Tate
The last couple of days had passed in a blur. Ever since Jane had agreed to go to Charleston with me, I’d felt like I was floating on a cloud. I wasn’t going to have to deal with my parents’ bullshit, though I was also nervous about the fact that I hadn’t told Jane what snobs they really were. I wasn’t sure if it was fair of me to expose her to them. They weren’t always the nicest people, but I was hopeful that they would at least be respectful to someone I brought home with me.
I checked my watch and went to the kitchen to take out the cheese I’d bought to pair with some French bread and grapes. We were going to a late lunch at Magnolia’s place in a few hours, so I didn’t want to ruin our appetites, but I did want to provide some light snacks for her. I cut up the bread, which I placed on a plate, and then headed back to the living room. This was the first time Jane was going to be coming over, the first time she would see my place, and I wondered what she would think.
I sat down on the couch and leaned back, wondering if I had time to wax one out before she arrived. It would be better if I whacked off now if possible; otherwise, I’d get too horny and want to make a move on her. If I ended up fucking her on the couch, it would complicate the trip back home before we’d even left, and I didn’t need that, no matter how much I wanted her.
I looked at my watch again: ten minutes to jack off. I closed my eyes and reached my hand into my pants and started playing with my cock. Immediately, my mind conjured an image of Jane in that sexy red dress she’d worn at the club. She had looked hot as hell. Her breasts had practically been popping out; all it would have taken was one tug at the front of her dress and I could have had my mouth all over her. My cock started growing hard as I thought of her and I moved my hand back and forth a little faster. When we’d been dancing, my hands had explored her body, and I’d been shocked when I’d touched her bare ass. I’d thought she wasn’t wearing any panties at first, but then I’d realized she’d had a thong on. I’d gone hard instantly. My fingers had slipped between her legs and her clit had been so wet, I could have fingered her right then and there. She’d been so willing as she’d danced against me. I groaned out loud as I thought about that moment. I was now completely hard and my hand was rubbing up and down my shaft faster than ever. She’d thought I’d been joking, but I’d been ready to turn her around, bend her over and pound into her then and there, in front of everyone. Fuck, the idea turned me on even more. To think that every guy in there would see me fucking the hottest girl in the club. To hear her screaming and coming for me. Fuck, I was about to come as I thought about my cock sliding in and out of her, harder and deeper than any man had ever fucked her.
“Oh, fuck,” I muttered as I felt myself about to erupt. This was the point I would have pulled out of her and turned around and stuffed my cock in her mouth, spurting my juices right down her throat so that she could swallow it all.
Hot semen spurted into my hand and I groaned out loud.
The doorbell rang, and I cursed. I looked up at the front door and moved my hand by mistake, cum spilling onto my gym shorts. I jumped up. “Shit, shit, shit!” I reached down and grabbed a couch cushion to wipe the cum off as the doorbell rang again. “I’m coming!” I shouted as I threw the cushion to the other side of the room and tucked my cock back inside my shorts. I wiped my hand on the back of my T-shirt and hurried to the front door.
“Hey, Jane.” I was panting slightly as I opened door. She was standing there with a box in her hand and a sweet smile. My cock grew hard again at the sight of her in her tight white T-shirt and blue skirt. I wondered if she had any panties on underneath. “Come in, I just had a little accident. I’ll be right back.” And with that, I turned around and ran to my room. No way I was going to greet her with dry semen on my hands and all over my clothes. I really needed to have a shower, but I wasn’t sure I had time. I looked in the mirror and groaned. I was hard again. I had to have a cold shower. I didn’t care how fast it had to be. I quickly pulled my clothes off and headed to the shower. I turned it on to cold and jumped under the water.
“Fuck.” It was cold, but I needed it to cool me down. I grabbed the soap and ran it over my skin before rinsing it off and grabbing my towel. I wrapped the towel around my waist and walked back into the living room to make sure that Jane was okay.
“Hey, sorry about that,” I said.
She was sitting on the couch with the box in her lap and she looked up at me, surprised. “Sorry, was I early?” She blinked as she stared at my naked wet chest. “I didn’t mean to arrive before you’d showered.”
