Aerie

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We were supposed to be working. Canaan was supposed to be washing dishes—a duty the brothers rotated daily since they all hated the job—and I was supposed to be checking on my tables. Canaan, however, had worked like a crazy man to get all the dishes done, and my tables were all campers, meaning they’d ordered a few rounds and were now just hanging out, talking, and not showing any signs of ordering more or leaving soon.

Which meant we’d snuck out through the back door and were in the corner of the alley.

Canaan had me pinned up against the wall, and my skirt was somewhere in the neighborhood of my diaphragm, while my shirt and bra were…um, not where they were supposed to be. And, in an impetuously flirtatious moment earlier in our shift, I’d stood in the walk-in freezer with the door propped open, letting Cane watch as I shimmied out of my thong, and then had gone back to fetching the Oreo pie for my customer, stuffing my thong in Canaan’s back pocket on the way past him.

Which is where the undergarment currently resided.

I’m not an exhibitionist, I promise.

It’s just…Canaan makes me do crazy things.

Tate is the crazy one, usually, not me. And, like, yeah, she’s almost certainly pregnant, which is Tate to the max—she gets caught up in things and loses her head, but usually she doesn’t forget herself so completely as to risk fucking up her whole life. Tate usually just…ends up in weird situations. Dating weird guys. Going on crazy dates, getting a little wild in the back of limousines, losing clothes, getting drunk and lost in the Netherlands…stuff like that.

I’m the more responsible one. I’m on the shot rather than the pill, so even if I did go so crazy about Canaan as to let him fuck me bareback, I almost certainly wouldn’t get pregnant.

But, as I said, Canaan makes me crazy.

So, I may not let him fuck me without a condom, but he makes me so crazy I end up doing things I’d never, ever, consider doing when in my right mind.

Case in point—the current situation.

Me, with my clothes all askew, my back up against the wall of the alley, in the shadows, my hands in Canaan’s hair, which I’d ripped out of the ponytail he kept it in when working. He had me pinned, three fingers deep inside me. He had me coming, hard and fast.

“Aerie…god…” he murmured, burying his face between my breasts. “I need you.”

“You just had me this morning, Canaan.” I said this as if it meant anything to either of us.

“I know, but I need you again.”

“We’re supposed to be working.”

He groaned. “I know, I know.”

“And do you have a condom?”

“Fuck, Aerie. You’re killing me.” He ground against me, his zipper cold as it scraped my bare flesh. “I’ll pull out.”

I laughed. “And come on the ground? Or on me, when I have to go deal with customers? And also, pulling out never works.”

“But…” he hissed, frustrated. “Goddamn it.”

I was totally cock-teasing him.

“You got yourself all worked for nothing, buddy,” I said, rubbing myself against his crotch.

“You’re not helping.” He palmed my breast, caressing it lovingly. “You gotta give me something, A. I’m dying, here.”

“You’re that desperate?” I pulled his face down to my breast, guiding his mouth to my nipple, gasping as he suckled on it. “Something, anything?”

“I’m about to come in my pants, baby. Legit.”

“We can’t just fuck in the alley, Cane.” I teased my fingertip up against his zipper. “Nor can we fuck without a condom.”

He sagged against me. “Fucking hell. You’re teasing me, you evil witch.”

“Me? Tease you?” I pretended innocence. “I would never.”

He snickered sarcastically. “Um, that night at the cabin? You drew out a single handjob for almost half an hour. You brought me so close to the edge I was literally seconds from coming, and then you totally stopped until I was crazy.” He stood up straight, staring me down. “You don’t call that teasing?”

“I call that edging, actually, and you loved every second of it.” I shrugged. “It was fun.”

“In the shower, you sucked me to the brink of orgasm, and then stopped.”

“And when you finally did come, you swore you went blind for a minute.”

“What about the other day? You woke me up with your mouth on me, but didn’t finish me, and then you completely left the apartment, and I didn’t get to touch you until the next night.”

I sighed; he had a point. I did enjoy teasing him, drawing things out, making him wait, keeping him guessing.

“Fine,” I huffed. “So I like teasing you.”

“It makes me crazy, Aerie.”

“And when you’re crazy because I’ve been teasing you, you turn into an animal, and that in turn makes me crazy. Win-win.”

“But like right now—you’ve had your orgasm, and you’re messing with me. Rubbing on me, teasing me. Are you gonna make me wait ’til after we’re done working, is that it?”

“That would probably be smartest.”

He slapped the wall. “Goddammit.”

I laughed. “You just want me to take pity on you, is that it?”

“Yeah, have a little pity on poor old me.”

I teased his zipper with my finger again. “What kind of pity?”

“Oral pity?”

