Blue Persuasion (17 page)

“How do you mean?”

“Let’s not do the dance, okay? I love you girl, but you and Bond? How long now? Since before that drunken night, I’m guessing.”

“Does Lainie know?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Bond said he would tell the group if I wanted, but I don’t. I probably would have before, but now—”

“But now you’re falling in love with someone else.”

“Is it that obvious?” I felt Tate’s stare from outside, but I didn’t turn around to meet it.

“To me it is. Want some advice?”

“Please, yes.”

“Be true to yourself and be honest. Love is always a risk and sometimes it rips you to the core, but sometimes...” He glanced outside at Lainie and then looked back at me. “Sometimes it becomes the air you breathe, and I want that for you. We all do, even Bond.”

“I know. Bond’s been great. He’s keeping me sane.”

“Plus, we’ll be here to catch you if Tate doesn’t.”

I stepped forward into Stay’s embrace. He rocked me back and forth and kissed the top of my head.

“You’re the best,” I said, tilting my face up.

Tate came in and Stay stepped away from me to leave.

“Lainie wants another drink,” I said, touching Stay’s arm.

“Gotcha,” he said, getting one out of the fridge and popping the cap.

“Thank you,” I said as he passed by.

“Anytime.”

“I like him,” Tate said after Stay shut the French doors behind him.

“Me too.”

“Did you and he—

“No.”

“Good,” he breathed out. “Can I steal you away now?”

“Let me say hi to Kev and say my goodbyes and then, yes.” I reached my hand up and said, “You’re smiling.” I traced his lips.

“You have a good group of friends. Even Bond isn’t so bad. I promise I’ll like him much more once you’re done with him.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

He gave me a quick kiss. “I’ll get Kevin for you and say my goodbyes.”

Kev in his typical skinny jeans and sleeveless shirt joined me on the couch where I sat, watching our group of friends outside.

“Care to weigh in?” I asked.

“I keep telling Cat to butt out, but she never listens to me.”

“What do you think of him?” I watched Tate outside talking with Red.

“He sort of reminds me of Red when he used to be gruff with Jacqs, keeping her at a distance. Really, it doesn’t matter what I think, just what you think.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“We all want you to be happy and in love. I know that’s why Cat’s always meddling.”

I leaned against Kev, and he wrapped his arm around me.

“He’s a striking mountain of a man.”

I laughed. “That he is.”

“Cat mentioned something about a double date. Let’s do something fun.”

“She’s too much. I’m going to say my goodbyes. Tate wants—”

“Understood.”

I hugged Kev and made a beeline to the girls.

“Don’t have too much fun,” Cat said as we hugged goodbye.

Sam said, “Be careful and trust your gut.”

“See you Friday,” Lainie said.

Jacqs stood with Red, Bond, Stay, and Tate towering around her.

“Ready?” Tate asked as I approached.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for having me,” Tate said to Red.

I hugged Bond goodbye and he whispered, “Call me if you need me. Anytime.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ghost N Stuff (Nero Remix)

by DEADMAU5

I
followed Tate to his house as promised, noticing a red Jeep Cherokee parked out front.

“You like red,” I said after he opened my car door and I got out. “Kind of funny. The Native American with a Jeep Cherokee.”

“We prefer American Indian, and I’m not Cherokee.”

“Lighten up, dude. I saw you laughing with the guys, so I know you have it in you.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist as we walked to the door. “My mind is focused on being
in
you.”

After unlocking the door, he pulled me just inside the entryway, across the dark wood floors toward the living room. Not taking the time to shut the door, he took the hem of my dress and lifted it over my head, leaving me in just my bra. His hands stroked all of my available flesh, his lips trailing up my neck. With my ass in his palms, he asked, “You strutted around Red’s with no panties? Oh, you naughty girl.” As if making up his mind, he took me by the wrist and pulled me over his lap, along the length of the couch. His hands continued their dance over my calves, thighs, and onto my rounded rump. “I bet Bond knew. Didn’t he?” His large palm spanked across my ass.

“Ohhh,” I moaned.

Then he spanked my bottom repeatedly. The heat of my punishment shot to my clit and nipples, causing me to gasp. “I don’t strut.”

“Are you going to answer me about Bond knowing?” he asked when he paused.

“Never!”

“Naughty
and
rebellious.”

The spanking resumed, my butt flaring red from the pain and pleasure. Then his hand soothed my buttocks and delved between my legs, touching my wet entrance.

I turned over on his lap and said, “Fuck me. Hard. Take me from behind.”

“I want to see your face.” He lifted me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, easily carried me as he kicked the outside door closed, moved through the archway to the bedroom, and deposited me on his bed.

