Cullen has another staff meeting planned for today. Rick tells me it’ll be short, just a fifteen-minute informative meeting in the middle of the day, and that I probably don’t need to attend.

But he used that word: probably. If I just ‘probably’ don’t need to attend, there’s always that small chance that I’ll miss something if I don’t.

Of course, there is one other reason. That reason has blonde hair, blue eyes, sexy legs, curvy hips, and a smile to knock a boxer out of the ring.

Cullen goes over a few general things that apply to everyone working on the renovations, then addresses more specific topics. “Let’s see… laptops for the accountants are arriving today,” he informs the accountants. “They should be delivered at 7:00 PM. You can talk to Dixon today or tomorrow and sign for it when you pick yours up.”

My eyebrows crease when I spot Taylor’s slightly crestfallen expression. I thought the news of the laptops’ delivery would make her happy, but she doesn’t look pleased at all.

The meeting lasts a couple of minutes after the fifteen-minute mark while people ask questions, then everyone returns to their jobs. I jog after Taylor. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” she says with surprise.

“You just didn’t look too thrilled about the laptops arriving,” I explain, feeling a little silly.

“Oh. I just thought it would have been nice to have mine this evening to do homework on, but I can’t wait around for them to get here.”

“I can take it to you after work,” I offer immediately, pleased there’s something I can do to help.

“No, I can’t ask you to stay late,” Taylor protests.

“If I stay late today, I can leave early tomorrow,” I point out. “I don’t exactly have specific hours and shifts. It’s no trouble.”

“Only if you promise to stay for a while.” Her eyes twinkle, and my heart skips a beat. “I promise there’ll be… pizza?”

“Pizza sounds great. Double check with Dixon that you can sign for the laptop early. If he doesn't let you, I’ll talk to him.”

She laughs. “Whoa there, chill out. Dixon’s a nice guy, and he knows you. He’ll let me sign early.”

An hour later, I’m leaning uncomfortably far into an access panel when my phone buzzes in my belt. I extricate myself and pull off my gloves to check it. It’s a text from Taylor.

Dixon’s okay with you picking up my laptop!

Placing my gloves under my arm, I reply. Great! Can’t wait to see you.

Her response is instantaneous and not what I’m expecting. Do you like wine?

Yes. Why? I text back.

Have some that Cullen got for Gemma. My girl doesn’t do wine.

I smile at the words. Pizza and wine. Perfect.

Gotta go. Overlord is glaring.

I can easily imagine Taylor brazenly texting in front of Isabel while still answering questions accurately, and I return to work chuckling.

At about 6:45, I head downstairs to ask about the laptops. “Yeah, they’re here,” Dixon tells me, leading me to the staff rooms where three laptops and chargers are sitting on a table next to the large box they came from. “It doesn’t matter which one, and I already have Taylor’s signature.”

“Thanks.” I pick the one on the right, nod to Dixon, and carry it and a charger out to the truck.

My apartment is only a little out of the way, so I stop to shower and change. By the time I reach Taylor’s apartment, dusk is falling.

Here, I text her, and within two minutes the side door opens. “Should I park in the garage?” I ask through the window.

“Nah, visitors can park on the curb here for up to three hours officially, and unofficially they don’t really enforce that.” Taylor pushes her hair back, and I notice with a thrill that her blonde locks are still plastered together and messy from a recent shower.

I nod, hop out, and follow her up to her apartment. The place is well lit but quiet. “Where’s Gemma?”

“Out with friends. She has tomorrow off from training because Zinzy will be out of town, so I think a few of the dancers are going out.” Taylor sits on the couch, her face devoid of regret that she wasn’t one of them.

I hold out the laptop in my hand. “Oh, here’s this and the charger to go with it.”

“Great,” she says enthusiastically. “My old ones starting to drive me insane. After I get everything I need on the new one, I’m going to do a clean reset and see if it helps.”

