Chapter 9
Rafe
E very night was a night in for us, curled up on the couch with popcorn and beer and Lexi.
We watched bad reality TV. We played a cutthroat game of Call of Duty, in which we found out that adorable social worker Lexi cussed a blue streak into the headset when she was cornered.
She accidentally called me a motherfucker because I wasn’t in the right spot when she needed me.
Leo had rolled off the couch laughing so hard.
I had choked on my beer. She hadn’t even realized it until we told her.
Her competitive side was another thing we liked about her. One morning, I hid behind the laundry room door and jumped out to scare her. She screamed and swore and smacked me on the arm, surprised and embarrassed. She tried to get me back, but she got Leo instead.
The shrill screech I heard sent me careening into the bathroom where Leo was pointing at her and breathing hard, his dick in his hand, while she was laughing, doubled over on the bathroom floor.
“She was in the goddamn basket!” Leo kept saying over and over, “I could’ve pissed all up and down the wall. I could’ve fallen and hit my head.”
“Yeah, explain why you need a sick day for that,” she chuckled. “My roommate scared me, and I bumped my head on the toilet.”
I had high-fived her, and Leo gave me the finger.
When Leo had to go back on nights at the fire station, I knew I had an evening alone with Lexi.
We’d talked about our boundaries, our expectations, among the three of us.
We wouldn’t date other people. We all tested clean at the clinic.
She was on birth control. We were open to sharing her without jealousy as long as we were open in our communication.
So when I planned dinner and more with her, I wasn’t going to keep it a secret.
When she got home from work and kicked off her shoes, I had ordered Chinese and run her a bath.
“A bath? You’re an angel,” she said, unbuttoning her shirt as she disappeared into the bathroom. “I’ll be out in a few minutes. Maybe more than a few. It’s been a hell of a day.”
She was in there for maybe ten minutes before I knocked on the door.
“Come in,” she said. Her voice wasn’t seductive or shocked. It was just Lexi, just accepting and sweet.
She was still in the bathtub, her hair wet and hanging around her shoulders. The bubbles were only in places floating on the filmy water like islands. My hands itched to reach for her.
“The food’s here,” I said, unable to keep my hungry gaze from feasting.
I ran my hand over my hair, rubbed the back of my neck, feeling like I was a teenager again.
I could see the swell of her breasts under the water and wanted to put my mouth on them.
I wanted to drag her out of the tub, dripping wet, and put my mouth on her slick nipples, see if I could make her scream again with my mouth between her legs.
I blinked to clear the image of her writhing and kicking with release on the blue bathroom rug.
“What’re you smiling about?” she said, but she was smiling too. I shook my head.
“I better not.”
“Why not?” she challenged, “You don’t have to be shy with me, Rafe. We talked about this, all three of us.”
“Suddenly, the only thing I want to taste is you.”
I saw her shiver, right there in the tub. She blinked faster, her cheeks flushing.
“Come here,” I said, bending over her.
I leaned in and kissed her mouth, soft and sweet, just like I remembered from the night she woke up crying. But I went deeper, stroking my tongue in her mouth, her wet hands gripping my shirt.
“I got you wet,” she said, biting her lip.
“Then I should return the favor,” I told her archly.
I picked her up out of the tub and stood her on the rug.
She grabbed a towel, not to cover herself, but to start drying off.
I was glad she wasn’t hiding her body from me.
She was short and curved in the right places, her hips fuller than I expected, her small breasts perfect with tight pink nipples.
I snaked my arm around her waist and covered her left nipple with my mouth, sucking it between my lips and rolling my tongue over it.
I felt her jerk, heard her gasp. Her wet, slippery skin, the flowery taste of her soap, all of it threatened to overwhelm me.
I went to my knees, kissed my way down the curve of her stomach.
I lifted her right leg, hooked the knee over my shoulder and buried my face between her legs.
“Oh God,” I said against her soft heat. I loved it, loved the slippery salty flavor of her, the plump lips I spread with my fingers and made her shudder.
I ate her for a few minutes, licking and sucking.
When I reached her clit, I tugged it with my lips, flicked the tip of my tongue over it as her legs quivered and she sobbed my name.
