Bram
I’d never been so pissed at my dad in my entire life.
When we’d moved in with Dan and Liz when we were kids, I was weary. That was probably the best word. Alex and I had been moved from home to home, never staying anywhere for long since we’d gone into the system at age seven. I’d known even then that our moves were my fault.
Alex was cute. He was funny. He got along with everyone and was perpetually happy.
I was the problem. I was the one who had an attitude and didn’t seem to connect with anyone. Who brooded and sat silently in the corner of the room during Christmas and birthday parties.
If it hadn’t been for me, Alex probably would have been adopted right away when our mom died. Fortunately for me, the state hadn’t been comfortable separating a pair of identical twins, because if they were, I would’ve never seen my brother again.
So yeah, I’d been angry, pretty much all the time. Angry with our mom, and the foster care system, and the world in general, but since we’d moved in with Dan and Liz, I’d never been seriously angry at either of them.
I’d chafed at their restrictions as a teenager, but the love behind the rules hadn’t let me stay mad for long. I’d been irritated as fuck when Dan didn’t want to hand over the company to me—even though he’d been talking about it for years—but I’d understood it.
But watching him yell at Ani that night had busted something loose in my chest, and I’d wanted to reach across the table and knock him out of his fucking chair.
That shit scared me. I’d learned to hold my temper within two years of coming to live at the Evans house—and in thirty seconds all that self-control had completely evaporated and I’d wanted to hurt him.
I glanced over at Ani. She was sitting with her head tilted back, her eyes steady on the road in front of us. She hadn’t said a word since we’d pulled out of my parents’ driveway.
The fucked-up thing about the whole situation was that I’d started it at the kitchen table. Shit was getting worse and worse between Ani and me, and everyone was noticing. We weren’t arguing. We weren’t even looking at each other.
So when she’d made that crack about Shane playing in the sand, I jumped on it. It had given me a reason to snap back at her the way I usually did. It worked.
What she’d said was irritating as hell, but I’d known that Ani wasn’t implying that Shane’s job was unimportant—hell, we all knew that—but I’d just needed the excuse to get her going.
I hadn’t anticipated her trying to leave or my dad losing his shit. But I should have seen it coming. I knew how Dad felt about the military—especially his sensitivity to deployments and discussions about going overseas. He’d been a Marine in Vietnam. But I’d been so glad to finally get her bitching at me that I hadn’t stopped while I was ahead.
When she’d dropped back down in her seat, and her chest rose and fell frantically as she stared at her lap, I wanted to pick her up and drag her out of there. It hadn’t gone the way I’d planned.
I think I might have hurt her—or at least opened her up to be hurt—and that had never been my intention.
Fuck.
“You wanna grab something to eat?” I asked as we drove through town. “You didn’t eat.”
“Not hungry,” she said back quietly. “Thanks though.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
“Forget about it, okay?” she said, turning to look at me. “It wasn’t a big deal. I just don’t like to be yelled at.”
“I yell at you all the time,” I argued, for no reason except to make sure she kept talking, if only to contradict me.
“Yeah—but it’s different with you.”
“Oh, yeah? Why is that?” I asked as I changed lanes so I could go over a bridge that would bring us downtown.
“Because I’m usually yelling back,” she replied with a snort.
“True.”
“Can we just drop it?” she asked tiredly. “I just want to go, get a beer, and watch you sing. You’re singing, right?”
“Yep.” I cursed as a bicyclist cut in front of me with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.
“Jesus, does that guy have a death wish?” Ani asked, rolling down her window to yell at the bicyclist stopped at the light in front of us. “Hey, jackass! Watch where the fuck you’re going!”
I laughed as the bicyclist flipped her off, and locked the doors quickly as she tried to climb out of the truck.
“Just stay inside, psycho.”
“That dick just flipped me off!”
“Yeah, after you called him a jackass.”
“I could take him.”
“You probably could,” I agreed as we watched the spandex-wearing bicyclist take off at the green light, “but he’s got about fifty pounds on you, and you’d never catch him on foot.”
