by Melissa Blue
U ghosted. U okay?
Grady. The worrier.
P: Long day. U still there?
G: There's still cake.
P: Have fun.
G: Sure u ok?
The bathroom cracked open. Underneath that dress, Iris had worn a garter belt. Black lace bra, even lacier thong. He couldn’t see her pussy but he had no doubt it was beckoning to him.
Trust me I'm fine, he sent back then shoved his phone into his pocket.
“You broke your promise.”
“Blame Grady.” He shrugged out of the suit jacket and tossed it on the bed. Shoes went next then shirt, and she watched him the entire time like he was unwrapping a present just for her. “Come here.”
“Fair warning, my hair probably won't move until tomorrow. There's a lot of gel and hairspray going on.”
“Noted. No hair pulling.” He crooked his finger in her bra and tugged her the rest of the way.
Her laugh was deep, and so damn sexy. “I really hope whatever is poking me right now is not your dick.”
“Like I said earlier, I am so very happy to see you, and this time you’re half-naked.” He watched as she dug into his pants pocket. She snorted when she pulled out the cube. He bent down to nip her chin. “Any other warnings?”
She rose to the tip of her toes. “I like being on top.”
He kissed her since nothing more needed to be said. She worked on his belt and pants, jerking him toward the bed until they could both fall onto it a tangle of limbs. Taking her up to her hotel room was the best decision he'd made in a really long time.
“Porter,” she whispered against his neck. “Never wear clothes.”
His face flushed at the compliment. “Will keep that suggestion in mind. Condom?”
She reached forward, slightly smothering him with her breasts, which were full, heavy. He made good use of his mouth. The dark tips pebbled under his tongue. Her skin still tasted fresh from her soap and just a tinge of salt from sweat.
She moaned and cupped the side of his face. “Maybe you should be on top.”
He flipped her over without hesitation and had his mouth back on hers fast enough to swallow her surprised gasp. Iris tasted of the caramel she’d swiped before sneaking off with him to the elevator. He could have kissed her all night, but there were much more interesting things he could do with his mouth. He broke the lip-lock. She didn't offer a complaint when he licked down her torso instead, and kept right on tasting her lower.
Placing a kiss above her slit, he glanced up.
Her teeth scraped her bottom lip. “Don't mind me,” she murmured. “I was just watching.”
He let his tongue trail over her clit. She gasped and then laughed. “Just do that a few more times.”
Her sweet and tart taste slid over his tongue. His dick went rock hard. “Are you sure?”
“God, yes.”
He slid his tongue between the folds and closed his eyes, letting her taste fill his mouth. More sweet than tart. His blood heated. He’d known she’d taste good. Teasing her clit with a few more flicks, he waited for her to arch her hips up—the telltale sign she wanted more. Only took a few seconds for her moans to deepen and for her to rock into his mouth.
Porter dipped his tongue inside her. Again and again, until she was panting and had her hand resting on his head. He pushed back her thighs for a better taste, rolling his tongue over the swollen nub.
“Don't stop. Almost...”
She had the most beautiful moans—soft and feminine. His dick ached with each heartbeat. He sucked her clit. The sound the action made was obscene.
She said, “Yes. Just. Like. That.”
Porter closed his hands over her thighs to hold her down. She guided his head forward, and he almost laughed at her blatancy. Iris was close though. He tightened the suction over her clit then used his tongue to tease the bud. She shuddered twice before letting out a sharp cry. He loosened his hold on her legs, brushing his thumbs along her inner thighs. Took a while for her knees to relax at his soft kisses.
He wiped away the mess she left on his chin and rose. “Condom?”
She looked hazy, but searched on the bed. He caught sight of the blue foil before her. His hands were shaking as he slipped it on.
“Hold still,” he demanded, slipping between her legs.
“Bossy,” she said.
“I won’t argue that. Open your legs a little for me so I can see that pretty pussy.”
“Porter,” she said in a gasp.
