Monsters Under the Bed (13 page)

Oh, I was gonna give Niedermayer a piece of my mind when I next saw him.

Although, to be fair, the man was just doing his job. I was the one working too slow.

But at the moment, a more pressing matter loomed.

I pulled away from him, and he turned around, facing me. Ford was calm, waiting for me to speak. I hated doing this. “I know you’re in his will.”

Ford said nothing, but I saw his lips thin the way they did when he was holding back his anger. “I see. For how long?”

“Since I met with Mo’s lawyer.”

Then Ford pursed his lips back to their normal full selves, and I knew he was done with his annoyance. “And until the will was verified you couldn’t say I was in it. I understand.”

“You do?” Why was I defending myself, dammit? He was the one who was a suspect.

Ford tilted his head, melancholic. “Ask me, Sam. I know you need to.”

I gritted my teeth, feeling strained and high-strung. I hated myself for being put in this situation. “Why are you in his will, Ford?”

I saw sadness emerge from him. “Mr. Niedermayer didn’t say why. I only know that I am.” He must have anticipated my next question because he added, “I inherit two million dollars.”

I choked on air, and I had to put my hand over my heart to check if it was still beating.

Ford looked concerned then and came toward me. “Sam, are you okay? Talk to me.” His hands landed on my shoulders, grounding me. “Please, tell me you’re all right.” His pitch rose in alarm.

I rested my palms over his hands, patting them a little. “I’m okay. Sort of, anyway.” I couldn’t turn my eyes away. “Two million bucks? Fuck me.”

“Oh, now that I’m rich you want my booty.” A flicker of a smile adorned his lips, and I saw his attempt at humor as an attempt to connect with me.

I tried to smile back, but I felt… wrong. “Ford? Have you been in contact with Mo Chance since you two met at the hospital?”

Ford’s gaze dropped to the floor, and I had my answer. And it sure as hell wasn’t one I wanted. I backed away from him, and his lost touch left me empty inside.

“Sam, I….” He looked at me pleadingly, but I didn’t know what to do. He had withheld this from me while I was investigating his benefactor’s death.

“Do I really need to say that I think you should’ve told me?” I demanded angrily, and I felt my hands fisting at my sides because my fingernails dug painfully into my palms.

Ford’s face crumbled. “Mo texted me a few times after the shooting, just to check how I was. We never met. I was polite when I texted him back, just to thank him for his well-wishes and for the flowers and stuff. That’s all.” He reached for me, but I stepped back. If I let him touch me, I would cave, and I needed my wits about me right then. “I’ve dreamt about him a lot, even last night, but I haven’t spoken to him since the hospital.”

Dreams….

I closed my eyes. I followed my train of thought as it flew in directions I would never have considered before the Veil lifted. Could it be so easy? I recalled the vivid imagery of Mo’s playroom and found what I was looking for. Like a film, each graphic frame flashed after the other to form a clear picture.

But none of that mattered for the moment because all I knew was that my Ford was innocent. And he was all mine.

Ford hadn’t interrupted me while I was lost in remembrances. He knew me too well. In fact, I don’t think there was a person in the world who knew me the way he did, all the way down to my heart and soul.

“Ford?” He blinked, worrying his lower lip, and I saw the condensation of moisture in his eyes and how his jaw trembled. “I love you.”

Without a word, he collided with me, winding his arms tight around me, kissing my neck, cheek, and finally lips. I parted mine and let him in. His tongue took possession of me just as his body did, and I was his for good. Even though I now knew
his
secret too.

Lack of coordination and finesse was our trademark as we kissed, fondled, groped, and took what the other was offering. I heard him fumble with the stove, and then the click when he turned it off. He shoved me down on the rug on the kitchen floor and landed on top of me. He was strong and aggressive, and I yielded to his passion.

I was pushing forty—four more years to go, thank you very much—so the idea of kitchen sex with my knobby knees wasn’t exactly a favorite fantasy of mine. But with him holding my hands above my head while he maneuvered his hand down my pants to fist and tug at my cock, I honestly didn’t care.

