42. Mistakes Were Made
CELESTE
My mind was racingas I played out all the different scenarios in my head of what could happen. The injustice of it all was too much.
I had done everything Desiree had ever asked of me, without complaint, since the day my daddy died. In all the years she left The Comfy Cushion to me, I never once called off sick or closed the restaurant for my own personal reasons. Only on rare occasions when Iris had a recital and I was permitted to go. Any time Iris was sick and I needed to be home with her, Marla had closed her own business to help ours.
Acting as though all of my sacrifices, all of my hard work, were merely a whim she entertained and not the means by which her household functioned was the worst kind of insult. I was breaking my neck to keep a roof over our heads and all she did was remind me of the ways it wasn’t enough. There were so many important moments for my daughter that I missed because I wanted to keep the peace, because the restaurant was the only link I had left to my parents since Desiree took over our house.
And now all of it had been for nothing. What was worse—all of it was going into the hands of a man I had hated for half my life. Mr. Madden wasn’t even going to maintain the integrity of The Comfy Cushion. He wanted to commercialize my mama’s handwritten recipes so that he could install a fast food version in all of his stores.
I might not know much about business, but I wasn’t sure that half a million dollars was the right price for all that.
How the heck had Desiree even contacted him? Did he know about Iris? For her to have spent so many years keeping Wesley in the dark about our daughter, it seemed odd for Desiree to involve Wesley’s father in anything.
But wait—what if this business deal was the real reason Wesley was here? My stepmother had been manipulating me for so long in so many ways, I wouldn’t put it past her to shove Wes into the equation. That would ensure my emotions were muddled and I was no longer thinking clearly, therefore far more willing to give up Mama’s recipes. Desiree didn’t know I had given the book to Marla for safekeeping and I prayed she didn’t find out.
My fury only continued to grow the more I speculated on Wes’ involvement in their scheme. It was the deepest form of betrayal, a pain that made the past ten years pale in comparison. There was only one way to find out.
“Jesse,” I called out. “We’re closing up early.”
“Sure thing, boss,” he said jovially. He was the most easygoing man I had ever met.
The thing about living in Southern Georgia is that thunderstorms roll in on the drop of a dime. By the time Jesse and I had everything shut off, wiped down, and back in its place, dark clouds were surging across the sky with cracks of lightning and booms of thunder that were loud enough to wake the dead. A torrential downpour broke out, with rain pelting so hard and fast, I couldn’t see the playground across the street.
Flooding was quite common during rainstorms like this, so it was really a blessing in disguise. We weren’t going to miss out on any business by closing up early, and my stepmother wouldn’t be caught dead out in the mud and rain, so she wouldn’t come looking for me if I were out too late. The downside, however, was that I also didn’t want someone to notice my daddy’s truck parked over at Ms. Shirley’s house. I was going to have to run there and hope like hell I didn’t catch my death of cold on the way.
Waving goodbye to Jesse, I took off down the alleyway, pushing under the loose board in the fence to cut through Old Man McInworthe’s backyard, and over onto Ms. Shirley’s street. My clothes were soaked through the moment I stepped outside, my long hair plastered to my face. I looked like a half drowned house elf.
Ms. Shirley’s house hadn’t changed a bit since I last visited. Her car was parked in its usual place in the driveway, but no matter how hard I pounded on the door, no one answered. A light shone in one of the rooms upstairs, which meant Wes had to be inside.
“You’re not ignoring me that easy, Wesley Madden!” I muttered to myself.
Following along the side of the house, I unlatched the gate and let myself into the backyard. There I found Wes shirtless, in a pair of black sweatpants, strumming on an acoustic guitar on the back deck. Rain pelted the metal awning overhead and canceled out the music notes.
My brain short circuited when he jumped to his feet, displaying a six pack set of abs that definitely hadn’t been there when we were kids. His eyes set my skin on fire as he quickly descended the steps towards me.
“Why did you come here?” I screamed. It was hard to hear anything over the thunder and rain. “What’s the real reason?”
“You!” Wesley shouted back. He was now drenched, too, great, big droplets of water gliding down his nose. “It’s always been you!”
My heart strings tugged. They wanted me to break down my walls and believe him, but I couldn’t. There was no way this was real.
“You’re lying!” I choked back tears. “This has to do with The Comfy Cushion and your dad’s stupid deal!”
Wesley looked dumbstruck. “What? What deal? You’re not making any sense!”
“Just forget it!” I yelled in frustration.
I turned to leave and his hand gripped my elbow. It left my skin tingling from his touch.
“Let go of me,” I demanded.
Why did he have to be so handsome? Why did my traitorous heart have to skip a beat just from being in his vicinity? Why did I still have to want him so badly after everything we had been through? I was fairly certain now that he was the mystery man from the costume party in Savannah, and if that was the case, my body ached for the bliss he gave me then.
Whether it was ten years or ten thousand, my heart wanted him in this life and every life thereafter. Time didn’t matter when two souls were meant to be one.
He took a step closer to me so that we were standing chest to chest. With every angry, heaving breath, my breasts pressed against the solid muscle of his torso. I had to crane my head back to even look at him. There was a vague hum of silence as though Mother Nature herself paused the racket to hear his answer.
