by Kira Graham
“She likes to eat.”
“Lovey is going to love that. A woman needs to have curves, boy. Haven’t I always told you that?”
“Yeah. And I’d agree if I actually knew what was under all those rags,” I snort, grinning when Dad rears back, his expression aghast.
Until he starts laughing and doesn’t stop until he’s crying and swiping at his eyes.
“That girl making you work for it, boy?”
“Work? Slog, old man. She’s making me jump through hoops, and she doesn’t even know it yet because she thinks we’re friends.”
That has him laughing again, and this time I don’t take offense because it’s laughable. I’ve never had a girlfriend before, and I sure as hell haven’t ever had a friend who’s a girl. It’s unthinkable, and not because I don’t consider women friend material, but because Ma always told me that having females around when I could introduce a wife into the equation was a bad idea. Apparently, if women can’t have men friends just hanging around, being platonic, then men can’t have women friends, either.
I tend to agree, actually, because if the woman I was with had some limp dick just hanging around her, I’d be pissed. Heck, I’d be annoyed as hell if I ever found out that Cleo had some asshole tucked away, just waiting for a chance with her. Which he would be. That’s how guys work. Just look at me and Cleo. She thinks we’re friends, and yet I’m planning much more. What that more is, though, I can’t say. All I know is that I’ve never wanted a woman this much in my life, and I plan to have her.
“Friends? Doesn’t she know you?” my dad chortles, making me frown slightly.
“She does.”
And I mean that. Cleo knows me better than any other woman ever has, and despite my lack of grace thus far, she doesn’t seem put off one bit. Yeah, she calls me a pig—a lot—but she also seems to like me anyway.
“No way! You can stuff mushrooms?” I hear from the kitchen, followed by a squeal and Ma’s laughter.
Zeus grins, and while his eyes are still plastered to the TV, I notice that he keeps flitting them towards the kitchen and isn’t quite as into his boring entertainment as he was before.
“She sure likes food.”
“That she does. The first time we went out, she practically chewed my hand off when I reached for the last taco. And corn dog. And I won’t talk about the ice cream, because she does this thing with her eyes where it looks like she’ll chew clear through your hand to get to it,” I chuckle, shaking my head when Zeus and Pop both snort.
“Sounds like a keeper to me.”
“We’re friends,” I remind them both, ignoring their rueful smiles as I drink my soda and listen to Cleo and Ma chattering in the distance.
“A friend you want to have more with. Tell me, though, brother, is this more…more, or just you wanting to get your dick wet with the one chick who doesn’t seem all that dazzled by you?”
“Zeus—”
“Because if that’s all you’re going for, then just don’t. Cleo’s good people. She’s smart and funny and kind, and she has enough shit on her plate to not need to deal with a one-off from a guy she considers a friend,” he warns, his eyes taking on that strange light that I’ve seen one too many times.
Zeus is the thinker, and he rarely talks unless it’s to throw shade your way. On the odd occasion when he does get involved in an actual discussion, I usually listen to what he’s saying, because of all four of my brothers, he’s the one I trust the most for good, sound advice. Right now, I hate what he’s saying. Mostly because part of me knows he’s right.
“I’m not looking to hurt Cleo.”
“You wouldn’t have to, Addy. All you’d have to do is be just one more bad sitch in a long line of bad situations she’s found herself in lately. I won’t go into details, because I don’t break confidences when a woman trusts me with one, but Cleo’s got enough to deal with right now that she doesn’t need to add a broken friendship into the mix. If you’re in this for the right reasons, then I say go ahead, but if not, just walk away, man.”
Cleo
Hart is unusually quiet all through lunch. I’m having a great time talking to Athena, eating food that makes my body shake with bliss, and getting to know his mom and dad, while Zeus smiles and keeps offering me more garlic sauce. That I practically drink from the gravy boat, because it’s that good.
And yet my enjoyment is dimmed because I can’t help but notice Hart’s dark mood.
“This was absolutely wonderful, Cleo darling. You tell Addy to bring you back soon,” Athena trills after we’ve finished up and are at the front door, ready to leave.
