Chapter 23 #2
I shoot Elle a quick text, and she informs me they’re all about to get on the pirate ship ride.
I head in that direction, having been to this fair every year since I was kid.
Even when we did rent out the entire thing.
We didn’t this year or last year. Just asked for half the crowd while paying for double the loss in revenue.
The fair organizers were only too happy to comply. I paid for it myself because I want Stella and Layla to have free rein of the fairgrounds without being stalked. And before you start questioning that, it’s fucking real.
Stella and I live in a small town twenty-five minutes outside of Boston.
But anytime I take her out in the city, her face ends up in tabloids like she’s a celebrity kid.
This has also started happening with Layla since Oliver and Amelia got together—their relationship alone made national news—which has also led to Oliver bringing in security—Amelia has no clue about this—to follow them whenever they go anywhere, ready to step in as needed.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… money breeds madness.
By the time I reach the pirate ship, Oliver, Amelia, Elle, Layla, and Stella are already on the ride. Their arms held up high in the air as the ship swings like a pendulum, screams hitting the impending dusk air.
I watch as Elle and Stella share glances and smiles and laughs and screams. It has me smiling like a fool. Like a guy falling for a girl and a father happy his kid likes the woman he’s falling for.
I don’t know how I could have ever imagined this thing between us being just sex.
“I want to deserve her,” I whisper to overly fragrant, cool air. “She’s not you—she’ll never be you—but could she be the next best thing for our girl?”
Would she even want that?
The ride ends, and I watch as they shuffle off, still laughing, breathless in their fun. Elle catches my eye, and I swear she blushes, biting her teeth into her lip and giving me this adorably shy-girl vibe. She’s still so uncertain. So damn sexy.
“Anyone hungry?” Oliver asks, and Layla squeals out a hell yeah because Layla could eat constantly if allowed.
“I saw the grilled cheese guy right beside the fried dough guy over there.” He points somewhere I’m not looking—I’m too busy staring at my girls. “Stella Bella, there was also that loaded baked potato guy nearby.”
Stella whoops into the air, Layla style. One of Stella’s favorite foods is loaded baked potatoes. She’s tried to grow potatoes but to no avail. If I told her we were moving to Idaho tomorrow, she would not fight me on that.
“You coming, Dad?”
I stare at Elle.
She gives me a look.
Followed by a smirk.
I shake my head.
I turn to Stella.
“I think I’ll take Elle on the Ferris wheel first. You stay with Layla, Uncle Oliver, and Aunt Amelia.” I wink at Amelia, who just laughs it off at this point considering she and Oliver aren’t actually married or even engaged for real.
“Come on, girls,” Amelia calls out, taking Layla by the arm and pretending to give her a rough tug. “I’m starving. Do you see all this fair food? How will I sample it all if we don’t start now?”
“Solid point,” Layla agrees. “Stella, I bet I can eat a potato faster than you can.”
“Anyone vomits in my car, you’re all grounded,” Oliver declares.
But they’re walking away. They’re leaving me here with Elle. Elle, who is sauntering slowly up to me, her head canted, her hair now knotted in a braid over her shoulder, her eyes glimmering in the waning light as they promise all the naughty things that have my mind racing and my cock hardening.
“Hey,” she says impishly.
“Wanna go for a ride with me, beautiful?”
“You’re awfully friendly today, Dr. Fritz.”
“I thought I was pretty friendly with you last night when I snuck over, Miss Wilde.”
She takes my outstretched hand, and it’s like all my missing pieces suddenly fall into place. I don’t even care if the world is photographing us. I just care about her. Her . Her smile is my salvation.
Holding her hand, my lips silent, I find the Ferris wheel, and when the guy running it sees me, he nods his head and holds the small line back, allowing us to immediately climb into the next waiting car.
“You have some clout,” Elle notes as we take our seats, both of us on the same side of the metal car, causing it to tip back and sway a bit.
“Does that bother you?”
She considers this for a moment, staring out into the forest that surrounds the grounds of the fair.
I take her hand, toying with her fingers.
“No. I think it’s amazing how you all clearly have each other’s backs.
Protect each other. I never had that with my family.
They’re greedy and cutthroat and dangerous. ”
That piques my interest as I stare into her profile.
“Your parents?” She mentioned her mother a couple weeks back.
“My parents. My sister. All of them.” Her head flies back in my direction. “But I don’t want to talk about that, Landon. Not yet. I want you to make me feel good on this ride. The way you said you would.”
Fucking hell.
The car we’re sitting in jerks, the ride starting to move, only to stop again as they allow people into the next car.
I lean in, knowing we’re bathed in shadows, and press my lips to hers.
“I’d love nothing more than to make you feel good.
” Forever . There’s that word again. Do I mean it, or have I been so emotionally dead for so long that I’m latching on to the first woman who forces me to breathe again?
I can’t decide if it matters or if I even care because in the next second, my mouth engulfs hers, pushing her into the unforgiving back of the car, causing it to rock even more. Only neither of us is at risk of breaking anything tonight.
She’s wearing jeans, and I shove her hips forward, thrusting her legs open wide. “Undo your button and zipper for me. Show me what color your panties are.”
Her breath audibly catches, her eyes wild on mine before they fling every which way, scouring the darkening night for anyone who might catch us.
