Aroused by his request, I rubbed my clit over the bed as I placed a soft kiss on the plush tip of his cock.
He let out the sweetest cry. “Damn, Cherry, you’re too much.”
Drake Hart
Under my slow assault, her throat softened allowing me to go deeper and deeper. When I walked in and found her crying in the floor, I broke. I wasn’t the main cause of her pain, however, I was a major contributor. When I was five I blocked off my heart and promised myself I would never let anybody in. Then she happened.
Still deeper, I invaded her mouth, a bead of my pre-come hit the tip of her tongue, and I knew for a fact I was taking possession of what I would never let go of again. This was not how I saw the night going, but when she looked up at me with tears pooled in her eyes, I could read her thoughts and the complex structure of her emotions. She needed me to possess her, a job I gladly accepted. The one detail I didn’t account for was her latching on to my heart and digging her claws in so deep, I knew I would never be the same again.
She sucked her mouth tighter around my cock, so I constricted my fingers around her neck, savoring the feel of the back of her throat closing up on my tip. But the sweetest feeling of all was when she placed a simple and gentle kiss on it. I gasped when Cherry started trying to roll her hips into the mattress as her appealing body grew with hunger. It upped the sensation vibrating through my body. I drew away from her, letting my cock fall from her lips with a plop, bent down, and placed a kiss on the slight curve of her ass that was almost as sumptuous as her voluptuous breasts. She moaned when I dragged teeth across the bright red imprint of my hand, enjoying her realization that pain more often than not twisted into erotic pleasure. “I so want to bite you,” I said, nipping her skin hard enough to elicit a scream, and snapped loose the restrains from her wrist.
With a quick flick of my hand, I flipped her on her back. Her legs opened up to me. I lick my tongue between my upper and bottom lip. Damn, she was magnificent.
When she raised her head to say something, I dived in and took those soft, sweet pink lips of her inner folds into my mouth. I gripped her back to pull her tighter against my face, and placed my other hand at the bend of her knee, keeping her tilted at the right angle to toy with her pussy, nibble on her succulent clit, to run my tongue across her velvety opening. Fuck, she tasted sweeter than I even remembered. God finally answered my prayers and sent me an angel to save me.
“The last few days, I’ve gone to bed every night remembering how it felt to bury my face between your legs. God, its heaven,” I whispered then dove back down between her thighs.
When I plunged my tongue into her opening, she melted and screamed out, “Drake.” To hear my name on her lips sent a shock through my body. This wasn’t an exchange between a Dom and his sub but a man and woman as lovers.
Her tantalizing lips of her clit seemed to spasm wildly under each flick of my tongue as I lapped up the hot juices from her release. The only good my past will ever serve was the fact I knew how to bring her to this place.
“Fuck me, please,” she lightly whispered under a long and heavy breath.
Reluctantly, I pulled back from her but not before tugging on her clit one more time with my teeth.
I reached out my hand and slipped it around her neck. “Does my pretty little cherry pie want my cock?” I asked, running my lips over her, wanting her to taste herself on my mouth.
“Yes, Master,” she answered.
I went to correct her. As wonderful as hearing her say Master was, I wanted it to be about Drake and Cherry. But the look on her face, stopped me. She wore a look of pure peace on that beautiful face. The whole room seem to catch fire around me. "I fully intend to bury myself . . . very, very deep . . ." I stroked a finger back over her wet slit. "Into this beautiful body. But first, my pet, we need to talk."
Cherry set up and wrapped the blanket on the bed around her trembling frame. The look of peace that shone on her face only moments ago had been replaced with a dull glow of gloom. I knelt down beside her and brushed her hair off her forehead.
“About what?” she asked and fiddled with the collar on the shirt I was wearing.
“A lot, but first I want to show you something.”
I unfastened the buttons on my shirt with slow intention, and reveled in the feel of her finger as it followed down the length of my chest.