Throughout lunch, I noticed that her Greek accent is interspersed with a slow Georgia drawl that makes me wonder if she’s as fully Greek as she says she is. I find it cute, though, so I don’t say anything, not even when she says shit under her breath, and it comes out as sheee-at.
“Oh, I will definitely be back here, with or without Hart. If I thought that I could pull it off, I’d steal you for myself and pay you in solid gold,” I assure her, squeezing her more tightly before I step back to hug both Creed and Zeus.
Hart does the same with his mom, gives Zeus a furious glare, and flips off his dad, who laughs so hard that I hear him all the way to Hart’s car. Where he opens the passenger door. For me.
“I brought my car,” I remind him, smiling when I catch sight of Red.
Just adorable.
“And you’re leaving it here, because we’re driving to my place, and I’d actually like you to get there. Alive,” he mutters, his face a stony mask of challenge.
Usually, I’d argue with Hart, since that’s half the freaking fun of being his friend. For some reason, though, I don’t do that today. Instead, I get in the car without complaint and feel my whole body go tight when he slides in beside me and starts the car with the push of a button. The thing purrs to life with a smooth, sleek rumble of power that has my blood thrumming in my veins and sends shooting arrows of excitement through me.
Yeah! Because I’m the dummy who does appreciate beautiful cars! Get real. I just wanted to rile the man up and—
“Oh my God!” I scream when he floors it, sending the car shooting forward so suddenly that I’m slammed back into my seat.
He’s not reckless, though, and I find myself fighting laughter when he slows to leave the driveway, takes a few turns, and then takes us onto the freeway, where he finally lets loose. It’s freedom, pure and utter weightlessness, and I feel all the depressing worry and heaviness leave me. In the last week, I’ve emptied out CandyCane’s, reworked my resume, and holed up in my room, where I’ve slept on and off and licked my wounds in silence. Mom and Dad have been by a couple times to try to cheer me up, but this funk isn’t something that I’ve been able to shake. I’d dreamed of owning a thriving candy store since I was little, and now that my dream has officially crashed and burned, I don’t know what to do with myself.
The only reason I agreed to come out with Hart today is that I refused to miss out on his mom’s cooking, which even Zeus informed me is like having angels take a shit in your mouth. It sounded gross, but he assured me that it was a good thing.
“Tell me you don’t like her!” Hart yells, bringing me back to the present with a giggle that I can’t control.
The me who likes to argue with the man wants to deny his claims, and yet, watching him lose the gloomy cast that I’ve had to stare at all day, I feel myself just letting go and giving in.
“She’s awesome,” I yell back, my blood fizzing and my heart pumping so hard that I feel like I’m floating.
This is life, I think, letting go. Life is supposed to be fun and happy and filled with days just like this, where I get to eat until I want to burst and ride in a car that is ridiculously expensive and frivolous. I want this ride to last forever, for this freedom to never die, and yet it seems like mere moments before Hart is pulling up to his building, and we’re whizzing into a parking bay.
By the time he’s
cut the engine, I’m beyond turned on, and no, it’s not just because the car was purring and rumbling beneath me. Everything about today has been so perfect that when I look at Hart, I don’t see a man who’ll break my heart. I see him smiling that crooked, smug grin. I see his hands flexing on the steering wheel, and then I see his eyes, which are trained on me in a way that screams lust.
“Oh, God,” I groan, everything going tight when he suddenly lunges for me, his mouth closing over mine.
Pure bliss.
That’s what I feel the moment his lips close over mine. It’s as clichéd as hell, and probably a stupid thing to think, but as he kisses me, his hands in my hair, pulling my head to just the right angle, his tongue and lips ravenous as they own my mouth, I feel like this moment is every dream I’ve ever had.
Arousal streaks though me more intensely the longer he kisses me, taking his time not just to learn my lips, but also to taste me so deeply that I feel my nipples go tight while need pools between my legs, throbbing in my clit and clenching the muscles inside me. I should care that sleeping with Hart is a bad idea. Heck, I should pull away, open the car door, and run from the things he’s making me feel.
