Moment of Truth

Calder

 

 

 

“WERE YOU THINKING ABOUT him?”

Shitty-ass thing to ask my brother’s widow after I’d just fucked her, but the frigging words spilled from my lips just like Buckley’s ill-timed comments when he couldn’t keep his loud mouth shut.

The awkward intensity went atmospheric when I pulled out of her—the one place I wanted to stay forever—dispensed with the damn condom, and Reggie recoiled from me.

Man, I didn’t blame her one goddamn bit. I wanted to punch myself in the face, too.

“Is that what you think, Calder?” Her whispered words cut quick and deep.

Scooting up in the bed, I held my head in my hands. “Don’t want to.”

“I don’t know how to prove it to you anymore then.” Her sad sigh almost crushed my soul. “I should go to my own room. And I think”—her low voice cracked—“I think this was a mistake.”

My stomach roiled. I glanced at her to see her shoulders stooped as she moved to leave the bed. Leave me.

“Wait. Please, Reggie.” I didn’t touch her. Wanted to, though.

Back turned to me, she hesitated at the edge of the mattress. “Why should I?”

“Because I’m sorry. I’m fucking stupid, and this is complicated, and I’m making it more difficult than it should be maybe.” Nudging up behind her, I dropped a kiss to her shoulder. “Because I’m a jackass dickhole you should nut-punch.”

A tight laugh burst from her, quickly quieted.

Straddling behind her, I brushed my hands down her bare arms, finding the fingers she locked together in her lap. “Because I’ve just made love to the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, then I insulted her in the worst possible way.” I gulped then placed a kiss on her other shoulder. “I’ve never . . . wanted anyone like you, Reggie. Never had sex like that. I mean it was hot as fuck, but you were . . . we were . . . Jesus, it was intense.”

“For me too.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“I don’t want you to ever think I’m not one hundred percent completely here with you.” Her hand whispered down my forearm barred around her stomach.

I fitted our fingers together.

Nuzzling the side of her neck, I held her more firmly against me. “It’s just difficult. To separate things. Us. You, him. The past from the present.”

“We’ll get there.” Reggie turned her face, taking my lips with a soft, plucking kiss.

“It’s hard sometimes.”

She wiggled back against me. “Sure feels like it.”

“How do you do that? Switch so easily?” I looked at her, mind boggled, when she flipped over and pounced on me.

“Because you didn’t think it would ever even happen, and I’d decided months ago maybe it should.”

“It’s like that, is it?”

“Mmm.” Reggie licked her luscious lips as the blankets fell away from her.

She crawled over me as I lay flat on my back. Her tits dangled, and I cupped them in my hands. Her head ducked down, and she kissed, bit, and licked up the center of my chest to my throat. Her tongue rasped against the stubble, rocketing must-fuck need through my body as my cock rose like a missile, locked and loaded.

I twisted her around effortlessly, jerking her roughly to where I wanted her. Spread. Ready.

My gaze landed on hers as I hovered above the most gorgeous pussy. “Wanna fuck again, huh?”

Her hips lifted when I swept a finger down the centerline of her cunt. Wetness spilled from her, and I swirled it around her puffy pussy lips with the pads of my fingers.

Reggie reached behind her, grabbing onto the edges of a pillow. “Yes.”

“Christ. You’re like a delicate desert rose.” I leaned down, blowing across the smooth labia.

Her breath hitched in a whimper.

Unable to stop, I smelled her sweetness before placing my mouth against all of her. A blooming desert rose. Her legs almost strangled my neck when I got down to going down on her. I just chuckled and kept licking, nipping. Suckling, kissing. There was no part of her hot swollen cunt I didn’t attend to.

Took even less time than the first time to make her come. With smoky little cries and sex-starved lunges up to my meandering mouth.

Climbing up over her, I shared her taste from my lips to hers and surged inside her.

Pleasure ovaled her mouth. Her eyes shut, and her neck arched.

The driving force I fucked her with was propelled by sheer need, need for this one woman only.

Every beat of our bodies—every beat of my heart—nearly tore a howl from me.

I wanted to be inside Reggie in every single way possible.

Biting at her nipples, licking through her cleavage, I pistoned in and out to hot sex sounds of flesh filling flesh.

“Look at me.” With a hand wrangled in my hair, Reggie jerked my head up. “Tell me.”

Laying fully on top of her, my cock still sawing in and out as my groin tightened, I clasped her hands in mine beside her head. “It’s just you and me.”

She gasped, breaking apart in an orgasm so beautiful I followed her off that cliff immediately.

Panting. Pounding. Coming. And coming back together.

Coming back to myself.

Coming back to Reggie.

****

The next day we made it to the airport just in time for the flight to Reno-Tahoe International. Thought we’d miss it. The fucking from last night rolled into the morning with Reggie backed up against the shower wall and me pounding inside her with her wet hair grappled in my fist.

