She moaned in response, a sound that drove me crazy. I allowed my hands to travel lower, soaping the soft curls between her legs before spreading her thighs open. I knelt down and washed them as well, gazing at how swollen and flushed her pussy was. I had to taste it, so I put my mouth over her from behind, swiping my tongue along her slit to gather her moisture on my tongue. She tasted sweet and sultry, addictive, and I found myself lapping at her eagerly as the water poured over us, dipping my tongue deep into her needy pussy. I sucked on her clit as she humped against my face, whimpering continuously as I devoured her. It seemed like I couldn’t stop once I started—I hadn’t intended to make her come this way but suddenly I needed to, needed to feel her coming all over my mouth.
“Lucas,” she panted, her legs shaking. “I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” I said to her, tasting her clit. “Come for me, baby girl.”
“God,” she whimpered, and did just that, flooding my tongue with her juices. I turned off the water then and pulled her out of the tub, trying not to be rough with her but feeling almost like an animal in how badly I needed to be inside of her. She looked at me, gazing into my eyes before I turned her around, still soaking wet, and bent her over the sink.
“I want you to watch yourself while I fuck you,” I said to her, barely paying attention to the words that were coming out of my mouth. “I want you to watch yourself melt for me.”
I saw her close her eyes in the mirror, shaking her head. I swatted her ass hard on one side. She jumped, moaning, and when I reached down to touch her pussy I found it dripping with how wet she was. I spanked her again until she opened her eyes, her gaze meeting mine in the mirror. I held it while I aimed my cock inside of her from behind, pushing in as deep as I could, filling her completely.
“Watch yourself,” I commanded. I didn’t know what was coming over me, why I felt the need to be so dominant over her. I wanted her to give in to what she wanted, to see how bad she wanted it as I started to fuck her from behind. I saw her watching herself in the mirror, her lips parted, eyes desperate as I started to ride her in and out. Her pussy was so tight around me, fit me so well that I closed my eyes and savored it for a moment, holding almost still inside of her. I ground against the back wall of her pussy, making her squirm backward against me to get even more.
“Did you miss my cock, baby?” I asked her. She met my eye, glaring at me as I started to speed my hips up against hers.
“No,” she said, and I pulled out of her, swatting her ass again with my hand.
“What was that?”
“I didn’t—I didn’t miss it.”
“That means you don’t want it now,” I said to her, reaching over and grabbing a towel to wrap it around me. I started to leave the bathroom, teasing her, and she grabbed my wrist.
“Please, Lucas,” she said, wiggling her ass in the air.
“Tell me you missed this,” I said. “Missed me fucking you this good.”
“I did,” she said, chewing on her lip.
I reached forward to touch her cheek, leaning in to kiss her, but she turned away and positioned herself against the sink once more. I went to her, took her hips in my hands and pulled her back, impaling her on my cock once again. I started to grind against her, my hands on her hips as I pulled her back into a rhythm. She was bucking against me, moaning, and when I saw her eyes were closed I stopped.
“Watch,” I said to her one more time when she gave me a questioning look.
“I hate you,” she said, even as I started to pound into her pussy. I couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t hold myself back.
“Fuck me, then,” I said, forcing myself to stop so she could do all the work, her hips moving backward desperately. I let her have control for a few moments, watching as her soaking pussy slid back and forth over my cock. I loved to see the way I stretched her out, filled her up completely.
I started to move again when it was impossible to stop myself, meeting her movements in a way that made her cry out. I fucked her hard against the sink, riding her, taking her as roughly as I wanted to. It was like I couldn’t help myself—I wanted to claim her, to take her, to make her mine.
“I’m going to come,” she whimpered. “Please don’t stop.”
“I won’t, baby,” I said. “Come for me again.”
She moaned and came again, shuddering against the sink, riding back against me as her orgasm hit her. I reached down to rub her clit, making her come even harder the second time, fucking her until she couldn’t take any more pleasure. I came then, filling her up, and when we were finished and had caught our breath I wrapped a towel around her body and started to dry her off.
She turned around and looked at me shyly.
“Whatever happens here while we’re snowed in,” she said in a soft voice. “It doesn’t count. When we leave, it’s over.”
“Ellie—” I said, feeling a certain sense of despair well up within me. That was the last thing I wanted, to be done with her. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Yes, it does,” she said firmly, tightening the towel around herself. I sighed, then reached for her, taking her waist in my hands. It would hurt to let her go, but I hoped I could convince her to stay when all was said and done.
“Does that mean I can touch you as much as I want while we’re stuck here?”
I saw her struggle not to smile. It made me ache to see her suppress it—I hadn’t seen her smile once since I’d been here, and I craved it so desperately I would have done anything to make it happen again.
“Maybe,” she said, leaving the bathroom and going into the bedroom. She dropped her towel after she finished drying off and crawled naked into my bed. I smiled at her, looking down at her gorgeous face, her wet hair curly on the pillow. I climbed in beside her, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her against my chest. I was half-surprised that she even let me, but felt myself relishing every bit of her skin against mine. It broke my heart to think it could be over at any time—the snow would melt and she would send me away.
