By some miracle, she has everything she needs right as the doorbell sounds again. Rick beats me to the door, opening it for Becky and her obviously flustered mom, Amber. He smiles his perfect smile at her, and if she weren’t happily married, I would want to throw up. But it’s the reminder I need. One day, Rick will find someone for real and move on, leaving me behind, just like our story was always meant to play out.
“Hey, Coach Rick!” Becky says as her mom shoots me a knowing look.
“Hey, Amber.” I wave.
“Hey, girl, sorry we’re late,” she says, shoving hair out of her face. “I’m having car trouble again.”
“Was that your car sounding like rifle fire?” Rick asks.
“Oh yeah, it does that every time I put the old girl in Park now,” she says. “It keeps life exciting.”
“How about the new neighbors?” I ask. “Are they interesting? Any cute single men?”
“Oh no,” she laughs and Rick growls. “Nothing interesting there. At all.”
“That’s disappointing.”
Amber has become a good mom friend to me as well. We “Wine Wednesday” and gossip about the PTA moms while the girls kick a ball around the backyard. She’s asked about Rick a couple times, and I always tell her there’s nothing to tell. We’re in the past. And we both know I’m full of shit, but she’s a good enough friend not to push. Grace, on the other hand, has been giving me crap for months.
“Hey, Becky,” he says. “You ready for the game tomorrow?”
“Yes!” she shouts.
“I hear you girls have big plans.”
“Yeah! It’s going to be so fun!” Becky and Rachel shout together.
“Have a good time,” he says.
“Well… I’ll just get the girls out of your hair…” Amber trails off before hustling the kids out the door and to her minivan while shooting me ridiculous faces and thumbs-ups when Rick isn’t looking.
“Jesus. Are we back in high school?” he grumbles when she finally drives away.
“Amber is harmless,” I tell him.
“I like my privacy.”
“And yet, here you are at my house,” I remind him.
“Can we talk?” he asks me after a moment.
I let out a heavy breath. “Sure, come on in.”
I lead the way into the kitchen and pull a bottle of wine from the fridge. I wave it at Rick, silently asking if he’d like a glass too, and when he nods, I pull down two wine glasses. He’s clearly planning to stay awhile, and that does not bode well for my night of self-care, where I can indulge in wine, Netflix, and frozen pizza. And if I’m really feeling froggy, the carton of chocolate peanut-butter-swirl ice cream I have hidden in the back of the freezer.
I pop the cork and pour, sliding Rick’s across the counter to him. I pick up my own and take a healthy swig. The timer on the oven dings, and I slip my hands into oven mitts before pulling the heavy door down to reveal my dinner plans for the evening.
“Oh my God.” He laughs. “Are you still eating that shit?”
“Hey! Don’t knock it until you try it.”
“I think you fed me enough of it to last a lifetime while we were married,” he says, and it’s like a bucket of ice water has been thrown over us. We’re both thinking the same thing now. How happy we were in the early days of our marriage, and how I cried at the flight-line when I said goodbye, not knowing it was a final goodbye and not a deployment farewell.
“Yeah,” I say softly as I lay the pie I no longer want on the range to cool. My belly sours at the memory of how things were left and what could never be.
“Well, it hasn’t killed me yet, so another night won’t hurt,” he says after a moment. Rick is obviously trying to put us back on sturdier conversation ground. Unfortunately, our past is a veritable minefield. I guess I can help him out.
“So you’re assuming I’m inviting you to stay?” I tease, knowing he will feel like he can relax again.
“You know you are.” He laughs.
“Is that so?”
“You already gave me a glass of wine,” Rick argues. “You can’t not offer me some of your crappy frozen pizza now. It’s like that book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.”
“You are ridiculous.” I laugh before cutting the pizza into several big slices and placing them on plates. I hand one to Rick and then pick up my own piece, folding it in half and holding it like a giant pizza taco.
“You can take the girl out of Jersey,” Rick says, and I turn my head to see him watching me shovel pizza in my face as fast as possible.
