CHAPTER NINE
HALEY
It’s a Christmas miracle.
When Dane showed up at the door with groceries in hand, I couldn’t believe it. When he said he was going out, I thought that was it, that he’d decided to get out of town any way possible. I wasn’t expecting… this.
He smiles as he swings the grocery bags up onto the kitchen counter, Andy weaving through his legs and taking hold of his thigh to stand on Jell-o legs.
The funny thing is, before I answered the door I was already cursing him, hadn’t even noticed he’d cleaned the kitchen. I was ready to go off at him, but now… Now I don’t know what to do.
I feel like an ass. He’s not exactly shining yet, but maybe he is a knight after all.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t pay for these groceries, Dane.”
And there’s that killer smile again as he starts to unpack. “Consider it payment for my lodging.”
I pull the bag closest to me across the bench and join the unpacking. “You didn’t have to do this.”
He stops and locks me with those oceanic eyes that have been my undoing. “It’s the least I can do. Hell, I would have bought more if I had a third arm.”
I remember the size of him brushing up against me. You kind of do have a third leg, I muse.
Dane holds up a tray of burger patties. “I got some meat, but I figure it’ll go bad if we lose power, so… burgers tonight?”
He stops me again when I go to say something, putting his hand up. “I’ll cook. You sit back and relax.”
“Relax?” I laugh. “I don’t know the meaning of the word.”
He continues to unpack while he talks. “Maybe you haven’t been shown how.”
I’m getting the impression we’re not talking about dinner anymore. I’m turned on and it’s crazy, absolutely bonkers I should feel this way at all. This guy is a genuine hustler, one of those natural born bar-hanging women magnets I despise. And yet I can’t stop thinking about him, cursing him, wanting him… He’s taken over my brain and I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
We work as a team putting the groceries away, but my thoughts are drifting far from baby food and ketchup. Every time he comes close I smell him, the heady pull of his body. How can anyone have a jawline like that, hair that’s perfectly tousled, a body you could demo a house with it’s so hard? He’s straight out of glossy magazine.
And he’s all yours.
As if to drag me back to reality, I smell something else and peer down at Andy crawling towards me. I reach down and scoop him up. “Looks like you need to be cleaned up, Mr. Smelly.”
Dane pops his head out from the pantry. “Did you just call me Mr. Smelly?” He sniffs his armpit. “Really?”
I hold out Andy. “It was… never mind.” But I’m smiling as I take Andy over to the changing table. “Two men in the house,” I whisper. “What am I going to do?” His smile suggests ‘go for it, Momma.’
I don’t exactly have anything to lose, do I? And Dane did make me feel good back at the motel—more than good. I felt amazing with his fingers down there. God only knows what I’d feel if they were replaced by something else.
You saw the size of that thing, right? He’d split you in two.
Given how wet and eager I was, I doubt it would be an issue.
The rest of the day Dane does his best to help out, pitching in with the laundry, helping pack up Andy’s toys, which only yesterday he regarded as medical waste, even making his bed. I’m not sure exactly, but today feels a little better than the day before. I can’t quite tell, but there has been a definite shift in Dane’s behavior and general attitude, however small and imperceptible at first.
He’s, I search for the right way to put it, not as much of a… dick?
I wonder if it’s because I was on his case earlier. Maybe something clicked.
Or maybe’s he’s just looking to get laid.
I ignore my inner skepticism. Where has it gotten me before?
As the light starts to dim outside, Dane re-packs the fire, looking all the more mountain man in a checked flannel shirt I found for him. I feed Andy in the kitchen. I pause every so often to peek around the corner for a quick glimpse, cooing at Andy so as not to raise suspicion.
Fed and sleepy, I put Andy down in his cot upstairs and, what do you know, he goes straight down with barely a whimper.
I watch him, his hands out above his head. His skin is so soft, so perfect. I know it feels wrong to say it, but this is my favorite time of the day, the simple peace of it.
The smell of sizzling meat lures me downstairs where I find Dane at the stove wearing one of Dad’s old aprons. He turns with a spatula in hand. My eyes drop to his chest. I read the printing on the apron. “Last time I cooked, hardly anyone got sick.”
He looks down.
“Is that true?” I ask, smiling.
“I’m afraid my culinary skills don’t extend far past the grill.”
He adds a slice of cheese to the top of a patty. It melts and bubbles around the edges, my stomach knotting in anticipation. It’s been too long since I’ve had a decent meal, always too busy and too tired to put even something as simple as homemade burgers together.