I’d hoped we’d miss the flight.

I tried to miss it, but Reggie steamrolled right over me.

Facing my folks again . . . shit. I’d spiraled into drugs because I couldn’t cope with Chris’s death. And now I had to square off with all the pain I’d caused on top of my brother’s demise.

Airborne in the plane, my thighs jumped a mile a minute until Reggie laid her head against my shoulder, her hand across mine.

She didn’t say a word. Didn’t kiss me. Didn’t have to. I calmed immediately.

But the fact I was returning home after so long—after I’d begun a relationship with Reggie . . . Reggie Malone—worked my nerves another degree.

We’d agreed to play it cool with my parents. Friends, like we’d always been. Because I didn’t think I could handle running much more interference at the moment than making good with my family after so many months.

At the rental car, my hands shook worse than they ever had during a game. Reggie watched me, bottom lip between her teeth.

“Want me to drive?”

“I got it.” I hit the locks and stowed our luggage in the trunk.

I guided her into the passenger seat, but she didn’t let go of my hand. “It’s going to be okay, Calder.”

“Okay.”

“They’ve missed you so much.”

A swirl of dampness blinded me for a second before I sucked all the feels back in.

The highway, the roads, rolled beneath the tires so familiarly I suffered from an upbeat to my heart paired with the deep plunge to my gut. The city enclosed by white capped mountains, huge moon above in a nearly violet evening sky. The region was so stunning, so completely different from Charleston—Reno was familiar, but the lowcountry was no longer foreign to me.

As soon as we pulled up to the mission-style house, my mom and dad appeared under the shadowed portico.

Mom pressed her fingers to her lips. Dad said something to her, and she nodded.

“You ready?” Reggie asked, unlinking our twined fingers.

“I don’t know,” I spoke hoarsely.

“I think you are.” She pecked me on the cheek before getting out.

Mom almost ran down the stairs to get to Reggie. I sat stuck in my seat, watching the tight hug they exchanged.

Dad approached my side of the car.

Popping open the door, I unfolded from the seat.

Dad held out his hand for a shake, and I grasped it. An overspill of love and worry and guilt eating at my insides.

His tight smile didn’t make it all the way to his steely gray eyes. “Glad you’re home.”

“Reggie talked me into it.” I walked around him to the trunk, gathering up the luggage.

“She shouldn’t need to.” His voice was stern as ever.

I put some starch into my shoulders, heading up the steps behind my mom and Reggie, Dad taking up the rear.

As soon as I set the bags down in the living room, Mom wrapped me in a hug.

“Calder . . .”

I stooped down, swallowing tears that threatened to end me. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

She sniffed, remaining against me. “Hush that nonsense. What hurt me worse was thinking I’d lost both my sons.”

Discreetly swiping at my eyes, I squeezed her tight. “You didn’t lose me. I just felt so bad I—”

“No excuses, Calder.” Her head swung up. She touched my cheek. “No more running either, unless it’s on the field.”

I barked a laugh, and behind her, Reggie dabbed tears from her face with a tissue clutched in a hand.

But I still had Dad to contend with.

Remington Malone, USAF, Lt. Col, Ret, stood with a locked jaw and firm upright bearing.

He’d always encouraged both his sons, Chris in the military, me in the NFL, but I knew without doubt I’d let him down in the worst possible way.

We stared at each other, several feet between us, until his face softened.

He held out his arms, tears dampening his eyes. “Come here, son.”

I walked toward him and almost collapsed with relief when he crushed me in a bear hug. I bit down on my lip, swallowing over the huge stone lodged in my throat.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I choked out in a rush.

“I know. And I want you to stop blaming yourself for everything.” He patted my head like I was eight years old instead of twenty-eight. His voice lowered, “You have to forgive yourself at some point.”

I nodded because if I spoke my voice would break into a million pieces.

I swiped at my leaky fucking eyes again then stepped away from him. He nodded, his smile a little wobbly like mine.

“Well, you two kids must be starving after having nothing but that nasty plane food.” Mom clapped her hands together. “What can I get you? I can heat up the leftovers or makes some turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce—”

“I don’t know about Reggie, but I’m just plain beat.”

Reggie jostled her elbow in my rib. “I don’t think you’ve overslept a day in your life. Remy had you on military time since you were a young’un.”

Dad laughed.

I tweaked Reggie’s hair. “What about you, lazybones?”

“I can hold my own.”

My mom clapped her hands again then held them against her chest. “Oh, I’m just so glad you’re home. Both of you.”

“How long can you stay,” Dad asked.

For the first time since I’d entered the house where Chris and I’d grown up, I took in all the Christmas decorations I remembered, including the nativity scene Chris and I had broken once when we were horsing around. Dad had glued the stable back together. The tree topper nearly reached the ceiling, and hundreds upon hundreds of shiny strands of silver tinsel made the tree look like a showgirl in need of a costume redo. Everything was just like it used to be.

