Next to You (Life) (17 page)

As she smiles, she licks her top lip and then lowers her face to my chest, and makes her way down to my abs. I quiver as she approaches my stomach and keeps going down on me. Her fingers are lightly tracing my cock, then she lifts her gaze as if waiting for instructions or permission. I have no idea, but I’m internally begging for more… a firm touch, a lick… anything to…. Becca doesn’t let me finish thinking about the possibilities, damn she’s licking me like a frozen chocolate bar. Consuming me as if it melts in her mouth.

“Bex, I think I love you more, if that’s even possible,” I scream, as she sucks the tip of my cock and then takes me inside that luscious mouth of hers. “Faster.” It’s the only word I’m able to articulate as she swallows me in and out. The urge of releasing inside her mouth increases. I never thought sweet Becca Trent would ever be able to move from missionary position, and I didn’t mind. However, for the past twenty four hours, she’s been letting her hair down and showing me a part of herself I would never imagine existed. “I’m about to come, Bex, I need to be inside you, please.”

As she releases me, I pull her toward me and kiss her deeply. “You’re amazing.” I flip her and end up on top of her, ready to reciprocate and eat her pussy, but before I act, I ask, “Do you want me to make you come first?”

There are no words, only her hand guiding my cock toward her entrance. I slide into the hot, sweet pleasure with ease. We both groan at the same time and we begin rocking against each other.

Her eyes are wide open glowing with a mix of love and lust; matching my feelings. As our bodies join at a fast pace, Becca entwines her fingers behind my head and pulls me toward her, taking my mouth with a kiss that finally joins us as we both lose control with ripping orgasms that make us both scream. I tighten my grip as I come back from the violent eruption, our hearts beating with the same intensity of the cyclone that overtook us only seconds ago.

“I love you, Becca Trent,” I’m finally able to speak. “That was…”

“You’re not just saying it to make me feel good about myself?”

“Nope.” I fondle her hair. “Special, unique, unexpected and let’s say it blew my mind.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“Next time, we have a lifetime to practice.” I kiss the top of her head and rock her against my body. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Danny.” My chest swells with those words. She snuggles on my chest and closes her eyes. “Forever.”

Chapter 31

B
ecca and I
discussed my father during the week after we arrived home from Maldives. We conclude, that even though I feel like I have closure, I have a few remaining questions lingering around my mind. Questions that need answers and the only way to get them is by calling him.

My fingers begin to dial the phone number Randy provided me with. After two rings a male voice on the other side of the receiver answers.

“Hello.” Paralyzed like a child I don’t know what to say. Shoving a contract in his face for him to sign isn’t the same as asking for a second rejection from him when he answers my questions. “Hello,” the voice repeats.

“Elijah Brightmore,” I say keeping my best business tone. “This is Daniel Brightmore.”

“Do you need any more signatures?”
No.
“Send your people, I’m sure you can find our new address.”

Hang up, my mind screams; but my hand doesn’t follow the order. My mouth though continues with the set of instructions I established before dialing. I have a systematic plan to get this right. “My call… is there a way we can talk?”

“We are talking,” Elijah states the obvious. “How can I help you?”

“Not over the phone,” I say, because the conversation involves my private life, and I need to see if my opponent is giving me a shitty story worthy of a fiction novel or the truth. “Name the day and time.”

“Daniel, in all honesty you shouldn’t bother,” he replies. “Your last visit left a sour taste, of course after what I did to you, I shouldn’t have expected a Hallmark encounter. However, springing a contract where you all but changed my surname in exchange for money hurt. Again, my fault partially—at least that’s what my wife says.”

Partially?

His wife, he couldn’t come up with that all by himself? “If you knew who I was, why not look for me?”

“Because you’d think I wanted your money.”

“It bothered you that I set up a trust fund,” my voice loses all control and the rough tone takes over. How dare he say that, when he threw a childish tantrum when I offered the money in the form of a trust fund—for his other two children. “Instead of—”

“No,” he interrupts, his raspy voice sounds close to mine. “It upset me that you tried to buy me. I was irate that you didn’t allow me to tell you my side of the story and ask for forgiveness.”

“You fucking abandoned me.” I stand up and my voice becomes deafening, my vocal cords have never worked at that volume. “A five year old left in the streets, alone like a stray.”

