Clickbait

by Lisa Suzanne

  I want to feel all of him. I want him to feel all of me.

  As he presses forward and the bare tip of him enters into me, the silkiness of skin on skin warms my entire body. It’s a beautiful moment as he stares down into my eyes. The two of us are connected in a new way, a gorgeous and perfect way, and my heart swells for that one moment.

  Then he rears back and drives into me. I close my eyes at the epic force, drowning in the pleasure he gives as he works my body knowingly.

  He’s more than a two-pump chump, but it’s too good and neither of us lasts very long. He falls apart first, trembling over the top of me as he comes hard into my body. The feel of his warmth spreading within me pushes me into my second orgasm of the night.

  My second of five, by the way.

  I don’t refer to him as a sex god for nothing, you know.

  CHAPTER 22

  “So where do we go from here?” Carter’s eyes are somehow lighter this morning, like a rich champagne. The way the morning light hits them lights them up, like I’m seeing him in a different way for the first time.

  In reality, I am seeing him in a different way. He’s more than just a guy I slept with a few times. He’s the man I love, and he loves me back.

  It’s funny how people always say you’ll find love when you’re not looking for it. I always thought that was just a dumb cliché, but it’s actually exactly what happened to me. I wasn’t looking to fall in love. I’d been burned by Liam. I didn’t like Carter when I met him, yet here we lie in my bed, the morning after a night filled with hot sex where we literally didn’t have a single thing separating us, the two of us in love.

  I want to write about it. That’s my standard response—to go post about my experiences on the blog—but part of me wants to hold this thing between us as sacred. It is sacred. It’s precious to me, and I’m afraid if I go run to write about it, it’ll somehow hurt us. My blog hurt us once before, and I know this time around I need to tread more carefully; I’m just not sure what that looks like. Writing about my personal life is all I’ve known my entire adult life.

  Carter’s still staring at me, waiting for me to answer. I finally shrug, and his eyes are immediately drawn to my tits. I pull the sheet up over them and he sticks out his bottom lip as he gives me a sad face.

  “How are we supposed to have a serious conversation with you staring at my tits?”

  He chuckles. “Good point.”

  “I guess we could go to breakfast,” I say, finally answering his question.

  He furrows his eyebrows.

  “I’m responding to your earlier question about where we go from here.”

  “And your answer is ‘to breakfast’?”

  “Correct.”

  “You’re so obnoxious sometimes.”

  “Right back at you.”

  “I’m trying to have a real conversation with you.”

  “While you stare at my tits and your hand slides up my thigh.”

  “That’s not my hand.” He waggles his eyebrows, and I can’t help but laugh.

  “Okay, to answer your question for real, I think we just take it as it comes.”

  “I made you come last night.”

  “Like twelve times,” I say, my eyes getting all dreamy at the memory.

  He laughs again. “You ready for more?”

  “I’m ready for a shower and some food, and then maybe more after that.”

  He nods, conceding. “I need something to eat, too.”

  “So my breakfast answer wasn’t really that far out of left field then.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” He pauses for a beat as he studies me, and I can tell he’s thinking about something but is afraid to bring it up. “What are you going to write about last night?”

  I press my lips together. “I’m not sure.”

  “Need me to fuck you again so your head’s on straight?”

  I giggle and push his shoulder. “Not right now, thanks. I just mean I want to keep some of what happened between us…well, between us.”

  He nods. “I get that…but you’re always so honest.”

  “I know, and therein lies the problem.”

  He nods slowly. “What if we write it together?”

  I chew on that for a minute. “You promise there’s no ulterior motive here?”

  He averts his eyes for just a second before they land back on mine. “I’m sorry about that, Court. If I could take it back, I would.”

  “I know.” I nod. “And I promise this isn’t going to be a thing. I want this to be the last time we ever bring it up.”

  “I do, too, and just to clear the air one last time, you promise you don’t have any ulterior motives, either?”

  I nod and make a cross over my heart. “Promise.”

  He crosses his heart, too, and while we can’t actually start over and erase the motives we had for getting together in the first place, this is a new start for us.

  I take a quick shower and then Carter showers while I get ready. We walk to a local place that’s only open for breakfast and since it’s a Monday morning, there isn’t a wait—try to come here on the weekends and the line is out the door.

  “Don’t you have to work today?” I ask.

  He nods. “I have to work every day.”

  “Is your schedule that flexible?”

  “Not always, but it is for you.”

  I melt a little at that. It’s the first time he makes me feel like the center of his world, like I’m the most important part of his life, and I like how that feels. I like that he cherishes me. I’ve never been in a relationship like that before. Liam put his parents first, which really isn’t that big of a deal now that I look back on it. Family should come first, but he went about it all wrong. Harrison put his job first, but what we had was based so much more on sex than anything else. Carter puts me first—even ahead of his new position as the director of a major foundation.

  “Tell me more about what you do,” I say after we order.

  “I sort of oversee the entire company. I don’t dabble too much in the day-to-day operations because I have a team who does that. I prefer working in the field, so I spend the majority of my time visiting charities and seeing our contributions in action.”

