* * *

Synopsis:

We all have that one person we never get over. The one person who haunts your dreams, crushing your soul when you wake up and realize they're gone. The one person whose name is tattooed forever across your heart.

Like the clashing kaleidoscope of tattoos that run down his arms.

Connor McLean.

My brother's best friend.

I've loved him my entire life.

And I've been the invisible sidekick. The pesky little girl with fluffy hair and gangly legs.

I always thought I'd grow up and he'd finally see the real me. That he'd watch the little girl blossom into a woman worthy of his love.

But he left.

Connor joined the SEALs and broke my heart.

So, when I see his familiar swagger across the bar. When his cocky smirk makes my heart flutter, I know this is my chance.

It's wrong to deceive him. To pretend I don't know him. But I need him to give me one night. One chance to see that I'm not a little girl anymore.

However, my secret is nothing compared to the one Connor has been holding all these years. The one that could tear us apart before we ever have a chance.

* * *

“Man, I spend all week helping you with your house and this is how you repay me?” Ryan Rogers looks around the bar with disdain.

“Pfft, helped me all week,” I roll my eyes exaggeratedly. “More like helped clean out my cupboards, not to mention my booze,” I shoot him a look.

“What can I say? Your entire cabinet was a good vintage,” he laughs and his blue eyes twinkle as we walk over to the bar. “I’ll have a rum and Coke,” he nods at the sleepy looking bartender.

“Make it two, please,” I add. The woman behind the bar looks like she’s been doing this for decades and that every long night has permanently taken their toll.

“Two rum and Coke coming up,” she answers like she just uttered the most boring string of words in the universe before she twists her long, greying hair up into a bun and grabs our glasses.

“I know it’s not a hot club or anything, but I hate those places. You can’t even hear yourself think, let alone talk to anyone. Besides, you know how it is,” I glance over at him and I can see from the seriousness that passes over his face that he gets it. We don’t need to talk about how when you get back from a deployment like ours, you can’t stand wall-to-wall crowds anymore. Or how you automatically scope out the exits when you walk inside, mentally taking note. We don’t need to have a chat about how I only feel comfortable with my back to the wall when we go sit down or how people wearing backpacks set off a little alarm bell in my mind. Those things don’t need to be discussed, but I can tell he knows them well.

“You wanna pay now or run a tab?” Our alcohol slinging ray of light slides the drinks over the bar at us and doesn’t even pretend to smile as she waits for an answer.

“Tab, please,” I answer.

“Good call,” Rogers smirks and lifts his glass in a clink-less cheers. We both take a drink and scope the place out.

“Over there,” I point to a table at the far end of the room where I can sit with my back to the wall. It’s a quiet part of the room, but I’ll be able to see everything going on around me.

Rogers agrees and we pass a couple of tables full of ladies having a girls’ night and some guys pretending not to scope them out a few seats over.

We relax into the well-worn chairs and put our drinks on the slightly wobbly table. “Well even though you drank all my booze and ate all my food, I still wanna say thanks for your help man,” I look up at my former military subordinate. “I mean, I totally could’ve gotten that window in myself, but it was nice to have a hand with it,” I take another sip of my drink as Rogers laughs.

“Oh yeah, you might have. Or they may have found your body under a layer of broken glass in a week or so,” he snorts.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence man,” I laugh.

“I’m not saying you couldn’t do it or anything, I’m just saying my money is on the second one,” he chucks shit at me before taking a huge mouthful of his drink.

“Hey, take her easy man, you’ve got all night,” I glance at the disappearing brown liquid in his tall glass.

“And if she’s easy, take her twice,” he brings the glass to his lips and tosses the rest of his drink back, making his cheeks puff out as he swallows it down.

“Or, you know, chug it all like a frat kid. Whatever,” I shake my head and suddenly feel my age. When I was the Lieutenant of our SEAL team, I always felt like I might have been too young and too close in age with my guys to really be in charge of them. Don’t get me wrong, I had world-class training and I did my job well, but when I was thirty-one and the rest of my guys were only a few years younger than me, I didn’t feel like the experienced, grizzled vet you see in movies. Now, at thirty-two, I feel like I’ve aged a decade in the last year. There’s something about war that makes you cautious, that makes you hollow, that makes you old.

“Listen, not everyone wants to live in some cabin on the edge of town, like, chopping wood and shit. Some of us still want to ride the tides. Let’s relax and see where the night goes. I’m gonna grab another one, you want one?” Rogers stands up abruptly, scraping his chair across the dull, wooden floor.

“Nah, I’m good,” I hold up my barely touched drink and he shrugs.

“Suit yourself, I’ll be back in a sec,” he saunters across the bar, noticeably checking out the table of girls as he passes them and I take another drink. Maybe not everyone feels like this when they get back. Maybe it’s just me. I can’t help but smile when a couple of the ladies at the table giggle and watch Rogers walk past.

Show off.

I look around the room, it’s getting louder now that there are few more people bustling around. I scan the faces, all of them unfamiliar, and don’t really soak in their features as much as I look for things that are out of place. Rogers is right, I need to relax. I’ve got to leave the desert overseas.

My eyes fall on two girls across the room, one with long hair the color of fire and milky skin, but it’s the other one with black hair and mocha skin radiating like a bronze statue, that holds my gaze.

They both look away quickly and I realize they were scoping me out. For a second, I feel like I was kicked in the gut as I take a deep breath and try to understand how every guy in this place isn’t feeling the same twitchy, swirling madness that’s been stirred in my soul just by looking at her.

“I got ya one anyway,” Rogers plops down our drinks and mine slightly sloshes over the edge of the cup leaving a fizzing black puddle on the oak tabletop. “I’m not letting you nurse that thing all night like some kind of old lady, drink up,” he blabbers on, but I can’t move my eyes.

“Uh, yeah,” I’m not sure what I’m agreeing about as I take a huge sip and finally manage to convince my gaze to sweep back to his face.

“What’s going on, man? You got that million-mile stare happening, you alright?” He looks around the room and his shoulders stiffen a little, like he’s shot with a tiny lightning bolt as he spots them. “Oh, yeah, I can see how you’d be distracted,” his voice goes down an octave.

“Don’t stare,” I suddenly feel possessive, like I don’t want him even eye-fucking the woman that just stole the oxygen from my lungs and made my heart beat faster. She’s far from mine. We’re complete strangers. Still, anger begins to bubble inside me at the thought of him looking at her that way.

“You gotta go introduce yourself, man,” Rogers looks back at me and I shrug.

“I don’t want to try to hook up, I’m supposed to be showing you around. I mean, you’re leaving in a couple days and…”

“Nope, stop there,” he holds up his hands, “don’t use me as an excuse to sit in the corner like a wilting flower and miss out on the fun. Go talk to her man, I can see you’re into her and that’s the only reason I’m holding back right now. If you don’t go, I will. I don’t care if I’m leaving in a couple days or not, she’s too pretty to pass on.”

I cringe when he talks about her like that. There’s no reason in the world for me to feel protective or jealous right now, but him casually talking about picking her up makes me want to casually punch his face.

“Man, she’s got a banging bod,” he glances back over.

Irritation steams inside me, but I can’t disagree. “She does,” I check out the curve of her breasts and the flare of her hips.

“And those lips, man, damn,” he continues.

My eyes glide over her pink pout and a flurry of images flashes through my brain of kissing them, biting them, watching them wrapped around my cock.

“And her hair is so long, I just want to wrap my fist in it and watch the rest fall around her face like red curtains while she bends over for me,” his voice is distant, like he’s watching a movie in his own mind.

“Huh?” Red curtains? I snap back and look at the other girl at the table. Not the bronzed goddess I’ve been fantasizing about, but her pale, redheaded friend. “Oh, her,” I smile, truly relieved. “Yeah, she’s cute man. You should talk to her.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind?”

“Oh, you’re into the other chick,” it finally clicks for him. “Yeah, she’s hot too.”

“I’m going to buy her a drink,” I decide out loud but realize I have to finish the one and a half drinks I still have sitting before me first. All of sudden, a breath of life fills my aging soul and I feel thirty-two again for the first time in a year. Grabbing a glass in each hand, I pound back the rum and Coke in one and then toss back the other. The second one burns down my throat and I look over at Rogers accusingly.

“Yeah, that one was a double,” he shrugs sheepishly, but his blue eyes light up like a kid that just pulled off an April Fools’ joke.

“Okay, whatever, I’m gonna talk to her, you coming?”

“Yep, I’m right behind you. Oh, and McLean?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t bring her back to your place, alright?”

“Nah, I wouldn’t do that to you, it’d be awkward,” I answer.

“No, not because of that,” he laughs, “I mean because I’m gonna be fucking that sweet little ginger all night, so you need to go back to her place.’

Classy.

For the briefest of moments, I think about Rogers getting sweaty with some random chick in my house and how I would be wise to wipe my counters down with some Clorox tomorrow before cooking anything. However, the concerns are quickly erased as we approach the table and the woman I’ve been transfixed by looks up at me with a smile.

“Hey,” I feel my mouth tug up and my body relax as I soak her in.

“Hi, did you guys want to join us?”

Act natural. Be calm. Breathe normally and stop staring!

I can’t help it. I haven’t seen Connor McLean in fourteen years. I’ve literally lived more of my life since he left this town than when he grew up in it. How can I not stare at him, study him, soak him in? His black hair is short and neatly styled, his chiseled jaw is covered in a layer of scruff that he never wore when he was eighteen. It looks good on him though. My eyes travel over his tight, built frame. The military must have been like milk for Connor - ‘cause it did a body good. Am I drooling? I subtly graze my fingertip over the corner of my mouth to be certain as I smile up at him.

Does he recognize me? Is that fire flickering behind his emerald eyes for me? The girl whose heart he broke so long ago? Or for the woman he thinks he’s never met?

“We’d love to,” Connor’s deep voice sends a vibration through my flesh, through my muscles and buries in my bones. He sits beside me and his friend takes a seat beside Amy. She gives me a look. An unspoken conversation passes between us in a glance, in a way that can only happen with best friends.

Is it him?

It is!

Get it girl!

Before the guys came over, I thought I was hallucinating when I looked across the bar and saw Connor sitting there. I mean, in fairness, I’ve seen his face so many times over the years. When I close my eyes at night, when I let myself get lost in a daydream, when I let my fantasies take over and my fingers ease the ache of desire between my thighs.

I squirm in my seat, that familiar yearning is overwhelming me. Now that Connor isn’t just a fantasy or a memory, but sitting here smiling at me, it’s almost too much.

Almost.

“I’m Ryan Rogers,” I hear Connor’s friend introduce himself across the table, but I can’t turn my head. I couldn’t care less who he is. All I can see is him.

“Amy,” I hear her answer.

“Thanks for inviting us to sit down,” Connor smiles and my heart flutters erratically. “I didn’t mean to stare at you over there,” he nods his head toward the table he walked over from, “but I couldn’t look away. I’m Connor McLean, you are?” He waits for me to fill in the blank and I realize he has no freaking clue who I am.

Of course he doesn’t.

When he left town, I was a gangly thirteen-year-old with short, fuzzy little afro and braces. My arms and legs seemed to be in a competition with each other for what limb could grow the fastest and my ears looked like they were trying to teach Dumbo a thing or two about how to fly.

I instinctively touch my earlobe, now hidden by long hair and smile, “I’m Lo…” I clear my throat instantly deciding to keep my childhood nickname to myself, “Charlotte.”

“Charlotte,” his green eyes twinkle and his strong jaw sets.

Does he know who I am? Does he remember little Lottie, his best friend’s sister, had a big girl name? Does he remember me at all?

