BABY Read online

  She was purring, and my cock pushed painfully up against the waist of my pants. It took a special part of my brain—something deep inside from my SEAL training—to give me the discipline I needed to not ravage her right there.

  I pressed inside, just beyond my first knuckle, letting the clutches of her virgin walls tense around my finger. Her juice didn’t waste any time. It gushed as I palmed her open slit, grinding her engorged nub back and forth. I slipped in, just enough to tease her and give her a little jolt, as I toyed with that special spot inside.

  Never had I dreamed I could feel this ravenous possession over a girl. No other girl had ever made me want her—not like this. I knew she was born for me and it was my job to protect her.

  Baby’s juices were streaming over my fingers, her breath was coming in short little gulps. The clutch of her walls grabbed me like she was hanging onto my probing finger for dear life. I gave it everything she needed, my hand making circles in time with my slick finger, pulsing in and out. She was close. I could feel it like a magnetic energy that flowed between us.

  “Mmmm...” Her hips cocked and her opening flooded my hand.

  “That’s Daddy’s girl. Cum, Baby.”

  I knew it was all she needed, to hear me whisper that magic in her ear.

  Her tiny hand fell low under the table, digging her nails into my wrist. Her mouth opened and the most beautiful noises spilled from her candy lips. The little convulsions seized my finger, and the river of juice that came out of her almost made me fucking jizz in my pants.

  Nothing trumped the kind of control I’d just claimed over my desire. Even hell week, even all the missions that left us running for our lives in caves and dirt all over the world, none of it could match the restraint I’d just shown.

  “Oh my God.” Her face dropped. Long, shimmering waves of her dark chestnut hair fell over her pink cheeks. She shook and came all over my hand.

  I gave her a second to gather herself, then I slowly slipped my dripping hand out from inside those sweet white panties. I could smell her on my fingers and I knew I had to take a break to spread that slippery juice over my own granite rod in the men’s room. I needed some relief or the rest of this shit evening was going to be hell.

  “I’ll be back, babygirl.” Making sure those fucks that called themselves her family weren’t looking, I gave Chloe a quick peck on the cheek.

  “Don’t go.” Her fingers wrapped around my wrist, those wide eyes looking up at me like a baby doe.

  My heart seized up in my chest. “Baby, I have to. I need a minute. Don’t move, I’ll be back and we’re going to light this shit up tonight. Okay? Don’t move.”

  She didn’t always listen, and we needed to work on that, but for now, I just needed her to mind me while I took a minute to rub out her effect on me onto some tissue in the bathroom.

  Chapter Two

  Chloe

  I had such guilt. That first kiss, two years ago, was unlike anything real on heaven or earth. For all those years before that day, I thought it was my girlhood crush on my older, prettier sister’s boyfriend. I had no idea how wrong I was.

  Ryder had come and gone from the time I was fourteen. But he was with Trix. During those times when he wasn’t, I always held my breath. I waited to hear that they were back together.

  Even when I was too young to understand what it meant, Ryder made me feel like I mattered. When he was around, I felt like life had a plan for me somewhere outside of that tin can park.

  I could still remember the day it all began for real. Two years ago, just three days after my eighteenth birthday, Trix was prancing around her room, flipping her hair around and pouting in the mirror. “Guess who’s coming to pick me up, Candy Cow?”

  That was her name for me, and one of a thousand reasons I wanted to shrink into the floor when she was around.

  I didn’t need to answer her, nor did she really expect an answer. She was happy to have me as her silent audience, to make her feel even better about herself than she already did. But Ryder had been deployed for eight months and my stomach did a figure eight just knowing she was talking about him.

  “We’re going to McLaren’s. Should I wear my hair up or down? It’s expensive.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was talking to the mirror or me.

  “Down, it’s pretty down.” I whispered from my cross-legged seat on the floor. I was sitting in the hall outside her bedroom. I wasn’t actually allowed inside.

