23. Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Two long days later…
I watched as Alfred walked out of the bookstore, barely acknowledging me, for the last fucking time. He looked miserable and was trying not to show it, but his fake smile didn’t fool me. I’d seen the real thing, and this was not it.
Standing with a long stretch, I glanced at the back of the store. Brock was near the romance section, stocking the newest shipment of books, and I was pretty sure Eddy was in the office. “Hey, guys! I’m taking a break.” I didn’t want to leave the front counter without them knowing.
When Brock waved me off, I went out the front door, but by the time I got to the parking lot, he was gone.
Damn. Well, I wasn’t going to let this go.
I made a huge mistake pushing him away when he was only trying to help, but if a relationship couldn’t stand one little argument, what the fuck were we doing?
Being stupid, stubborn asses, that’s what.
And I had to end it now. This nonsense was breaking my heart.
But I wasn’t going to bug Alfred at work, so I went back to the bookstore. If Brock didn’t need me, I was going to pack up and go home to prepare and plan. Hell, it worked before.
I checked my watch for the millionth time and knew Alfred would be home by now.
Biting my lip and worrying wasn’t going to help anything.
It was a suck it up moment, and that’s exactly what I was going to do.
But I wasn’t going over empty-handed. I bought him the new mystery book he’d been eyeing, a cupcake, and fresh flowers.
I loaded up my haul and drove over to his place.
My hands were a little full as I knocked on his door with my elbow, but there was no answer.
I knocked again. After a few minutes, I knew where he was, and it wasn’t in the house.
I circled around to the side gate, happy the cupcake was in a box so it wouldn’t get messed up, then headed to his little spot in the back of the property.
The grass was freshly mowed, smelling slightly sweet and reminding me of long summers of my childhood, spent primarily outside.
The path to Alfred’s spot had been lined with large rocks, making a natural border, and as I walked along it, the trees grew thicker.
Then the path circled around and into a small opening, revealing the secret space within the trees.
The surrounding undergrowth was thick, making the little clearing more private.
It looked like some of it in the center had been removed, allowing for more space for his furniture.
Along with the couch he initially dragged out here, he’d added a small table and twinkling fairy lights draped around the trees above our heads.
Above the lights, netting stretched across the opening and draped down the trees, probably to keep flying insects out as much as possible, which was confirmed by the citronella candle torches placed strategically around.
“What are you doing here?” My eyes finally dropped to Alfred and his sad frown.
I sighed and sat on the edge of the couch. “Looking for you.” I held out my gifts to him.
“Oh.” He examined the book and the flowers before opening the cupcake. “Mmm…this is nice.” He took a swipe of frosting. “A special trip to Don’t Go Bakin’ My Heart ? Just for me? Jackie…”
“Because I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to make you so mad that you won’t even look at me. This has to stop.”
“We’re both being stubborn.”
I sighed deeply. “That’s the truth.” We sat silently for a few minutes while Alfred continued to inspect the cupcake and eat the frosting.
“Al, it’s been a while, and I miss you. If you don’t want to be together-together, like that, fine, but can we hang out? Our best friends are married. And…I miss your smile.”
“I generally like you, Jackie. But you scare the shit out of me. You’re too much and you hurt my feelings.”
“I’m sorry. It was…” I ran my hands through my hair, trying to find the right words.
That wasn’t normally my problem, but everything with Alfred was out of the ordinary.
“I don’t know how to explain it to you when I can’t explain it to myself.
You turned the tables on me, and I didn’t know what to do.
And I felt stupid enough…” The people in the town didn’t accept me, and my mother abandoned me, so yeah, I had subtle but real abandonment issues, and when we fought, he hit them hard.
“Stop. You’re not stupid. Anything but.” He moved his cupcake to the table and scooted closer to me. He turned my shoulder to face him and then kissed me softly. Then he pushed for more, sliding his tongue inside my mouth. He tasted overly sweet from the frosting, and it made me want him more.
Did he pull me down or did we simply lean back? It didn’t matter. We lay side by side, the short way across the couch. It wasn’t comfortable, but I couldn’t keep my mouth off of him. And by the sexy sounds he made, I was certain he felt the same. It had been too long.
His hand wandered inside my shirt, palming my side, skin to skin.
It wasn’t enough. “Al…please.” I tugged at his shirt.
God damn it had too many buttons. We got about half of them undone, then both of our shirts came off over our heads.
His neck was my favorite spot to taste, so I did, loving his sweet and salty skin. “I missed you.”
“Me too. I’m sorry.” He flipped me to my back and we maneuvered a little straighter on the couch into a diagonal position.
He kissed my chest and my stomach. “I mean it. I was an ass.” He undid my pants, shoving them down enough to let my dick pop out, and he had it in his mouth before it even hit the air.
He slobbered and bobbed up and down my cock. Hot and wet, like fire and water. “Al…” I moaned as I dug my fingers into his wild mop of hair.
When he pulled off of me, I was desperate for more and chased after his mouth, shifting my hips upward. “Al.”
