Chapter
6
Annabelle
Ugh. It felt like there was a drum set playing in my head. And why was the bed moving underneath me? Gingerly cracking open one eyelid, the first thing I realized was that it was still dark out. Not merely in the room, but also outside since there was no light peeking around the curtains across the room from me. Curtains that looked absolutely nothing like the ones I had in my bedroom. The next thing I noticed was I was not lying on a bed, but on a body.
Sweet baby Jesus, what had I done last night?
I let my eyes slowly drift up the gray t-shirt that covered a thickly muscled chest and, oh boy, it was a nice chest, until I was looking at a man’s neck and the underside of a solid, prominent jaw. Realizing who the jaw belonged to meant I had good news and I had bad news. The good news was, I knew who this incredible chest I was lying on belonged to, so I wasn’t sleeping with a stranger, which would have been a first for me. The bad news was, I knew who the incredible chest I’d been sleeping on belonged to and, apparently, drooling on since I was now looking back down to the incredible chest and the wet spot there that stood out where my mouth had been positioned. It was Bobby Baker. How in the Holy Hell did I end up in bed with Bobby?
Looking down to my own body, I breathed out a sigh of relief when I saw that I still had clothes on. Of course, there was a small part of me that was disappointed I had clothes on, but as the Rolling Stones were famous for saying, you can’t always get what you want. Despite all the hurt between us, what I’d always wanted desperately was Bobby. Hazy memories started to develop as I watched him sleep. Fuzzy snippets where he said the things I’d dreamt of him saying to me in my loneliest moments through the years.
I should have never sent you that letter.
Eight words I’d never thought I’d hear, along with an apology and his attempt to tell me he still loved me. One would think those words would be exactly what I wanted and—in a way—they were, but they were also the last thing I wanted because a letter and a broken heart weren’t the only things between us. There were secrets between us, too. Only Bobby didn’t know about them yet.
When he found out the truth, the tide would change. Instead of looking at me with hope and love shining in his eyes, he would look at me with anger and betrayal. My carefully constructed world was about to be blown to bits because I knew—down to the bottom of my heart—that I had no choice except to tell him the truth now. It was easy to justify the secrets when I was able to hold onto the hurt and miles between us. Now he was here and had apologized, I was drowning in the realization I had well and truly screwed up big time.
There was certainly no coming back from what I’d done. The only thing that hurt more right now than the knowledge Bobby would well and truly hate me soon were the ‘what if’ thoughts. What if I’d done it all differently back then? What if I’d stayed in Sylvania? Things might be different now, but there was no going back. No time machine to help me right my wrongs. No, all I had was this moment to cherish before the sun would rise on my problems and my life would once again be irrevocably changed forever. I was going to grab onto this moment with him with both hands and make the most of it. Make enough memories to last me a lifetime before he walked away from me for good.
Sitting up slowly on the bed, I looked over at the digital clock on the nightstand that said—in glowing red numbers—it was four o’clock in the morning. Hopefully, he wasn’t a morning person because that could blow the plan forming in my head to bits. Brushing the worry away, I maneuvered myself carefully out of the bed until I was standing on the floor next to it. The room wasn’t exactly spinning from the hangover I had, but I was a bit fuzzy in the brain. It wasn’t enough to stop me from what I wanted to do, though. I was watching him like a hawk for the smallest indication he would wake up, but he didn’t move. Glancing to the door of the room, I debated leaving. It might be for the best. What I was about to do would only hurt us both further after everything came to light.
Though, when I looked back at Bobby’s sleeping form, I couldn’t make my feet move towards the exit. It was selfish and it was going to exacerbate all of my problems, but I needed this from him. Needed to feel the connection I knew would still be there once we started touching each other. Wanted to feel, if only for a little while, the depths of his affections in the most fundamental way before everything crashed down around me again. Perhaps it would make him hate me more later, but then, that might be for the best, as well. What I’d done was unforgivable, and I didn’t deserve what I was about to give myself in his arms, but I was going to take it anyway.