“Chase him in the truck?” she asked seriously.
“Nah, don’t want to be late. Jay likes me to kick off the open-mike night.”
“Fine,” she pouted, and suddenly the night was looking up.
It was looking up until we parked across from Jay’s bar and Ani immediately starting fucking stripping.
“What the hell?” I blurted, my voice coming out a lot higher than it had been since I was fourteen.
“What?” she asked in confusion, pushing her jeans down her thighs and off her feet.
“Put your damn pants back on,” I ordered, turning the truck off.
“No way. I’m not wearing those in there.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“Because they’re my at-home jeans. They’re ratty, and they sag at my ass.”
I stared as she flipped down the visor and slid a tongue ring in expertly, then delicately pulled the septum ring down and out of her nostrils.
“You’re not going in there without pants,” I argued as she turned her head to smile at me.
“Sure I am.” She jumped out of the truck before I could stop her.
“Anita!” I yelled, making her grin as I rounded the hood.
“You’re yelling,” she said.
“Sorry.” I grimaced.
Ani laughed, and then adjusted her shirt.
Jesus. It was a tank top, but she’d pulled it down to just under her ass cheeks, the lace at the bottom giving just a couple inches more length.
“See—it’s a dress.”
“It’s not a fucking dress.” I swallowed hard as she adjusted the thin straps at her shoulders.
“Sure it is. Let’s go.”
I followed her across the street, trying not to stare at her small but perfectly rounded ass as it moved underneath the thin material.
“Are you even wearing underwear?” I asked, glaring at the idiots smoking by the door.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she teased as she entered the dark bar.
Jesus.
“Can I get a Hefeweizen?” Ani asked as she stepped up onto the bar’s foot rail and leaned up against the counter, making her shirt rise up the backs of her thighs. I stepped quickly behind her so she wouldn’t flash the bar, and she instantly leaned back against me, her elevated height making her ass nestle right into my crotch.
“Fuck,” I hissed, my hand coming up to grip her hip.
Ani’s smiling face turned toward me. “Actually, make that two.”
“I’m going to fucking kill you if I have to get on that stage with my dick hard,” I warned, pulling her tighter against me.
“Then you should probably back up,” she retorted, standing up straight so her back was pressed up against my chest and her weight was resting against me.
It would be so easy to run my hand around her front and slide my fingers into her cunt without anyone knowing. The way we were pressed against the crowded bartop hid her from just below her ribs, and the tank top was so high on her thighs I wouldn’t even have to move it.
“Two Hefs,” the bartender announced, smiling at me.
“Thanks, Rach,” I replied, pulled out of my fantasy. I pulled a twenty out of my pocket and set it on the bar.
As soon as the bartender had moved away, Ani spun around so she was facing me, leaning back on her elbows and making it infinitely harder not to fuck her right there in the bar.
It was getting ridiculous. I didn’t know where the hell it was coming from, but the sudden attraction was almost overwhelming. I’d always thought Ani was pretty—she was pretty by anybody’s standards. Her features were small, and she had pouty lips and clear blue eyes, and even though she was tiny, she was rounded in all the right places. But I hadn’t wanted to fuck her until that stupid fucking kiss almost a month ago when I’d been trying to protect the bruised ego of a drunk girl.
Apparently, I’d opened Pandora’s box. And by the way her eyes were dilating as she stared at my mouth, I’d opened it for both of us.
Jay started his usual spiel about only singing covers and I cleared my throat, making Ani’s gaze meet mine.
“I should get up there,” I said roughly. How the fuck I was going to walk with the hard-on from hell tenting my jeans, I had no idea.
“Yeah.”
“Stop with the fuck-me eyes.”
“You really want me to stop?” she asked quietly, leaning forward a little.
I cleared my throat again, my hand tightening at her hip. “Fuck no.”
Her lips tilted up in a smile, and she leaned forward even farther, taking my bottom lip into her mouth and sucking on it gently. The tide broke.
I slid my leg between hers and leaned down farther so I could slide my tongue into her mouth as her hands came up to rest against my jaw.
