Complicated

by Kristen Ashley

  I kept doing it as his arm around my chest left me and he pushed me to my belly in the bed with his hips, his cock planted inside. He braced his weight into his forearm beside me, his finger on his other hand still working at my clit, his mouth at my ear as he pounded me into the bed.

  Oh my God.

  How could I be coming and I was going to start coming again?

  “Give it to me again,” he growled.

  “Yes,” I gasped and pushed out, “Yes, baby.”

  “Dig your ass up, I want more, Greta,” he ordered roughly.

  I did and he might have gotten more, but I did too.

  Oh yeah, I was going to come again.

  “Hixon,” I whispered.

  “Fuck yeah, Greta,” he rumbled.

  My body started trembling, I whimpered, “Ohmigod,” and bucked under his weight, my head slamming back so far it hit Hix’s shoulder, and the second blistered through me, leaving me shuddering beneath him through the jolts as I kept taking his thrusts.

  His finger left my clit so he could wrap his arm around my belly and hold me steady to take him before he slammed in and again, and again, and again, pressing his forehead into the side of my neck and grunting through his orgasm, each sound he made slithering over the skin of my back and ass, crazy-delicious.

  His climax sounded awesome.

  But both of mine had felt better.

  I caught my breath and he caught his before he kissed my neck, slid a hand up my side, over my shoulder and up to tangle in my hair. He pulled it out of the way and nuzzled all of the back of my neck, flexing his hips into my ass, his still-hard cock inside me, and all this felt really freaking good, so I shivered under him.

  He did this silently and I took it silently for a long time before he slid out, gliding his lips down my spine as he did.

  They swept the small of my back to my ass before they disappeared and he murmured, “Be right back.”

  I felt him leave the bed but not leave me until he closed my legs and caught them at the knees, shifting them, and me, to the side, bending my legs up. I then watched as he leaned in, brushing his lips along the top of my hip before his eyes caught mine. He grinned a grin that wasn’t wickedly sexy, just sweet, before he pushed up and away. I then kept watching as he disappeared into his bathroom.

  I curled my knees up higher, and after some of the cloud of great sex coasted away, I took stock of a fact I’d taken stock of before I started my bed wrestling demise. This being that Hix’s master was at the front of the house (like mine) and Shaw’s bedroom was at the back of the basement, it was early, so as I suspected prior to foolishly instigating the bed wrestling championship of the millennium, we should be good in the sense there was no way Shaw could have heard anything.

  Hix came back, strolling casually in his earth-shatteringly awesome nakedness, with his fabulous chest that had a smattering of dark hair that was thicker between his pecs, thinner but far more than a sprinkle outward from that. It climbed up but disappeared just under his collarbone and narrowed entirely in a thin but not dense line down his midriff and stomach.

  He had boxed abs but they weren’t cut, just lightly defined.

  He also had thick, dark-furred thighs and great calves.

  All of that was amazing.

  But his cock was perfection. Perhaps slightly over average length, more than slightly over average in breadth, the formation was where it was at. It was absolutely flawless.

  And watching it come my way, still somewhat hard, attached to the rest of all that was Hix, I was getting turned on again.

  Yeesh.

  I forced my attention to his face, caught a look at his expression, and felt my eyes get squinty as he entered the bed, doing it claiming my space and me, forcing my knee then my thigh over his hip as he forced his knee between my legs and pulled the rest of me into his body.

  He rolled slightly into me, giving me some of his weight, and commenced doing verbally what his face had been doing inaudibly.

  Gloating.

  “I think I’ve decided my nickname should be ‘champ.’”

  “Don’t be an annoying winner,” I shot back.

  A grin curled his lips. “Don’t be a poor loser.” He looked to my mouth, up and over my hair then leaned slightly away to look down at my body before his eyes came back to mine. “Though, not sure how you could be, you comin’ that hard twice, doin’ it after begging me to fuck you.”

  “I didn’t beg,” I bit out.