“A beautiful name,” he leans toward me with a smile that makes me feel like I’ve just turned my face into the first warm rays of sunshine that heat the earth in the spring.

“Thank you,” I feel heat bloom over my cheeks, not to mention between my legs.

“What are you drinking, Charlotte?” He briefly looks down at my half-empty glass. Or is it half-full?

“Vodka cranberry,” I lick my lips and realize that I’m suddenly parched. I take a sip of my drink, but nothing in a glass can quench this thirst. It’s my nerves making my tongue feel like a batten of cotton.

“I’ll get you another,” he doesn’t ask and I don’t mind a bit.

He stands up and his friend follows suit. I watch as his round, tight ass walks away.

“Oh my God! It’s really him! Are you going to tell him?” Amy suddenly reappears across the table, closing the canyon of distance that was created by Connor sitting down.

“No, I don’t want him to see me as the goofy kid with some puppy-love crush,” I lean across the table and hiss at her.

“So, you’re gonna pretend you don’t know him? Isn’t that going to get weird?” She raises an eyebrow, heavily defined with brow pencil.

“No, I’m not pretending anything. I’ll tell him, I mean, I think I will. I haven’t worked that out yet. Can you just let me enjoy being seen as a sexy woman by the only guy I’ve ever loved instead of as a little kid?”

“No, of course, you’re right. Sorry,” Amy backs down, twisting her red hair around her pale fingers. “You deserve this babe, if I’d been driving myself crazy about a guy for as long as you have and he showed up like that, I’d have already taken him home by now,” her blue eyes sparkle.

“No doubt,” I laugh and twist my head around to look at him. Connor and his friend are still grabbing our drinks from the bar. I shamelessly let my gaze lick down his neck and over his burly shoulders, down his cut, tattooed arms and over the V of his waist to that perfect butt.

“Look at you! I’ve never seen you like this, I like it. It’s about time you came out of that shell,” Amy teases me. “Don’t waste tonight, you gotta hop on that stallion and ride!” She giggles.

“Amy!”

“Oh, please. Don’t act so shocked. You’re thinking it. And you know what? If Connor fucking McLean disappears from your life again and you didn’t take this opportunity, I’m not going to listen to it.”

The guys come back to the table with handfuls of drinks and smiles and we both jump in our seats, sitting up straight.

“Vodka cranberry for you, and a rum and Coke for me,” Connor smirks as he sits back down beside me.

“Oh, thanks for the Long Island,” Amy purrs from across the table. “Hey, Ryan, I was thinking it’d be nice to enjoy these out on the deck. Wanna join me?” She tilts her head and looks up at with a coy smile.

“Sounds good to me, you guys coming?” He looks over at us.

“No, they’re fine in here, right Charlotte?” Amy gives me a pointed look.

“Yeah, we’re good,” I smile back.

“Okay, lead the way,” Rogers stands up and Amy grabs her drink before getting on her feet.

“Text me tomorrow babe,” Amy looks at me and begins to walk away. She takes a few steps and yells back over her shoulder, “Oh and don’t forget, the reins!”

I shake my head as she disappears from sight with Ryan outside.

“What was that?” Connor looks at me.

“What? Oh, nothing. She’s obsessed with the weather,” I cringe at my inability to convincingly lie on the spot.

“Um, okay,” he shrugs.

“Anyway, thanks for the drink,” I take a big mouthful of what’s left in my first glass and push it across the table.

“Not a problem, so, Charlotte, you lived here long?” He reaches out and grasps my hand, weaving his white fingers through my much darker ones and my heart nearly thuds out of my chest.

“In Bend? Yeah, I was born here,” I lick my lips nervously and look down at my fresh drink.

“Really? Me too.”

“I haven’t seen you around,” I’m not technically lying. It has been over a decade since I’ve studied his sexy face. Since I’ve craved his broad hands, the hand holding mine now, to touch me. Since I’ve gotten lost in the world-stopping green of his eyes.

“I left when I was eighteen,” he fills in the part of the story I already know. “I just retired from the SEALs and thought it was time to come back home.” His eyebrows furrow together as he seems to get lost in his drink. Like he’s watching a scene he doesn’t want to explain play out on the surface of his fizzing drink.

“Well, I’m glad you came back,” I let my heart do the talking and feel myself relax when he finds his way back to my eyes.

“Right now, you’re making it pretty easy to see I made the right decision,” his words feel like the little electric shock you get when someone scuffs their feet on the carpet. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I sit a bit taller.

Amy is right, I’d be a fool to let him go. To let this go. I glance down at my drink. I didn’t plan on coming out here to get drunk, but I didn’t plan on meeting the only man who has made my heart fill like a helium balloon either. I lift my glass and hold it up to Connor, certain he can see my heart pulsing in my neck as I smile up at him, “Here’s to new beginnings and great decisions.”

He clinks his glass against mine and we both take a big swig. Connor drapes his arm casually over my shoulders and I snuggle into him without thinking. To new beginnings and great decisions. Let’s hope this is the start of both.

I unlock the front door and we stumble through like a couple of blind elephants.

“Shhh!” I hold my finger over my lips and giggle, “Keep it down.” People screaming about their houses burning to the ground are probably quieter than my loud whisper right now.

“Keep what down,” he murmurs, pinning me against the front entrance wall with his hips, “you? Is that what you like? Being held down? Or are you telling me to go down, ‘cause I can’t wait to taste you,” he kisses me and silences my explanation about what I said. In fact, after a couple of seconds of his tongue swirling against mine, like a couple of lovestruck teens dancing on prom night, I forget what I was even trying to tell him.

He steps back and sways slightly, not like he’s going to pass out, but definitely like the booze has hit him. I couldn’t keep up with him, and it took me the better part of five minutes just to unlock my front door.

Connor steps back and I grab his hand, leading him as quietly as I can down the hallway to the basement door.

“Hey, this place looks familiar,” Connor looks around and I practically drag him behind me.

“Oh yeah?” I try to sound casual, but I’ve never been a great liar. “You know these townhouses. They all look identical. If you’ve been in one, you’ve been in them all,” I clutch the doorknob in my palm and fling the door open, leading him down the stairs to my room.

“I guess,” he doesn’t sound convinced. Like I said, I’m a shit liar. At least this gives me something to be nervous about besides having my first one-night stand. I mean, obviously, I hope it’s more than that. I’m not saying I expect wedding bells and babies, just that I haven’t entirely ruled out either with Connor.

“Yeah, they’re all pretty cookie cutter,” I open my bedroom door and stumble inside with him hot on my heels. I shut the door with a click behind him and decide he needs a distraction before this turns into something more; potentially ruining our night. If he knows he’s in the same house his best friend grew up in, if he suddenly realizes who I am, this night is over. Not to mention the babies and the wedding.

“Did you really want to discuss architecture right now? Or are there better things I could be using my lips for?” I boldly step into him, looking up at him from under my heavy eyelashes and watch his eyes get a little bigger when I rub my hand over the front of his jeans.

“Mmmm, you make an excellent point,” he puts his hands on my shoulders and walks me slowly backwards across the room to my bed. “I would love to see what else that mouth can do, but on one condition,” his eyes are hazy from the booze but I can still see them twinkle.

“What’s that?” I practically purr.

“That I get to show you what my mouth can do at the same time.”

I take a final step back and my legs hit the edge of my bed. My knees buckle and I find myself sitting on my mattress with Connor’s growing bulge inches from my face.

He leans over me and quickly tugs my shirt up over my head, I don’t even understand how he gets my bra off so quickly. I don’t think even I’ve gotten it off that fast after a long day when all I want to do is toss it across the room and relax for the night. Connor leans over me and kisses me tenderly, our lips part and we explore each other’s mouths, our tongues feverishly twisting and turning against each other. I’m not entirely sure how I ended up on my back until I look down and see that Connor is making quick work of helping me out of my pants. When I’m stripped down to nothing but my lace panties, he pauses. I watch Connor’s green eyes travel over the fringe of my underwear, like under them is the Christmas present he’s been waiting all year for. He looks almost reverent as he lightly brushes his finger over the baby blue lace.

“You look like a piece of art, you know that? I can’t decide if I’m supposed to admire you or fuck you,” his fingertips travel over my pussy and I groan.

“Really?” I really do whisper this time, I never expected Connor to be so sweet and so tender.

“Of course not. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re fucking spectacular. Men start wars over women like you, but there’s no confusion,” he digs his fingertips in around the hem of my panties and twists them up in his palm. I can feel the fabric stretch tight around my hips and he twists harder. The seams explode over my skin, leaving me completely bare as Connor tosses my ripped panties to the floor. “I’m going to fuck you,” he growls.

He yanks his own shirt off and I’m distracted by the collage of tattoos etched into his skin. I’m transfixed as he frees himself from his pants, then his underwear, completely drawn in by the symbols and colors. That is, until I see his cock swaying in front of me.

Holy shit.

I literally gulp as my eyes travel over his veiny girth. I lick my lips as I study every inch of him, and there are a lot of them, all the way down and back up to the belled curve of his cockhead.

I’m frozen to the spot. Completely unable to move. Half of me wants to leap across this bed and try to take as much of him into my mouth as I can. The other half is overwhelmed with uncertainty and shyness. It isn’t only the fact that I’ve never had a one-night stand before, I just haven’t had that much sex before either. I’ve done it with all of one guy. And even then, it was a long-term relationship. This is all new to me.

Why are you fighting what you want? This has been your dream forever. Do you really want to sit here and overanalyze your life right now? Or do you want to make your deepest fantasy come alive?

Just like my architecture question I asked Connor earlier, it’s a no-brainer.

I sit on my haunches and wrap my hands around Connor’s thick dick. Both of them. Opening my lips wide, I take the tip of him in my mouth. He groans and rolls his head back. I slide him into my mouth further when he pulls back.

“Lie down,” he demands.

“What? I thought you wanted me to…” my fuzzy brain can’t make sense of what he’s asking.

“I do, I do,” he answers my unasked question. “Lie down on the bed and hang your head over the edge. I want to eat you out while you suck my cock.”

We ain’t in Kansas anymore. My last boyfriend, the only guy I’ve ever slept with was about as vanilla as they come. I mean, I was a virgin when I met him and I was bored. Any time I suggested something even slightly different than our usual missionary routine, he got angry and cold. Honestly, I think my “crazy” suggestions of oral sex and doggie style were the main reasons he left.

Not that I give a fuck about any of that now. I obey Connor and turn around on the bed, lying across it, I hang my head over the side and breathe in sharply when he hovers over me, dragging his tongue over my breasts and over my tummy to my pussy.

I grab his cock, again with two hands, and guide it in my mouth over my tongue. Connor’s mouth kisses a trail to my pussy and his tongue immediately delves between my lips, finding my clit quickly.

“Mmmm,” I moan against his cock and he pushes it into my mouth deeper. I hollow my cheeks, sucking on him and trying to concentrate on his pleasure as much as possible, but when he grabs my thighs and presses them open and begins battering my clit with his wet, warm tongue, I’m done for.

I’ve never felt anything like the insane intensity building up inside me now. I try to meet his mouth, raising my quivering hips toward him, but Connor pushes my legs against the bed and owns the moment.

I don’t know if it’s the booze or a head rush from how I’m lying, but my eyes get fuzzy and I feel a little dizzy as my body tenses up, every muscle tight. Connor’s tongue never stops teasing me, tasting me, twisting against my clit unrelentingly. He’s on a mission. A mission to make me cum. And he’s going to succeed.

