Ever so carefully, Grace placed a splayed hand right above her pubis and said, "Make me."
My head exploded. If I could come from words alone, those two might do it. I didn't wait for a second invitation. I flipped Grace's body over and pushed her to her knees. "Make you," I growled into her ear as I covered her. I gathered her long hair in one hand and pulled back slightly on her neck. Her exposed pulse beat rapidly, signaling that she was getting more aroused by the second. Her body was trembling and her breath was coming out in thready pants. Pulling two pillows from the top of the bed, I shoved them under her hips. "I'm going to assume from your challenging statement that you want this. Tell me to stop if you don't."
She said nothing, and I pulled her hair a little tighter so that her face was facing sideways. Capturing her mouth in mine, I plunged my tongue into her mouth in a preview of what was to come. Her response was to suck on my tongue so hard I felt it in my cock. She was a f**king dream, and I needed to rock her world in return.
With my mouth still on hers, I slapped her ass slightly, just to test her out. Instead of shrinking, she wiggled her curves against me. I slapped her harder, and she returned for more. If that wasn't clear enough consent, I didn't know what was. I let go of her hair and she fell forward. We were both panting hard. Breath ragged, I told her what I wanted between light slaps against her ass cheeks.
"Next time I tell you to do something, you're going to do it, right?" She was maddeningly, arousingly silent. I wasn't going to last long because all the blood in my body was in my stiff, hard member. I swore I could drill nails into concrete I was so hard. Sliding between her legs, I kicked them out wider so that her sex was exposed. I slapped between her legs, hitting her tiny cl*t and her soft p**sy lips. She let out a long, keening cry. Pushing my fingers into her, I could feel her orgasming against me, tightening and releasing and coating my hand with her come.
I drew out my hand and spread the juice against my own cock, jacking myself hard and swift. "I'm going to come inside you now."
"You're a lot of talk, no action," Grace gasped out as I spread her p**sy lips with one hand and arrowed my c*ck toward her welcome opening with the other. She couldn't see my happy ass grin because her face was against the comforter.
"I've got some action for you, baby," I said. We both groaned as I slid slowly inside her. The first push into her body always felt so amazing, like I was home. During the cold winter nights of deployment, I dreamt about what it would feel like to be inside Grace, but all those lonely nights and my super-active imagination never came close to reality. It was like a wet, hot heaven, and while some guys wanted to die with their so-called boots on, I wanted to die with my dick inside of Grace.
I spread my hands around the roundness of her ass, plumping the cheeks together. "Your body is so f**king amazing." Grace moved back against me, which made my breath hitch. "Stop moving, baby. I'm taking a mental picture. This is so hot that I could probably come just from the recall." Then I pulled out and thrust into her so I could see her ass cheeks jiggle. Top shelf mental spank bank material.
"I love your soft body, how it moves when I'm f**king you."
Grace moaned into the comforter. Crouching over her, I kissed a line over her shoulder and down the center of her back while ensuring my thrusts were even and strong.
“Noah, Noah,” Grace sobbed. The song of my love rang in my ears. Sensation thrummed through every blood cell, demanding now, now, now, now, now. But Grace wasn’t there quite yet. I slipped my hand around to the front, shoving it between the pillows and her wet, succulent flesh.
She was so hot and lovely. “I love you, baby, so much,” I whispered against shoulder. She shuddered under me and whether it was the words or my fingers on her clit, the first wave of her orgasm swept over her body. I pressed my hand tight against her p**sy and let go. Jets of my come spurted into her tight channel as she milked me.
Sighing, we collapsed on top of the cover. “Sorry about your blanket,” I murmured. I wasn’t really sorry at all. I was high off the sex. Every time we made love, it seemed better than the last. As the rush of my orgasm wore off, the thoughts of my conversation with Dr. Billings crept in, and as if she could sense my thoughts had left her, Grace shivered. “Baby, you’re cold. Let me clean you up.”
My girl needed to get under the covers. I pulled up one side of the comforter and then rolled off the bed, heading for the bathroom. My dick was still wet from our come, and in its semi-hard state, it painted my groin with our mixed arousal, an unusual feeling.
“Oh fuck.” I stopped short. Gripping my dick in my hand, I turned toward Grace, but whatever I was going to say died in my mouth. She looked so gorgeous, her smile so loving, her expression sated and satisfied, and I didn’t want to do anything to ruin the moment.
After, I thought, I’ll talk to her after. In the bathroom, I wet a cloth and rubbed off the sem*n and Grace’s sweet lubrication. Tossing the soiled cloth away, I heated a new one up and carried it out to her.
“We made a mess,” she said as I tenderly cleaned between her legs. Her hand stroked down my side, tracing her fingers unconsciously over the branches and down the trunk of the tree I had tattooed on my side. Bo’d talked me into getting it after Boot Camp. As I’d looked through the catalog of designs, the tree one called to me. Not because I was a nature lover but because I liked the idea of creating roots, of being a steady, dependable man that my father wasn’t. I wanted to provide for Grace, shelter her, and love her.
