Jacob
“I need you to pack me my toiletries and enough clothes for a week.”
Bernie is silent for a pregnant moment on the other end.
“And a good afternoon to you too,” she finally returns with a hefty side of sarcasm.
“Hey, Bernie,” I correct, effectively scolded. “An attempt was made on Rajani’s life and I —”
“Wait. What? What do you mean? Is she all right? What happened?” she interrupts me with a rapid-fire of questions.
“She’s all right,” I reassure her. “Bumps and bruises. I’ll have to tell you about it later, but the short of it is, I’m staying here to keep an eye on her.”
“Of course. What do you need?”
In the distance I see the lights are already on at the farm. The days are getting shorter and dusk has set in. It makes me think of Bernie alone at the house in the mountains and I don’t like that idea.
“Remember I asked you to look into a short-term rental or something near here? Any luck with that?”
“I narrowed it down to a few places. A couple in Williamstown and a cottage right outside Falmouth. I haven’t had a chance to pass them by you.”
Falmouth is just ten minutes up the road. I like that one is close.
“Book the one in Falmouth.”
“For how long?”
“Secure it for a month if available. Tomorrow, I’d like you to pack up my stuff and enough for yourself to last a week as well. I want you to temporarily move into the Falmouth place.”
I turn into the driveway.
“Will you be picking your stuff up, or did you want me to drop it off at the farm?”
“If you wouldn’t mind dropping it off?”
“You mean I get to meet Rajani?” she asks, excitement evident in her voice.
She’s known about Raj for fifteen years and has a healthy dose of curiosity.
“May as well, since she knows who I am, and who you are to me.” I pull up to the house. “But I’ve gotta go. Shoot me a message when you leave.”
When I walk in it’s been only an hour since I left, but it feels like half a day has passed. In fact, this entire day feels long. I’m carrying a bag of Mexican takeout and I picked up a few necessary things at the Walmart in Williamstown. Going home would’ve taken at least three hours and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving Rajani that long.
The women are in the kitchen, sitting at the island with a teapot between them.
“Oh, great. Food,” Opal observes, as she slips off her stool and snatches the paper bag from my hand.
I’d called from the parking lot of the Mexican restaurant so they could put in their orders. To my surprise, Raj jumped at my suggestion of takeout. I guess today’s events have taken their toll on her.
“Tea? Or if you prefer, I think there’s more beer in the fridge,” Raj indicates, grabbing plates from the cupboard.
“I’ll grab a beer.”
I’ll just have the one, I want to stay sharp, for more than one reason.
We have dinner at the table, and conversation is at a minimum. I occasionally steal glances at Raj, who is sitting across from me, but keep catching Opal glancing at me. I’m not sure whether it’s because she found me in her friend’s bedroom earlier or something else has her curious, but her expression is quizzical.
I wait until after Opal has left and Raj is finishing her tea, while I clean up the dirty dishes.
“A heads-up; Bernie is coming by tomorrow to drop off some of my things. She’s going to be staying at a cottage in Falmouth.”
“Why?”
I turn to face her, wiping my hands on a towel, and leaning back against the edge of the counter.
“Because I don’t want her up in the mountains by herself.”
She tilts her head. “Is that where you live? In the mountains?”
I feel my honesty is being challenged, so I look her straight in the eye.
“Yes. I have a house near Moreland.”
“Just a house or a property? I mean, do you have horses, for instance?”
I notice she’s tearing her napkin in strips and I wonder whether it’s nerves rather than curiosity that has her asking me these questions.
“I have a few acres.” Two hundred and sixty-three to be precise. “No horses though.”
“You do now,” she points out. “What are you going to do with them when this is over? Are you going to get rid of them?”
“No, I don’t plan to, but I haven’t decided what that’s going to look like.”
I push off from the counter and begin moving toward her. She glances up and watches me approach, biting her lip.
“I believe we had some unfinished business,” I warn her.