Almost everything.

“Gotta head back to Charleston the day after tomorrow.”

My mom’s face fell in disappointment.

I slung an arm around her shoulders. “But I promise to keep in touch and come back as soon as I can. Hey, I’ll get you Super Bowl tickets if we make it.”

“What do you mean if you make it?” Dad scowled at me, only the twinkle in his eyes lightening the remark. “I taught my sons to play to win.”

“Yeah, you did, Dad.”

Silence ensued. The sort I imagined would always happen when we remembered Chris and felt his absence.

Mom brightened. “Reggie. I fixed up Christopher’s room for you.”

Reggie’s brows drew together. “If you don’t mind, I booked a hotel. I’d rather . . .”

“Of course, dear. Wherever you’re most comfortable.”

“I’ll drive you,” I said, wondering what had prompted her decision.

Was she setting a clear line in the sand? That Chris was no longer hers?

I picked up her bags again and ushered her to the car, Mom and Dad watching from the warmth of the house, waving.

“I won’t be long,” I called back to them.

As I drove, Reggie kept her gaze trained out the window, and I wondered if she was shutting me out. If she’d decided we’d made a mistake after all.

“You didn’t tell me you’d gotten a room.”

She continued to look out the window, not at me. “I just thought staying in Chris’s room now, with our circumstances, it’d be—”

“Awkward.”

“Yeah.”

Talk about awkward. The rest of the ride was filled with unbroken silence. I wanted to hold her hand. Make her laugh. See her smile again. Anything to bridge the distance I felt growing.

By the time we got to her room, the silence had grown into a thickening tension. I paced around, watching her unpack a few toiletries and night things. All the belongings I’d gotten used to seeing in my house.

I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to ease the pressure. “You’re not coming back to Charleston with me.”

Head shake.

“Why not?” Confusion swarmed me in an instant.

“You know why.” She closed a bag, set it on a chair. She glanced at me with sad eyes. Maybe longing. “Look, Calder. We made love. We talked through a lot of difficult shit, but we haven’t exactly discussed the future. And with my tendon healed, I need to get back to work—”

Before she could get out another word, I came at her. I sealed our lips together, quickly swallowing her immediate moan with my tongue swirling around hers. Like a rubber band stretched too tight, my restraint snapped.

Clothes were shed with no other thought than to get naked, get connected, be inside her, hold her to me. This had nothing to do with lovemaking. It was sheer primal need to own. To be possessed in turn.

I took Reggie down to the bed. She tore at my hair, raked her nails down my chest. I wanted her to draw blood. Wanted her to bite me. I laughed, a low rusty sound, hands swatting at her ass as I pressed her tits together and sucked both nipples into my mouth at the same time.

When I felt the hot wet glide of her cunt along my barrel-hard cock, I flipped over. I wrangled with a condom, quickly fitting it then I lifted her astride me. Her hand never faltered when she held my dick straight up and slammed herself onto my aching length.

She yelled out, but I silenced her with a kiss so ferocious I did draw blood.

Her head thrown back, she began to ride me like a savage woman. Taking her pleasure, rolling her hips, slapping up and down the thick hard pole like she owned it.

Owned me.

Hands at her hips, I thrust up and pulled her down. My pubes were wet from her. My dick veiny, pulsing, glossy. The head butted up inside her to the farthest reaches over and over. My feet on the bed, I used that leverage to pound even harder, even faster. The force made her tits bounce until I grabbed them roughly with both hands, using that anchor to haul her onto my driving cock until wet, hot, wild lust erupted.

She howled, her cunt suctioning at me, pulsing around me. With a mighty growl, I came and came, pulling on her hair and pistoning with my hips. The powerful surges made me breathless, and when Reggie fell upon me, sweat slicked between our bodies.

I kissed her neck, her shoulders. Swept my hands up and down her back.

But when she folded her hand around mine, I couldn’t ignore the glint of the wedding rings I had no right to begrudge her.

Shaken, rattled, wishing I could stay with her, inside her, so what we had wouldn’t just evaporate moments after I stepped out the door to leave, I pulled in a ragged breath.

After easing out of her, I rolled off the bed.

I dressed, watching her.

She lay on her side, watching me.

Rounding the bed, I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. I helped her get under the covers and arranged them around her. I kissed her softly, taking her sweet sigh with me.

“I’ll come pick you up in the morning to take you back to my folks.”

“I’ll just call an Uber.”

“Please, Reggie. Let me do something for you.”

“You already have.” Her fingers whispered across my cheek.

I stepped toward the door.

“Calder?”

I stopped with my fingers on the handle.

“Merry Christmas.”

I glanced at my watch. Midnight. No longer Christmas Eve.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.”