Promise (41 page)

He breaks into a smile so big, his eyes shut for a second along with another round of his infectious laughter. I want to laugh along with him, but I can’t shake the gray cloud over me.

“I’m stuck.” I try to keep my neck from twitching, but I lose. I run my hands back and forth over my head, landing on the back of my neck and holding on. “I don’t know how I can leave her, and I don’t know how I can abandon them. I have a few weeks to decide, but I might just flip a fucking coin.”

I couldn’t tell him she sobbed for an hour when I told her I might go back. That shit tore my aorta right out of my chest.

“She’s a mess, you know.” Bruce points down the hall where we can hear her fussing about not finding any matching socks. Bruce grins and makes the sign of the cross over his chest with a smile. “I’ve done what I can, but between you and me, I’m ready to pass the baton.” He takes a sip of coffee and pinches his brow together in sympathy.

“I know.”

“And, her damn room.
Lord almighty
. She should
not
live with a gay guy because we like our shit neat. I smacked her hand more than once to get her to keep her disaster inside those four walls. That girl can wreck a room by walking through it.”

“So, we square?” I nod at the check and extend my hand. Bruce flutters his eyelids and gives me a distinctive look up and down before shaking.

“
Yeah
. I want her to be happy. You better make her happy.” He jabs a finger into my chest and sounds a like an overprotective father.

“That’s the mission objective. She’s not gonna make it easy.”

“You got that right.” Bruce nods and laughs again. “Okay, I gotta go. You guys do what you gotta do. And, one more thing . . .”

“What?”

“I hated that other guy. I’m glad she picked you.”

“I didn’t really give her a choice.”

He lets out a loud snort with a dramatic nod and yells down the hall toward Promise’s room. “
Bye!
You better be back at work by Monday! Enough drama, dang.”

Then he’s out the door, and the room seems to lose a little of its magic.

I’ve been keeping her on lockdown in the loft the last couple of days. We’ve cooked and fucked and talked and slept and loved. I’ve lived more in the last two days than I have in a long fucking time.

She makes me that way. Makes me feel.
Everything
. It’s like finally seeing color after living in black and white your whole life. I’m awake with her; I can see things I didn’t see before. Hear the crisp beauty of words. Feel the texture of everything my fingers touch.

She is more mine every second, and I scare myself thinking of anyone that might wrong her and the things I would do to protect her.

The shy girl that barely knew how to raise her eyes and form a sentence around me when I met her in my father’s room at Windfield has changed. She yakked my damn ears off until three in the morning last night.

Mostly about her brother but without the tears. She wanted me to know everything about him, and I devoured every word. Whatever makes her happy, makes me happy. And, I fucking mean it. You think people just say that in an offhand manner but for me, my happiness is her happiness.

It may not make sense to other people, but like I give a shit. I’m pushing up on thirty years old, and I’ve just now figured out what it means to really be alive. I love her like she’s my own blood.

I can’t explain this consuming need to protect her like a father, to know everything about her from the moment she drew her first breath. Her every thought, however insignificant she might think it is, I find joy in. I also want to fuck her until her screams peel the damn paint off the walls. So, it’s a big bite, taking her on, but I’ve never understood the difference between joy and happiness until now.

She brings me joy. There is something infinite about the emotion. It’s not fleeting like happiness. I’m happy when I get a new car or have a few laughs with my boys. Then, it’s gone.

But with her, the joy she brings me lives so deep in my soul, it can no longer be separated. Crazy shit, but it’s true.

I poke my head into her bedroom and roll my eyes until it hurts.

Her dresser looks like it’s in the middle of a drunken, projectile vomit with socks and t-shirts and who knows what hanging out of six open drawers.

“Do you know how to fold clothes?” I push my hands in my pockets and try not to laugh at her. “You know, like in squares?”

“Shut up. I’m trying to decide what to bring. This is tough.”

“Uh huh. I told you to pack
one
suitcase, and I’ll send the movers to do the rest.” I take a few more steps into the whirlwind and swivel my head, trying to make sense of the beautiful chaos she produces. “You don’t need to make this a damn circus. Seriously, Promise.” She is jamming wads of clothing into a suitcase like she’s stuffing a freakin’ turkey. “Fold that shit before you stuff it in there.”

She and I are going to go round and round; I can see it now.

“What’s the difference if I fold it or not? It takes up just as much room, and who cares?”

Lord. Jesus take the damn wheel because I can see divine intervention is going to be needed.

“Just get what you really want, and
let’s go
.” Her hair is a mile of a mess, and her cheeks are pink like she’s been sitting in the sun.

“Don’t
rush
me.” She starts looking around the room before she continues, talking a mile a minute. “I want to get all my paints and my easel, and I want to take at least some of my paintings, and probably my pillows. I definitely need my blanket, my alarm clock and . . . and . . .”

I shut my eyes and try to remember how to pray.

“It’s been six days since you unpacked—
wait, I unpacked
—your suitcases and officially moved in here.” I take a deep breath with my face buried in her hair. I’ll never tire of her scent. “If you can’t tell my moods by now, maybe I made a mistake asking you to move in here,” I whisper playfully. I’ve got her back pulled against my chest, and she’s wiggling her booty into me, knowing exactly what that’s going to get her.

The loft is dark except a blinking streetlight out front that is casting on and off shadows over the white bedding. I’ve kept he damn heat set on eighty because I like my girl running around naked.

It took her a few days of training, but after the third time I tore her bra and panties off, she got the message that when we’re alone, I don’t want anything covering her. She’s just that beautiful.

