21. Duke
TWENTY-ONE
DUKE
Daryl Hall
Did you steal my sweatshirt again?
Sure did.
The weathered bark of the blueberry bushes was silver and gray.
Mornings were eerily silent. Fresh snow had fallen, blanketing the fields in deep powder.
The farm needed that harsh reset. The dormancy only prepared them for the next season as their red canes contrasted against the crisp winter sky.
With the fields winterized and equipment put away, it offered the chance to check the books, comparing previous years’ profits and losses.
Sullivan Farms had made it through another successful year.
I leaned back in my chair, tossing my glasses on the desk and pressing a thumb into my eye socket.
I needed to get out of the house—off the farm—and clear my head.
I glanced at the clock and realized it was as good a time as any to see what Dad was up to, so I grabbed my keys and headed toward the edge of town.
They could never hide the distinct smell of antiseptic, no matter how much air freshener was pumped into Haven Pines. My boots beat down on a familiar path toward the memory care wing of the retirement home. I gave my customary nods and terse greetings to the familiar-faced nurses.
Dad’s clinical trial was well underway, and while there were still rough days, slowly, the good days had begun to outweigh the bad. It was our first glimmer of hope that we wouldn’t lose him entirely—at least not as rapidly as we had once thought.
When I was buzzed into the memory care wing, I noticed Dad’s porch light outside his room was off. It meant either he wasn’t up for visitors, or he was out and about on the grounds.
I raised my fist to knock, hoping it was the latter.
“Morning, Duke,” MJ singsonged, and I turned to face her. She was dressed in hot-pink scrubs as she pushed a large computer cart down the hallway toward me.
“Hey, MJ.” I nodded. “You seen Red?”
Her face twisted in shock. “Who? Oh my god, we lost one again, didn’t we?”
I gave her a bored look, and she fizzled into a fit of giggles. She leaned on the cart as she laughed. I did always have a tiny soft spot for MJ—not that I’d ever admit that to anyone.
“I don’t know, Duke, that joke never gets old.” With an exaggerated sigh she rested her chin in her hand. “He tagged along with Fred, our maintenance man. They’re over in the new Haven Pines neighborhood. Slapping up some paint, I think.”
I nodded. “Good. That’s good for him.”
Physical labor always seemed to make my dad feel better. Clear out some of the cobwebs in his mind.
MJ gestured toward the radio on her hip. “Want me to call Fred for you?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I don’t want to throw him if he’s having a good day.”
“He’s having a great day.” She smiled. “I’m hopeful about this clinical trial. It seems to be working well.”
I wanted to hope, I did, but I also knew the reality of Dad’s diagnosis.
“So...” MJ began clicking the keyboard of her computer, but her eyes flicked to me. “I hear you need a spy on the inside.”
She waggled her eyebrows in my direction, and I rolled my eyes at her. “I see you’ve talked to Sylvie.”
She straightened and beamed at me. “Of course I did. She’s my only sister. And look, I know you’re doing this for her, so I love you for that. If you need me to butter up the brutes in my family, I’ll do my best.”
“I’d settle for them not making things harder for Sylvie.”
She winked playfully as she pointed at me. “I knew there was a big old softie in there.”
“I am not soft,” I gritted out.
She straightened and shimmied her shoulders. “Oh really?”
I sighed and started to walk. “Goodbye, MJ.”
Her cackling laugh echoed in the hallway, and she giggled again when she was shushed by a resident. Making an alliance with another King was probably a huge fucking mistake, but I would do it for Sylvie.
With paperwork done and not much to do in the field, I settled into a recliner with an old paperback. I needed anything to distract myself from the fact that Sylvie had let it slip that she was heading upstairs for a warm soak in my bathtub.
I fought the mental image of the tops of her breasts peeking out above the waterline, surrounded by luscious bubbles.
Goddamn, pregnancy had made her tits round and full, and I wanted to touch them. Taste them.
I had set my intentions to date Sylvie, help us get to know each other and actually see if we might be able to figure this co-parenting thing out.
Maybe Savannah would hold less of an appeal if she knew she wouldn’t have to do this alone—that there would be somebody here who cared about her and would do anything in his power to take care of the both of them.