I didn’t understand what the fuck was happening, but I hadn’t lied. I didn’t want her to stop looking at me like she was. I didn’t want her to stop kissing me or driving me fucking insane with her tight little body.
I knew I was fucked, but in a crowded bar in Portland, an hour from our homes and almost completely anonymous, I just wanted to keep kissing her and feeling her little tits pressed up against my chest.
“Abraham, come on, man!” Jay’s annoyed voice broke through the fog of lust in my head.
“Shit,” I complained, pulling away.
“Go,” she said back, pushing at my chest.
I glanced down her body while Jay gave me more shit from up on the stage. “Stay right here, all right?”
“Where would I go?”
“I don’t fucking know, but I don’t want anyone messing with you.”
“Bram,” she said in annoyance, rolling her eyes.
“You’re in nothing but a tank top, and I’m already on the fucking edge after that shit tonight,” I warned, taking a step back.
“That shit tonight?” she growled back, stepping down from the foot rail.
“You think I didn’t see your face when Dad—”
“Bram—let’s go!” Jay yelled into the mike, making it squeal.
“Fuck. Stay here,” I ordered, turning around to make my way through the crowd.
I was anxious as fuck to leave her to cross the bar, but I’d promised Jay I’d open up for him. Usually people weren’t in a hurry to sign up at open-mike night. They came wanting to get up onstage, but it took a bit for them to gather up the balls to do it. That’s where I came in. I’d been playing in Jay’s bar for the past couple of years, and I was pretty comfortable up there. I made it look easy. Simple. I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t bad, either. By the time I was done with one or two songs, people had usually filled in the open spots on the sign-up sheet.
“Hello, patrons of Jay’s,” I said, leaning into the mike as I took Jay’s guitar from him and set the strap over my shoulder. “How drunk are you?”
The crowd cheered, and I smiled, looking over to Ani.
She was sitting at a bar stool with her legs crossed, her ass almost hanging out of her tank top as she sipped from her beer, her eyes on me. Her lips were turned up around the rim of her glass, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
What the fuck was she doing to me?
* * *
“You did so good tonight,” Ani said sleepily from the passenger seat later that night.
“Thanks,” I said quietly as we finally pulled into the little subdivision I lived in.
My town house wasn’t much, but I owned it outright, and the homeowners’ association took care of the yard and shit so I didn’t have to. When I’d started looking for a place a couple years before, all I’d found were three- and four-bedroom houses in our little town. Homes for families. I didn’t really want or need that much space. So when they’d started building town houses on the edge of the city limits, I’d jumped on one. My house was a place I crashed—nothing more, nothing less—and I didn’t want the hassle of trying to keep up with the yard and maintenance and shit.
“You’re not dropping me at home?” Ani asked, a small smirk on her lips as I pulled into my one-car garage.
“Just noticed that, huh?” I joked, shutting off the truck and pressing the garage door remote on my visor. I’d passed the turnoff to her place more than a mile back.
“I’m not very observant,” Ani mocked, jumping from the truck to the cement floor.
As I rounded the truck, she stepped in front of me, reaching for the door to the house. She probably would have made it, too.
But she hadn’t put her pants on when we’d climbed back into the truck, and as she’d sat in the cab, the bottom of her tank top had ridden higher and higher. By the time she reached the doorway to my house, the bottoms of her ass cheeks were peeking out of the lace along the bottom edge of her shirt.
By the sway in her hips, she knew it.
“You like teasing me?” I murmured in her ear as I wrapped my arm tightly around the front of her body, stopping her in the open door.
“You like it,” she replied with a small laugh, arching her back.
“Floor, wall, kitchen table, or bed?” I asked, pushing her ahead of me into the dark house without letting go of her.
“The couch isn’t an option?”
“You want the couch?” I pulled the garage door closed behind us and locked it.
“Not really.”
“Bed, it is.”
“Well that’s not very original.”
“Always busting my balls,” I muttered, spinning her around and pressing her up against the wall. “That foreplay to you?”
