For Life (Reclaimed Hearts Book 1) (23 page)

Strong fingers spread my cheeks wide and then his tongue spears inside me. My knees almost buckle from the sensation. He’s never done
this
before, either - or at least not in this position - and I’m not sure how I’m going to keep my hips up high enough when my legs are already starting to shake.

“Jesus, Cass, I missed your pussy this week,” he growls into my wetness. He’s feasting on me now, no gentleness to the way he devours me. “All I could think about this morning was yanking up that dress you were wearing and making you come on my face.”

Everything coils inside me, longing for release. His words grow fuzzy as the sensations between my thighs amplifies. I rock backwards, grinding myself against his face, and he moans into me.

Fast as the flame on a detonator, my climax zips down my spine. I can almost hear the sizzling in my ears, the crackle and silence before he sucks my clit, hard. The explosion rocks me and I half-collapse, screaming into the pillow, but his arms are there, holding me together while I break apart.

I whimper behind clenched teeth as he keeps sucking me through the climax, my body convulsing helplessly for what seems like an eternity until I shatter again, a less powerful but more damaging explosion that I feel simultaneously in my back and my womb.

Seconds later there’s an insistent nudge as Grady positions himself at my entrance, and all I can manage is a feeble, “Yes...”

His breath catches as he sinks into me, fingers clutching my hips hard. He’s as rough and demanding with me now as he was gentle earlier. “Ahh, yes.
This
…” he grunts. “Fuck. You’re so wet. So ready for my cock. Take it, Cass.”

Grady didn’t used to talk to me this way. My twenty-year-old self would have recoiled at this dirty talk, but now hearing his feral appraisal of me only makes me wetter. I take him hungrily, my hips meeting every thrust. With every stroke he’s rocking deep inside me, his thighs slapping against the back of mine, his fingers gripping my ass cheeks hard enough to bruise them. It feels like punishment and that makes me glad. He fucks me without pleasantries or mercy, his cock battering me until I’m begging for him to come because I don’t think I can take much more. My forearms have already lost strength and I’m on my elbows, bracing myself so I don’t collapse face-first on the bed.

Suddenly his thrusts slow and grow shallower. “Come again, baby,” he urges me as his fingers slide against my swollen clit. I’m so overstimulated I don’t think I can, but his cock is hitting me in exactly the right spot, and when his fingers scissor around my clit it takes only a few strokes before my entire body starts to shudder again.

And Grady’s right there with me. He stiffens and growls my name as he releases inside me. I wail into the pillow as I spasm around him, and we collapse, his strong body pinning mine to the mattress. I am his sustenance, and he is my salvation.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

April 1998

Grady

It gets harder and harder to leave them in the mornings and go to class. By the time I’m showered and dressed, Cassie has Chloe in her high chair, music playing faintly in the background to make our little one cheerful while she’s confined. Chloe’s stubborn, insisting on trying to feed herself bits of smashed banana while Cass coos at her with a spoonful of mushy cereal. I nuzzle my daughter’s fine chestnut ringlets and she squeals happily and tries to jam her sticky fingers in my nose. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I’m away from them from 7:30 in the morning until after 10:00 pm. I take four classes back-to-back and then head to work. Waiting tables sucks, but the tips are good. My internship is unpaid, so even though it’ll help in the long run, there’s no way it could support our family. As it is we’re living partially off the life insurance my dad left. Although I know my dad would be happy about how I’m using the money, I can’t wait till I graduate and find a job so I can support us without it. Cassie keeps asking if she can work, but she’s already away from Chloe enough to take classes and study at the library. We argue about it all the time, but I’d rather work ten jobs than have her work one. Not until Chloe’s in school.

Besides, some guys I met at work need a new bassist for their band. They play a few paid gigs each month, which is pretty great for a local band. The way I’ve calculated it, if we play two gigs a month I might have enough to get us into a nicer apartment. There’s no dishwasher here, and we have to lug the laundry all the way down to the scary community laundry room in the basement. The place I’m looking at has a washer, dryer, and dishwasher right in the apartment, not to mention a separate bedroom for Chloe.

The privacy would be great. I stoop to give Cassie a lingering kiss, and she kisses me back in a way that makes me want to skip class and take her to bed. It’s been too long, and even in pajamas she’s breathtaking. I know she’ll be asleep by the time I get home, but if I’m lucky…

As if reading my mind she whispers, “I’ll wait up for you tonight. I’ll bring the alarm clock out to the living room and if I fall asleep on the couch it’ll wake me up in time.”

My entire body cheers, but I murmur, “If you need sleep, just sleep, baby.”

She shakes her head. “I need my husband.” Her eyes are luminous, and I thank whatever gods of hormones or good moods or whatever are at work here and pray that she’ll still feel this way in fourteen hours.