“No. I need you in me. We need lube.”
“I don’t have any…” My brain was only half online.
“It’s in the house. Come on.” He grabbed our shirts in one hand and the cupcake box in the other. “Leave the book.” He brushed me off when I went to pick it up, so I put it on the lounger and grabbed the flowers before following him up to the house.
He pushed open the sliders and went in, not bothering to look back.
Hell, he had to know I would follow him anywhere.
And I did exactly that. I only stopped to shut the back door and put the flowers on the table, then went down the small hallway, all the while holding up my pants.
I hadn’t done them up again, which was good, because I wasn’t in his room more than a second before Alfred was yanking them back down.
Laughing, I sat on the bed and bent to get my boots off, then he tugged the denim off my feet and started working on his.
“Damn, I need you naked. Grab the lube out of that drawer.” He nodded to the side table tucked between the bed and the wall, I turned over on my stomach, squashing my needy dick on the mattress to get the bottle, and I was rewarded by Alfred biting my ass.
“Damn. You have the best ass. I want to fuck you for sure, but later. I need you…”
I liked this desperate version of Alfred, practically begging for me. “Condom?”
“Same drawer.”
After fishing out two, I dropped them on the bed with the bottle of lube and put my now empty hands on a very naked Alfred.
I wanted to touch every bit of him. His long, lanky legs, slim torso, all of him.
I kissed his stomach, sticking my tongue in his belly button to make him squirm.
And of course, ending up on that beautiful, long cock, perfectly proportioned for his body.
Creamy white with a soft pink undertone, and a slightly darker head, begged me to lick and suck and stroke, and that was exactly what I did, until Alfred was nearly coming undone beneath me.
“Stop. Stop. Need you in me. Now…”
“You got it.” I pushed his legs back and examined the goods.
He was the best thing I had ever seen. Why the hell had I ever pushed him away?
We could have been doing this all along.
So he got pushy and demanding with me. It meant he cared.
“I never, ever meant to hurt you, Al. I—” Nearly used the L-word.
But we were not in a solid enough place in our relationship for that.
Even a slow, country boy like me knew it.
“Shh…we’ll talk later. Right now, fuck me. I need you, Jackie, don’t make me wait.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” I grabbed the lube and went to work, because not hurting him extended to the physical. I worked his hole open until he was fucking himself on my fingers as he writhed around, moaning. That was my cue. “Come here, you sexy, sexy thing.”
Rolling down the condom only took a second, then my head was tapping at his hole. I slathered more lube on before pushing in. Alfred grunted and bore down on me, and together, we worked my cock inside of him as far as humanly possible.
“Jackie…” His body tensed up.
“You okay?”
He nodded. “Move.”
“I’ve got you.” I pulled his legs over my elbows and pulled my hips back slowly, before thrusting forward again.
As I moved, he slowly relaxed until the pace became brutal and his noises of pleasure filled the room along with our bodies slapping against each other.
I had never realized how wonderful the sounds of sex were until him. Until Alfred.
We had barely even started. With sex. With our relationship.
With our lives. But I was never ever going to let him get away again.
I gripped his legs tighter, wanting to be as close as possible, pounding into him.
We were sweating, breathing hard, panting, and moaning.
This was simply the best; exactly how I wanted to be with him.
And Alfred.
His face scrunched up, and he was about to come. I wanted to see that release. Grabbing his cock, I stroked him. “Come for me, Alfred. Come, baby.”
He grunted and thrust into my hand, giving me a better angle as I fucked him. He shifted and yelled. I must have hit his spot. A second later, his body stiffened, and he came hard, all over his stomach. Then his demeanor changed, and he relaxed, looking completely blissed out.
But I wasn’t finished. Chasing my orgasm, I drove my hips faster. The tingle had already been building, but as I watched him, looking back at me with hooded eyes, it barreled over me, and I came with a grunt.
Afterward, all I wanted was to melt into him. I didn’t. I stretched as I headed to the bathroom to get rid of the condom and wet a cloth to clean us up.
“Jackie?”
“Yeah?” I asked as I wiped.
“I, uh, I said shit I didn’t mean. Before. You know?”
“I did too.”
Alfred bit his bottom lip and looked away. “It’s just that once my feelings were hurt, I had a hard time letting it go. I’m afraid you’ll do it again.”
I scooted in beside him on the bed. “Al, I never meant to hurt you. I would never, ever intentionally hurt you. But if I do. Say so. Like right then. Be like, hey, that hurts my feelings .” I spoke in a funny, deep voice to make him laugh, despite the seriousness of the conversation, and it worked.
He punched my arm. “Stop.”
“Okay. But I’m serious. Tell me. I may not even know otherwise, and I don’t want to hurt you. We’ll talk about it.”
“As long as it works both ways.”
“It has to, because you hurt my feelings, too.” I snuggled in against him, burying my face in his neck and languishing in his scent.
“I’m so sorry. Forgive me?” He ran his fingers through my hair.
“Of course. Does that mean we’re going to try again?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Let’s do it right this time.”