by Ella Brooke
“I can’t believe you don’t know where to find a bowl in your own kitchen!”
“I’ve been gone a couple of years,” he muttered defensively.
“True, but could you find a bowl in here two or three years ago? Did you ever even try?”
His scowl gave me the answer.
I laughed and shoved the meat toward him. “Wash your hands, then take this out of the packaging and dump it in that bowl.”
He did so, and I added the oatmeal, eggs, milk, and the spices my mom used.
“Okay,” I said. “Now we have to mix it up.”
He looked around as if he were eager to be helpful. “There’s a spoon over there,” he volunteered, pointing to a canister full of metal spoons near the stove.
“Yeah, but we’re not using a spoon. We’re using our hands.”
“Our hands?” he echoed, sounding mildly horrified.
“Yup. Come on, dig in.”
The two of us used our hands to mix it all up in the time-honored, traditional way of making meatloaf. At first Hunter looked revolted by the coldness and texture of it, but by the end he was working with the mixture just about as confidently as my mom did.
We put the resulting substance into a loaf pan, spread the sauce of ketchup, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce over the top, and put it into the huge oven to cook for an hour.
“There,” I said with satisfaction, scrubbing my hands off thoroughly at the beaten copper sink. “Dinner will be late, but at least now you know how to cook meatloaf any time you get a craving for it.”
“I should have written down the recipe.” He scrubbed his hands too, his forehead puckering like he was genuinely worried.
“It’s okay, I’ll text it to you.”
He reached for a paper towel to dry off his hands and looked down at me. “I know I texted you earlier, but I felt kind of weird about it. Are we going to be texting each other now?”
“Well, we do have a daughter.” I hopped up onto the counter facing him. “Besides, my boss told me to keep drama out of the diner, so you dropping by every time we have something to talk about really isn’t going to work. So yeah, overall I think texting is a better system to communicate, don’t you?”
“I just…” He blew out a heavy breath. “It’s still hard for me to accept that you’re willing to let me be a part of Diana’s life. Or your life.”
I reached out and put a hand on his cheek. “Hunter, you became a part of my life that night we made love in the alley. I don’t think I could change that now even if I wanted to. And…I don’t want to. I want you to be part of our lives. Forever.”
His eyes went wide, and then he slowly bent forward, brushing my lips with his own, softly, tenderly, like I was the most important thing in the world to him. His kiss was so gentle, so reverent, that tears sprang to my eyes.
“Char,” he whispered. “While I was in prison, I thought about you all the time. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
The words made my heart pound in my chest, but I couldn’t quite believe them. I shook my head. “I know you, Hunter. You’ve been with plenty of other women. Why would you think about me, of all people?”
“I don’t know.” His lips trailed over my cheek, a soft caress. “After that night, after we made love…it was like you were the only woman in the world, as far as I was concerned. If I hadn’t been arrested that night, if my life hadn’t gone to hell…” A long pause. “I didn’t go to jail right away, you know. I was out on bond for a while. But I didn’t sleep with anyone, didn’t even try to date. Once there was you…there was no one else.”
It was hard to believe he really meant it, that he wasn’t just telling me this to get in my jeans. But there was a ringing sincerity in the words that was difficult to doubt. More tears burned my eyelids, and I tried to blink them all away without too much success. I turned my head and brushed kisses over his cheek, trying to figure out how to respond.
Having Diana had forced me to grow up faster than I might have otherwise. But I didn’t want to tell him that because I didn’t want him to imagine I regretted Diana or our night together. I didn’t. But it had definitely changed things. It had changed me.
“I’m not sure I was ready for anything serious back then,” I admitted. “I was so young, barely twenty-one, in the middle of college. I’d had a crush on you for a long time, and I loved that we shared a night together, but… I wasn’t ready for anything serious. Not then.”
He pulled back just a little and looked straight into my eyes. “What about now?”
I drew in a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
Chapter Ten
Hunter
Char wanted me.
When I brushed my lips over hers, she leaned into me, wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing me with abandon. Her open, generous response made my throat tighten.
It also made my cock spring to attention. It had been a hell of a long time for me, after all. Until I had been released, I hadn’t so much as seen a woman in over two years, and unlike some guys in prison, I hadn’t been interested in accepting other men as a substitute. Not that I had anything against gay sex; I just didn’t seem to lean that way personally.
So it had been a long, rough couple of years, with nothing to tide me over except a lot of very hot fantasies. And the subject of those fantasies was right here in my arms.
I was reasonably certain Char hadn’t been with anyone else since the night we’d conceived Diana, because her kisses were still a little clumsy, albeit very eager. The heated way she clung to me made it clear that she’d longed for me as much as I’d longed for her. Maybe more.
She was still seated on the counter edge, so I moved between her open thighs, wrapped my arms around her, and pulled her against me. I swore I could feel her skin burning mine even through our clothing.
Clothing. That had to go.
I reached for the hem of her shirt, but she yanked away from me, batting at my hands.
“Hey. What are you doing?”
I blinked, because that was quite possibly the dumbest question any woman had ever asked me at such a time. “Taking your shirt off. Obviously.”