“Oh, I had showered.” I grinned. “I just needed to freshen up.”
“Oh, okay.” She looked confused. “Two showers before ten a.m.?”
“You don’t want to know.” I walked over to the couch and sat next to her. “Trust me.”
“You’re still wet.” She laughed as she looked at my chest again. Her eyes looked unsure of something and I had a feeling that she wanted to reach over and touch me. I sure hoped she followed her instincts.
“Yeah, I’ll go and change in a little bit.” I grinned. “What’s in the box?” I nodded toward her lap.
“I got a cake. I figured it would be good with a cup of tea or coffee or whatever you’re serving.”
“Ooh, delicious, thanks.” I didn’t move. I was still hoping she’d reach out and touch me.
“So are you going to tell me why you’re on your second shower of the day?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“But we shouldn’t have any secrets, Tate,” she said in a sweet voice. “After all, I am going home with you. Shouldn’t I know everything about you? Isn’t that why I’m here?”
“Do you really want to know?” I shifted in the seat and the edges of the towel slipped apart over my thighs. I could feel my cock growing next to the soft cotton fabric. All Jane would have to do would be to reach down and pull my towel completely open and my cock would be right there for the taking. She could lower her lips onto it and then I could come again, only this time it would be so much better.
“Yes.”
“Promise not to judge?”
“I can’t promise.” She laughed.
“Fine, I was jacking off when you arrived and you interrupted my grand eruption. Mount Vesuvius was exploding just as you came. Let’s just say, the uh, lava got everywhere.”
“Oh,” she mouthed, her eyes widening as she looked down to my lap. “Sorry.”
“How sorry?” I grinned at her and moved closer to her. The towel started to slip at my waist but I didn’t reach down to stop it.
“What do you mean, how sorry?”
“Like, sorry enough to cause a second eruption?” The cool air grazed my cock, and I looked down to see that the towel had completely fallen off. My cock was there, out in the open. I looked up to see Jane swallowing hard as she stared at my length and I grinned. “Like what you see?”
“Tate.” She grabbed the towel and covered me. “I think you should get dressed.”
“But I thought we could have some fun first?”
“We’re here to get to know each other better for the trip to South Carolina.” She bit her lip. “You said you wanted to go with a woman you hadn’t fucked, right?”
“Yeah …”
“Well, if you stay undressed like that, and I stay here like this,” her fingers ran up my thigh and I jumped, “we might not be able to make that happen.”
“Oh, yeah?” I cocked my head to the side and stared at her hand. “How far up is your hand willing to go?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“You know oral sex isn’t considered fucking.” I held my breath as her fingers edged closer to my cock. “That would be okay.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure you told that one girl anal wasn’t considered fucking either, and now she has a dirty white dress that says otherwise.”
“Yeah, well, she was dumb.” I grabbed her hand and held it to my thigh. “You’re not dumb.”
“No, I’m not.” She pushed my arm away and pulled her hand off of me. “Now shoo, go change and hurry up. We need to answer these questions before we head over to Magnolia’s, and she will not be happy if we arrive late.”
“Yes, boss.” I stood up. “I’m only doing this because I know if I let you go down on me, I wouldn’t be able to stop at oral.”
“Well, who said I would be the one going down?” She licked her lips and then smoothed down her skirt. “Maybe I was expecting to be the receiver of pleasure.”
“Oh, yeah?” She obviously loved teasing me and it was driving me crazy. “Maybe I can make that happen.”
“Oh, you think so?”
“I know so.” I sat back down on the couch and pushed her back.
Her eyes widened in surprise, but she didn’t object as I quickly pulled her skirt up. I pressed my lips against her panties and sucked on her clit through the material. Her legs shook next to the side of my face, and I lightly flicked my tongue against her clit. Her panties were growing wet now, and I smiled to myself as I reached up and pulled them down slightly. I looked up at her face. Her eyes were half-closed, and she was making little whimpering noises. I reached under the silky material until I was touching her clit. I rubbed it gently before pulling her panties down a bit more and slipping a finger inside of her. Her body shuddered as I pushed another finger inside and rubbed my thumb against her clit. She moaned louder and then I slipped my fingers out, pulled her panties up, and smoothed her skirt back down before standing up again. She looked up at me, dazed with lust, and I winked.
