Chapter 33 Ocotea Trifecta
ocotea trifecta
Cian
That didn’t settle it. Somehow, I got wrangled by the Ocotea trifecta into leaving Renée with Rosie and taking Sariah.
Leaving the most vulnerable while the two physically capable adults left was the worst possible outcome in my book. Rephrasing… it was the least wise outcome, but Rosie playing matchmaker and Renée in on it, leaves me with Sariah riding shotgun in Ayla’s car.
The only reason I haven’t returned it yet is so my license plate can’t be run or my truck followed.
Besides Ayla and Christian live in Cherry Hills Village and their security rivals the Pentagon.
No one would be so stupid as to try to get on their property.
No one outside of Laotian mobsters would anyway, and I’ll never claim they’re bright.
Pulling her hand to my lips, I kiss Sariah’s knuckles before setting our joined hands on my thigh. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t like arguing with you.”
“I don’t either. I know you want what’s best.” She pauses, opening and closing her mouth, but not continuing.
“But,” I offer.
“I’m just not used to being taken care of. I’m not used to what I want being trumped by, well… anybody.”
“Get used to it, Angel. Not the trumping part, unless that’s a sexual thing, then I’m here for it. But the being-taken-care-of part.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“I’ll make you a deal, okay? I won’t make a stink if it’s not truly important.”
“I can do that too.” Her smile is small but kind. “This is all new to me.”
“I’m no expert. We’re older than we used to be. My pride used to… be different, I guess. I don’t think I was an ass, but I’m older now and don’t want to be my father. To anyone. Least of all you.” I amend quickly. “Or Renée.”
I pull into Rosie’s driveway. It’s eerie in its lifelessness. Not that it was brimming with it last time, but something feels off. I can’t put my finger on it.
“Does anything feel off to you?” I ask.
“Yes,” she whispers, as she squeezes my hand. “Let’s go.”
I throw it in reverse just as the curtains in the front window flicker.
I’m back out on Federal before she speaks. “Someone was there.”
Yes. There was definitely someone there. “Any idea who it could’ve been? Want to attempt your house?”
“I don’t know.” Her face is pale as if the movement in the window rocked her to her core. “And I don’t know.”
The last five weeks have been more than enough. Too much. Way too fucking much.
“How badly do you want Renée at school tomorrow?” I drive as if we’re being chased though no one follows. It’s as if shadows are dancing malevolently on the streets to taunt me.
“Not enough to risk her life. But enough that I’m willing to fight for it.
” She slides in her seat until her back is on the door and she faces me.
“I would never—hear me, Ci—never risk her for a point. But I lived in fear growing up. I lived in constant daily fear on the compound, where the rules and the threats hanging over my head were explicit and reinforced. I spent years in panic after I escaped at the mere thought of being dragged back or the consequences of them finding me. I do not want that for my daughter. Certainly not those kinds of consequences, but I don’t want her looking over her shoulder, living with dread or having anxiety at life.
Life is hard. Worry is normal. Anxiety is not.
I want real, normal life for her that isn’t a repeat of my own. ”
“And that means business as usual?”
“It means I fight for her peace. I leave her to the horrors of pimples, bad hair days, and surging hormones while I take on the burden of any unnecessary apprehension where I can. My mother—” she spits the word, and I realize I’ve never heard her speak of biological parents.
“Either couldn’t or wouldn’t do such a thing.
She wanted us to fall in line and allowed that fear to be used as training. ”
Us? How have I never asked? “You have siblings?” I ask as I loop onto C-470.
She shrugs. “Yes. Lots of them.”
I twist my neck to look at her.
“Cults aren’t mom, dad, and two point five kids. My biological mother had maybe nine when I left the first time. Another two by the time I returned. The women there make babies. Several men fathered them. So we’re all half-siblings with each other and we were all raised as a unit.”
My eyebrows dance at my hairline. “I never considered…”
“It wasn’t odd, because I had no concept of anything else. Randy and Rosie as two adults with technology and no kids. My mind was blown. Then I got out into the world and stayed that way until it was normal to me. You get why I want Renée to have normal?”
I nod as I exit toward my house, before doubling back toward hers.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m fighting myself between taking you home where I know you’re safe and not being a man who controls your actions and overrides your wishes. I was beat to shit by mobsters from Laos and taking those licks was easier than the back and forth in my head. Tell me what to do.”
