Chapter 24
24
A very followed Trace to his house, and together, with George’s arms around their shoulders, they walked him inside and put him to bed.
She stood in the hallway, watching how great Trace was with his dad—positioning his pillow so it didn’t press on his cheek, covering him to make sure he was warm, waiting until he was sure George was asleep before he backed slowly from the room and closed the door with a featherlight touch.
Her mind was spiraling so fast, thoughts clicking and forming before she could process them, that the words rolled out of her mouth before she’d thought them through. “You’d make a great dad.”
He looked at her as if she’d invited him to the pumpkin patch or something equally as out of left field.
“The way you are with him,” she clarified, pressing her hands behind her as she leaned against the wall. “I can tell you’d make a great dad.”
An awkward sensation heated her face, and she decided space might be the best plan for them right now. “I need to get back to the café. My day has spiraled out of control.” She turned and started toward the kitchen. “I should go over his care and medications with you. He’s got antibiotics and pain meds.”
“No.” The tight, obstinate tone drew Avery’s gaze. Trace was frowning at the plastic bag she’d brought in from the car. “He shouldn’t have been given pain meds.”
“The nurse said they were just?—”
“Just nothing.” He shook the bag’s contents onto the kitchen table. Among the bandages were three pill bottles. He picked up one.
“Those are antibiotics,” she said.
“These,” he held up the other two bottles, “are the pain meds?”
“Yes, but they’re not?—”
“They’re not staying in this house.” Without reading the labels, he turned the tops and lifted his hand over the sink.
Avery stepped up and put a hand on his arm. Her mind spun with unfinished thoughts. The nurse’s words floated into her head. “Since Mr. Hutton’s addiction began with pain meds...” Immediately followed by George’s words, “He’s always got the best stuff, and Trace always knows where to find him.”
A tingle started in the pit of her stomach and radiated through her belly. Her mind was split between two possibilities for his actions. Either Trace was also addicted to the meds and had to get the temptation out of reach or...
“Trace, that’s a waste. Those would have been good to have around. With you fallin’ off roofs, you could probably use them now and then.”
“I don’t make a habit of falling off roofs.” He pulled from her grasp and poured the pills down the drain. “Besides, they make me sick. I’d rather be in pain than puking. And if he gets his hands on this...” He turned on the water and flipped on the garbage disposal. Then turned everything off with a satisfied, “That shit’s dust.”
Avery’s mouth still hung open with unfinished words.
And she knew.
Knew without any doubt.
He’d just explained everything with perfect clarity.
Avery started laughing. It wasn’t funny. But, oh, it was. Because she understood. She understood so perfectly it brought tears to her eyes. She put a hand over her mouth, trying to control the spill of emotion.
Trace turned to her with surprise and alarm. “Avery? What...? Ah, shit. What the hell did I do now?” He came to her, slid his arms around her, and frowned. “Are you laughing or crying?”
“Both.” She shook her head and pointed to the sink. “I just saw myself at twelve pouring my dad’s whiskey and vodka and brandy down the drain. Oh my God, I got such a beating for that. Left a scar on my shoulder.”
Trace’s expression went slack. He eased her back to arm’s length as Avery kept talking.
“And I remember answering the door and only being able to crack it because my dad was passed-out drunk behind the door, but I’d tell whoever it was my daddy was out, because it was true—he was passed out. I used to lie for him, hide shit for him, steal for him. I was conditioned to do anything for him. And I would have, right up until I ran away with David.”
She framed Trace’s face, and as she stroked her hands down his jaw, the sadness seeped in. “But you didn’t get that get-out-of-jail-free card, did you?”
His gaze lowered, and his hands dropped away. He tried to turn.
“You can’t hide anymore, Trace.” She pulled him back and tilted her head to look into his eyes, but he kept them averted. “Not from me. I may not know exactly how you got caught with the drugs, whether you were buying them for your dad or the cops came and you took them off your dad before he got caught with them. Or maybe he did get caught, and the words, ‘They’re mine’ just sprouted wings and flew from your mouth. But the drugs weren’t for you, and you weren’t the one who deserved to be in prison. Were you?”
He turned away and braced his hands on the counter but said nothing.
Avery followed, slid her arms around his waist, and pressed her body against his. “Baby, you just threw over-the-counter Tylenol and Advil down the drain like it was arsenic without bothering to look at the labels.”
He cut a look at her over his shoulder.
She lifted her brows. “The nurse wanted George to have enough to get through the night in case you didn’t have any at home.”
His eyes slid closed, and he hung his head.
Avery let him be for a minute, resting her cheek against his back, stroking her hands across his abdomen. “I know why you did what you did then, but why don’t you tell people how it happened now? Why hold on to the ex-con stigma?”