I don’t.
The need and want are too strong to deny, so when he growls into my mouth and grabs my waist, hoisting me over onto his lap to straddle him, I settle over him and grind down, moaning when we make contact and his cock presses against my sensitive flesh.
“Mmm. Fuck. Grind against me,” Hart groans, ripping his mouth away with a panting snarl of air.
I obey because I can’t not chase the pleasure he’s bringing forth, my hips bumping down and forward, where my panty-clad sex is pushed flush against the rigid stalk of his sex.
He helps me, his hands gripping my hips to pull me down harder, while he bites his bottom lip and stares up at my face, looking so sexy that it makes me wetter.
“Like that, baby,” he purrs when I go faster, feeling my pleasure growing as I ride him harder, chasing the coiling band of ecstasy that tightens more powerfully the more I grind down. “Come all over me, and then I’ll take you upstairs and lick up all that nectar.”
Harder. I press harder and go crazy, needing his kiss as I tense, preparing for an orgasm that feels as if it will break me apart. He won’t let me, though. He wants to watch, and I find the thought of him watching me come so erotic that my pelvis contracts, and a climax bursts forth so hard that I shout out into the interior of the car.
This isn’t pleasure, I think, as I feel moisture seep out of me, drenching my panties and the fabric of his pants. It’s a shattering, a breaking apart of the woman I was so that I can be remade.
I’m a panting, shattered wreck by the time I stop convulsing, but Hart knows just what to do to awaken me again, his eyes boring into my own as he slowly, purposely slides my dress higher, exposing not just my own soaked panties, but the crotch of his pants as well. They’re soaked, and the sight turns me on all over again, even more so when he slides a finger into the band of my panties and pulls them away, exposing my throbbing sex to his gaze.
“Soaked,” he groans, using his knuckle to swipe from my pulsing clit to my entrance, my juices bathing his hand. “I’m going to drink this up, Cleo-mine. Then I’m going to make you wetter so that when I fill you, your body will suck me right in.”
I want that. God, I want that so badly that my body goes tight, my sheath sucking down and demanding more. But…what if this isn’t a good idea? We’re not…
“And then, when we’ve both come so hard that we can’t breathe, you’re going to clean up the mess you made me make in my pants.”
Oh, sweet Jesus, I think, my eyes going down to where he has soaked himself. That isn’t all me, I think, taking in the slick heat that covers the fabric. He came. Because I made him.
Power rushes through me, then, thick and hot with a need that I haven’t ever felt before. Hart wants me, and as inexplicable as that is, it’s a truth that he’s showing me without restraint.
“Tell me you want this.”
“We shouldn’t want this. You don’t even like me,” I breathe, my breath getting trapped in my lungs when he twists his hand and presses a finger into me, just deeply enough to make my hips twitch closer for more.
Then he takes my hand, pressing it to his cock, his brows drawing down when I instinctively squeeze him and lick my dry lips.
“That feel like I don’t want you, Cleo? I want you so fucking much that I’m going crazy with it. I want to kiss you, taste you, take you over and over again until my dick can’t get hard again,” he groans, pressing my hand more tightly around his length. “I want you, baby. The question is, are you brave enough to admit that you want me?”
The question is a challenge, a dare that I can’t refuse, because at this point, I don’t think I can. And I know I don’t want to.
Adonis
She’s trembling with need by the time I unlock the door to my penthouse, the smell of her arousal so strong that I feel my cock pulse out another stream of fluid, demanding immediate relief from the need that she’s set off.
When I stopped the car earlier, the exhilaration and thrill of freedom still thrumming through my veins, and Cleo’s laughter and joy doing something to me that I couldn’t explain but knew I wanted more of, I couldn’t stop myself. I kissed her because I needed to, because the thought of not tasting her happiness right at that moment was too much for me to control.
It happened so fast that I was shocked when I realized that my lips were on hers, and even more shocked when she kissed me back, her tongue darting into my mouth shyly, as if she weren’t quite as confident as I’d assumed she was.