A wave that felt like it had been building up inside me, taller and wider, suddenly crashes down. I’m drowning in ecstasy. I’m being tossed around in a wild undercurrent of bliss and I don’t know which way is up or down.

“Oh.My.Fuck! Connor. Oh God!” I cry out as little tremors run through my limbs and make my thick thighs quake with pleasure.

Connor pulls out of my mouth, not that I was doing a great job of keeping up, and smirks down at me. “You like that, sweetheart?”

“Like, is not the right word,” I realize I’m panting. The sensation is descending now, but there’s no part of my body it didn’t overwhelm.

“Good, ‘cause we got all night, and I’m just getting started,” his green eyes twinkle as he smiles.

“What did you have in mind?” Charlotte blinks at me, teasing me, pretending she didn’t just feel how hard she made me in her mouth a few minutes ago.

“Get up,” my voice is like gravel over my vocal chords as I help lift her from her bed. I pick her up and she wraps her legs around my waist as my fingers dig into the plump meat of her ass. I can feel the heat between her legs against my aching cock and I can barely think straight. I twist around, spotting a dresser on the far wall with a huge, arc shaped mirror hanging over it. I walk her over, fighting my urge to slide my cock inside her right now and fuck her mid-air. Instead, I drop her plump ass down on the edge of the dresser and lean over her, kissing her like the key to my survival rests on her full lips.

“I’m gonna fuck that tight pussy, Charlotte,” I murmur in her ear. “Don’t move,” I tell her before grabbing my jeans from the pile of clothes on the floor and frantically searching the pockets for the condom I was sure I had on me.

I check each pocket a second time, not willing to believe I could’ve been so stupid. So fucking stupid! Where is it? I drop them back down in crumpled defeat. Not in there.

Fuck.

“What’s wrong?” Charlotte’s brown eyes cloud over and she bites her pouty bottom lip.

“I don’t have a condom,” I feel like a man who raised the white flag of surrender. Defeated. Done.

“No condom?” She looks down my body. Her eyes flicker over my pecs, down my abs to my cock. She bites her lip again, but this time it isn’t with uncertainty.

It’s with desire.

“Can’t you…do you think you could just, you know? Not cum inside me?” She sounds unsure. Like she’s afraid to offend me. Or maybe she’s afraid I’ll say “No.”

“Are you sure?” I close the distance between us, desperate to feel her heat billow against my skin. I thread my fingers through her hair and gently tug her head to the side, kissing up her neck and suckling on her earlobe, “Are you sure that’s what you want?” I whisper.

“Mmhmm,” she grinds against me and my restraint, the little of it I had, evaporates.

“Get the fuck over here,” I dig my fingers into her ass and drag her toward me, flipping her onto her belly so she’s facing the mirror. “I’m gonna fill you full of cock and I want you to watch the whole thing,” I direct her.

“Take me Connor. Don’t hold back, I want this,” her voice is breathy and her body tenses up with anticipation, “I want you.”

I sweep my foot between her closed legs, opening her stance for me and step between them. In the mirror, I can see that she is waiting, like every second I’m not inside her is painful.

Grabbing her shoulder with one hand, I fist the base of my shaft with the other and guide it to her entrance. I know I should probably go slower. I know I should probably slide in, then out, letting her get used to me before burying myself inside her. But I can’t. I plunge my cock into her tight, wet pussy in one deep thrust. I slide in, every inch of me, until I’m completely sunken inside her, buried to the hilt. My hips press against her shapely ass and she opens her legs further. Like she wants me to reach her very core and I press in deeper.

I pump into her hard and fast. Driving deep on every push, my fingers dig into her dark shoulder blades, holding her tight under my control.

In the mirror, I can see her eyes roll back in her head as I fuck her mercilessly. As I claim her. As I make her mine. “Oh, Connor,” she manages to utter the words. Barely a whisper in the moonlit silence of her room. I watch my thick cock slide into her glistening pussy as her round ass slaps against me.

“Charlotte, you’re so fucking tight. You feel amazing,” I grunt, trying to show some kind of control, but she steals it from me. I can’t control my body's desire for her. Despite all my drinks tonight, I can’t stop myself from cumming. The sensation hits me quicker than I can even process. My balls tighten and my cock twitches as the first spurts of cum erupt from my cock. I pull out and watch as my white ropes arc onto her bronze ass in crazy criss-crossing designs. Like I’m marking her. If only for a moment.

“Oh, fuck,” I grunt, cum streaming out of me like I haven’t touched a woman in a lifetime. Truthfully no woman even comes close to making me feel like her. Like this.

Finally, my cock stops twitching, my cum stops spurting out and I stand up straight. Charlotte rubs my seed into her skin, making the creamy white disappear into a glistening glaze.

“That was incredible Connor,” she grasps on to my hand with her fingertips and I follow her to the bed. As she gets under the covers and I lie next to her, the feeling of familiarity, of this all being amazingly right somehow, overcomes me again. Charlotte snuggles into me, laying her head against my chest and breathes in deeply. I can feel my mind cloud over with exhaustion as my body relaxes into her bed.

Amazingly right, yet familiar somehow. I can’t place it. Maybe in my dreams. I drift off and let the thoughts linger around me as sleep takes me over.

My eyelids are heavy and my mouth is dry. I groan and roll over, reaching my hand out for the bottle of water I keep on my night table. My fingertips don’t wrap around the crunchy plastic though. Instead they plop against the smooth, tender warmth of a woman.

For a second, I slide my hand over her soft skin, down her arm, keeping my eyes closed like a man who lost his sight and now sees the world through touch. My meaty hand engulfs hers and our fingers lace together as she lets out a sleepy sigh.

I open my eyes, letting them travel over her long black hair, tousled over the pillow. I gaze over her glowing bronze skin, soaking in her eyelashes, still closed, down to her thick lips and then down even further to where her breasts are barely covered by the crisp, white linen.

How did I end up lying next to this gorgeous woman? I try to piece together the night. At first, it comes back in fragments. Just glimpses of moments. The way she threw her head back when she laughed. How her chocolate eyes twinkled right before I kissed her. How we walked down the street with our arms wrapped around each other the five blocks to her house.

The gaps begin to fill in as I kiss her shoulder, pressing my morning wood into her full, supple ass. I see flashes of the night replay in my mind, like how her long hair dangled over the edge of the bed as she took my cock in her mouth. And the way her tight pussy clenched against me as we fucked.

Those last memories certainly got my blood pumping. I’m awake and ready to make some fresh memories as I kiss a trail over her lean neck and suck her earlobe into my mouth. Charlotte’s eyes flutter open, a sweet smile kissing her lips.

“Mmm, good morning,” she grinds her ass back against my cock and I roll her onto her back, pinning her to the bed with my hips, hovering my face over hers.

“I’m about to make it a great morning,” my voice is raspy with need. Grabbing the base of my cock, I can’t help the groan that escapes my lips as I tease her slick clit with the tip. She’s already so wet for me. Charlotte throws her head back, moaning.

“You like that, baby?” I whisper, nipping her earlobe.

“I love it. I need to feel you again, Connor. I need to feel your cock stretch me out.”

“Yeah? Well, this time I’m gonna take my time with you,” I circle her wrists in my hands, yanking them over her head and kiss a trail down to her breasts. I take a dark nipple in my mouth, rolling my tongue over the tip.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

“Charlotte? You in there? It’s time to get ready for church!”

I jump up, watching her face transform from passion to fear as her eyes grow wide.

“Is that your roommate?” I whisper, trying to piece this interruption together.

Charlotte throws her finger over her lips and looks at me with wild-eyed panic, “Shhh! No, it’s my brother,” she hisses at me.

Thump! Thump! Thump! The banging at the door continues.

“Charlotte! You hear me? You told me you’d fill in for Ms. Douglas at Sunday school, remember? You gotta get it in gear, you know I can’t be late,” the voice rumbles through the door.

“Yeah! I’m up,” she yells back.

That’s her brother? Fear runs cold in my guts as I study her face again. Shit! “How old are you?” I eye her suspiciously. Did I go home with jailbait last night? I jump out of her bed and locate my boxer briefs in a strewn pile of our clothes and put them on.

“Shhh,” she begs for my silence as she looks from her bedroom door to my face. “I’m not a kid, Connor. I’m twenty-seven. Relax,” her voice is hushed.

Thump! Thump!

“Lottie! Don’t you fall back asleep on me,” her brother persists, “you need to run Sunday school. You promised me. If you don’t show your face at this door in five seconds I’m dragging you out of that bed!”

Wait, my stomach flips and it has nothing to do with the booze I drank last night. “Lottie?” I barely breathe the name I haven’t heard in forever. Now it’s my eyes that are wide as I study her features again, scrutinizing the details of her face.

“Five!” Her brother’s voice booms.

There’s only one girl I’ve ever known who went by “Lottie” and that was my best friend’s little sister. I squint into her eyes.

“Four!”

“Shit, I need to get dressed!” Her voice squeaks as she jumps from her bed and begins tossing clothes on so fast the fabric colors blur together. I can’t move. I’m stunned and stuck to the spot, standing in my underwear trying to process if I just spend my night with a girl I haven’t seen in the better part of fourteen years.

“Three!”

A girl I knew my entire childhood. The one with kinky short hair and terrible teeth. The one who then grew taller and had slightly longer hair and braces.

“Two!”

My former best friend’s sister. Lottie King. I can’t believe my eyes as I realize it is her. And she ain’t a little girl anymore. She’s most definitely a woman. A sexy, beautiful, mesmerizing woman.

“One!”

A woman who is definitely off limits.

The door creaks open and Lottie, I mean Charlotte, starts screaming for her brother to get out. I turn and stare at the guy I once called a blood brother. I haven’t seen him since he was eighteen. Since just before I left this town and didn’t look back. He’s barely aged at all, not that I have a ton of time to analyze his face because his dropped jaw clenches as tight as his balled-up fists do at his sides and his black eyes narrow down.

“Connor McLean! Lottie, you can’t be serious right now,” his eyes briefly flit over to his sister before staring me down.

“Marcus, let’s not get crazy,” I hold up my hands. “I had no idea this was your sister, man. It’s not like that.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” his voice booms as he lunges at me.

Fuck.

I scoot out of the way and Marcus thuds into the wall. He stands up and gives his head a shake before coming at me again, “Sandra wasn’t enough? You had to hit even closer to home? Huh?” He yells, chasing me around in a circle while I try to pick up my pants from the floor. My feet slide out from under me and I hit the carpet but manage to grasp the edge of my jeans in my fingers. Marcus lands on top of me just as I try to get back up and my head hits against the floor.

“Marcus! Leave him alone! I didn’t tell him who I was. This is my fault. You have to remember your temper,” Charlotte screams.

“Lottie, you stay outta this. It’s between me and him. Get your ass ready for church. You’re gonna make me late for my service,” Marcus answers her through gritted teeth and swings at me. I move my head and he hits the floor as he yowls.

His service? “You’re a priest?” I twist my hips hard to the left and shimmy out from under him. “Look, you’re a man of God, aren’t you supposed to be all about forgiveness?” I give it my best shot as I spring up and pick up the last of my things from the ground.

Marcus shakes his hand in the air then stands back up. “I’m a Pastor, not Jesus. And if you don’t get out of my house right now, I’m gonna be praying for my own forgiveness when I go grab my bat,” he swings at me again, rage blinding his sight.

That temper. I remember it well. I’ve felt the sting of its bite in the past. If Marcus says he’s gonna beat me with a bat and work it out with God later, I believe him.

With an arm full of my clothes, I race past him out the door of Charlotte’s room and take the stairs from the basement to the main floor two at a time. Behind me, I can hear Marcus breathing heavy as he tries to chase me down. He’s not far from my heels and I only hope he doesn’t lunge forward and grab my ankles, throwing me down the stairs.