“Are you kidding me?”
The indignation in her voice started to seep through into my passion-muddled brain, and I stepped back a pace, looking at her. “I’m sorry. I thought—“
“Don’t get me wrong,” she went on, talking over me. “I’m fully in favor of getting our clothes off. Just…not here. Anyone could come in, Hunter. Why don’t we find a room with a locking door?”
I glanced around. On a warmer night, I would have taken her out to the enormous brick patio and made love to her as we looked down over Pinecone. But it was a cold February night, and if I tried that, we might just freeze together permanently.
At my hesitation, she sighed, sounding very impatient indeed. “How about the library?”
That was down a long hallway, and considering the way I felt, the way my cock was throbbing, it might as well be ten miles from here. But I could respect her desire for privacy, especially after our time together with Diana had been so rudely invaded in the park. Whatever was growing between us was a small, new, fragile thing, a tender little sprout that might not grow and thrive if strangers kept trampling on it.
“Okay,” I agreed. I lifted her off the counter, set her down on the floor, and then took her hand in mine. Together, the two of us headed for the library.
Along the way, we paused to kiss more than once, heedless of the blank eyes of long-dead Romans and Greeks watching us. Once we came precariously close to tumbling a priceless bust of Caligula off its marble column. Giggling like guilty children, we clasped hands and ran the few remaining feet to the library.
I slammed the door behind us and locked it, and before I knew what was happening, her arms were locked around my neck, her mouth eagerly seeking mine. She was an assertive little minx, but I found that I didn’t have a problem with that. But I didn’t intend to let her run thi
ngs entirely, either. I shoved her up against the door, pressing against her with a sudden, violent desperation.
I needed her. I’d needed her for a very long time now, and the longing for her had only grown stronger over the years until it had burst into a full-blown craving. All at once, my body ached so badly I couldn’t stand to wait any longer.
Her lips parted beneath mine, and I thrust my tongue into her mouth—not gently, the way I had that night so long ago, but hungrily. Fiercely. That odd feeling of possessiveness rose back up inside me. She was mine, mine, and I wanted to take her, to brand her so that she could never, ever forget that she belonged to me.
And that I belonged to her.
Her fingers tangled in the depths of my hair, begging for more, demanding more. I remembered how I’d picked her up and shoved her against the brick wall that night, and I slipped my palms under her denim-clad rear and lifted her. Her ass was just as round and shapely as it had been then. She wrapped her arms around my hips, her spine undulating so that we rubbed together, and both of us groaned in unison.
“Hunter,” she whispered against my mouth between kisses. “I need you.”
I wanted to tell her that I needed her too, the way I needed air and water, that I couldn’t live without her another moment, but I couldn’t seem to form words. I was too lost in the sensations—the feel of her soft, warm body against mine, the sweet scent of her skin, the way her hair cascaded around us in a glorious, sunset-hued cloud. She must have felt my response in the way I touched her, kissed her, because she buried her face against my throat and held on more tightly than before.
My body moved against hers hard, and I thought I might just come in my jeans. Although ordinarily that would have embarrassed the hell out of me, I was so worked up that I didn’t care all that much. I just needed to come, and to feel her shuddering as she climaxed too. That was all I wanted.
But in the back of my mind, I recalled how we’d made love last time—in a breathless rush. I hadn’t taken the time to explore her body, to cherish her the way she should be cherished, and I couldn’t treat her like that again. She meant too much to me.
She meant everything to me.
I gently lowered her down the wall and stood shaking, trying to get a grip on myself. She looked up at me, her eyebrows drawing together in concern.
“What’s wrong, Hunter?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I could hear my own voice trembling, and I cleared my throat, trying to get a grip on myself. “It’s just that…I rushed you last time. This time I wanted…more.”
“Oh,” she said, thinking about that. All at once a gleam of mischief shone deep in her eyes, and she went to her knees in front of me.
I tried to protest “that is not at all what I had in mind,” but my voice had stopped working. My brain seemed to be at a standstill too. Her small, graceful hands lifted to my jeans, unfastening my belt with a rather surprising dexterity, then unbuttoned my jeans and lowered the zipper. A moment later she had carefully pulled my boxers down, exposing me fully.
I couldn’t drag my gaze away from her face. She was staring at my cock, her expression one of mingled shock and awe, her eyes glowing as if she’d never seen anything more fascinating in her life. My cock was already slick with precome, but at the expression on her face, it gave a heavy throb, and more moisture leaked from the tip.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered, her voice soft and reverent, and I groaned, thinking she might shove me over the edge just by words alone. I wanted—I wanted—but she was practically a virgin, and I couldn’t ask her to—
As it turned out, I didn’t have to ask. She wrapped her hand around my cock, very carefully, and then leaned forward. The velvety tip of her tongue brushed over the sensitive head, and I heard myself gasp explosively. I’d been holding my breath in anticipation and hadn’t even realized it.
Her tongue stroked me around the head in cautious circles, timidly at first, but she rapidly grew bolder, stroking and caressing. Every so often she licked away droplets of precome, and every time, every last time, I heard myself gasp. It was just so much more than I’d expected from someone so inexperienced.
