by A. J. Downey
“I pretty much adore you, too, Jeremy Poe.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep.” She lifted her chin and I brought a hand to my chest, the mood considerably lightened.
“Well, not that I’m fishing for compliments or anything but…” I trailed off to her peal of laughter and she turned back to the stove.
“You’re hot, you’re definitely generous, and you don’t treat me any differently than anyone else.”
“Oh, baby – I treat you way different,” I promised her, leaning back against the opposite counter as she resumed cooking.
“Well, okay, I have to give you that one. I don’t need you assuming something crazy like I think you’re some kind of a man whore.”
I shook my head.
“That was Golden before Lys came along.”
She laughed and said, “Looking back, I think I could kind of believe that about him.”
I chuckled and tried to ignore the obvious semi that was working its way into a full-on hard-on.
We bantered, the mood significantly lighter and my fears of fucking all this up warring with the internal self-sabotage I was pretty infamous for when it came to relationships with women, dissipated.
“I feel like we are taking this all extremely backwards,” she said some time later as we munched on her breakfast scramble of leftover chicken and veggies.
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, we meet – I move in, then we become lovers, now I feel like we’re becoming good friends – see, backwards.”
I laughed slightly and nodded. “I think that’s fair,” I said.
“You aren’t the only one worried about screwing things up, you know. And I’m not just worried about losing the roof you’ve provided over my head.” She got quiet for a moment and said, “I think it would kill a part of me if I hurt you.”
I didn’t say it, but I wanted to… I just knew it would be overwhelming if I did. Still, I thought clearly to myself, the only thing you could do that would hurt me right now, would be to walk out of my life.
“Say something,” she said, laughing nervously as I stared into my eggs. I looked up at her and smiled.
“Not going anywhere,” I vowed and she smiled back.
I couldn’t tell if it was really annoying we were so skittish of each other, or if it was adorable. Myself? I was caught somewhere between annoyed at myself and adoring her. Of course, I couldn’t help but adore her. She deserved to be adored.
Fuck, I was smitten, and I needed to get my shit together on it. Fast. Before I wrecked everything.
I kissed her goodbye and there was nothing June Cleaver about it unless June sidelined as a pinup chick.
As soon as I was out the door and had the garage open, I called up Blaze and asked if he was up for a beer at the 10-13 as soon as I was off shift.
14
Saylor…
“Oh, fantastic!” he declared, relief in his voice when he stuck his head inside the apartment door and found me journal open at my side, guitar in my lap.
“What’s up?” I asked curiously.
“I was hoping to find you here. I was going out for a beer with my buddy Blaze and I wanted to let you know I’d be late getting home.”
“Ah, so the whole, don’t worry about dinner, domesticated-bliss thing?” I asked curiously and the smile he rewarded me with brought an answering one to my lips.
“Yeah, and I would have called or texted, but we’re doing this whole thing backwards and I don’t have your social media or anything so to be on the safe side…” He stepped inside and shut the door on the swirling cold, holding out a bag.
I took it, curious.
“No strings attached,” he said holding up his hands. “I got you a pay as you go phone. The screen’s not cracked, and you should be able to load all your apps. Sorry you have to enter all your contacts by hand, but I didn’t have you with me – I already programmed my number in there for you.”
I set my guitar aside and went to him, wrapping him in a hug and looking up at him.
“You bought me a new phone so I wouldn’t worry about you being late for dinner?” I asked.
“Well, yeah… I’m not trying to be a dick. I don’t want you thinking I’m ghosting on you. I feel bad about my issues and the shit that went down last night and I was hoping to talk it out with my best friend over a beer tonight. I don’t want to fuck any of this up, Saylor Grace.”
“You still want to go with me tomorrow? You won’t be too tired?”
“We can get coffee, I’ll get like six shots. I’ll be fine,” he said.
I smiled a bit wryly.
“We can skip it if you’d like,” I said and tried to keep my bitter disappointment at the thought hidden.