If for some reason she changed her mind between this afternoon and now, she has plenty of time to stop me.
But she doesn’t.
When I hold out my hand to her, she grabs on and allows me to pull her to her feet. Then I slip my arms around her waist.
“Is there anything else we need to discuss before this goes anywhere? Anything more you’d like to know?”
She shakes her head.
“Any reservations or regrets?”
“Not a single one,” she whispers, sliding her hands up my chest and around my neck.
I think it’s safe to say she’s on board, so I pull her flush against me and take her mouth.
Kissing Rajani is as good, if not better, than I recall. Or maybe it’s simply that I’m in control now—in the moment—and savoring every responsive stroke of her tongue. She tastes like cardamom and star anise, an intoxicating combination.
This time it’s Raj who ends the kiss and begins to walk backward, pulling me along to the bedroom. Once there, she grabs the hem of her T-shirt and starts lifting it up.
Guilt has me stop her.
“Wait,” I tell her. “Before you do that, I want you to know what you’re in for.”
It’s my turn to be nervous. I haven’t exactly been a monk, but intimacy was never a goal before. It is now, with Raj. This is about trust, giving it, and earning it back.
I reach behind me and grab a fistful of my shirt, pulling it over my head. Other than medical staff or Bernice, I have not taken my shirt off in front of anyone. It isn’t that I have anything to be embarrassed about, but maybe I wasn’t ready to share that much of me.
I feel ready now, which is why I don’t hesitate kicking off my boots and stripping my jeans down.
Rajani’s eyes scan my body, not betraying any emotion. I know what she sees, my right side is a gnarly web of scars running down from my shoulder to my hip. I occasionally look in the mirror, it’s not pretty.
She surprises me by reaching out, letting her fingertips move up my arm to my shoulder and trail down my torso to my hip. A shiver runs down the length of my body.
Her eyes dart up to my face.
“Do they hurt?”
“They get itchy sometimes, but rarely hurt.”
She nods and proceeds to blow me away when she holds my eyes and slowly sinks down to her knees. Hooking her fingers in my boxer briefs, she pulls them down to my ankles. Then she taps first one foot for me to lift and then the other, helping me out of my socks and briefs.
Her eyes follow her hands as she runs them up my legs, and wraps one of them around my erection. Looking down, all I see is her beautiful eyes, lifted up to me as she leans in and runs her tongue around the crown of my cock.
I’m afraid to move for fear of scaring her off, but she doesn’t seem scared. With infinite patience she slides her gorgeous mouth down my length, until I see tears form in her eyes when I hit the back of her throat.
Beauty and the fucking beast.
Onyx
He moves me to my core.
I see his gesture for what it is, exposing vulnerability as an offer of trust. Rather than tell him his scars have no impact on my attraction to him, I feel showing him will be a more effective way to get that message across. In return, I offer him something I’ve never given voluntarily.
I know he’s enjoying my mouth on him; his jaw is slack as groans reverberate deep in his chest. Hell, I enjoy the effect my mouth has on him. I may be on my knees but I’ve never felt so powerful.
Suddenly, Jacob bends down and hooks me under my arms, abruptly lifting me to my feet and leaving me a little stunned.
“I want to be inside you and feel you come around me. Then I plan to look you in the eyes when I let go,” he promises in a deep rumble I can feel down to my toes.
He wastes no time at all helping divest me of my clothes. Then he eases me back on the bed and follows me down. Brushing the hair from my forehead, he traces my face with his eyes, and it feels like the softest touch.
He kisses first my mouth before traveling down my neck and chest, while his hand explores the rest of my body. Special attention is paid to my breasts, as he switches sides, pulling each nipple between his lips. When his fingers glide between my legs, he groans deeply.
“So wet,” he mumbles against my skin.
“So ready for you,” I disclose.
“Yeah?” he asks, lifting his head so he can look at me.
“Oh yeah.”
One side of his mouth curls up and he moves his body over mine. I open my legs, making room for him, when all of a sudden he gets off the bed.
