Broken Promises

by S. K. Lessly

  Take now, for instance. She had no business having her arms around my neck, her legs wrapped around my waist, fitting against me as if she was made for me. And my got damn hands shouldn’t be cupping her sweet, supple ass, squeezing, massaging. However, they were and I had no plans on moving them. In fact, I squeezed harder, just because I could.

  I bit back a groan at the feel of her body against me. My dick swelled painfully, the bulge fighting against the zipper of my shorts.

  I wanted her and fuck if I was going to stop, especially now that I had her right where I wanted her, consequences be damned.

  I stepped forward and rested her juicy ass on the kitchen counter. Our eyes were almost leveled, which was to my advantage. My hands cupped her face and I glanced heavily in her eyes for a half of second before I brought her lips to mine. I didn’t have to push for entrance; she opened herself to me instantly and fuck me…her lips tasted like sweetness, and innocence mixed with lust and tequila.

  This woman will be the death of me. I fucking swear.

  Not wanting to stop, wanting to feel more, I deepened the kiss, my tongue ravishing her mouth, claiming what had been mine since the moment I met her. And she gave herself to me. She melted in my arms, underneath my lips. Heaven. That was what it felt like, what she tasted like. Heaven.

  Her legs tightened around me. I wanted to push into her softness, but the level was all wrong. I could remedy that. I could pick her up, carry her into her old bedroom, and place her on one of the air mattresses. I could then take my time and explore every part of her curvaceous body. But fuck, I couldn’t stop kissing her.

  Her palms pressed against the side of my face, taking over the kiss, and I allowed it only so I could shift my hands down her body. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to touch first, her breasts or travel up her thighs until I hit gold.

  I finally broke away from her lips and traveled mine along her jawline down to her neck. I nibbled, licked, and sucked sensitive skin all the while my hands slid down to her breasts. I teased her nipples through her shirt and bra, pinching and pulling.

  Lexie writhed against me, one hand in my hair, pulling, the other hand raking shaky fingers up and down my back. When she moaned and whispered my name, I lost all fucking control. I stepped back with her still in my arms, gripped her ass tight, and grinded her core against my hard as fuck dick.

  “Ethan!” she gasped and fuck, it sounded as if she was about to explode just from me dry humping her. I did that shit again and again and a-fucking-gain.

  Her fingers grew tighter in my hair. Her legs gripped my waist. Her breathing picked up, robbing me of mine. I met her eyes and saw burning need in them so strong I almost fumbled.

  Fuck it.

  I moved to the closest chair, sat down, and brought her center to my hardness. I buried my fingers in her hair, gripped her tight, and crashed her lips to mine. I kissed her as if I would die without her taste. She kissed me back, equally as hungry and deprived as I kissed her, and I loved it. The problem was, she wasn’t moving those hips of hers and I wanted to feel her come apart in my arms. I wanted to hear her say my name as she did it too.

  I smacked her ass, gripped her hips and moved her against me, angling just right so that I could tease her clit.

  She gasped and released my lips. I didn’t stop, didn’t wait for her to think about anything but pleasure. I pulled the front of her shirt down, releasing one beautiful breast.

  “Fuck, Lexie,” I growled low, deep. “You’re beautiful. Get yourself off, baby. Do it. I want to see.” I pushed my now angry dick against her heat and she moaned with pleasure. This time, she didn’t wait for me to grip her hips again. She started moving against me all on her own.

  “Yeah, baby. That’s it. Fuck, you’re hot.”

  I caught whiff of a fleeting thought, in the back of my lust-filled brain trying to tell me something, nagging me. I ignored it and everything else but the feel of Lexie in my arms.

  I latched my lips to her taut nipple and sucked hard. She cried out, whimpered and moved faster against me.

  “Ethan. Oh god, Ethan!” she chanted and chanted, and I knew she was close.

  I squeezed her ass, tilted her hips just right allowing me to brush up against her engorged clit better. Wetness seeped through her shorts. I smelled the desire raging inside her and fuck, I wanted nothing more than to slam into her hard and fast and feel her explode all over my dick.

