Chapter Twenty-Two
Gray
She was wild today, which excited me, but I’d never admit that to her. We’d had a picnic down at the lake since we’d been Laura-free today, the spot we picked far enough to drive to. Alicia had wanted to explore, see all of what Josephine’s land really consisted of which I showed her. It’d been after all the fanfare and away from all the press that seemed to constantly be around these days. As the project of Josephine’s home gained toward completion and word about the plans for the development got out more and more people seemed to be stopping by. They were excited for it, the town more than.
It’d been a whirlwind, but we’d made it, a house, a story I’d been proud to be a part of. I got everything out of it in which I intended. I honored a woman who had been so good to me and my family.
I also got something else.
Alicia ran from the lake and in the general direction of my truck, picnic basket thrown over her arm. Out of breath, she sprinted from me, but I honestly could have caught up to her in maybe a stride and a half if I tried. My legs were quite extensive compared to hers, and in her short dress and sandals, she wasn’t gaining a lot of traction on the sand and then later through the woods, as she headed out toward my truck parked just off the side of the road. The one handicap I had was the rest of our picnic gear, but that really hadn’t been a handicap at all. I could have easily caught her, a finger brush, then grab away.
I just liked chasing her.
I enjoyed the chase of her, a constant game I’d been playing in so many months. I didn’t know my life without that game, without her heavily embedded in all aspects of my wonderful life.
Gaining on her, she’d reached my truck, spinning around and the bell of her dress whipping in the wind and exposing her beautiful brown legs. Dropping our stuff to the ground, I wanted to see more of them, bunching up her dress and pressing my mouths to hers. She teased me though, not making that easy. Dropping our picnic basket, she threw her arms around my neck, backing us both into my truck with a slam, tossing her hips up against me and spreading her legs. Her sweet heat between us, she rubbed steadfast against my jeans and I pressed a hand against my truck.
“Alicia…” I groaned, her hands exploring, undoing my pants. “Alicia, no.”
I wasn’t as adventurous as her. She’d kept her hands to herself for the most part at the lake, mostly because I believed she’d been afraid one of the people down at her house would somehow make their way to where we’d been. I knew there really hadn’t been any possibility of that considering how far away we’d gotten, but I let her believe the fact. If I hadn’t, she’d be doing what she was now.
Testing my resolving in the worst way.
Mouth parting on mine, she eased my cock out of my jeans, massaging me and guiding me to pump into her hand. The stimulation was something I could easily give into, her hands like fire and the space between her legs just as tempting to fill. Enraptured, I took over her lips, nibbling and bruising them between my teeth. Eventually, her hand left me and went to the skirt of her dress and the moment her arousal hit the air I was done for.
I was giving into her.
Opening the door of my truck, I pulled her to me, her body trembling and my hardened cock against her back. I rocked my hips, pushing the door wide then guiding her forward. Bent over my seat, I shoved her dress above her ass, her supple bottom exposed when I tugged her panties down.
She made me this way, insatiable for her. Her honeyed flesh pooled between the spaces of my fingers when I gripped her tight flesh, a mew sound eased from her lips.
Corkscrewing her hips, she rubbed her sweet pussy against my seat, trying to get some relief I imagine, but if I wasn’t getting any she wasn’t.
I created a barrier between my seat and her mound with my hand, bracing the warmth and thrusting forward a little. I watched my cock smooth between the slit in her backside, my pre-cum on her ass and sliding between her cheeks. She called my name when I did that, a soft and aroused, “Gray,” which toyed at my soul. I wanted to tear into her, ease myself inside and claim her until she was mine, until she knew she was mine. So many things were up in the air with us, time, distance, and space were all ultimately against us. The topics had been something we never discussed because neither of us had the answers. We just had this, Gray and Alicia.
We got this.
Sliding on a condom, I eased her legs apart with a tap of my boot to each of her ankles, the protection something I’d invested in. We hadn’t had unprotected sex since our first time together, my error, and even though she’d said we were okay I wanted to make sure of that. It wasn’t because I didn’t want another child. I just didn’t want to leave her vulnerable, the possibility of having a child placed only on her when I was in this too. We were two people and shared responsibility.
I loved her.