“Never,” he breathed.
Something inside me unleashed, and I launched myself at him in the same moment he descended on me like man starved. I hated him. And I loved him. And that made all the difference in the world.
Our lips crashed in a tidal wave, the storm raging around us finally matching the passion blazing within us. In seconds he had my back pinned against the fence, both arms clamped around my thighs as they wrapped around his waist. We were soaked to the bone as the rain poured down in waves, but I didn’t care. I doubted Wesley did either.
In one fluid motion, Wesley had my t-shirt off and in the mud at our feet. The cotton of my cheap, white bra was all but sheer now under the water and I swore I heard Wesley mumble, “God yes!” before he sucked one breast in his mouth, bra and all.
With a strangled cry, we lurched away from the fence. Wesley didn’t hesitate to carry me up the deck stairs and into the house. We crashed onto the kitchen table, which trembled beneath us, but thankfully did not break. He laid me out like I was his last supper, his blue eyes roving every inch of my body with undisguised lust. Lights flickered and then the power cut off, leaving the only light from the open back door where lightning flashed every few seconds.
“Do you have any idea how perfect you are?” he whispered. Steady hands unzipped my jean shorts, peeling the wet fabric slowly down my legs. Even my panties were wet from the rain. It didn’t stop Wes from leaning down and inhaling between my thighs.
My pussy clenched with need. Just having his eyes on me was enough to drive me crazy. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to devour me or to grab a butter knife from the counter next to me and stab him. Maybe both.
The shifting light from outside cast planes on Wesley’s face that cloaked one side in shadow, the other side in stunning clarity. It was the perfect juxtaposition for how I felt about him as he was both the good and the bad in my life. Right now, he was so sexy that I just wanted him to fulfill every fantasy I had played out over the past ten years alone.
My panties followed my shorts, only this time when they slipped off my feet, Wesley crumpled them up and stuffed them in his pocket. His face returned to my pussy, his tongue tentatively licking up my slit.
“I almost forgot what you taste like,” he whispered. Lightning flashed and I had a momentary glimpse of the sorrow in his eyes.
But I didn’t want to acknowledge that. “Shut up and do it.”
“Are you gonna hate me for it later?”
“Who says I don’t hate you already?”
The sound he emitted sounded like a mixture of a growl and a groan. I didn’t have time to analyze it, however, before his mouth parted my lips and sucked my swollen clit.
All of the neurons in my body fired off at once. Wesley had some sort of instinctual map that laid out all of my pleasure centers so he could wring my body out like a sponge. He suckled on my clit while pinching my inner thigh, giving me small stings of pain to lace my pleasure. When his tongue flattened out to lick the arousal dripping between my cheeks, I may have seen the Almighty.
Suddenly, Wesley started peppering heavy, wet kisses up my body. I had an internal moment of panic that he would notice the stretch marks on my belly from Iris, but that fear was negated as he nipped and licked every inch of my stomach. He yanked on my bra, indicating that I needed to take it off, but I must have moved too slow for him because both hands pulled the bra cups down to bare my chest to him. Cool air danced around my nipples in a delicious sensation before Wes wrapped his tongue around the right, then the left.
“Suck,” he commanded and put his thumb in my mouth.
His other hand returned to my pussy, thrusting a single digit inside. I did as he ordered. My cheeks hollowed out as I let my tongue swirl around his thumb. The heat in his gaze was an atomic bomb, and I couldn’t ignore the thrill it gave me to know I could still affect him like that.
After a moment, he withdrew his thumb and abruptly returned to my pussy. He sat down in the chair, spreading my legs like he was ready to feast. With one quick jerk, Wes had my ass hanging off the table so my knees could hook over his shoulder. All I could see was the top of his head as he descended between my legs in a ravenous swoop.
The thumb I sucked on was now swirling my asshole. Rational thought gave up the driver’s seat, and I didn’t protest as Wesley’s tongue invaded my pussy while his thumb pushed inside the back door. Slowly, as I relaxed and adjusted to the intrusion, he worked his thumb in and out of my ass in rhythm to the way his tongue laved my pussy. The sensation was unlike anything I had ever imagined. My fingers laced into his hair, all but burying him between my thighs. Wesley moaned his approval.
As the pace increased in my ass, Wes returned his mouth to my clit. It was the final straw, and I nearly blacked out from the orgasm that tore through me. My thighs bracketed his head and he lapped at my cum like a dog.
After several minutes of riding out my pleasure, reality came crashing down on me again. This was a mistake. I wanted to talk to him, not desecrate poor Aunt Shirley’s kitchen table.
Wesley sensed the change in my demeanor because he stood up and backed away slowly with his hands laced around the back of his head. It gave me a delectable view of his rigid abs, round biceps, and the deep V that highlighted the path to his best feature. He had no business looking like that when I looked like a busted can of biscuits.
Which reminded me that those lumpy biscuits were now fully on display.
“Do you have a change of clothes I can borrow, please?” I asked. My arms wrapped around my chest to cover my tits and I crossed my legs to cover my lady bits.
The look he gave me was so infused with vulnerability and longing that I had to turn away. “I’ll be right back,” he said.