The oven dings and Dane grabs a tea-towel, bending over to take the buns out of the oven. I’m more interested in buns of a different kind. How do you even get a tushy that tight?
It’s called an ass, Haley. A-S-S.
I can’t help but laugh.
Dane turns. “Oh, this amuses you, does it?”
“No, not at all. I’m loving having someone else cook, actually.”
“I couldn’t take another TV dinner, sorry.” He nods to the island in the center of the kitchen. “Take a seat. They’re almost done.”
I watch Dane assemble the burgers and plate them up, placing them down along with two sodas.
I pick a can up and examine the label. “How do you drink this and have a body like that?” I query.
He slides my plate across. It smells delicious. “Good genes, I guess. Dig in.”
I’m in heaven from the first bite. I don’t know if it’s simply because someone else cooked it, but it could well be a contender for the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth.
And that includes you, Grandma’s apple crumble.
Dane’s too busy watching me to eat. “Good?”
I realize my eyes are still closed. “It’s…”
“Orgasmic?” he fills, “because you’re looking a touch flushed there.”
I simply nod and continue to eat, paying no attention to the ketchup dripping down my wrist.
I lick my fingers when I’m done. It’s like I’ve turned into an animal.
Dane laughs, polishing off his own burger. “Anyone would think you never eat. He holds up the tray of remaining burgers. Another?”
I hold my stomach with one hand and wave him off with the other. “No, thank you. I’m definitely satisfied.”
He makes his way to the counter.
“How did you get into flying?” I ask, keen to know more about this burger-making miracle.
Dane places down the tray and seats himself back at the island. “I don’t know. I joined the Air Force straight out of high school. I wanted to see the world, to get as far away from my hometown as possible.”
“And you did?”
He crosses his arms. “Sure. I served in a stack of countries, some shittier than others, seen a few pretty damn close to paradise.”
“Were you involved in much—” I don’t know how to say it “—conflict?”
“I did my share of dirty work, if that’s what you’re asking, but nothing like your father went through in the Gulf.”
He’s more perceptive than I give him credit for. “You saw the medals?”
“I did. He must have been a hell of a pilot.”
“He was, but to be clear he isn’t my birth father.”
There’s genuine curiosity in Dane’s eyes. “But you still consider him ‘Dad,’ right?”
“Yes. My ‘real’ father was my mother’s high-school sweetheart, but he left town as soon as he found out she was pregnant. I guess he couldn’t handle the responsibility.”
Dane nods knowingly. “And you’ve tried to contact him?”
“No. I don’t feel a need to get to know him. To me, Dad was Dad—still is. I mean, Mom told me he was different after the war, that he never wanted to leave Merit again. He mostly did odd jobs around town. Enough to get by.”
Dane relaxes. “How long’s it been since they passed?”
“Three years now. Dad died suddenly, Mom not long after.”
“So they never got to meet your son?”
The tears well up again. “No.” I sniff them away. “How about your folks?”
Dane leans back. “Also passed, but it’s no great loss.”
For a second I’m horrified anyone could say that, but then I don’t know Dane’s situation, his childhood. I don’t know much about him except for the fact he flies jet, makes great burgers and knows his way around a vagina.
“They weren’t exactly homey people,” he continues. “They didn’t believe in sugar-coating anything, taught me from a young age life isn’t a cakewalk. At least they didn’t beat me, I suppose.”
I try to steer the conversation back to a lighter subject. “How was the grocery store?”
“Tiny. I couldn’t find the sushi.”
I laugh. “You won’t find sushi or McDonalds in Merit for that matter, though I imagine your burgers were better.”
“You’ve never had McDonalds?”
“I’ve never been out of town.”
“Huh,” he says, like this explains everything. “I see.” He leans back, hands behind his head. His eyes drop. “How about dessert? I know I could go for something… sweet.”
I’m blushing again, damn it, forced to press my thighs together tight under the table before they combust and set this whole place on fire.
I swallow, fiddling with my hands as I’m prone to do when nervous. “Thank you,” I tell him. “Honestly. This means a lot.”
He stands and makes his way to my side of the island, one hand on the marble, the other reaching out to run a strand of my hair through his fingers. “I want you, Haley,” he says, as easy as that. “I want you so bad it fucking hurts. Have you ever felt that way?”
I swallow again. “Um, I don’t…”
He crouches down before me. “I can help you relax. Just say the word. You won’t have a worry in the world after I’m done with you.”
Those eyes, damn him. They’re like tractor beams drawing me into his orbit, willing me to let go of my inhibitions.
I look up.
Not a peep.