  “Yeah, baby. Get there,” I coached softly, leaning back in my chair so I could see her get off.

  I was sure I would regret doing this, dry humping like a teenager. My dick ached to be inside her heat. But I wanted this for her. She needed this from me.

  She started moving faster, her hips undulating sensually against me. I pulled the front of her shirt down farther, releasing a set of tits I had only dreamed about, and played with her nipples.

  Her eyes went huge from the sensation I knew was coursing through her body. I pinched her peaks, squeezed the swell of her breasts. She was the perfect size, perky mounds that I wouldn’t mind sliding my dick between them until I came all over her chest. Marking her. Claiming her. Next time!

  I held her eyes, pushing her to move faster, harder. I whispered shit to her I’d never said to any woman, especially not while they were dry humping me. The shit was hot though, sexy as fuck, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to explode all over myself.

  “Fuck, Ethan!” she cooed, closed her eyes, and her soft, sexy lips formed a perfect O shape.

  “Yeah baby, just like that. Fuck, you’re so beautiful. I can’t wait to fuck you. Can’t wait to feel your sweet tight pussy squeezing the fuck out of me.” I gripped her by the back of her head and brought her forehead to mine. She kept moving and I joined in, adding more friction to push her over the edge.

  When she came, when she shuddered her release, cried out my name, I damn near exploded with her.

  “That’s right, baby. Fuck! This pussy is mine to claim, do you hear me? Mine to fuck, to claim, to taste. God, you’re so beautiful.” I whispered that last shit against her lips right before I claimed them.

  I kissed her slowly, softly, savoring her heavy breathing, her trembling body. When I pulled away from her and settled on her eyes, I was surprised to see hesitation there and fuck, was that regret? An uneasy feeling crept along my spine and that small voice that had been tugging at me finally became loud in my ear.

  This woman isn’t yours to fucking claim. She belongs to someone else.

  Fuck!

  That truth hit me like a ton of bricks. I tried not to let it show on my face but when her brows furrowed questioningly, I knew I failed.

  “Ethan? Is everything okay?” she asked softly, and I instantly felt like a dick.

  I ran my hand through my hair and tried not ruin the moment we just shared, but I knew that was a lost cause. I ruined it. To make shit even better, the got damn lights came back on.

  Fucking fuck!

  I cleared my throat and tried not to sound like an asshole. “Yeah,” I answered my voice low, detached. “Uh, why don’t you go uh…get cleaned up?”

  She watched me closely for a few minutes before she nodded, fixed her shirt and slowly stood.

  I watched her go, guilt and loathing creeping along my skin. I shouldn’t have let this get as far as it did. I fucking knew better. But I was thinking with my dick instead of my brain, so...

  I slouched down in the chair, leaned my head back, and closed my eyes. I ran both hands over my face and sighed. I was such a fucking asshole.

  My phone buzzed and I removed it from my pocket and checked the screen. It was a text from Billy, which was a surprise. I’d been MI thought about ignoring him but this message too, but something told me to check what the shithead had to say. I woke my screen, read the text, and groaned. Fuuuuck…

  Billy: Uhhhh, yeah that was umm…

  He didn’t have to say more. I raised my eyes to one of the hidden cameras I suddenly remembered we had installed in the
house and sighed audibly.

  I then sat up and replied.

  Me: If you don’t erase that shit from your brain and the system, I will fucking erase you.

  I brought my eyes back up at the camera and waited for his reply.

  It didn’t take long for my phone to beep. I knew what it would say but I checked it anyway.

  Billy: Yes, consider it erased. It never happened.

  I sighed and placed my phone on the table next to me.

  I was out of control.

  I shouldn’t have kissed her. I shouldn’t have let what happened between us happen. I needed to get my shit in order. All that hard work to keep this thing we had platonic went right out the window from one taste. I was getting soft. Weak. I felt it.

  Plus, she wasn’t mine.