“You make it sound like something I want.” His voice carried more disgust than anger. “All you ever hear from cons—in or out of prison—is ‘I’m innocent.’ ‘I didn’t do it.’ No one believes them.”
“I’ll believe you,” she said softly. “Tell me what happened.”
He turned, gripped her waist, and pulled her between his legs. After a heavy sigh, he said, “My dad hurt his back while he was taking care of my mom during her treatment. That’s when he first got the pain meds. It was also when the first hints of his dementia showed up. Between his depression over my mom and forgetting whether or not he’d taken his own meds, he got hooked.”
Avery closed her eyes, so easily envisioning the sad situation. “Oh, Trace...”
“I didn’t know how to take care of my mom or my brother, and I was convinced my dad would get killed in prison. When I was twenty-two, those fears were very real, and I didn’t see any help on the horizon. When I was twenty-two, I didn’t know what prison was like or how much it would change me. When I was twenty-two, I didn’t know how being an ex-con would label me for the rest of my life.”
He released her waist and slid both hands down her arms. “Which brings me to the topic of us.”
Avery was already shaking her head. She curled her hands into his shirt. “Don’t even.”
“It’s the smart thing, Avery. You know it. Your entire business model is based on word of mouth. And your entire future is based on this business. After today, the gossip will be flying. If you quash it now, you’ll minimize the damage?—”
“I’m not going to lie. And you said it yourself, the floodgates are already open. There’s no getting that water back in the dam. If you want to stop seeing me because you want to stop seeing me, that’s one thing. But I’m not going to live my life based on what other people think. I tried that with David and his parents, and no matter what I did, I still never lived up to their expectations. So walk away from me if you don’t want me, but you’ll have to tell me to my face.”
He curled his fingers around her forearms and dropped his head back on a groan of frustration. “You know I want you.”
Avery scanned the quick pulse at the base of his neck, scanned the way his muscled chest and arms pushed at the cotton of his long-sleeved tee and grew hungry. “Yeah,” she breathed, grinning. “And it thrills the hell out of me.”
She slipped her fingers beneath the hem of his shirt and scraped her nails low on his belly. He flinched and laughed, the sound filled with wicked desire.
“While you’re thinking,” she said stroking her hands over all the taut, warm flesh of his abdomen, “I’m just going to...snack.”
She bent her head and pressed her open mouth to his belly.
He flinched again. “Avery, I can’t think while you’re doing that.”
“Mmm, that’s too bad. ’Cause I sure can. I can think of all the things I want to do to you.” She let her hands slide all the way down his abdomen, into his waistband, and flicked the button of his jeans open. “I can think of all the new things you’re going to teach me.” She dragged his zipper open. “Maybe your brain needs some stimulation.”
She pushed her hand into his jeans. Pressed his cotton-covered erection into her hand and let her eyes fall closed on a moan. “Well, lucky you. I had to go commando all morning.”
He groaned. “I didn’t need to know that.”
“I think you did.” She pushed his boxers clear of the thick head of his cock with hunger tightening her chest. “Mmm.”
Without hesitation, she took his head between her lips and sucked. He was warm and smooth and hard. His familiar musky, salty taste teased her tongue, and his moans of pleasure fulfilled her ingrained desire to please.
Each time she took him in her mouth, she discovered something new. But today it felt like everything she’d learned in the past coalesced—the wet slide of him between her lips, the hard pressure of him against her throat, the rub, push, and pull of him all through her mouth, the supremely male, intensely intimate taste of him on her tongue. All the sensations layering over the sounds and sights of pleasure she brought him was a wild and heady thrill. One she could easily become addicted to.
“Baby...” His voice was soft, filled with barely restrained passion, and his hands threaded through her hair. “You have work?—”
She opened, drove him deep into her mouth, closed down, and sucked hard.
“Holy fuck .” He arched, and his hands closed in her hair. His hips bucked, pushing him deeper into her mouth.
A smile curved her lips as she slowly pulled back. Satisfaction radiated through her chest, and pleasure coiled between her legs. Oh, yes, this was dangerously good.
Avery lowered to her knees and got aggressive with his boxers.
“Baby . . .” He was panting now. “My dad . . .”
She stroked his wet length with her hand, licking her lips in anticipation of getting him back in her mouth. “He’ll be sleeping for the next twelve hours.” She grinned and flicked a hot look up at him. He loved it when she looked at him while she sucked him. “Imagine what I could do to you in twelve hours.”
“Hell. You’re not playing fair.”