  He pressed into me again and dipped his face to mine. “You totally begged.”

  “Did not.”

  “You so did.”

  Whatever.

  “And I didn’t come that hard,” I lied (again).

  He started chuckling and kept gloating, “You bucked so hard when I was fucking you into the bed, you nearly bucked me off.”

  I turned my eyes to the mattress, muttering, “Now you’re being a dick.”

  He shoved his face in my neck and murmured, “You like my dick.”

  Yeah, I did.

  Though I wasn’t giving him that.

  “Now you’re being an ass.”

  He nipped my ear.

  I didn’t quite fight back the shiver that caused, and I definitely didn’t fight back the irritation it caused when I felt him smile against the side of my neck before he challenged, “You wanna try to take my ass, we’ll have the bed wrestling match of the millennium part two, which, by the way, sweetheart, you’ll totally lose that too, which means I get to slide up your ass.”

  I shivered again.

  Hix chuckled again before he slid the tip of his tongue down my neck.

  I moved my hands to press against his chest, and I’ll admit (only to myself), I did it feebly and not only because I didn’t have the strength to put more oomph behind it, but because he smelled good just being Hix in the morning, but also being Hix after sex in the morning. Not to mention he felt good and he was all warm and strong and goddamned Hix.

  “I like this,” he whispered into my skin.

  “Yes. You’re making it very clear you like winning.”

  He pulled his face out of my neck to look at me and said, “Yeah, baby. I like that. I like the kind of trophy I got to claim winning. But I also like that you’re a really shitty loser.”

  “I’m not a shitty loser,” I retorted.

  “You’re totally pouting.”

  I felt my mouth form into a (deeper) pout. “I’m not pouting.”

  “Totally are.”

  “Hix—”

  He cut me off by going in for a hard press of his lips against mine and then he pulled back.

  And after that, with no warning, he changed my entire world.

  “You’re gorgeous. You’re funny. You’re loving and kind and hardworking. You like to take care of me and I like that you do. You listen. You give honestly. You make great breakfasts. You’re fantastic with my kids. We’re combustible in bed. I love making love to you. I love fucking you. But you’re a shit loser and that’s awesome because I was beginning to get a complex thinking I’d found the perfect woman and I’d never live up to that.”

  My insides had seized but he just gave me a big smile and kept talking.

  “Good to know you got at least one flaw.” His big smile got huge as he finished, “Two, seein’ as you suck at wrestling.”

  “You think I’m perfect?” I whispered.

  “Thought,” he corrected. “You suck at wrestling, remember?”

  I stared at him and the beautiful, teasing light in his pool-blue eyes shimmered away and became a tender, attentive light.

  “Greta? Sweetheart?” he called.

  “She can’t have you,” I blurted.

  The tender, attentive light flickered out as his brows drew together and a perplexed look took over.

  “What?”

  “She can’t have you,” I repeated. It was stronger this time and included me scratching my nails through the hair at his pecs like I could latch on to him th
rough the sinews in his flesh.

  He leaned into me and I bore more of his weight as he brought his face closer to mine.

  I knew he got me when he said, “Baby, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Okay,” I stated curtly, fighting trembling for another reason as emotion started to take control of me. “But if she tries, if she makes a play, I’ll fight her and I’ll keep fighting and I won’t let her win.” When I noticed the intensity of his stare, I tried to take the intensity that was just plain me down about a dozen notches. “Like I just let you do.”

  He brought his face even closer before he declared, “You didn’t let me win.”

  I opened my mouth.

  “Shut it, Greta.”

  I shut my mouth and then it was me staring at him.

  Because he was looking at me like no one had ever looked at me.

  “You’re not gonna have to fight anything,” he proclaimed.

  “If she—”

  “Greta, sweetheart, quiet.”

  I went quiet.

  Hix didn’t.