“Not on your life, babe,” he murmured and kissed me.
“Okay,” I whispered against his departing lips.
He reluctantly slipped from my grasp and said, “Don’t wait up.”
“I won’t,” I said. “But please, feel free to get handsy and molest me in my sleep.”
He chuckled and said, “Consent is so fucking sexy when you put it that way.”
“Glad you like it,” I teased gently, and he ducked back out into the snow.
A voice called from down below and Poe called back, “Yeah! I’m comin’, I’m comin’!”
I chuckled at the exchange, the smile lighting his face and his eyes as he shut the door lighting me up from the inside as well. I sighed and retook my seat on the bed to figure out the new phone and swap everything over and to set it up.
He didn’t have to, but it was a gift I was grateful for. Right down to the bottom of my heart.
I hummed in pleasure as another kiss fell on my bare hip. I writhed a bit against the sheets and smiled when I realized it wasn’t a dream, and that Poe was home and treating me to my heart’s desire… which is to say he was kissing me awake. Light butterfly kisses on every bit of exposed skin, starting from my ankle on up.
“Hey,” he whispered when he realized I was awake and I shifted, rolling onto my back, reaching for him.
He came to me, kneeling on the bed, bending over me, his skin hot and fragrant from the shower, his hair still damp where I delved my fingers through it, pulling his mouth to mine.
“Mm, you’re so warm,” he murmured against my mouth.
“So are you,” I whispered. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“You were out, I hope I didn’t scare you.”
“Mm-mm, no,” I murmured, my hips rising and falling unbidden, my arousal on autopilot. God, I wanted him.
“God, you’re driving me nuts with that,” he growled, his hand traveling down my flank and resting on my hip as I dry humped him like a teenage girl, pussy sliding against his cock which was hard and as hot as a brand.
“Good,” I muttered. “I want you.”
“Feeling is mutual, babe,” he said between gritted teeth and I smiled at the effect I had on him.
“Get a condom,” I ordered brazenly, and I didn’t have to tell him twice. I didn’t have to whine, and I didn’t have to beg.
He simply reached up past me and plucked the condom he had at the ready off the nightstand and I smiled even wider.
“I love a man who’s prepared,” I joked.
“That’s me,” he said, tearing open the package with his teeth. “A regular boy scout.”
“Next you’ll whisper sweet nothings in my ear like ‘Die Hard is a Christmas movie,’” I stated and I was only half joking on that one.
“Holy shit, it’s like you were specifically made for me.” He came back to me, cock sheathed in latex and I laughed, which turned into a hysterical fit of giggles when he attacked the side of my neck with his mouth, lips and teeth sorting out where I was most ticklish at and exploiting it.
He slid into my pussy while I was still laughing, and my laughter went from high and light to something deep and sultry relating to a moan. I breathed in, the combination of clean man, warmth, and our mutu
al arousal enough to completely flip my switch leaving me sinking into the softness of his bed and putting me at his mercy.
“Oh, God, yes, Poe! Like that. Just like that,” I urged when he stroked in and out of me slowly but with such power behind his movements.
“You like that?” he growled in my ear and just beneath the mint of his toothpaste was hops and virility. I loved it. That he was letting whatever inhibitions that’d arisen last night after we’d coupled the first time, go.
That he was showing me just how much he wanted me. How much he wanted to claim me, with his tone – while still making sure I was getting my wants and needs met.
“Oh, yeah! Yes, yes, yes! Deeper!”
He obliged me, holding me tightly in his strong arms, driving into me with this deep desire, driven by his own need, and it was so base and beautiful. The way he claimed my body, the way he caged me in his arms, safe, protected. I could feel the love as he made love to me and I soaked it up like a damn sponge and did my very best to give as good as I got.
I gripped his face between my hands, kissed him savagely, and did everything to match his inward stroke with a downward one from me.