I’d broken Ellie’s trust forever, and the thought made a knot form in the pit of my stomach as she cuddled against me.
“You know I love you, Ellie,” I said to her.
She lifted her face to look at me, her expression serious. “I never want you to say that to me again,” she said with a fierceness in her voice. “Ever. Do you understand?”
“I can’t help it,” I said to her. “I am so fucking in love with you it hurts.”
“Too bad,” she said, sitting up. She looked down at me. “You have to promise you won’t say it again, or I’m going back to my room.”
“Don’t,” I said. “I won’t say it again. I promise.”
She stared at me for a moment, then curled against me again. She fell asleep a few minutes later and I held her close, making sure she was resting before I slipped out of bed and grabbed my phone. I crept out of the room and downstairs, pulling it out to call Alice.
“Hey, Alice,” I said when she answered the phone.
“Still snowed in?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “For the time being. How’s Luna?”
“She’s good. She misses you. I’d let you talk to her, but she’s asleep.”
“Would you wake her up, please?” I asked. I suddenly felt desperate to hear my daughter’s voice. There was something inside me that had felt broken when Ellie had told me to keep my feelings quiet. “Just for a minute.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, Al,” I said. “Please.”
There was a pause as she went to wake her up, then I heard Luna’s sleepy voice on the phone.
“Daddy?” she asked, and I felt my heart tighten in a familiar way.
“Hi, baby. I want to let you sleep. I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”
“I love you, too, Daddy,” she said. “When are you coming home? Are you bringing Ellie?”
“I don’t know, baby,” I said to her. “I hope so.”
>
“Me too,” she said, and I heard her yawn on the other end of the line. “I love Ellie.”
“I do too,” I said to her, the words coming out choked. “Goodnight, Luna.”
“Goodnight,” she said, her voice fading out as if she was falling asleep on the phone. I smiled as Alice came back on the line.
“Thanks, Al,” I said.
“No problem. How’s it going up there?”
“It’s uh—going,” I said. I didn’t know how to explain to her what was currently happening between Ellie and me, this casual thing that she’d decided she wanted to do while we were snowed in together.
“Have you gotten laid?”
“Alice,” I chided, chuckling.
“I’m just asking. You need it.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll call you tomorrow and keep you updated on the snow situation. Don’t corrupt my daughter.”
“I’ll try not to,” she said. “Night.”
I hung up, feeling better after having talked to Luna. Sometimes hearing her voice was all I needed to soothe me, especially since the day she’d gone missing.
I went upstairs and climbed into bed, pulling Ellie against me. She wrapped her body around mine, putting her head on my chest, and I did my best to live in the moment, though I was already dreading the time I’d have to leave Ellie behind for good.
19
Ellie
I woke up in the morning with Lucas’s face between my legs, nuzzling my thighs as his fingers tickled my sides until I giggled awake. The moment I opened my eyes he started lapping hungrily at my pussy, eating me in a way that made my legs shake. I came within minutes and he crawled up my body, trying to kiss me before I turned my face away. I didn’t want to kiss him—it was too intimate, too much, and I didn’t think my heart would be able to take walking away from him if we truly kissed. I knew I’d fall in love all over again. Right now, I was holding it back, trying not to let myself feel that way.
He gave me a look when I avoided his kiss, a sad look that made my heart feel bruised and battered. I looked away from him, instead crawling down his body to wrap my hand around his cock. He looked down at me, tracing my lips with his finger as I met his eye, then softly kissed the head of his cock. This wasn’t something I’d done more than once or twice—I’d never wanted to. But right now I wanted to give Lucas the pleasure he’d given me, to have that control over him so he knew what it felt like to be desperate. I kissed the head of his cock again, then wrapped my lips around it and sucked on it tenderly, swirling my tongue in a circle around the smooth rim.
I lowered my head, taking him into my mouth. I wrapped my hand around the base where I couldn’t reach—he was much too big to take fully into my throat, but he seemed to be enjoying what I could do. His hips lifted slightly against my mouth while I sucked on him, tracing along the bottom of his cock with my tongue. The more he squirmed, the more I wanted to give him. I tightened my mouth around him and bobbed my head up and down as he put his hands in my hair, holding it up so he could watch my face. It was so erotic to feel his eyes on me, watching me as I gave him pleasure.
“Ellie,” he said, “I’m gonna fucking come.”
I sucked on him more tightly, feeling him throb in my mouth. At the last second, I pulled away, then crawled up his body and looked innocently into his eyes. He closed them, his jaw tense, but when he opened them he smiled at me.
“I guess it’s only fair,” he said.
I nuzzled his neck. “What are we going to do today?”
“What do you think?” he asked, rolling on top of me.
He slid inside me and fucked me slowly, long into the morning, and by the time we got out of bed again it was nearly lunchtime. After we ate, we went back to bed, drinking each other in, touching each other all over. I knew every moment we touched was going to make it harder to break apart in the end; I hadn’t even glanced outside all day, hadn’t checked to see if the snow had melted enough for him to leave. If he’d checked, he didn’t say anything, content to spend the day in bed with me. We fell asleep that night wrapped in each other’s arms again, and the next day I awoke to sunshine.
