Chapter 7
seven
Petra
A couple of Barry’s cousins approach our group and attempt to hustle him over to the bar for a “family shot of whiskey.” He resists, clearly not wanting to leave me, but I pat his arm and encourage him to go.
Little by little over the course of the night, he’s been loosening up.
Smiling more easily. Cracking jokes. I love seeing him like this.
“I’ll stay here with Dolly,” I say. “But when you come back, I demand a dance.”
“You tell him, sweetie!” Dolly shouts, cradling her red wine.
We both watch Barry and his cousins cut through the crowd toward the bar
“Oh, my word, it does my heart a great service to see my boy happy,” Dolly sighs, smiling at me. “You’re obviously a major reason for that.”
“If not the whole reason,” I sniff.
She giggles. “I must say, I was very surprised to see he was dating someone so young. Considering the whole history with his mother.”
“Right,” I murmur, my antenna going up. “Well, like I said, I had to convince him…”
“She was so young when that smarmy, older man swept in and ruined her. Her whole life was ahead of her. Getting pregnant at eighteen was not part of her plan.” Dolly sighs while I struggle to put the pieces together.
Barry’s mother got pregnant with him at eighteen?
By an older man? “After Barry was born, she could never get back on track and she fell in with the wrong crowd. Drugs took hold of her. And wouldn’t you know, she never heard from Barry’s father ever again.
Of course not. All those confessions of love were just to get what he wanted from a poor, unsuspecting girl. ”
“Yes, that’s…it’s such a shame…” I manage, meeting Barry’s eyes across the room.
“Anyway, I was just surprised that Barry chose someone so young to settle down with.” Dolly rushes to add, “Although Barry is a standup man. Nothing like that jackass. Excuse my language, dear. It’s the wine.”
I laugh and give Dolly a side hug. “If you can’t get wine drunk at a wedding, where can you get drunk, right?” I tap my nail against her glass. “Are you going to finish that?”
“I don’t think I should!”
“I’ll take it off your hands.”
Dolly hoots as I take a big gulp. Then another.
Frankly, after Dolly’s revelation about Barry’s mother and the circumstances around his birth, a drink is exactly what I need. Is that the reason Barry is so adamant about not having sex with me? He must be so ashamed of himself for what we did in the bathroom.
I really, really don’t want to be something he’s ashamed of.
If he’s determined to be better than the man who got his mother pregnant, I should respect that. I should help him maintain his honor, instead of encouraging him to tarnish it.
With a lump in my throat, I watch Barry skirt through the crowd, back in my direction, his six-foot-six frame dwarfing everyone in his path.
When he reaches my side, he eyeballs the red wine in my hand with stern disapproval, but he can’t admonish me in front of his grandmother who believes me to be twenty-three.
I take a dainty sip and purse my lips at him.
“The way you two look at each other reminds me of how I used to look at your grandfather, Barry. Like he was the only man in the room.”
Barry grunts, holding out his hand. “I guess we better dance, then.”
I bat my eyelashes. “You can do better than that.”
Dolly claps her hands together with joy.
Barry’s lips twitch, but his amusement slowly fades and indeed, he looks at me like I’m the only person in the room. “I’ll be miserable until I’m holding you, princess.”
Breathless, I take his offered hand.
I don’t even feel my feet as he guides me out onto the dance floor, and it has nothing to do with the wine.
No, he’s the intoxicating one who pulls me close on the amber-lit dance floor, just as a slow song begins to play.
I wrap my arms around his neck, which naturally brings me high on my tiptoes, his arms banding around me to bring me ultra close.
“I thought you didn’t know how to dance,” I whisper, feeling weightless and tingly, the front of his suit pants rasping against my bare thighs.
“I don’t. I’m winging it.”
“Ah, you’ve got whiskey courage.”
“No, I’ve got Petra courage.” He gathers me in tighter, burying his face in my hair and inhaling with a gruff sound. “You’ve been fucking incredible tonight, you know that?”
Goosebumps prickle my spine and the back of my neck.
Even after everything I just learned from Dolly. Even after several reminders to myself that he doesn’t want to get serious with someone as young as myself, I nuzzle closer. After all, I still have a role to play.
Right.
Just a role.
“You’ve charmed my family, especially my grandmother.
I can’t thank you enough for that. Giving her that…
peace. Christ, you’ve lit up this entire room since you walked into it.
” His heart pounds rapidly against mine, his warm breath coasting over my ear and making me shiver.
“I don’t feel…like an enormous freak when you’re next to me. ”
“That’s because you’re not one.” You’re perfect. “You have to possess a lot of courage to be a Green Beret. This is a different kind of courage, though. Being social. Belonging. I’m glad I could help you do that.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He scrubs a flat down my spine, groaning when he obviously wants to caress my bottom, but he can’t, because we’re in public.
With a pained laugh, he scans the dance floor around us, which has slowly filled with people.