That innocent, hesitant taste spurred me on to demand more, to take and taste and devour until all I could taste and feel was her. I came in my damn pants, like some green youth smelling his first pussy, but it was so good that I can’t complain or regret it. Hell, the look in Cleo’s eyes when she saw the wet spot on my pants was enough to make me want to come again.
And I will. Soon. Just as soon as I get those hideous clothes off her body and drink my fill of what I’ve been fantasizing about for weeks. She’s a little scared, though, so instead of tearing her clothes off, I take her hand and gently pull her into the bedroom. The place is dark, decorated in blacks and deep blues. Plain. Functional. But for the first time when I look at a woman in this setting, I don’t see my bedroom, I see…color. She makes my dark world colorful, I think.
I like that, and I promise myself that I will see so much more. Because I am not letting her go when we’re done sating ourselves. Cleo is mine.
“Hart.”
“Take off your dress, baby. Don’t be shy with me,” I tell her, smiling softly when she frowns and reaches for her dress, then pauses when I start to strip out of my shirt and then reach for my belt buckle.
“Holy mother…” she whispers, stroking my ego like hell as she gazes, wide-eyed, at my chest, unconsciously licking her lips when her eyes travel down to the bulge behind my zipper.
“It’s just a body,” I chuckle, unexpectedly amused when normally I am so focused on my goal that nothing can sway me.
“No. That’s…” she murmurs, indicating my six-pack, the tight, hard muscles that form a V at my hips, and the hard-on that can’t be contained by my zipper. “You’re perfect.”
As compliments go, it’s not one that I haven’t heard before, but somehow, because it’s coming from Cleo, I feel myself preening beneath her gaze. I like that she likes my body, and hope like hell that she’s going to let me like hers right back.
“No. No one’s perfect, Cleo, but I’d love to see what you have under that dress,” I say gently, stepping closer to take her hands in mine and help her raise the fabric.
My first view of her naked skin is one that I won’t ever forget. Cleo isn’t rail thin or super toned like the women I usually sleep with, but neither is she fat. She’s curvy and soft-looking, and her skin is a golden hue that has my mouth watering f
or a taste of that honeyed expanse. Next, I see her breasts, the heavy globes popping free when I pull the dress up over her head.
They’re perfect. I know I just said that no one is, but God help me, her tits are perfect. Large, firm, and crowned with nipples that are such a light shade of pink that I want to suck them so hard, they turn a vivid red. The rest of her, when I trail my eyes over her, is just as good. She isn’t thin, but what I see isn’t anything to scoff at, either. Cleo is all woman, from the crotch of her soaked pink panties, to her curvy hips and full breasts, to the rounded curve of her succulent ass.
Swiping a hand over my lips to catch any drool that may be escaping, I take a slow turn around her, cataloguing everything I see. And what I see, I fucking like. So much so that I press closely into her back and bring her flush against me, just so that I can feel her on my skin. She’s shaking with nerves but also with enough arousal that I breathe a sigh of relief and go about trying to calm her, using a soft, sweeping caress to soothe her while I whisper gently in her ear, telling her how beautiful she is.
When she stops shaking and is pressing back into me, her skin silky smooth and hot to the touch, I advance my exploration and stroke my fingers up over her stomach, letting my hands close over the full globes of her magnificent breasts. Now it’s my turn to shake, but not from nerves. No, what I feel as I squeeze and roll her hard nipples is so much lust that it makes my knees weak.
Cleo moans and starts to shake against me, the sign I’ve been waiting for so that I can speed things up and finally do more than touch. Keeping my movements slow, I turn her, lower my lips to hers, and slowly back her towards the bed, using every masterful lick of my tongue to distract her as I lower her there and position my body over hers.
The kiss is slow at first, and gentle, until I settle myself over her, my cock falling into the heated cradle of her thighs. She moans, and the sound, so needy and feminine, snaps my leash. Now I kiss her as if I’m starved, my mouth owning hers as I reach down to spread her open for what I am about to do next.