“God, this is nothing compared to pizza by the shore,” I moan around the bite in my mouth. “I would kill for real Jersey pizza right now.”
I pick up my wine glass and take a healthy sip to wash down the slice I just mauled. When I open my eyes again, Rick is watching me with blatant interest.
“What?” I ask and dab at my face. I’m not exactly trying to be cute here. There’s probably sauce on my face, because he made it perfectly clear the other day in the offices that he’s not going to go down heartbreak road with me another time.
“Nothing,” Rick says with a smirk playing about his mouth and a definite predatory gleam in his eyes. “You’re cute is all. I had forgotten how much I missed this.”
I self-consciously brush a lock of my hair that’s come loose from my messy bun back behind an ear. I don’t know what to do when Rick is sweet like this. It scares me so much, because it reminds me of how things used to be, back when we were young and had no idea how cruel the world could be. But that was then, and this is now.
“Come here,” Rick growls, his voice low and commanding, and it serves to snap me out of my trip down memory lane. I snap my eyes up to meet his and see his face looks harsh and intimidating under the fluorescent lights of my kitchen.
“W-w-what?” I stammer. My instincts are telling me to step back, to turn around and run, but I don’t. Instead, I stay frozen, my bare feet rooted to the floor.
“I said come here.” His words are terrifying. This is the political mercenary; my sweet sailor is long gone. I should run, but I take a step forward, and then another, all against my better judgement.
When I’m within reach, Rick hauls me into his arms and crushes his mouth to mine. I cry out in surprise, but it only serves to give him access as he licks into my mouth. I cling to him, my hands caught between our bodies as we devour each other again.
When I pull back to suck in a breath, Rick rips my oversized T-shirt up over my head and tosses it to the floor. I rake my nails down his hard abs and then up underneath the hem of his own T-shirt before pushing it up as high as I can before he reaches behind his neck and grabs the collar to pull it over his head in that sexy way men do.
He glances up at the row of windows that sits over the kitchen sink and looks out onto the backyard. My house is a mirror image of his own that is just next door, so he knows exactly what the view looks like. Most especially because he bought both of the new builds before Rachel and I moved down. But what he sees now, I don’t know. What I do know is that the faraway look on his face has me worried.
“Rick?”
He turns his attention back to me but still doesn’t say anything. Instead, he pulls me back into his arms, lifting me up by his firm grip on my thighs to wrap my legs around his waist. His steps are sure and even as he carries me up the stairs and directly to my bedroom. When we cross the threshold, Rick kicks the door closed with his booted foot and then proceeds to where my bed sits against the far wall and drops me onto the mattress. I land with a bounce.
“Lie back,” he orders as he toes off his boots and socks.
I scramble back on the bed and sprawl out on the pillows in nothing but a pair of bright paisley leggings and a lace bra. Rick opens the front of his jeans with a quick flick of his wrist and pushes them down his thighs, letting his long, hard cock spring free, making my mouth go dry. There always was and always will be something about Rick that checks all my boxes unli
ke anyone else.
“See something you like?” he asks me, and I can’t do anything but nod. “Then I guess we’ll have to do something about that.”
And then he grabs me by the ankle and pulls me down the bed. I grab onto the white wrought-iron spirals of the headboard to hold myself where I was. When Rick sees me sprawled out like that, there’s a twinkle in his eye I don’t quite understand.
“I like where you’re going with this,” he says critically as he pulls my leggings down my legs. Before I can even blink, he’s straddling my belly and using my leggings to tie my wrists to the headboard.
“Rick?” I ask, suddenly nervous. There’s something about being at his mercy that makes me feel vulnerable and a little uneasy.
Instead of answering me with words, Rick presses his mouth to mine and licks inside, letting his tongue meet mine. When I feel myself melting into his kiss, he pulls his mouth away so he’s free to kiss and lick and nip his way down the column of my neck and over my collarbone.
