by A. R. Hadley
"Ms. Baxter..."
"Annie. Please, call me Annie." She smiled.
"Mr. Prescott sent me," Carl said with a genuine sweetness, looking cute in his black trousers and white shirt, a toothpick in his mouth.
"Oh, he did, did he?" Annie replied, smirking. "And just where did he tell you to take me?"
"I assumed you knew." Carl shifted his eyes. "I'm driving you directly to Mr. Prescott's, Ms. … uh, I mean Annie. Unless he was mistaken?"
"No, no.” She grinned. “There’s no mistake." A thread of laughter stitched through her words. "Please take me to Cal's." She stretched her arm out, indicating he lead the way.
What was Prescott up to? Yes, he’d wanted her return itinerary. And he’d received it. She’d texted Cal earlier, before her flight, and he had said not tonight. She’d agreed. No mistake, though. Did the chameleon with the carefully laid plans ever make a mistake?
Carl opened the back passenger door of the Tesla for Annie. The late afternoon sun had already managed to heat the car like a sauna. Inside, it may have been stifling, but it looked like a dream.
Oh my God.
A hundred bouquets of roses had exploded in the back seat. Petals everywhere. She couldn't see the floors or the seats. A variety of colors, and they all appeared to float as if they were in a giant Tesla tub of water.
Annie grinned as Carl closed the door.
He grinned too.
He’d probably bought the arrangement for Cal and done the romantic deed. Although, how romantic was shredding flowers? Well, hadn’t she done something similar, tearing petals off roses and drowning them in the sea? Was this retribution? Ha.
Slipping off her shoes, she squished her feet into the arrangements and pressed them between her fingers. She scooped them up the way a child would play in leaves. The silky sensation on her skin and the anticipation of being with Cal sent her into a sudden state of euphoria. Her heart beat faster as she sank into the roses, into the floaty warm bath, into the sauna and heat of the leather seats.
Annie rode the puffy little cloud of hot, hot serenity all the way to Cal's place, her pulse gaining momentum with each mile, her pussy awash with some sort of overfull need only Cal could sate.
After knocking, Annie stood and waited just outside Cal’s front door, putting her ear to it. Muffled music vibrated through the building.
Deciding he couldn’t hear her over what she assumed was the record player, and figuring they were past the formality of knocking anyway, Annie crept inside. Despite the familiarity, she still felt a little like Goldilocks sneaking into the house of The Three Bears.
"Cal!" Annie yelled up the staircase. A song she didn't recognize at first blared from the speakers.
No response.
No sign of him.
Dropping her backpack on the desk, she let go of her luggage and took in a deep breath. Mmmm ... the scent. His scent. It wafted up her nose and registered in that little place inside the mind where memories were stored. The bank, the safety deposit box — to be opened by a trigger in the future when she would be old or may have forgotten. The time spent in Miami, the it's just the summer, the smell, the music, the things that couldn't even be explained, could all be retrieved and recalled and opened with a key. The familiar song she couldn't place but had definitely heard, she would now never forget. The voice and beat mixed with the intoxicating smell of Cal, creating a memory.
Here and now.
It wasn't cologne or detergent or anything artificial.
It was pure Cal.
Laundry in the sun hung out on the line to dry. Beach. Coconut. Sweet whiskey. Music playing, maybe from the fifties or sixties. A man singing about staying just a bit longer.
Stay…
Annie tapped her nails across the handrail, put a foot on the first step, and did the same with it in time. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Cal..." she called again but heard nothing except the sound of the song ending, the player going silent, and her feet touching the wood floors as she stepped down and slipped off her flip-flops.
But as she glanced back up, she saw him.
Serious, sexy, contemplative — Cal.
He stared at her from across the room. Not much had changed. He still affected her without words or touch. He leaned against the frame of the bedroom door. Motionless. No shirt or shoes. Only jeans. She’d forgotten what his chest looked like.
Right… Not quite.
