by Falon Gold
He doled out the burgers onto each one. “Just wondering.”
Everything within clenched. “Wondering what?”
He balled the carry-out sack up, three-pointing it over my head into the trash bin at one end of the cabinets lining the back wall. I couldn’t say if he’d made the shot to save a starving orphan in Ethiopia. The play of moving muscles started me right back to gaping at his body and sent my heart, temperature, and the muted pulsating in my womanhood into overdrive. This was going to be a long night.
Catching me drooling over him, he sniggered softly. “When will your divorce be final?”
“Ah…” Who the hell was I divorcing? Think, Delilah. Oh, that chump Rafe. “It can take as long as he contests. Thirty days. Forever. Doesn’t matter. I’m done with him even if I can’t figure out how not to be a miserable bitch.”
Lord knew I was not unhappy at the moment. A first, and I wanted to keep it that way. Now, if I could just convince Bradley to have ulterior motives for being curious about when I’d be officially single again.
********
~Bradley~
We both grabbed for a plate, retiring to the front room. Walking was challenging with a staff at full mast in my pants. Tentatively holding the coffee low in my left paired with walking in front of Delilah hid the evidence of my arousal only so much. Fuck if she wasn’t giving off all kinds of signals that I was hard-pressed to disregard.
I wasn’t sure if she really knew what she wanted with her marriage on the rocks and the person she used to be shifting into who she wanted to be. There had been too many changes for her to have sound judgment about anything or anyone new when she was grappling with the old.
Then, there was my vow of being no woman’s regret to keep to myself. That didn’t stop my mind from imagining what lay beneath her thick, concealing robe and if her fragile build could handle what was cooking at the apex of my thighs. Likely not. The government had gotten to that too, had taken all sorts of liberties during the interfacing surgery for my hand.
Deciding it was best to sit my ass down and keep my enhancements to myself, I deviated to the middle of the sofa, leaving space for Delilah. She diverged on the armchair near the door, bending at the waist to set her food down on the coffee table.
“What the world are you doing all the way over there?” ran out my mouth before I could stop it. Clearly, she wanted the room between us… and I didn’t. So much for disregarding her signals and not being her regret.
Her head snapped up, turmoil raging on her dainty features. “Well, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me sitting that close to you or if you wanted to stretch out while talking.”
Lady, you have no idea what I want to stretch. The muscle trying to get free from my jeans and her walls around it to be exact.
“I don’t bite, Delilah, and this feels more like a therapy session with you over there.” I had been in many of those.
“Oh! Sorry. You’re the guest.” She jumped to her feet—absolutely didn’t want me uncomfortable in her home. Grabbing up her plate and cup, she mumbled something that sounded like, “I wished you would bite,” under her breath.
She didn’t know how much her wishes were fast becoming my command as she relocated beside me. Head bowed, she placed her cup down on the edge of the coffee table again. Huddling in one corner of the chair, she busied herself with kicking off her shoes, sitting Indian style, and resting her burger in her lap. Rearranging her robe around adorably pink toes and slim, sleek lines of her legs had my fingertips begging me to let them skim over whatever they could reach of her. I hated denying them.
When Delilah looked up, she found me watching her. Every move she made was graceful, had a purpose, elicited my complete attention, and held it prisoner. She froze under my scrutiny. “Did you want some music on to relax to?”
The lights were already low. Was she trying to set a romantic mood? In that case, she’d only have to scoot a little closer, enable our thighs to touch, breath mingle.
“No, it’s fine. You eat. I’ll talk.”
“You can eat first if you want.” Had she always been this obliging?
“I’m going to be rude with chewing and talking. I promise no see-food though.”
It took her a few seconds to catch my meaning, and then snigger around a big bite of her burger.
Taking her cue, I bit into my own burger and flopped back, getting comfortable because I was tense in some places, pent up in others. “To start, you need a real therapist to talk with and address the fact that…” I paused, glancing sideways to see if she was listening.
