My First Second Chance

by KB Winters

  “I tried to. I want to tell you everything, Gabe. I’ll do anything you want,” I said desperately.

  He’d kept the car running, and pushed back from the steering wheel, turned toward me, and nudged a stray lock of hair off my face, behind my ear.

  Without any hesitation, he reached a rough hand behind my neck, drawing my face to his.

  “This is what I want,” he said before his lips met mine.

  His lips were velvet and soft against mine, and he tasted like coffee and peppermint. I touched his jaw, coarse with stubble, savoring the warmth of his skin. His lips parted, and his tongue explored the edges of my mouth. I opened up and took him in, sucking on his tongue, thinking yes, I want this, too. I could think of nothing else I wanted more. “I love you, Gabe.”

  But that was the end of the sweetness, the slowness.

  Everything else happened in a frenzy.

  His hands trailed down my shoulders and he groped my body ravenously. This wasn’t flirting. Finally, Gabe had become a man of action, taking what he owned, what he deserved, without question. My breath hitched, and my chest heaved as I felt him pulling the straps of my camisole lower. His hands were rough, pushing, pulling, raking against my body in a way that brought just as much pain as pleasure. I gasped every time his fingers touched me. He was so different, so sure.

  So fucking good.

  He broke the kiss. “Goddammit, Meg, you drive me fucking insane, you know that?”

  His voice was low and husky as his open mouth trailed down my jaw, hungry and more rabid than ever. He buried his face in my neck and molded a hand to my breast, pressing hard against my tender skin. My nipples screamed in pleasure that shot straight to my pussy.

  His breath was ragged, his voice a growl. “Can we do this? Without hurting the baby?”

  I nodded in answer as he continued to move his tongue magically against my skin. I could feel him straining to be closer to me, but even though the sedan’s cabin was roomy, the steering wheel and center console were in the way. When he pulled away from me, his eyes were wild with desire.

  He looked over the seat. “Get in the back.”

  I nodded, willing to agree to anything he asked of me. I opened the door handle, and we climbed into the back of the car together, so drunk with desire.

  And then he was all over me, ripping my clothes from my body like a man possessed. It was like that night at RAIN—he didn’t care that it was daylight and cars raced by. He stripped me bare, molding his hands to my body like he owned me. When he had stripped me naked, he lifted my legs and settled between them, his breath hot on my pussy.

  “This is mine.” Slowly, he moved up close to me, tickling me with his hot breath. The pregnancy made every touch, every body part, more sensitive.

  I shuddered with need, knowing I was wet when I felt the juices trickle out of me. I closed my eyes, aching for that slickness of his tongue on me again. It was like he knew just how to drive me wild, because now that he had me naked and wanting him, he took his time. Maybe this was his way of punishing me, timing his assault for when I was most desperate. There was no tentative tasting, no nibbling this time, like there had been outside the club. With no warning, he planted his open mouth, full, on my pussy.

  “Holy shit,” I cried out.

  I brought my hand to my mouth to silence myself, but he reached up and grabbed it, holding it rigid against my belly. “No.” His command was low and growling, startling me. “Don’t be quiet. I want you to scream. I want to hear every little sound you make.”

  Just like Gabe, the tortoise instead of the hare, he took his time, drawing out every little motion with excruciating detail. Every sensation went so much deeper. He moved his hands to my thighs, spreading me apart as wide as I could go. His hot, wet tongue slid slowly up the crease of my pussy. My head fell back against the door handle, and I whimpered with a combination of relief and delight as his breath continued to fall upon my skin. Slowly, he licked me from bottom to top, bottom to top, bottom to top, again and again, his tongue darting in and out of me. I gasped all the air out of my chest, and my hands instinctively wanted to fly to my mouth.

  But like I said, I wanted to do for him. Anything he wanted. It took all my power, but I was resigned to obeying him, keeping my hands on my tummy, like a good girl would.