The feeling of him bottoming out against my cervix was a mix of pleasure and pain. The sensation a profound one, igniting sparks that were quickly roaring into an inferno, things tightening, throbbing, and aching for that sweet release.
This was not going to be a marathon. This was definitely going to be a sprint, although I believed wholeheartedly, we were both keen on arriving at an explosion rather than running from it.
“Oh God, yes, baby. Grip that cock, oh God!” he panted in my ear and I squeezed down tighter around him, the way he moved against my walls driving me nuts, but just this side of enough to make me come.
It’s like he knew, rising up onto his knees, gazing down at me as I put my hands up against the wall and braced them there to keep the top of my head from banging into the wall.
He smiled, laughed slightly, but didn’t stop or slow down. In fact, he picked up his pace, watching me pant beneath him, stretched, tits thrust into the air as he boldly drew the pad of his thumb across his tongue and delved it into the cleft at the top of my sex.
I screamed, crying out as the pad of his thumb stroked across that bundle of sensitive nerves.
He pinched one of my nipples with his other thumb against the side of his index finger and tugged on it lightly, his eyes on me, calculating, despite his own struggle not to come first, his jaw tight as he breathed in and out through his nose. I panted and tightened up just that little bit more and when I came? I exploded into a thousand points of light, disintegrating into pure bliss, his cock driving deep, losing his rhythm as he came with me, both of us tumbling through the dark, leaving our souls behind as we plunged, leaving them to catch up to us later.
He collapsed over me, groaning, panting, and I wrapped both my arms and legs around him, panting as well and whispering out between breaths, “God, I love you…”
“You have,” he closed his mouth, swallowing, still gasping, “no idea, how much it means,” he sat up to look at me, “to hear you say that.”
I smiled.
It was true, and deep down inside, I knew he felt the same about me, too.
We just needed to get out of our own ways.
“You good?” he asked once our breathing had stilled to some semblance of normal.
“Better than good,” I whispered and he kissed me.
Way better than good. I don’t even think ‘fantastic’ came close.
15
Poe…
“You totally don’t have to do this today, you know,” she said softly, looking up at me as I locked up the apartment.
I laughed and asked, “Do I look that tired?”
She stretched out her bottom lip and sucked in air between her teeth and I laughed.
“Let’s just get where we’re going and coffee up,” I said, throwing an arm around her shoulders.
“Sounds good, my treat.” I laughed again and nodded.
“You got yourself a deal.”
“Ah, ah, ah!” she admonished, giggling when I stopped outside the garage and I nodded.
“Oh, yeah, you’re right. This is ‘a day in the life of my Saylor Grace’, no cutting corners.”
She smiled pleased and tipped her face up for a kiss and I gave it to her. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about her. She’d layered up, but all of her clothes were so inadequate for an east coast winter.
She didn’t complain, though I could tell she was cold. She just hunched her shoulders, leaned into me laughing and smiling, as we crunched over the ice and snow encrusted sidewalk to the main drag where the sidewalks got salted and the streets both salted and sanded.
She stopped at the bus stop, chattering about Bernard, her usual bus driver, and some guy named Josh at the coffee shop she’d found and now frequented.
“I think he’s interested, but I’m not – obviously.”
“He’d be crazy not to be interested, but I’m calling dibs for as long as you wanna let me,” I said pressing a kiss against her temple, catching her silken hair on half of my lips and the rougher material of her slouching beanie with the other half.
She giggled and said, “I’m not sure that’s how dibs works, like – you saw it first, you called dibs; that means it’s yours.”
I chuckled and said, “I know how dibs works, babe, but you’re a person, not an object, so that makes things different.”
“Okay, true, it does,” she agreed, just as the bus pulled up.
“Yo, hey there, Saylor!”
“Hi, Bernard!” she called cheerfully and led me up into the warmer coach by my gloved hand. I followed her up, shrugging out of my cut but keeping my jacket on for the ride. She paid our fare and I frowned at her. Bernard eyed me.