She was frozen, hanging on my every word. I didn’t acknowledge how much I liked that. Who knew where that would lead?
Chapter Nine
~Bradley~
“You’ve already changed, Delilah. I know your beginning as well, and I don’t know who treated people shittier; you or me. We do it for the control, to have power over their emotions. To have power over somebody’s emotions. If your parents were like my father, they told you what to feel, held the power in a vise-grip, wasn’t giving it up even if it saved their children from becoming monsters.”
She nodded, working hard to swallow. “Our parents would not win any trophies.”
“Not even for participation,” I concurred cynically.
Sitting up to pick up my coffee from the table capsized her. She rocked toward me and the edge of the chair. On impulse, my hand flew to her bended knee, bracing her from leaning further over and meeting the floor. She sucked up air loudly. I snatched my hand back, apologizing.
“It’s okay, Bradley. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She had this way of speaking and looking at me genuinely.
The swirling blue fire in her eyes crumpled the thin mental wall keeping me from pursuing her. I held off kicking the symbolic fallen bricks out my way and crossing the line as long as I could by detailing how my change started with realizing that living in Laramie was going nowhere. Deep down, I always wanted more than this town could give, more than my father wanted me to have.
“The last fight I had with my father was the last straw. He was past hitting me but not berating me for the smallest infraction. I joined the military more to piss him off than get away from him, but I had to get out of his reach before I killed him. Finding what I was looking for without knowing exactly what that was in the Marines was shocking to say the least. Putting soldiers under my leadership brought out my real talents; leading and protecting. I had a purpose. All the things my father suppressed.”
“He wanted me as angry as him, as toxic, weak emotionally and mentally. And it worked when I lived here. Suddenly, I had a clean slate, forced to form real relationships with people who didn’t know the old me. Relationships that weren’t forged in anger or ruined by mine yet. The soldiers in my squad became my family. I learned everything didn’t center around cruelty, but I hadn’t learned all my lessons yet.”
She stopped me here and there, wanting me to go into further details on particular parts.
“Losing most of my men, my forearm, and almost my life to a dirty bomb put everything into prospective. Family was what mattered; whether blood or adopted. I had been lonely as hell all my life. My men gave me the ability to form healthy bonds. But then, they were gone or fighting for their own lives after the bombing. And I was lonely and angry again. That time, at this.” I held up my left hand. “How many hits was I supposed to take?”
The room faded as I reflected on waking up in the explosion’s aftermath, ringing in my ears, but it was more like the past was reflecting into me. “The second time I woke up after the bombing, the first person I thought of was my mother. She’s gone now, passed a year ago in Georgia, the only family I had left that I knew of until I learned of Aiden.”
Delilah’s left hand landing softly down on my shoulder dragged me back to the present. She had removed her plate to the table and unfolded one of her legs to angle her body near me and whisper, “I’m sorry about your mother. I’m not in love with
my family, but knowing they’re out there gives me a little comfort… not much though,” she added wryly.
Shuffling in my seat to face her, the yearning to touch her back reared its head. For once, it didn’t occur to think about what hand to take her empty one in mine with. I simply went with the feeling, reaching out to her. She was too close for my eyes to not coast over her face, to not acknowledge the succulence of her lips. To not want them on mine.
It shouldn’t feel this good to be this near her, to feel something in the organic tissue of the cybernetic that didn’t react to touch. It did to hers, awing the hell out of me. She awed me. Whatever else I had to say needed to be said now before I fucked up with kissing her. And I was going to. It seemed too much a natural progression with her to not do it.
“I won’t tell you to keep certain people around or let them go if they’re poison. That’s your choice, but if you can make things good with them, do it if only to find some closure with what they’ve done to you. They sleep at night just fine, but if you don’t, say what needs to be said to them so you will. If your think your past won’t affect the you you’re trying to be, you’re wrong. It will. Whether in a good or bad way’s up to you, which I think you know by now.”