Nope. Can’t use Andy as an excuse.
“I don’t know what to say,” I whimper.
“But you know what you want, don’t you?”
He’s so close I make out each individual hair in his stubble, the soft valley between his lips.
I nod. “Yes.”
He takes me under the legs and lifts me from the chair.
I gasp in surprise, lost as he carries me into the lounge and lays me down on the sofa. The lights are off, only the sapphire glow from the twilight outside giving shape to shadow.
Dane places one hand by my head, bringing his body over mine, the heat and weight of it palpable before contact.
I reach up and place my hands against his chest, not surprised to find it as rocky as I imagined. I’m breathless, my heart galloping away from me. “Slow down, Dane. Please.”
He leans down to kiss my neck, a barely-there caress. He draws his head up, his lips sitting at my ear. “I can go slow. I can go fast. It’s up to you, but the result is always going to be the same.”
His own heart taps against my hands, his cock growing hard and needy in the no man’s land between our bodies. “I’d never had a…” I force myself to say it, “orgasm before you touched me.” The word sounds strange coming from my mouth, a naughty word.
He runs a finger across my lips, the tingling sensation that follows fanning through my body. “And I can make you come again, and again, over and over if you want. You just have to say the word.”
He starts to make his way down my body, settling between my legs, his hands gripping the top of my jeans. “The word, Haley. Say it.”
“Yes,” I whisper, already lost to his powers.
He starts to tug my jeans and panties down my legs together.
I let him, the air drawing gooseflesh to the tops of my thighs.
He tugs the jeans away from my ankles, peeling my panties off in turn and dropping them in a hot bunch beside us.
He spreads my legs and my breath catches, because here I am completely exposed before him, wet and hot and completely at his mercy.
I grip onto the sides of the sofa as he lowers his head.
No man has ever gone down on me before, been down there.
I’m about to protest when his lips come against my clit.
I stiffen, frozen at the sensation, all my senses drawn towards that heated, slick space he’s invading.
“Dane,” I moan, not sure if it’s a cry for help or an invitation for him to continue.
He ignores me, pushing my legs wider still and dipping his tongue low past the folds of my pussy, running long, leisurely strokes up my slit before pressing forward into my wetness.
It’s more than the act. It’s the service of it that’s turning me on, because this is solely for my pleasure.
I claw at the fabric harder, the back of my head hard against the cushion.
Dane licks and sucks, pulls and caresses with his entire mouth, working like he can’t get enough of it, his whole face buried between my legs.
I reach up with one hand and run it through his hair, indigo and inky in the light.
His stubble rubs my skin raw, but I don’t care. I close my eyes and picture the side of my thighs angry and red, a mirror image of my open sex he so enthusiastically laps against.
I start to buck up against his face, his hands coming under my ass to lift me towards him, to drink and dive into my most private space.
It’s déjà vu. I’m back at the motel and this is happening, again, only this time it’s far more intimate, far more real. I’m swimming in the sensation, my clit pulsing and my body reacting, tensing and releasing, building and building until I’m wild, grinding and jerking up and down, a woman possessed.
I try to think my way through it as Dane’s attention turns to my clit, the very tip of his tongue circling the sensitive island, but my head is muggy, drifting in a hot fog of desire so strong it blocks out all else.
My nipples are tight against my top. I’m sweaty, my arousal everywhere around us. It’s so wrong, so taboo he should be down there where I’m wet, and flushed, it’s so dirty, but this only serves to turn me on more.
He squeezes my ass with one hand, removing the other and running a finger into the wet mouth of my pussy, running it deep and hooking it back towards the entrance in a come-hither motion.
Instantly, I’m overwhelmed, the sensory overload too great to endure any longer.
I cry out in what sounds for all the world like agony, slapping my hands down hard on the sofa and twisting against him, my thighs locking tight around his head as I pulse and pull around his finger.
I’ve fallen, been cut free into a sea of bliss, and the waves won’t subside, forcing me into a new series of convulsions more powerful than the first until it seems I’ll be sent unconscious.
Dane presses his tongue flat against me, weathering the storm, holding me tight throughout until I’m weak and limp, every ounce of energy I had drawn out.
He rises between my legs a shadow, but I can still see the smile, the knowing grin that he has the power here.
He climbs up my body and presses his lips against mine, the hint of my own desire still on his lips, his face.
I breathe heavily between the kiss, have never felt this way before, so completely out of control.
He breaks the kiss to lift himself up, watching me. “It’s okay,” he says, brushing my forehead with his hand, “I’ve got you.”