by Bonnie Dee
“Yes,” she said.
They planned to go to Barb’s wedding reception where Ryan had promised she wouldn’t have time to have a panic attack because she was going to be too busy dancing.
“Wedding today. Maybe Hawaii next month. Of course I’d feel better about it if you’d let me take you along.”
“You’ve done too much for me already.” His tone was tense as it always was when his lack of money came up.
“But I want you to go with me.” She tried to think of a way to convince him it wasn’t charity for him to accept a plane ticket.
“Maybe I can work overtime and scrape together the money. I’ll see what I can do.”
She dropped the subject, knowing his pride was at stake. Monica hugged him and rested her head on his hot chest. She loved listening to his heartbeat, proving he was alive and here in her life.
“Never mind. Forget Hawaii. Let’s just concentrate on getting through tonight.”
“What are we telling your relatives about how we met?” His voice rumbled against her ear.
“We met online, which is true. And you came to … fix my trellis.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
“You fixed my trellis,” she drawled suggestively, “then we started talking. We hit it off and you asked me out on a date. That’s all true.”
She remembered their first dinner and a movie date and how the evening had ended with a love-in that lasted almost twenty-four hours. They simply couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
“Then I moved into your house less than two weeks later. They’re going to think I’m a gold digger.”
Monica straightened and looked into his eyes. “First of all, I don’t have any gold to dig and second, if my relatives are going to think anything it’s that I’m a cradle robber. I mean, look at you.”
“Christ, Monica, I’m only six years younger. Quit harping on the age thing.”
“Are we fighting? ‘Cause this feels like a fight.”
“No. Not fighting, just expressing opinions strongly.” He pushed a stray curl from the side of her face and leaned to kiss her. “You know how much it bothers me that I’m mooching off you.”
“You’re not. You may not pay rent but you contribute to the household expenses and you fix things all the time. So right now I’m the primary wage-earner. It won’t always be like that. And even if it is, who cares?”
He stared over her shoulder, not meeting her eyes.
“We both have issues to deal with about the way we met, but I know we can move past them.”
At last he looked at her with those amazing, ice-blue eyes and nodded. “You’re right. We’ll be fine. Damn, older women are so wise.”
She slapped his chest. “Shut up, young pup, before I spank you.”
“Would you?” He kissed her so long and deep that Monica’s head was spinning by the time he pulled away and went to take care of his tools.
She watched Ryan packing up the tools for a moment then examined her newly restored trellis. She smiled, picturing him building Travis’s deck and marveling at how he’d done it for her. After he’d finished his clean up, Monica grabbed Ryan from behind, threw her arms around his waist and said, “Tell me again how you felt when you saw me with Travis.”
“I wanted to tear off his head and drop kick it down the street.” He unhooked her arms and pulled her around in front of him. “And at the same time I wanted to help him fuck you senseless. It was complicated.”
“Caveman.” She arched against him.
He lifted her up and she wrapped her legs around his hips as he carried her indoors. In the kitchen, he set her on the counter.
“Let me wash up first.” He quickly washed his hands and face, dried off then moved back between her legs. He swept his tongue between her parted. His mouth was hot and the sweet-sour tang of lemonade tasted like sunshine to Monica.
He pulled away. “Now your turn. Tell me again what it felt like when I ‘raped’ you.”
“Like you had all the power and control, but instead of panic I felt exhilaration and arousal.”
“Arousal, huh?” He picked her up from the counter with a growl and carried her to the bedroom. He tossed her on the bed and shimmied out of his jeans.
She loved watching him emerge from the denim, his hips and muscular legs and his cock, hard and ready for her.
She stripped off her bathing suit top and shorts and lay naked and quivering. She licked her lips and watched his muscles flow like water as he climbed onto the bed and over her. She loved his weight pinning her to the mattress. He growled in his throat like a wild animal. The primal sound raised gooseflesh on her arms. He pinned her arms on either side of her head and dove at her neck, kissing and tickling, while she twisted and giggled beneath him.
“Stop it. Stop!” She pounded his back with her fists and squirmed more than she needed to because she loved how his skin felt sliding over hers. Also she knew it aroused the hell out of him. The hard evidence pushed against her belly.
At last he ceased and looked into her eyes again.
“Now tell me what you thought when you first saw me,” she asked. “I love to hear that.”
“You know what I thought.”
“Tell me again.”
His eyes sparkled. “I thought, ‘Jackpot! This is going to be the easiest job I ever had. I can’t believe I’m going to get paid for this.’”
Monica smiled.
Ryan leaned down to kiss her once then pulled away, “But I found out it was one of the hardest jobs I’d ever had because I couldn’t control my emotions like I was supposed to.”
“Because you fell in love with me,” Monica whispered like a child reciting the end of a familiar story.
“Because I fell in love with you.”
Then they stopped talking.
Ryan made love to her, kissing her dizzy and then driving into her wetness. He moved inside her, slow and easy and Monica arched into his thrusts. She stroked her hands up his back and hooked them over his shoulders, holding on tight. Their mouths blended in a long, lingering kiss while their bodies moved in unison to unheard music, slowly rocking toward climax.
*
When Monica woke, late afternoon sunlight shone through the window bathing the room in an orange glow. They had fucked and drowsed the afternoon away and now it was time to get ready for the wedding.
She stretched until her back cracked then looked over at her boyfriend sleeping peacefully by her side. Ryan lay on his stomach with one arm draped over her body. She wanted to kiss his eyelids and feel the lashes flutter against her lips.
His hair was a tangled mop that begged for her fingers to comb through it. The naked expanse of his body was a landscape she would never tire of exploring. His skin was smooth, but she knew now where scars marred the perfection. He was no longer a flawless photograph in an online catalog, but a flesh and blood man who loved her.
Ryan was sweet, thoughtful, attentive and loving, but also hard-headed, sloppy, chronically late and so tone-deaf she had to ban singing in the shower. How devoid of color her life had been before she met him and grateful she was for the miracle that had allowed her to find him.
Ryan stirred and woke. “What time is it?” he asked through a yawn.
Monica replied, “Time to get ready to go out.”
* * * * *
About the author: Bonnie Dee began telling stories as a child. Whenever there was a sleepover, she was the designated ghost tale teller, guaranteed to frighten and thrill with macabre stories. She still has a story printed in second grade on yellow legal paper about a ghost, a witch and a talking cat. Writing childish stories later led to majoring in English at college. Like most English majors, she dreamed of writing a novel, but didn’t have the necessary focus and follow through at that time in her life. It was only in 2000 that she began writing again and became a multi-published erotic romance author. You may see her backlist of books at http://bonniedee.com. Join her Y
ahoo group for updates on new releases at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bonniedee/. Bonnie Dee is also on Facebook and Twitter.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