She nodded, seeming entranced with I, a nobody to the people in this town, had to say. That wasn’t all she focused on with laser-like precision. Her eyes had drifted to my mouth and were gleaming with longing for the forbidden. I was the forbidden. Duchess’ friendship really meant a lot to Delilah, but I’d gamble my life on Duchess being just fine with Delilah and me being more than friends.
“Delilah, before I do something you’re going to regret tomorrow but I won’t, I should say that locating my mother was one of the best things to happen to me. I was so angry with her for leaving me, but her side of things made me understand more about why my past was hell. A bad man had more control over me and her more than she or I did. By choice, I made peace with that after talking to her. It’s not like you can change history or other people, but you get the choice of how you live with it and their actions toward you.
“I chose to make peace with the things that happened here too. That’s why it was so easy to come back. Who knew my past would led me to what I wanted the most in this world, needed the most? Aiden. I needed someone to love to be my best self, but I had to learn to love me first and I had to confront my past. And the last lesson I learned, which is probably not the last, is that life comes full circle. What it takes away, it also gives back if we let it. There’s always going to be something bad happening, bad people trying to keep you from what’s good for you. My father would’ve done that if I let his memory, his actions control me.
“You can’t let others’ actions or them determine your worth, make you afraid to live, love, be happy while you can, go where you want, go after what you want, and tell those that mean you no good to fuck off because the happy moments are when you are the most alive. The unhappy ones are a test of your strength. What does not kill you makes you stronger if you let it. Most importantly, shit happens. Get over it and live. Life is too short to be miserable when you can be happy.”
Done talking, it was time for action. “Delilah.”
“Yeah,” she breathed out, minty air fanning my face.
“I’m going to kiss you now or regret not doing it.”
“Finally,” she hissed. The passion saturating that single word knocked me for a loop, so I wasn’t stable when her mouth aligned with mine, sending my senses reeling.
Cupping her head with both hands, I held on as she rode me down to the couch where she straddled me. The heat from the vee of her thighs soaked my jeans in blistering warmth, drowning my erection. Damn if I didn’t get harder. It was agonizing. Acute joy spiraled through me at the same time. I felt as if here was where I was supposed to be. With her.
My hips surged up, grinding into her for relief and gliding through the folds of her treasure. Palming my chest, Delilah jerked, moaning against my lips. When hers parted to suck in air above mine, I slipped my tongue inside, savoring the essence of her.
She mewled like a kitten, tasted like decadent coffee and strawberries, a pulse-pounding mix. I wanted more, starving. As she sampled me back, a phantom hand slipped between our bodies stroking the length of my cock. Then, it was me jerking and moaning. In that moment, I craved to be skin to skin with her as much as I wanted to protect Aiden and her.
“Take it out,” I demanded hoarsely.
“Bossy,” her tone husky. She didn’t waste a second lifting up to unleash six inches of flexible flesh topped with three inches of rigid alloy. “So damn big.”
Helping her to tug my jeans down past my ass, my teeth took gentle nips at her neck, slowly working their way up to her ear. “We don’t have to fuck, I’m clean by the way, but I want your hand on me now or it’s going to drive me crazy.”
“We can’t have that,” she muttered almost too low to hear, “and we can’t fuck with Olivia here. I’m a screamer, but we can test how we fit. I’m protected and clean too.”
“Thank God.”
My face was buried in the crook of her neck. A good thing when hot, silky, completely human fingers clutched at the wide base of me, stroking from bottom to tip. One pump of her hand primed me for detonation. I cursed quietly. What the hell was I, a teenager?
“Your hand’s too damn soft,” I warned against her ear, thrusting into her fingers.
The friction was incredible, her touch everything. Pumping me again, she lowered her body down on my shaft, as drenched as an ocean. Sliding her wetness along my erection had my eyes rolling to the back of my head and quickly became not enough for us both.
“I need to feel you inside me, Bradley,” she whined a tad too loudly.