  “It’s you. It was you from the first time you sat your ass across from me at that table at the Dew and you know it. I knew it. It freaked me and I bailed, that’s how strong your pull was. All the shit I jacked up between us was because I couldn’t deal. I couldn’t adjust that fast to being given a shot at something so fucking beautiful when my life had turned to such shit. I couldn’t believe in it. I wouldn’t let myself believe. But in the end I didn’t have to do dick because you turned out to be just as beautiful as you are and I had no choice but to let you make me believe.”

  Holy hell.

  My bottom lip started quivering.

  Holy hell.

  “Ohmigod, you’re gonna make me start crying.”

  His gaze grew soft on me. “You can’t start crying, gum drop. You gotta get your ass up, showered and in my Bronc so we can go get your brother, some donuts, wake my boy and commence Junk Sunday.”

  Junk Sunday.

  With Andy and Shaw.

  And Hix.

  “I think I’m falling in love with you,” I whispered.

  That didn’t get me a soft look.

  His face went harsh as his lips bit out, “Jesus, fuck.”

  Oh no.

  Shit, no.

  “Okay, I . . . okay, I get it. Too soon. It’s way too—” I started to backtrack but was cut off when Hix totally leaned into me, giving me all his weight at the same time running a hand down the inside of my thigh that had been at his hip, pushing it open so his hips fell through when he got me on my back.

  “Shut up,” he growled while moving into me. “After you gave me that, I gotta fuck you again, do it quick, find a way to make you come again after I just got two hard ones outta you and do that in time that we don’t make your brother worry or delay Junk Sunday and make my boy ticked.”

  His face disappeared in my neck as his hand delved between my legs, I gasped, but I also moved my hands to catch his head on either side and pull it up.

  “Hixon—” I tried to start again but that was as far as I got.

  “Yes,” he clipped confusingly.

  And then, joyously, he kept speaking.

  “It started for me the second your eyes moved through that room and you looked right at me and didn’t stop lookin’ at me while you sang ‘At Last.’ You were singing those words to me but I was feelin’ those words about you, Greta. So yes. Fuck yes. Get that look off your face, baby, because it’s not too soon. It’s where we are. So it’s just right.”

  I stared up at him.

  He stared down at me.

  My eyes started to get wet.

  He saw it because he again bit out, “Jesus, fuck.”

  And in the worst timing in history, his cell on the nightstand rang.

  Both our eyes went to it and he repeated an even more terse, “Jesus, fuck,” before he looked again to me and said, “My job, I gotta—”

  “Get it, honey,” I whispered.

  He bent to touch his mouth swiftly to mine, but when he reached to the phone, he pulled me with him so we were diagonal on the bed with me still mostly under him when he caught sight of the screen.

  My body strung tight as I watched his face turn to stone.

  I forced my gaze to his phone and saw the back of it, his thumb moving on the front and he put it to his ear.

  “I swear to Christ, Hope, if this isn’t about one of the—”

  My body had strung tighter at the name he spoke only for it to threaten to snap when I caught the look that hit his face before he rolled off me, knifing up to sitting, but yanking me up with him and plastering me with his arm around me to his side.

  “How long?” he asked and there was barely time to take a breath before he went on, “Okay, I know, of course you don’t know.” He was now speaking in a calming tone, doing it taking his feet at the side of the bed and hauling me up with him. “You call your dad?” he inquired. “Okay, right. Get off with me, Hope, call him. Her girlfriends’ parents. Madam DuBois. Anyone you can think of she’d go to. I’m goin’ out to look for her.” A pause while he pulled me to his closet, my heart racing at listening to his words and what they might mean. “Yeah, now. Goin’ out now, Hope. You hear anything, you call me, okay?”

  We were in his walk-in closet. I flipped the light switch on and went right back to him, pressing into him, one arm around him, one hand at his chest.

  “Yeah. I’ll do the same,” he said. “We’ll find her.”

  “Oh God,” I mouthed, no sound coming out but it was like Hix felt it because he looked down at me.