Luckily, I make it up without incident and rush for the front door as Marcus lumbers after me like an angry grizzly bear. I don’t have time to stop and put on pants. I don’t have time to try to calm him down. I hastily yank open the front door to the house and rush through the other side, racing down to the sidewalk as Marcus yells at me.

“I better not see you around here again, Connor. Or next time I’ll break your face. And Lottie is off limits. I know you don’t know what that means, but I’ll be happy to teach you!” He alerts the entire neighborhood with his thundering voice.

I scoot down the sidewalk, trying to avoid the stares of people I can see peeking out their windows at me. I’m just grateful for the underwear I managed to put on. The last thing I need is a public indecency charge on top of everything else.

Little Lottie King is all grown up, and she just landed me in a heap of trouble. Now the question is, how can I see her again?

Marcus shuffles his papers at the pulpit. He still won’t look at me. Not since I watched the flame of rage engulf his dark eyes as he glared at me this morning while poor Connor ran from the house half naked.

My brother clears his throat and smooths his hand down over his tie. “If the children would make their way to Sunday school with my sister,” his voice grows tense, “Charlotte King, please. She will be filling in for Ms. Douglas today.” He points across the full pews to me, finally acknowledging my existence for the first time since he lost his mind this morning.

I stand up at the back of the church and the children run, hop and skip down the aisle toward me. Bright smiles are on their faces and I can’t help but grin back, even though I can feel Marcus bore a hole through me with his angry glare. They just look so cute all done up in their church clothes.

As I lead them out into the lobby, I look over my shoulder at my big brother, still confused about what exactly happened this morning. When we were growing up, Marcus bossed me around like he thought he was my second father. He’s always been a protective brother, even more so when our parents were killed in the car accident. Even though I wasn’t a kid when they passed, he still treated me like one. He seemed to double down on his whole Dad routine, often asking me where I was going, who I’d be out with and when I’d be home. It’s only been in the last two years that he finally seemed to realize that I’m a grown woman who can spend her time how she wants.

Until today, that is.

I lead the flock of children down the hallway to the room where Sunday school is held. The kids all rush to their seats as I make my way to the front and pick up the vibrant children’s version of the Bible, flipping through it nostalgically.

I remember when I used to sit in this class and listen to Ms. Douglas teach us about Noah’s ark or the Christmas story. Each class always ended with a song that we all cheerfully belted out in our off-key voices.

Everyone except Janae has taken their seats, she’s too busy twirling around in her daffodil-yellow dress to be bothered.

“Ms. King?” Janae briefly tears her eyes from the billowing ruffles of her dress to meet mine.

“Yes?”

“Where’s Ms. Douglas today? I miss her,” she stops in her tracks and suddenly pouts a little. It’s hard to keep a straight face at her theatrics.

“That’s a great question, Ms. Douglas isn’t here today because her youngest daughter got married this weekend. She’ll be back next Sunday though. So, could you please take a seat so we can start our lesson?”

Janae looks around the room and seems to realize, for the first time, that she’s the only one still standing. She scurries to her chair. “That’s so nice that her daughter got married,” she coos. “I already know who I’m gonna marry,” Janae smiles broadly, showing off the spaces where she’s recently lost a few baby teeth.

“Oh, really?” I tilt my head, “And who is that?”

“Billy!” She points over to the seven-year-old boy who immediately crinkles his nose in disgust.

“Eww! No way! I’m not getting married!” He protests and wipes his face like he just got slime poured over his head.

“Yes, you are Billy Cole. We are in love and we are gonna get married!” Janae puts her hands on her hips and gives him a pointed stare.

“Okay, let’s get back to the lesson,” I interrupt and try not to laugh as I watch poor little Billy slump over in his chair, defeated. “Today we’re gonna talk about John the Baptist,” I begin to thumb through the pages of the well-worn Bible and the kids hush.

I find the story I want to read to them as my mind wanders back to Connor and the insanity that happened this morning at the house. When I watched him get chased out, I felt like Billy over there. Like the wind had been taken out of my sails and that I would probably never see the man I’ve been craving my entire life again, just because of some unknown feud between him and my brother.

After that, it’s hard to believe they were once inseparably close. Every weekend if Connor wasn’t sleeping over at our house, then Marcus was at his. I remember being desperate to hang out with them when they went on their epic adventures, riding off on their bikes with empty knapsacks slung over their backs, only returning hours later when those bags were full of fish.

I could learn a thing or two from Janae. I can’t just give up because Marcus doesn’t like Connor anymore. That doesn’t have anything to do with me. Although, I’m definitely curious to find out what it does have to do with.

I’m going to find out, I nod my head and open the book to my page. I’m going to go to his place tonight and get to the bottom of this whole issue. I’m not going to let some stupidity between Marcus and Connor steal away my happiness. I’m not a kid, I can see whoever I want and if my brother doesn’t approve, then too bad.

I take a deep, refreshing breath into my lungs and look out at the children’s faces feeling more confident and more settled. “So, let’s talk about John the Baptist.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to head out early tomorrow instead?” I watch as Rogers cinches down the straps on his bags he’s attaching behind the seat of his motorcycle. I don’t want to sound like a mother hen, but after retiring as the Lieutenant of our old SEAL team, I guess old habits die hard.

“Nah, I like travelling at night. The freeway is less congested. There’s just something about ripping down the roads on my baby at night, I can’t explain it. It just feels like freedom,” he smiles down at his Harley wistfully. “Besides, Gabe is expecting me in the morning, I don’t want to crush his spirit and not show,” he laughs and I can’t help but join in. We both know that Gabe the Babe, as we called him, only cares about number one.

My conscience twinges, is that still how he is? Even after the burns?

I push the thought away. I can’t go there right now.

“I think the real question is, are you gonna be alright after that humiliating defeat this morning?” He laughs even harder just like he did when I spilled the beans on why I was driving home in my underwear after our night out.

“Shut up, man,” I rub my hand down the side of my burning face.

“I’m just saying, everyone would expect that story from me. But you? Bumping uglies with your old buddy’s sister and getting chased out with a bat?” He laughs so hard he starts to cough. “That shit is priceless.”

“Well, it’s a real shame to see you go,” I answer loudly, waving toward his bike. “A real shame,” my voice is flat.

“Ah, c’mon,” Rogers gets his fucking giggle fit under control. “Don’t be like that man,” he looks up at me to see if I’m being serious.

I’m not.

“Nah, it’s all good,” I smile. “I’m glad I could entertain you. It’s one of those stories I’ll laugh at in a few years, you know?”

“Yeah, well, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna keep laughing at it now,” he chuckles as his boots scuff against the dirt driveway over to his motorcycle.

“Yeah, yeah. Well be careful and all that shit. I don’t want to sound like your mom or whatever, but fire me off a text when you get settled at Gabe’s place,” I follow him to his bike.

“You got it man,” he throws his leg over the seat and holds on to the handles as he straddles his Harley. “Hey, let’s not wait so long to see each other again, okay?” The smile drains from his face as his voice becomes serious. “A year is too long to go without seeing your brother, I missed you man.” His voice is suddenly heavy as the air around us swirls with the burden of his words.

“I hear ya,” I clear my throat. “I promise, I’ll be see you again soon, maybe I’ll come up your way next time,” I clap my hand over his shoulder.

He nods then wordlessly pulls his helmet down over his head and fires up the engine with a roar. “I’m gonna hold you to that,” he gives me a pointed look and I nod back at him. He knows I’m a man of my word. If I say it, it’s happening. Rogers holds up his hand in a motionless wave and twists the bike around before leaving a trail of dust behind him as he disappears into the night.

I hope he’s careful getting out of here. My cabin is pretty far off the beaten path up here in the Willamette National Forest. At least it’s all just one straight road from here to Bend though.

I head back inside, shutting the door to my renovated cabin behind me and take a deep breath. It’s been awesome having Rogers visit, but I’m looking forward to some peaceful nights that don’t end in me precariously making my way up my ladder to my sprawling loft bed before passing out drunk.

I flop down in my comfy leather chair and let my mind wander back to Charlotte. She must have known who I was before we went home together. Why didn’t she tell me?

Before this morning, I had pushed the beef between Marcus and me away. It was locked down into some kind of secret trunk in my brain. Now, the memories come flooding back, painfully rubbing my nose in a mistake made long ago and a friendship I destroyed.

I lean my head back against the cool, comforting leather and close my eyes. There’s nothing I can do about any of that now. All I can do is try to push Charlotte out of my mind. Because I can’t see her again. It wouldn’t be right. Even if she is all grown up in the best ways. Even if she does smell like the sweet innocence of a field of lavender but fucks like a wild woman.

My thoughts travel to her glistening body, lit by the moonlight, pulsing with pleasure, writhing beneath me.

It doesn’t matter if I felt a real connection with her. None of it fucking matters, because I ruined everything long before she transformed into the stunning woman she is now.

Ruhr-tick-tick!

My eyes open wide as I hear the roar of Rogers’ motorcycle in my driveway. I wonder if he changed his mind about making the trip tonight. I jump up to my feet and fling open the door with a smile on my face.

“Told ya I’d see you again soon,” I laugh but my lips tug down and my eyebrows knit together as I see the dual headlights on a small car illuminate her from behind like an angel.

Charlotte.

“No, no, no,” I shake my head. “This isn’t a good idea,” I make my way back into the house.

“Wait Connor!” I can hear her run across the driveway and follow me to the door.

“Charlotte, you can’t just show up here like this,” I step inside and she follows uninvited.

“You think I’m just gonna let things end the way they did? Like I’m going to sit back and watch you walk out of my life for another fourteen years Connor?” Her brown eyes plead with me.

“Lottie,” her name crosses my lips in a whisper, “why didn’t you tell me it was you?” I don’t mean to tuck her hair behind her ear. I don’t remember taking the step closer to her, or how my lips ended up hovering over hers.

“I wanted you to give me a chance this time. It was wrong, I’m sorry, but I had no idea that you and my brother had some kind of problem with each other. What happened between you two?”

I feel the pain of the memory twist my face and I try to imagine her ever looking at me the way she is right now after she knows. I can’t do it. I can’t force the words from my mouth. Instead, I let the door slam shut and walk her backward until her back is flat against it, and cover her mouth in a long, sensual kiss.

“Did you really come here to talk, Charlotte? Or is there something else you’d like me to do with these lips?” I echo her words from last night back to her.

Charlotte’s lids look heavy as she gazes up at me. Her chest is pressed against mine, I can feel her lungs filling with air like she’s just ran a marathon.

“Kiss me, Connor,” she sighs.

His lips are less than an inch from mine, but he doesn’t kiss me. Instead, he hovers and I can almost feel the electricity build up between us. Like how you can feel the static charge in the air right before a lightning storm. I feel the heat of his breath as he looks into my eyes.

“I can’t believe it’s you,” he murmurs, “I mean, I see it now. In your eyes. But I had no idea,” he holds me perfectly still with his stare. The same green eyes that would stop me dead in my tracks when I was thirteen haven’t lost their power over me when he was my first crush. As his presence crushes my will to move, I wonder why they use that term, crush. I think it’s because people think it sounds cute and innocent, like a crushed velvet dress or like a drink you would order in a soda shop in years gone by.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” my mouth is dry and my breathing is jagged as he holds me under his power. “You still look the same as the guy I fell for as a girl,” I remember how devastated I was when he left for the military. How I never thought I could get through another day without seeing him. Maybe that’s the real reason they call it a crush. Because of how it crushes your heart and soul when the love isn’t returned.

