by Knox, Abby
“Because I knew it would take the fire out of their bellies and get them to back off. I’d rather have Mary there than a cold monument. I don’t have anything against rules. They’re good rules. Don’t lie, don’t murder. The problem is, it’s a power move. And everybody knows it. I just—oh!”
Suddenly Miles has cut me off with a soft yet somehow the most intense kiss yet. His breath is shaky. I can’t imagine what has suddenly come over him.
“I love you, Mary Martha Moody.”
I’m so surprised and emotional that my breath matches his. “You do?”
“I have loved you forever and I will keep loving you forever.”
“I love you too, Miles,” I say, landing a kiss in return.
“Even though I didn’t bring my A game?”
She giggles. “You had no intention of bringing your A game. I knew from the beginning you were winging it.”
“See? Winging it works out sometimes.”
Epilogue
Eight years later
Miles
I groan when my brain catches up with what my wife’s mouth is about to do.
“Baby,” I breathe, my head lolling back, my eyes latching on to the discarded set pieces in the prop room. We are backstage in the school auditorium. A ferocious, blood sucking animatronic plant stares down at me. “We’re at school … the kids are here … you’re about to go on stage to accept a major award and your makeup’s going to get smeared.”
But why even protest? She had me from day one.
My belt buckle clanks as Martha’s fingers work it open. Her voice is rushed and breathy while she reassures me. “Don’t worry, Katie and Dean have the kids with them at their table. Hudson and Penny are probably elbows deep into their ice cream anyway. Besides, everybody has sex in the prop room. It’s a tradition. I might be the only person on staff who hasn’t yet.”
I watch my wife unzip my pants and free my throbbing cock from my briefs. She tugs everything down; she likes my ass bare when she does this. “See? I knew you were feeling frisky for it,” she says, licking her lips and arching one authoritative eyebrow at me.
My teeth grind at the torture of watching Martha’s mouth move near my aching length without actually being wrapped around it yet. Her breath teasing it. “Babe, you knew exactly what you were doing when you put on that damn skirt tonight.”
Martha pouts. “What, this old thing?” She smooths her palm down the front of her wool skirt. And then, shocking me, she hikes it up and lets that same hand glide down inside her panties.
“What are you doing to me?” I whimper. But I know what’s coming.
I shouldn’t have asked that. I know better than to ask questions. Asking my lifelong-educator wife any open ended question will only prolong my torment. But shit, I love my tormenter and what she does to me.
“I had a thought,” she says, pausing to slide her tongue just across the tip, licking away a bead of precum as if she’s innocently enjoying a lollipop, “How can I accept an award for the longest serving school headmistress without giving you some actual head?”
My mouth falls open but I don’t have any words. When her lips and hand wrap around me, I don’t need to make any sounds. The sound of her wet mouth on me, the sounds of her moans while she pleasures herself with her other hand, are the only things that matter.
Martha is and always has been beyond amazing to me, shocking me more and more with every passing year. The knowledge that just a few feet away is a room full of people who both admire and fear my strict and buttoned-up wife only heightens my arousal. Nothing excites me quite like letting her boss me around.
As if watching her lick, suck and squeeze my cock while she touches herself isn’t enough, she has more in store for me. She pops my shaft out of her mouth to tell me, “If you say ‘please’ and call me Headmistress I’ll take you all the way in.”
It’s so wrong, it’s exactly right.
“Oh god, please Headmistress,” I moan, throbbing so hard my cock demands me to pin her arms and pound her through the wall. But that will have to come later tonight. She’s due on stage in minutes, if not seconds.
As promised, Martha takes my dick all the way to the back of her throat. The sound of her moans combined with a slight gag has my eyes rolling back in my head. I brace myself with one hand against the wall.
“Please, may I pull your hair, Headmistress?”
She nods and moans louder, her hand working faster inside her panties. I tug at the comb in her hair and her locks tumble down. A deep pink flushes her cheeks, a sign that she’s close. Her warm, wet mouth devours me urgently as my fingers weave into her hair. I tug gently, guiding her, but she knows her way around. The sounds and the sensations are almost too much for me to take in, until her free hand cups and strokes my balls.
“Fuck,” I growl, the familiar pleasing, agonizing tightness building inside me. She knows me so well. Her suction increases. The rubbing of my balls gets rougher. I curse again, fighting the urge to be as loud as I need to be.
An amplified voice outside the room announces my wife’s name, but neither of us can or want to stop now. “We have to make this quick, baby.”
Her questioning eyes connect with mine. I rasp, “Please. Headmistress.”
The look on her face when she pushes herself over the edge has me nutting hard and fast into her mouth. The euphoric release sends pleasure pulsing, radiating through me while my mind goes blank. I let go of Martha’s hair to use both hands to steady myself against the wall while she coaxes out my cum and swallows it all.
When I’m almost finished, Martha lets go of my balls and slaps my ass so hard I’m sure she leaves a mark. The erotic sting of her hand against my flesh pushes one final drop down her throat.
A smiling, pleased Martha stands up, adjusts that damn skirt and fixes her lipstick. She does all this in the time it takes for me to return to rational thought.