Gripping her under her arms, I propelled her downward, getting brow to brow. “Shhh, baby.”
Vibrating, she winded her hips. “I need you now.”
“Then, have me, sweetheart.” No way could I deny her anything. My every breath was hers for the asking.
Nothing could’ve prepared me for the wet, scalding folds of her tunnel enveloping my cock. Fully seated in my lap, she groaned. I wasn’t even on this plane anymore, found heaven on earth inside her. Imprisoning her hips with my hands to keep her still, I tossed my head back like a beast fighting for survival. Except, I was battling for control over my own balls. They tingled, ready to bust inside her. Blood jetted through my veins, nerve-endings raw, teeth gritted.
“Don’t move, Delilah. I will fuck you like an animal and come like a virgin if you do. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t, but okay.” Her walls clenched and released repetitively, milking me. She pressed down harder on the tip lodged in her and gasped, “God, I’m almost there.”
She wasn’t the only one. I blasphemed somebody’s mother, barely holding on to my sanity while encased in the inferno of her body. Sliding a finger between her smooth thighs, I located the nub at the top of her southbound lips. My thumb drew figure eights to bring her to climax faster. Shaking violently, she dropped her head, whisper-screaming my name in my chest as she fell over the edge, carrying me with her. Seizing her thighs in both hands for anchors to the earth, I sealed her body to mine as all hell broke loose within. Never had I come so damn hard my lungs refused to work. Air sawed in and out us both.
I panted, “I think you ruined me for all others, woman.”
She snorted. “Same here, man. Who sits down and comes like that?”
“Mommy!” Olivia called out from the hallway.
Every muscle within constricted as if that would keep me hid from Olivia better than the backside of the sofa would.
Delilah yelped then sat up like a jack in the box, eyes wide. “Baby, you need water? Go back to bed. I’ll bring it up after I use the bathroom.” And hustle me out the door.
“You okay, mommy? You sound funny.”
I imagined Olivia’s head cocked to the side in confusion. Beyond amused at that vision, I
laughed into my hand to keep my hilarity quiet. The back of the chair concealed Delilah smacking me lightly across the chest.
“I’m fine. You scared me.” Scared the bejesus out of us both. “I’ll be up in a sec, okay?”
“Okay.” Little feet scampered back the way they came.
Bursting into soft giggles and collapsing, Delilah turned her head sideways in my chest to look up. “That was close.”
I wound my arms around her, where she belonged. “We need a babysitter.”
She smirked. “Oh, we do, huh?”
“We’re in this together, right? Oh, was this a one-time thing? Or on the low thing? I need to know where we stand, hopefully not in the friend zone after this.”
She sat up, the mood serious as cancer all of a sudden. “Do you want it to be a one-time thing?”
I noticed she didn’t remark on the keeping us on the low. “No, I don’t want this to be a one-time thing, not on the low either. I like you. Never in all my years did I think I would.”
Her lips tilted up on the ends. “Same here. I thought you’d be a dick, a douche, a—”
Chuckling, I cut her off with, “I get it, all the things that start with ‘d’ and mean highly obnoxious.”
She laughed softly. “In other words, I like you too, but we should definitely keep this quiet for a few reasons.”
“Why?” I didn’t like being her secret for any reason or a one-night stand, which meant I wanted a real relationship, in deeper than I thought. That shook me.
Her lips slanted downward in a frown. She eased off my body, standing beside the couch and fixing her clothes. “I’m not officially separated for one. Rafe could say we’ve been sleeping together all along and use that for his gain.”
I sat up, adjusting my own clothes before standing up to close my jeans. “I can prove I haven’t been here in years.”
“It still looks bad, and I don’t want to lose Olivia or Duchess.”
Looked like I was in for a fight to be with her, and she was my biggest opponent. “I get that, but will it look any worse than what he’s done? Trust me, someone knew about his affairs even if you didn’t.”