  “What do you know, Candy Cow? You ever had a boyfriend? You’re a senior this year and you’ve never even had a boy ask you on a date. Shut your fat mouth.”

  You asked me my opinion.

  I had wanted to see Ryder when he was home eight months before. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was about his parents passing. I’d asked Trix if I could go to the funeral, and she laughed at me all those months ago.

  “I’m not going to my own boyfriend’s parents’ funeral, Candy Cow. And you think you should go?”

  I think she thought that her absence would make Ryder come running to her, but it sure seemed like a horrible plan. She was making is more clear than ever what she really wanted from Ryder.

  “Did you hear?” She’d said. “That truck that hit Ryder’s mom was contracted by Wally World. Ryder and his Nanna are suing for like twenty million or something. Can you believe that? Ryder’s gonna to be rich!”

  While I sat outside her bedroom door, I couldn’t understand why Ryder was coming back to see Trix. She was pretty mean to him most of the time—that’s just who she was, but it always seemed odd he would put up with her. I just assumed it was because of her beauty. He seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t really stand for that kind of treatment from anyone, and it wasn’t like he couldn’t have his pick of girls other than my sister.

  Still, I wasn’t complaining, because Ryder coming over to see Trixie meant I would get to see Ryder. Relief washed over me like warm surf on a beautiful beach somewhere, even though I was still perplexed about what made Ryder keep coming back.

  Of course, Trix was pretty—that was the pinnacle of value in my family. Trix was blonde, even if it was the box that helped her along. Her nails were always done with that white tip manicure, and Dad had paid for her to get her boobs done twice.

  She was the princess and I was the pea—stuffed down under a pile of mattresses. I was a worthless annoyance. I didn’t know anything about the money Ryder was about to get, and I didn’t care. I stared at Trix, dancing around like she had already won the lottery.

  There was no way I was going to let her keep me from telling Ryder how sorry I was about his mom and dad. I wanted him to know I had been thinking about him.

  A boy like Ryder would never look twice at a girl like me. Trix kept complaining about how fat she was. Since our trailer wasn’t a place where you could hide what was going on in the next room, I heard her making herself throw up in the bathroom all the time.

  If she thought her size 2 frame was fat, what was I?

  Ryder was big and muscled and fit. He’d never see me as anything other than a chubby girl who followed him around with stars in her eyes.

  That didn’t mean I couldn’t tell him I cared about what happened to his family—even if my own family didn’t. Ryder’s mom ran herself into an overpass on the freeway after an overworked truck driver fell asleep at the wheel, came over the median and slammed into her. The next week, his dad drank himself into oblivion, then took a handful of Xanax, trying to numb his own pain.

  He succeeded, only it was more permanent that he intended and it left Ryder with no parents. From there, all I heard was there were lawyers and lawsuits and police, and my heart broke for Ryder. He had come home on emergency leave from training for his mom’s funeral, then found out he had to plan another. It was more than most humans could take.

  That evening, I hid behind the carport next to our trailer until I heard the rumble of his Charger approaching. I knew Trix and Mom and Dad were all inside having their pre-game
cocktails, and they would never come outside and give up an extra moment to drink.

  When I heard the engine fall silent, followed by the soft squeak of the car door opening, I poked my head around the corrugated metal wall. Whenever I saw him, it was like a hurricane began to swirl in my chest. My heart raced like a hamster on a wheel and it was hard to speak. But this time it was really important for him to hear me, so I plucked up my courage and took a step toward the car. “Huh...hey.”

  He turned directed toward me as though he had no intention of going up to the front door. “Hey, yourself.”

  His eyes were as blue as the spring sky. His dark hair in a short military cut but the square of his jaw was covered in a dark scruff that only made him more attractive if that was possible. I tried to suck in a breath, but it was like there was no air around me. Ryder’s chest was broad and thick from years of football, amateur MMA and his years of training.

  “What are you doing out here, hiding like an alley cat?” He stepped closer until I could see the glint of his perfect teeth behind his perfect lips. He always smelled so good, it made my face hot.