“Hm.” I look significantly around the room. “If I remember right, I was promised pizza.”

“And it’s in the kitchen. I haven’t gotten out the wine yet. I just got out of the shower,” she admits, as though I wouldn’t have immediately noticed the wonderful freshness that lingers wherever she walks.

“That just means I can help now.” I follow her into the kitchen, and she takes a bottle of red wine out of the cabinet. “I’ve never had that wine before.”

“I’m sure it’s something the rich drink regularly,” she jokes. “It came from Cullen, after all. Have you seen the watches and suits that man wears?”

I laugh. “Good point.” Taylor screws the bottle opener into the cork, pulls down the clasps, then tries to wiggle free the remaining bit of cork still stuck in the bottle.

Her elbow shoots up and she shrieks with surprise as the cork abruptly jerks free, but I realized what was going to happen a moment before. I step forward and catch the arm holding the bottle, steadying her.

My chest presses against her back as we breathe a sigh of relief in unison. I take her hand in mine and guide it to set the wine gently on the counter. The movement takes my jaw so, so close to the side of her face.

I want to comb the tangles out of her hair, whisper her name into her ear, and shower her neck with soft kisses—but I don’t. Every instinct I have tells me to wrap her in my arms, but instead I step back and ask, “Do you have wine glasses?”

A vein on the side of her neck pulses visibly just for a second as she swallows. “Cabinet above the fridge,” she tells me, setting the cork on the counter and opening the pizza box. “I’ll get plates.”

Three minutes later, we’re ensconced on the couch with slices of pizza and glasses of fruity merlot. Taylor has set Gemma’s laptop on the new coffee table and set it to play a stand-up comedy. The volume plays loud enough to hear the words, but not so loud we can’t talk.

Two slices of pizza and one-and-a-half drained wine glasses each, and we stop paying any attention to the show. “Hey Brandon?” Taylor asks, sitting back in her seat and abandoning her pizza crusts on the table.

Her blue eyes are clouded with a pensive, brooding expression. Sensing seriousness, I turn down the volume of the show a little more. “Yeah, Taylor?”

“You ever feel like you’re stuck in the past?”

Mentally scrambling, I wonder where she’s leading with this. “A lot, actually. I think most people are. The past made us who we are, after all.”

My comment appears to worry her. Her brows draw together and she nibbles at her lip. That little action is endearing when she’s in a good mood, but worries me about the direction this is going.

“But, do you feel like the past influences who you are now? Like… do you think you’ve changed a lot in your life, or do you like to think you’re the same? Consistent, I guess?”

Turning sideways and leaning against the couch so I can meet Taylor’s eyes, I begin slowly, “I think I’ve changed a lot. A lot of things that used to matter to me don’t anymore, and I think I’ve become a different person.”

Ding ding ding. This answer, judging by the subtle lightening of Taylor’s inner storm clouds and the slight, thoughtful nod she gives me, is more what she expected. Or hoped for, maybe.

“Hey, I want to tell you something.” Does she, though? I don’t think she knows for sure if she wants to or not. “Uh… how well do you remember high school?”

Okay. Not the question I expected. “Pretty well. Really well, actually.”

“Do you—do you remember a nerdy, blonde girl with glasses? She would always sit in the stands and do her homework, and watch the football team practice. She was in four of your classes one year, and three the next. She got her locker moved to— to be closer to yours, a-and she tried to talk to you in the hallways—”

Holy shit. I look at Taylor, and it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time. “You were that girl. From high school.” My voice is barely a whisper.

“Y-yeah, that was me. Guess I’ve changed a lot, huh?” She’s not awkward anymore, but she’s watching me nervously.

I’d seen that girl, high-school Taylor. She was so quiet in class, but whenever she was called on, she always knew the answer. Sometimes when one of my friends laughed too loudly and exaggeratedly, I would see her leaning against a locker and wish I could know her instead. Every practice, I always played knowing that I could look up and see her in the stands, studiously working away, and sometimes the thought made me try harder.