“Do it,” I demand. Give me your trust, Elle, and I’ll give you all the pleasure in the world.
She slouches down farther, undoing her jeans but not lowering them.
I glance down, pushing aside the top flaps of denim. “Black.” My favorite.
My fingers toy with the lacy top, fingering the skimpy material, rubbing it between my thumb and pointer finger.
“I hate that you’re Stella’s teacher.”
“I could likely get fired for this. It’s a private school, and they have strict rules. Especially when it comes to the Abbot-Fritzes, I imagine.”
I shake my head. “I’d never let that happen. If I had to speak to the school, I would.”
“If you do, I’ll castrate you in your sleep.”
I chuckle. So fiery.
My hand flies into her hair, cradling the back of her head as my mouth dives back in, kissing her like I mean it. Like this is our moment, and I refuse to squander it.
“Does that mean you’ll touch my balls?”
She laughs. “Your jokes are getting better.”
“It’s you.”
It is. I’m smiling and quipping jokes for the first time in years. Hell, I have a living, breathing, beating heart for the first time in years.
“All my siblings love you,” I mumble into her lips. “Stella loves you. You’re not getting fired.”
“Good to know,” she rasps into my mouth, her hand clutching my bicep, her nails digging in, pleading. Adrenaline heats my blood. We’re actually doing this. Right here. Out in the open. On a ride where anyone—if they looked closely enough—might be able to see us.
The ride moves, casting us higher and higher into the air that’s growing darker and darker by the moment. From up here, all we can do is peer down at the lights. At the sounds. At the fun.
My lips trickle along her jaw as I take a deep inhale, licking her soft, sensitive skin before blowing cool air on it. She shudders and shakes, a whole-body tremble I feel everywhere against me.
“You’re under my skin.” She says it like a warning.
I cup her face in my hand, forcing her eyes to mine. “Under your skin is my new home.”
Another tremble as my lips fall back on her neck, and she reaches out, gripping my shirt in her fist. My hand slides between her lacy panties and her skin, heading south until I find her bare pussy lips.
She’s so soft, I take a second just to stroke her like that.
She whimpers into me, and I go lower, bypassing her clit to drive her crazy while finding her wet opening and delving a finger in, fighting her constricting jeans.
“Always so wet for me, Elle,” I murmur against her.
“Landon.”
My name. It sets me on fire. “I’m going to finger you until you come. But can I sneak out again tonight and fuck you in your bed after Stella has gone to sleep?” I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in over a week, and I regret nothing of it.
“Yes.” A hum. A moan. A plea.
A thrill shoots through me as I twist my hand as best as I can, two fingers diving into her hot, wet channel, my thumb rubbing her clit. She moans, her head falling back, and I stare at her, watching her face, enraptured by her pleasure.
I fuck her like this. The wet sound caught between us, my fingers coated as she grows hungry and sexy, desperate and needy.
Grinding, rolling her gorgeous hips into my hand.
My lips feast on her neck, the top of her chest over her shirt.
I can’t reach her tits, but I want them.
I want them so bad. I can fit one entirely in my mouth and God, you have no idea how hard that makes me.
To the point where I’m grinding against her side, finger fucking her with smooth, fast-paced strokes.
Hitting her spot. I feel it every time I do.
She whimpers and moans and jerks and claws, and I try to stifle her sounds but watch her like this because it’s everything, and I find it nearly impossible to choose between that and my lips on hers.
The Ferris wheel goes around, our car on the descent as air whooshes past us, the fair so close, but so distant. “Elle,” I whisper in her ear. “Tonight when I come over, you’re going to sit on my face. I’ll hold you down on top of me, my tongue in your delicious pussy. My finger in your ass.”
She trembles, my fingers picking up their pace, fighting so hard against the sturdy fabric of her jeans.
“I want you to ride me after that. I want to watch your beautiful tits bounce. Your eyes staring down at me, euphoric in pleasure.”
“Landon.” She’s clutching the fabric of my shirt now, balling it up in her fist. My girl loves dirty talk. Her head on my shoulder, her legs scissored open in the car as we glide around and around, my stomach swooping with the motion of the ride. “I’m…”
She cries out, and my lips descend upon hers, muffling her every sound, swallowing them down for my own. To keep. To cherish. She comes so hard, all over my fingers, the sensation making my cock leak in my jeans.
Her body loses tone, and I slip my hand from her pussy, past her panties, and out of her jeans. I lick my fingers clean—holy hell, I wish I had eaten her out—and I zip and button her up.
“You are my vixen. My demon. The woman I refuse to let go of now that I’ve caught you.”
“Then don’t,” she rasps, her voice hoarse. Shaking with aftershocks or fear. I do not know which. “Don’t let go, Landon. I don’t know what this is, but I want it. But I feel like I should keep my distance.”
“I can’t let you do that. Not anymore.” The alpha, the fierce protector inside of me, won’t have it.
“There’s so much you don’t know. My life… it’s such a mess right now.” She hiccups out, biting into her lip to stop what I think might be a sob. “I don’t know how to trust anymore. Everyone I ever thought I should…” Her eyes glass over with emotion.
“My beautiful Elle.” My lips hover over hers, our eyes locked. “I promise I’ll do everything I can to change that.”