I was surprised when Sylvie trudged down the stairs and into the living room in loose pajamas and a pout.
I looked up from my book as her shoulders slumped. “I got hot. Then I felt all sweaty and couldn’t relax. I’m just...” She raised her hands and dropped them, letting them slap petulantly on the outsides of her thighs. “Uncomfortable.”
I pulled my glasses down my nose and set them on top of the book on the side table. She was adorable and perfect, and I hated that there wasn’t anything I could do to make her feel better when so many changes were going on in her own body.
“I’ve got an idea.” I stood and moved toward the couch and gestured at it with my hand. “Sit tight.”
She surveyed me with pursed lips but plopped herself in the corner of the couch with a huff. I stifled a chuckle and ran upstairs to grab some lotion out of my bathroom.
When I returned, I moved to the opposite end of the couch and patted my lap. “Give me your foot.”
I dropped a small blob of lotion in my palm and rubbed my hands together before gliding them over her foot. My thumbs dug into her arch, and her head fell back with a groan. The throaty primal sound had me shifting in my seat.
“What are you doing?”
I suppressed a smile. “I’m showing you what it means to be cared for by a man like me.”
Before she could respond, I pressed my thumbs into her foot. “There?” I asked as my thumbs dug into a pressure point on the bottom of her arch.
Her hands gripped the sides of the couch. “Oh my god, yes.”
I loved pulling those breathy moans from her. I only wished it was because I was sliding inside her and not from a simple foot rub.
Don’t be the dick who pretends a foot rub isn’t a ploy to get into her pants.
Do. Not. Do. It.
I worked the lotion into her skin, taking my time to rub both feet before moving up to her calf muscles. She shifted her legs, and I was rewarded with a tempting flash of her bare pussy beneath her flimsy pajama shorts.
Fuck.
My jaw flexed as I clenched my teeth together and focused on her face and helping Sylvie relax. “I just want you to feel good. Your body is putting in a lot of work.”
My hands moved above her calf and over her knee. “I’m just so...” She paused and my eyes met hers. “Horny,” she whispered.
I swallowed hard as my slick palms moved higher on her leg, and I shifted. “I can help you with that.” I squeezed the smooth, firm muscles of her thighs. “If you need me to.”
Sylvie’s breaths turned to shallow gasps. Beneath her pajama top, her nipples were hard pebbles poking through the thin fabric. She squirmed again. My long fingers moved closer to the hem of those tiny little shorts, but no higher. Not without her permission.
“Is that what you want, baby? Do you need to come?”
“Holy shit, Duke.” Her eyes fluttered closed as she leaned her head back against the armrest of the couch. Her hips tilted upward. “Yes.” She swallowed hard and whispered, “Please make me come.”
I held on tightly to the last remaining thread of control as I licked my lips and sank to my knees.
I shifted her hips, careful to be gentle, but rough enough to move her exactly where I wanted her.
My eyes roamed over her beautiful, changing body as my fingertips skated across the outside fabric of her pajamas.
My fingers hooked into the waistband of the shorts, and I dragged them with a torturous slowness down her smooth thighs. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of her top as I carefully lifted her legs and tossed the shorts aside.
I trailed a path of kisses up her thigh before stopping to pull in a deep breath through my nose.
“ Fuck, you smell good.” She was trembling and needy before I had even touched her.
“I’m going to ravage you until your entire body is relaxed.
My fingers, my tongue, my cock...” I palmed my dick through my sweatpants.
“Whatever you need to come, I will give it to you.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes to all of it.”
I smirked and lowered my head, using my fingers to spread her open for me before putting my mouth on her. I had had dreams of what Sylvie would taste like. Nothing compared to the real thing—hot and wet. I devoured her like a starving man, using every mewl and sigh to learn exactly what she liked.
I palmed the back of one thigh, pushing her leg up and deepening the angle. She cried out, and her pussy clenched around my tongue, her hips bucking. I teased her clit with the opposite thumb, letting my fingers splay across her swollen belly.
My rock-hard cock throbbed. One of her hands threaded into my hair and tugged.
I grunted into her and enjoyed the sting and tug of her hand in my hair.