I’d also talked to the girl a couple of times in the hallway—if you can call brushing off her polite attempt at conversation ‘talking’. I was a football star. I was a popular kid. And, I was black. I couldn’t talk to Taylor.

Taylor wasn’t a sporty girl. She hung around with the nerds. And, she was white. She couldn’t talk to me because I wouldn’t let her.

Now, I understand. I’m painfully, painfully aware why she wants to know if I’ve changed, or if I’m still that egotistical, immature, peer pressure-driven asshole I used to be.

“Taylor.” Her eyes hover somewhere over my shoulder. I grab her hands and pull her forward, closing the distance between us on the couch. “Taylor, please. Let me talk?”

She nods, searching my eyes. I notice that she’s wearing contacts.

“I haven’t been that person from high school since I dropped out of training to be a Navy SEAL.” The admission still twists a knife in my heart, even though it happened years ago. “Anaja—that girl from high school—I was supposed to marry her. When I couldn’t make the cut and enlist with the SEALs, she broke it off. Even tried to tell me, to my face, that her father was making her do it, which was just a lie. I don’t think she ever really loved me, just wanted the prestige of being a Navy SEALs’ wife. My dad didn’t say anything when I came back from California, just kind of… looked at me differently. I disappointed everyone, including myself.”

She looks me straight in the eye. “It’s not all your fault. My dad would have kicked me out of the house two years earlier than he did if he’d found out I was dating a black guy.”

“And I would have become the laughingstock of the entire football team if I’d dated a white girl,” I agree. “I realized after I dropped out of training that I couldn’t live like that anymore. Vegas is a lot more accepting than our little town was, especially back then. I guess that appealed to me and my business plans, so… here I am.”

Neither of us mentions anything, and neither of us takes the issue further. Family, friends, and circumstances held us back then, but now, we’ve escaped that kind of pressure.

“Here we are,” Taylor agrees, and she looks like an enormous weight has lifted from her shoulders. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was for so long, I just….” She suddenly throws herself forward and wraps her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. “I just didn’t want things to change,” she murmurs, her warm breath pooling in my T-shirt against my skin.

She looks up, her soft eyes glistening. But then they seem to swirl and darken. A smirk begins at the corner of her mouth, and she pulls herself up until her lips are even with mine. She hovers, just an inch or two away, marinating in the electricity between our bodies. I grip the cushions and cross my brows, expelling only a fraction of the tension. In this moment, I’m nothing more than putty in her hands. The heat of anticipation builds in the air, in our bodies, and in my cock.

She lurches forward and our mouths collide. She throws a leg across me, straddling my waist. I grab her ass with both hands, kneading the plump flesh with my fingers. Her tight jean shorts ride up, exposing half her cheeks. Damn, that ass! I stretch an arm out and then bring it down hard. The slap is loud, and she moans into my mouth.

I slap her ass again, harder, and hold my hand against her hot, swollen skin.

“Oh God!” she pants. Her eyes are closed and her face is pained.

I tap my fingers across the aching spot, waiting. She opens her eyes and chews on her lip, searching my face. I smirk and give her a knowing glare.

“Please,” she whimpers. She wiggles her ass side to side, shaking her thick flesh in my hands.

“Good girl,” I say. I slap her ass, harder still. My palm stings against her skin.

She yelps and moans, pulling my shirt into her fists. I lift my hand and let the cool apartment air waft across the tender surface. The sting must be lingering because her eyes are still closed and her gasps are still fast.

I grab her with both my hands under her ass and lift her as I stand. She wraps her legs around me, and her breasts press against my chest. I can feel her hard nipples through both our shirts.

I stand still for a moment. She clings to me with hungry blue eyes. That cute girl from the football field bleachers, that girl with the perfect GPA, that girl with the dorky glasses and milky skin - all my desires, successes, regrets, and failures of the past decade flood my mind as we lock lips and entangle our bodies.