  Something flipped in my stomach like I was on a roller coaster. “I...uh...I just...” I could never seem to form a full sentence when he was around. “I tried to come...”

  He chuckled and tilted his head, giving me a moment to compose myself. The way I was mumbling and stammering around him, I could have been five years old instead of eighteen.

  “You tried to...cum?” He was helping me, urging me out of my own self-doubt with that warm glow in his face.

  Suddenly, the words spilled out of me too fast. “I wanted to come to the funeral. I’m so sorry about your parents, Ryder. I wanted you to know, I’ve been thinking about you. I mean...” I felt the heat rise on my cheeks. “...thinking about how hard things must be for you. Mom, Dad and Trix didn’t want me to come to the funeral. But I wanted to. So you would know how sorry I am...was. Am. I don’t know...” Just talking about it made tears burn my eyes, and the outline of his body began to blur.

  “Hey, it’s okay. Thanks for telling me. It was fucked up, for sure. I understand.” He glanced toward the front door briefly. “They aren’t like you. And, you aren’t like them.”

  I sighed. He saw it, too. I was a misfit. Not good enough.

  “That’s a very fucking good thing, Chloe.” He spun his head around for a second to check the front door, grinning ear to ear like he was about to share a secret with me. “I heard someone got a full scholarship to Center for Creative Studies.”

  He reached out and his fingertip grazed over my cheek, flicking the tear away that had managed to throw itself over my bottom eyelid. My brain turned to scrambled eggs. When he was around, I felt like a protected jewel in a vault.

  With my own family, I would be the sacrificial lamb if it ever came to it. But Ryder made me feel like there was an army of warriors at my disposal, if only I would ask.

  I tried not to pass out. My heart was beating so fast, there was no possible way I wouldn’t fall on the hot cement and die of a heart attack.

  Why isn’t he taking his hand back from my cheek?

  “Did you hear me?” He squeezed my chin between his fingers, forcing my eyes up.

  I nodded, the strain on my neck and the palpitations in my chest making me dizzy.

  “You’re not like them.”

  “I know. Trix is the pretty one. I’m the—”

  “Chloe.” His voice was a gruff warning, and it startled me. “That’s not what I meant. Jesus, they have you so fucked up.” He released my chin and it was as if the lights suddenly went out.

  Why is he mad?

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...” I wasn’t sure what to say. Whenever I got close to him, I felt like a little kid. Every part of me wanted to grab him around the waist and hug him and tell him how I felt. I was so sad for him, and I couldn’t seem to put it into words.

  Whenever he looked at me, it was like he was looking under me, inside me, into my soul with some sort of magnifying glass.

  I couldn’t help it. The blur in my eyes turned to hot streams and spilled out. Ryder took one huge step forward, closing the already small space between us, and enveloped me into a hug that pressed me against the rock-hard cuts of his chest.

  And when the kiss came, it felt like I’d just been hit by a runaway train.

  His lips pressed against mine as he pulled me in close, his tongue pressing inside my mouth, and I opened to him like a flower opening to a drop of rain. The heat of that kiss was like a tropical rainforest, a deep, sweltering heat that made my body react in ways I hadn’t even imagined possible. My stomach clenched and the dampness leaked between my legs as I sank into him for what felt like forever.

  I never had a boyfriend, or even a date—as Trix was so eager to always point out—so I had no idea how it felt to have a man’s arms around me like this, or his tongue swirling with mine the way it was right now. It was heaven. His grip on my shoulders seemed permanent, as if he had no intention of letting me go.

  But I had to wonder. What if it was just a moment for him, a way to take away the pain of his parents’ death? I wouldn’t even begrudge him that. If there was anything I could do to help him feel better, I would.

  “Chloe...” He whispered, pulling our mouths apart and running a thumb down my cheek.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m leaving tomorrow. I want you to write to me, okay? I want you to write and tell me what you’re doing, and how you are. And, I want to hear all about those A’s you’re getting at that fancy school.” He held me back and winked as his fingers lifted my chin.