“Seems extremely fair to me.” And she took him into her mouth again. He tensed, his hands tightened in her hair, stinging her scalp. She slipped her free hand to the base of his cock, then lower, cupping his balls.
“Ah, God, Avery...” He gripped the counter with one hand. “Fuck. I didn’t teach you that.”
She started laughing and had to draw him from her mouth. She was laughing so hard she pressed her forehead to his hip and curled her hand in his jeans. He combed his hands through her hair, and when she finally stopped laughing and looked up at him, the grin on his face and the sparkle in his eyes looked a lot like love to Avery. It might have been a long time since she’d seen that look, but she’d known it a very long time ago.
Her own heart lurched in response, but like a tiger in a cage, lunging for raw meat outside the bars, Avery couldn’t quite get to the same place. She could see it. She could want it. But there were barriers to escape and dangerous ground to cover before she could get there. And she didn’t feel quite equipped for that journey.
At least not yet.
“Are you saying you don’t think I can’t be innovative on my own?” She stroked one finger from the tip of his cock to the base, then drew circles on the very tip with her tongue until he moaned and rocked his hips forward. “Because I’m ready to prove you wrong, Mr. Hutton.”
He framed her face with both hands and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs. The soft look in his eyes was laced with heat that Avery wanted to turn into an inferno.
“Mr. Hutton.” He grinned. “Next thing I know you’ll be calling me sir.”
She didn’t know if she’d go that far, but two weeks ago she certainly hadn’t believed she’d be on her knees in Trace Hutton’s kitchen either. She lifted her brows and playfully planted kisses down the length of his cock. “Stranger things have happened, am I right?”
Avery didn’t wait for his answer. She was tired of talking, and in her opinion, they communicated just fine in bed without a word...although his words in bed were nice, too.
She turned off her mind, set aside all her worries, and allowed both her and Trace this time for themselves. But she didn’t get a chance to dive in. Trace bent, grabbed her by the waist, and lifted her against him.
Avery automatically wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, and murmured, “God, I love the way you do that,” before meeting his hungry kiss.
Trace carried her toward the bedroom and had her shirt over her head and her jeans unfastened before he even laid her on the bed. He pulled her pants free of her legs with one hard jerk, then stood there and stared with a hot, pleased-with-himself grin as he let her jeans slide from his fingers and crumple on the floor.
Avery was about to sit up and strip him when he put a hand out. “Don’t move. You’re almost perfect.”
She lifted her brows. “Almost?”
“Take your hair down.”
That voice of his and the way he could both ask for something and order it at the same time, all while making you think it was your idea, turned her inside out in a way she’d never dreamed possible.
She reached for her clip while his gaze raked down her body, and he swept his shirt off over his head in a split second. As she shook her hair loose, he pushed his jeans down his legs and came over her on hands and knees.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” He lowered to one forearm, combed his hand through her hair, and dropped a sweet kiss to her lips. And the way he pulled back to scour her face while the backs of his fingers traced her cheek made her feel precious and gorgeous and self-conscious all at the same time.
Avery pressed her hands to his shoulders but had to put real effort into rolling him to his back. When he gripped her hips and lifted into her, rubbing his hot cock against her slick sex, she almost forgot why she’d flipped him in the first place.
“Talk about an addiction,” he rasped with his hands sliding over her hips, her waist, pausing to cup and squeeze her breasts. “Baby, you are the worst kind.”
Addiction. Now she remembered. “I was just thinking that about you”—she pushed up on her knees, scooted down his legs, and settled back down with his cock in lickable range—“on my knees in the kitchen.”
She closed her mouth around the head of his cock and sucked while circling with her tongue and moaning with the pleasure of having him back in her mouth.
“Ho-oly fu—” His hips bucked, one hand gripping her head and the other fisted in the comforter.
The rush that his pleasure whipped through her was far more potentially addictive than any substance she’d ever experienced. And that reaction was one she’d never gotten before either. So she combined the sucking, licking, humming trio again, thrilled when she had the infamous Trace Hutton writhing on the sheets.
“Aver— ah, fuck —” Every time he tried to interrupt her, she sucked harder, licked faster, and moaned louder.
“Mmm...mmm...mmm...” she hummed, drawing him slowly from her mouth with suction that pulled her cheeks against her teeth and rocked shivers through Trace’s big, strong body until his cock slipped from her mouth. “I think I have a problem.”
He lifted his head from the bed as if he could barely keep it up, his eyes dark and dazed, his chest heaving for air. “W-what?”
“I’m afraid I might have found my own addiction.” She closed her eyes, ringed the sensitive ridge of his head with her tongue, sucked him into her mouth with a hum of pleasure, then drew him out again. “Can I have this all to myself? Whenever I want it? Whenever I need it?” She stroked her tongue over him again. “Whenever I please... sir ?”
