Chapter 24 #2
“Don’t be. I have a really beautiful life,” she says with a smile, “My family is healthy, I’m deeply and truly loved.
Being sick can be really inconvenient, and it’s hard all the time, but it doesn’t take any of the good stuff away from me anymore.
” Slapping her hands on her thighs, she changes the topic. “So what are you gonna go with?”
·
Rowan’s hair is done long before mine, and I feel a little bad about making her wait.
I had assumed we were both doing something drastic, but she went for a simple trim and a blowout, which looks fantastic on her; her long hair cascades over her shoulders in wide, voluminous waves that frame her face the way you would expect to see on a model.
It just didn’t take all that long in comparison to all of my dyeing, highlighting and treating.
I still have highlight foils in my hair by the time hers is being fluffed over her shoulders.
After another hour of washing, drying and styling, my own hair is draped over my shoulders; now chocolate brown with caramel-colored highlights, and curled.
I don’t think I’ve worn a curl in my hair.
..ever, but I like it. The big, bouncy curls frame my face and soften the sharpness of my cheekbones – it makes me look nicer, more approachable.
I’d never wear it like this to Envy, but to go back to Eric’s house? Sure, why not.
Walking back to Rowan’s car, I’m hit with the realization that I have let myself dive into this man. Sure, I’ve gotten to know him, but enough to uproot everything that I had established in my life? Enough for it to be okay that he killed someone for me?
“How well do you know Eric?” I ask the woman walking next to me. “Last night, he did something that—”
“I know. I’m as horrified by it as you are.”
“Is that...something he does a lot?”
She shakes her head, her brow thoughtfully pinched together. “No, never. I mean, I’ve only known him for a couple of years, but he’s a good guy. He’s got a record, but nothing like that on it. Mostly just bar fights and vandalism, because he’s a thirty-seven-year-old man child.”
“Am I making a huge mistake here in trusting him so much?”
“I promise you,” she says, “woman to woman, if you weren’t completely safe, I would have come along to warn you, not to have a girls’ day out with you on his dime.
I don’t do toxic men. Davis is an idiot, but he has a good heart.
I would trust him with my kids any day of the week.
He’s in our will to take them if something ever happens to Colt and I, because we know that he would keep them safe.
He might load them up on too much sugar and teach them new swear words, but they would be safe, and so are you. ”
She stops her stride, offering me her pinkie finger, and I laugh. I can’t remember the last time that someone made a pinkie promise with me. I reach forward with my own finger, wrapping it around hers, and give it a firm shake, sealing the understanding between us.
·
Walking into Eric’s apartment, we’re met with the sound – and visual – of a pair of two grown up children playing what looks like an intense match of foosball, shouting and jumping around as they flick the handles at the sides to make their little plastic men kick the ball around.
I’ve never heard two grown men throw so many obscenities at each other over a table game.
“Rat fuckin’ bastard!” Eric shouts with a laugh as his friend makes what I can only assume is the winning goal.
Colt brings his fingers up toward his face and blows on them as if they’re on fire, and Eric takes a few long strides toward him to playfully shove him in the chest, the two of them laughing together.
I wonder if his friend knows how gentle he can be.
“Billionaires,” I say, throwing on my best news anchor voice, “they’re just like real people.”
Eric’s eyes flick to mine and he lets out a low whistle as he abandons the table and heads in my direction. His hands move up to my hair, bouncing my curls. “You’re all fluffy,” he comments. “It’s nice.”
“Wow, Davis, you have such a way with words, I’m swooning over here!
” Rowan taunts him, rolling her eyes as her husband wraps an arm around her, planting a kiss to the top of her head.
He whispers something into her ear, but I can’t make it out.
The blush that creeps over her cheeks tells me that I probably should be glad that I didn’t hear it.
I follow Eric into his kitchen, fully intending to tell him that it’s time for me to go home. Casey will freak out if I don’t show up soon, especially after that fight with Ethan, and Ava will send out a rescue crew if I don’t check in with her.
“You can call me Davis, you know,” Eric tells me, pulling me from my thoughts. “Everyone else does.”
“And everyone else probably knows Davis,” I say as I lean back onto the island behind me. “But I know Eric. And I happen to like Eric.”