A thin patch of hair covered his pectoral muscles, creating a fine line to his navel. Lean and taut from running. Not ripped. No six-pack. Not what some might call perfection but what Annie would call wonderfully human — strong — a beautiful heart beating inside there. Soft, inviting, and warm.
She wanted nothing more than to bury her face against that chest, to push her fingers through the hairs.
"My God." Annie grinned. "How long have you been standing there?"
Eyes never leaving her face, Cal started to walk toward her, the hems of his faded blue jeans dragging on the floor. He didn't say a word. Jesus. He wasn’t even smiling.
He was plotting and constructing her demise.
Who knew how long he had been standing there, devising a plan of attack.
Annie’s face changed, matching his intensity, his lusty eyes, his anticipation. Whatever he wanted or needed she needed too.
Give.
Take.
Pass it back and forth.
The man hadn't even touched her, yet the rise had started. Beginning in her toes, inching up toward her overfull center, reaching it, surpassing it, covering her in tingly porcupine quills.
He came toward her, slow yet certain, charging like a slow-motion bull in the ring. He knew his intention, expressing it through his hell-bent will, through his eyes. The force with which he came at her would’ve surely knocked her off her feet. Without speed, but with plenty of purpose, Cal's determination took center stage.
The chess master about to check his mate.
Cal placed his palms on her cheeks, brushed his fingertips over her skin, and looked deep into her eyes. Their lips met. Their foreheads touched. He peered down at her while cradling her face in his hands.
Sliding his fingers down to the bottom of her tank top, he wriggled it up her torso and over her head, then dropped it to the floor. He slipped his tongue into her waiting mouth and pushed her body against the railing while she tried to steady herself.
She pushed her pelvis against him, ran her hands over his strong, unforgotten chest, weaving fingers through the hair, pulling at it, while moaning consistently into his nearly bruising kisses.
Cal grabbed Annie at the waist and picked her up — never breaking the kiss or the tongue or the sharing of the two pieces of their souls that somehow fit together like a puzzle — and carried her to the bedroom.
Pushing open the door, he held her against it, kissing her until they ached — until his days' worth of stubble burned her skin.
She didn't even know how they’d gotten there — a blur of kisses, smashed-up torsos, without shirts. Only the thud of her spine against the door was proof.
If it hurt, she didn't know it.
Cal pushed her into the door as if trying to weld her to it — or him. Each time her body banged against it — exquisite. His lips — exquisite. His tongue, his hands, his resolute cock she could feel trying to break free from his pants — all of it — fucking exquisite.
Where had the two weeks gone? How had she managed it all along? Celibacy for months? The denial of pleasure?
Not breaking for air, his mouth consuming hers, he pushed up her bra, exposed her tits, then lowered his head to them. She arched, legs about his waist, ankles at his back, pulling his hair, scratching nails across his spine as her eyes rolled toward the sky.
He was busy kissing a stiff, pink nipple, licking it and tugging it between his teeth. Pulling, twisting, and biting it hard — the way he’d wanted and waited to from the start.
Mind-altering pain resulted, wiping her slate cle
an and leaving room for only his ministrations. She shifted her head while cradling his, moaning and yelling while he did the same to the other breast, until she was a blessed knot of cords tangled up in pain and passion intertwined. God, she wanted more friction at her crotch. Naked friction. She needed her motherfucking pants gone.
As if he’d read her mind, he dropped her on the bed and pulled her jeans off, tearing them from her skin. He landed over her body, arms on either side of her, looking down at her as though he had brought her to his castle after capturing her in the wild.
He.
Had.
Captured.
Her.
Wild, unbridled … his.
He straddled her hips and stared at her — for what felt like days — with the intensity she’d sorely missed.
"I missed you," Annie said, leaning up on her elbows, her chest rising with the three soft words.
Cal made a silent reply using only his eyes. Then he kissed his way from her neck to her navel before standing and pulling his belt from the loops and losing his jeans.