A warm hand lands on my thigh as she twists to rights in her seat. “At least drive by the house. Let’s see how it looks. We’ll decide from there.”
At some point in my life, maybe I could have had an easy-going woman who did what I wanted, who had few opinions and was okay to have a man make decisions, maybe an uncomplicated life where things came easy.
At this moment, that sounds easier. I drop my palm to the one on my thigh and squeeze it. Looking at the woman to my right, I dismiss the very thought of an easy, compliant woman.
This one will challenge me and make me stronger. A woman who thinks critically and acts boldly from her heart… It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Easy is overrated.
“Why are you smiling?” she asks.
Drawing her knuckles to my lips, I place a kiss there. “Just thinking about how much better my life is with you in it.”
She sighs, but there’s no exasperation there. Contentment radiates from her. “Thank you.” Her words are quiet and soft but hold weight.
Her house looks fine. We make the block a second time before deciding to pull into the driveway.
Just like the last time I was here, her home is welcoming and warm. It’s clean, though not necessarily tidy. It’s lived in and allows anyone who comes in to do the same.
Sariah moves immediately through the living room to the short hall.
Something is missing that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s missing color that I’ve come to expect with the Ocotea girls. It’s the peonies. That bright pink bouquet dominated the combined kitchen and dining area.
I follow but stop in the doorway to what’s obviously Renée’s room. It’s the room of a teen for sure. Color explosions, clothes scattered everywhere, bits and bobs on every surface.
Sariah’s head whips up. “Mind starting in my room? There’s a suitcase in the closet. I can get the bulk of it but if you grab socks, tees, and sleep pants, we’ll be halfway there.”
I look to the side. “I prefer when you sleep naked.”
A smile tugs at her lips. “Then start with the socks and tees. I’ll pack the pants.”
I stride down the hall into a room I’d never leave had I been invited in in another situation. It’s soft, feminine, and oozes a sensuality that I’ve never experienced before. I mostly stare at it, breathing it in, wondering if we can come back here to christen it.
I pull the closet door open and reach for the suitcase in the corner. What I see directly above it stops me dead in my tracks. My old CSU sweatshirt. My hoodie that she “borrowed” one night and then claimed as her own. It’s folded on the shelf in the back, well-broken in.
“How’s it going—” Her words die on her lips as she finds me staring.
Instead of answering, I slide an arm around her waist and drop my lips to hers.
It was always her for me. And she never let me go either.
“Why Denver?” I ask when I pull back and rest my forehead on hers.
She drops her eyes shut but shrugs.
Squeezing my arms around her, I repeat my question. “Angel, why did you come back to Denver?”
“You know.”
“I want to hear you tell me.”
“Because I wanted to be home.”
“And Denver is home to you?”
Her eyes flick open and blaze with something I can’t name and I never want to lose. “You are home, Ci. You’ve always been my home.”
I dive for her mouth again while gripping under her hips to lift her. Her legs wrap my waist as her arms round my neck. Shoving her back against the wall, I grind my growing erection to her center.
“I want you. I’ve always wanted you. I only want you.”
“It’s only ever been you,” she says into my neck, and my arms spasm around her.
Everything in my world is set to rights. The earth tilts, true north is reestablished, and she anchors me.
“Too many clothes.” I thrust toward her again.
“Let’s be quick,” she offers, unlocking her ankles and sliding down my front. When she hits her feet, she slides from between me and the door and kicks off her shoes as she lifts her tee over her head.
I’m already shucking my jeans and boxer briefs as the tip of my cock strains for home.
“Quick now,” I agree. “But slow and leisurely later, okay?”
She just smiles as she reaches for me, gliding her palm roughly against my aching cock as she backs up until her knees hit the bed. “What do you want?”
“You. Only you.”
“You have me.” Her ass hits the bed and I give her a little shove, enjoying the playful squeal as she topples to the mattress.
I grab her joggers and quickly remove them, staring down at every fantasy I’ve ever had. “Still too many clothes.”
“If you’d rather wait…” she teases.
I grab her legs and flip her to her belly, giving a light spank to her perfect ass cheek. “Ass up.”
And fuck if that perfect ass isn’t pushed back my way… tantalizing me, taunting me, teasing me.