“Now, you see? I’m a giver and a taker.” I laughed as I stood there, looking down at her. “But I wouldn’t want to give too much and get you distracted, seeing as we don’t have much time.” And with that I turned around and walked to my bedroom, half hoping she would follow behind me and let me fuck her on the bed. Unfortunately, she remained on the couch and I had to get dressed with the taste of her on my lips. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take. This had been the longest I’d spent messing around with a woman without ever actually getting any real action.
“Okay, so you said you made a list of questions that we should answer?” I came back to the living room in a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt. I took a seat in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table and smiled at her. “Also, before we start, would you like something to drink? I also have some snacks, bread and cheese, that sort of thing. And then maybe we can have some coffee with the cake you brought?”
“Oh wow, that’s nice of you.” She beamed at me. “That sounds nice. I’ll get the questions together.”
“Okay, sounds good.” I stood up. “What would you like to drink? I have water, juice, wine, and every liquor you can think of.”
“Do you have any Diet Coke?”
“I’ll check,” I said as I headed to the kitchen. I was grateful that she hadn’t made any comments about our earlier incident or asked me to have a seat next to her on the couch. If I was close to her, I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to keep my hands off of her, and the last thing we needed was to complicate anything right now. I grabbed the plates of bread and cheese and drinks and placed them on a tray and carried them through to the living room.
Jane had slipped her shoes off and was now curled up on my couch, looking through her phone. Her head was bent and as I gazed at her, I realized just how innocent and trusting she was. She was sexy as hell, but she was also really sweet and caring. She wasn’t the sort of girl that I should be fucking around with. And not just because she was my employee, it was deeper than that. She was too nice—here she was spending her weekend helping me get ready to tackle my parents. She didn’t have to do that. She was a good person. And I was on the brink of fucking it all up.
A rare pang of conscience hit me. If there was one woman in the world I needed to not fuck, it was her. I didn’t think she was the sort of woman that could handle no-strings-attached sex and certainly not on the level that I liked. I was in a higher class of kink, even I knew that. I let out a deep breath as I made my way farther into the living room to place the tray on the coffee table. I wasn’t going to sleep with her. I was going to be professional, do what was right. It didn’t matter that my cock disagreed with that. He had no say in the matter anymore.
“Okay, are you ready?” Jane looked up at me as I placed her Diet Coke in front of her. “Thanks.”
“No worries. I have a couple more if you want another one.” I sat back down on the armchair opposite her. “So let’s go, what do you want to know?”
“What are your parents’ names?”
“My dad is Taft Howard and my mom’s name is Diane, Diane Cornelius Howard.”
“Fancy.”
“What are your parent’s names?”
“My dad is Genaro Garcia and mi mama is Maria Garcia, and I have an older brother, Marco.”
“Genaro, Maria, Marco, and Jane. Got it.”
“What are your sisters’ names?”
“There’s Rosebud—wait, don’t call her that.” I grinned. “She hates it.”
“So Rose, not Rosebud.”
“Yeah, she’s my favorite sister, and then there’s Maybelle, but she goes by Belle, and the youngest is Willow.” I smiled as I thought about my sisters. “All of them are Southern belles, but they all have hearts of gold.”
“It must have been cool growing up with all sisters.”
“I hated it.” I laughed. “I always wanted a brother. Rose was a bit of a tomboy, so that helped.”
“Aw, yeah, I think Marco always wished he had a brother as well, but he got stuck with me.”
“I bet you weren’t a bad sister.”
“I was okay. I wasn’t perfect.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. No one should be perfect. So boring.”
“So, okay, family members out of the way. I know you enjoy writing and you like going to the gym and nature. What else?”
“You remember a lot about me …” I looked at her appreciatively. “You pretty much know everything there is to know about me.”
“Well, not really.” She shook her head. “Would you feel comfortable reading me a piece you wrote?”
