49. Anthony
forty-nine
anthony
I don’t know how we got from fight to fuck, but here we are.
We don’t even make it through the garage door before we’re clawing at each other. She jumps up into my arms and I land a tight smack against her ass as her legs close around my lower back. I’m hard before we make it to the kitchen, where half of our clothes get tossed.
“Are we fighting or fucking?” I ask, pulling down the cups of her bra to tweak her nipples as I bound to my bedroom.
“Depends,” She pants, licking a line up the side of my neck before biting my earlobe. “Did I dream that you came to help, even though we’re in the middle of a fight?”
I pause and lean up against the wall, panting as I look at the woman seated above me.
Vulnerability and doubt are etched into the tone of her words and the way she hesitates to meet my eye. I tug her chin until she’s looking at me.
“I will always show up for you, Penelope Jayne. Every time. From here on out. You can count on me.”
She whines, but not because of our half naked bodies. She’s holding in tears. I want to stop us here, sit down, use our words, but then her whine does turn into something sensual, and when her lips touch mine, something tells me we’ll make it out of this valley.
Our tongues tangle roughly, and by the time we make it to my bed and strip ourselves completely bare, she’s on all fours before me.
“ Fuck , how have I not had you like this yet?” I groan, fisting myself with one hand and squeezing her ass with the other.
I give no warning before I enter her, because the look she gives me over her shoulder is a mixture of I need you and Come and get it .
I’m rough. Sloppy. Quick. She gives it right back, bouncing her thick ass off my lap.
“You,” I say, in between hard thrusts, “and this ass,” I grip her ass, then give her a light spank, “will be the death of me, Penelope.”
Gripping her in both hands, I give her a few swift thrusts that have her collapsing onto her chest.
“Might even make me forget why we were fighting in the first place.”
She stops, slips off of me, moaning, “Wait,” when I reach to put myself back in.
Flipping onto her back, she looks up at me with fire in her eyes.
“We are still fighting, right?”
I tilt my head in thought.
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“Fine. Missionary so we can keep arguing then?”
I shrug, then push her thighs wider.
“Works for me.” I cage my knees on either side of her thighs, slide all the way home, and wait with my nose pressed to hers as she finishes her back arching moan. “So. You wrote a book about me.”
She tilts her hips up and swivels, causing my eyes to close.
“I wrote a book about us . After you broke my heart .”
“Fair. Process however you want, but do you really have to publish it?”
“Ant, it’s the best work I’ve ever done, fuck baby, right there .”
She claws her hands up and around my back, digging her nails in as she squeezes her thighs against my waist. I keep pounding that spot, grunting against every thrust.
“This might be the best work I’ve ever done.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
“Seriously?” I blanch. “I’m fucking your brains out, and you can still do that eyebrow thing?”
I slow my thrusts and watch as a deadpan with her one brow raise takes over the euphoria she’d just been wearing. But then she smirks and says, “Do better,” and I take that as a challenge.
I take her wrists and pin them up next to her head.
“Don’t move.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
Pulling out all the way to the tip, I ease her into a slower rhythm, barely leaving her pussy while I pull on her nipples. She immediately starts panting, her hands clenching into fists.
“I remember how sensitive these are,” I say, ducking to suck on one for several moments before moving onto the next. Her hips buck beneath mine, her pussy squeezing me like a vice with each flutter of my tongue against her tits. I use a hand to hold her down.
“I don’t want to come yet,” she pants. “You’re going to make me?—”
“Then don’t. Don’t come. Listen instead.” Her eyes flutter to mine, and with my fingers on her breasts and my face inches from her, I keep going.
“I’m angry, Pen. I’m hurt and I’m confused, but not at you . I hate that the guy you wrote is me. But I don’t want to be mad at you. I don’t want to run from this.”
I sit up just enough to rake one hand down her abdomen, flicking her clit with my thumb for a few rounds before I flatten my other palm on her lower belly and press down.
“Oh, oh fuck, what are you doing?”
Her hips ratchet against my hand, sending my cock deeper. A sly smile quirks up the side of my face, and I capture her lips in a bruising kiss, painting promises against her tongue with mine before I husk, “You said do better,” and pound her home.
She screams, beautiful, beautiful noises bouncing off my bedroom walls.
“I… Umm fuck , Anthony…I don’t… I don’t wanna run either, damn it .”
I push down on her belly with more pressure, then add quick circles to her clit.
“Good, boss. Because I’m tired of running from you.”
“Me too,” she pants, reaching up to cup my face. “Me too, baby, I want to figure this out too.”
With that weight lifted from my chest, I slow my rhythm and pull my hand from her clit.
“I don’t think I’m doing better if you can still speak in complete sentences.”
“No, you’re doing so good, Ant. Please don’t stop.”
I obey, my hips snapping quicker, and I find purchase with my hand against the pillow beside her head.
“Don’t stop what, huh, boss? Don’t stop giving it to you this good?”
“Mmm…” Her head tosses on the pillow, and I can feel her pussy tightening, my own orgasm barreling down my spine. “Don’t stop fighting. Please don’t stop fighting for me.”
My heart explodes. I drop my temple to hers, wind our fingers together, and squeeze.
“I won’t. I won’t baby, never. Never .”
I grit out the promise I will spend the rest of my life fighting to keep as we both come, hard and fast and never ending. I fall back to earth when I feel her fingers winding through my hair, grounding me.
We’re laying in my bed, tangled in the sheets, when our hoarse voices finally find purchase.
“I’m not mad at you—or mad at all, you know,” she says, finally breaking the silence. I hum, squeezing her to me. “I’m sad . That I made you feel that way. That I didn’t have the courage to tell you sooner. Because I’m really proud of my book, Anthony, but I’m not proud of the way I went about it.”
I nod, and let the needle and thread sew up my frail heart.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you after,” I say, pressing my lips to her temple.
“You’ve already apologized for Florida?—”
“No. After your signing. I feel like I ruined that night for you.”
“Oh.”
“I’m so proud of you, Pen. I never got to tell you that.”
I weave my fingers through her hair, and just that simple motion soothes my soul. I thought I’d be able to hear her mind racing, but instead, the silence blankets us in an eerie calm.
“You didn’t ruin the night.”
Those words whispered against my chest allow me to finally exhale. After a few minutes in the quiet stillness, Pen props herself up, one hand pressed to my heart while the other scratches over my scalp. Her eyes give nothing away as she traces over the features of my face.
“What scares you the most?” she asks, fingers still tangled through my hair.
“That I’ll let you down,” I confess. “That I won’t be able to live up to the man you wrote that book about. You probably gave her the perfect happy ending, but what if mine doesn’t match up for you?”
“Anthony,” she gasps, tugging on my head until I look up at her. “He is not you.”
She’s shaking her head, but I know the truth. I know the words that Finn says on the page are ones that I have said in real life. Still, she cups my face and holds me like her touch will convince me.
“But he’ll always be there. A constant reminder that, even though we forgave each other, there will always be a roadmap back to all of our horrible choices.”
She lets go, sitting up against the headboard with my sheet clutched against her chest. I follow, sitting beside her, running a hand through my hair.
“When I publish the book, will this always be a wedge between us?”
I blink at her as that arrow pierces my heart. Sorrow drags my cheeks down like the weight of two anchors to the depths of the sea.
“I don’t want it to be.”
It’s the most honest answer I can give.
“How do we stop the hurdle from planting itself in the cement between us again?” she asks.
I take her hand, lace my fingers between hers, and squeeze.
I don’t know the answer to her question yet. But I do know that I’ll do whatever it takes to get us there.