Gripping her hips, I pull her back to stand between her legs. I use my cock to stroke through her wetness, my head tapping at her clit between strokes. Her gasps are music to my dick, because my brain has gone on vacation and the lower organ is now calling all the shots.
It wants her tight, hot pussy. I position at her entrance and with a long hard thrust I’m fully seated.
She bucks at the intrusion, but her moan is pure pleasure.
Folding my body over hers, I fuck her with abandon.
Snaking an arm under her, I finger her clit, rubbing tight fast circles.
When she’s close and her pussy is constricting me to the apex of pleasure, my orgasm barrels through my body and down my spine, and I pinch. “Come, Angel.”
She does, all over my cock, squeezing me in a vise that borders on pain, except for the ripples of straight carnal bliss that suck me under. I plant to the root as she screams my name and milks me with a brutal orgasm.
And I yell her name as I rock us through our bodies’ seemingly never-ending pleasure.
Her knees give out and she collapses to the mattress, me still inside her. The tight, nearly cruel grip is almost too much on my oversensitive flesh.
I stroke. I rock. I feel the evidence of my release and her own and I glide along in that beauty.
“You want more babies, Angel?”
Sariah
Can a person be fucked into hallucinations? The answer is yes. I only know this because somewhere in orgasm-land where my Gumby body floats in endless happiness, my brain has conjured the wild, wacky, and unfathomable.
I laugh. That action ripples and moves the man still inside me, and my laugh becomes a moan. Without thinking, I use the energy I still have to rock. My leverage sucks, but I’ll take any time I can get to fuck myself on Cian’s cock.
“Angel?”
I try to speak, but moans and grunts are all I have. I want more. I need more. And if bucking and rocking are it, I’ll take it. Fisting the sheets, I use what little space I have to push back to take and take. “More, Ci. I need more.”
His hand under me lifts and massages my clit. He moves, but he’s not fully hard.
“Are you going to answer me?”
“Yes?”
He stops everything, caging me in. I can’t move. His finger on my clit disappears. I’m completely surrounded, the only sound is the ragged inhale of our breaths.
“So?”
“I don’t know what we’re talking about, Ci.”
“Do you want more kids, Angel?”
I freeze, because I’m not hallucinating. “Pull out,” I direct.
He does, and I immediately feel the loss of him inside me.
I’ve also lost playful, attentive Cian, because when I roll over, his eyes are shuttered and his chin lowers.
“Come here, Cian.”
He moves a little closer, but he’s holding himself back. His gaze flits between my face and my bare pussy wide open and on display for him.
“I need you, baby. Please come here.”
He folds himself atop me, and I wrap my legs around his waist and ask, “Do you want kids?”
“Yes.” He nods. His expression is raw. He looks young and exposed and vulnerable. It shreds my insides. “I’ve only ever wanted them with you.”
Everything in me is floating. Every dream I ever had—even those I thought were dashed—is right within my grasp.
“Same. You are the great adventure.”
His face goes radiant, and his slightly wonky smile bursts across his face.
“You want my babies?”
“I want everything with you.” I look away and bite my lip.
His brows furrow, and concern laces his voice. “What is it?”
“I don’t want Renée to be treated less than, like a step-anything.”
“I’d never.” His vow is raw and earnest.
“And your family?”
“If I hear a word that it’s ever been uttered, I’ll cut them out.”
“I don’t want that.”
“I”-—he thumps his chest——“want that. You are mine. She is too. They can embrace that or not, but they need to understand you’re my family now.”
“Okay, Ci.”
His long length burns against my belly as it thickens.
Never losing his gaze, he positions himself at my entrance and glides home.
This time is slow and unrushed.
This time the frenzy is gone.
This time it’s two people consummating a vow made in private.
Until the end when the build is like a breaking dam for us both. Until he lifts me with an arm at my lower back, tilting me, driving deep.
“I want you off birth control,” he growls. “I want my cum inside you without a hindrance. I want to know every time I enter you that we are trying.”
I lift a hand to his cheek and wait for his gaze to drop the truth. “I’m not on birth control, Ci.”
He stills for a long moment, his gaze dropping to where we’re joined as he watches me take him, disappearing into my body.
One or both must be fuel on his fire, because he ruts and thrusts, pistoning his hips mercilessly, taking me with him as we topple over the edge, in freefall, with only one another to hold on to.