“Well, you are all grown up Lottie, I mean Charlotte. You’re even using your proper name now, unless that was just a play so I wouldn’t recognize you?” He purposely drifts his lips only a quarter inch from mine. The charge between us is growing, I can almost hear the crackle of thunder in the air.

“No, it’s what I go by now,” I answer truthfully.

“Well, it suits you. You definitely grew up,” his eyes lazily lick my body, resting down on my breasts.

Connor suddenly yanks my shirt up and I throw my hands in the air obediently as he strips me. “You didn’t have these,” he tosses the blouse to the floor and squeezes my tits together in his large hands.

With one hand, he unsnaps my bra and I let it fall from my shoulders and slide down my arms, revealing my ample breasts to him.

Connor runs his thumbs over my nipples, like he’s admiring a fine piece of art, then he leans over me and gently nips one before letting his tongue soothe the momentary pain. I close my eyes and lean my head back against the door, succumbing to the pleasure, to the fantasy come true, to him.

“And you definitely didn’t have this sweet fucking ass,” his hands glide down over the small of my back and his fingers dig into my full-figured flesh making my pussy quake with desire. His hands continue to travel down over the backs of my thighs, circling each one easily, he lifts my legs up and open and I wrap them around his waist moaning softly as the hard ridge of his cock presses into me.

Connor scoops his hands under my ass and carries me across the floor, his mouth is still devouring my nipples and with every step I can feel his cock press into me, reminding me of how good it felt to have him inside me. To feel him stretch out my walls. To feel him take what is his.

Connor walks to the couch and I expect him to plop me down on it, but instead he sits down and pushes me up until I’m standing in front of him, my feet on either side of him, my pussy at his face.

“I’m can’t wait to taste you,” he unbuttons my jeans and tugs the zipper down. I help him free me from the denim and lace underwear I thought he might like underneath. Turns out he couldn’t care less about my frilly, pink panties. He only wants what is under them, and I can’t wait to give him what he wants.

I kick the fabric from my foot and Connor digs his fingers into my ass again, but this time, he circles my round cheeks, pushing into my flesh, into my crack, and pulls me toward his mouth. I open my stance and my eyes roll back into my head as his tongue delves into my pussy. He takes a long lick of my slit from my center to my sensitive nub and back, like he’s savoring me.

I thread my fingers through his hair and Connor pulls me onto his mouth, so I’m straddling his face, and begins to tease my clit with slow circles of tantalizing torture.

My moans fill the air and I grind my hips forward, toward him, pushing my pussy into his mouth, chasing my pleasure.

“Fuck you taste so good Charlotte. I wanna taste your cum on my tongue. Be a good girl and cum for me,” he whispers and before I can answer his wet, warm tongue is thrashing against my clit sending pulsing shockwaves through me. The summer storm between us has broken, the clouds have opened and the lightening is flashing as my orgasm tears through me. The thunder is booming in my desperate moans of bliss. The downpour of my juices is flooding my pussy and spilling onto Connor’s flicking tongue and he’s only too happy to lick up every last drop.

My body begins to relax as the waves pass and the shudders stop. Muscles I didn’t realize were tensed start to unwind and I open the eyes that I never realized I had squeezed shut.

I slide down him like a drunk stripper on a pole and pant against him. “That was amazing, so fucking good,” my voice is hoarse.

“We’ve only just gotten started,” he pulls his shirt off and I can’t help but trace the edges of his defined pecs. It was true what I said earlier, I would recognize Connor anywhere. I feel like I could run into him fifty years from now and my soul would still know his. But, I’d be lying if I said nothing has changed about him. These cut abs I want to lick, this hard chest, those biceps that look like he could curl a car, that’s all new. I never thought you could improve on perfection, but here we are.

I pull his pants open and wrap my hand around the large present inside, my eyes growing wide even though I know what to expect. I still can’t help it, when you’ve got a gift this good waiting for you, you get excited.

“I’m gonna grab a condom,” Connor grabs my chin and gives me a quick kiss and starts to stand up.

“No!” I push him back down and grind my pussy over the tip of his exposed cock. “Just pull out again. I don’t want to feel a rubber,” my voice is almost wheezy, like a junkie who needs a fix. “I need to feel you,” I plead.

Connor furrows his eyebrows and runs his hand over his beard thoughtfully. For a second my gut twists. Is he going to tell me no? Maybe feeling so close, so intimate, isn’t something he cares about. Is this all something I’ve built up in my head?

“I’ll pull out,” he licks my earlobe and lifts his hips at the same time, quickly sliding his jeans and boxer briefs over his ass in one fluid motion. In a second they’re pooled on the floor at his feet and his thick cock is leaning against his belly, probably too heavy to stand without support.

I can’t help but stare, and the lip licking isn’t helping anything, but I can’t stop. Damn. You’d think if you’ve already seen it once then you’d be over the whole giant cock on a white guy thing, but nope. I circle my fingers around it and marvel at how small it makes my hands look in comparison.

Connor grabs his thick cock by the base and pulls it from his stomach and I hover over the tip. He holds it at my entrance and I press down onto it, sighing as he slides inside me. Every inch makes me feel fuller, more stretched, almost like I’m being taken for the first time.

I hold his shoulders and slide up and down him, the ache between my thighs finally subsiding as he claims me.

“Charlotte, turn around. I want to watch that sweet ass bounce on me as I fuck you,” he growls in my ear and nips on my nipple, making me yelp.

I twist away from him and grip his thighs right above his knees and begin to ride him like a bull at one of those rodeo bars where you’ve got to grab the reins and try to stay on.

Connor bucks his hips, pounding his cock into me and I look over my shoulder at him as he pulls his thumb from his mouth and slides it up between my ass cheeks. I gasp as he pushes it all the way up against my asshole, pressing into it until he passes my body's resistance and buries it inside me.

I know it’s only a thumb, but I’ve never had anyone touch me there before. Not in anyway. I’m overcome by how full I feel. I’m being pounded by his fat cock while his thick thumb presses inside my virgin ass. The sensation is too much. It’s overwhelming. A sudden wave of pleasure crashes over me and I can’t help but yell his name, “Connor! Oh, my, God!” I scream at the ceiling as he fills me more than I’ve ever experienced.

“Oh fuck, Charlotte! I’m gonna cum!” He pushes me to my knees and jerks his cock. I’ve never done this before, but I open my mouth. I want to taste his cum on my tongue. I want to swallow his seed. Connor’s white streaks pulse across my lips and mouth, and coat my tongue. I hold it out, as he jerks the last spurt of his seed onto my face. I swallow, then lick my lips to get the rest, wiping my hand over my cheeks to get the parts I missed.

Connor pulls me up onto him, lying down on the couch. I lie my head on his heart and listen to the beats. Are they calling my name the way my heart has been calling his since I was thirteen? Do I mean as much to him? Could I ever? I want to ask what we are. What we could be, but I’m too scared of what his answer might be.

The only sound between us is our ragged breathing and the crickets making a symphony outside. I feel pressure to say something, but not the crazy thoughts swirling through my head. I need to start the conversation with something less loaded. Less meaningful.

“So,” I finally catch my breath and struggle to grasp at any clear thought that doesn’t have to do with who or what we are as a couple or non-couple. “What’s the deal with you and my brother?”

Her question hangs in the air and my skin breaks out in gooseflesh, like a sudden arctic blast just cooled the room.

“Well,” her eyes twinkle, like I’m about to tell her the punchline of a joke, “what did you do anyway? I mean, I know Marcus has a temper, but the way he chased you out of the house was pretty crazy, even for him.” She smirks at me, but I can’t return the smile. I can’t even fake it. Instead my gut churns as flashes of the memory that I’d long ago suppressed resurfaces.

“Let’s not talk about this now,” I kiss her shoulder and try to pull her into me. “I’m pretty tired, how about we head up to my loft and get some rest?” I hope she’ll drop it. I hope she’ll let it go.

“Oh come on, I’m not letting you off the hook that easily, are you kidding me? My brother practically throws you out of the house naked, threatening to beat you with a bat and I’m supposed to let it drop? No way. Spill it,” she sits up and cocks her head at me, twisting her full lips to the side.

If you don’t tell her, he will. Who do you want her to hear this from? What side of the story is going to make you sound worse?

I try to toss my stupid conscience from my head like I was tossed from Charlotte’s house, but I’m not as convincing as Marcus in rage mode. No one I know is.

Ever since we were kids, his temper had been the stuff of legends, or at least comic books. He might not have turned green and busted through his shirt when he lost his shit on people, but he was still a destructive, blind-with-rage Hulk. I still can’t believe he is a Pastor. Marcus. The guy who once lost a game of marbles and bashed his bag of cat eyes and oilies against the winner’s face. I always thought the people who were doing God’s work here were supposed to be more like Mother Teresa and less like mafia thugs.

“I’m waiting,” Charlotte presses me and I sit up on the couch, feeling like I’m trying to swim toward the surface under a sheet of ice. Even as I move toward the light, the truth, the confession that’s supposed to make me take that first fresh lungful of air, I can see the cold wall of my past mistakes locking me under, forcing me to drown in a history I thought I’d left behind.

I run my hand over my beard, scratching my chin through the rough hairs and look up at her. Charlotte’s face has transformed from wide-eyed playful insistence to a serious squint.

I clear my throat, but it still feels dry, “So, I’m not sure if you remember much about Sandra.”

“Sandra? His high school sweetheart?” Charlotte frowns like she’s trying to put together a one-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle without looking at the picture on the box first.

“That’s the one, yep. Well, on prom night, we all went camping. Not just us, but almost our entire class was there. It was a drunken shit show. Lots of high school drama, binge drinking, drugs, sex, the whole nine yards.” I breathe in deep as I can almost smell the campfire and hear the anthem of our year, Crazy In Love by Beyoncé and Jay Z, blasting again. I blink away the memories and try to keep myself calm, steady and present in the here and now. I don’t need to relive it just because I’m explaining. It’s alright to leave that shit behind. Besides, I can’t still be held accountable for fourteen-year-old mistakes, can I?

“Gotcha so far,” Charlotte interrupts my scattered thoughts, imploring me to continue with her chocolate eyes.

“Yeah, so, I got wasted pretty early in the night and passed out in my tent. I couldn't hold my liquor back then, so the rum kicked my ass pretty quickly. Anyway, I didn’t know that Marcus and Sandra got into some kind of epic fight. I heard later that he lost his temper at her and made her cry and she told him she was done with it all. She broke up with him in front of everyone and stormed off. Like I said, I learned that all later on.” I scratch the side of my burning cheek and look down at the sofa. I don’t want to see her eyes when I tell her the next part. I can’t face her judgement.

“So, what does that have to do with you?” She sits a little taller and even though she’s a foot shorter than me, I’ve never felt smaller.

“Okay, so, like I said, I was hammered and done for the night when my tent zips open and someone comes in. I wasn’t even sure who it was. I was completely out of it, I swear. Anyway, she couldn’t really wake me up by crying and talking so she tried a different approach,” I swallow hard, “she, uh, well, let’s just say the next thing I knew she was on top of me and I was fucking her.”

“What? Sandra and Marcus were supposed to get married!”

“I know! I know!” I hold up my hands like I’m trying to fend off an attacker, but I can’t hide from the truth. “Listen, I’m telling you one-hundred-percent the God’s honest truth, I didn’t even know who I fucked that night. It was a blur. She used me to get back at your brother. As soon as we were done I passed out and Sandra found Marcus and made sure he knew what went down. The next thing I know I’m being woken up again, but this time it’s because Marcus jumped on my tent and was choking me through the fabric. No lie, I thought I was gonna die. If the crowd hadn’t pulled him off, and one of the guys hadn’t driven me home, I think he would’ve killed me.” I’m not trying to make Marcus sound like he was in the wrong for his anger, but I don’t want Charlotte getting the idea that I did this on purpose.