Deciding not to waste any more time, I peeled my shirt off over my head. Then, with swift, but still somewhat wobbly movements, I unbuttoned my jeans and pushed them over my hips and down my legs, along with my panties, until they pooled at my feet around my cowboy boots. Slipping my feet out of my boots, I stepped out of them to peel my socks off. Finally, I snapped open the front enclosure of my bra and slid it down my arms and off my body. I stood there, fully exposed for a moment, watching his dreaming eyes move around under his closed eyelids.
Was he dreaming of me? Imagining a life for us where we could be old and gray, sitting in a swing on a front porch somewhere, while we watched future grandchildren playing? Thinking up a life where we would always be together instead of apart? These were all things I’d dreamed of over the years. It was nice to think maybe he’d dreamt those things, too. They were also things that would never happen.
Making myself move before I lost my courage, I carefully crawled back across the bed to minimize moving it around and then positioned myself so I was straddling his prone body. It was probably a small miracle I’d managed to do all of that without losing my balance, falling on top of him, and making a jackass out of myself. His eyelids twitched and he groaned as my movements jostled the bed, causing him to start being brought into consciousness.
Setting my trembling hands on his stomach, slipping my thumbs underneath the edge of his shirt, I slowly started to push the fabric up to reveal his body to me in slow, agonizing inches. There was a small, dark line from his happy trail that disappeared into his jeans. Continuing to move the shirt up, I revealed a tan, defined six-pack that begged me to trace it with my lips, so I did. His abdomen gave an involuntary spasm at the touch and he mumbled something incoherent. My hands kept moving his shirt up, with my lips skimming over the skin I revealed along the way, until I was past his stomach and pushing fabric over his small, brown nipples. That’s when two strong hands grabbed my wrists to stop my progress. Lifting my face from where I’d been kissing his skin, I couldn’t help smiling at his drowsy, confused face.
His voice rumbled low, “What are you doing?”
“Making a memory.”
He shook his head. “I won’t take advantage of you, Belle. You had too much to drink last night and you’re probably still out of it.”
Leaning back down, I placed another kiss, followed by a slow, swirling lick to one of his nipples. Every muscle in his body locked up underneath me and he gave a hiss. Peeking back up at him through my lashes, I stopped long enough to say, “I’m not drunk and I’m not out of it. Trust me when I say, I’m completely in this moment with you.”
Those stunning blue eyes of his watched me with intense scrutiny; judging the sincerity of my words. Not waiting to see what his decision would be, I closed the distance between us and kissed him with all the ferocity of my emotions. His lips were hesitant at first, but when I traced his full, bottom lip with my tongue, silently asking for entrance to his mouth, he gave in on a groan and kissed me back. His hands came up to tangle in my hair while I slipped one of my hands down to the fly of his jeans. When his jeans were unbuttoned, unzipped, and I had pushed them halfway down his butt, I broke off our kiss as my hands shoved under his t-shirt, pulling it up quickly over his upper body and whipping it off to throw it over my shoulder somewhere behind me.
Bobby lay back down on the bed and watched my hands as they slowly traced the dips and grooves of his muscles. He’d had definition at eighteen. Now, at thirty-three, he had more of everything to define. Scooting down the bed, keeping my hands on his body as they moved over his pecs, his six-pack, skirting around his erection that was already thick and laying up to his belly button, I moved my hands over his built thighs until I knelt down on the bed by his feet and was looking up the length of his body. Yes, everything on him was bigger now.
Pulling his jeans down his legs, then dropping them over the end of the bed and onto the floor, I never took my eyes off his body. Everything about Bobby was utterly breathtaking. Looking back up to his face, my eyes locked onto him like I was a heat-seeking missile and he was the target. I couldn’t blink because, if I opened my eyes and this disappeared because it was some dream, I would never recover. Staring into his bright blue depths, I started sliding back up the bed, between Bobby’s legs. Starting from the inside of his knees, up to right below his groin, I used my nails to scratch his skin; not hard enough to break the skin, but I was certainly going to leave my mark. His swollen, full length twitched as I moved closer to it and hovered over him.