I got out of bed and looked out the window to see green sticking up through the thin layer of snow outside. Most of it had melted the day before, and now there was no way to say it was impossible for Lucas to leave. I turned around and saw him sitting up, staring out the window with a pained look on his face.
“Let me explain to you about Maria,” he said.
I shook my head. He got out of the bed and came to me, holding my arms with his hands. “Please listen to me. That’s all I’m asking. I’ll leave when I’m done.”
I stared at him, my heart pounding. I wasn’t sure I could hold out if he had a solid explanation for what had happened, but I had no idea how that was possible. I’d seen the pictures of them kissing, undeniable evidence that he’d at least tried to get back with her. But I found I couldn’t tell him no. I sat back down on the bed but when he sat next to me I scooted over a couple of inches.
“How could you possibly explain it, Lucas?”
“When I couldn’t find Luna, I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “Really. I lost my mind completely. I found her with Maria—she eventually called me, told me I needed to come to her if I wanted to see Luna.”
“So you went to her. And then you got back together.”
He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Yes. And no. When I got there, Luna was sleeping. Maria said—she said that if I left her, she would take Luna away. That she would run with her and I would never find them again. Or she said she would kill herself if I left. I didn’t know what to do. I thought I had no choice but to try.”
“You could have called the cops, gone through with the mediation,” I said. “You could have gone to the courts and filed for a divorce.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do, Ellie. Luna is my daughter. I would do anything for her. Even if it meant putting up with Maria for the rest of my life, if it meant Luna was safe and with me, I would have done it. I didn’t think I could get away from her.”
“You could have called me,” I said, standing up. His words weren’t doing anything to soothe me. In fact, they were making me angry. “You could have given me a heads-up. You acted like—like there was nothing between us. You just left me without a word.”
“I didn’t think it would be fair to Maria to keep in contact with you.”
“Fair to Maria?” I asked him, incredulous. I gave a sharp laugh. “Since when were you faithful to your wife?”
He gritted his teeth, his face flashing with anger. “That’s not fair, Ellie.”
“What’s not fair is the fact you vanished. You let me think you were hurt. And then I thought—Maria is so beautiful. I knew you would go back to her. I knew you couldn’t settle for someone like me.”
“Settle?” he asked. He seemed equally taken aback. “Is that what you think I would be doing if we were together?”
“Obviously that’s how you feel about it. If you had any regard for me, Lucas, you would have at least called. Period. You don’t give a shit about me,” I hissed. “It’s all sex. You used me. And I want you out of this house.”
He stood up, trying to take me into his arms, but I moved away from him. I crossed my arms, trying not to cry. I didn’t want to look weak, but firm and strong. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t joking. I was done with him, no matter what my heart was telling me to do.
“Is there anything I can do, Ellie?” he asked. “How can I convince you that I love—”
“Stop it,” I told him fiercely, cutting him off. Those were the last words I wanted to hear from him. Every time he said them, I got an ache in my gut when I had to hold them back in response. It was hard not to say the words but I knew that if I did, there was no going back. “Get out of here.”
He stared at me for a moment, then gathered his clothes, getting dressed in front of me. He went downst
airs and left without another word. I watched as he drove away, my heart aching, a knot in my stomach that was threatening to rise in my throat.
I tried to ignore the feeling and sat down to write, but every time I tried to think of my story, my mind got tangled up in Lucas again. Knowing I would never see him again, despite how angry I was with him, was an almost painful feeling. It hurt, too, to know I wouldn’t see Luna. I’d grown to love her during the time when everything was simple, the nights when Lucas and I would talk and laugh quietly while his daughter slept in the other room. Thinking about it made me deeply sad, but I couldn’t seem to shut my mind off, and I found myself wondering how long it was going to hurt and if I would ever get over the pain of losing Lucas.
20
Lucas
Two weeks after I last saw Ellie, I got a call from her publisher. Ellie had been signed to a major publishing company since her last book had skyrocketed to the bestseller list within weeks of release, and seeing her so successful made me happy, despite the fact I couldn’t be with her. She was talented, good at what she did, and worked hard—Ellie deserved the world even if she wouldn’t let me give it to her, and I was glad to know that she was doing well.
“Hello?” I asked when I answered the phone.
“Hi,” said a bright voice on the other end. “Is this Lucas Sanders?”
“Yes,” I said. “Who is this?”
“This is Cindy Meyers with Backdoor Publishing. How are you today, Mr. Sanders?”
“I’m well,” I said, wondering what this was all about. I hadn’t heard from Backdoor since the first cover that had been published on Ellie’s book, the one that had started my modeling career and caused me to grow more successful than I could have ever imagined.
“I was calling because we spoke to your agent yesterday about your contract. We want to sign you exclusively for the next six months, specifically to work on the covers for Ellie Waters.”
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