  I was lost in those azure blue eyes. “Okay. Sure.”

  “I fucking mean it. I want a letter from you every week—or more often—telling me what’s going on.”

  “Like with the family? With Trix?”

  “No. Not about her, about you. You can tell me whatever you want, but it’s just between you and me. Got it?”

  His fierce gaze made my stomach knot and something farther south gave another warm gush.

  “Sure. I guess.” Why did he want me to write him, if not to tell him about my sister?

  “I’m going to write you back. But I’ll send the letters to my grandma’s new house, over on Maple Court. Go see her every Wednesday. She’ll hold on to the letters until you come. I’ll make sure it’s all set up and she will be expecting you too. Don’t let her down, Baby. Got it? I’m not fucking kidding, Chloe.”

  I couldn’t think. My head felt stuffed full of cotton balls. I could only hear muffled words in between the roaring sound of blood pulsing with each heartbeat.

  There was a lurch in my chest, and the ground began to spin.

  “Okay.” That was all I managed to breathe out before he leaned back in.

  I inhaled sharply a moment before his lips consumed my mouth for the second time, and this time I knew it wasn’t a mistake. I was glad for that bit of air I’d gotten, because Ryder didn't let any air into my lungs for the next several minutes. My knees buckled and he held me onto his strong body, his minty mouth gliding over my lips over and over, his tongue tangling with mine.

  “I’m going in there. I’m going to break things off with your sister,” he said when he finally pulled away. “I can’t let her go on thinking that things are fine between us.”

  I shook my head. “No, please! Ryder, please don’t. She’ll be angry, and...”

  “Let her be angry.” He shrugged. “You’re all I want, Chloe.”

  “But why?”

  A smile crested his mouth and he shook his head. “You really don’t know how beautiful you are? How perfect?”

  I gaped at that. Had he really used the word beautiful? Perfect? To describe me? Little Miss Candy Cow?

  “I’m going to tell Trixie it’s over, Baby.”

  “No!” I insisted, my heart in my throat. “Ryder, you can’t. You won’t be here, but I will. I’ll have to live with this. Please, just wait until you’re
back again. Please?”

  He clenched his jaw so hard, I heard his teeth cracking together. But, eventually, he nodded and agreed to do as I asked.

  A few days after that, he was gone.

  Now, here we were. Two years, several hundred letters and more Skype calls than I can count later, sitting at that crazy wedding.

  And I just hoped to God that Ryder knew what he was doing.

  Chapter Three

  Ryder

  BEING GONE FOR ALMOST two years after that first kiss may as well have been three lifetimes. It might surprise you that I believed in love at first sight, that shit, but when I met Chloe she was just a kid. I experienced a carnal stirring, much like a wolf that sees its mate for the first time, but I shrugged it off. There was no way I could do anything about it, so I kept my distance.

  But when I finally broke like a shattered mirror, knowing I was leaving, I took her lips like a firestorm. She kissed me back with equal intensity, our bodies curling into each other like puzzle pieces. I knew I was done, gone, finished.

  There are legends about this shit—about two people that are destined to become one. Well, they’re true. I knew it that day.

  I kept coming around her skank of a sister all those years because I couldn’t lose track of Chloe. I never touched another woman after I set my sights on her. She was too young at the time, so waiting became my life. The thought of slipping any part of my anatomy inside another girl, then someday putting it inside Chloe, just didn’t sit right anymore.

  There was so much more I had for her. She was always that wide-eyed, innocent kid you want to protect. She was so out of place in that family—almost in the world.

  The way she wore her hair, usually in two pigtails, little bows at the sides of her forehead. Never a stiletto or high heel—only ballet flats. Sometimes she wore those little ankle socks that turned over and had the lace trim on the edge. When I looked at her, I wasn’t even sure the image was real. Everything about her was exactly what I wanted. Now, I just had to wait and bring her along, slowly.