Trace grinned, dropped his head back, and laughed.
Avery smiled and took him again, sucking the laughter into groans before saying, “This is no laughing matter. A girl needs what a girl needs.” She stroked his shaft, spiraling her hand along the wet length. “I should warn you, it might interfere with your ability to work.” She stroked him again, slowly, leisurely, letting her fingers float over all the sensitive ridges. “And have friends.” She stroked him again. “And sleep.” And again. “And eat.” She sighed. “And, oh, speaking of eating...why am I talking so much?”
Yes, she was in trouble. The strangest kind of trouble ever. Who knew a woman could like cock so much? Who knew pleasuring a man could be a thrill that made her dripping wet? Never in Avery’s wildest fantasies had she believed she would be a woman who would covet a man’s cock, or the owner of that cock, the way she did now.
She couldn’t comprehend any of it in the moment. She’d have to think about it later. All she could do now was devour him. Suck him and stroke him and eat him until his eyes crossed and his body shuddered and he came in a violet burst.
But Trace was doing his damnedest not to allow that to happen. He dragged at her hair and pulled at her jaw.
When she ignored him, he sat up and stroked his hands down her back. Curving over her, he whispered hot in her ear, “Avery...baby, gotta stop. Sugar...God, that’s just too good.”
Which only drove her harder.
He groaned and stroked his hands over her ass. “I’m gonna come if you don’t stop.”
He lowered his face to her back and his teeth grazed her ribs. The electric current short-circuited Avery’s rhythm. She drew him from her mouth and gasped at the sudden sensation. Before she could slide him back into the hot, wet, dark depths of her mouth where she’d decided he damn well belonged, his hand followed her spine over her ass and slipped between her legs from behind.
Her pussy—swollen, wet, and aching—opened, and her body arched, reaching for his touch, which took her mouth too far from where it wanted to be. But, God, that pressure. She was helpless against her body’s need to rub against his hand as it slid along ripe folds.
“Oh my God ...” stuttered out of her mouth.
Trace pushed both hands over her ass and between her legs. His fingers slid along her opening, spreading wetness, warmth, and sensation all through her lower body. Avery whimpered and lifted her hips, pushing into his hands. Then his fingers were inside her. Stretching and rubbing. Avery dropped her head to his thigh.
She was about to push him back to the bed when Trace gripped her waist and growled, “Come here.”
But the order was more a thought than an expectation because he was the one wielding her body. With the swiftest, smoothest move, Trace turned her, and Avery once again found Trace’s cock in a mouthwatering position at her lips. And the instant his warm, wet mouth closed over her sex, she realized, the same was true for him.
With a naughty thrill fueling her, Avery went back to work on Trace, while Trace’s mouth mirrored the pleasure. And Avery found it far more difficult to concentrate when he covered her pussy and relentlessly ate and ate and ate at her until she was right on the edge, right there...Then he broke suction, leaving her stranded and throbbing and she whimpered, “Trace...”
The fingers of one hand sank into her ass cheek until a bite of pain hinted. The other pressed between her legs and opened, his fingers spreading her folds. “There we go,” he murmured. “Hold on, sugar. Ten intense seconds and you’re going to scream. Put my cock in your mouth.”
She glanced back. “What?”
“Trust me. Put my cock in your mouth and keep it there.”
That was one of those request-demands that flipped an erotic switch she didn’t even know she had. And Avery eagerly impaled her mouth with his thick, hot cock.
When he was firmly embedded deep in her mouth, his tongue pressed against her exposed clit and Avery cried out at the shock of pleasure. The sound rippled over Trace’s cock, and he growled in approval and started licking the raw bud. Circle after circle after circle, he wound Avery tighter and tighter with rhythmic moans of pleasure until she, far sooner than ten seconds, spiked into an intense orgasm. Her hips bucked and her mouth spontaneously sucked while she moaned with pleasure.
The stars aligned.
Everything made perfect, beautiful, wild sense.
Until Trace pulled from her mouth.
The moment of confusion was lost somewhere in an aftershock, and then Trace was facing her again, kissing her. He covered her hand with his, pressed it against his cock and murmured, “Avery...”
His hips bucked, his cock surged, and the power of his climax, the wild roll and thrust of his pleasure beneath her hand while his guttural sounds of pleasure filled her ear, brought to mind the memory of a summer thunderstorm from her time in Virginia...as it might feel from inside a glass house.
And she rode out Trace’s tremors the same way she used to watch the thunderclouds whisk the storm out to sea, with a smile on her lips, a renewed sense of being alive, and profound appreciation for the experience.