Everything behind us lead to this moment, and now none of it matters. This girl is… no, we, are perfect.

I walk down the hallway towards the bedrooms. Taylor claws my back and writhes against my chest. Her damp hair sticks to our faces and fills our noses with the hint of a light jasmine wind.

I mumble against her eager mouth, “Hey, hey…”

She leans back, worried.

I smile. “Which room is yours?”

She turns beet red and giggles into my neck. “The left one!”

I kick the door open and toss her onto the bed. We don’t take our eyes off each other as we peel off her clothes. My cock springs forward, finally unstrained. She chews her lip, watching it, and slowly spins over onto her knees with her face down on the bed.

“Taylor,” I drool. “God, Taylor, your ass…”

Multiple bright red handprints glow across one of her cheeks. She wiggles her ass, taunting me and giggling.

I smirk. “I’ll teach you to tease me.”

I grab her hips and snatch her to the end of the bed. I reach across her arched back and tuck a piece of hair behind her ears. “ ‘Yellow’ to slow down, ‘red’ to stop, okay?” She nods, wiggling beneath me. Damn, she really wants it.

I stand behind her, admiring her every curve. I reach out with one finger and graze one lip of her glistening pink vulva. She shutters and gasps. I slap her bare, untouched cheek hard. She grips the sheets and moans from deep in her core. Her ass ripples and waves as it surrenders to the force of my hand.

“Good girl,” I say.

I reach out with another finger and brush the wet valleys between her folds, back and forth. She shakes and lifts her torso up onto her hands, gasping. I pull back my finger and slap her marked ass with the same hand. Her juices leave a glistening outline of my fingers on top of blistering shades of red. I reach forward and push her face back down into the mattress. “Face down, ass up,” I demand.

“Yes, sir,” she moans.

This time I kneel by the bed. I press my tongue between her folds, pushing slowly towards her vagina and clit. Her pussy is hot and wet. I find her entrance and dive deep, lapping. Her canal is tight, even for my tongue. I feel her dripping down my chin. She tastes exotic and sweet, like a luscious dessert I can’t afford, but can never get enough of.

Taylor is on edge. She hasn’t stopped moaning and gasping since my tongue touched her sensitive lips. I feel her fingertips graze my chin as she reaches underneath herself to play with her clit. I grab her wrist with my left hand, pinning it to the bed, and whack her ass hard with my right.

She hisses as the sting takes hold of her. I rub the seared skin gently and watch her face soften as the sharp pain melts into a deep, thrilling, satisfying bliss.

“Don’t touch yourself unless I tell you to.” I’m nearly growling as the pressure inside me builds. I’m gonna have to fuck the hell out of this girl, but I want her to ache for it first.

She groans in frustration, but whimpers, “Yes, sir.”

Both her ass cheeks are bright red now. The insides of her thighs are glistening as she drips all over me, herself, and the bed. A clear, damp circle has pooled on the sheets between her knees.

“Damn girl, you are so fucking wet.”

“It’s for you,” she whimpers, wiggling her hips. “It’s always been for you.”

Her words send a hot bolt through my body. I imagine her masturbating to her memories and fantasies of me ever since we left school. I imagine her plunging her fingers inside herself as she calls out my name…

“Brandon!”

Every muscle in my body tenses at the sound.

“Brandon, please!”

I snap back to reality. She’s here now, kneeling in front of me, and she’s begging.

“Brandon I can’t take it anymore. Please, please, fuck me!”

Her body was shaking, longing for my cock.

“Don’t worry, baby,” I growl, crawling onto the bed behind her. “I’m gonna give you want you want, and what you’ve never even dreamed of.”

I rub the big head of my dick across her vulva, parting her labia. She moans and slams her fists against the mattress. My precum mixes with her juices, and I slather it down the full length of my shaft. I line the head up against her vaginal entrance and press forward.

“FUCK you are so god damn tight!”

