Round Thirty
MAGGIE
Lightning illuminates the sky, fingernails reaching through the stars and stealing them for itself.
But Billy slams me against the wall and steals a little something of his own, too.
He knocks the air out of my lungs, greedily gulping it down without a single care for how my head spins, then he latches his teeth onto the side of my neck and feasts.
“I’m so fucking hungry for you, Magnolia. All the damn time.” He pins me to the wall with his hips, freeing his hands to touch, to sample, to trace the shape of my curves under his fingertips. He drags his knuckles over my pounding clit, hidden beneath my pants, and growls as I cry out.
I throw my head back, bashing it against the wall with an aching thud, but as he slips his hand into my panties and digs thick fingers into my pussy, I simply absorb everything he gives.
I float on the pleasure burning my veins.
I breathe in the crisp cold air of a rainstorm just weeks before snow season is due to hit, and because I’ve wanted him, too, for far too long, I fill his palm with my release and know there’s still so much more to come.
“I can’t stop thinking about you.” He sets me back on my feet and unsnaps my pants, tearing the fabric down my legs with a kind of desperation that speaks to my soul.
Kneeling, he dives forward and buries his tongue between my thighs, lapping me up and hungrily nipping at my pulsing clit.
But he doesn’t drape my legs over his shoulders this time.
He doesn’t even give me long enough to enjoy this sensation, because he straightens out again, shoves the front of his pants down and fists his purple-headed cock.
Finally, he picks me up and impales me with a viciousness that takes my breath away.
We have no condom. There are no questions asked. He crushes me against the wall and slams his lips over mine. Our hearts race, and our breaths mingle. His teeth punish, but his hips… oh God. His hips piston impossibly fast.
“You’re the best thing I’ve ever felt.” His fingers bruise the underside of my thighs, gripping tight and dragging me away from the wall, so each time he surges forward, I crash back again and absorb him twice. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and moan. “Don’t stop.”
“Never gonna stop.” He growls under his breath, fucking me with a violence I know I’ll still feel tomorrow. “You got the most delicious pussy, Magnolia.” He slips his tongue into my mouth, forcing me to taste myself. “The sweetest cunt.”
“Oh, God.” I gasp for air as rain pounds against Billy’s well-kept lawn.
With each bolt of lightning that shoots across the sky, the man in front of me is illuminated in all his glory as he uses my body with an intensity completely unlike the last time we did this.
It’s an extremism that sends shots of electricity through my belly, but it feels so, so good, so I cinch my arms around his neck and ignore the sleeting rain that overflows in the gutters.
I forget everything except the completion I feel each time he fills me.
The lava in my blood. My orgasm sprinting toward the surface, until I consciously push it back for fear this will end too soon.
“Billy.” I whimper his name and dig my nails into his back. “Jesus. Keep going.”
“Squeeze my cock, Magnolia.” He bites down on my neck and elicits a cry from deep in my throat. “Fuck. I always loved you.”
I wake the next morning to sunlight flickering through Billy’s bedroom curtains. Daylight crests the horizon, and a gentle breeze taps the closed window, so the pane rattles in its frame.
This isn’t like the last time I woke up in this bed. The panic simply doesn’t come.
My blood pumps normally, and my brain stays calm.
For the first time in a long time, I wake to a feeling of peace, and it’s not even because of Billy’s soft breath bathing the back of my neck while he dozes.
It’s not even because I lay curled into his broad body, his cologne-infused sheets draped across us both and his shirt wrapped around my torso, creating the most comfortable pyjamas I’ve ever known.
No. My peace comes because a third joins us, little fingers playing with the ends of my hair, and beautiful green searching mine in the silence.
I laze in my sleepiness, blinking through the phase between asleep and awake, but each time my eyes flicker open, I’m gifted with Jeremy Caster’s toothy grin and a smattering of freckles sitting high on his cheekbones.
“Mm.” I burrow into my pillow and press a kiss to his cheek. “Good morning, cutie.”
“Good morning.” He brings his knees higher, inadvertently digging them into my thighs, then he drags the ends of my hair below his nose. Which might be the sweetest, most romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed. “That storm was big, huh?”
I exhale a soft snicker and blink-blink-blink through my drowsiness. “Uh huh. But I didn’t leave. Like I promised.”
His cheeks warm just enough to make my heart stutter.
“You slept in my dad’s bed again,” he whispers, carefully peeking over my shoulder. “But this time, he slept in it, too.”