  I wasn’t that fucker who did shit like this, seduce innocence. I didn’t do relationships. I couldn’t. It wasn’t in me. Not to mention, she was a fucking person of interest in an ongoing case. I knew better. I needed to end this before it went any further.

  With the plan set, I steeled myself to be the asshole I had become over the twelve years I had been away from Lexie. However, when she emerged from the bathroom, the look on her face told me I didn’t need to say a word.

  The damage had already been done.

  Great job, Wolf. Great fucking job!

  Idiot!

  ***

  Alexis

  Stupid, stupid, stupid…

  I watched him as he slouched in the chair and covered his face. He looked anguished, despair evident all over his tense body. I should have never jumped him, looked at him as if I wanted to have him for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a midnight snack.

  I slithered to the bathroom, closed and locked the door. I took in my reflection and shit, I looked like I had been thoroughly fucked or close to it. Tears started forming in my eyes and I closed them. I couldn’t stand to look at myself. I couldn’t believe I had just done that. What about Ethan… had he felt obligated to...?

  I shook my head. That wasn’t the case. The look in his eyes told me he wanted me just as much as I wanted him. We both struggled these past weeks with keeping our hands to ourselves. Hell, there were times I just wanted to jump in his arms, stick my tongue down his throat and claim him. I wanted him to do the same, to take me, use me, fuck me.

  But I knew he wouldn’t. As far as he knew, I was still engaged. It was messed up and I didn’t know why I hadn’t told him Lionel and I broke up. Maybe, in the back of my mind, I thought he didn’t want me. But that wasn’t the truth. There had been moments when I saw desire mirroring mine. No, the real reason why I hadn’t told him was fear.

  I was afraid he wouldn’t feel the same way I did. Sure, he wanted me. I couldn’t deny that. He wanted me and, to be honest, I wanted him to want me. But I also wanted more. I wanted all of him and I wasn’t sure if that was a possibility. In fact, I knew it wasn’t a possibility.

  Ethan was different. He had changed over the years. There was a hardness to him; a shell he kept firmly around his heart. During the time we spent together, he never got personal with me. Our conversations were always about me, how I was dealing with the loss of my mom, what I had planned for my future, jobs etc.

  We never talked about him. He never opened up to me. However, despite that, I still wanted him. I thought that maybe I could find a way to break down his defenses and get to the heart of him. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

  Oh who was I kidding? There was no way he would let me get close to him. The evidence of that was the look in his eyes before I escaped into the bathroom. What he just did to me was just probably a courtesy orgasm, which made me feel even more like shit.

  That evil thing called doubt began creeping throughout my brain, sowing seeds of embarrassment, fear, self-loathing. I thought entered my brain. It was possible that he didn’t want me. Considering we had been going hot and heavy, I would have thought he’d have torn my clothes off by now. What I didn’t expect was the look of remorse in his eyes, as well as regret and, most of all, pity. Then the anguished look he’d had when he thought I wasn’t looking. Yeah, that really hit home.

  I absently washed up, using one of the washcloths I had brought with me. I splashed cold water on my face and allowed the resolve to settle in my heart. Once I had my emotions under control, I swallowed my pride and opened the bathroom door.

  I half expected Ethan to be gone but he was still here, the look of pity swimming in his eyes.

  I sighed and tried to fight back the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes.

  I headed for the windows and started closing them, all the while keeping my eyes on everything else but him.

  The silence in the room was gutting me. I could feel his eyes on me, and it was making things worse. My tears were on the brink of breaking. I was on the brink of breaking. I couldn’t do that. Not in front of him. Not anymore. Not ever.

  I chuckled awkwardly in an effort to break the weirdness in the room. “Looks like the monsoon is over.” I turned around and headed for the table. I started cleaning up the mess we made, closing the pizza box up, cleaning up the game we were playing.

  “Lexie,” I heard him say softly, but I refused to look at him.

  “Listen,” I began, my eyes not quite on him. I couldn’t. “I know you said you’d stay but—”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said sharply, his voice low but it still made me my insides melt for him. “Are you not going to look at me?”

  Damn it…

  I met his eyes briefly before I shifted them away. I grabbed the pizza box and made my way to the fridge.