“What are you talking about?” Her sleepy voice raises up as she pokes her head out from under the covers. It’s four am, and my cock is wide awake, but my girl isn’t. “I
do
know your moods. There’s horny, really horny and caveman. I don’t know a lot about this stuff, but is it normal? For a guy to be like this as often as you are?”

“Normal doesn't interest me. And, I have no fucking idea about the hard-on habits of other guys. All I know is you have cast your pussy voodoo on me, so this is your fault. And you know damn well what’s going to happen when you press your ass into me like that.”

She lets out a long, slow moan as my fingers dance over her hip, and then I finger walk them down to her pussy and her legs open without hesitation.

Fuck
, her sweet, wet heat soaks my fingers, and she pushes the curves of her ass into me harder, into my Energizer Bunny dick.

“Take it, babe.” I settle my hands on her hips and guide myself into her from the back. My beauty is drenched, and she rains that delicious wonder all over my cock’s head as I enter her.

Stroking back and forth, slow and steady, I start alternating bites and kisses up and down the side of her neck, pausing to lick and suck her ear before pushing deep until the softness of her ass is against my hips.

My lips working her neck is her kryptonite, and I feel her pussy dance and send out a river of juice that turns me into a rutting boar.

“You like that, don’t you?”

“Um hmmm.”

My shy baby has her own inner siren. Don’t let her fool you, she’s jumped my sleeping ass a couple times in the last couple days. Coming into her own, taking charge and realizing this is exactly who we are and who we should be.

Slut is not a bad word here. Not between us. She is my personal slut and she has come to understand what that means and how much it brings us together. I’m not sure what I did with all my time before her because we damn near spend eight hours a day on each other in one way or another.

These days with her here are, bar none, the best of my life.

Her hands swing behind her. Groping and greedy, taking whatever pieces of my flesh she can touch.

“Shhhhh, babe. Just let me have you. Let me take care of you. Give you what you need.”

I slip easily in and out. Her pussy’s greasing us, and my mouth is watering. Her back curls as she pushes onto me. I bring my hand around her belly and set into her wet slit. I spin my middle finger around her clit, then slip lower, back up, then down until her hips begin to shake. I revel in her softness, the heat there. The wetter she is, the happier I am.

She tenses, moaning, and I know she’s close.

“That’s my girl. That’s who you are, aren’t you? My babygirl?”

I work her clit in a circle until I hear the chimes of her climax build. I shift to free the hand I had under her neck and knot my fingers into her hair.

Slow and easy got us this far, but Promise is jerking her hips back into me, and I can hear her silent pleas for what she wants.

Harder.

“You want more? Babygirl, you want me deep, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispers as I give her the first gentle jerk of her hair, and her pussy damn near shoots off and strangles my cock as she tightens down.

I know how far to go without hurting her. It’s a lesson in self-control, but I would never harm her like that.

“
Oh god, more
. . .” She hisses as I tug her hair, jerking her head back and giving my little, ivory princess what she needs.

Hard, deep and fast.

I gouge my fingers into her drenched lower lips. Cupping her pussy, loving every halting breath, every silk fold and jerk of her body.

She’s a work of art at any given moment, but like this, she’s a priceless masterpiece that carves my heart right from my chest and settles it securely within her own.

“
God babe
, so good. You feel so fucking good. How do you feel better every single time?”

I hear her little soft, hissing laugh as I slam into her—the flesh-smacking sounds filling the high ceilings of the loft as I pull her head back hard, my primal animal rising up as her climax takes off, and I feel the waves of inner motion take over her body as her musical screams fill my ears.

Before her body stops quivering, I slip out of her, and she knows.

Babygirl learned quickly to savor the taste of me just as I savor the taste of her. Her face is flushed even in the dim light and her hair a wild mess as she gathers herself up onto the pillow as I straddle her chest; my dripping cock inches from her lips. Her little hands shoot out to grab at me and pull me to her mouth.

This is the pinnacle, giving her pleasure and seeing the way she craves my own. There can be nothing more intimate, nothing more stunning, than the woman you love, loving you with all her heart.

Her tongue comes out and begins its special magic around the head of my cock. I am already leaking, looking down at her priceless, pale body and the soft pink of her tongue touching me. My body tenses.

I wish I could watch and feel her do this for hours, but my girl just has a knack, and it never takes long for her to have me filling her mouth.

“Good girl.” My head falls back, and I draw in a breath from somewhere in heaven as her mouth closes around me and she draws me inside.

She fills my soul as she works, little sighs coming from her as she creates a unique work of art each time with her tongue.

We’ve spent hours in the last six days talking about everything.

One of them has been this.
Us
. Together in this way. Sex. Fucking. Making love. There’s no difference. I want no hesitation, no denial or disobedience when it comes to how we love each other.

I don't want any of societies’ puritanical bullshit to taint what is the most amazing connection two people can have. And, I’m not just talking about some quick and dirty hookup.

I meant
this.
What we have.

That one person created for us by some universal force beyond our knowledge. That one person who grows roots into your soul and you into theirs until you can’t figure out where one begins and the other ends. We are fused, and sex is part of how we worship that miracle of finding each other.

She understands, having lost all hesitation and insecurity within a day of me having her naked twenty-four hours straight and discovering how her body felt under my tongue, one inch at a time. By the time half of that first day was done, I’d tasted all of her several times over and claimed her completely as mine.

“Fuck babe, yes. God, take my cum. Let me see this time . . .”

Her throat takes me deep, and her tongue does something so out of this world, I let out the first jolting spray of cum without warning.