“I did. But shhh.” I lazily tap the end of his nose. “Don’t tell him. He might think I like him or something.”
He giggles, tamping down on the sound. He’s not quite ready to wake his dad up, either. “Thank you for bringing me upstairs with you,” he murmurs. Sweet green eyes scour my face. “I would’ve been really scared if I woke up all by myself.”
“I made a promise, and I try my hardest to never, ever, everrrr break those.” I press a gentle kiss to the center of his forehead. “Is it okay that I slept here last night?”
He nods, quick and jerky enough to jolt the bed.
“Is it okay that I slept in this bed while your dad slept in this bed, too?”
Still, he nods. “I liked it.”
“Is it okay that I brought you into this bed with us? Because I could have taken you to your bed, and then I could’ve made a nest on the floor like you did for me last time.”
“Nuh-uh.” He places the ends of my hair underneath my nose and grins. “That was my favorite part. I wish we could do this every single day.”
“Not every single day,” Billy grumbles.
I startle and snap my lips shut.
Pushing up onto his elbow, Jeremy glances past me. “You awake, Dad?”
“Mmhm. And we can’t all sleep in here every single night,” he repeats, his words a mumbled droll. “Cos I’m alllll the way over on the edge. My butt is cold because you two have all the blankets.”
Giggling, Jeremy flops down again and burrows into my arms. “His butt is cold.”
“Maybe we should ask Santa to bring him fleecy pyjamas for Christmas then, huh?” I swipe the tickle he put beneath my nose and draw a deep Caster-scented breath.
This feels nice. It feels alarmingly similar to the way I felt lying between my mom and dad a long time ago.
And because that thought comes to me, a nasty, cruel whisper follows right after.
This is Aria’s life. Not yours.
“You have school today?” I trail my fingers through Jeremy’s hair and earn his purring delight. “Nine o’clock?”
“Yeah. But if my dad puts spikes on the road and stops all the traffic, I could probably stay home with you.” He flashes a bright smile. “That would be way better.”
“No spikes.” Billy slurps back on a line of dribble he’s too tired to manage, and because he’s still dozing, he cinches his arm around my stomach and crushes me closer. “School for you. Work for me. Baking for Maggie.”
“Baking?” I attempt to twist in his arms. “What are you talking about?”
“I heard all that talk last night about the illicit donut operation currently happening on my own property.” He licks the back of my neck, expertly hidden from his son’s view. “I’m not the cop who’ll shut this thing down. But I am the cop who’ll demand his cut. Or else.”
I snort and meet Jeremy’s eyes, rolling mine to steal a small giggle from his throat. “They have a name for those cops, ya know? And I don’t have time to bake today.” Memories of last night’s stressors march through my mind. I’d escaped them for a little while, at least. “I have to work.”
“Why do you even have to work anyway?” Jeremy whines. “Molly’s mom doesn’t work, cos Molly’s dad does, and he takes care of her with his money.”
“Well, that’s nice for Molly’s mom, isn’t it?” I tickle his elbow. “I’m not Molly’s mom, though.”
“No, but my dad works and takes care of me. I could get a job too, if you need me to. Then you would have even more than Molly’s mom. You would have my dad and me taking care of you. That’s loads, right?”
“That sure is a lot.” I push up between them both, setting my hand on the bed for stability and absorbing the grumble of Billy’s unhappiness because I’ve moved.
“But I prefer to take care of myself. And even if I have more men in my life willing to take care of me than Molly’s mom has, I also have a house.
Two houses are a lot for one policeman and his eight-year-old son to look after.
So I think I’ll pay for mine, and when I have time, I’ll slip more donuts through the fence.
” I drop a sneaky kiss on Jeremy’s forehead, then I climb out of the bed and earn double grumbles of unhappiness when the blankets shift and tug the cold air in.
“Magnolia.” Billy blindly reaches out for me. “Come back.”
“Can’t.” I’m covered all over with Billy’s shirt and my boyleg panties, but I still snatch up my pants and stab my legs inside.
I jump in place and whip the material up, then I snatch my bra from the end of the bed and do that thing girls learn how to do by around eighth grade—slide it on and fix the straps without taking my shirt off at all.
“I’m on shift at ten o’clock, so if I want to make it on time, I have to get moving now. ”
“Shift?” Billy cracks one eye open and studies me through long lashes. “What do you mean?”