“It’s a real kick in the ass. Going from pitied to envied in the space of an hour. ”
I lift my head, nose wrinkled. “Envied?”
“Look around, Petra. Every man in here wants you.”
“That’s not…” I trail off when I make eye contact with a group of men huddled by the bar. A couple of them are watching me over the rims of their drinks. “Oh.”
“They’re just waiting for this song to be over, so they can have a turn.” I yelp softly when Barry leans down and bites the slope of my neck. “I will break every bone in their bodies before I let one of them touch you.”
His jealousy makes my tummy flip, and I push up higher on my toes, barely checking the impulse to wrap my legs around his waist. “You’re the only one who can touch me, baby,” I whisper against his chin. “But maybe you should kiss me, so they get the message.”
Barry starts to breathe hard, his arm banding tighter around the small of my back, flattening me so tight to his body, I can feel his sinew through my dress. “Here?”
“Just a kiss,” I murmur, playing with the ends of his hair. Staring at his hard mouth while lust spreads in the deepest parts of my belly. “Do not let your dick get hard, though. I mean it.”
His tenses, and I watch the pulse leap and race in his neck. “Why?”
“We’re in public, Barry. You’re not allowed to get an erection.” I touch the barest hint of my tongue to the seam of his mouth. “Or I’ll have to punish you.”
I have no idea what’s gotten into me. But it’s the same thing that got into me in the bathroom earlier.
When I told him to apologize to me on his knees.
I’m not sure why being in charge gets me so worked up, but I think it has a lot to do with him being fully capable of subduing me and yet…
he doesn’t. He puts himself under my control.
“How will you punish me?” he chokes out.
“It’s a secret,” I whisper.
For several seconds, Barry labors to breathe. “Petra.”
“Yes?”
“I…want the full girlfriend treatment.” Red stains his face. “I tried to resist you, because it’s the right thing to do, but I need the unlimited sex. I need it. Please.”
A moan kindles in my throat. No matter how long I live, I suspect I’ll never feel as desired and coveted as I do this very moment.
There’s a part of me that wants to weep, though, because he’s just reminded me that I’m on the job.
Maybe that’s why I respond with a little venom.
“We’ll see,” I say, stroking my palm up and over the hard bulge of his pectoral. Raking my nails back down. Hard.
He closes his eyes, as if in rapture. “What do you mean ‘we’ll see’?” he rasps.
I shrug.
“Princess,” he says through his teeth.
“Kiss me,” I whisper, bringing our mouths close. “But don’t get hard.”
It’s going to be a losing battle, because I can already feel him starting to stiffen against my belly.
All because he likes a girl half his size and thirteen years his junior bossing him around.
Every inch of my skin is flushed hot, my pussy as tight as a fist, milking in on itself, producing wetness everywhere.
Against the tops of my thighs, because my underpants are so flimsy.
Actually, now seems like a really good time to remind him of that.
“Do you think anyone can tell my panties are so tiny?” I whisper a breath from his mouth.
Then I seal our mouths together, tasting his groan on my tongue.
With the fronts of our bodies fastened together like they’ve been glued, Barry’s mouth rides over mine and parts my lips, his tongue raking deep and exploring me in a thorough stroke.
Another one. Another faster, hungrier one.
Within seconds, his shaft sticks out like a diving board and I roll subtly against it, making an admonishing sound.
“Barry,” I scold, pulling away, pouting.
“You can’t stay at the party like that.”
He keeps me herded close, using me as a shield, sweat appearing along his hairline. “Fuck. G-give me a second.”
I arch my back as if I’m trying to get away, but really, I’m drawing his attention down to my tits. “I can’t believe how hard you are.”
“Oh God, I don’t…I don’t understand why you being pissed at me for having an erection is so hot, but…” He shudders. “You have to stop or I’m going to come in my pants.”
“Barry,” I gasp, turned on. Warm. All over. “You’re indecent.”
He grits his teeth, clearly enjoying my scolding. “I do need to go back to the room and sort this out. But I’m not going back without you.” He glances over my head, expression dark. “Not with these vultures around.”
“Very well,” I sniff.
Before the words are out of my mouth, Barry has lifted me off the floor like I’m a feather and he’s stomping out of the party, much to the amusement of everyone who catches the spectacle.
We reach the room within seconds, because our room is located on the ground floor of the resort, down the immediate hallway that stems from the lobby.
Outside of our door, I wiggle myself down Barry’s mammoth body and cross my arms, one hip cocked.
Raking my body with a hungry look, he punches the door to visibly restrain himself from picking me up again and manhandling me, his palms scraping up and back on his shorn scalp, nostrils flared.
Eyes bright and glassy. A bull ready to charge.
And yet, when I tell him, “Go inside and take off everything but your boxers. Sit on the bed against the headboard and wait for me,” lustful excitement lights his eyes…
And he goes.