“Don’t tease,” he rumbled.
“Who said I’m teasing you?”
“Babe, you’re staring at my cock like it’s your favorite flavor of ice cream and licking your lips, but you’re not doing anything about it.”
I’d been licking my lips? Immersed in the sight of him before me, I hadn’t even noticed. Not that I cared. What woman wouldn’t look at this body of his and lick her lips with want? I licked my lips again, slowly, with the tip of my tongue, purposely exaggerating the movement, and his eyes narrowed at me in accusation.
Grabbing him in one hand, gently squeezing the heated flesh, I watched as his eyes closed and his head dropped back in pleasure. Moving my hand up and down in firm, slow strokes, I asked, “You want me to do something about this?”
“Yes,” he groaned, fisting both of his hands in the sheets.
Giving him another firm, slow stroke, I continued, “Are you sure you don’t want me to tease you just a little bit?” My hand stopped its movement and, instead, I squeezed him again.
His eyes shot open, a fire building in them and he groaned out in frustration, “Woman…”
That scowl of his promised revenge and, even though I knew it would never come after tonight, I decided it might be best to stop torturing him on the off chance he did find a way to pay me back. Sliding him into my mouth, I savored the salty taste of him as I moved down his length. Looking up his body, his eyes caught and held mine as I worked him. There was a flush to his cheeks and his breathing was coming faster now.
The fire of emotions burning in his eyes only seemed to grow brighter and I knew instinctively it was because he liked to watch me work him. It made me feel sexy. It made me want to be bolder with him. One of my hands was wrapped around the base of his cock so I used my free hand to reach down and roll his balls between palm and fingers. They were already drawn up hard and tight and, at the feel of me touching them, his back bowed, head pressed hard into his pillow, heels digging into the mattress. He was moments from losing it. I was so turned on from watching him struggle not to let go that I was already wet for him. Aching for him to fill me. As I was doing my best to push him over the edge with my hands and mouth, something happened. One moment, I was working him with everything I had and the next, my body was suddenly airborne until I landed hard on my back with Bobby’s body covering me.
His eyes seemed fevered now when he said, “Not. Yet.”
I panted, “But, Bobby—” He silenced me with a quick, hard kiss. Pulling away, he slid down my body, threw my legs over his shoulders as I pushed up on my elbows and protested, “But Bobby—”
“Shut it, woman. Trying to do something here.”
Then his mouth was on me. My elbows gave out from underneath me and I fell back to the bed again. We’d always been generous with each other’s bodies when we were kids, using our hands and mouths to get each other off, but this was different. This was so much more. Everything felt heightened. His tongue was traveling over my entrance, up and over my clit, licking me like he couldn’t get enough of me. His finger was pressed up high inside of me and curled just enough that it hit the magical spot.
I felt my mouth moving, but I had no idea what I was saying because my head felt light and there was a buzzing in my ears. He wasn’t trying to push me over an edge, he was strapping me to a rocket, lighting the fuse and I was milliseconds from exploding all over him. When it hit me, it felt as if someone had blown me apart, molecule by molecule, until there was nothing of me left except for the heart and soul of me, which was my undying love for Bobby.
There was no time to think, though. No time to throw up some of those emotional defenses to protect myself from his assault. What a clever girl I’d thought I was when I’d started this with him, thinking I could control everything to minimize my eventual fallout. No, between one breath and the next, he was there, sliding into me, filling me like no one ever had before, or would again. It felt so good—him inside me—and that’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks. It felt too good. He wasn’t wearing protection.
“Condom,” I gasped. “You forgot to put on a condom!”
He started to pull out and I thought he was going to fix our problem, but before he pulled entirely out of me, he was surging back in, shaking his head no, and gritting through his teeth.
“Nothing between us, Belle.” Pulling almost all the way out, he moved his hands until they were holding my legs behind the knees and positioning me so I was spread open wide and bare for him, then he powered back inside me. “Nothing will ever be between us again. God, being inside you feels like coming home.”