I strummed her clit, and she exploded around me.
I greedily devoured her cum as she dissolved into her orgasm.
I slipped a finger inside of her, enjoying the drag and pull of her pussy as the tiny muscles quaked around my finger.
“Yes.” Her eyes were still closed, and her cheeks were flushed as I pumped my finger into her tight little cunt.
“More,” she groaned.
I smirked. That’s my greedy little thing.
“Yeah?” I asked as I palmed my cock again. “Not quite done, are you? I think you’ll have enough when I remind you how that pussy stretches around my cock.”
A blush crept across her chest as I bent to suck the hard, rosy bud of her nipple into my mouth. As my tongue grazed over her nipple, I hooked my fingers inside her until I found the spot that had her clenching around them again.
“Jesus fuck, you’re sexy,” I ground out.
I pulled my fingers from inside her and licked them clean as her eyes danced with desire.
With one hand I reached behind my neck and pulled my shirt off by the collar.
The eager approval in her eyes sent primal pride racing through me.
Reaching into my sweatpants, I freed my cock.
I angled the head toward her pussy and dragged it through her wetness.
“I can get a condom,” I ground out as I teased her entrance with the tip.
“No.” She gasped. “Fuck no. I want to feel all of you.”
“Bare?” The thought of nothing between us as I impaled her on my cock was too much.
A smirk tugged at her lips as she squirmed. “Can’t get me pregnant twice.”
I cradled her hips in my hands as I looked down at her beautiful form. “You have to tell me—if the angle is not right or something doesn’t feel good—I want you to tell me.”
“I will, just . . . please. Please. ”
Her pussy was so fucking tight as I slid my bare cock inside her. We groaned in unison.
As I buried myself to the hilt, I paused my fingertips, making indents in the soft flesh of her hips as I stilled. “You have no idea how difficult it is not to fuck you hard right now.”
Her hand gripped the back of my neck and squeezed. “Do it. I don’t want soft right now. I want you to fuck me. Fuck me like you can’t get enough of me.”
Her words were all the permission I needed. I placed one palm at the center of her chest, pinning her down to the couch as I pistoned my hips forward and railed into her over and over. My cock pumped into her tight heat. My balls screamed at me, begging to keep fucking until I came.
I wanted her to come. I wanted to feel Sylvie dissolve under my hands with my cock buried inside her. With long silky strokes I pounded into her. I plucked at her nipples and rolled them between my fingers the way I had seen her do to herself earlier. Her jerking hips met me stroke for stroke.
She pulled her knees toward her chest, deepening the angle as I towered over her and hammered into her tight, wet pussy. The bite of the hard floor beneath my knees was no match for my desire to drag another orgasm from her.
I focused on the delicate features of her face until her honey-flecked eyes met mine. I was lost in them, in her, as I fucked her over and over.
“Mine.” The word slipped from my lips as I fucked her. “You’re mine.”
Her grip tightened on the back of my neck, and she didn’t break eye contact. “Yes. Yes, I’m yours.”
I shifted my weight, grinding my pubic bone against her clit as my cock pushed deeper inside her. Her eyes glazed, and the tight rhythmic pulses of her pussy squeezed my cock as she came. Her orgasm dripped down the base of my cock to my balls.
So fucking hot and all mine.
My dick pulsed as I emptied myself into her. I braced my arms on either side of her, keeping my weight on the couch and off her. Our panting breaths mingled in the space between us.
Reluctantly I sat back on my heels, dragging my cock from her. She sat propped up on her elbows, biting her lower lip as she watched my cum seep out of her.
I tipped up an eyebrow as I reached forward, catching my release as it slid down her thigh and moved upward. “You like that.”
I ran my cum-coated fingers through her pussy, and her breath hitched. “You feel so good. I feel so good.” She collapsed back against the couch with a contented sigh.
I kissed her knee and sat back with a laugh. “Glad I could be of service.”
“Oh, you serviced.” She laughed. “Five stars. Ten out of ten. Highly recommended.”
She was so goddamn cute, and I was scared to death. I was falling in love with the mother of my child, and I had absolutely no clue what to do about it.