“If you think I’m lying about wanting to see it, keep your knees together.”
She opened her legs. Porter grunted, filled with amusement, but watched as his cock disappeared between her pussy lips. She clenched around him. He felt half blind for a second at how tight she felt.
“Don't be gentle,” she told him.
His balls pulled tight. “Promise.”
Her laugh turned into a moan as he made good on at least that promise with a hard thrust. He closed his eyes and let the pleasure wash over him. Her touches were teasing, both with her hands and her mouth, her hips rising off the bed to meet his rhythm.
It was damn good sex.
When she spasmed around his cock, he stroked his dick faster to meet her right at the crest of her next orgasm. Her nails dug into his back. He closed his mouth over hers again then had to smile as she only moaned his name.
Heat flared from his balls and rode up his spine. This moment—he loved when the sharp taste of his orgasm courted euphoria. The pleasure lay right there, all he had to do was grasp it. He looked down at Iris and she still rode her own mind-numbing climax. She was soft and pretty and his. She was his reckless choice. Breaking his own rules. Maybe he’d regret it, but in that moment he couldn’t remember what that emotion tasted like. His dick pulsed harder in the next heartbeat and his own orgasm took hold.
They just breathed for a minute afterward. He pulled out of her wet embrace. He had to stop and take another breath before he rolled the condom off and tossed it in the trashcan by the nightstand.
Finally he flopped onto his back. She started to roll in the other direction, but he grabbed her arm. “Come here.”
Her brow went up. “You want to cuddle?”
“I want you naked. In this bed. That was round one.”
He pulled her closer so their legs tangled. He pressed his mouth to her ear. “Round one is pretty uneventful. You come, I come, but no one writes home about it.”
She snorted. “What you're saying is you want another chance to knock my socks off because...you’re a two pump chump?”
“Oooh. Fighting words.”
She straddled his lap. “I'm being told to stay naked with excuses. Just say you want more.”
He cupped her ass. There was the soft swell filling his palms. His blood pumped harder, in the right direction. “I want everything. You, screaming. You, coming your brains out.”
She bent forward, placing a kiss on his chin. “We can do round two but I can't have you falling in love with me.”
Yeah. He liked her. “That good, huh?”
“Better.”
He flattened his expression and shrugged. “We'll see.”
Her mouth rounded in a silent, offended gasp. “Fighting words.”
Porter closed his hands behind his head, his dick slowly but surely stiffening again. “First one to scream loses.”
*****
He grunted into Iris’s shoulder, and she smiled, sleepy and little sex-drunk. She didn’t like the way he stiffened when he pulled back.
“Please tell me,” he said, in a voice that was just a touch too calm, “you’re on birth control?”
She pushed him back to look down to see exactly what he meant. A long tear went up the condom. His come spilled out from inside her. “I am. Thank, God.”
He laughed, relaxing between her legs again. “That’s just a little blasphemous.”
“Maybe a lot.”
She looked at the mess between her legs a
nd it dawned on her all the things they hadn’t talked about before jumping into bed. Things like was this a one-time deal? For her, yes. Not that she couldn’t see them going on dates and having a good time. They had heat. They bantered like they’d known each other for much longer than an afternoon and a wedding. But given his previous hard-headed rule—what stopped him from picking another line in the sand? She grew up in that kind of environment and didn’t need to date a man like that. Sex was fine, intermingling lives was a different story.
Porter rolled onto his side, and she knew he’d wrap his arms around her. The man was a cuddler.
She turned into him. “You know we missed the send off.”
He rested his arm behind his head. “I very much doubt my sister and Victor noticed who was and wasn’t there. They are headed to Hawaii for two weeks to do things I don’t even want to think about.”
She couldn’t help but mess with him. “Like what we just did?”
He winced. “Thanks. I may never have sex again now.” His mouth stretched into a yawn and he closed his eyes. “I need a nap before round...four or five?”