We’d been together for five years, so we had stashes of lube everywhere. Never had I been more glad of that fact then now when he practically ripped my clothes off. His hands and mouth were seemingly everywhere at once as my back and buttocks were pressed against the coarse rug. I’d have finger-shaped bruises and bite marks all over for a week.

With rough hands, he flipped me over, trapping my aching dick against the rug. He spit at my crack, grabbed my hips with force, practically split me open with his hands, and buried his face in my taint. His light stubble burned at my exposed skin, but then his tongue entered me, and I yearned for more, not less. He licked and probed at my hole, wiggling inside and leaving me a wanton mess.

Ford spit down my crevice again, and it felt so trashy and dirty. And I loved it, him taking what he wanted out of me. He tugged at my balls and cock while he ate my ass. It wasn’t something we often did in the heat of the moment. This time, however, he didn’t seem to care about anything else but having me, tasting me, claiming me. I groaned loudly with the pleasure of it.

Then he reared back and lubed up his cock, if the dripping wet gliding sound was any indication. Then two fingers weighed down at my ring of muscle, the touch intimate and insistent. I willed myself to relax, and his fingers popped in. He made quick, efficient work of me until I melted from his prodding of my prostate, and I was left a pool of jelly.

Then his hand was replaced by his fat cockhead, and in one assertive move, he thrust into me.

I moaned, and so did he.

Ford came to lie down on top of me, chest to back, and his weight was on me. I was thoroughly pinned down, and I had a feeling I was about to get the pounding of a lifetime.

Ford didn’t disappoint. Hooking his hands beneath my shoulders to grip at them hard, he started moving at a gentle pace. But soon he was ramming into me like a horny bull, and I had no recourse but to accept his primal loving. In truth, there was nowhere else I’d rather have been at that moment than locked in his embrace.

Then his right arm wrapped around my throat and neck, almost cutting off my air supply. I felt heady because this was so dangerous, but immediately I felt his sloppy, wet, hot kisses land on my shoulders, neck, ears, and cheek. He loved me, and I had nothing to fear.

Then he twisted his head along with mine to kiss me from behind at such an awkward angle we barely managed anything but a few brushes of lips, a couple of licks of each other’s tongues, and shared heavy breathing. But it was my Ford, so I took every little contact I could get.

I moved one of my knees up a little to open myself more, and in response Ford amped up his already fast pace to rapid-fire pistoning of his hips. God, his cock felt so good inside me, and his balls slapped against my perineum. I was truly and utterly stuffed full by another man, his thick, long penis claiming my body the way his kisses claimed my heart.

With his mass above me, I didn’t have access to my own dick, as it wept early seed, to get off. I was dripping precome all over the place as he thrust into me, time and again, and I moaned in pleasure and frustration.

Then Ford somehow wormed his left hand under me and started jerking me off. His calloused hand was smooth from the lube, and I fucked into his grip. In no time at all I let out a hoarse cry when my balls pulled up and felt so heavy it hurt, and then I started coming. Hot liquid pooled beneath my belly as my cock twitched to push out every last drop, but I didn’t care. He kept pumping me until my balls were dry, and only then did he let go.

With short, shallow strokes now he reamed me, and I felt his urgency as clearly as if it were my own. He was panting hard on me, wet puffs branding hot on my goose-bumpy skin. Then, without warning, he pushed all the way inside me, shuddered, and filled my ass with his seed.

“Oh, Sam, love you so much,” he whispered in my ear, his voice merely a raspy sound.

“Love you too, Ford.” I let my cheek press onto the rug, not caring if there were breadcrumbs or coffee spills there. I felt heavy and yet weightless. My skin tingled all over, and my groin was aching hot still, my muscles contracting with the exertion.

Then all his strength gave out, and his body landed entirely on top of me, nothing held back. I grunted but didn’t let him move off an inch. We lay like that, spent and tangled, for a while, just trying to catch our breaths.

Well, I guess I could cross sex on the kitchen floor off my to-do list.

“Will you still help me with the flowers tomorrow at the nursery?” I heard the near desperate hesitation in the tremors of his tone.

I nodded as best I could from my captured position. “Yes, of course.”

“What changed your mind about me?”