“I guess.” I sat back, a prickle of sweat breaking out across my back. I’d never shared my writing with anyone. It made me uncomfortable to think that someone could judge me on something and I had no control over it.
“You don’t have to.” She studied my face. “If you’re not comfortable, I understand.”
“No, no, it’s fine. Hold on.” I got up and walked over to my writing table, grabbed my writing pad, and sat back down. “So I haven’t written a book or anything. I just write short little things that pop into my head.”
“Okay, that sounds good, better than me.” She smiled encouragingly.
“Okay.” I opened the book and flipped through the pages. “I guess I can read you this. See if you know what it’s about.”
“Sounds good.” She leaned forward, a sweet smile on her face.
I cleared my throat and took a couple of deep breaths before reading. “He never thought it would be like this. So dark, and so cold. Even though there were hundreds of them there. The fear stopped the heat. The fear stopped the warmth. He’d wanted his freedom. Wanted to have a life where he didn’t have to get up when Master told him, didn’t have to toil from sun up to sun down, ’til his back couldn’t carry no more. He hadn’t seen his children in years. Didn’t even know if they were still alive. And then there was Sarah. She’d been sent to Charleston to work in some big house. She was pretty. Too pretty. He knew that she was Master’s favorite. It didn’t always pay to be the favorite. But soon, soon he’d be up North. Massachusetts. He’d have his freedom. There were people there that would help him. He just had to make it. He was tired of walking, his feet caked with dirt, blistered and hard, kept on going, but he didn’t know how much more he could take. Why God had forsaken them? There was no light. Just tracks to follow. On and on. He wasn’t no train, but he sure as hell preferred the dark of the tunnel to the light of the plantation that had become his life.”
I finally took a breath and looked up at her face. She actually looked impressed, and some of the tension left my shoulders.
“Wow, you wrote that?”
“Yes.” I nodded. “Did you like it?”
“I did.” She ran her hand through her hair and looked thoughtful. “I’m assuming it’s about a slave?”
I nodded. “A slave in the underground railway.”
“Oh, so an escaping slave. What made you write it?”
“My family and I went to New Orleans last year, and we took a couple of trips to see some old plantations. Well, me and my sisters, my parents didn’t go. It struck me that those days were really good to some and really horrible to others.” I took a deep breath. “My family has very different views on the Reconstruction Era, and sometimes it makes me ashamed.” I bit down on my lower lip. “I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but so much in my life could have been different if I’d been born into a different family.”
“Yeah.” She nodded and looked down.
“What, what is it?” I asked her, wondering what she was thinking.
“Just how life can be really unfair at times.” She picked up her Diet Coke but didn’t drink it. “I couldn’t imagine having to escape in the underground to get my freedom.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t imagine someone telling me when I had to wake up, when I could go to sleep. There are a lot of ways to kill a man and a lot of ways to die, but I couldn’t imagine my entire existence killing me one day at a time. I couldn’t imagine someone buying me and thinking they owned me.” Her voice caught as tears glistened in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, are you okay?” I stood up and walked over to her. “I didn’t mean to trigger you. I suppose you think that I’m not even in a position to write such a piece. That I’m the pinnacle of white male privilege?”
“No, I don’t think that.” She shook her head. “It’s great for you to try and see life and history from a different perspective, especially if your family and ancestors weren’t necessarily on the right side of that history.”
“I don’t want to paint my family in an evil light.” I could feel the tension rising in my shoulders. “Nothing’s black and white, eh? But yeah, I’m trying to bring change and make amends. I want to do things with my money. Good things. I want to effect change. I want to acknowledge that my family’s riches were built on the backs of other people.”
“Oh, Tate.” She rubbed my shoulder and I could see a different light in her eyes. It was a light I hadn’t seen before, a light of admiration and respect. And it made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a really long time. It made me feel proud of myself. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You can and are making a change. Small steps still count.”
“Thank you, Jane.” I wiped a tear from her cheek. “That means a lot to me.”
“So tell me more about where you grew up,” she suggested.
Studying Jane, I realized that I’d only seen her on a surface level. I had been unfair and disrespectful to her. I’d judged her on her looks, just as I knew that she’d judged me on my money and her assumption that life had to be easier for me because I’d been blessed with riches growing up.