“Like hell am I getting on my knees in this dirty alley, Canaan Badd. Think again.” I tugged his zipper down but didn’t open the button yet.

“I got bored earlier and swept the alley. It’s clean now.”

I laughed. “Uh-huh, nice try.” I reached a finger and thumb into the opening of his zipper, pinching his girth, stroking in short little movements.

“Fuck—such a tease.” He palmed the wall to either side of my face, growling. “I did, I swear.” He gestured at a broom leaning against the wall beside the door.

I unbuttoned his jeans, then, and tugged his boxer-briefs down enough to bare just the tip of his cock. “So that’s supposed to make the ground out here clean enough for me to feel okay about kneeling on it?” I used just my forefinger and thumb still, squeezing and tracing and teasing the crown of his hard, thick, pretty cock. “What if there are bugs?”

“There aren’t any bugs.”

I slid his underwear down a little farther, and then reached in to take a full handhold of his thick hot shaft. “You have no idea what could be on the floor of this alley, Canaan. I’m not going down on my knees here.”

“I could hold you upside down.”

“I’m not a circus performer, so…no.” I stroked him slowly.

“Then…what? I can’t hold out much longer, babe. You’ll have a mess on your hands if you keep that up, and I mean that literally.”

I leaned close, whispering in his ear. “What if I want you to beg for my pussy, Canaan?”

“Then I’d beg like a dog,” he whispered back.

“Let’s hear it.” I clutched him tight, no longer stroking.

“Fuck. Please, Aerie? Please, please, please…let me feel your pussy. I need you. I fucking need you, okay? I’m desperate to feel your tight wet pussy around my cock. I’m literally begging you…please.”

“That’s pretty good begging.” I kissed his mouth. “Close your eyes and don’t move.”

I reached into the pocket of my server’s apron, withdrew my order folder, and snuck out the condom I’d hidden in there in case of emergency. As quietly as I could, I ripped it open, withdrew the circle of latex, and hid the condom in my hand.

“You really, really, really want to fuck me, is that what you’re saying?”

His eyes remained closed, and he nodded, and then rested his forehead against mine. “I need you so bad, Aerie. Fucking you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He paused, growling as I teased him with a series of rhythmic squeezes. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I shoved his jeans and boxers down past his hips, gripping his cock loosely in one hand, hesitating for effect…and then rolled the condom onto him. “Who’s the best?”

His eyes flicked open as I sheathed his cock into the latex. “Holy fuck, Aerie. You’re the best.”

I stared up at him. “Well? What are you waiting for…a written invitation?”

He shook his head, laughing. “You are absolutely unpredictable, you know that?” He grabbed me by the hips, twisted me around, and pressed himself up against my back, pinning me face-first to the wall. “And I love that about you.”

We’ve said things like that—I love that about you—but we haven’t said the actual phrase yet. We fuck, but we don’t make love. We sleep together, we’re together in every way…

But despite all this…it has the feeling of a hook-up.

With the potential for more…but just potential.

And I want more.

But I’m scared, and I’m not willing to put myself out there first.

The last time I did that, I got burned, hard. So, nope. Not doing that.

I pushed this train of thought out of my head—or rather, had my train of thought interrupted, because Canaan was kissing the side of my neck, slipping his hands down to my thighs, tugging them apart.

I was upright, flush against the wall.

He slid his hands around my hips, grabbing them. Pulling my butt backward. Leaning over me to whisper in my ear. “Can you come again, Aerie?”

“Why don’t you fuck me and find out?” I reached behind myself and grabbed his length, guiding him to my slit.

He seized my wrist and planted my hand against the wall, then placed the other beside it. “Oh, I intend to. No more teasing, sweetheart.” He pulled me backward until I was bent almost double, brushed my skirt up over my back to expose my ass. “God, you’re gorgeous, Aerie,” he breathed.

And then, without warning, he slid himself into me, all at once, in a slow but forceful stroke.

I gasped as he filled me. “Holy shit, Cane…a little warning, next time?”

“No way. I like that sudden gasp you make when I do that.” He bottomed out inside me, groaning. “You like it when I surprise you.”

I hated that he knew that. I did like it, but it shocked me every time. He was so big, and I was so tight, and he filled me so full I couldn’t breathe, and it almost hurt when he drove himself in like that, no build up, no easing in, but…it didn’t hurt. Or at least, not in a way that didn’t make me even hornier.

As it was, I was dripping wet with anticipation. Soaked and gushing as he filled me.

He didn’t waste any time, once he was inside me.

He thrust against me, once, hard, his hips slapping against my ass. Twice, three times, and then he was just fucking me roughly, taking me, owning me. I bit down on my lip to stop myself from crying out.