“I can’t believe you’d do that! Marcus and you were best friends since, what? You guys were three?” Charlotte hops off the couch and rushes over to her clothes, tugging them on quickly.

“Lottie, I didn’t know. I really didn’t. I was probably five times the legal limit and some woman started riding me. It’s not like I tracked her down into some corner and stole her from him. She went out of her way to make this happen,” I plead.

“That’s no excuse,” she zips up her jeans and throws her shirt back on. “If you didn’t have loyalty to a guy who was pretty much a brother to you, then you’ll never have loyalty to me. People don’t change, Connor, not that much anyway. Marcus was right, I made a mistake getting involved with you,” her voice cracks and she steps into her shoes. As she turns her head away from me, I see her wipe the tears from her face that were forming in her eyes.

“Charlotte, don’t run off like this! Come on, at least try to see things from my perspective,” I jump up and try to rush over to her.

“I’m sorry Connor, but I can’t. I never knew what made him give up on love or why he devoted his life to the church, but now I know it’s because you broke his heart.” She opens my front door and quickly makes her way to my car.

I stand on the front step, buck naked with my head spinning for the second time today.

“Fuck!” I yell as she backs out of the driveway and I watch her drive out of my life.

Tears blur my vision and streak down my face as I drive down the dusty, winding road. Connor’s cabin isn’t exactly conveniently located. It’s close enough that he’s still got electricity and running water and all that. However, it’s far enough out in the Willamette National Forest that it’s making this bumpy, dark drive home unbearable.

I can’t believe I never knew about Sandra. My memories of her and my brother flip through my mind like one of those cartoons you make move by thumbing past the pages. He loved her so much, he was going to marry her once they got out of high school. She was the one person who could calm his stormy temper… or at least that’s what I remembered. Connor made is sound like he wasn’t as nice to her as I’d thought.

I bite my lip and my eyebrows crunch together at the thought. Did Marcus ever lose it on her like he had with everyone else in his life? As a kid, I never saw anything like that. I always watched as they held hands, laughed, and danced together. I remember thinking my life would be complete if I found a guy who loved me as much as Sandra loved my brother. Now I’m grateful that prayer was never answered.

I flick on my four-way flashers, even though I know there’s no one on this road, and pull over. I need to get myself under control. Driving through a haze of tears is going to put me in a ditch. Inside me, there’s a storm brewing, part of me is begging me to go back to Connor. To stay regardless of whatever happened with Marcus and his ex, and chase my own happiness.

I remember how Marcus turned to the church after Sandra left him. When our parents passed away in a car accident a year later, it only cemented his connection. That’s when he decided he was going to become a Pastor. No, Marcus stepped in and raised me when he was only nineteen so I wouldn’t have to go to foster care. He’s the only family I have left. I’m not about to turn this car around, and turn my back on my brother, not for Connor. Not for anyone.

I wipe away my tears with the back of my hand, take a shaky breath and pull back out onto the dark road. I try not to speed away, but I want to put distance between me and Connor. I feel like the sooner I can put some miles between us, the quicker my heart can move on.

Because that worked so well when he joined the SEALs, right? Totally over it.

I click on the radio and try to let my thoughts slip away as the pop songs blend together. Soon the tunnel of darkness lifts and street lights of the city guide my way back to my house. Well, it was my parents’ house, but when they passed they left it to Marcus. I’ve never left. I came home from the hospital to this house and still eat breakfast at the same table that I grew up munching on Fruity Pebbles at.

I pull into the driveway and hit the lock button on my keychain as I make my way to the front door.

When I walk in, I almost scream. I stifle the yelp that wants to escape my lips as I jump a little. “Marcus, you scared me. Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

I look over at my brother, slumped in a living room chair near the window. There are no lights on. No television blaring. He’s just lost in the darkness.

“Where were you?” He doesn’t answer my question. I can see him look up at me. I can feel his eyes on me, even without any lights on.

I shut the door and slide my hand over the light switch, flooding the room with a warm glow. “Don’t you worry about what I’ve been doing, you just worry about you. Why are you sitting here like this? It’s creepy.” I kick off my shoes and walk into the room.

Marcus doesn’t move. He just bores into me with his stare. “You went to see him, didn’t you? After I told you not to.” His voice trembles the air around me, like the little shocks you feel before a huge earthquake is about to hit.

“I said goodbye,” I hold up my hand. “Listen, I didn’t know about what happened with Sandra and him. You never told me about that.”

Marcus tilts his head and his eyes soften, “He told you?” Confusion flickers on his face like the dancing shadows of a candle.

“Yeah, and I told him we couldn’t see each other anymore.” I try to swallow the lump in my throat. The one that’s threatening to erupt my emotions like lava from a volcano, spilling from my face until I’m empty inside. I’ve known that I’ve loved Connor McLean since I was thirteen-years-old. I’ve dreamed of him holding me, wanting me, loving me. And now, when I finally got a taste of that fantasy, it’s been ripped from my heart.

“Good,” Marcus looks out our living room window, but there’s nothing to see in the darkness. All I see is his reflection staring back at us. “You know what they say, a leopard can’t change his spots,” he sighs wearily. Suddenly, his reflection looks a lot older. Like he’s aged thirty years.

“Marcus, do you want to talk about what happened? I’m sorry about this,” I step towards him, but he quickly jumps up from the chair and walks around me.

“No need. It sounds like everything is sorted out,” he clears his throat and makes his way to the stairs. “I’m tired, Lottie, I’m going to bed, okay?”

“Sure, I understand.” I nod and watch him shuffle heavily up the stairs like an eighty-year-old man.

The tears I’ve been holding back can’t be contained anymore. They prickle at the corners of my eyes and slip down my cheeks as I head downstairs to my bedroom. I can’t stop them from flowing, from mourning a love I’ve always wanted, but could never have. My heart bleeds for a man that can never be mine.

2 Months Later

 

I shift the car into park and take a deep breath, scanning the lot before I exit the vehicle. I drove to the pharmacy on the edge of town so I wouldn’t run into anyone I know. I grab my purse and step out into the sunshine, throwing back my shoulders and lifting my head up high.

Not that I’m worried, obviously.

I just don’t want to get any rumors swirling at the office. I’m still six weeks away from getting my full benefits package and I don’t want anyone finding a lame excuse to send me packing just so they don’t have to pay them out to someone who…

I walk into the cool store and avoid the eyes of the other customers. I’m not here to make friends. I’m on a mission. I swerve down the aisle with the feminine products and search in vain. Where are they? I don’t see them anywhere.

My shoulders tense up and I make my way up the next aisle, full of condoms, lube, and... there we go, pregnancy tests.

I almost want to laugh at the set up. Almost. It’s like the stock person had a grand design idea when he put the boxes of pee sticks next to all the other stuff. Like he was saying “If you don’t use these, you might need this!”

My throat squeezes tight and I peer at the tests out of the corner of my eye, like I’m afraid that I’ll make my suspicions come true if I look at them straight on. Like somehow, by buying one of these things, I’m going to make real what my sore boobs and early morning nausea has been hinting at. As if the little lines that appear will make the pregnancy real, not the little baby that might be growing inside me right now.

I realize I’m holding my belly and drop my hand, snapping out of my daze.

What am I going to do if I am pregnant with Connor’s child? I know, with absolute certainty that it would be his. I haven’t even kissed another man since I last saw him, when was that? Two months ago. Damn. I haven’t had my period in over two months? Do I even need this test?

A groan escapes my lips and a woman down the aisle gives me a look of pity before pretending I don’t exist again.

Thanks lady, you don’t even know the half of it. If I am carrying Connor’s child, what am I going to do? I don’t want to do it alone, but I don’t know if he’ll even want me back after I took off that night and never returned.

He called night and day the first week, but I didn’t know what to say to him. I told myself that I’d get over him in time, but the truth is he got over me. The calls dropped off. Not that I blame him. There’s just too much bad blood, too much history. Connor can have any woman he wants, I’m sure he’s moved on with a few of them by now.

Ugh, Marcus. I can’t even think about him right now. I push away the thoughts and pluck a pink box from the shelf. This one promises to give the earliest results in a digital readout that tells you how far along you are. It’s pricey, but it comes with two tests. I’d rather buy two expensive tests and get it right, than spend five times less on the cheap ones and not be sure.

Should I call him? I’ve thought about it every single day since I walked out. I run my hand over my hair and sigh, let’s just tackle one crisis at a time. Take the test and then figure things out with Connor.

I begin to walk up the aisle when something makes me stop in my tracks.

“Lottie! I mean, Charlotte, wait up,” I turn and my mouth hangs open when I spot Connor coming toward me.

Butterflies explode into a million beating wings in my chest as ice runs through my veins. He can’t see the test! He’ll know everything before I can even think of how to talk to him about it. Without thinking, I stuff the pink box in my purse and sling it back over my hip.

“Connor,” my voice is shaky and my hands are sweating. “Hey, what are you doing here?” I try to sound casual but it comes out more like an accusation.

“I came into town for a supply run,” he nods to the soap and shampoo in his basket. “What about you?” He looks down at my empty hands.

“Uh, yeah, same, gonna get some shampoo,” I lie. I haven’t been to a pharmacy yet that sells good shampoo or conditioner for black hair.

“I should go,” I turn but Connor circles his fingers around my arm.

“No, Charlotte, please. I can’t stop thinking about you. Why didn’t you answer my calls? I need to talk to you, give me a chance, please?”

I whirl back around on my heel and get locked in his intense eyes. All I’ve thought about is him too. I want to talk to him more than he can possibly know. I want to tell him that I miss him. That I’m scared. That I need him and always have. That my life is empty without him but complicated with him. I need to spill it all before I burst at the seams.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

I rub my hand over my scruff and look at all the sterile boxes of Band-Aids and bottles of pills surrounding us. “Not here, please? Come back to my place and let’s really talk.”

I watch her eyebrow lift cynically. “Go to your place to talk? Come on Connor, I’m not stupid,” she purses her thick lips together and looks at the floor.

“Listen,” I cup her chin and lift her gaze back to mine, “I can stand here and tell you how many times I’ve tried to call you, but you know that don’t you?” She looks away and bites her lip. “Yeah, and that’s fine, this whole thing got fucked up fast. I’m sure it’s been a lot to digest.”

“It’s just, I wanted to answer, I really did, but Marcus is the only family I have left. I don’t want to hurt him, even if he hadn’t given up his entire adult life to look out for me, I still wouldn’t want to hurt him.” Her chin quivers and I pull her into my chest.

“Hey, don’t cry. I get it. I’m not upset with you, blood is thicker than water. You’re a good sister,” I run my hand over her hair as she buries her face into my shirt.

And I’m a bad brother. Blood brother at that.

My mind drifts back to the crimson streak dripping from my palm in the woods behind the elementary school.

 

“Now what?” The blood pooled in my hand as Marcus took the same razor blade I stole from my Dad and slit his skin open just below the lifeline and bright red smeared across his own palm.

“Now we shake hands, this makes us blood brothers. Just like real brothers,” Marcus reached out and his black hand enveloped my pale white one as we shook on it, making it official.

“Blood brothers for life,” I smiled.

“For life,” he agreed.