With nothing but an index finger, Rick hooks the top of the lace cup of my bra and pulls it down, bunching the material under my breast and exposing my nipple to the cool air. He gently circles the tiny peak, making me gasp out loud. Stolen moments with Rick are often hard and fast, not slow and sensual.
Rick pulls down the second cup, but instead of his finger, he rolls the tight bud into his hot mouth. I reach for him, wanting to pull him closer to me, but I’m caught in the tangled web he’s made out of my leggings and my lies.
He looks up at me as he kisses between my breasts and down my belly, stopping just above my navel. His eyes glitter with excitement and challenge as he watches me pull against my bonds, and I feel his smile pull across my belly.
Rick continues to slither down my body, and I have a pretty good idea of where he’s headed. My heart beats faster in my chest, and my palms are slick. It’s been a long time since someone worshiped my body like this, since someone took their time mapping every inch of my skin and making me come alive, and that person was the same one pushing my legs wider so he can settle in between them.
“Hey!” I call out when he rips my panties in two.
“You don’t need them.” He tosses the shredded lace away.
“But I liked them!”
“You’ll like this more,” he says.
I open my mouth to respond, but before I can speak a single word, Rick steals all thought from my head with a swipe of his tongue up my center. He licks me slow and sweet over and over before finally rolling his tongue over my clit, only to repeat the process all over again.
My climax rolls over me slowly and gently. My inner walls flutter softly, and my skin flushes. I relax against the ties that bind me, thinking Rick will come join me now.
Only, I was wrong. I was so wrong. The sweet, tender evening is over, only I have yet to figure out the rules of the game.
“Tell me why,” he implores me in a voice so soft I almost don’t hear him.
“What?” I ask, thinking surely he didn’t use this moment to manipulate me and my emotions.
“Tell me why you left me,” he says just as quietly as he spoke before.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Then again,” he says just before he sucks my clit into his mouth and spears my pussy with two fingers.
“Rick,” I cry out, but it’s no use. His motions are sending sparks shooting all over my body, and as he pumps his fingers in and out of me, I come again, only this time there’s a fierceness to it. It wasn’t nice, but it was everything I’m feeling in this moment.
As Rick crawls up beside me, I think he’s going to let me go, that his game is finally over, but when he leans back and reaches into my bedside drawer, I know it’s not, because until this moment, I thought I was the only person who knew what was kept hidden in the back of that drawer.
“Tell me,” he whispers harshly.
“You know I can’t.”
“You can’t… or you won’t?” he asks as he flicks the black circular cap on the flat end and fires it up.
“What does it matter?” I ask, and I know by the mean smirk playing about his mouth that we both hear the edge of desperation in my voice.
“Oh but it does matter, Cara.” And then he pins my thigh open with his heavy leg when I move to clench mine together. Rick places the buzzing tip of my slim purple vibrator against my clit, and the pressure against my already sensitive place has me rushing over the edge and screaming as I do.
I struggle to slow my heart and suck in some desperately needed oxygen. My muscles ache deliciously, and I know I will feel Rick everywhere come tomorrow morning. I watch with nervous excitement as he kneels between my thighs and rolls a condom down his hard length, gripping himself forcefully in his tight fist.
“Tell me, Cara,” he demands as he drapes my thighs over his and touches the tip of his cock against my opening. “Tell me what I want to know.”
“No,” I whisper, and then he plunges in deep.
My already swollen pussy makes the feel of him deep inside me so much more. Deeper, harder, fuller. It hurts and feels life-altering all at the same time. He closes his eyes tightly for a second as he struggles to get his own body under control, a move I have watched him make time and time again. And then he opens his eyes, and the dark-chocolate brown burns me where I lay.
“Tell me,” he says again, and again, I deny him the answers he so desperately wants, but it’s for his own good I turn him down.
“No.”
“Wrong answer,” Rick growls, and then he cranks up the intensity of the vibrator and places it to my clit as he starts to move.
“Rick,” I pant.
