans for them to take Cassie today, but they’ve been known to stop by unexpectedly from time to time. Likely to try and catch me off guard so they can find some reason to take Cassie away from me.
“Judy, Karl,” I begin. “What a pleasant surprise. Cassie is upstairs if you’re looking for her.”
“Actually, we’re here to talk to you,” Karl says as he slowly approaches.
I grab a rag, wipe the grease from my hand, and ignore the knot tightening in my stomach. Something is very wrong here, but I keep a poker face and gesture to the two clean chairs.
“Have a seat, or would you rather go upstairs?” I ask, and point to the ceiling.
“Here is fine,” Judy says and brushes the chair to check the cleanliness of it before she sits.
“Have you heard from Sarah?” Karl asks, getting right to the point.
“Not since that text over three weeks ago.”
He eyes me carefully, waiting for a reaction when he says, “She’s coming back.”
Giving no indication on whether I think that is a good thing, or a bad thing, I lean against the counter and my mind races. Why now after all this time? Was it really because I was with another woman? Why would she even care? She was the one who chose to leave us. It wasn’t the other way around.
“When?” I ask.
Karl hesitates and I resist the urge to scoff, because yeah, his pause tells me he’s as skeptical as I am. “She said soon.”
Like I said, I’ll believe it when I see it.
“Jaxon, I was just wondering if you wanted…” Halfway down the stairs, Rachel stops speaking and blinks. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you had company.”
“Rachel,” Judy says tightly, like the name has left a bad taste in her mouth. Rachel freezes, and anger shoots through me. They can treat me however the hell they want but they’re not going to be mean to Rachel.
“Is there a problem, Judy?” I ask between clenched teeth.
She touches her beads. “No, it’s just.” She turns her attention from me to Rachel. “Cassie’s mother is coming home, and well…”
“Well, what?” I ask, bringing her eyes back to me.
“I…should go. Cassie wants her hair braided.”
“What did you want to ask me, Rachel?”
She hesitates for a second then says, “I’m making lunch and was wondering if you wanted a ham or chicken sandwich.”
“Whatever you make is fine with me.”
Rachel turns to go, and I focus back in on Judy.
“I don’t like that girl trying to be Cassie’s mother,” Judy says quickly, her lips pinched so tight they accentuate the lines on her lips, a gentle reminder that this has all been hard on her too. “Not when she has her own.”
“Cassie’s never had a mother, Judy. Not since the day she was born,” I say flatly, honestly, wanting to get the point across, without gutting her. The truth is Judy is angry, angry that Rachel is here and her daughter isn’t, but no way am I going to let her direct her feelings at the wrong woman. Rachel has been nothing but good to us.
“She’s all Cassie talks about, Jaxon,” Judy shoots back. “It’s not healthy. That child needs stability. Not some barely legal girl who’s going to breeze out of your life as easily as she breezed into it. What do you really know about her, anyway?”
It takes everything in my not to hit something. “Like you, I wish Sarah was in our lives, but she’s not and we’re doing the best to make a go at it,” I say, refusing to discuss Rachel with her. Rachel deserves better than that from me.
The stairs creak, a splitting little sound that races down my spine. I jerk my head around and catch sight of Rachel’s ankles before she closes the upstairs door.
“Jaxon,” Karl begins.
“If you want to see Cassie, take her out for a few hours, I’m sure she’d love that.”
Two sets of eyes stare at me in shock. I rarely push back, after all, they lost a daughter in all this, but I’ve just about had enough of their bullshit.