Stepping closer, he braces his hands on the counter on either side of me, sandwiching me between them, and he bends down to bring his mouth to the crook of my neck.
His tongue slips from his mouth and he slowly drags it along the curve of my neck, up toward my earlobe, the metal of his piercing cold against my skin in contrast to the intense warmth of his tongue.
My fingers interlock with each other behind his neck and I try to hold back the moan that fights to escape me when he circles my skin with his lips and sucks.
“Alright,” I faintly hear his friend say from his post ten feet away from us, “we’re leaving, Jesus.”
Eric laughs against my skin, flicking a hand up to his friends. “Thanks old bastard, see ya,” he tells him.
I raise my arm over my head to wave my goodbye. “It was nice meeting you!” As his friends leave, I melt into Eric’s touch, meeting his mouth with mine. “It’s too bad you don’t have any actual furniture,” I tease him. “An obstacle course could be fun.”
“I’ll have a team out by tomorrow with shit way better than furniture,” he growls. “Just say the word.”
With his mouth locked onto mine, his tongue slips past my lips and his hands fiddle with the makeshift belt keeping his rolled-up jeans in place above my hips. As soon as he gets the knot untied, the denim falls off of my legs and lands on the floor in a puddle of worn blue fabric.
Eric drops to his knees in a way that has to be painful, but he seems completely unphased as he takes my hips in his hands, hoisting me up until my thighs settle over his shoulders.
His teeth meet my inner thigh, nibbling at my skin in a way that sends me reeling.
I let out a whine as his tongue makes contact with my skin, teasing enough that I’m half tempted to grab his head and put that tongue exactly where I want it.
The jewelry in his mouth is the first to make contact with my clit and I gasp as he manages to move both the jewelry and the tip of his tongue as if they’re teammates working together to drive me crazy.
After teasing me right up to the edge, he moves his tongue, working in broad strokes over my pussy, and I moan, leaning back against the island’s counter, using my forearms to hold myself up while he plunges it inside of me.
My hips roll against his face and I reach down to ball his hair tightly in my fist, earning a groan in response that vibrates up through my entire body.
“This pussy’s so fuckin’ sweet,” he growls before diving back into me.
Suction hits me with a wave of pleasure as he pulls my clit into his mouth, only made more intense as he hums against it.
I cry out, all of the oxygen leaving my lungs and my entire body tensing; the hand holding his hair yanks, pulling his face harder against me.
The only way that this could feel any better would be if he had seven heads to use to bite me all over, to just really sink his teeth into me.
A finger sinks deep inside of me and I whine at the sudden feeling, only to come back down when it’s abruptly removed from my pussy.
That same finger plays a game of catch and release with my pleasure, entering and leaving again, until it’s joined by a second finger, the two of them working together to settle in deep and curl inside of me, and I let out a long, desperate moan.
A series of loud groans rise from his post between my legs, Eric’s hot breath dancing across my skin in time with them.
My legs hook around Eric’s neck, securing his head so tightly against me that I worry for a second that I might suffocate him; but he only chuckles, satisfied with himself.
His tongue slithers across my clit again, joining the fingers carefully coaxing the sweet spot inside of me, and I crack apart, crying out with an orgasm so intense that I can’t help but put a hand over my face as my head falls backward and all of the air is pulled from my lungs.
When my body finally stops bucking, Eric lets my legs fall from his shoulders and he trails kisses from my pussy up the plane of my stomach, lifting my shirt until he reaches my breasts with his lips. His mouth finally meets mine with a slow, satisfied kiss.
His hand reaches for my jaw, holding it firmly, and he forces my head to look downward toward his lap. “Look at what you did to me, Sugar.” My eyes land on a patch of darkened fabric at his thigh, liquid seeping through the light wash of his jeans, and heat floods my body.
“I made you—?” I gape, shaking my head. “Shut up. I did not.”
“Believe what you want,” he smirks.
I hook my fingers into his belt loops, pulling him closer to me.
We’ve spent so much time together, but now he’s really in my arms, and I don’t ever want to let him go.
“You’re making me not want to leave,” I tell him.
“Come on.” With his hands around my sides, he hoists me off of the counter and onto the ground, landing a firm smack on my ass. “Rip off the bandaid.”