My head resting against the cinder block wall, I turn to get one last glimpse of my wife before she rushes away to accept her award. “You get an ‘A’ plus, Mr. McRae,” she says with a wink, then disappears.
She’s going to pay for that slap later, I think as I make myself presentable, zipping up my pants and buckling my belt. But for now, I’ll happily walk around with her hand print is on my ass.
“Thank you, Headmistress.”
About the Author
Abby Knox lives a dual life. Fantasy Abby would love to live on a farm with goats, bees, chickens, donkeys and alpaca, making her own soap, yarn, honey and cheese. Reality Abby has no desire to do actual farm work. So, the ever-pragmatic Reality Abby keeps Fantasy Abby happy by putting her into adorable little works of romantic fiction with her pretend hobbies. Both Abbies hope you enjoy her sweet, sexy — sometimes a little over the top and weird — storytelling.
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Say hello at
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Also by Abby Knox
The Greenbridge Academy series
Swim Coach (book one)
Grumpy Dad (book two)
Benefactor (book three)
Prom Queen (Book five, Ridley’s story! Coming in November!)
* * *
Also coming in November … Doing Him Good
(Boone’s story from Fencing Her In! )
* * *
Need more?
From the Small-Town Bachelor Romance Series
(each can be read as a stand-alone, but if you want to read in order … this is the order)
Take Me Home
Game Face
Written in the Stars, a special Christmas edition
Walk With Me
Stay the Night
I’ve Got You
Come And Get It
* * *
The Windy City Holiday Duet
Pumpkin and Spice
Comfort and Joy
* * *
Beach Avenue Babes
His Vinyl Vixen (a stand alone fo
r the rock ’n’ roll nerd in all of us)
Her Hi-Fi Hunk (Dusty and Jed from His Vinyl Vixen)
* * *
Stand alone short reads and novellas
Fencing Her In (A bad neighbors to lovers story. With a lot of dogs. You need this in your life.)
One Good Woman (a stand-alone mistaken identity/conspiracy/political drama)
Naughty Irish Heart (a time-hopping Saint Patrick’s Day Romance — two couples and two HEAs in one book! Part of a four-author themed collection!)
Sweet Jane
(An over-the-top amnesia story about being lost, and then found.)
The Christmas Pickup (a holiday short read full of feels, quirky characters and one damn hot tow truck driver!)
Saved for Me
(a special Holidays with Alexa Riley story)
Matched for Me (A Valentine’s Day story with Fletcher from Saved for Me)
Off-Season Stud (a fun and sexy vacation trope with an OTT ending!)
* * *
The Sisters of Enchantment series (a paranormal collection of stories about … yes … witches. I know you want more of these … they’re coming!)
Some Basic Witch
Witch, Please!
Coming up next
The Halloween Bet
A stand-alone second-chance love story!
* * *
Blake
Here she comes, festive orange pumps clip-clipping down the sidewalk, headed straight into my bar.
Shit.
Any notion of having escaped any participation in the town-wide Halloween-gasm that is this year’s Harvest Festival blows out the door as soon as Dahlia Jordan, tourism director, blows in.
Her golden eyes sparkle and her perpetual wide smile broadens when she spots me behind the bar. A smile so genuine, I almost feel an old, familiar twinge.
But then I remember she’s not coming in for a friendly drink after work. It’s noon on Halloween, her office is closed today. And under her relentless guidance, the downtown is decked out in pumpkin spice everything.
The way she’s walking, I can tell she needs something.
Oh, Dahlia doesn’t need me personally, she needs something from me as the proprietor of the Southpaw Tavern.
Along with the gust of October air she pulls in with her comes her warm caramel apple pie scent, heavy on the cinnamon. Same as it was in the days when I had permission to freely take a whiff of her hair on the regular. Same damn sweet energy as always, as if life has never broken her down.
Any man without his wits about him would fall all over himself to please this auburn haired bombshell with the glowing skin and devastating, glossy lips.
God, what is she doing back in this town, anyway? I’ve been asking myself that for the past six months, ever since she moved back home to take over the tourism office. I thought she’d be slaying every eligible bachelor in the big city by now.
But I do have my wits about me. I’m Blake Fuckin’ Pritchard, after all. The only bartender still serving cheap domestic beer in this up-and-coming little town. I don’t have WiFi. I program the jukebox myself and fuck you if you don’t like it. I derive pleasure from bouncing my unruly customers with my own hands. People fear me, and I like it that way.
So, I feel no hitch in my giddy-up when Dahlia turns on the charm. No hitch at all. This gorgeous creature cannot distract me from the fact that she carries something under her arm... something that can only mean one thing for me. Extra work.
“Happy Halloween, Blake! Here’s your jack o lantern!” How can someone’s voice be both enthused and sexy? Doesn’t matter. Has no effect on me.
“I didn’t order one,” I say, focusing on wiping down the oak bar in front of me and not the orange and purple blob she’s lifting onto the bar.
She laughs, unaffected by my rotten attitude. “Every downtown business gets a painted jack o lantern. It’s part of the game.” Dahlia plops the thing onto the spot I just polished.