She pants and winces. “You’re so big! I want you to fill me up.” She pushes her body back slowly, engulfing my cock in a hot, pulsing channel until her ass touches my hips. She shakes and circles her hips, twirling my dick inside her.

“Yeah baby,” I moan. “You like my big black dick in your little white pussy, don’t you?”

“God yeeessssss,” she squeals as I thrust even deeper inside her. She begins rocking back and forth on my cock. Her ass slaps against my hips every time, pressing against the sore hand prints, still vibrant and red on her cheeks.

She finds a balance of momentum and uses the weight of her own ass to swing her hips against mine.

“Yeah, baby, ride that dick.” I can’t speak loudly, because my body convulses every time her pussy consumes the full length of my cock.

I feel her slow, and her breath is strained. She collapses her weight into the mattress, nearly limp.

“Fuck me, Brandon.” Her pleading voice is muffled in the sheets and pillows. “Please, I want it so bad!”

And she does. She really does. Her arms quiver and her thighs shake. Her voice is tortured and starving.

I arch myself across her back and straddle her torso with my arms. I bite the back of her neck and I thrust into her, hard. Then again. Then again. I fuck her fast, ramming into her with the full weight of my body.

I’ve never felt a pussy so tight, warm, and soft. I can feel her vaginal muscles tighten as I go deep inside her. Taylor’s pussy was made to milk my cock.

I feel pressure building in my balls as they slap against her inner thighs. I push down on her back, lifting my torso and pressing her entire upper body into the bed. Only her hips arch slightly upward, naturally hungry for the most cock I can possibly give her. I grip a fistful of her hair, pulling her head back and sending her moans and screams towards the ceiling.

“I’m gonna cum, baby,” I pant as I quicken my thrusts even more. “I’m gonna cum deep inside you.”

“Please, yes, fill me up, please!” Her pleading moans are barely coherent. Her tone rises and falls each time I thrust into her.

“Play with your pussy,” I order. “Play with your clit. I want you to cum all over my dick while I fill you up.”

Her hand moves furiously beneath her. My cock swells with a pressure I didn’t know was possible. I growl and moan as all my senses blur together. My world shifts as I explode inside her. She trembles with her own orgasm, screaming into the pillows. Our climaxes pulse back and forth through our bodies as if they were one.

I pull out of her and watch my cum drip down her pussy. Her panting begins to slow.

“No,” I say. “You don’t stop cumming until I tell you to.”

I flip on my back and push my head between her legs. I pull her down onto my face by her hips and thighs. I suck on her clit greedily. She grabs the headboard and bucks her hips, riding my face instinctively. I feel her body tense as I rescue her waning climax and rebuild it with every lap of my tongue.

Her delectable juices mix with my cum in my mouth, creating a sweet and salty nectar. I press two fingers into her as I keep sucking her clit. I remember exactly where her g-spot is, and her back arches as the tips of my fingers rub against it. She leans back further and grabs my thighs with both her hands. Her nails dig into my skin and I moan into her.

“God, Brandon… ah! I can’t… I can’t stop cumming… ohhhh!”

Her volume builds as I suck harder and plunge my fingers deeper. She leans forward and her thighs tighten around my head. She grips my short hair with both hands, pulling my face even further into her.

She reaches a place where all her words and sounds are trapped in her throat. Her body goes rigid and still. I hold her clit at the top of a wave of suction, pulling it continuously into my mouth. She peaks for nearly a minute before collapsing backward with a massive release of tension and air.

She falls to the bed on her back. Her legs still draped across my torso. Her chest heaves hard, and I can feel her breath against my leg. I turn my head and gently kiss her soft calf.

“Just breathe, baby,” I whisper. My lips trail up and down her lower leg until her breaths become even.

We lay there, our heads at opposite ends of the bed, sighing at the ceiling. It’s that perfect, comfortable silence again. We know how each other feels, how both our bodies are on fire, and we surrender ourselves to the sensation.