  “Is that why you were with that shelter dog that day?”

  He nods. “One of my biggest responsibilities is to make sure what we’ve given is being used appropriately, but that shelter is both my favorite place to visit and the hardest place to go. I want to take every single one of those puppies home when I walk in, and my heart breaks for the ones who were abandoned.”

  “Take me there.”

  He looks momentarily surprised. “To the shelter?”

  I nod.

  “Okay.” He scrolls through something on his phone. “I’m scheduled to stop in Friday. Does that work?”

  I shake my head. “Today. After breakfast.”

  “After breakfast?” He scrolls through more things on his phone. “I can do that. I have a meeting this afternoon I can’t miss, but otherwise my morning is clear.”

  “What’s your meeting about?”

  “Once a month, the board of directors meets for a kind of state of the union, and this is the first one since I took over.”

  “Don’t you need to prep for it instead of sitting at breakfast with me?”

  He chuckles. “Probably, but breakfast with you is so much more interesting.”

  “You’re already ready for it, aren’t you?”

  He smirks. “Maybe a little bit.”

  The waitress drops off our cups of coffee and orange juice. I pour a shitload of cream and sugar in mine before I take a sip, and by the time I’ve prepared my cup, he’s already had half of his.

  “You drink your coffee black?”

  “It’s healthier that way.”

  “Says the guy who thinks pizza is a food group.”

  “I make my cuts where I can afford them.”

  “Pizza seems like an affordable cut.”r />
  “You liked it.”

  My eyes meet his, and he’s grinning. I can’t help when my own lips tip up into a small smile. “It was okay.”

  He glares at me playfully. “I’ll get you to like it yet.”

  “We’ll see.”

  * * *

  With our tummies full of French toast and bacon, we walk back toward The Port, where Carter’s car slept for the night. I’ve been in Harrison’s Tesla before, but this one is both newer and nicer.

  “So why does your family own an animal shelter in San Diego when they’re based out of New York?”

  “I actually figured you’d ask me why King Contributions is based out of San Diego before you asked about the shelter.”

  “Which came first?”

  “The shelter. I told you before that my mom is from here, and this is where my parents met. She’s always had a soft spot for animals, and growing up in my house was like growing up in a zoo. We always had a new pet. A family was moving and couldn’t take their dog? My mom would take him. We fostered dogs until they found forever homes, but sometimes my mom became so attached to them that we’d keep them. There was one span of time when we had twelve dogs.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “As a kid, I loved it. We lived on a farm in the far outer suburbs of New York, and there was always tons of room to run around and play with the animals. It wasn’t a working farm, just a place with a ton of acreage and enough space for dogs and horses.”

  “Sounds kind of magical.”

  “It was. It still is. I love going back on warm summer nights. It reminds me of being a kid, learning to ride horses or teaching one of the dogs a new trick.”

  “They still live there?”

  He nods. “I moved to the city for college and never moved back, but it’s one of my favorite places on Earth.”

  “So what about the shelter?”

  “My dad bought it to impress my mom.” He says it a little sheepishly, and I laugh.

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Like I told you, it was love at first sight for both of them. She told him she loved animals and wanted to help homeless dogs, so he bought her a shelter. She told him she had always wanted to live on a farm, so he bought her a farmhouse. She told him she wanted two kids, and my brother came along with me following a year later. He’d do anything for her.”

  Something tells me Carter is just like his father. He loves, and he loves hard. He’d do anything for the ones he loves the most, and my heart warms as I think about how maybe that could be me someday. Maybe it already is. We’re just on the brink of the beginning, but it was only two months from the day his parents met to when they were married. I’m certainly not ready for marriage right now, but I could see things moving quickly for us, too.

  After a twenty-minute drive, we pull into the parking lot of KC Animal and Dog Rescue.

  “KC for King Contributions?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “No. It’s actually for Karoline and Carlton, my parents.”

  We get out of the car and he takes my hand in his. This is sort of like his place of work. It strikes me as totally adorable that he grabs my hand, like he’s proud to be here with me.

  I’m proud to be here with him, too, and I’m elated that he wants to show off our new relationship status.

  When we walk in, I immediately recognize the woman from the day Carter and I went to the beach. It was the first day he’d told me anything remotely personal about himself, and it still wasn’t even really about him; it was mostly about his parents. I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress since then.

  “Good morning, Jeannette,” Carter says.

  She grins widely and brushes some of her gray hair off her forehead. “Mr. King! It’s great to see you again, and so soon!”

  “I’d come every day if I could, you know that.”

  She giggles and then eyes me. “And who do we have here?”

  “This is my girlfriend, Courtney. Courtney, this is Jeannette. She runs the shelter, and she’s amazing at what she does.”

  Oh my God.

  He just called me his girlfriend.

  I don’t have time to dwell, though, because Jeannette is adorably over the top.

  “Oh, Mr. King. Stop it!” She fans herself with exaggeration, as if his words alone are making her blush.