As I slid the shirt off, I stood, bringing in to view my newest tat, a cherry with a lit fuse, a cherry bomb, on the apex of my thigh. The last night I was in Raleigh, I passed by this small tattoo shop, and even though I had no idea where all of this with her was going, I wanted a reminder of what Cherry had brought into my life. She gasped.
Cherry Webb
“Talk to me,” he said.
My hand trembled as I traced around the tattoo as I shook my head in disbelief. The skin around it was inflamed and shiny from the ointment he had smeared over it. It couldn’t have been more than a few days old. I clutched the quilt tighter around me. He leaves for days on end and then crawls back with some token, first the collar now this. The sad thing was I took the scraps he threw at me because what I felt when I was with him was greater than anything I ever felt before.
Drake’s expression reflected the flow of my thoughts. He had always been able to read me. He stepped across the room to a small bar in the corner. It was the first time; I had even looked up long enough to take in the room. It was a small space the held a bed, a dresser, and a small table. On the dresser were four pictures, one of him and his dad, one of Katie and Grace, one of him holding a baby, I assumed was Grace, and one of me that up to a few days ago was on the table in my hallway. I tried hiding the smile caused by that small measure of proof the he had fallen for me.
His cleanliness was exemplary, his esthetics were pleasing compared to most bachelor pads, notably absent from the space were the posters of half-naked women, the occasional sports memorabilia, and most importantly, the smell of stale beer and stinky feet.
He poured some amber fluid into a small glass, and walked back over to me. “Here, it will give you some courage.”
“Do you stay here often?” He carried me back to his small condo the first night we were together, but the times I talked to him at night he was always here, doing I had no idea.
“Almost, every night I don't have Katie and Grace.” He pointed to one of the two doors in the room. “My office is in there. It’s easier. I can work then sleep a little then work some more.”
“Kelly said you haven’t been here in almost two months."
“I haven’t been to any of the club's activities since you. But she has no idea about all my businesses.” He tilted my chin up. “Asked the one question you really want to ask.”
Could I? Was it even my business? What if I didn’t get the answer I want? “When was the last time . . .”
He answered before I had a chance to finish asking, “That girl that was totally inappropriate at Touchdown Wings, it was her and some brunette, I can’t even remember their names, about a week before I first ran into you at Touchdown the first time.” He sat down beside me and cradled me against his side. “I’ve had no desire to touch anyone else but you.”
I took the glass from his hand and gulped it back, avoiding his eyes.
Drake’s warm hand tracing on my hip was relaxing.
“You didn’t call me.”
I felt the tears form but before they had time to touch my cheeks, Drake solid arm shifted me from the bed to his lap. The only thing separating our bare skin was the blanket wrapped solidly around me. But it was nothing sexual in his gaze, he wanted to lay open all the secrets between us. I never felt more exposed.
“I’m sorry, so sorry. I wanted to hear your sweet voice. Baby, your voice makes me feel at peace. But how could I call you, knowing everything I was doing was going to destroy your life.”
“Because I needed to hear your voice.” I finally give into the urge to place my head on his shoulder.
“You
had my number. Why didn’t you call me?” he asked.
I snuggled my head against his collarbone, feeling protected and safe. The image of Drake standing in the parking lot after our altercation with James, crushed and defeated, played in my head. I left him there hurting, and what did he do? What he could to protect me and my kids. “You went to Raleigh to get the proof I needed?”
He nodded, then kissed my shoulder. “My early years were totally fucked and left me a cold-hearted bastard and also with this idea that women were only good for an orgasm and whatever I could use them for. So I found it strange that your pictures had a pull on me. But I just bypassed it as intense lust. Then I started to follow you like I was paid to do. Fuck . . . this is hard. I loved watching you. I think I came a little obsessed.”
“Wait, it was you by my neighbor’s mailbox?” I said against the skin on his neck.
