19. Christopher
nineteen
She’s pliable under my hands, answering my strokes like a field of barley in the wind. Fuck, and she’s turning me into a poet. I suck on her earlobe, and she exhales a moan that almost makes me come.
“Whatever you give me, I just don’t want you to stop,” she says in my neck. “I want you to let go with me.”
Daaaamn.
She shouldn’t talk like that.
Because me letting go means her clothes are ripped off, I’m getting drunk on her sweet juices, and I’m making her come before I even unzip my jeans.
Then I’m pounding her.
“I’m not the gentleman you think I am,” I growl and pinch her nipple, to which she responds with a full body tremor and back arching. “But I’ll act like one. Don’t want you running back to these office types too soon.”
The thought of Alexandra back in New York in a few months, moving on with other guys, doesn’t sit well with me. If anything, it makes me harder. Angry hard.
“I can’t wait to suck on your adorable toes.”
“How do you know my toes are adorable?” she asks, her middle grinding against my cock, as if he’s the one giving the answer.
“’Cause they’ll match those delicate fingers of yours.”
She nudges one hand between us, her nails scraping through the thick fabric of my pants.
“Those fingers?”
I push her hand gently away from my dangerously throbbing cock. “Beautiful, you’re going to make me come before we even get started.”
“So?”
I chuckle. “So. Ladies first.”
I circle my tongue around her hard nipple and trail my hand between her legs.
She’s so hot down there. And wet. “Fuck, you’re drenched.”
“Oh god, Christopher,” she meowls, her hips bucking under my fingers.
I fucking love the way she draws out my name.
Love the way she moves under me.
“Beautiful,” I say, taking her lips again. Her mouth is so sweet, and she gives so much. She wraps her hands around my neck like she’s about to drown, and she gives me access to her mouth, and also she sweeps inside mine as if my pleasure is more important than hers, and god I want to give her everything but she’s giving me so much already. I pull back just enough to look at her beautiful face, and her eyes open just enough to drink me in, gaze unfocused, irises so deep.
She rakes her nails softly against my back, trails them down to my ass. “God I want you so bad,” she whispers.
I tug her leggings and panties down in one pull and sweep my hands across the silky flesh of her inner thighs.
She whimpers.
“Yeah,” I growl.
My fingers find her folds, so sweet, so soaked for me. I slide two fingers inside her, my thumb on her clit, and just like that, she falls apart under me.
She’s loud. A beautiful wail, my name on her lips.
God.
She’s perfect.
“Fuck.” My dick is furious for all this teasing. I pull back from her, pull her pants back on, slowly release her breasts, her hips, her whole body.
I keep her head cupped in my hand.
She frowns. “You look upset.”
“You’re perfect,” I explain.
A slow smile spreads on her face. “That sounds like a good thing.”
Not really, but my mind is too fuzzy to get into that right now, and I don’t think I can find the words to explain how her being perfect is really not a good thing for me. “We need to keep this to ourselves,” I summarize.
“Okay.” Her voice is small.
I move one hand up to her adorable face and play with a strand of her hair. “I need to keep it professional between us. In appearance. At work. In town. It would create too many problems.”
“Of course,” she whispers. Her eyes get bigger with understanding. “Skye can’t know.”
She gets it. I knew she was perfect.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want her to hate me, and I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“She’d never hate you. She’d just get it in her head that you’ll stay with us. And, when you leave, she’d feel abandoned.” I almost say abandoned again. I don’t know if there was ever a particular moment in her life when Skye realized that her mother had left her. It’s more of an ongoing feeling of not having ever been wanted by her. I can’t have her feel this, again, even differently.
“She’d hurt,” Alexandra repeats.
I cup the back of her neck. This woman is so different. So wholesome.
“I guess I’ll just go out with the girls,” she says. “I like going out,” she adds as a manner of apology.
I picture her in that little fuck-me dress and those fuck-me pumps, shaking her ass on the dance floor, me on the sidelines because I don’t want the gossip mill to hurt Skye.
“I know you do. I’ll take you out. Couple counties over.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to.”
Her eyes widen. “You want to?”
What does she think? That I just want to fuck her? Christ.
“We also need to protect ourselves,” I say.
She frowns. “I’m on the pill. You have condoms?”
That’s not what I mean, but speaking of which, I’m not sure I do. It’s been too damn long. I make a mental note to order condoms online, next day delivery. It’s either that or drive two counties over to save appearances. “I mean, no expectations, right. We’re just two adults letting off steam, having some fun until you leave.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.” She smiles softly, but her gaze drifts to the side. “I always knew that.”
“Knew what?”
“Whenever life throws me a curveball, I focus on the little things, and that makes me feel good again.”
“And the curveball is…”
“This apprenticeship.”
I wince.
“I mean, no offense, Christopher,” she says, her eyes on me, now, “but this is really not my thing. I’m just not cut out for this.” She’s lucid. That’s good.
Except, I have a lot riding on her apprenticeship, so I hope I can get her to pass the damn exam. “Right. And the little thing…”
“Well, you.”
Ouch.“I will have you know, there’s nothing little about me.”
She giggles adorably and kisses the bottom of my neck. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Regardless. I can’t wait to disappoint you.” I lightly stroke her back. Fuck, she’s back in my arms already. “There will be nothing little to focus on.”
A shiver runs through her, and she arches her back under my hand, rubbing her belly against my erection. “Yeah, I got that impression,” she whispers.
She is going to be lots of fun. I need to keep that in mind. Just fun. All good.
We only have half an hour left before my crew starts coming into work, so there’s barely time for us to straighten ourselves and the kitchen.
I lean into her to kiss her one last time, and the fucking bakehouse phone rings. It’s only five-thirty in the morning. I untangle myself from Alexandra and look up the caller ID.
“It’s Red Barn Baking,” I tell her.
The rosy glow she’d built up under my hands vanishes. She’s more than pale. She’s gray.
“Oh, no. He’s been calling my cell. I blocked him.”
A male voice announces himself as Edward Norwood. “Bring Alex Pierce to the phone.”
“Not happening.”
“What? Who the hell is this?” he barks.
I can tell Alexandra is straining to listen. I lock my eyes with her while I talk to the asshole. “This is her master.”
“Wright? Is that you, son?”
“Norwood, listen carefully. You are not to call Alexandra on this phone or on hers. You are not to contact her in any form during her stay here with me.”
“Fuck off.”
“For the duration of this apprenticeship, she’s entirely mine. You know it. I own her. You fuck off.”
I hang up. Alexandra’s colors are back. My hard-on is painful.
“What did he want?” she asks.
I close the space between us. “Don’t know. Don’t care. You heard me.” You’re mine.
She lowers her eyes and clings to the back of my neck.
“Will you tell me what’s going on over there?”
Her body tenses. “Y-yeah. Just not right now, please?”
There’s something that bothers me, and I’ll get to the bottom of it. She up and left a job she clearly loves, for a boss she clearly hates. Why does she put up with his shit? She could do the same job for a different company. A company that wouldn’t require her to go do a full-on baking apprenticeship.
It doesn’t make sense.
I want her to trust me enough to open up to me about that.
I’ve never had a real relationship with a woman. Lots of hookups, some repeats. Never had time or patience for a relationship.
And I know she’s leaving in a few months, but for the few months that I have her, I want to make her life better.
I want her to entrust her troubles to me.
So I can lighten her load.
And if that looks like a relationship, so what. Sounds pretty fucking awesome to me.
As long as I don’t get Skye hurt.