“Once the storm calmed, I realized my stupidity,” the breaking voice on the other side informs me. “But by then the five year old had turned twelve and the chances of facing charges for abandonment—”

“So you got yourself a family?”

“Joan,” he names his wife. “The woman has a little nightingale syndrome.” He chuckles. “She helped me get through my hell and we fell in love. We didn’t have much, and that included money for an attorney. Then you’d have become another mouth to feed. I’m not proud of my choices, twenty one and alone with a kid.”

My twenty one year old self would’ve taken care of the kid.

“Mom died when I turned fourteen. Dad turned to alcohol and forgot about us.” Not that I care. “Two years later, I met her—Muriel—she got pregnant and her parents kicked her out of her own home. I tried hard. What was I to do?”

The other side of the story sounds like a whiney man with the maturity of a five year old child. Of course he would’ve had trouble taking care of me. Damn, I sound like an asshole. Compassion. That word keeps coming up every time I pass judgment.

“Have compassion, baby,” Becca told me recently. “A dictionary of emotions, that’s what you need. There’s always the other side of the story. You can’t come to a conclusion until you find out about them in detail.”

“Why abandon me?”

“I thought the government would take care of you,” he responds. “I lost my job, they kicked us out of the trailer and I had a hungry child in tow. You might not remember, but I told you that before I picked you up, I needed money. I needed to make a lot of money for you.”

Is that why I have this crazy obsession with making my mark and owning as much as I can?

“Not that I did.” He snorts. “Now you, Daniel Elijah Brightmore are a famous name.” A bitter part of me wants to fix the middle name. At least take away the part that made me his son, but Becca said once that the E made my name perfect. Do I care for perfection? No, I care about making her happy and granting all her wishes. “The system worked wonders with you.”

“No,” my response is clipped, no need to explain my life in detail to a stranger. “It’s always about money. The cycle; you have it, you’re unhappy, you don’t and you’re unhappy too. I guess your answer is as good as it gets.”

“Unless…” Then the line is silent and I wait. “I’d like it if we could get to know each other, you’re family, my first born. Of course, there’s no obligation. It’s not about the money.” Elijah laughs. “We both are old enough to understand things won’t result in a father-son bond, but why not try? A friendship, knowing you can call me when something good happens.”

The last sentence has a hint of anxiety mixed with it. Call him when something good happens. What happens to the all the bad? There’s no heartfelt apology or a let’s try something real. Before hanging up I tell him that I’d think about his offer. Then the memory of Richard Swanson comes to mind. He calls me as often as possible or emails, mostly to ask how I am. Like an asshole, I sent his calls to voicemail because my scheduled demanded it, but he had been a father.

Dialing another number, I sit back and relax looking at the eight by ten in front of me. Damn that pretty face should be judging me, telling me I am close to scum for ignoring the two people that tried to be my parents for years. Instead, I know she would hug me and make the tightening feeling of sadness go away. “Dan?”

“Hey, Richard,” I answer. “Do you mind if I come and visit you this weekend?”

“This is your home boy,” he says with a pleasant tone. “Ophie would be happy to see you. Are you bringing the girl Buddy talks about all the time? Your girlfriend?”

Right on cue, Rusty walks inside my office and Becca is behind with a wide smile.

“Of course, I will,” I respond before hanging up the phone. “See you soon, Rich.

“Hey, my beautiful girlfriend,” I greet her and pull her to my lap when she reaches me. Becca brushes my lips and everything is well again. “I called him—my father.”

“Want to talk about it?” I nod and convey my entire conversation to her, without leaving any detail out—or what I think about it. “Would you come with me to visit Rich and Ophie?”

“Of course, with you I’ll go to the end of the world.” She sprinkles kisses around my face, and my fingers fiddle with the skirt of her dress. As I reach the hem they climb the soft skin of her thighs. “The door is open, Brightmore, and your assistant hasn’t left for the day yet. Let me take you home.” She springs out of my lap. “I’ll take care of you.” She licks her lips and heads toward the door. “See you at the elevator in five.”

“Vixen.”

Chapter 32

“
W
e can stay
home,” Becca says for the third, perhaps fourth time. As we spoke about my foster parents yesterday, I asked if she’d go with me to visit them. It’s important to me to rekindle my relationship with them and for them to meet my girl. She agreed, though after all this stalling I’m beginning to think she thought I was bluffing, or that we’d do the trip in a year or two. After all these years of knowing me, she should know better. Then again, this is also a new step into that family life I want to cultivate, her take about that not happening soon somehow makes sense. “Rusty is afraid of heights and planes.”