Returning to the bed, he leaned close again, placed a hand on her cheek, and stroked his thumb across it.
What is he saying?
My God, my God, my God.
Annie’s throat swelled at the insistence on his face and penetration of his eyes.
He kissed her lips softly as the weight of his body pushed her down against the sheets. Cal’s kisses enveloped Annie, consumed her. His kisses were real, part of the earth — the nearest thing to bliss she could possibly imagine.
The strength of his masked feelings poured from his lips, mouth, and tongue. What he could usually only say by sharing a song, in body language and actions, became clear. The mask fell — his feelings grabbed her, held her, overtook her.
The bull had charged. Nostrils flaring. Hooves scraping the dirt.
Cal began to nuzzle his stubble-covered face over the whole of her body, starting at her jawline, her cheeks, and her neck. He could never shave again as far as she was concerned. She wanted it rougher. She needed the prickly little hairs to dig into her skin.
She wanted him to climb inside her body. She needed a hurt. A sacred kind. One controlled only by him.
Annie squirmed in near-drowning elation as his cheeks skirted over her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, the instep of her feet. Oh my God. His beard was tingly, scratchy, and exceptional, and now she couldn't help but giggle and writhe as Cal kissed and scratched his way back up the front of her body — slowly, with purpose, making her feel cherished and loved … safe.
Shhh. Don't think.
How was it possible?
Climb his tree.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
He paused as he reached her face and gave her the look again.
What was he saying? Why wasn't he speaking?
He looks pleased.
Not smug, but pleased — content, at peace.
Safe, like me.
Annie trembled watching his expression, quivering over the enormity of her feelings for him.
It's supposed to be just sex. It isn't. It is.
As she touched Cal's face, pushed her palm along his cheek, he looked deeper into her soul. He fell over the edge of her skin, gazing at her with those eyes that read her, sized her up, and saw all the way to the backside of her insecurities.
She wanted to speak, but her mouth seemed to be shot up with Novocain. The dry sand desert of her throat cracked.
"Say something to me, Cal." Annie split the dirt softly, tears welling up in her eyes. "Please."
Cal continued to stare into Annie’s eyes, but he was silent. He kissed her lips the way only a lover could — not a player, not a jerk-off asshole. No, he kissed her the way only a man with a closet full of feelings possibly could.
She had opened his walk-in, and all sorts of shit was falling out.
He pushed hair from her eyes and ran his hands over her skin, all over, touching her so she could feel his unspoken, silent words bleed through the tips of his fingers.
His eyes were piercing.
His mouth was smooth.
His hands were all-knowing.
Annie was beginning to think Cal wouldn't speak to her out loud at all until it was over.
And it wasn’t nearly over. It hadn’t nearly begun. Their underwear had yet to come off. And, as usual, he seemed in no hurry — a fury of passion transpiring at the pace of a snail.
Annie leaned over Cal’s body and pushed him back against the bed. As she straddled his waist — her hair dangling all around him, against his face, caught like Velcro in his beard, along his chest, pieces stuck in her mouth — she smiled. Sitting up tall, she unclasped her bra, removed it, and squeezed his torso with her thighs.
Cal smiled, his face lighting up completely.
She took his arms and held them above his head while grinning a most mischievous grin. She leaned closer, her nipples pointing at his chin, her hair scattering everywhere, and said, “Don’t you have anything to say to me after almost two weeks of no sex, Prescott?”
Annie squeezed his torso again, then pressed her hands harder into his wrists.
In one swift motion, Cal flipped Annie onto her back, grabbed her wrists, and pinned them and her body to the bed.
Holy fuck.
Her chest rose. Up. Down. Fast. Sideways. Or maybe she couldn't breathe at all. That was it. She couldn't breathe.
He looked at her with those stellar green readers. Asked questions with those freaking eyes.
Annie answered.
Her eyes told him everything he wanted to know.
Her eyes told him who she was — unequivocally.