It was heaven on earth, the best thing I’d ever felt, and before long my cock was swollen and red, my balls aching and tight. I needed release so much I could barely stand it.
“Char.” My voice was hoarse and low. “I can’t—we need to—“
She offered me a cheeky grin and then, to my utter shock, she parted her lips and drew the head of my cock into her mouth.
I’d had blowjobs from women who’d done it on dozens of men, but I’d never felt anything as intense as Char’s lips on my most sensitive flesh. I threw back my head and shouted at the ceiling, feeling my thighs tremble beneath me, as she began to draw me in. It felt exquisite, so good I wasn’t sure I could keep myself on my feet.
It was far from the most expert blowjob I’d ever had, but it was somehow far and away the most incredible.
She moved on me relentlessly, sucking me into the depths of her hot, wet mouth, then sliding back and swiping her tongue over me. I knew I was spilling precome into her mouth, and some distant corner of my mind was worried she’d find it disgusting or gross, but the larger part of my brain had been taken over by base, primitive thoughts and was occupied only with the overwhelming sensations she was giving me. My cock twitched and pulsed relentlessly, and despite all my efforts to hold myself back, I knew that in less than a minute I was going to lose control and come in spurts right down her throat.
This was all I had fantasized about during my years in prison. This was all I had ever wanted.
And yet, it wasn’t enough.
I grasped her hair gently, pulling her away from me. She looked up at me, her eyes wide and dark. “Didn’t you like it?”
I couldn’t help snorting at her naïveté. Show me a man who doesn’t like a blowjob, and I’d show you a corpse. “Of course I liked it. But—“
“I haven’t ever done it before,” she went on like I hadn’t answered. Her brow was furrowed in worry. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. I tried to keep my teeth out of the way, but—“
“It’s not that, Char, it’s—“
“I know you’ve been with women who knew how to do it better, and—“
“Stop,” I said, using my most commanding tone, and wonder of wonders, she stopped talking and looked up at me. I bent, grasped her by the upper arms, and pulled her to her feet, staring into her eyes. “It was wonderful, Char. It was awesome. It’s just that—I want to make you happy too.”
“Oh,” she said softly, gazing up at me. “I’m happy enough just being here with you.”
The quiet words hit me like a fist in my gut. I felt my eyes sting, and blinked rapidly before I could do anything unmanly, like shed a tear.
When I was certain my voice was steady, I spoke. “I want the two of us to be happy together.”
I took her hands and steered her over to the old leather couch. I’d spent many happy hours on that couch as a boy, reading Robert Louis Stevenson, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, Rudyard Kipling and all the other books my father had deemed sufficiently macho, letting my imagination carry me to realms far more exciting and magical than Pinecone, Virginia. This was a sacred place to me, and I had never been with a woman here.
Until now.
I seated Char on the couch, then sat next to her and tugged at the hem of her shirt. This time she didn’t stop me, only lifted her arms and let me strip it off her. Beneath it she wore a black, lacy bra that was so sheer I could see the pink of her nipples through the lace. I remembered my long-ago desire to see her clad only in silk and lace, and I sucked in a breath, trying to calm myself.
Her skin was pale and perfect, and the ginger freckles scattered here and there only added to its perfection. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to stare for hours, but my cock was insistently demanding more, so I reached around behind her and unfastened her bra, tossing it aside.
> Her breasts were absolutely incredible, full and lovely, tipped with rosy pink nipples that were already hard and swollen. I reached out a hand—a shaking hand, I noticed with embarrassment—and cupped one, brushing over the nipple with my thumb. She shuddered.
“Ohhh,” she whispered. “Hunter… I think…”
She sounded as if this was all totally new to her, and of course it was. I recalled with some shame that I hadn’t even taken the time to play with her nipples the last time we’d been together. I’d just fucked her against the wall. She deserved more. So much more. I lightly caressed her nipple again, and she moaned.
I pushed her down so that she was sprawled out on the couch, and bent over her, teasing her nipple with my lips until she was moaning non-stop, then taking it between my lips and suckling it. She sobbed and whimpered and called my name, her fingers twisting in my hair, and I couldn’t help smiling against her breast because this was what I wanted most—for her to know how good it could feel.
I transferred my attentions to her other nipple, pinching the neglected one lightly between thumb and forefinger, and her hips began to move as she instinctively sought release. I continued lavishing attention to her nipples but let my hands slide down to unfasten her jeans. I pushed them down over her hips, and she eagerly helped, kicking them off.
I lifted my head to a disappointed moan from her and looked at her, stretched out on the old leather, clad in nothing but black lace and a blush. Her skin was pink, whether with arousal or embarrassment or both, I didn’t know.
“You’re beautiful,” I told her, and the blush deepened. Embarrassment then.
“I’m not—I mean, I’m not the same as I was last time. Having a baby leaves…well, I have stretch marks—and my boobs are too big—“
“You’re perfect,” I said and meant it. The stretch marks on her belly were so faint as to be hardly visible, and besides, they branded her as the mother of my child. I bent and kissed the faint striations. “These only make you more beautiful, Char.”