  “Right. Yeah. Gotta go look so lettin’ you go. Okay?” He paused. “Okay. Later, Hope.”

  He listened for a split second then took his phone from his ear.

  “Hope was gonna surprise the girls with a shopping trip today, takin’ ’em to Scottsbluff. She went in to tell Mamie she had to get up and get ready and Mamie wasn’t in her bed. She woke Corinne. Mamie isn’t anywhere in the house. They looked everywhere, she’s nowhere. Gone.” He sucked in a deep breath through his nose and finished, “I gotta get on the road and find my girl.”

  “Oh God, Hix, of course, yes,” I replied, rushing to the back of the closet where there were some as-yet-unpacked suitcases and boxes filled with clothes, dropping down to my knees in front of one to unzip it and flip it open.

  That was as far as I got. I didn’t even get a look in to see if any of his jeans were there before he wrapped his fingers around my biceps and pulled me up and around to face him.

  “Get dressed, sweetheart. I need you to get dressed. I can find some clothes.”

  Of course, I was naked.

  I was so stupid.

  I needed to get dressed.

  I nodded and ran out to the bedroom where he’d dumped the bag I’d brought over with me yesterday.

  I had panties and bra on with my jeans up but undone when the doorbell rang.

  I stilled in buttoning my fly and looked to the bedroom door, but then my eyes flew to the closet as Hix tore out of it wearing jeans, a thermal in his fisted hand, his phone in the other.

  He sprinted out the door and I wasted only the time it took to bend and tag my top before I took off after him.

  I was pulling the top down at the same time hiking my jeans up because they were still undone and sliding down my hips when I raced down the stairs to see Hix pull open the front door.

  “Daddy,” I heard and I halted on a sway, nearly slipping off the stair four steps from the bottom but not caring if I went down, my relief at hearing Mamie’s voice was so intense.

  “Jesus, Mamie, Jesus, baby,” he rumbled and squatted.

  Coming right back up, he carried her in, holding her tight to him, leaving the door open behind him.

  I quickly did up my jeans and then hurried to the door to close it as he pushed his girl’s face into his neck, still holding his thermal so her face was hidden from me, and he swayed her in his arms, mutt
ering, “Jesus, God, baby. You scared the hell out of me.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.” Her voice came muffled against his skin, and then I heard a sob and her arms locked around him but she pushed her head back to look at her dad’s face before she wailed, “I can’t be there anymore! I wanna live here with you! I wanna live with you and Shaw. I wanna live with you, Daddy. You and Shaw and you . . . and . . . and . . . you!”

  After that, she shoved her own face in her father’s neck and her slender, not-so-little-but-still-little girl’s body bucked in his arms as she burst into loud, body-wracking sobs.

  I moved into Hix’s line of sight in an attempt to assess his state of mind only for him to catch my gaze and reach out with the hand he had still holding his phone.

  “Call Hope,” he mouthed.

  I moved immediately to take his phone and he wrapped his arm back around his girl, moving to the couch and swinging out her legs as he sat in it with her in his lap.

  She burrowed deeper, still bawling.

  I’d taken his phone but my heart was hammering in my chest at the idea of calling Hope.

  But she had to know, immediately, that her daughter was safe.

  I looked down at the phone and started to rush out of the room toward the kitchen.

  “Fourteen, nine, three,” he called, and I looked back over my shoulder at him, nodded and then hurried into the kitchen, touching Hixon’s code into the screen.

  I went to recent calls, saw Hope at the top and touched her name.

  I put it to my ear, it rang once, and she answered saying, “I called Dad. He’s coming into town. I’m making calls to her friends. Corinne’s helping me. I—”

  “Hope, I’m so sorry to interrupt you but you’ve got Greta and you need to know that Mamie’s here. She’s with her dad. She’s all right. I don’t know what’s happening but she rang the doorbell before Hix had the chance to go out to look for her, but she’s here. She’s fine. She’s safe. She’s with her dad.”

  “She’s there?” Hope asked for confirmation.