“So, who’s this?” Bernard asked and I couldn’t say his look was entirely friendly.
“Officer Jeremy Poe, ICPD.” I stuck out my hand and the older man’s eyebrows went up.
“Well, now! Nice to meet you, Officer Poe. You one of them relatives to the writer?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah, actually, I am.”
“What now?” Saylor asked, settling into a seat.
“You know!” Bernard crowed. “Poe! Quoth the Raven, nevermore!”
“No, shit?” Saylor asked, surprised.
“Uh, yeah. I’m one of his cousin’s, Neilson’s descendants,” I said.
“How did I not know that?” Saylor asked.
Bernard and I shared a laugh. “I guess this is the first time it’s come up in conversation,” I said. “Doesn’t come up as often as you would think.”
“I guess not, I mean, was he local?” she asked.
We chatted about Edgar Allen, and how he didn’t have any kids, but his cousin, my direct ancestor, Neilson Poe had had enough for the both of them, apparently. Saylor hadn’t known that the Poe clan was native out here to Baltimore – having gotten it mixed up with Boston.
“So, uh, you the one Saylor’s stayin’ with?” Bernard asked.
“Yes, sir. I am,” I affirmed.
“Do an old man a favor,” he said. “If you got it, get this girl a proper coat, would yah?”
“I have a better coat,” Saylor said, making a face. “It’s just in my car in impound.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I promised Bernard, glad my girl had him looking out for her.
“You do that,” he pulled up to the curb. “Here’s your stop, now.”
“Thanks as always, Bernard. Merry Christmas!” Saylor quipped, getting up.
“Oooh! A Merry Christmas to you, too, darlin’. You come back through and sing me a Christmas carol on your next ride.”
“Hopefully, I’ll catch you later today,” she said, hopping off the bus. I followed her and swung into my cut saying, “Nice to meet you, Bernard.”
“Likewise, five-oh. Likewise,” he called, shutting the door with a pneumatic hiss, the co
ach lumbering back into traffic.
I smiled at Saylor and said, “Ladies lead the way.”
“Oh, I like that!” she declared and led me up the sidewalk and down about three-quarters through the next block.
We ducked down a few steps and into this French bakery, a young hipster-looking dude behind the counter looking up and smiling. He was all eyes on Saylor and his smile dimmed and became more rigid when he caught sight of me coming in behind her.
“Hey, Saylor – looks like you’ve got company.”
“Hi, Josh and this is Jeremy Poe! The friend I’ve been staying with.” Saylor grasped my index and middle finger of my right hand and swung them between us. It was plucky and adorable, and it made Josh almost visibly deflate.
“You want your usual?” he asked her and she smiled and said, “Yeah.” She turned to me and raised her eyebrows.
“A promise is a promise,” she declared. “Josh makes some of the best coffee in the city, so what cha want?”
“Uh, I’ll take a quad shot peppermint mocha,” I said.
“Tis the season,” Josh said, and it held an edge of winter outside but was quickly thawing.
Saylor’s usual was a mocha and a chocolate croissant. She wouldn’t hear of me just getting the coffee, so I ordered a plate of beignets drizzled with honey fully intending to foist some off on Saylor – which wasn’t difficult.
“Oh, my God. I am so going to have to get these next time,” she said, licking powdered sugar off of her bottom lip.
“Have you never had a beignet?” I asked.
“No!” she cried. “Seattle was a great place for food, don’t get me wrong, and they had this great French bakery at Pike’s Place – but this wasn’t on their menu.”
“It’s good stuff, they’re missing out,” I said.
“Yeah, they are!” she agreed.
“So where do you typically go next?” I asked when we were almost all the way through our breakfast and the shop started to really fill up with the morning rush.
“Anywhere along here, typically. It’s a good touristy spot and stays pretty busy. There’s a Christmas tree farm that has a stand set up just inside the park. Might be able to get some change singing Christmas carols there, so I’ll give it a go for an hour or two.”