“What do you want to know?”
“You obviously have a complicated family life. We all do.” She leaned forward and squeezed my shoulder. “I don’t need to hear about your family. I’ll meet them. I can see for myself. I want to know about your life as a child. What did you love about your childhood?”
“What did I love about my childhood?” I leaned back in the couch next to her and really tried to think hard. “Well, I told you about my granddaddy’s farm. That was always fun.”
“So you went there all the time?”
“Until the summer I was fifteen.” All of a sudden I felt drained. Opening up took a lot of energy. “I stopped going after that.”
“Too many women to date?” she teased me, but I didn’t laugh in response. “Or another reason?” she asked softly.
“Another reason.” I nodded, suddenly bleak. “I had an argument with my granddaddy that summer, and I left the farm two weeks early and went home. I never went back. I ignored his calls. And then he died.” I pursed my lips. “He died three months after that. We never spoke after that argument. I never got a chance to talk to him about how I felt about everything.”
“Oh, Tate, I’m so sorry. I’m sure he forgave you for leaving.”
“Maybe.” I stared at the coffee table. “Maybe he forgave me. I never forgave him.”
“What did he do?” Her eyes studied me intently, and I didn’t know that I could bring myself to tell her.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I was embarrassed to tell her what had gone down. Embarrassed that I had family members that still lived in the past. I didn’t want her to hate my family so much that she wouldn’t come home with me. And I really wanted her to come. A lot more than I had realized. “We can choose many things in life, but we can’t choose our family.”
“It was bad?”
“It was bad.” I nodded and then pulled her up. “Now, let’s change the subject, this is depressing.”
“What are you doing?” She looked confused as I led her to my bedroom. “Where are we going, Tate?”
“To my magic room.”
“Tate!”
“Not for sex.” I grinned at her. “I promise.”
“Okay, but then what for?”
“You’ll see.”
“Tate Howard, if you think that I …” I let go of her hand and walked to the corner of the room and grabbed my guitar. “Have a seat on the bed.”
“You play the guitar?”
“Not that well,” I lied. I was pretty confident that she’d be impressed by my singing skills. I’d been told more than once that I should audition for The Voice or American Idol, but I had absolutely no interest in being a professional singer.
“What are you going to play?”
“Any requests?”
“Not yet.” She took a seat on my bed. “Surprise me.”
“Okay, have you ever heard of Ray LaMontagne?”
“Not sure.”
“Well, I’m going to play a song of his called ‘Shelter.’” I strummed down on the chords and tuned the strings for a few seconds before I started playing. When I started singing, her face lit up with surprise and delight. I sat down on the bed next to her as I sang the entire song. When I was done, she started clapping her hands together.
“That was amazing. You have so many talents.” She looked at my hands. “You continue to surprise me, Tate Howard.”
“I think that’s a good thing.” I kept my hands to myself. You will not touch her, Tate. You will not touch her. She shifted closer to me, and my heart rate started to pick up. Was she making a move on me?
“It’s a good thing.” She nodded. “So, any other skills you want to show me or anything else you want to tell me?”
“Well, I could tell you about my fantasies.”
“Not those sorts of things, Tate.”
“We can share one fantasy each.”
“I’m not sharing any fantasies, Tate.”
“Okay, can I share one before we go? We have about five minutes before we have to leave.”
“Fine, tell me.” She stood up. “Let’s see if you can shock me.”
“I want to go to a sex club.” I studied her face carefully to see her reaction. “I want to go to a sex club with multiple rooms. Where orgies are going on. Where people are watching me having sex. Where women stroke my back while I’m with another woman. I want other men to envy me and how long I can go.” I stopped. “Did I scare you yet?”
“No,” she squeaked, but I could tell from the expression on her face that I had completely overwhelmed her. I knew it was a lot to take. Maybe a part of me had hoped that that would have been her fantasy as well. That we could have explored together. “Um, shall we go now?” She turned around and walked out of the bedroom. Well, I’d just blown every chance of getting into her pants. Jane was a nice girl, but I was way too much man for her to handle.