 

I push the thought away, letting the eight-year-old versions of us and all of the optimism and innocence that came with that age all float away. That was a decade before I destroyed our friendship. Before I killed the ties with my only brother. Sure, in the SEALs I got more brothers, but nothing compared to the friendship I had with Marcus.

“Charlotte,” I swallow the lump in my throat and grab her arms, looking down at her, “I haven’t seen you in two months. Sixty days. You know how I know that? Because each one has been painful without being able to see you, to talk to you, to feel you,” I rub my hands over her arms. “If you want me to bare my soul in a pharmacy, then I will, but I would really like you to come home and talk this out with me. Give me a chance, please.” She looks up at me from under her wet lashes and nods her head.

“Let’s go,” she agrees.

I drop my basket of toiletries on the floor and grab her hand, leading her to the door without hesitation. I’ve been waiting for months to just hear her voice again, and I’m not going to wait around here for another second and risk her changing her mind.

“I parked over there,” she vaguely waves across the lot but I open the truck door for her. “Let me take you, I’ll bring you back to your car, I promise.” I don’t want to watch her walk to her car, I don’t want that space between us, no matter how short of a time it would be for. I need her next to me now and I don’t want to let her go.

“Okay, sure,” she shrugs and I give her a hand getting inside before making my way over to the driver’s side and sliding in beside her on the old bench seat.

“So, we’re going to your place?” She looks up at me and it takes every fiber of self-control I have in me to resist wrapping my arms around her and kissing those full, pouty lips.

“Yes,” I manage to answer through gritted teeth. As if, by opening my jaw, I might not be able to contain the desperation of my tongue, longing to find hers.

“Just to talk, right?” She tilts her head and the sunlight gleams off her dark hair.

“That’s right,” I nod curtly, not taking my hands off the steering wheel.

She nods and slides across the beat-up seat to me as I turn the key and the ancient engine roars to life. As I pull out of the parking lot, Charlotte nuzzles in against me, her sweet scent filling my nose and getting me drunk with passion.

I know we’re just going to talk but as she relaxes against my chest, as I breathe her in like the very oxygen I need to live, I can’t help but wonder where else this is going.

Connor opens the door to his beautifully renovated cabin and steps aside to let me walk in first. As I stride into the open concept living room and kitchen with a huge loft overseeing the main floor, I can’t help but feel proud of him for how much he’s changed this place. I remember when this was old man Lou’s “haunted” shack. He was a legendary recluse who only came into town a couple of times of year to buy some food and supplies to make moonshine. As a kid, we all heard crazy stories about Lou. Some were tame, like that he was running from the law and trying to keep a low profile, others were crazy, like that he was some kind of modern day witch from Hansel and Gretel, participating in cannibalism as he ate the children he’d steal away in the night. Of course, no one ever knew of a child being kidnapped. Not firsthand. Always some distant cousin, twice removed on their mother’s side.

Anyway, I remember seeing this place in all of its “glory” and by glory, I mean its decrepit, run-down, borderline forced eviction status back when Lou was alive. My father worked for a charity that delivered Christmas hampers to people and Lou was the last stop on our drive. I cowered in the car as Dad took him the food. When he returned, I asked him why he gave him any. I was a bit angry. Didn’t everyone know what kind of monster Lou was?

 

Dad said, “Lou isn’t a monster, but he fights them. When you get older, you’ll understand that monsters aren’t scary creatures in the closet, they’re demons we fight from our past. Some people win the battle and some are consumed.” He set his jaw and we drove home in silence as I thought over his words.

 

“Want a beer?” Connor interrupts my thoughts and I spring back into the present.

“No!” The word forcefully blurts out of my mouth like a sharp slap on the wrist of a child who was only looking at a cookie.

I turn away, my cheeks blazing at my overreaction and try to fight my instinct to rub my hand over my belly.

Searching the room for a distraction, my eyes fall on his books haphazardly strewn on the shelves of his bookcase. I glaze over the titles I’d expect Connor to be interested in, American Psycho, Revolutionary Road, stopping to stare at the odd book out. It reminds me of that old Sesame Street tune, “One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others, by the time I finish my song?”

“Charlotte’s Web?” I look over my shoulder with a cocked eyebrow and don’t wait for an explanation before I cross the room and pluck the curious selection from the shelf.

“It was a gift. More of a joke, really,” Connor grabs his beer and lets the fridge door slam shut, following me across the room. I flip open the cover and admire the beautifully handwritten inscription:

           

Connor,

Just remember, you can be the most “Terrific” pig in the world, but at the end of the day, you’re still just a pig.

           Cynthia

“Who’s Cynthia?” I snap the cover closed as jealousy burns over the back of my neck.

“No one,” he laughs, but the noise dries in his throat when he meets my eyes. “Well, not ‘no one,’ but not what you’re thinking. She was a military clerk I knew. She always called me a pig, but I figured she had the hots for me. So, when she gave me a Christmas present I was sure she was finally admitting her feelings, but, as you can see,” he sweeps his hand to the book in my grasp, “that wasn’t the case. I thought it was funny, so I kept it,” he shrugs.

My tense shoulders slump with relief as I put the book back down. Why am I feeling so worked up anyway? It’s not like Connor is mine. And even if he was, he had a life before me. That’s not exactly a surprise. Even when I was a little girl, I noticed how he had a different piece of flaky arm candy dangling from him every week.

A leopard doesn’t change his spots, my brother’s voice echoes in my mind.

I clear my throat, “I didn’t take you for the sentimental type, I guess.” I finally let myself look into his eyes and am suddenly lost in a jungle of green.

“Oh no?” Connor steps toward me, and I can feel that buzz of electricity spark between us that I’ve ached for. A current races over my skin making my nipples taut and my pussy slick. I can smell the faint trace of beer on his breath mixed with the natural, woodsy musk he’s picked up by living out here in the forest. If raw, feral, rip-your-clothes-off man had a bottled scent, it would be him.

He moves in closer, his lips inching toward mine and I let my worries, the ones that haunt me about his past and my future, all float away as I let my eyelids slide shut and wait to feel the warmth of his mouth on mine.

“Then how would you explain this?” He lifts an old-fashioned photo album, covered in colorful hot air balloons, from the shelf.

“I haven’t looked at a photo album since Mom died. She loved scrapbooking and putting old pictures in. She would say ‘it’s a shame to let anything collect dust, but especially the blessings life gives each of us.’ Then she’d tell me the stories behind every single picture. I was always amazed at how much detail she remembered,” I run my hand over the cover and feel a pang in my gut as I wish I could listen to her tell me just one more of those tales.

“I’m sorry about your parents, Charlotte,” Connor squeezes my shoulder with his broad hand and I fight back tears I haven’t cried in years.

“Me too,” I swallow hard and blink quickly. “So, what stories are you holding onto? What memories are you making sure don’t collect dust?”

I take a swig of beer and lead Charlotte back to my sofa as she eyes me with curiosity. “I’ll show you,” I answer, plopping down on the navy blue cushion. I watch her bubble butt grow rounder and even fuller as she eases down beside me. For a second, I want to throw the photo album on the floor and tear her clothes open. I want to lick every part of her, taste every inch of her skin, and swallow every bit of her sweet nectar. My cock twitches, but I snap out of it, forcing myself to focus. I told her I would bring her here to talk, nothing else. Unless she shows me that she wants more, I’m going to be a man of my word.

I take another mouthful of beer and run my hand over the cover of the album. It feels like the pictures inside, the details and the moments were a lifetime ago, and at the same time, like they were only yesterday.

“Come on, let’s see what’s hiding in here,” Charlotte nudges me playfully. “Got a bunch of pictures of you done up in camo, maybe posing with a gun as you burst out of the water? Isn’t that what they show on the commercial for the SEALs,” she jokes. “I bet you were their cover boy, weren’t you?”

“I must have those in another book,” I smile and crack the cover open. “This one is all…”

“It’s me,” she breathes the words lightly running her fingers over an aging picture of little Lottie King with her frizzy afro and pink overalls, sticking her tongue out at the boy behind the camera. Me.

“Yep,” I let my eyes scan the page as memories swirl back in full force. “And Marcus. And me.” I turn the page and Charlotte laughs as a much younger version of her brother who is holding up a bullfrog proudly while in the picture below I’m showing off on the monkey bars in the park.

“I forgot how you used to carry that camera around all the time,” she sits up straighter and pours over the pictures. “Didn’t you get it as a gift or something?” Charlotte looks up at me, her eyebrows reaching skyward and her brown eyes softening.

“Yeah, my Mom gave it to me for my birthday,” I nod and finish my beer in one gulp before putting the bottle down on the end table.

“You were obsessed with taking pictures,” Charlotte flips the page and laughs loudly as she glances down at herself in puffy pigtails, giving me the finger. “I forgot how bratty I was to you guys,” she chuckles.

“You just kept me in line,” I smirk. “I deserved it, most of the time,” I look over at her as she flips through the book. I’ve seen these pictures more times than I can count. Watching her reaction to each new page is impossible to look away from.

Charlotte crinkles her nose at the pictures of the dog taking a crap, boy stuff, and she laughs until she’s gasping for air at the picture of Marcus dressed up in spandex with a blanket for a cape.

Charlotte taps her finger on the picture and tears begin to form in the corners of her eyes as she struggles to breathe.

“What’s so funny?” I glance down.

“That’s my bodysuit I wore to dance class,” she giggles at the skin-tight onesie Marcus wore under a pair of blue shorts in his homemade Superman costume.

Laughter bubbles up inside of me, “Really? I didn’t know that.” I wrap my arm around her as she flickers through more pages, each one that she flips, turning into later years of our childhood.

“Oh, look how handsome you two looked for prom. I remember I was so jealous of, what was the name of the girl you took?” She tears her eyes away from the past and looks up at me.

“Fiona.”

“Yes, that’s right. Fiona,” she spits out the name like a bitter taste on her tongue. “I never liked her,” she lifts the page.

“You didn’t know her.” I laugh.

“What I knew, I didn’t like,” she turns over the cardboard page and stops, her fingers hovering over the envelope tucked into the back of the album. “Is that?”

“It is,” I lift up the letter Charlotte wrote to me fourteen years ago. She gave it to me as I was getting ready to board my bus to start my new life in the military.

Her hands shake as she holds out the envelope and fat tears fall over her cheeks. I remember I looked over her head to see if Marcus might be with her, but he wasn’t. The friendship was already dead by then. Prom night could never be taken back.

 

“I don’t know how I’m going to get through you leaving. I don’t know how I’m going to keep living my life without you in it,” Lottie sniffed. At thirteen, she was tall for her age and her limbs seemed to be growing faster than her body.

“I’ll be back someday, I promise,” I answered.

“No, you won’t,” she cried. “I know I’ll never see you again.” I remember how her heartbreak made her voice crack. How her chin trembled as she tried, but lost the battle to hold back her tears.

“Listen, I’ll be back. You have my word on that,” I looked into her eyes. I knew for years that Lottie had a crush on me, but it wasn’t until that moment that I saw the depth of it. She’d always been my best friend’s little sister. The annoying one who tattled on us or tried to follow us around like a lost puppy dog. It wasn’t until I was ready to leave that I could see a glimmer of who she would grow up to become.

“I’ll miss you,” she wiped away the tears with the back of her hand, trying to be brave. Lottie pulled the envelope from her back pants pocket and shoved it into my hands then marched away quickly.

 

She didn’t know I watched her walk away. She didn’t know I saw her collapse against the doorframe to the bus station and shake as tears spilled from her. She didn’t know I witnessed her heart being torn in two. Because I boarded the bus, took my seat and watched from the window as it pulled away.

“You still have my letter? Why?” She searches my face with her chocolate eyes and leans into me.