  Then he dug in with his tongue, pressing against the nerves of my sensitive nub.

  I moaned so loudly the car rocked. “Oh, God, Gabe . . .”

  The first time, it’d been the element of newness that had made it so hot. Now, it was even hotter, because he simply knew exactly where to go to drive me wild. His tongue circled my clit and pushed inside me as he lapped angrily at me, and his eyes were on me. Harder, more jaded.

  I hoped not. I hoped he didn’t hate me for this.

  A fire burned inside me, something wild and unstoppable. But right when I reached the tremble before the climax, just as I prepared to throw myself over the edge of oblivion, when I felt myself coming apart . . .

  He pulled away.

  I opened my eyes, gasping in frustration, at the very brink of ecstasy. What had just happened?

  He was giving me a wolfish look, for the first time. I’d never seen him look that way. It was a look I usually sported twenty-four-seven, but not Gabe. Gabe had just grown an awfully big pair.

  Astonished, I watched him appraise me, in a kind of egotistical way, like he was too good for me. It was so fucking sexy. No, he knew very well what he was doing. He knew I was close and wanted me to beg for it.

  So I did. I had no other choice. I was his.

  “Please, Gabe. Please . . .”

  “What do you want?” His voice was a low rumble. “Say it.”

  “Make me come.”

  He tapped his finger to his damp chin, as if he had to think about it. Funny, I’d always thought it wasn’t in Gabe to be a bastard. But it turned out, he’d always had the power, he simply chose never to use it. Without warning, he attacked my clit again, his tongue relentless, flicking over me, again and again at lightning speed, bringing me close. He was sucking on my clit almost viciously now, pulling on it with his teeth, driving me wild. I arched against him, meeting his open mouth, wanting more of him.

  Nothing about this was soft or sweet. Panting and writhing on the back seat of his car, I was pretty sure that I’d kill him if he decided to stop again, no matter how good I was trying to be. I grabbed onto the handle on the door above my head to keep my hands out of my mouth.

  I teetered on the edge of the threshold, feeling every nerve in my body standing on end, a building inferno on the verge of total explosion. And then I went beyond the point of no return, screaming long and loud as the orgasm ripped through me.

  I came harder than I ever had in my life, throwing myself onto him as he continued to suck my pussy.

  He sat back observing me with cautious eyes, not looking at all proud of the fact that he’d just given me the greatest tongue-fucking of my life.

  I wasn’t done, though. Not by a long shot. I reached for his belt buckle. It must’ve been the pregnancy hormones, or the heat of our argument, or the fact that he’d asserted himself for the first time, but I’d never wanted him so much before. I wanted as much of his skin against mine, wanted him filling me.

  I slid onto his lap, straddling him, and took his chin in my hand. My swollen sensitive pussy slid against the bulge in his pants, arousing me more. Instead of that awed, adoring expression, he was frowning, making me work for it. His chin was wet with my juices, but I kissed him hard, his tongue, still warm, dancing with mine. “Fuck me.”

  “Hold on,” he said, a crinkle on his brow.

  “What, you don’t want to?” I asked. I thrust my tongue desperately into his mouth, wanting him to take control and command me. God, I wanted him so badly I took in a shuddery breath in anticipation.

  His gaze raked down my naked body. “You don’t ever have to ask that. I will always want to.”

  He started to wo
rk his buckle, and I helped him along, hands fumbling over hands in a competition to see how fast we could get his cock free. He was already hard, and a bit of wetness at the tip. He ran his hands over my front, cupping my breasts. He kissed my neck, and his fingers went between my legs again as his eyes found mine. “And I won’t hurt you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Both of you?”

  I smiled and ran my hand over my abdomen. “No. We’ll be fine.”

  He wrapped his arms around me suddenly and shifted me so that I was once again beneath him. From there, I watched him guide his cock to my pussy. No gentle nudge, no finding the right position, no tentativeness, this time. He thrust into me as hard as he could, filling me completely.