“Rusty has flown before.” I pick her up by the waist and climb up the stairs of the jet. “You’re better than this, Little One, coward doesn’t look pretty on you.” I have no idea what the big deal is, she’ll love them once she meets them. “If you don’t have fun, I’ll make it up to you.”

“You got a new plane?” she asks, as I set her down and she looks around. I nod and remember her absent mood the day we took her back from North Carolina after they discharged her from the hospital. A subject we don’t talk about, she dealt with it and says that as with everything else in her life it will come up from time to time during therapy. The famous therapy sessions have decreased from four times a week, to two, but they’ll be a constant in her life. That is the best medication for a person with a severe case of PTSD. “You need to give me a tour. Where is Rusty?”

“Kennel, Bex.” I don’t say anything else, but hope she doesn’t make a big drama that her dog is inside a cage. PETA has nothing on Becca when it comes to Rusty’s rights. Training that pup is a hard task, because of the fights for his rights. In other words, she spoils him rotten. “He needs to travel safe, after takeoff we can get him out for a while.” She twists her mouth and doesn’t say a thing. “Thank you, for coming with me.”

“Really, you’re thanking me?” Becca’s tone, big yawn and attitude hint at her mood. She’s grumpy—not only from nerves about meeting the Swansons, but also from lack of sleep. “You did notice the part where you carried me inside your new and bigger aircraft, right.”

“You like to stall,” I dismiss her and secure her seatbelt once she has taken a seat. I notice her neck only has a few strands of hair falling down and knowing it gets her libido going, I begin to brush my lips around it. As she shivers, I nip the soft skin and don’t let it go until I know she’s quivering for me. “I promise, Bex, they’ll love you. Please, push away those nerves, Princess. Joseph might swing by and that’ll take most of the attention away.”

“Are you mad at him?” I shake my head, remembering that in front of her I only call him Buddy and Joseph when he hits a nerve. “Why?”

“Why? He’s always admiring the neighbor’s daughters.” So far he hasn’t convinced any of them to be
the Austin girlfriend—smart girls
. “Ophie lectures him about it all the time. It’s a guaranteed buffer, now take a breath and while you’re at it, a nap. You barely got a couple hours of sleep, I can see it right there.” With the knuckle of my index finger I trace the shadows under her eyes. I wonder if she had nightmares and I begin to worry. “Would you like to share the story with me?”

“I just couldn’t sleep after you left… at
two
in the morning.” I grin.
Good times, good times.
“Took me an hour to pick up the kitchen and—“

“One of those obsessive cleaning moments?” Too wired up to be able to go to bed, I tried to stay over and she said not ready yet… ridiculous. Of course she also added something around the lines of ‘once I let you stay, I’m not going to be able to kick you out—ever.’
Too late, too fast, too easy and goodbye.
Knowing Becca, that wasn’t an hour of picking up, more like a couple and it included the grout in the bathroom. “I bet you got only a couple of hours of sleep. You’ll fall asleep in no time. Planes tend to have that effect on you.”

As I say that, the flight attendant hands Becca her fleece blanket and like magic, as I help Becca wrap up with it, her eyes give in and she’s fast asleep. I wait for Scott to give me the green light and I take her to the bed where she can rest for the next three hours without hurting her neck.

*

Becca and I reach the ranch where Richard and Ophelia Swanson live, as a black pick-up truck parks in the driveway.

“Who is that?” Becca asks, pointing at the truck, the tinted windows don’t allow us to see the driver. Right then, Buddy emerges from it. Unmistakable with broad shoulders, the five o’clock shadow he likes to sport any time of the day, his light brown hair barely an inch above the shoulder and barbwire tattoos on both arms. He has that broadened smirk stamped on his face, the one he gives Becca every time he sees her. No doubt he bought her something. “He came.” She claps excitedly and I understand the reason behind Tyler and Buddy’s fall out; Becca. They’re fighting for the spot of favorite brother. They don’t give a shit about me. A year ago Becca and Tyler weren’t even speaking to each other, ever since Aspen, Ty has been making his way into her life and Bud’s not liking it. “He’s going to take me away, since you want to feed me to the sharks.”

