by Nikki Winter
The brush of lips across her brow made her jerk slightly. She glanced up to find Michael standing over her. There wasn’t much distance between their gazes. He only topped her height by three inches or so. His build was slim but muscular, a swimmer’s body. It fit his profession as a photographer, often times getting him confused with the role of a model when glimpses of his angled face and full mouth were caught. Accompanying that was thick, dirty blond hair and bright blue eyes that she’d found beguiling the first time she’d met him a year ago.
“I’m sorry,” he told her softly. “Ashleigh is always welcome here.”
She gave him a look that she was sure communicated her confusion. “You mean…in my home? The one that I own?” Mackenzie placed her glass down, her brows now just about touching her hairline. “Thank you so much for clarifying that for me, Michael.”
He scratched the side of his face and backtracked quickly. “I’m simply saying that I’m behind you here. I’m not trying to stand in the way of Arista’s relationship with him. I’m purposely deciding not to get in the middle.”
“Purposely deciding…Why do you think I’d ever let that happen?” she demanded. “Why do you think he’d ever let that happen?”
“You’re taking what I said out of context.”
“Am I?” Mackenzie moved around him.
“Yes! Dammit, Mac,” he grasped her shoulders and brought her back against him. “Why are we fighting? I didn’t come over here to fight with you.”
She shrugged out of his hold. The arrogance was rankling her. “I’m tired, Michael. Can we not?” Retreating to the family room, she took to an armchair to send the clear signal that she didn’t want to be touched. “Just turn on the movie.”
“Am I allowed to stay tonight?” he asked as he shot an annoyed look at her choice of seating.
“You know the answer to that,” she told him, avoiding his stare.
“Right,” Michael drew out. “No sleepovers when the little one is home,” he mocked.
“Problem?” Mackenzie barked. “The rule’s the same as it’s always been. It doesn’t change just because you want it to.”
“Jesus Christ, Mac. We’re engaged. What’s so wrong with…you know what?” He stood abruptly. “No. I don’t want to do this tonight.”
“Where are you going?”
Flicking a glance over his shoulder, he told her, “Home. Where I don’t feel like an outsider.”
Mackenzie didn’t rise to the bait.
“Not even going to try and stop me?”
“Your mind seems to be made up, so what would be the point?”
His look was incredulous. Michael’s mouth opened and then closed. A growl left him before he stalked towards the door and slammed it on his way out.
A mild sense of maturity was the only thing that kept her from sticking her tongue out at it. Drawing her phone from her pocket, she glanced at the picture of Ashleigh and Arista again, fussing, “Your. Fault.”
Three
It was the hiss of air released through clenched teeth that made a smile dance about the corners of his mouth. The harsh gasp that followed caused him to hum in appeasement. Earth colored skin scented with cherry blossoms pimpled beneath his fingertips, and his hands clamped down on the rich flesh under his palms.
“Slower,” Ashleigh murmured against the shell of an ear studded with three small diamonds. It was excruciating, the dredging pulls of pleasure clasped around his cock but he didn’t want to miss a moment of the torment.
“Any slower and I won’t actually be moving,” came the annoyed reply.
He bit the inside of his cheek and fought a grin. His palm struck out and he caught her groan with his lips. “What did I ask for?” he questioned in an easy tone.
The delicate muscles of a throat he’d gently clamped down on with his teeth worked as she answered, “Slower.”
“So what is it that I want?”
The answer didn’t come quickly enough, so his hand struck out again.
“Slower,” she wheezed.
“And where should your eyes be?” Ashleigh demanded.
The fan of her lashes was almost artful as they fluttered upwards to reveal hazy, glittering eyes the shade of cinnamon. “On you.”
The breathless response made his scrotum contract and he fought down the desire to let her have her way. “Lips,” he commanded instead.
Her head lowered and he gave an unhurried brush of his mouth across her own, laughing darkly when she huffed. If he kissed her fully now, he’d lose what little restraint he had left. It hadn’t taken long to teach her how to use her mouth. Such an eager pupil, constantly vying for praise she’d earned with every innocent touch. Ashleigh shuddered when she pulled back a bit and the roll of her generous hips followed the flick of her tongue over the indentation of her bottom rim. He growled, feeling voyeuristic.
“Ash,” she suddenly panted as she leaned backwards on his thighs and cinched down on them, her short nails digging into his skin.
“Close?”
Mackenzie’s head bobbed and her breasts bounced when she decided to forgo his call for slower thrusts. He stared avidly at where they were joined, watching himself disappear between flashes of raspberry tinted flesh coating him in cream with every glide.
“Please.”
He cupped her tits and flicked his thumbs across the hardened tips of her nipples. “Ask me the way I like.”
She looked at him again then, bruising her lip with the fastened hold of her teeth. “Fuck me hard. Give me the barbarian.”
Chest tightening, he wrapped his arms about her waist and yanked her into him, fully intending to do just—
Ashleigh startled upwards at the blare of his alarm clock. Narrowed, bleary eyes focused on the small machine flashing and before he could stop himself, he snatched it up and off of his nightstand, hauling it across the room. His shoulder’s hit the sweat dampened sheets of his mattress again and he gulped in air that he’d lost somewhere in the midst of his dream.