“Yes, I wanted you to see me so maybe you would be scared and a little cautious,” he said into my hair. “In the process of watching you, I figured out James was trying to fuck with your whole life. I couldn’t understand him and why anybody in their right mind would have a woman like you and throw it away. Then I met you. Oh, Babe, the night you showed up at my club I knew I was fucked. But I didn’t want to be. I told myself you were just another girl and no good. Then came the night you allowed me to have you at the club. I spent hours getting ready for it. But damn, it was perfect and worth lighting all those candles for. The term making love used to send me rolling. Sex was a fuck to give you a few moments of pleasure. People only put terms on it to make what they were doing seem, hell, I don’t know holier. But when you happened . . . I felt those feelings. I remember not wanting it to stop. Up until you, I left whoever for one of my regular subs to clean up and untie. No way in hell was I letting anybody see you like that, even another damn woman. I still remember the knot in my throat when I woke up and realized I had carried you back to my house. Never have I allowed someone from the club in my house and the most important rule, never give them my name. But rules didn’t matter with you. You were special.”
The moment he spoke those words, I pressed my body skintight against his and claimed his mouth with mine. His tongue was a combination of sex, whiskey, and velvet. Deep, needy, and wanting. I wasn’t sure which one of us needed what the most, and it didn’t matter, all that mattered was we were together and the lies were exposed.
I let the blanket around me fall, exposing my breast. As always his hands went directly to my nipples.
“Fuck, you are making this so damn hard,” he said against my mouth then covered my breast with the blanket. “My love, we need to talk. As hard as it is to talk about, you need to hear it.”
My love. The letter signed I love you. “Tell me the words you wrote in that letter. That’s what I need to hear.”
He stifled his smile by gnawing on his bottom lip, his eyes twinkled. “What did I write,” he said, and ran his tongue along his upper lip. “Oh yeah, I love . . . how your hips move.”
I shook my head, feeling my tearstained cheeks constrict with a smile.
“Um,” he hummed. “You’re going to make me say it?”
He smiled. I live for that smile.
I nodded.
“I’m so sorry.”
I rolled my eyes and said, “The other thing.”
“Oh, the I love you thing.”
I nodded again.
“I love you, Cherry Elizabeth Webb. I shouldn’t have written those words at the end of that letter. Wrong time. But I’ve never been in love before, and I will probably suck at it at times. Sorry about the timing but I’m not sorry I told you.” He leaned his forehead against mine. “Of all the clubs in all the world, how in the hell did I get lucky enough to have you walk into mine.”
“You tell me you love me then quote Casablanca?”
He shrugged. “Paraphrase.”
I tickled my fingers through the light smattering of hair on his chest and darted my eyes down.
“I love you, and I’ve known that since the first time you left, but I’m scared. I was Daddy’s cherished little girl, and so when James told me those same words, I believed them. Who lies about loving someone? When you were gone I was crushed.” I kissed the curve of his shoulder. “I trudged through each day in misery. One person in a relationship always loves the other one a little bit more. Please don't make me love you more then leave.”
Drake’s mouth gapped opened slightly. He was not a man who normally had trouble finding words, but he was rendered wordless.
“But I’m also happy it all happened the way it has. James has the woman he had tried to turn me into for twenty years, the perfect woman, and I have you, the perfect man.” I forced a smile.
He trailed his fingers down my bare arms. Everything about my unsecure body language, the way I clung to him with apprehension, fueled his desire to protect me.
“We are nowhere near perfect.”
My heart broke when the realization that he knew her, hell, he knew more about my life than even I did. “You’ve met her?”
“Twice, I had to see for myself what caused that jerk to do everything he did to you.” Drake lifted my hand to his mouth, kissing the top of it. “The first time, I made sure I ran into them at this crappie restaurant. Hearing her talk about you, the lies he led her to believe, fuck, I wanted to hurt them both for disrespecting you like that. It should’ve made me the happiest fucking man on the planet, all that crap gave you to me, the one person who had crawled so deep under my skin I couldn’t dig you out if I tried, but nothing about hearing those lies spewed about you could ever make me happy."