In her high chair, Chloe bangs her tray, making us both laugh. I kiss my wife’s forehead and I’m off to school.

* * * *

Grady

Almost a whole month passes of me and Cassie stealing moments, sneaking texts, quietly whispering down the phone line every night before bed. She’s reluctant to tell the kids we’re back together - so reluctant, in fact, that it’s starting to piss me off. They need to know what’s happening so we can move ahead with the plan. Both of them are reasonable kids. Yeah, they’ll be shocked, but they’ll get over it. I have complete faith that in the end they’ll be happy about it, but Cassie can’t seem to get there. It’s a source of tension for us, a common issue hashed and rehashed in Dr. Gaul’s office. I can’t see it her way, and she won’t see it mine.

To be fair, it might be because Chloe and Cass have had their share of mother-daughter strain. Partly that’s because Cassie never really had a mother until mine, partly it’s because Chloe is overly emotional and touchy, and partly it’s because Cassie can be an anxious control freak sometimes with the kids. I try not to say anything to her directly, but there are times when we’ve exchanged some words over our parenting differences, especially the fact that she treats Caden like a baby.

“I appreciate that you and Carl had to be the men of the house,” she said to me the first time I brought it up. “But Caden is not a man. He’s my fourteen-year-old son, and he’s still a child. When he’s a man, I’ll treat him like a man. But his manhood is a long time coming.”

“Not that long,” I grinned at her, remembering myself when she and I met. Yeah, I was sixteen, but I was also working, playing football, taking care of my mom, and giving my girl orgasms every chance I got. If that’s not a man, I’m not sure what is. I reminded her of that, but she was not amused.

“I don’t want him to rush to grow up,” she insisted. “He’s so innocent. So happy. We can’t force adulthood on him. It happened to both of us, and it might have turned out good for you, but it was shit for me. So please, Grady, let’s just not.”

I understood her point. I was forced to be an adult in a number of ways, but I still had my mother’s love to fall back on. I was never without a soft place to fall, but until she met me, Cassie was always without one.

That was our first parenting argument. We had several more, including whether or not to let Chloe get her belly button pierced. I said no, Cass said yes, and after much heated debate Chloe decided she wanted her nose pierced instead. Cassie and I agreed that hell would freeze before we allowed that, and we both told Chloe she could wait until her eighteenth birthday to poke holes in her face.

We also argued about other things. She had some ridiculous fit about a girl I went to the movies with in high school, and I got a little touchy when we ran into the Nordic Douchebag one day at the mall. He was with his wife and little girl, but it was still awkward as hell to stand there and have polite conversation with a guy who’d seen my wife naked. I’m no raging alpha male, but that was too fucking much, and my mood was so sour I drove her back home and retreated to my own space alone to get myself straight.

But there's been a lot to be thankful for. I have dinner at the house several times a week, and the kids are no longer surprised when I show up. We watch family movies, play board games, and eat breakfast together every Sunday. Though it would taste even better if all I had to do was roll out of bed, kiss my beautiful woman, and eat it, I can’t complain. Despite some growing pains, things are good.

When the kids aren’t around, we get down to the business of rediscovering each other. Sometimes we lay in bed for hours catching up on all the things we’ve missed. I play with her fingers and watch her face as she talks, and I fall in love with her all over again. Sharing memories of our happiest times together, being careful to celebrate the good without placing blame for the bad, helps to bond us back together. Making tender love to Cassie and telling her how much I’ve missed her is so intimate it takes my breath away.

Other times I take her in random parts of my house or hers, clothes pushed aside, rough and fast, and we communicate only with our primal grunts of satisfaction. It’s new for us to be so uninhibited about our desires with each other; there’s an undercurrent of honesty between us now that never existed before. In those moments I feel like I’m discovering a new Cassie, a more grown up version of the girl I loved, and it’s erotic and comfortable and painful all at once.  

* * * *

We both spent a long time being single, and it seems we’ve developed certain habits that we weren’t about to give up just because we were back in each other’s lives. From time to time we brush up against those habits and work through them together. Mostly it’s the little stuff - who sleeps on which side of the bed, which radio station to listen to, what type of bread to buy. But there are other things, too. And one night, about a week before Thanksgiving, I make a discovery about Cassie that’s incredibly fucking hot.

She’s in the living room on the sofa, reading on her tablet while I shower. Imagine my amusement when I come down the hall and hear a brief, albeit very distinct, chorus of groans coming from her device.

Porn. Huh. New for her.
Very
new for her. She’s loosened up a lot since we were younger, apparently. And my body reacts to that information immediately, even as my mind wants to tease her about it a bit.

“Whatcha watching?” I ask as I walk silently up behind her. She jumps about ten feet into the air before stuffing the tablet into the couch next to her.

“Nothing,” she mumbles, flushing instantly. “Something a friend sent me.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask innocently. “Something hot?”