“Because I wanted to remember what I was coming back here for,” I admit, “I promised you that I would return, remember?”

“I do,” her fingers intertwine with mine and she looks up at me with wonder.

“I’m a man of my word, Charlotte. That’s one thing you can always trust. I promised you I’d come back and I did. Your letter, through all these years, grounded me, it kept me rooted here, it brought me back here… to you.”

Charlotte leans into me, her breast brushing against my hand as her lips tenderly press against mine. I let go of the album and it drops to the floor as I scoop her up from the sofa and pull her into my lap. Wrapping my arms around her, my tongue presses against her lips and they open for me. I can taste her desire, the fire that never stopped burning for me, her desperate need. I know it all too well, it’s the same things I’ve been feeling since the night we went home together. Since the night destiny and fate danced through our lives and brought us back together.

I slide my legs open and my dress slips up around my waist. Through my panties, I can feel the heat of his hard cock pressed against me. My pussy clenches as I throw my shoulders back, pushing my breasts forward into Connor’s face.

He cups my ass, squeezing my cheeks hard, pulling them open so I can feel his rigid member urgently pressing into my mound. Connor combs his fingers through my hair, sweeping it to the side so he can unzip the back of my dress. Does this feeling ever go away? It feels like every time Connor fucks me, every time I give myself to him, my senses are overwhelmed. My heart threatens to beat out of my chest and my breathing grows ragged as I tremble with anticipation. I’ve never felt anything so intense before. It’s like my soul is jumping to the edge of my flesh, like a fish leaping from a pond, to graze against his. Each time, it feels like a tingling intensity rushing over me, like every cell in my body has woken from his touch.

Zwwwip!

He opens my dress and the light fabric slides down, exposing the cream-colored bra with little pink cherry blossoms on it, covering my full breasts.

Connor wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me into him, nuzzling between my plump tits. He drags his tongue slowly over the tops, leaving a shimmering trail, marking me.

I didn’t even feel his hand on my bra strap until he flicked it open, my tits fall slightly as he quickly tugs the bra from my body and tosses it to the floor.

“You have such beautiful tits,” he growls and sucks my dusky nipple in over his rose petal lips as I flutter my eyelids closed. Rolling my head back, I press my breasts into his face as I grind down against his thick cock, wishing I could feel every inch of him stretch me out, claiming me as his.

“Oh!” My eyes spring open with surprise as I look down at Connor’s mischievous grin against my taut nipple. “That stung!” I give him a light swat but giggle at the conflicting sensation of the nip he just gave me with the even more vibrant pleasure of his swirling tongue soothing it.

Connor kisses a path to my other breast and I’m lost in a haze of pleasure as he presses my tits together in his hands and suckles and grazes them with the edge of his teeth until the pain and bliss almost bring me to the edge.

I’m humping him like a horny teenager in their parents’ basement, shamelessly rocking my hips and opening my legs as far as I can manage on this couch as he licks my sensitive nipples in a frenzy.

“Oh my! I’m gonna cum!” I grab his shoulders and a shiver runs over my entire body as my orgasm explodes through me. It’s fast, intense and crazy and I’ve never felt anything like it before. I’ve heard women say they could cum from just having their breasts teased or their earlobes sucked, but I never thought it was really possible. It sounded as unrealistic to me as those tantric people who claim to cum for four hours straight. A nice idea, but simply not possible.

“That was amazing,” I look down at Connor’s grin shyly.

“I’m only just getting started,” he smirks.

Before I have a chance to think, he stands up, carrying me over to the ladder leading to his loft.

“Get your sweet ass up there,” he places me on the floor in front of the first rung. “I’m not even close to done with you yet,” his green eyes twinkle and his scruff twitches as his lips slide into a sly smile. I turn around and begin climbing the ladder, extremely aware that he’s got a perfect view up my skirt of my pink thong, as I reach for each new rung.

Feeling naughty, I tug the dress up a bit higher and swing my hips so my ass is swaying in his face. I want to tease him, to make him crazy like he makes me.

Smack!

The sting spreads through my cheek as I look down with surprise. I can see the flame of desire burning behind his eyes, it’s overtaking him like a wildfire.

“What was that for?” I fake a protest.

“You’re being a bad girl, so I had to give your ass a slap,” he answers coyly

“Is that so?” I bite my lip and step up a little higher on the ladder, this time I shamelessly shake my ass like I’m getting paid on a pole. What can I say? Being a bad girl has never felt so good before.

Connor steps up behind me and gives my ass another firm slap and I close my eyes, enjoying the light burn travel over my cheek. “Mmmm,” I purr.

Suddenly he grabs my hips and yanks them backward, making my eyes fly open and my purr turn into a yelp. “Ahhh!” I cling onto the ladder frame and curl my toes around the rung as he yanks my hips back like a hinge.

“If you want to tease me like that, I’m not waiting until we get into the loft,” his voice is gravelly and gruff as he steps up behind me and twists his hands in my thong. Connor bunches the fabric in his hand and wraps it around his fist until I can feel it strain at the seams. He’s pulling hard enough that my ass is swinging back in the air as I try with all my might to hang on to the ladder. I’m already halfway up and don’t want to come crashing down.

The lace pops and pulls over my hip as it begins to give way. Connor growls, yanking hard and my thong is no match for his primal desires. The fabric snaps over my skin, bursting open and he lets it fall to the floor below.

Connor holds my hips out at an angle tightly and pushes his head up between the back of my open thighs. The warmth of his wet tongue delves in past my lips and he laps up my juices as I groan. The tip of his tongue flickers against my clit and I almost let go of the ladder as the bliss overcomes me.

I cling on, wrapping my fingers around the wooden frame and close my eyes as Connor holds me in place, licking me slowly but purposefully, tasting me.

His tongue circles my clit as I squirm back against his touch. I can’t believe how quickly my body is reacting to him again after he just made me cum on the couch. I bite my lip with surprise as he drags his tongue back along my slit, back further still, until he reaches my asshole. For a moment, he flattens his tongue and presses it against me there.

I’ve never let anyone but him touch me there before. I’m not sure if I like it or not. It’s a completely new sensation and my pleasure is heightened by how naughty it makes me feel.

Connor slips his tongue back into my pussy, this time when he finds my clit he frantically thrashes his tongue over it in a relentless frenzy.

“Oh!” It’s all I can say. It’s all I feel. That one word seems to sum up the waves of ecstasy building inside me. My grip on the ladder gets harder and the wood digs into my skin as I surrender to the pleasure of his tongue. A shudder runs from the back of my neck down to my toes as another orgasm washes through the length of me like a tidal wave. Every muscle clenches tightly as I quake against him.

Connor pulls back and I almost forget where I am as I slump forward on the ladder.

“My knees are weak,” I whisper. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

“Don’t worry about your knees,” he answers, nudging me up to the loft, “you’ll have plenty of time to rest your knees when you’re down on them sucking me off.”

Charlotte quickly makes her way up to my bedroom and I don’t waste anytime following her. I can taste her honey on my lips and it just makes me want more. I’m like an addict that can’t get enough of her. I need another fix and another after that. Except, in my case, there’s no cure. There’s no twelve-step program in the world that will make my body stop craving hers.

As I walk over to the bed, I strip off my shirt and watch as Charlotte lets her dress fall to the floor. I stop dead in my tracks and stare at her.

“You’re stunning,” I let my gaze lick every inch of her mocha skin, soaking in each supple curve, studying her, memorizing her.

Charlotte smiles over her shoulder, managing to distract me from her plump, round, perky ass. Somehow her sultry grin pulls my attention back up to her naturally beautiful face, and as an ass man standing in front of a woman with the most perfect ass I’ve ever seen, that’s a true testament to her.

“I want to see your beautiful cock,” she murmurs, closing the gap between us. Her dainty hands quickly undo my belt and button, tugging down my zipper hastily. I push my pants and underwear down, stepping out of them and kicking them aside as Charlotte slides down to her knees.

Her big brown eyes meet mine as she licks her lips eagerly. “You want this don’t you,” I grab my cock by the base and she nods her head. “Say it,” I drag the tip just over her bottom lip and suppress a groan.

“I want it,” she whispers shyly, looking down at the floor.

“You want what?” I demand.

“I want to suck your cock,” she looks back up at me and I can see in her eyes that it’s true. She opens her full lips and slips them over the head. I push inside her mouth, savoring her wet warmth surrounding me as her eyes water. Charlotte grabs the base of my cock and slides her hand over it in unison with her bobbing head as I lean back against the railing and moan.

Watching her take every inch of my girth inside her mouth is almost enough to make me explode. The way she’s worshipping me as her tits bounce slightly with each pump of her hand. The way her eyes look up to me for approval. She’s the perfect mix of the good girl who’s bad just for me.

“Mmmm,” she swirls her tongue around my shaft and flickers it over the tip as I thrust forward, burying myself deeper in her mouth. The vibrations of her groans are almost too much, I’m gonna cum fast if she does that again. But I’m not done with her yet. I need to be inside her. I need to fuck her. It’s not a desire. It’s the instinct of a feral man who can only be tamed by her touch.

“Come here,” I step back and release myself from the suction of her mouth, instantly regretting my choice. Now that I’ve lost her lips around me, sucking me off, my need to fuck her just became more intense.

I lift her from the floor. “I’ve got to have you now,” I lay her on the bed and she nods.

“I want to feel you. All of you, Connor. Don’t worry about the condoms, they don’t matter, just fuck me.”

“Are you sure?” I’m not looking for her to change her mind, but there’s a small part of my rational brain that is still working.

“I’m sure,” she purrs.

I lie her on her back and grab my cock by the base, sliding it in her juices as she squirms beneath me.

“Put it in me, I need you,” she cries as I tease her.

I smile and grab her feet, throwing one over each of my shoulders as I hold my cock at her entrance and plunge inside her in one deep thrust. I don’t stop until my balls slap up against her ass and she yells my name.

“Connor! Oh!” She twists her hands in my blanket, clutching the comforter as I pin her to the bed and fuck her hard.

I bury myself inside her as her pussy clenches and contracts around me, hugging me, pulsing against me, driving me to the edge of my sanity.

I look down into her eyes and I can see the same swirling emotions reflecting back up at me that I feel inside. It’s as if Charlotte and I were meant for each other. Like all of this was destined to be.

My nuts lightly slap against her skin with every pump of my hips. I grab her ankles and straighten her legs, holding them out in a V as I fuck her recklessly and relentlessly.

“Oh, fuck! I’m gonna cum, where do you want it?” I begin to pull back.

“No!” She drags her nails across my back intensifying the pleasure with the pain. “I want you to fill me up, don’t stop! I need to feel you cum inside me,” she begs.

I know I shouldn’t do it, I know it’s stupid, but I can’t stop myself from bending to her will.

Holding her ankles tightly, I thrust into her pussy as deep as I can go. Her walls pulse around me, milking me for my seed while she begins to roll her head against the bed and shriek my name.

I can’t hold back any longer, I root inside her when the first spurt of cum flows from me. I groan loudly, letting go of her legs. I fall forward, pushing my hand under her head and kiss her as my cum splashes off her walls, and I fill her with my seed.

Little tremors run through me as my orgasm fades and I fall onto the bed fully, rolling to the side and pulling out of Charlotte.

I pull her onto my chest and draw invisible tattoos on her skin as I begin to drift into a peaceful sleep.

“I can’t believe you kept my letter,” she murmurs against me.

“Of course I did,” I mumble as the haze begins to take me over. “You’ve always meant more to me than you thought,” I answer and let my eyelids fall heavily closed as my breathing grows deeper.