“Tell me why you left,” he demands as he pumps into my body over and over, the vibration burning deliciously against my overly sensitized clit.
“I-I-I can’t,” I stammer as he burns me higher and higher toward a climax so intense I’m not sure I can survive it.
“Yes, you can,” he growls. “Tell me.”
“I-I-I—”
“You what?” I’m so close I can’t think straight. I think Rick knows this, because he tosses my vibrator to the floor, leaning over me, changing his angle and depth. My breath seizes in my lungs. I couldn’t answer coherently if I wanted to as he picks up the pace. “Tell me.”
“I-I-I—” I start and then stop to pull on my tether and arch my back to meet his thrusts.
“Yes!” he calls out, and I’m so close. I couldn’t stop, even if I tried.
“I did it for you!” I shout as he plunges in again and again. “I did it to protect you.”
“What the fuck?” he shouts and pulls out of me, looming over me, and I realize what I’ve done. What I’ve said and revealed. And I begin to thrash in my panic.
“Let me go!” I scream as tears burn down my cheeks.
“Never,” he whispers, but he still begins to untie me. My leggings are gone, and my hands burn as the circulation starts to flow better again. Rick takes my hand in his and massages it as the blood flows freely again, but I snatch my hand back.
“No!” I shout and scramble to the other side of the bed and away from him. I see the hurt flash across his face before he masks it. “This was a mistake.”
“Don’t say that,” he says as he stands up to walk around the bed to me.
“This is always a mistake,” I tell him sadly. “I think you should go now.”
“I can’t stay away from you,” he growls.
“I guess you’ll just have to try harder.”
“I mean it, Cara,” he says, and his voice rumbles with barely restrained anger. And that’s okay. It’s great, even, because I can deal with anger. I have some of my own stored up too. Anger for our situation, anger for the fact that I’m all alone in my misery, that I have to be the bad guy over and over again. I’m even angry we both didn’t get that last orgasm, and it hurts. “I can’t stay away, and neither can you.”
“That isn’t exactly a glowing endorsement to co
ntinue whatever this was.”
“I’m serious,” he warns. “Can you honestly say you don’t want me like I want you?”
“You don’t even like me,” I say, changing the subject, and it’s true. Rick wants me, his cock gets hard for me, and he likes to fuck me, but he doesn’t actually like me. I made damn sure of that, didn’t I?
“I don’t hate you either. And one day, you’re going to tell me why you ran,” he says softly but with just enough menace behind his words to let me know he’s not done, and he’s never going to be done until he gets his pound of flesh.
“Don’t hold your breath.”
I wonder what it would be like to give in, to just let him into my life. I have never heard from the man who threatened Rick and our baby so long ago. Maybe it was just an empty threat? But a strong voice in the back of my head says that it didn’t seem so empty when they threatened to have him killed overseas and make it look like he took on enemy fire. They said they had someone close to him on the inside who could get to him faster than I could, and I believed them. I hadn’t heard from him in weeks, and it terrified me. I loved him too much to let him die for me. I did then, and I do now. Only now, he has a daughter who has grown to love him and would miss him dearly if something happened to him. So I do what I have to do; I deny the little voice in my head that says I could keep him if I want to, and instead, I push him just a little further away.
“This was always a mistake, Rick,” I say softly. I pull in a deep breath before pressing on, flaying the wound open. “It was a mistake ten years ago, and it’s a mistake now.”
“Don’t say that,” he says, his voice low and angry.
“We never should have gotten married,” I explain. “We were young and dumb and should have known better. And now I think it’s time we end this once and for all.”
“Do you now?” he asks as he crosses his arms over his chest. When he put his jeans on, I’ll never know, but as I finally look at him now, I see he’s ready to leave and not naked and bare like I am.
“I do.” I nod. “I won’t be at the soccer game tomorrow. You have that time with Rachel. I will see her tomorrow night when she gets home.”
Caught by the Chief of Staff (A Presidential Affair Book 2) Page 5