Annoyed that it had been interrupted, he pounded on the mattress and muttered, “Fuck,” until his heart rate slowed. Third time this week that happened. Mackenzie had been conjured as soon as he’d closed his eyes. Over and over again, there she was, taunting him. The sound of her voice, that stare, her skin, all of it. He was being driven slowly insane and he needed it to end like yesterday.
Last night’s Face Time call with Arista hadn’t helped in the least bit. Not when he caught sight of her mother moving about in the background, thigh-high socks lovingly encasing mile long legs while a rival team’s jersey stopped just a few inches above the top rings. He’d lost focus of Arista’s words and ended up in a jumbled, confused talk about Disney princesses and animal crackers. Mackenzie was a distraction. An incredible five-foot-eleven distraction comprised of skin like molasses that hugged a dangerously curved frame.
Small and delicate could only be used to describe her ears, her nipples and the pulsing button between her legs that he’d tongued on many a nights until she’d filled his mouth with God’s promise of milk and honey. But he couldn’t be more appreciative of the bounty. Her sweetly angled face, lush mouth and captivating eyes had been his fucking downfall twelve years ago when he’d almost run her over in the halls of McKinley High. They had yet to release him. The smell of natural oils like argan and Shea butter shouldn’t have made him hard upon detection but they consistently reminded him of his times of fisting the shoulder length, ombre colored locs adorning her head while she mewled around his dick.
He eyed the sloping salute tenting his sheets and scratched his chest. Ten minutes to settle the problem wouldn’t interfere with his morning training but experience had taught him that the solo pleasure wouldn’t be enough. She was only ever enough. And God help him, he wanted her. So instead of even attempting it, he decided weight lifting would have to be used to stave off the obsession for a few more hours.
Ashleigh was in the gym before the sun came up, driven by habits tha
t he’d developed in his early teens. He didn’t have the benefit of a partner at the moment with his recent trade to Atlanta and he refused to even admit that he not only missed the camaraderie of the Blackbirds, but also his best friend, Noel. Although they’d been traded together, the ruddy haired bastard was living the high life in Jamaica now for a few weeks with his new wife, Alana, who’d chosen to maintain her career as a sports agent. She handled the majority of the traveling politics for her office. She’d also taken over Ashleigh’s management once she’d become established at the agency of Blackwell & Sultana. Ashleigh had yet to find something to complain about concerning her ethics.
He hadn’t been particularly surprised that both he and Noel had been made offers by other teams that piled higher with every passing game. Considering the lack of a no-trade clause in their contracts, it worked to their collective advantage. However, a part of him wished they had stayed put. He hadn’t found his footing with the Atlanta team as of yet the same way his friend had.
Ashleigh had always been the silent observer to Noel’s much more open and charming personality, watching the behavior of others closely before making his actual presence known. Of course he wasn’t hard to miss at over two hundred and forty pounds and seven inches over six feet, but that didn’t mean he had to answer to the wide-eyed stares. He’d learned to ignore most of the commentary on his size from the summer he’d turned fourteen and was suddenly six-foot-two. It hadn’t seemed that odd being that large men simply ran in the Thyne family pool of genetics. He’d found out exactly how odd it was on his first day at McKinley when he was mistaken for a teacher at least three different times.
His height, weight and width had only ever mattered in one place to him—the field. Football was, and would always be, an avid passion. His love for the game had been a balm for so many years that he couldn’t imagine himself without the pleasure of knowing what it was like to hear a crowd chant at the announcement of his name and number. He’d needed that encouragement, those chants. Because at home there had been no chants, there was only ever a hollow echo of insults that weren’t just leveled at him. No, they had been shot at his brother Hayden and their younger sister Braxton also.
After a while, he’d hoped that the rasping voice of his mother screaming at his never sober father would be drowned out by the accolades. He’d placed on his first helmet at the age of seven and twenty years later, he was still waiting for those accolades to deafen the sound of Dana calling Matthew a ‘worthless son of a bitch’ while his father returned the sentiment. He was still waiting for MVP trophies and endorsement deals to fill the void of his need for a drink; something he refused to indulge in anymore because he could get lost in bottles with a frightening quickness.
There was only one thing that had ever come close to filling that void, and it was gone because he’d spent entirely too many hours chasing after some baseless sense of accomplishment that truly didn’t amount to shit now.
“Just like your Daddy, boy. Don’t be fooled into thinking otherwise. I’m written all over you and you hate me for it, don’t you? Don’t you?!”
Having gone further into his reps than intended, Ashleigh released the dumbbells in his hands and dropped down onto the bench in his home gym, wrapping a damp towel around his neck. His muscles burned with a familiar sting that used to be able to distract him. It didn’t anymore. His thoughts ran in a dizzying circle and he knew there was only one way to cage them in. There was only one person with that ability.
***
“Whaaa…?”
Mackenzie slapped at her nightstand blindly, looking for the switch on her lamp before picking up her phone. Six a.m. and someone was ringing her Face Time? Oh no, not just someone but Ashleigh.