  “Please, it’s Carter,” he says good-naturedly, as if he’s told her that a million times. “What’s the latest?”

  “Eight and twelve.”

  He raises both of his eyebrows. “Not bad.”

  “What’s eight and twelve?” I ask.

  “Since I last stopped in, we took in eight new animals and twelve were adopted.”

  “That’s great,” I say. I’ve heard that most shelters take in more animals than they are able to send home with new families.

  Carter looks at Jeannette and lowers his voice. “How’s Fred?”

  Her smile widens. “He’s doing a lot better. Go back and see.”

  There are two hallways, one to the left and one to the right. Carter takes my hand and pulls me toward the right. It looks like this part of the shelter is where the staff treats the animals, or it might be where people can go into private rooms so they can play with the dogs. It almost looks like a veterinarian’s office with rooms on each side of the hallway. Some of the rooms have lights on and I can see people inside of them from the small window.

  “Who’s Fred?” I ask as we walk down the hall.

  “He’s an Australian shepherd who came in a couple weeks ago. He was in pretty bad shape.”

  “What happened?”

  “We don’t know. Our crew found him on the side of the road. He didn’t have any tags, but it looked like someone had beaten him before abandoning him. He’s been really scared around people, so we’ve been taking special care of him.”

  “God, how can people do that?” I can hear the passion in my own voice.

  He shrugs. “I don’t get it. It breaks my heart.”

  He leads me back farther, and then we stop at a door where Carter enters four digits, granting us access into a more open area where vets can spread out and work with animals. Cages line one wall, and I see a few animals there that appear to be recovering. Carter walks up to the top cage all the way on the right. “Hey, Freddie boy,” he coos softly as he opens the cage, and my heart melts both at his gentle mannerisms with the puppy and at the adorable dog inside the cage.

  “Fred, meet Courtney.”

  “Hey, Freddie boy,” I say softly as I bring my hand slowly up to his cage. Fred picks up his head but doesn’t otherwise move. He’s mostly black with a white nose, white paws, and white spots all over. He has just a little bit of brown by his eyes and in little patches around his back. He’s absolutely adorable. He leans his neck forward to sniff my hand, and then he licks my fingertips just once. Tears spring to my eyes.

  “I think he likes you,” Carter says.

  “I like him, too.” I can hear the emotion in my own voice.

  Carter reaches into the cage and tenderly picks Fred up before pulling him out. Fred squirms a little, but then he settles down. He’s just a puppy. I can’t tell how old he is, but it’s obvious he isn’t full grown yet. There’s a splint on one of his back legs, and some of his fur is just starting to grow back in where it was shaved for some kind of operation around his belly. It looks like the incision there is mostly healed.

  “When does he get his cast off?” I ask.

  “I’ll have to check with Dr. Prescott, but I think in a few days.”

  “Why’s he in the cage?”

  “So he doesn’t run around on his leg before it’s all healed.”

  I pet his head softly before leaning down to give him a kiss on his very soft ear.

  “Is he up for adoption?” I ask.

  Carter shakes his head. “Not yet. The vets haven’t released him because of the splint. The ones up for adoption are the healthy ones. If you go down the other hallway where we
came in, you can see the ones who are ready to find new homes.”

  “Will he be once he’s healed?”

  “Unless one of the staff scoops him up first.”

  “Can I hold him?” I ask.

  He hands him gently over to me, and Fred nuzzles my neck before licking my chin. “Is Dr. Prescott around?”

  He nods toward some people on the other side of the room.

  “Can I ask him something?”

  He shrugs. “Sure.” We walk over toward the people. They’re all surrounding another dog that looks like he’s in rough shape, too. Tears keep heating my eyes.

  “Mr. King,” one of the men greets Carter. He’s young, and he has warm, caring eyes and an air of gentility about him.

  “Dr. Prescott.” Carter nods. “My girlfriend has a question for you.”

  Dr. Prescott looks toward me.

  “If someone wanted to adopt Fred today, would that be possible?”

  His eyes meet Carter’s, and I see a brief nonverbal exchange before both of them turn toward me with merriment. “He’s on a strict diet right now. He will require special care and supervision, but I think if I know he’s going to a good home, I might be okay with letting him go.”

  “Yeah?” I ask.

  He gives Fred a quick onceover, checks his splint, and then smiles warmly at me. “Yes.”

  “Then I’m taking him home with me today.”

  Carter grins wildly at me while Dr. Prescott excuses himself to print off a list of care instructions. “Are you sure about this?”

  “More sure than I’ve ever been about anything.”

  He leans in and presses a kiss to my neck just below my ear. “Even me?”

  I giggle. “Especially you,” I tease, and then I lean down to give my new puppy a kiss on the head.

  COURTING SANDY EGGO

  posted by Courtney Sanders

  WHEN YOU KNOW, YOU JUST KNOW

  I have so much to tell you.

  I have a new man in my life. He’s warm and sweet, playful and full of energy. His name is Fred, and he has the cutest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. I fell in love the very second I first saw him. I knew the moment we met that he was destined to be mine forever.