I stopped, leaving her right on the edge, and stood up. I kissed her with the taste of her sex still in my mouth. “I’m going to have you tonight. All of you.”
She whimpered, a pout of frustration on her lips.
She rocked against me, her nipples tight and hard against my wet shirt.
She tipped her face up to mine, her fingers playing at the back of my neck.
She rubbed her lips along my jaw, her hands in my hair.
She kissed my neck, softly at first, and I felt the roll of warm arousal until she bit me, sucking hard at my neck. I groaned.
“So, did you get the chop suey I like?” she asked brightly, moving past me and slipping on the sheep tank top and stepping into her pink flannel pants.
She combed her wet hair and twisted it up into a messy bun.
While I stood there with my mouth half open just contemplating the fact that she had bitten me on the throat and wasn’t wearing underwear of any kind.
My brain couldn’t compute either of those things, much less how cheerful she sounded.
I was pretty sure I growled low in the back of my throat before turning to follow her to the kitchen.
I watched her open a bottle of wine without even offering to help.
She poured two glasses and handed me one.
I drank like I was parched. I wasn’t sure that I could sit across from her at the table and eat.
It was possible that I’d climb up on the table, knock everything off of it and start devouring her from head to toe.
She sat down like it was nothing, like I hadn’t just taken her to the edge of ecstasy and backed off.
Maybe it was revenge, her driving me crazy as payback.
She stared flipping paper cartons open and poking around at the contents like she was a normal person ready to eat supper and not the woman I was five seconds from ravishing on the nearest surface. She cut her eyes to me, looking ready to laugh.
“You look like the big bad wolf right now,” she said.
It was all I could do not to growl in response. As it was, she rounded the table and perched on my knee, “What’s with the crazy eyes?”
“God, Lexi,” I groaned, dropping my forehead against her shoulder, my arms tight around her. “I want to take things slow with you, show you everything I feel, but I don’t know if I have the willpower to do it that way.”
“I kind of doubt it, since you came in to tell me the food was here and started going down on me like a horny teenager, only with better skills.”
“I’m not sure I can hold off.”
“Have you tried thinking about basketball? That’s what my boyfriend used to do senior year,” she teased.
“Did it work?”
“No. He never lasted more than about twenty seconds. I wouldn’t describe it as a satisfying experience.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better. I may be just as much of a disappointment tonight.”
“What?” she said, her hand on my face, making me look up at her.
“You could never disappoint me. Never. God, Rafe, I think I fell for you the first day we met. I didn’t say it, and I’m still scared to say it now, but there was no way to help it.
I just knew from how you were so careful with me, so kind, and then you wanted nothing more than to teach me how to protect myself. ”
“That’s not true,” I told her. “I wanted to protect you myself. I wanted to rip that guy’s fucking head off with my bare hands. Then I wanted to take you out to my car and show you what back seats are for. None of that sounds anything like the guy you say you fell for.”
“Sure it does,” she said. “You were strong and patient and a total gentleman with me, but that doesn’t mean I need you to be a saint. In fact, I’m hoping you’ll be more of a sinner tonight.”
She licked her lips. She was two inches from my face and she fucking licked her lips. What did she think I was going to do then?
I took her face in both my hands, cradling her jaw, stroking her cheeks, and I bumped my lips against hers.
Her lips clung to mine, soft and longing.
She opened for me easily when I parted her lips, when I flicked my tongue along her top lip playfully and felt her shiver.
It was delicious. I tasted the crisp, sweet wine and the flavor of her that I got from going deep in her mouth, bending her head back and taking her mouth all the way.
I didn’t hold back, didn’t try to be gentle or tease a response from her.
I did what I had to, getting my fill of her.
She rubbed against my chest, her skin hot and her nipples hard.
I palmed her breast, brushed her nipple with my thumb just to feel her buck.
We were about a minute and a half from fucking on the kitchen chair, and the only thing that stopped me was the knowledge that the table and chairs weren’t in great shape.
They wouldn’t stand up to the pounding I was going to give Lexi.
So I picked her up. She twisted, got her legs around me and held on.
It was hot as hell knowing she wanted me to carry her, that she was ready to climb me.