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Although it certainly wouldn’t have been my choice of colors, it looked like she had hired someone to decorate it. For a normal person to choose the colors of all of the accessories in the room and have them match as well as the did would have been impossible.

“Did your mom hire someone to do this?” I asked as I gazed around the room.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Decorate this room.”

“No,” she said. “I did it myself. Like it?”

I nodded my head and turned to face her. “It looks really good.”

She swept her arm across the bed, clearing it of almost all of the pillows in one swipe. After tossing a few loose pillows into the pile, two were left on the bed.

“Sit,” she said as she walked toward the dresser.

Soft jazz began to fill the room.

“I used to listen to that CD every night when I went to sleep. It was like my lullaby,” she said.

“Soothing,” I said.

She sat on the edge of the bed and patted the comforter with her hand. “Sit.”

Reluctantly, I kicked off my shoes and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Uhhm. I’m really glad you came over. My mother likes you. I knew she would, but it’s nice to see her happy,” she said as she rested her hand on my thigh.

“I’m glad I came, too,” I said as I glanced down at her hand.

Although Riley and I had been seeing each other for almost a month, we had yet to make any progress from a sexual standpoint. When the time came, and as long as I was ready, I figured I would allow myself to proceed sexually with her. Her actions, words, and constant innuendoes were enough for me to understand she was more than ready, but it was me I was worried about.

And for good reason.

“Blake,” she said as she squeezed my thigh in her hand lightly.

I continued to glance around the room as I responded. “Yeah?”

“I uhhm…I want to…I want to. I want to give you head,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“I want to make you happy,” she said.

She had caught me completely off guard. “I am happy,” I said, providing a rather feeble statement to assure her I was.

“I want to do this,” she said as she leaned toward me and kissed me lightly.

I felt my cock rising in my pants as my mind floated away to thoughts of her lips wrapping around the shaft of my rod. As I attempted to clear my mind of the thought, she began to fumble with my belt and zipper.

No differently than men who get coerced into robbing a bank, committing murder, or buying a new car they had only hoped to test drive, I sat and stared as she pulled my pants to mid-thigh. My boxers soon followed, and as much as I believed I wanted her to stop, I provided absolutely no effort to make her do so. Within a matter of sixty seconds, she had my cock in her hand and gazed down at it admiringly.

“Your cock is pretty,” she said.

I swallowed and had every intention of saying something.

But nothing came.

I watched in slight shock and utter amazement as she licked the tip, dragged her tongue along the shaft, and eventually softly began to suck the swollen head in her mouth.

As I continued to stare no differently than the deer immediately prior to catching the front bumper of a truck on the highway, she slowly worked her mouth up and down the shaft of my swollen dick.

A combination of who she was, how I felt about her, and witnessing what she was doing aroused me to a level I had yet to know. Her sheer beauty alone was enough to put me over the edge and leave me with very little, if any, stamina.

Realizing she chose to do what she was doing with no suggestion or comment on my part was enough in itself to convince me she truly cared for me and wanted to share herself with me in a more intimate sense than a simple friendly relationship of kissing, holding hands, and talking. As odd as it seemed to accept, her sucking my cock was the deciding factor in me falling over the edge of the cliff into the abyss known as love that lingered below.

As I felt my heartbeat increase and my blood pressure begin to rise, I reached for her head. Despite my halfhearted attempts to pull her mouth free of the fleshy shaft she was determined to impale herself on, she continued without breaking her rhythm. I proceeded to watch in a combination of amazement and admiration as she worked her mouth and hand simultaneously along the length of my throbbing rod.

With her eyes locked on mine and her mouth full of cock, she pressed her lips lower and lower, eventually coughing warm slobber onto my tight scrotum. Lost in a state of sexual awe, my toes curled, my head tilted back, and in a matter of seconds, I erupted into her warm wet mouth.

And the world didn’t end.

What in many respects seemed like a lifetime, even knowing it was more than likely a matter of a few short minutes, had ended peacefully and without any harm. I lowered myself to the bed, rested on my back, and gazed upward. Her head soon came to rest on my stomach, and after studying the brush strokes in the paint on the ceiling for a considerable time, I rolled my head to the side and allowed myself the pleasure of seeing her.

She blinked her eyes and grinned.

“Did you enjoy it,” she asked.

I grinned. The grin soon developed into a full-fledged smile. “Do you need to ask?”

“No, but it’s nice to hear,” she said.

“It felt wonderful,” I responded.

“Good. I like that you liked it,” she said.

I shook my head, still smiling from ear to ear. “No, I loved it.”

She nestled her head into my stomach. I relaxed on my back with one hand resting on her shoulder and the other on her neck. Cradling her head against me was comforting, and within a short period of time I fell asleep.

***

I shook Riley’s shoulder. She turned to the side, opened her eyes slightly, and grinned.

“I need to get home,” I said. “It’s three in the morning.”

“Just stay,” she said, her raspy voice proof of the fact she was exhausted.

“I don’t think your mother would approve, and it’d make me uncomfortable if I did. Some other time, okay?” I said.

“Okay,” she said.

I leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips, wishing I could stay, but fully realizing it was in our best interest if I didn’t.

“I’ll lock the door,” I said as I turned away.

She opened her eyes slightly and grinned again. “Okay.”