He rolled over to his side, curling his face into her neck. It was nice. She almost wanted to stay with him like that. She reminded herself of all the ways relationships go sour, how much faster that would happen with someone who valued rules over people like Porter did.
Knowing that, she waited, and watched for his sleep to take him. Took a while for the furrow in his brows to soften. Took a longer while for her to roll away from him. It was for the best. Porter had complication written all over him. Put aside his need to be a stickler, what would Iris say to Ashley? I was feeling some kind of way on your wedding day, your brother is a boss level flirt and then we had sex until I felt dehydrated? That confession would include questions and dissection.
Pass.
Iris put her dress back on, sans several layers that tucked in anything that jiggled. She tiptoed around the room as she searched for something to write with. Yeah, she was leaving without waiting for Porter to wake up, but she didn’t want him to wonder what had happened to her.
Took her half a second to decide on what to write.
We both lost in that last round. You have a nice scream.
Thanks for the memorable night.
She bit her lip and didn’t leave a number, an email or any invitation for him to hunt her down. She’d see him in passing. How could she not? He was still Porter Hicks, big brother to Ashley...Yang. They’d share a knowing look, memories would hit them both. But they were done. Iris didn’t court the kind of trouble Porter promised without having to say a word.
She put the writing pad on the pillow where he couldn’t miss it. Iris tilted her head and looked at him, the last time she could with the kind of intimacy they’d shared.
It was for the best. Her life was hers, and she preferred it that way.
Spike + Buffy
MAY
Porter ducked his head from under the hood of Grady’s car, wiped the grease from his hands on the battered jeans then took his buzzing cellphone out of his pocket.
We need to talk.
He made a face at those words on his cell phone, from a number he didn't even recognize. He tried to remember the last time someone had said that to him and it had ended well.
“Fucking never,” he muttered.
“Huh?” Grady asked without dragging his gaze away from the baby bundled in his arms. The knitted pink blanket laid recklessly over all of the baby and half of Grady.
Porter smiled. Grady, usually the one who had it all together at all times, stood just inside the garage wearing only basketball shorts and one sock, and his hair stuck up and slanted to the left.
As Grady's brother would say, the end of the era had begun two months ago. Eva had been playing in one of their weekend gaming tournaments—something that had become a rare occurrence for his friends—nine months pregnant, and beat Wade in Halo. She’d jumped up and down in triumph and her water broke. Chaos had ensued. Then what had seemed like minutes later, she’d delivered the next generation of the Goon Squad.
Isabel Addison was well on her way to being spoiled rotten.
Porter leaned to the side to get a glance beneath the blanket. “Is Izzie asleep?”
“Fuck, no.”
Which probably explained Grady's hair. Porter stuffed his phone back in his pocket. Bad news could wait. He gestured to the car. “Good news first or bad news?”
“Good news.”
“You don’t have to get a new car.”
“Shit. Bad news?”
Porter motioned for Grady to come closer. His friend taught history at the local Cal State as an adjunct, but his brother was an astrophysicist. Victor was a whiz at all things computers. Porter wasn’t too shabby of an engineer. If it was mechanical, he could fix it. That meant Grady had a reasonable understanding of how things worked. Still, Porter dumbed it down. “Eva’s had this car for a while. She didn’t take care of it.”
“You said that about my bike.”
“I’m going to ignore the fact you still haven’t taken your bike in for a tune up, and say Eva needs to replace the camshaft sensor. I’ve replaced the hoses to the PVC valve so at the least it won’t ride rough anymore. I can do the other replacements this week.”
“And the car will stop misfiring?”
“It should, unless it’s a fuel injection system problem, which I doubt. It’s a doubt,” Porter emphasized.
Grady shifted Izzie into a football hold and rubbed his hand down his face. “I’ll make sure I get the parts so you can do it this week. Summer is around the corner and I don’t want Eva stranded for twenty minutes until the car will start up again.”