“I didn’t have to change my mind about your innocence. You always were and are that to me. In my eyes you can do no wrong.”

“I’m not perfect, Sam. I can do the wrong thing too, just like anyone.” He nuzzled my neck. “Remember the way I was before I was shot?”

“Oh, you mean the drinking, whoring, racist, sexist asshole? I recall a thing or two.”

He nudged me hard but playfully because of my sarcastic tone. “So you know better than anyone I’m not all that—”

“You are to me. All that’s behind you. You’re a new and far better man now.”

He sighed on top of me, my warm blanket of flesh. “I’ve alienated everyone else but you. My family in Idaho won’t even speak to me, not after I slept with my cousin’s fiancée at their wedding. I was a bastard then.”

“Is that what you meant?”

“Huh?”

“When you said you wanted to be someone else, but only once.”

Ford brushed his lips over my nape, the hint of a touch so erotic and intimate. “When I was at the hospital no one came to see me except you. Sure, some colleagues popped by out of a sense of duty, but only you were there every single day, waiting for me to wake up.”

I chuckled breathlessly, unable to do much more being held down so firmly against the floor. “How could you possibly know that? You were unconscious.”

“It was like I got a second chance. And the way you looked at me….” His grip on me tightened. “I knew loving you was going to be my purpose in life.”

I actually had to pause to reflect on that. At the time, the change in him had been so sudden I had questioned it. When he seduced me, I didn’t believe in the sincerity of it, though I did give in. I was certain fucking would end our professional and personal relationship. Instead, what I’d gotten was five years of love and devotion.

The night he had tempted me, we’d been in the car. I was driving him home because that was the day he officially quit the force—and I right along with him. At first he was so mad at me that all through the ride home he ranted on and on about how I was wasting my career out of some peculiar sense of loyalty to him. I denied it but couldn’t tell him why. How could I admit how I felt about him?

The moment I parked the car at the curb of his house, he stopped his relentless speech, and dead silence filled the vehicle. Ford looked at me, his eyes ablaze, and I couldn’t do anything but stare back, wondering if in the darkness he could see me wearing my heart on my sleeve.

Then Ford curled his hand around the back of my head, grabbed me hard, and yanked me close, and then he crashed his mouth against mine. It was fire and staking a claim and need and falling in love, all in one.

That was our first kiss, and to this day the memory of it is visceral, vivid, and alive in every sense. That night he took me to his bed and fucked me for the first time. There was never any question about me giving him my ass. I was sure the whole thing meant more to me than to him, so once he fell asleep, I didn’t linger. I believed he wanted to wake up to find me gone and pretend it never happened.

Because of my preconceptions—or idiocy, take your pick—I was wholly unprepared for the damn near angelic level of righteous indignation I was confronted with when he found me at my house while I was checking the want ads. He was so angry at me for bailing on him during the night. He was shouting at me, waving his hands about, his face as red and puffy as his eyes, and that told me he’d been crying. From his yelling I got the gist of his disappointment. He thought I had rejected him, and it drove him crazy with desperation.

I lunged at him then, wrestled him onto the living room floor with strong arms and hard kisses, and had my way with him. And that day there’d been no question about him giving his ass to me.

We’d been together ever since. That day had been a wake-up call for me, and I suppose for him in a way too. There was no denying what had happened between us. It just was. Larger than life, bigger than either of us. And over the years, he had proven many times over that who he had been before was lost forever. The new man, the new Ford, loved me and only me.

“Spring season will officially commence with the annual San Fran Flower & Garden Show, so I can finally get those trilliums and fawn lilies to bloom.” Ford was the only man I knew or even heard of who got this excited about the prospect of flowers. “They’re so temperamental. They want to grow out in the wild, but I bet I can get them to obey me. Or at least let me charm them into submission.”

His low chuckle tickled at my skin, and I laughed with him. “We’ll go to your floral marketplace tomorrow, I promise. You’ll spend your monthly budget in the span of five minutes, and then I can finally get that burger—”

“How about sushi?”

“Raw fish? Why are you torturing me?”

“It’ll be good for you.”

“Yeah, ’cause I love to end the day with a little raw food poisoning.”

“Don’t be such a scaredy-cat.”