  I gasped out all the air in my lungs and gripped his back as he pushed into me. He planted his hands on my hips and pulled me closer to him, until he was flush against me, his hips against my thighs. He slid out, leaving just the tip inside me, and then plunged in, deeper. Then he did it again, harder, so hard he nearly folded me in half.

  It wasn’t long before he was pounding into me, eliciting an animalistic growl from me as I clawed at his back. I pushed against him as he slid in deep, getting into a rhythm, feeling my breasts sway and his hands dig into my hips. Whatever chord he was hitting inside me, I don’t think I’d ever felt it before. Another orgasm was building inside me, and somehow, I already knew it would be fiercer than the first one.

  The rhythm increased to a frantic pace, shaking, driving, harder and harder, until my hovering climax crashed finally down around us.

  He must have been able to sense it. “Come, Meg.”

  “But I want you to . . .” I protested.

  “I said come,” he growled.

  When he said that to me, I came so fucking hard my eyes rolled to the back of my head and stars flashed behind them. My pussy clenched around his cock and all I could do was feel the hugeness of his cock pounding into me.

  He continued to plunge into me, not missing a beat as he kissed my neck. And yes, he owned me, using me for his own pleasure. And I was happy to give him every last bit of me.

  I felt his muscles flex and tighten. He crashed into me, growling, rough and hard and so unlike the Gabe I’d known. His body was jerking and raw, his fingers digging into my skin almost painfully.

  But I loved it. I loved belonging to him, doing just what he asked of me. For the first time in my life, I let a man have complete control over me.

  He collapsed against me as he finished coming, then slid out of me, falling down on the back seat. I turned and sat on my ass next to him. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me in close to him.

  “I think we should argue more often,” he said.

  “I think not,” I told him.

  We sat there for the longest time, exhausted in each other’s arms. The sun had begun to sink in the sky when he opened his mouth to speak again.

  ***

  “All right, Meg. Start from the beginning. What happened the night you left? The night your mom died.”

  I nodded. I knew this would have to come out eventually, and I was ready. Ready to pour out my heart and soul to him, and hope he’d still want me.

  “I didn’t want to leave, Gabe. I was so in love with you, even then,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand, as new tears had started to leak out. “But I killed my mother. And my uncle thought it was best if I left everything behind, start fresh after what I did.”

  “You killed your mother?”

  I nodded. “I was so difficult. I was doing really bad things and I wasn’t there when she overdosed. I was with you and I’d left her pills out so she could get them because I wanted to be with you. I never thought she’d take them all. Just her regular dosage.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Okay, hold on. Help me to understand this. You were a kid, what, sixteen? Seventeen? Your only job as a kid is to be a kid. Not take care of your parents.”

  “But —”

  “No buts. Lots of parents have difficult kids. They don’t kill themselves because of it. What she did has nothing to do with you. You understand? Look at me.” I was looking down at my hands, folded in my lap, but he took my chin and lifted it so I had no choice but to stare into his eyes. “You do understand that?”

  I gnawed on my lower lip. Then I nodded. “I do. But —”

  “But nothing. You are not responsible for your mother’s death.” He looked out the window. The office building we’d parked in front of was vacant, an AVAILABLE sign taking up much of the front windows. Trees and overgrown weeds were everywhere, swallowing up an old sign that once advertised a place called VERSIA INDUSTRIAL SOLUTIONS and an old picnic table with peeling paint. “And Heller?”

  I swallowed and looked out the window as I told him the rest of the story. “I’d never talked to Heller before my mother’s funeral. He showed up as my next of kin. He took me to his big house. He barely ever spoke to me while I finished up high school, or when I was home from college. I was pretty much raised by the housekeeper.”