I laughed. “You should probably grab a towel or two.” I took off my bra as he shucked his clothes. When he stepped out of the room, I flipped over onto my front in the center of the bed.

“What’re you doing?” he asked when he returned.

Wagging my ass in the air, I said, “I think that should be obvious.”

He laughed and easily flipped me over. “But I want to kiss you.”

“Then kiss me first, but fuck me from behind.”

“I know what you’re doing.” He sat on the bed next to me.

“Good, then we’re on the same page.”

“We’re doing it my way, Blue. Do I need to spank you again? Apparently, it wasn’t hard enough. And if you recall, it was you who wanted to lose the condoms.”

I can always shut my eyes.

“No,” he said as if he could read my mind.

I pushed him over, onto his back and crawled my way down his body. His cock twitched against my cheek when I breathed in his masculine scent. “So much better without the condom,” I murmured next to his testicles. My tongue flowed up the length of his shaft, my mouth covering his wide-brimmed head. “Yummy,” I said, memorizing his smell.

“Come here.” He pulled my hips over his face. “You have the perfect pussy. Your clit wants me already, poking out and swollen.” His finger petted my outer lips and my hardened nub as I struggled to focus on his cock. He dipped his fingers inside and then trailed them to my ass. “Your little red bud is calling to me. Does Bond play with your ass?”

“My mouth is full,” I mumbled, groaning over the sensation. “Can’t ... answer.”

“Do you play with your own ass? Toys?” he asked as he worked his finger in deeper.

“Mmmhmm.” I took his cock in as far as it would go, drew back, and then suckled the tip, fondling his balls with my free hand.

“You’re the naughtiest woman I’ve ever known.”

Propping myself up, I said, “You must have led a very sheltered life.”

“Will you show me sometime?”

“Maybe.”

He swung me around so we faced each other, lying side by side. “Maybe?” Aggressively, he devoured my lips, pulling my thigh over his leg and penetrating my pussy. He started fingering my ass again, causing me to cry out.

“Towel,” I managed to say.

We worked together to shift one underneath me and resumed our play.

“I want in there,” he demanded, thrusting his finger deep in my ass as he circled his pelvis against me.

My gush sloshed between us. “We—oh that’s so good—have to work up to that. Toys ... first.”

He paused and said, “Let’s get dressed and go to your place.”

I laughed and saw him smile. Then I wiped that smile off his face when I bit his full lower lip and kissed him roughly. All the sensations eddied like a tide pool building up to a tsunami. I closed my eyes and my heart and allowed my body dominion.

He stopped moving and ordered, “Look at me.”

I shook my head back and forth.

With his free hand, he grasped my jaw.

My eyes flew open.

“I want you here with me.”

“Please don’t.”

“I need you here with me, Blue. Please.” He slowly continued our fuck, morphing it again into lovemaking. Our mouths hovered close, our breath comingling.

He kissed my cheeks, his eyes locked on mine. “Stay with me.” He removed his finger from my ass and used his other hand on my clit. We slowly moved together, his breath my breath.

We rode the edge of forever, losing ourselves in each other. He rolled his hips into me, mirroring the motion with his fingers on my clit. I held his face in my right palm and his waist in my left, rocking into his lashing. We roughly kissed with our eyes open until I soared outside of myself and screamed out my climax. Tumbling down in freefall, my eyes locked on Tate’s as he yelled out, “Bluuue!” and filled me with his energy and cum.

He kissed my forehead, eyelids, cheeks, and softly nuzzled my mouth. “That was beyond...” he whispered.

I snuggled against his chest, burying my head in tight, struggling to keep it together. Fear shrouded around me and in his arms, I clambered to fight off my demons.

“You’re shaking. What is it?”

“I’ll never be good enough.”

“Baby, you already are. More than good enough. Shhh. I’m here.”

“For how long?”

“I can’t answer that. No one can, really. If I’ve realized anything in life it’s this: nothing and no one can be counted on.”

“I can count on my friends.”

“Well then, you’re luckier than most. I’m here now, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Lying in his arms, surrounded by his energy, I thought,
How can your heart break as you’re falling in love?
It had to be self-torture in the extreme. Why was I so mean to myself?

“Stop it, Blue. I can hear the gears grinding.”

“You’re too nice to me. You need to cut it out.”

“You know that’s not going to happen. Like I’ve said, give it time.”

Time was my enemy, sitting on my shoulder, doubled over in hysterics, lazily kicking his leg. When did time ever make anything better? Not during my lifetime. My father and brother were still out of my life. And good riddance. Neither ever deemed it important to apologize or make amends for treating me like a body they could use for closing a deal or sharing with a friend. Those memories never became easier to bear. I sighed out heavily.