“Are you being held hostage?” she barked as she swiped and answered, his face coming into view. “Is someone pointing a berretta at your dick? Blink twice for yes and once for no.”
His laugh did nothing but irritate her. “My dick is not under duress at the moment, but my eyes are. I see the Jiffy Pop cap has returned from my ceremonial burning. What, did you bury it in the Pet Cemetery?”
Some impulse that she couldn’t explain made her reach upwards and snatch off the scarf she wore to protectively cover her locs on most nights. She got moody. “You’re calling me at six a.m., your dick isn’t being victimized and you’re insulting my head wear? Give me a reason to not call in the assassins.”
Gleaming white teeth flashed. “You’d miss me.”
“Bulllshiiit.”
Ashleigh’s grin turned into a smirk. “There’s the small matter of having to justify to my baby-doll why you had her handsome, wonderful father struck down like a foreign dignitary.”
“Semantics,” Mackenzie drawled. “Now explain yourself or get off my screen.”
Some of the teasing amusement disappeared from his face and she got the sense that she’d been right a few nights ago when she’d thought that something was wrong. She still couldn’t explain fully why she cared but she did.
“I shouldn’t have called you,” he told her softly.
“But you did.”
“But I did,” Ashleigh confirmed.
She waited a beat and offered, “Because we’re friends now.”
It had been a hard process—a heavy cross to bear—getting here. Returning to the teasing and the laughter and the fleeting bursts of joy that she experienced in talking to him. But they’d managed. Perhaps time really did make the heart grow fonder. Hard tension had ridden them throughout custody and support agreements; mostly because Mackenzie had refused to take more than what was needed. She didn’t want to be that woman—kept. Ashleigh, on the other hand, had disagreed, constantly insisting that she take more, that she ask for more. That led to more than one argument that had made them both weary after time. Tired of the tug-of-war that wasn’t called for, she’d finally agreed to his terms of support and simply tucked the extra away in a savings for Arista.
Visitation hadn’t been hard to coordinate. The best relationship her ex had to date was with their daughter and she wouldn’t deny him the chance to give to Arista what he’d never received from his own father. It just didn’t seem fair. Despite her personal feelings, she stood aside and let him love Arista as hard and as much as he wanted, because he needed that anchor and she knew it. The kinks in their own relationship came later, some parts ironed out and the others tiptoed around. Eventually they reached the mutual conclusion that the last thing they needed their child to see was their private problems placed on display in screaming matches that would tear the house down. And now here they were. Tucked away nicely in this neat little box that neither touched for fear of upsetting it.
He winced. “Yeah…friends.”
And yet, he didn’t seem to like that word.
“Sooo…”
“I’m selfish,” he told her. “Should’ve let you sleep.”
Mackenzie sat further up and frowned. “Hey,”—she waited for his gaze to refocus on the camera—“that kid down the hall, you know the one who made my undercarriage look like a mangled Nissan transmission on her escape from the unauthorized use of my womb? She’ll be up in another half an hour prodding me with a spear and commanding that I feed her. You’ve just given me an opportunity to set a well-organized trap.”
The amusement returned and then he quietly admitted, “I miss home, Mac.”
That was a surprising statement. “Waynesville?” Years ago when they’d left the sleepy, mountainside town during their mutual admissions into FSU and SCAD, Ashleigh had been chomping at the bit to escape, always chasing the next chance to wave goodbye to the place they’d been raised. Knowing what she did, having witnessed his vices firsthand, Mackenzie hadn’t discouraged his need to walk away from it all.
Ashleigh shook his head. “No. Not Waynesville. That was never home.” For a moment his stare was so potent that it almost felt like he was there. “You were home.”
A jumble of words rolled down her tongue and got
glued together, stuck. The automatic response had been to tell him that he should come back, but she remembered that he wasn’t the one who’d left. She was. For a greater list of reasons than she could examine right now. There had been so many things wrong with both of them. There had been so much pride and resistance between two people not old enough to understand the real mechanics of how relationships worked. They failed because of a lack of communication, because Ashleigh wouldn’t face that fact that he couldn’t please everyone, and because Mackenzie couldn’t express her need to feel like a priority as opposed to an afterthought. She’d taken the decision into her own hands and during his second season as a defensive end for the blackbirds, she’d left him; unsure of where she’d go and what she’d do afterwards.
At twenty-four with a three-year-old toddler and a B.F.A. in apparel development, Mackenzie hadn’t had very sure footing. The desire to do more than be taken care of by her sports hero ex and his million dollar contracts had been there. She’d used that desire, her degree, and her annoyance with corporations who made thousands a day by selling women like herself lingerie that wouldn’t have even been good enough to use as sling shots. The results were designs that were functional, comfortable and sexy for the well endowed and or curvy. The women who didn’t see themselves represented often enough in the media because the rest of the world felt that being a size 12, and up, wasn’t deserving of lacy underthings and intricately created silk pieces. In a way, the first bra she’d prototyped had been a second birth, one that gave life to a new Mackenzie. The ground was a bit more solid then and her steps hadn’t felt as shaky.