This was the new era. Grady had a wife and a kid that he worried about being stranded on the side of the road. Since both Grady and Eva went to school, they didn’t have a lot of income to throw around, especially not with Izzie to take care of now.
It’s why Porter had showed up early in the morning to Grady’s to take apart Eva’s car to fix the damn thing. It’s why he’d stayed until the late afternoon to find the problem. Grady’s worry was Porter’s worry. The same could be said about anyone in the Goon Squad. They were family.
And because of that, Porter shifted his weight to one foot and sighed. “Give her here. Go up with Eva and get some sleep. You look like you need it.”
Tired blue eyes met his. “How old were you when Ashley was born?”
“Two. First memory. She was ugly. Pinched little face, making all this noise.”
An even more tired smile broke across Grady's face. “Nothing's changed.”
Porter fought that statement with a head shake. “She's not ugly anymore.”
A hard truth he still tried to accept. His sister never had an awkward teenager phase. She went from baby fat to beautiful, which was the other reason why he had nothing but time to help Grady. Porter needed this touchstone. In the past year Grady had eloped with Eva before having a baby. His sister and his best friend had married three months before. Even Wade had found a woman, fallen hard for her and asked that woman to marry him. No doubt they would have married by now if Sophie didn’t require a celebrity kind of wedding. As a publicist, she had clients who knew people who knew people and that translated to at least three hundred individuals to the nuptials and probably twice that for the reception. As Porter had learned, that kind of shindig required longterm planning.
All that meant nothing was stable and he needed something to remain the same. Craved it. Upheaval made him edgy and that's all he'd known for the past year.
With a sigh, Porter pushed the point. “Give Izzie over. She'll be fine.”
Grady hunched his shoulders then carried the baby over. “There's breast milk in the fridge if she gets hungry. Diapers and shit in the closet by the front door. And don't be afraid to come get me if you can't deal. Also, don’t tell Eva you didn’t clean up first. We’ll throw the blanket away and get rid of any evidence you had
grease on your hands.”
“I’ll take the fact that I held Izzie with grease-stained hands to my grave,” he said with a smile.
“I’m too tired to laugh,” Grady said then laughed despite himself.
Grady handed Izzie over and didn't waste a moment to disappear into the house. Porter chuckled and brought Izzie to his chest. She felt small, fragile in his arm. Her eyes were wide open and a cross between green and blue.
“You're going to break hearts,” he murmured.
The sweetest smile he'd ever seen broke out on her face. He laughed until the toxic gas she’d unleashed escaped the cover. “Jesus Christ, you are your father's child.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket again. Shifting the baby with one hand, he dug out his phone.
Meeting in person is best.
Porter had always assumed people were being dramatic when they said their stomach dropped to their knees, their hearts literally stopped, or their blood ran cold.
A cold sweat prickled over his forehead. He glanced at the baby, and Izzie seemed to look straight into his soul. He didn't have to text the person back or call to know it was a woman. It was indeed bad news.
It's Iris, BTW.
Izzie began to fuss and rub at her eyes. With feet that felt like they were dipped in metal, he walked to the car, opened the door and sat down. His knees might have given out halfway down, but he closed his eyes and rocked Izzie.
We need to talk.
In person.
It's Iris.
It was bad news seeded three months ago when his sister married his best friend. Three months ago when he had to stand in church, before God, and give his baby sister away to a man who promised he’d love her forever. A man Porter considered a brother. A man who could break his sister’s heart. Not that he thought Victor would, but life happened. Shit didn’t always end in a happy ever after.
But they would be okay. His family wouldn’t be torn apart again.
Family.
Anger rose from his chest and tried to choke him. Why the hell did he think consequences would pass him by? That fate wouldn’t rear its head only to have him for a midnight snack?
“Should have fucking known,” he murmured to the baby, and she quieted at the rumble of his voice. “Don't tell your parents I'm teaching you cuss words. We can always blame Wade.”