“If it is, we’ve been practically fucking for the last ten years—”
I laughed against her mouth as I leaned in, and within seconds, she was laughing with me, wrapping her arms around my neck as she hopped up. I grabbed her bare ass in my hands and groaned, finding the smallest piece of underwear known to man nestled between her cheeks.
I stomped toward the stairs as she rubbed her lips against mine, and thank fuck I didn’t have a ton of furniture and knew my way around in the dark or we would have fallen ass-over-elbows as she ground her pussy against my stomach.
I stumbled slightly as she sucked my neck between her teeth, and I had to brace myself against the wall as I moved up the stairs. Jesus. I couldn’t remember ever wanting anyone the way I wanted her—and that was so fucked up I couldn’t even wrap my head around it.
I felt drunk, and I’d had only one sip of the beer she’d ordered me at the bar before she finished it off.
I dropped her on my bed as soon as we entered my room, and as soon as she hit the sheets, my mind remembered the last time I was in bed with her.
I completely froze. “Oh, fuck,” I hissed, looking at her in horror.
“What?” She hopped off the bed like it was on fire, looking frantically around the room.
“No. No,” I stuttered. “Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
How could I have forgotten? Shit, she’d just had surgery, and I was throwing her around and slamming her into walls, and, oh fuck. I’d pressed her belly up against the bar.
“I’m fine,” she said in exasperation, falling stiff as a board straight back onto the bed. “All healed up.”
“Are you sure? Shit!”
“Yes, I’m sure. I think I’d know.”
“Well maybe—”
“Maybe what? I was just so overcome with your good looks and charming personality that I was willing to overlook any discomfort or pain in order to get one more look at your ginormous cock?” she cut in sarcastically, pulling her tank top over her head as she said it.
“You’re such an asshole,” I mumbled, staring at her perfect tits. “Why the fuck do I even like you?”
“Aw, you like me? Tomorrow can we make daisy chains to wear in our hair and paint each other’s toenails?”
“For some reason, your mouth is moving but I can’t hear anything past the sight of your nipples.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense,” she replied as I tore my shirt off and ripped open the front of my jeans.
“Made perfect sense to me.”
“Okay, well…,” she murmured as she turned over and pressed her chest to the bed, pulling her knees up until her ass was perched high in the air. “Does this help? Can you hear me now?”
I wanted to fall to my knees and fucking worship her. Instead, I tripped, cursing while I pulled the rest of my clothes off, and she giggled.
I leaned forward and bit her ass.
“Oh, shit,” she moaned, her back arching even closer to the bed.
“You just keep talking,” I said against her skin, sliding my fingers up until I could grab the thin strings at her hips and slide them down over her ass, snapping them once against the smooth skin there. “Giving me so much shit all the fucking time.” I pulled the underwear down to her knees and gently helped her raise her legs so I could take them off. “But when I get you like this, it all goes away, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said breathily as I smoothed my hand down her back.
“You’d do whatever I wanted—”
“I wouldn’t go that far—” Her words cut off on a sharply indrawn breath as I bit her ass again, this time a little harder.
“You smell good,” I murmured, pulling her thighs farther apart.
I licked my lips as I stared at the pretty, dark-pink skin between her legs, then noticed a small hand inching down over her clit.
“Nice try,” I laughed, reaching under her to grab her wrist before her hand made any good contact.
Then I opened my mouth and ran my tongue from her clit to the small opening that was already weeping for me.
Ani yelled out my name as I pressed my tongue inside her, and I felt like fucking Superman.
My dick was so hard it hurt. Hell, it felt like I’d had an erection the entire night, from the moment she’d taken off her pants in the truck. Ani’s hips started rolling against my face, her legs trembling, and I pulled back fast before she could come.
I wanted in there before she did.
“I fucking hate you,” she moaned against my comforter when I wiped my face and got to my feet.
I chuckled as she toppled to the side, looking up at me through dazed eyes.
“You’re gorgeous,” I said quietly, bracing my hands on the bed so I could lean down and kiss her hip. “Come here.”