I eye her as I hand dry a rack of lowball glasses that Kenny has just pulled from the dishwasher.
“I don’t know about any game, ergo I’m not participating.”
Undeterred, she chirps, “Everybody’s participating. It’s a social media trick or treat game, but for grown ups.”
I grunt and say to her, “If it involves me pretending I like tourists, then you can just skedaddle with that pumpkin.”
“Blake, come on. You don’t have to pretend you like people. It’s part of your charm.”
I stop wiping down glasses and look at her hard. There’s a whole lot more she’s not telling me.
I can see I’m not getting rid of her soon so I pour her the usual — an amaretto sour with a cherry — and set it down in front of her.
She thanks me and sips it. Her lip quirks.
“This is watered down,” she says.
I sigh heavily and let my head loll back on my neck, as if the tacky stained glass Bud Light pendant lamp hanging above the bar will tell me how to win this argument. This same argument we’ve been having since she turned 21 and moved back here to her hometown. “We’ve been through this before, Dahlia. No it’s not.”
She shrugs. “Tastes watered down.”
I huff, “It’s on the house, then. I don’t know what to tell you, D. It’s amaretto, syrup, and lemon juice. That’s it. If you don’t like it why don’t you order a beer instead of a sorority sister drink?”
She frowns, but still manages to not look offended. “I wasn’t in a sorority.”
I laugh, “You order drinks like you are.”
“Is this abuse necessary?” she says with a wink.
I come around to the front of the bar to polish the brass rail. I don’t want to get closer to her but some of the other people who drink here are slobs and I don’t want their fingerprints on the rail. I’m pretty particular about this whole new handcrafted set up. As I should be; it was my hands that did the work after my Gramps died, leaving the bar to me. Gramps, one of the most famous left handed pitchers ever in the American league, retired in this town and lived out the rest of his days slinging drinks. Why? Because he loved talking to people and people loved hearing stories from his glory days. The only thing I inherited from the guy was this dive bar, and I’m doing my best to keep it real.
“Abuse? You’re the one who accused me of watering down my drinks, which I do not do. Maybe your tastes are just changing.”
“Excuse me?”
I don’t really feel like elaborating, but she brings it out of me. “I read an article that says every seven years your tastebuds change. Foods that tasted bad to you when you were younger, maybe you like them now. Maybe your favorite thing isn’t your favorite anymore.”
We’re playing an odd sort of game of chicken right now, with me polishing the brass rail, and her body not getting out of the way as I make my way closer to her with my rag as I polish it.
“Excuse me,” I say and she leans back, but I’m in such a rush that she’s not quite quick enough and my bicep grazes her boob.
“Whoops. Sorry,” I grunt.
I finish the job while she stares at me, eyes wide and speechless for once in her life.
Neither of us say anything for a few minutes. Finally I move on to cleaning the tables that don’t need cleaning, and she recovers her composure.
Dahlia says, “You do realize you’re saying this to someone who is extremely loyal to her own tastes and sensibilities. My taste buds are exactly the same as always.”
Whipping the towel into a laundry bin behind the bar and grabbing a clean one from the fresh pile that Kenny brought down from my dryer in my upstairs apartment, I say, “That sounds like a personal problem.”
She takes another sip and shrugs. I guess drinks that are suddenly free taste better.
“Back to the subject at hand. You just have to stand there and be your usual self.”
I could bounce her for beating around the bush. I’ve tossed plenty of dude bros out of my bar for lesser offenses, suc
h as wearing Axe body spray. “What are you up to?”
She downs the drink, her eyes innocently on the ceiling to avoid meeting my gaze for a moment as she gathers up courage.
“Dahlia.”
Her shoulders drop. “Ugh. Fine. You just have to be your usual self, while ... people take a selfie with you and/or Kenny.”
“The fuck are you talking about? I don’t do selfies.”
But she’s in tourism director mode. Winning personality, dauntless enthusiasm. “Everyone who attends the Fall Festival gets a map of all the businesses that have a painted jack o lantern. They take a selfie with the proprietor and then post it on social media with the hashtag—“
“Nobody is allowed to say the ‘H’ word in here. Also I don’t have WiFi.”
She ignores me. “...With the hashtags printed on the map and they’re entered in a drawing.”
Fidgeting, I twist my towel around my hand. “Lot of rigmarole to enter a drawing. I’ll make it easy for you. Have everyone put their business card in a fishbowl, shake it up...”
“Bo-ring!” she chuckles and dismisses me with a wave of her hand.
That smile of hers could win over an angry Shrek. But it’s not working on me. “I like boring. Boring, same old customers pay my light bill. One time visitors and transient millennial newcomers do not.”
“But that’s kind of the point. We attract new people, and those people come back and become regulars, improving your bottom line. Also, you are a millennial as much as I am.” She points at me, not letting me get away with my rant.
I shake my head. “This bar’s bottom line hasn’t improved in years and I don’t need it to. I didn’t inherit this fine establishment from Gramps and its elite clientele,” I say, waving my arm toward Sleepy Ernie, passed out in a booth in the corner, “expecting to get rich.”