  “Seriously, Ethan,” I called over my shoulder. “You don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine here alone. Besides, those shots of tequila we did went straight to my head. I’m just going to crash.”

  Silence covered the room. Then, he was there. Standing behind me. So close. I felt him, felt his soul so close to mine. I closed my eyes and desperately tried to breathe.

  Ethan closed the fridge and turned me around to face him. I kept my head down, not wanting to look at him, but he wasn’t having any of it. He touched a finger underneath my chin and tilted my head up forcing our eyes met.

  “Lexie, look at me,” he demanded, his voice deep, low, and doing all kinds of wrong things to my insides.

  I obeyed and opened them and damn… what I saw in his eyes wasn’t pity. Shit, I didn’t know what it was I saw, but pity was nowhere to be found.

  Warm green eyes studied me intently. I knew he saw the tears pooling in mine. I couldn’t hide them even if I wanted to. He didn’t say a word. His fingers lightly caressed my cheek, causing goosebumps to float over my skin like water over rocks of a stream.

  He brought both hands to my face and I swear the distance between us was fading… fading. I closed my eyes, anticipating the soft touch of his lips when his freaking phone started buzzing.

  He cursed and was gone; the heat of him, his scent, his touch, gone. I felt empty in that moment, lost, alone. I heard him snatch up the phone and bark, “What!” at the caller.

  Heavy footsteps passed me, heading for the front of the house. I opened my eyes and watched him disappear. I then finished cleaning up and made my way to the bedroom. Things were so messed up. I had no clue what I was doing.

  I slowly crawled onto the mattress, grabbed the sheet I had, and buried myself underneath. It was only then that I allowed the tears to fall. I cried as silently as I could. I let the embarrassment seep through, the loneliness, and despair. Tomorrow, I would get my shit together, say goodbye to Ethan, and start my new life. Until then, I would cry my eyes out.

  Ethan came into the room maybe twenty minutes later. I thought he would tell me bye, but instead, I heard clothes rustling then the weight of him falling on his mattress. Soon, he was breathing evenly.

  In the morning, I’d talk to him. We’d say our goodbyes and that would be that.

  When the morning came, he was gone.

  Chapter Twelve />
  Ethan

  I swung a quick right then a hard left, connecting to a hard jaw. The man stumbled back before he lost his footing and went down. I bounced a little on the balls of my feet waiting…watching… thinking. When my opponent took his time to rise, I stopped moving, gripped my chin, and shifted my jaw from side to side.

  The right hook I barely pulled back from didn’t have a lot of power behind it, but still. I shouldn’t have allowed that to happen. There was only one reason for my lack of focus. The loss of Mama Millie had gotten to me more than I thought. That was the only option I could come up with. It had nothing to do with missing Lexie. Not at fucking all.

  I was off my game, getting soft because I was still mourning. That was it. What I needed to do was get refocused. I needed to get back on track. In order for me to do that, I needed to kick someone’s ass or kill someone. We only had one open case right now and killing wasn’t an option just yet. Therefore, I was doing the next best thing, which was why I was bouncing on the balls of my feet in a boxing ring waiting for my opponent to get off his ass.

  Sparring always helped ground me and cause me to focus. Usually, I could get a good workout sparring. I’d work off all of my pent-up aggression until I was spent. If I needed more, I’d find Jessica and release a different way. I never went more than a day without releasing in some way. Recently, however, that hadn’t been the case. I hadn’t released any tension in got damn weeks. I couldn’t even jackoff; I was so pent up. I was restless. I needed this but as I watched the fucker struggle to his feet, I knew I wasn’t getting it in the ring today.

  I stopped moving and spit out my mouth guard.

  “Take a load off, Garth. I’m done.”

  Garth, who by the way was as large as a house, looked at me hesitantly. He was tough, and had a reputation around the base as the hardest to bring down in the ring. I had done it three times in less than two minutes. I was sure he wanted a reprieve before it got worse for him and believe me, the way I felt, it would have gotten worse.