Her inner thighs had streaks of come on them and part of me didn’t want to wipe them away. Part of me, the Neanderthal part, wanted to scoop every swimmer up and push them back inside her. The thought of Grace rounded and pregnant with my child made me instantly hard again.
I tried to ignore it because despite Grace’s consent earlier, she still had to study for a final. Reluctantly cleaning her off, I pulled back the sheets and tucked her underneath the covers. The studying could wait until after a short, post-dinner nap.
“I’ll wake you up in an hour, baby, so you can study for your Comp Lit final.”
“Thanks,” she said drowsily and fell off to sleep. I didn’t know if Grace really grasped the ramifications of what we’d done, hav**g s*x without the condom, but we’d do whatever she wanted. If she wanted to keep the baby, then my timeline had just been crunched into a shorter time period. Dr. Billings other offer seemed less offensive now.
I’d tell Grace tomorrow.
THREE
Noah
"WE SHOULD STAY OVERNIGHT IN the city. I'll take you to Navy Pier and we can ride the Ferris Wheel," I offered. Grace and I had skipped all the fun dating things that high school students did since I was ass deep in dust and sand during her high school years.
"It's nearly zero degrees," Grace said dryly.
"So that's a no?"
Grace reached across the console and squeezed my thigh in silent reassurance. Apparently she didn't want to tip off her cousin, who was sitting in the back of the rented Tahoe, that I was nervous as f**k about going to their home. But I figured that was probably a lost cause given that I’d suggested going to an amusement park in the dead of winter. In the rearview mirror, I could see Lana rolling her eyes at me. I should have recommended ice skating, although none of the water on Lake Michigan looked frozen so I wasn't sure where that would take place.
I'd only been in Chicago once before, and I’d only really seen the airport and Interstate 94.
"You're looking sterner and sterner the closer we get to my house." Grace leaned over and kissed my cheek.
My face felt like stone, and I tried to crack a smile for her, but it must have looked labored. The stress of not telling Grace about Dr. Billings, the possibility I was going to throw a fight, made my stomach churn. In response, I could feel myself shutting down, shutting Grace out.
She just patted my cheek again. "We all hate it there, don't we, Lana."
"Yup, don't blame you for not wanting to come with us,” Lana agreed. "Christmas with the Sullivans involves a lot of liquor, insults, and crying—and that's just me. Your home life must really suck if you are voluntarily coming with us."
"Lana," Grace chastised.
Leave it to Lana, I thought. "Anything is better than Little Oak, Texas."
"What's Bo doing?" Grace asked.
"He's going to San Diego to visit some Marine buddies."
The rest of my roommates were all natives and were spending their respective holidays with their families. Bo had invited me down to San Diego with him, but I wanted to be with Grace. With my schedule, it was hard to have complete days with her uninterrupted by classes, business duties, and training for my New Year's fight.
At Grace's house, she promised me that I could work out and that the rest of my time, I'd be in her bedroom allowing her to judge the results of my workout. That cheered me up.
"Look, he's almost smiling, Grace," Lana said from the backseat. "He must be thinking about boning you."
"Lana!" Grace exclaimed and turned about a hundred shades of pink. Loved it. If I wasn't driving, I'd have hauled her into my lap and kissed the hell out of her.
"What?" Lana said innocently. "It's true. I spend enough time around you to know that it's a look Noah gets before he hustles you into the bedroom and I don't see you for an hour. By the way, Noah, your stamina is really putting a pall over my entire hook-up philosophy."
Grace buried her face in her hands, but I just laughed. In the rearview mirror, I saw Lana slide back into her seat looking smug. She'd taken all of our minds off what was coming.
"I can still put that hit on Parker," I said to her. Parker was a guy that had cheated on Lana with some girl in London over summer vacation. That's the type of people that Lana and Grace knew. People who went to foreign countries for the entire summer between college semesters.
"Nah, that would imply I still cared about him. Which I don't. Although a girl from another house told me that he picked up herpes B from the London girl and now no one will go near him."
"Is that like a sorority alert that is sent out?" I asked.
"Something like that. Gotta look out for our sisters." Lana leaned forward toward Grace. "When's Josh coming in?"
“Tomorrow, I think. He’s excited that we are coming to the game but sorry to miss your fight.”
“No worries,” I said. I didn't have family come to my fights. Bo and the roommates did, and some of the guys from my Marine unit, but the only family I had was a drunk of a father who only cared that I fought because he believed it meant more money for him. I didn't give him any money. Instead, I paid his rent directly and paid off his account at the local grocery store, which was under strict orders not to sell him liquor. I didn't pay for any of that. I'm not sure if he sold his food stamps for liquor, but I knew he still drank.
Bo’d left town with me and never looked back. He didn't stay in touch with his old friends, let alone his mother. He hated that place and everything in it. I didn't so much hate it as I regretted it. When my agent was putting together my promotional materials, he wanted to play up the small town kid makes good. I nixed that and sold him on just using the former Marine language.