And I told her that at the first fill, easing up and burying myself inside her. Being cautious of my weight, I pressed my body on hers, gripping her hip while I got good traction by placing my boot on the step of my truck. Getting a rhythm, I tunneled in, my hips slapping against her bottom and creating the most beautiful, audible arrangement amongst that of the nature and trees.
She grabbed my hand while I slammed into her, holding it to her hip.
“I love you, Gray,” she said. “I love you,” and I came. I came so hard inside her I felt it in my toes, my balls drawing up and my core tight with the release.
I filled the condom, her, and enjoyed the high of feeling her pulse around me as her pussy pulled me in. She gave in right after I did and I watched her, held her through each gorgeous second. After she finished, I smiled into her back, kissing the warm brown skin above her bottom.
“I can’t believe you got me to do that,” I said, laughing against her skin. I drew my tongue down her back, and when she pressed her bottom into me, I knew something else.
She was about to make me do it again.
So many times this woman got me to go outside of myself, to change and each time had been a welcomed relief.
I watched her change too; free herself in the ways she hadn’t been upon coming to this town. Alicia was the type of class to see me on the street not even a year ago and pass on a glance my way, no time for her or her attention. She was a woman of the world, myself far from.
But she was with me now, here and now, her beautiful breasts bouncing above me while her hips tightened down below.
I eased the straps of her dress and bra down, wanting to see her completely as she rode me in my truck. My hands on her breasts, I massaged, her nipples dark and dimpled between my fingers.
I pulled, tweaked, and sucked each one, her lips calling my name, her hand on the back of my head.
“Gray, Gray, Gray.”
That meant she was close, her hand coming down to grip my frame. Her fingers created a white heat in my side, my abs tightening and pulsating with her hand beneath my shirt.
Guiding my hands to her thighs, I drove up, my boots securing themselves to the floor while I thrust my hips. Her hands instinctually went up to the top of the truck’s cabin, the space tight, but big enough.
My thighs slapped her, hard hits, which burned with every retreat. I could imagine it was the same for her, a call from her throat with every retreat. Eventually, our labor exhausted us and I saw it on her face the moment it happened.
I brought my hand to her cheek at the very instance, wanting to feel her beneath my fingers when I brought them down her mouth. She was so soft, so perfect in every way. I had no right to be with this woman and only in this universe would it work.
But I took it. I fucked her. I loved her with my entire being.
I cleaned her up right after, knowing we wouldn’t have a lot of time to just be together. We’d been out all afternoon, reality and obligations coming back to us.
I held Alicia in my arms in my favorite way, her nestled on top of me, my truck door still open and allowing her feet to hang freely. She lost her shoes at some point. I hadn’t been surprised I guess.
Using a few strands of her hair, I stroked her cheek, watching her eyes and a little noise left her lips in response to my touch. I could watch her all day like this. I did watch her on a lot of fortunate nights.
“Everyone seemed to enjoy today,” I told her after awhile, her eyes opening on me with a smile. I smiled back, cupping her face. “I think you made the town really happy.”
We’d seen literally everyone there in a matter of weeks, people stopping by to wish their warm regards and give their blessings.
It was little things like that… thought for people and the place they called home that meant something to them. Alicia and I both were foreign to this place, but she thought about them, their town.
Her eyes creasing in the corners, she tilted her head at me.
“You think I made her happy?” she asked after a while. She cupped my hand on her cheek. “That’s what I want.”
Leaning forward, I kissed her nose, enjoying her scent and feminine heat.
“I know you have,” I told her. “She would have loved this. She would have loved this so much.”
Josephine loved her house and to know, at least in all this inheritance business with Alicia and everything else, that this element, in it would be preserved a huge blessing. Alicia didn’t have to do any of this, the woman basically a stranger to her.
But she had and did so graciously, using her own money at that too from what I understood.
I had no idea her future plans for everything and, basically, had put all hopes aside. I had no hopes.
Mostly because I didn’t know what I wanted either.
“Do you know what you’re going to do? With the rest of the property I mean?” I actually asked her, questions so forbidden before. Truth be told, I didn’t want the answer with every passing day because each one meant the possibility of her leaving.
Her expression changed with the questions, her shoulders shrugged, and she brought a shawl she’d taken with us up and over her shoulders.
“More and more offers for me to sell have come,” she admitted. “With the press and everything you know.”