And although I realized I would never understand why our hearts and minds do what they do when they choose to do it, I walked through the door and to my motorcycle fully realizing that somehow, while I slept with her at my side, I had somehow fallen in love with Riley Campbell.

RILEY

I opened the door slightly and peeked into my mother’s room. On the floor was a small cardboard box, and surrounding it were numerous pieces of paper which from where I was standing seemed to be old faded newspaper articles. I shifted my eyes to her bed. She appeared to be asleep. 

I pushed the door open a little more.

“Mother?” I said softly.

Curious of what it was she had spread around the floor, and being careful not to wake her, I walked into the room softly, hoping to at least get an idea of what it was she had been doing.

It didn’t take long.

One article positioned beside the box immediately caught my attention based solely on the word “murder” being in the headline. I glanced at her, made note of her snoring, and reached for the article. As I raised it high enough that the small black print was legible, I fought to keep quiet.

Recent Murder Tied to Previous Murders

An east Wichita couple murdered during broad daylight last month has been officially linked by the Police Commissioner to a series of previously unsolved murders based on the modus operandi.

The commissioner gave few details regarding the investigation in the murder of Brandon and Velma West, which left their six year old son a ward of the state, but did agree to a press conference regarding the previous murders, which is now scheduled for Tuesday...

Feeling confused, almost sick, and curious at the same time, I carefully placed the article back where it was. If the people in the article were Blake’s parents, I wondered why my mother would have clipped the section of newspaper and kept it for so many years. As I mentally dismissed it to her simply keeping track of the investigation of a local psychopath long since deceased or imprisoned, I noticed another article at the foot of her bed. I tilted my head to the side and gazed down at the article.

Survivor’s Testimony Convicts Serial Killer

According to the prosecution team, Jaye Campbell’s testimony was paramount in the conviction of Ted Wayne Mastick in the murder of her husband, Jonathon. Assistant District Attorney Nelda Freemont shared her belief with Wichita Eagle reporter Tom Whiteside that the trial was destined to be a mistrial until Mrs. Campbell came forward immediately prior to the selection of jurors.

With her throat cut and left for dead, Mrs. Campbell walked to a neighbor’s home and calmly asked to use the phone after realizing her phone lines had been severed during the invasion of her home…

I began to sob.

Apparently, my father had not been killed in a car wreck, and my mother’s scar wasn’t the result of a glass shard. Within seconds my mother was up on her feet attempting to comfort me.

“Why…what…I can’t…even think,” I blubbered.

“Riley, please. Listen…”

“To what,” I shouted. “Another lie?”

“Riley,” she said as she wrapped her arms around me. “I couldn’t tell you the truth. I just couldn’t. I was trying to protect you.”

“From…from what?” I asked as I pushed her away.

“From being hurt,” she said.

Now a full-blown sobbing mess, I stood with my hands against my thighs and cried, heaving to find my next breath. She leaned over, wrapped her arm around my shoulder, and held me against her side.

“When you’re a mother, you’ll understand,” she said. “You will. Everything I told you was true. Your father and I were in an accident, he died, and my throat was cut and I ended up in the hospital. All I failed to tell you was the truth about what exactly the accident was.”

“He was…he was murdered,” I blubbered.

She was much calmer than I was comfortable with. As I continued to fight for my next breath, she stood and held me. I guessed she had a few decades of time to come to terms with what happened, and I had only had a few minutes. As she patted her hand against my back, I remembered what I had read about the West family.

I turned my head to the side and glanced up and into her eyes. “And Blake. Were they…were they his…”

She nodded her head. “Those were his parents mentioned in the article, yes.”

I bit my lower lip to prevent it from quivering.

“What…why…How did you know?”

“Last night, when he told me his name…” She paused and inhaled a deep breath. After a long sigh, she continued. “I figured out he was the orphan from that murder. After what happened to your father and me, I became obsessed with the case for a while. It was my way of letting go. Riley, I’m so sorry.”

I tried to stand, couldn’t, and continued to lean against my thighs. My mother pulled me to the edge of the bed and helped me sit. As I sat with my face in my hands, she continued to explain.

She began to speak in a soft comforting tone without much emotion at all. As she spoke, I did my best to listen, and hoped to understand why she did what she did.

“That man killed people here for a long, long time. I testified against him in court. I put him away, Riley. It was harder than you might think, and setting that part of my life aside would have never happened if you knew the truth about what I had gone through. Forgetting it would have been - and still is - impossible, but even functioning with a daily reminder of what happened would have crushed us both. I felt if I told you the truth you’d go through all of the pain and hardship I went through, and I just couldn’t do that to you. All I wanted was what was best for you,” she said.

It wasn’t difficult for me to understand how much pain she had gone through. Just with my experiences with Stephen, I suffered greatly. She was right. For her to share what happened with me as a child, my life would have been totally different.

And, for me to understand what life would have been like knowing would have been impossible. As I turned to give her a hug, I hoped deep in my heart that Blake had no idea of what happened to his parents. I hoped somehow he escaped the truth no differently than I had.

“I love you,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her.

“I love you so much,” she said as she held me in her arms.

As we sat on the edge of the bed and held each other, I realized everything she had done she did with the hope of preventing me from being hurt. She realized the pain I would go through based on the pain she had felt.

Ultimately, my mother was protecting me from harm.

And I loved her even more for doing so.