Each word he spoke ignited a fire so deep within my soul that all the water in the world couldn't extinguish it. We still had untold amount of work ahead of us, and the magnitude of the love we shared was not a guarantee that we could survive the wounds of our past, but our willingness to try and stubbornness guarantee we would not quit without a battle. My heart clung to his. I wanted nothing more than to lay in his arms forever, to kiss his lips until my last breath. Convince us both that we will be okay, but I didn’t know if we would.
“Then before I left North Carolina, I ran into her at the park. JJ is a cute little boy.” He paused, I was positive to judge my reaction. I was fine. Of course, he was cute. I saw his picture. He was almost identical to Henry. “Brenda is nice, just blind to who James really is. Their little girl is due in two weeks.”
That statement finished me off. James's lies didn’t just involve me but my kids too. Ruby would no longer be his only little girl, Noah no longer the first born son, “Henry will no longer be the baby,” I whispered, not even apprehending I said it allowed.
He clutched my chin between his thumb and forefinger. Lifting my face, he said. “Henry will always be our baby.”
But Henry wasn’t his. Drake would want kids of his own one day. A child I can no longer have. “He’s my baby. You’ll want your own son one day. A son I can no longer give you.”
He kissed my lips with a kiss so light I barely registered a touch. “I’ve had a kid since I was six. The only kids I want are the ones we already have.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I was six, my mom, the two-bit meth whore, left me alone for three days. Which was nothing new, but when she came back she had this little bundle that cried and peed. My mom showed me how to change her and fix a bottle then she left for four more days. I was scared to death. Not for me but for Katie. I promised her then I would always take care of her, and I have every day since." He lifted an eyebrow. “Told you my childhood was a fucking disaster.”
Oh, my sweetie. If I was broken, he was shattered. I took in the heartache in his crystal blue eyes, and envisioned those same eyes filled with confusion and terrible pain in the face of a lonely little six-year-old boy, holding a helpless baby. The image ripped me and buried him deeper into my heart. I placed my hand on his jaw, softly cupping his face.
How had Drake’s mom's
influence, or lack of influence effected his life?
Our phones rang in unison; I would have ignored mine except it was the ringtone signaling a call from Ruby. I hesitated before crawling out of the warm encasement of Drake’s arms, and wrangled my phone out of my purse thrown on the floor.
I answered mine, feeling somewhat guilty about where I was. “Hey, baby girl.”
“Mom, what did you do to dad?” Ruby shrieked.
“What are you talking about?”
“Dad called saying he had been arrested, and it was all your fault!”
I plopped back down on the bed and took a deep breath, feeling woozy from my elevated heartrate. I couldn’t remember ever being that nervous or that sick to my stomach.
I could hear Drake talking to someone next to me, and could make out enough to know it was about James and jail too.
I tried my best to reassure Ruby, dodging every one of her questions, and trying to regain my footing at the realization that our world was not crumbling but pulverized beyond anything I could paste back together.
Calmness washed over me the minute Drake took my hand in his.
“Baby, are the boys up?”
“No, them and Ms. Pat are sleeping. Are you going to answer me?”
“Sweetie, I’ll be home in thirty minutes. Don't wake up the boys, please.”
It seemed I was living some movie on Lifetime as I coward on the bed in Drake’s apartment in a damn sex club.
“I love you, Momma.”
“I love you more, Sunshine.”
I pushed end on the phone, glanced up, and noticed Drake looking at me. He had the phone pressed tight against his ear. “Will the extradition take place in the next few days?”
I sat in silence and watched Drake cram his hand in his hair as the person on the telephone explained something that seem to trouble him.
He hung up seconds later, and sat down on the foot of the bed. “He’s been arrested.”
“Why?” I asked, still confused on what to tell Ruby.
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