  Gabe listened to me, the concern in his eyes urging me to spill more. I took a deep breath and let it out. “I tried to get a job after graduation, so I could get away from him and finally live life on my own. But I’d majored in art history and couldn’t get a job. And he kept hounding me and hounding me to do something. Years went by like that, all the while, I felt more and more trapped. On the surface I lived a privileged life, but I was his prisoner and I hated it. I finally broke and told him I would help him. At the time, all I knew was that he’d been working for the company he’d founded for a couple of years, and he wanted a way to take it over completely. I thought, if I could help him with this, I could finally get out on my own.”

  My eyes trailed toward him. He was watching me, silent, engrossed in my story.

  “I wanted it. So bad. More than anything. I thought I could do it. Even when I knew it was you, I still planned to go through with it. But somewhere along the line, I fell in love with you. And then I tried to get out from under his thumb, once things had gone too far. But he wouldn’t let me. You have to believe that I tried.”

  He took my face in his hands and kissed me, very gently, which was more like the old, sweet Gabe. “I believe you,” he said.

  Chapter 25

  Gabe

  In the evening, I took Meg back to my place. It was the safest place for her, and the only place she could go.

  After we’d had some dinner, she laid in my bed as I ran the water for a shower. In the shower stall, as the water rushed over my body, I ran a thousand past conversations with Heller through my mind. He was a salesman, through and through. It was definitely possible that he’d been playing the good partner, all the while seeking ways to bring me down. Puzzle pieces suddenly started to fit into place. The rumors coming from the investors that LuvMakr wouldn’t release on time. The way he’d suddenly clam up whenever I came into the room. The way he’d been so secretive about his private life and had never invited me to his home in Fort Lee.

  Had he been planning to fuck me over from the get-go?

  When I came out of the bathroom, I slung a towel around my waist and went out to find Meg, who was snoozing soundly in the middle of the bed in one of my t-shirts. She was sleeping so peacefully, I couldn’t think of disturbing her.

  I threw on my boxer briefs and went to my office to decide what to do.

  I scoured a thousand emails from my business partner. I used to take them at face value; now I found myself reading between the lines, and fuming. We’d gone into this business together, thinking we had the recipe for success. His business skills, my development skills. We were an unbeatable team. We were a united front, ready to revolutionize the dating market. Hell, up until a few hours ago, I’d still seen him as one of my best friends.

  When had that changed?

  As I leaned back in my office chair and scrubbed my tired face with my hand, I felt like an enormous sucker.

  And
then I thought of Meg.

  The woman who’d conspired with Heller was not the Meg I knew. That was a desperate person, trying to free herself from a web she’d gotten entangled in back when she was too young to know better. I could imagine Heller convincing Meg she’d killed her mother to keep her under his wing. Meg had always been dramatic, but I’d seen the fear in her eyes. She’d done what she’d done out of fear.

  And now wasn’t the time to hold a grudge against her.

  Besides, I believed her wholeheartedly when she said she loved me. And that alone made me the happiest man alive.

  I powered down my laptop and walked back to the bedroom. The meager light coming from the hallway illuminated Meg’s sleeping shape, her face, peaceful.

  The mother of my child.

  I heaved in a slow, trembling breath. Ever since my parents died, leaving me alone in the world, I’d dreamed of having my own family. The business-building had gotten in the way of that, but it had always been in the back of my head. I’d always known when I finally had a family, I’d protect them with everything I had inside.

  And now I knew I’d never let anything happen to Meg, or this baby.

  They were my family now.

  I went over to the side of the bed. Sitting there, I stroked her cheek, lifting her hair off her face and just watched her.

  I’d already been madly in love with her, but now, that love had grown roots. Now, we were bound together.

  Meg’s eyes flickered open, and she seemed surprised to see me staring at her.

  “Hi,” she said sleepily.

  “Hi,” I said back.

  Her eyes darted about, suddenly growing anxious. “Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I whispered, sorry to have bothered her. “I was just thinking.”

  “About us?”

  “Yeah. And about E-Ventures. I’ve made a decision.”

  “You did? What decision?”

  I kissed her forehead. “But you have nothing to worry about now. Go to sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”