“Don’t move.”
I watch him walk out of the room, gloriously naked, and I note his ass looks as fantastic as it feels. A few seconds later he’s back, carrying the Walmart bag he came in with. He reaches in and pulls out a large box of condoms.
“Such a Boy Scout,” I tease him.
“Family-sized,” he states with a grin as he produces a foil packet and rips it with his teeth.
I watch with interest as he rolls the condom down his length before climbing back in bed, lowering himself on top of me. I immediately wrap my legs around him, savoring the weight of his body on me. Impatience has me tilt and roll my hips, until I can feel the crown of his cock brush through the slick between my legs. My mouth opens and my eyes close, as I wait for him to slide inside me.
“Look at me, Rajani,” he mumbles.
I do as he asks and find his hazel eyes only inches away, beautiful golden flecks making them look lit up from the inside. A warm feeling of homecoming washes over me when he enters me in one, confident stroke.
He sets a steady pace, but soon I find myself sliding my hands down his back, and grabbing on to the firm globes of his ass, encouraging him to move faster and deeper.
He reads me well and in no time, he is powering inside me, hitting spots that have my eyes roll back in my head.
“Rajani.”
When I try to focus on him, my gaze slides over his shoulder, and for a brief instant, I get a flash of steel-blue eyes before Jacob draws me back.
“Look at me,” he grunts.
I zoom in on him as I feel my release build inside me. Our bodies are slick with sweat.
“Come for me, sweetheart.”
He slips his hands under my knees and pushes my legs back and open, hammering inside me. I feel every inch deep inside me as I spasm and clamp down on him.
I ride the aftershocks and can’t manage much more than a whimper as I watch him reach for his own release.
He collapses on top of me and I immediately wrap him up in my arms. I don’t know how long we lie like that, breathing each other in as we catch our breath. It’s not until I feel him soften inside me and finally slip out that he raises his head and brushes my lips with his.
“I’ll be right back.”
He leaves the bed and heads to the bathroom, presumably to get rid of the condom. When I hear the toilet flush, I get out of bed myself to get cleaned up.
Jacob catches me with one arm around my waist in passing, bending his head to kiss my shoulder before he lets me continue. This gentle side of him is not something I expected. The Jacob I thought I’d gotten to know is an opinionated, authoritarian slave driver, and yet I still managed to be drawn to him. Now that I’ve seen this other side of him, it’ll be hard not to fall completely.
I finish up in the bathroom, wash my hands and my face, and brush my teeth. It’s still early, but I’m exhausted and I don’t want to think about snakes, how they got in my car, or who has it out for me. I’d rather just go to sleep and worry about all of that tomorrow.
Jacob is sitting on the edge of the bed, sliding his jeans on, and I feel a pang of disappointment. I had visions of sleeping snuggled up to him, but I guess that was wishful thinking. I reach past him to grab my nightshirt from under my pillow, but he grabs my hips and pulls me between his legs.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Fine,” is my knee-jerk response.
His fingers tighten on my hips.
“Sweetheart, I want to know if I hurt you.” He shakes his head and levels his eyes with my belly button. “That was a long time coming, it was fucking amazing, and I totally blanked on the fact you were in an accident today. Plus, I should’ve pulled out sooner.”
I cup his face in my hands and tilt his head up.
“You didn’t hurt me, I agree it was fucking amazing, and I don’t want to be reminded of the accident,” I inform him with a smile.
“As for your last point, I appreciate your concern, but just so you know, pregnancy is not a concern.”
His eyes slide down my body as he reaches out and runs a finger along the thin white line bisecting my lower belly.
“It’s a hysterectomy scar,” he observes.
I confirm with a nod.
“Guess you hadn’t heard that?”
“Heard what?” he asks.
I run my own fingertips along the scar as I respond, “This is how they made sure there couldn’t be any accidents.”
“They?”
I look him in the eye.
“This was compliments of Transition House.”