“They’re good people, Princess.” She clamps her lips and jets out of the car, running toward Buddy and hugging him. Something is true; if she asks him to take her away he’ll do it without asking why. Not me, I know her insecurities are unreal. Taking my time, I open the door for Rusty and he follows behind. I spot Buddy handing Becca a bag. He has that devilish grin on his face that reminds me of when he was younger and we had a few minutes of peace. He was a kid for a few minutes and some days that reassured me that what we were doing was right—stealing, fighting and not giving up. Becca used to say I had one—boyish grin—and she adored it.

“Your children are going to inherit it… breathtaking, yet alarming because it means you did something or are planning the next conquest.”

Ophie opens the door, wearing a pair of denim overalls, a black turtleneck under it and a pair of riding boots. She gives us a welcome smile. Her dark brown eyes used to match her dark hair, which now has been overtaken by a golden brown mane. At sixty she keeps herself without one gray hair on that head, the opposite of her husband who I always remember having silver spots in that jet black hair of his. “Boys, it’s so nice to see you,” she says and walks toward us.

“Joseph, you’re bearing presents?” Of course this woman knows him well, there’s no way he’d do something as nice. Unless it was for his little sister—then he’ll get her chocolate and what not—or he wanted something. He nods and hands her a similar bag to the one Becca holds. “Since when did you learn how to bake?”

“Never,” Becca answers. “These are from a coffee shop in Boston. He only eats, and his theory behind it is that you can never enjoy what you cook or bake yourself.”

“You must be Becca.” Ophie gets closer to her and extends her hand. “Ophelia Swanson, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Hi,” Becca reciprocates and wide eyes focus on me. I bet internally she’s begging me to stop the torture. Still she keeps a relaxed face, not one muscle twitches. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

“She’s okay with hugs,” Buddy says without specifying to whom he’s referring to, and with that, they hug each other. “Oph, meet my little sister. Dan’s other half and a saint, because only she can deal with him.”

Becca’s fears dissipate fast, if possible, I think I see those pesky things leaving her body as Ophie makes her feel welcomed. That’s what she does best. The first time I met her, I believed things were possible and my life could change. I huff, because that’s also applicable to Becca. Sorrowful eyes and all, she grabbed my heart and injected it with enough love to believe I could reciprocate.

It doesn’t take long before I feel like I’m part of some tour. The day begins with introductions, followed by horses, sheep, cows, pigs and rabbits. Rusty and Becca scramble from one side of the ranch, to the other like children exploring a new world. Ophie shows Becca her garden, then shows her the kitchen. They kick me out and I head to the garage, where Buddy is already with Rich. He’s restoring a 1962 Chevy Impala, a hobby of his now. He no longer has to repair cars for a living during the evenings, after coming home from the construction site. Richard never complained back then, he loves to do both things and he’s good at them.

This is a nice way to spend my weekend. Buddy does this often, visits them. After I left for college, he stayed around for another two years and they grew closer. Back then my goal didn’t include family, I never realized they were such. Not until now. The only person I recognized as family had been Buddy, because we lived together for eleven years and fought together for about the same amount of time.

“Becca is pretty,” Richard says suddenly, after about an hour of silence and only tweaking, cleaning and oiling parts. “Nice, and sweet. You two tying the knot soon?”

“No.” I wipe my hands with the towel on top of the radiator. “Eventually, when the time is right. Although you’ll see us more often, I think Ophie likes her.”

“I hope you do. Ophie and I will love to see you and the girl more often, Son. ” Then, he turns to Buddy and after slapping him on the shoulder, he lectures him, “And you, Joseph, Ophie will like you to stop harassing the neighbor’s daughters, boy. You’re old, it’s time to grow up, Son.”

Buddy’s life wasn’t easy from the start. He lost his parents, then they sent him to a house where they… we both had a hard time. Before things escalated, we escaped living inside an abandoned building for about a year. Another two months inside the janitorial room of a hospital and finally, we arrived home with the Swansons. Then Buddy got sick, cancer, Leukemia and became the first case Raj worked on. He saved him. I miraculously had been a match for his bone marrow transplant. It was a painful procedure that was worth every minute. Adding to the sequences of Friday the thirteenth experiences, being attacked by a gang and almost killed had closed out our horrendous past. I dealt with it by controlling my every step, while Buddy became a carefree person. Rich should let him be, Buddy’s old enough to deal with his own life.