Tears filled my eyes and a sob tore out of my chest. Bobby’s face softened and I could tell he thought they were tears of joy in celebration of us being together again. How I wish they were. They were really tears of gut-wrenching pain and want. How I’d give anything for there to be nothing between Bobby and I again, in every sense of the word, but that wasn’t the case and—all too soon—he would figure it out. For now, I still had him and this moment so I was going to make the most of it.
Just like fifteen years ago, the last time he’d made love to me on the bank of the creek in Georgia, I whispered, “Make love to me, Ace. I’m about to come, and I wanna feel you inside me when I do.”
Seeing the desperate flash in his eyes, I knew he remembered that time, that moment of love between us and those words. Letting go of my legs, he stroked up into me again, and then brought himself down over me until our lips were touching as he whispered, “First, tell me who loves you.”
More words from him I’d never thought to hear again. Tears escaped out of the corner of my eyes and I had to close them quickly so he wouldn’t see the emotional war going on inside of me. Unable to reopen them and look the man I was betraying in the eye, I whispered back, “You do, Bobby.”
Kissing each eyelid and then the tear tracks on my face, he started moving inside me again as he said, “That’s right, sweet baby. Remember that.”
~~~
Bobby
Rolling from my back to my side in my sleep is when an internal alarm inside of me started going off. There should have been a warm, soft female body I’d have to roll over with me. My arms now felt empty when they should be full of the woman who I’d made love to earlier. Reaching a hand out across the bed, I encountered no lush, feminine curves, instead there were only empty sheets. Sheets that were still a little warm from her body heat, but empty long enough that the indention from her pillow was long gone. Not wanting to appear like some frantic jackass in case she was in the bathroom, I laid there with my eyes still closed as I used my hearing to listen for signs of movement. At least a minute ticked by, and no sounds came to me.
Dread settled in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t want to open my eyes and see the truth, but knew I had to do it anyway. She was gone. Belle had up and left me sometime after we’d made love. Turning my head in the direction of the window and, subsequently, the digital clock, I opened my eyes enough to see it was now nine o’clock in the morning and daylight was streaming in around the curtains.
Knifing out of bed, I looked for signs of her. Her clothes. Her boots. A note with her swirling cursive signature that would hopefully say she’d left to go get us some breakfast. Something to give me hope she hadn’t walked out of this room like nothing had fucking happened. After I’d torn the room apart looking for hope and finding none, I gave into my anger instead and punched a hole in the wall. Pulling my scraped and bleeding hand out of the sheetrock, I couldn’t help noticing the size of the hole in the wall kind of looked like the size of the hole that she’d just punched through my heart.
~~~
Annabelle
Walking up to my front door, I was grateful that at least the hangover headache was gone. If I was lucky, I would find that Seth wouldn’t be in the house, either, so I wouldn’t have to explain my whereabouts for the night. As I inserted my key into the deadbolt lock, the door was snatched open for me. Lifting my head up from the space of air where the lock used to be to the angry green eyes that were directed at me was not an easy thing to do. I should have known I would not be lucky enough to get away from a confrontation with Seth. Now, it was time to face the music.
Taking a step forward, I tried to step inside my own house, but my way was still blocked by the body vibrating with anger in front of me.
“You going to move out of my way and let me in, or are we going to keep standing here like this?” I managed to push the question out with a lot more courage than I was currently feeling. My girl, Teagan, always said you had to fake it ‘til you could make it, though, so I had become a master over the years at faking things like courage and common sense until I could work them up for myself.
Keeping his arms spread wide between the door frame and the front door, Seth mocked back, “You wanna tell me where the hell you’ve been all night? I was worried.”
Nope, apparently, I wasn’t getting into my own house without a fight first. I should have known I was going to have something go wrong after successfully sneaking out of Bobby’s room this morning. It had been too easy. Propping my hands on my hips, straightening my back and doing my best to exert confidence and attitude, I snapped back at him, “You do not cuss at your Momma, Seth Baker. I ought to whip your behind for talking to me that way.”