The girl he knew. You know who I am.
Her eyes held a promise of everything he wanted to be.
Her eyes were in full bloom.
"I need to fuck you, Annie," Cal said in his finest slow drawl as he peered into Annie’s telling eyes, his eyes never roving from hers. "That's what I need to say. That's what I need to do. Do you want me to fuck you?"
"Yes," she breathed out, spastic. God, the urgency, the hunger. No one had ever spoken to her in that way before, and if they had, it wouldn't have gone over.
It was him. Only him.
His words were raw. His tone velvet. His gaze the hot sand at the beach she burned her toes on. His ardent insistence was blinding. She needed to shut her eyes.
"Don't turn from me, Annie. Did you lie in your bed each night and think of me fucking you?"
"Yes."
Cal smirked as he slid his mouth to her thighs and licked her over her underwear.
"Oh God. Oh my God."
He pinched the garment away from her cunt using only his teeth, inhaled her scent, feeling the damp of her underwear, and then put his hands on the elastic and pulled them off. Lying on his stomach, he put his face back at her pussy in a nanosecond, his nose already tickling her clit, his fabulous fingers spreading her wide.
God, what was he doing, opening her up like the petals of a flower, looking at her? The words I need to fuck you, Annie played over and over in her mind as he touched her, breathed on her, and began to lick her.
She wanted him to own her body. God, she wanted to own him.
It was always like this.
This was only the third time he would be inside her, but it was always like this.
A haste, a flurry somehow under control, under a guise, a mask.
Fucking was the mask of love he was making to her.
She squirmed, writhed, and attempted to inch away. But each time she scooted toward the headboard unintentionally, Cal would pull her close again, toward his face. He pinned her hips so she couldn't flee as he continued to taste her, his tongue exploring every inch of her pussy, his breath warm and divine.
She was going to die. Thighs trembling. She would die. On his perfect bed, in his perfect hands, with his perfect tongue licking her folds and clit. She would die.
No. No. No.
She bunched the sh
eets in her hands. She was going to come. Lifting her head, she watched his scruffy, exquisite face rub her thighs.
"Oh God," she cried out, over and over, ready to explode. The first time coming with his tongue in her center, his tongue in her, a part of her. God, she wanted all of him.
"I'm coming," she said, gripping his head and lifting her hips off the bed. She writhed against his face, holding him in the position, taking her pleasure without inhibition.
"Yes, baby. Come," Cal breathed against her skin.
She let go the moment it began. Her feet lifted off the bed, becoming suspended yet relaxed. Her breathing slowed, and he, the man between her legs, continued to strum her with his tongue, waiting out each last contraction until she begged him to stop.
"God, you did miss me," he said, nuzzling his nose along the folds of her delicate skin.
"Shut up, Prescott. God." Annie dropped her head against the bed, pushed away pieces of hair matted at her forehead, her eyes wandering, still floating on the cloud of her orgasm.
Cal kissed his way up her body and met her mystic eyes. "How was your trip?"
"Fuck me," Annie replied instead, speaking in a subdued trance.
Their eyes became magnets.
The color of the tropics danced in his irises. Annie was being pulled into the beat.
The girl who wanted the talking deciding to be silenced with a muzzle only his cock could impart.
"You said you wanted to," she whispered, "that you needed to..."
Annie's words dropped off as she watched Cal stand, lose his underwear, and retrieve a condom from the drawer. He was in her body in an instant.
Her legs open and suspended on either side of him, she accommodated the luscious invasion. A relief from the last several days of grief.
This was what she needed.
His cock buried to the hilt, fingers through his chest hair, a hand clutching his bicep. Their eyes never breaking contact. Hers begging for things she couldn’t express as he pushed in and out — relentlessly but with purpose.
"Do you still want to know about New York?" she groaned.
Easing himself from her body, he licked her nipples, one and then the other, while teasing her opening with the tip of his cock, brushing his erection against her clit until she was in a panic again.