At that point she knows she’s busted. She licks her lips and I can see she’s debating exactly how much to confess. “Um… Yeah, I guess. My friend Shannon sent me this clip…”

“Of?” I probe.

“Of… Uh… just this movie.” I didn’t think it was possible for her to blush any harder, but she’s bright red, her eyes wide and guilty as I continue toward her.

“Yeah? Sounded pretty hot. Is it hot?” I tease.

“Sure, yeah.” She tries and failed to be nonchalant.

“Mmm. What was so hot about it, exactly?”

“They were… Uh… You know.”

“I don’t,” I say, enjoying the way her eyes beg me to put her out of her misery. “Kinda why I’m asking.”

“They were…” her voice drops to a shy murmur. “They were, you know… touching themselves for each other.”

“And you found that hot? A sexy woman playing with her own pussy? A guy fisting his own big, hard cock?” I reach the couch and lean my hip against it, and she twists her head back and up to look at me.

I don’t miss the little shiver that runs through her when I say it.
Oh, yeah
. My girl acquired some dirty tastes while she was away from me, and I can’t wait to put them to the test.

I lean on my forearms right next to her. “Just a clip or a whole movie?”

“I… Uh… A whole movie.”

She practically whispers the last bit, and I can tell she has no idea where I’m headed with all this, so I decide to have mercy on her. I twine my hand through her hair, tilt her head so her neck is exposed to me, and bend to plant a feather-light kiss just under her ear. Nuzzling her earlobe, I murmur, “So how wet are you right now?”

She gasps and squirms but doesn’t answer, so I let her go and walk slowly around the couch. Her eyes never leave me, and the look in them is part curiosity, part nervousness, and mostly lust, so I go for it.

Kneeling in front of her, I pull the foot she has tucked up under her knee so her legs are straight. Then I tug her pink flowery pajama pants down over her hips and toss them over my shoulder. I remove her socks, one by one, then toss them aside as well.

“Shirt,” I command, and she quickly peels it from her skin. When all that’s left on her body is a bra and panties, I quickly unhook her bra and fling it over the back of the couch.

“Grady,” she murmurs. She has this way of saying my name that shoots straight through me and makes my craving for her kick up another notch. I have half a mind to just fuck her like she wants me to. But I don’t want to waste my opportunity.

I nod to the cushion where she’s stashed the tablet. “Continue.”

Cassie draws her feet back up on the edge of the couch as if trying to protect herself and looks at me like I have three heads. “What? No, I’m… She just sent it to me. I don’t need to watch it right now. You’re here now.”

I chuckle and rock back on my heels, loosening my towel and dropping it on the floor to expose my erection. I take one of her pale, pedicured feet in my hand and nibble the arch before dragging it across my cheek, making her toes flex and curl. “I can keep myself busy,” I assure her, taking my stiff cock in the other hand. “Turn it back on, baby.”

She stares at me for a good long minute, but as soon as I wrap my lips and tongue around her pink-tipped toes she grabs the tablet and pulls up the clip.

And while she watches, I suck her toes and her kiss her feet, nuzzle her calves and lick and nip my way up the insides of her thighs, all while stroking myself to her soft, rhythmic panting and the groans coming from her tablet. Her eyes flicker from the couple on the screen to my fingers wrapped around my cock.

“Oh my
God
, Grady…” she moans, and I stop jerking myself off and yank her panties down to her ankles.

They’re soaked. Sopping. Eyes glazed with lust, Cassie doesn’t hesitate to answer when I ask if she’s ready to come, and my fingers are inside her before the “yes” is even out of her mouth.

I suck her clit in tandem rhythm with my fingers until her thighs are shaking. The tablet tumbles onto the cushions and she grabs my hair and thrusts against my face, fucking my mouth with her pussy, crying out and shuddering as her climax sweeps over her. She’s still coming when I kneel between her legs and slide into her, catching the last few contractions around my dick as I sink as deep as I can go.

“Don’t stop,” she pleads. “Please… just don’t—”

“I’m not going to stop for the next hour,” I vow. “You’re gonna come again with me buried inside you, and I’m still going to keep right on fucking you and fucking you until that greedy pussy of yours is finally satisfied.”

I make her come twice more. Each time she begs me to come with her and each time I deny her, although my balls ache with the need. As I finally release what feels like my entire life force inside of her, she cries out and shudders under me again.

“Was that number four?” I ask through my post-coital haze.

“I think it was just… aftershocks or something,” she pants. “
Jesus
. What the hell got into you, Grady?”

I pull my face out of her neck and grin at her. “I think it’s hot that you watch porn.”

“Apparently.” She smiles, still breathless. “If all I have to do to get you to attack me that way is open Shannon’s e-mails when you’re around, life is about to get very interesting.”

“Babe,” I whisper against her damp skin, “It’s already very interesting.”