I did know, clasping her hand. I could imagine the land was a hot commodity. Especially with the revisions.
Nodding, I let her know I understood, playing with the material of her dress on my lap.
I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t know if I could say anything when it came to whatever decision she was trying to make. When she started this project, I’d gone in myself with a finality, this town in my rearview mirror once the development of this property and my duty to a kind woman named Josephine ultimately fulfilled.
But with each passing day, each laugh, each moment experienced in this town not just with Alicia, but my daughter…
It was hard not to deny the power of this place and what it was starting to mean for my family. We’d found something here.
We had security finally.
I was tired of running. I was tired of fighting for something I already had. I hated moving my daughter to a new town every time I felt we’d been there too long. I hated uprooting and changing our lives due to mistakes I’d made in the past. I was tired of worrying about the if. If something would happen if we stayed somewhere too long.
I was tired of paying for my mistakes.
I was punishing my daughter in response to them too and something I knew heavily. I’d been punishing her since she’d made her way to me and even long before that. I had my fair place in the sadness, which had occurred in her life, the tragedies placed upon both her heart and mind. Her mom had a good grip on the responsibility of it, but I’d been the catalyst for what had ultimately ended up happening to our daughter when her mom abandoned her, the details of it…
As well as what we’d had to do in response.
We’d been running for a long time, my kid and me. It’d been necessary and something I hadn’t regretted in the slightest. Running kept us hidden, kept us safe, but the toll it took on my kid was undeniable. Her mental state did nothing to recover from what her mom had put her through when she initially abandoned her, the running only further burying her within herself. She closed off, clamped up even worse than when I found her.
Then when I literally found her, my little girl by herself.
I had no idea how long she’d been alone. I just knew after that day I never heard her voice. It’d been a day I established my responsibility in her life and role I had pushed on with to this very moment. I did what I had to do to protect my kid, but somehow in my crusade, my protection had the reverse affect. My mistakes were starting to punish Laura, my sheltering of her keeping her from experiencing life. She hadn’t been able to make friends or really do anything. At least not until this town.
My daughter had found something here against all odds and that went beyond that of her voice. She’d found happiness, true happiness within herself and she wasn’t the only one.
My thoughts peeled away to Alicia, my happiness so close to me. It wasn’t fair of me to love her, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I didn’t want to stop myself anymore.
“Since Laura’s in school now,” I started pushing my hand over Alicia’s cheek. Her smile sent my heart in places it shouldn’t be, but since it was, there was no more fighting it. It was time to take a look around and see what was reality.
It was time to wonderfully accept it.
Kissing her forehead, I told her about the jobs I was going to take on now that Laura was in school and I’d finished up with Josephine’s project. I was going to root myself and find my way here like my daughter seemed to have.
“And I’ll get Laura and me a house eventually,” I said to her, a house… A life. I never would have dreamed it in my best ones.
The heat in Alicia’s hand embedded within me and I only opened my eyes when I believed I missed what she said. She mentioned her aunt’s house.
And she mentioned me living there.
“You want to sell it to me?” I asked her, shaking my head. “You want to sell Josephine’s house to me?”
She stared at me long and hard. Taking back her hand, she rubbed it against my chest.
“You’d be the only one it would be for,” she said and the sadness in her voice I didn’t miss.
Her gaze reached me when I cupped her jaw and I took her lips between both hands.
“It’d only be for us,” I corrected her, pulling away. I scanned her eyes. “We are the only ones.”
She watched me, her eyes opening up in the most beautiful way. Her smile played with me when she reached forward, her hand touching my lips.
“We,” she started, the word in awe on her lips. Her eyes creased hard and she shook her head before saying, “I’d have to change so much, do so much to make… to make that happen.”
She would. She’d have to rearrange her entire life. I didn’t know exact details of her world, but I did know she’d have to change them. She’d have to give up who she’d been.
And choose who she was now.
It’d been a change I had to make as well, and though our journeys were different, I knew her struggle had to be just the same.
I didn’t want her to respond right away to what I proposed. I just wanted her to know it was there, an option.
“It’d be everything,” I told her, her hair brushing along my fingers against her cheek. “I’d make sure it was for you, for all three of us, I’d make sure of it.”
It was the first promise I’d ever truly made to anyone.
Including myself.