I pulled her to her knees on the bed and brought her face to mine. Why the hell did I want her so bad?
As soon as her mouth met mine, I groaned. Sliding my tongue into her mouth, I grabbed her ass in both hands, jerking her against my body. It had been a month since I’d felt all that smooth skin, and I wasn’t even sure where to start.
Falling onto the bed, I pulled Ani with me. When her legs had settled on each side of me, she pulled away from my mouth, leaning back until she was straddling my hips.
“Ride me,” I ordered hoarsely.
“Condom?” she asked, reaching down to wrap her hand around my dick.
I almost shot off the bed it felt so fucking good.
“I’m clean,” I told her, searching her eyes.
Maybe I was a dick. Insensitive, or whatever. But for the entire ride home, I’d been really conscious of the fact that there was no way to get Ani pregnant. I could fuck her any way I wanted to, come inside her at any time, and there was no way for my worst nightmare to happen.
I didn’t have to worry about a broken condom or faulty birth control. It was like Christmas.
“So am I but…” She looked off to the side for a moment, squeezing her lips together. “Okay, yeah.”
“Yeah?”
She didn’t answer me again with words, but instead, pulled my cock away from my belly and ran it through the wet lips of her pussy. She kept doing it, rubbing it back and forth for a long time.
“Sorry,” she laughed humorlessly, and shook her head. “I’m nervous all of a sudden.” Her cheeks grew pink as she tried to play it off, but I could see how uncomfortable she was by the tilt of her head and the way her jaw clenched.
I knew her. I knew all of her tics, most of her expressions.
“Hey,” I called quietly, sitting up so our faces were close. “That’s why you’re on top.” I reached up and gently pushed her hair away from the sides of her face. “Go at your own pace; it hurts—we stop.”
“This is stupid,” she replied, notching my dick at her opening and barely pressing me inside. “The doctor said I’m healed.”
“Then stop fucking around,” I said shortly.
“You’re such a dick,” she gasped, pressing down harder against me.
“I’m thirty-two years old. I stopped dry humping when I was seventeen—” My entire body jerked as she suddenly forced herself down. “Oh, fuuuck.”
I’d known that pissing her off would get her out of her head, but I hadn’t realized how little it would take to make her forget her fear.
“It feels different without a condom,” she whispered into my ear, running her hands into the back of my hair and fisting it tightly as she rolled her hips.
“No shit,” I gasped out. “Fuck, that’s good.”
“It doesn’t feel different?” she asked hesitantly. The word came out tentatively, and I knew she didn’t mean different—she meant bad. Why she’d ever think that, I had no clue. But it was so far from the truth it was laughable.
Her words hit me hard. I don’t know if it was the vulnerability that normally she would have killed to keep hidden or the fact that she’d trusted me with it, but in that moment, I felt more tenderness for her than I’d ever felt in my entire life.
“Better,” I whispered, kissing her jaw. “It’s better.”
She pulled back to look in my eyes, then didn’t look away as she lifted up and slid back down. I caught her smile as my eyes drifted closed and my head tilted toward the ceiling.
A sexy woman was fucking me raw, tight as hell and wet as fuck, and there was no way I could get her pregnant. It may have been the best moment of my life.
“Best moment of my life.”
“Jesus, it doesn’t take much, does it?” Ani laughed.
“Did I say that out loud?”
“Sure did.”
I pulled her hands from my hair and fell back on the bed, my hands rising to grip her waist. She was so slender that I felt like I could wrap my fingers all the way around her if I tried. I’d have to come back to that later.
“Go,” I ordered, lifting her up and dropping her back down. “Stop fucking around and do it.”
Ani smiled and fell forward, sucking my bottom lip into her mouth, pulling on it as she leaned back again.
Then she braced her hands on my chest and ground down hard. Within minutes, she was bouncing above me, and one of her hands had slid down her torso to press against her clit. Every time she rose up, I could feel the tips of her fingers against my dick, rubbing and pressing.
She came first, thank God. But I was right behind her.