I thought he would fuck me like that all the way to his orgasm, but as he always managed to do, Canaan surprised me.

He straightened, pushing me up against the wall, leaning against me, pressing his mouth to my ear, whispering as he pushed into me, grinding hard to his climax. “You drive me crazy, you know that, right? Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

He moved my hand down between my thighs, and together, his hand on top of mine, we fingered me to climax as he drove into me.

“What do I do to you, Canaan?” I breathed.

“You make me lose myself. I don’t know who I am without you anymore.”

That made my breath hitch in my lungs, because that’s exactly how I felt about him. “God, Cane…me, too. Me, too.”

I felt him lose control then. He thrust into me, tensed and hard and powerful. He stood up straight, his cock driving into me so deeply it almost hurt, and his hand slid up to caress my breasts, and then he cupped my throat, tipping my head back to rest on his shoulder, gently, lovingly, firmly cupping my throat with his body flush up against mine, fucking into me, grinding, growling, coming.

“Canaan…Canaan, god, Canaan.” I came around him, squeezing tight, clamping down on his cock as I shattered, biting my lip so hard I tasted blood. “I don’t know who I am without you either.”

We heard the door open. “Canaan?” Lucian’s voice.

“Yeah?”

I glanced over, and realized Lucian, perhaps realizing what we may or may not have been doing out here, hadn’t come out, so he wasn’t seeing us.

“Uh…sorry to interrupt your…break. But Rachel Kingsley is in the bar, looking for Tate and Aerie.”

I sagged, limp from my orgasm, and now shocked into paralysis from the news. “She…what? For real?”

“Yeah.” He hesitated. “And…um…I already went up and told Corin and Tate.”

“I see,” I said.

“They’re on their way down.”

“I see,” I said.

“I think things are about to get gnarly,” Lucian said.

“I think you’re right,” I said.

“We’ll be in in a minute,” Canaan said.

“I wouldn’t wait too long,” Lucian said. “I have a feeling Tate and Cor are going to need…backup.”

Something in his voice said more than his words could; there was something else going on.

Canaan pulled away from me. “You all right?”

I sagged, holding on to him. “I…yeah.” I smiled up at him. “That was intense, baby.” He stripped the condom off, and I helped him get his underwear back on, zipping him back up.

“Yeah it was.” He helped get my skirt in place, and then my bra and shirt. “I meant what I said, Aerie—I really have no idea what I’d do without you, or who I am without you anymore.”

And, just like that, we were both presentable again—except for the used condom in Canaan’s hand.

I palmed his cheek. “I meant it, too.”

Which…was a big step for us, but wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

This wasn’t the time, however; I certainly wouldn’t want Canaan to profess his love for me while fucking me from behind up against the wall of the alley outside his family’s bar.

A tiny bit more romantic would be nice.

We went into the kitchen, where Canaan wrapped the condom in paper towel and discarded it in the trash, and we both washed our hands and checked our hair in the little mirror over the hand sink in the kitchen.

Heading out into the bar, we heard voices.

Corin’s.

Tate’s.

Mom’s.

And Mom was…pissed.

Which was understandable—I assumed she’d be pissed when she finally tracked us down, and I was honestly surprised it took this long.

But there was something different this time about her level of being pissed.

This was…apoplectic. It was off the charts. It was insane.

“YOU’RE PREGNANT?” I heard Mom shriek. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”

Oh.

Oh shit.

We walked into utter chaos.

Mom was pacing back and forth, her hands manically scraping through her platinum blonde and very expensive updo, stopping now and again to shout at Tate, who was cowering against Corin’s shoulder, just letting Mom have her tirade. Corin looked shocked at the force of Mom’s fury, and a little green around the gills.

Tate had a pregnancy test in one hand.

Wait—what? She…literally just found out?

Oh…crap.

And then Mom saw me, clinging to Canaan’s arm. “Oh no. Ohhhhhhh no. No, no, no, no.” She whirled on me, jabbing a finger in my face. “There’s no way in hell you’re both shacking up with these…these no-good…hoodlums. They’ve never been anything but trouble, I said that from the very beginning.” She stabbed a finger at Corin. “You! You and your brother are the reason we moved to New York in the first place, to avoid this very thing! You’ve both never been anything but good-for-nothing assholes, and now you’ve impregnated my daughter? Oh, hell no.”

And that was the straw that snapped the camel’s back. Or, in this case, Tate’s temper.

And mine.

Call my man good for nothing?

Oh, I do not think so.

Canaan and Corin were at ground zero for the most epic fight in Kingsley female history. And let me tell you…there have been some blowouts.

Cops have even been called when we’ve been accused of disturbing the peace…that kind of fight.

As Lucian was fond of saying, things were about to get gnarly.

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