Tate lifted my shoulders so he could see my face. “Tell me, Blue.”

“I can’t.”

“Come on, sure you can. I’m a great listener, and I won’t judge you.”

“Only if you share something, too. Anything.”

He sat up against the headboard, pulling me up with him. As if it pained him, he said, “I once had a group of friends like you do.”

“Your motorcycle friends?”

“No.”

I wanted to ask what happened, but I assumed that would cause him to shut down. Instead, I asked, “How long were you all friends?”

“Years. Since high school.”

I wondered where they were now. Choosing my words carefully, I asked, “Was your wife one of them?”

The crease in his forehead deepened. “Yes.”

In my head, I started calculating. Forty-three-years-old minus sixteen years for the approximate age when they met, minus another three for the past years of no sex, equals twenty-four years.
Holy shit!

“It’s your turn to share,” he said.

“Just two more questions and you can ask me anything you want.” I couldn’t allow the window of opportunity to shut before I knew a few more things.

“Get it over with, please.”

“This isn’t the dentist.”

“Feels just about like it.”

I held my breath and then asked, “Was your wife your first?”

“Yes.”

“How many lovers have you had?”

“Like you, none.”

Uh huh.

“Lovers, four. One-night stands? Every night for about six months straight.”

“That’s a lot.” I would bet my left boob that the six-month fuck-a-thon took place just before his long stretch of abstinence.

“Four lovers before me or three.”

“You’re number four.”

“Hmm, okay.”

He brushed the hair away from the right side of my face and looped it behind my ear. “Who hurt you so badly? Left you feeling you aren’t the most amazing, gorgeous, kind creature that walks the earth?”

I put some distance between Tate and me and sat cross-legged. “There’s a long list.”

“Bond?” He rested his hand on my thigh, and I liked having it there.

“No, not Bond. I’m not saying it’s always been peachy keen with him and it hasn’t hurt sometimes, but that was more circumstance than intent.”

“Your parents?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“One. Matt and my father aren’t in my life.”

“Who else?”

“Why?” I had an odd sensation in my gut. Like he planned to track them all down and make them pay. I liked it.

“Tell me.”

“My brother’s best friend. I thought I loved him.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen.”

Tate’s face lit up in anger, and I knew he knew. “He took your virginity, missionary.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“And your brother?”

“He watched and egged him on.”

“I’ll kill them both,” he growled, the heat crawling up his neck, making his ears red.

“You sound like Bond.”

“He knows?” he practically roared.

“Yes. He’s the only one.”

“That doesn’t make me feel the least bit better.”

“Minus the sex, Bond is the big brother I wished I had. Be jealous if you must, but he’s helped me cope with the shit in my life. He’s helped me to not hate my body so much.”

“Hate this body?” He drew me closer. “It’s meant to be worshipped. You’re a goddess and if I ever see your brother, he will reap extreme pain.”

I smiled. “It was a long time ago. He was a kid, too.”

“There is no statute of limitations on retaliation for permanently hurting the people I care about.”

“You care about me?”

He cares about me.

He cares about me.

He cares about me,
tagged to the beginning of a new list, to mull over later.

He cares about me!

“Of course I do. I like you a lot and if you let me, I’ll exorcise all your demons.”

“That’ll take some doing. Anyway, Matt’s at the bottom of the list.”

“He’s on the bottom? How long is the list?”

“Way too long.”

“What did your father do?”

“It’s what he tried to do. He tried to force me to have dinner with one of his clients. He wanted me to flirt and I quote, ‘Maybe more.’” I wrapped my arms around myself. “Apparently, my assholic brother told him I wasn’t a virgin.”

“How old were you?” Tate looked furious.

“We should stop talking about this,” I said, reaching for his hand.

“Fuck no. Did your mother know?”

“After the fact. My parents were already separated.”

“What about your mother? You said, ‘parents.’”

“Skeevy boyfriends. She never believed me.”

“Did they—”

“No, they tried, though. Lots of inappropriate groping when she wasn’t looking. I had a lock on my bedroom door and used it.”

“Jesus Christ, Blue. I’m so sorry.”

“Life sucks. I learned that a long time ago. My friends are really my family. My only real connection to my biology is my aunt on my mother’s side. Sometimes that has to be enough. For me, it is. I’ve spent so much time wishing I had a different body, that people wouldn’t notice me, that I could be a wallflower. My breasts got big so young. Having grown men hit on me when I was still in elementary school started my body hatred, and my family didn’t help.” Tears that I’d kept at bay during our conversation finally rebelled.