The Pet Shop (22 page)

S
TELLA COULDN’T REMEMBER EVER
being so tired. She had been wet and cold and miserable for the biggest part of a month, which had helped keep her mind off of what really hurt. It had been a friend of Bob Paris’s from Vanguard who had put her on to the position. She knew precious little about seabirds when she left London, and now she knew more than she supposed she’d ever need to know, but not nearly as much as she’d have liked. It was an adventure that had kept her from falling apart, but now it was time to go home and pick up the pieces, if there were any left to pick up.

She was completely shattered after the train delays, then there was the struggle to get a taxi in the pouring rain and the long crawl through city traffic. Being home was off to a rough start, she thought as she dragged her bag up the stairs to her flat. She was about halfway up when suddenly Vincent stood beside her, and she knew she must still be dozing in the train, dreaming the dream she’d had so often since that horrible day at the Pet Shop. He said nothing, only turned and carried her luggage the rest of the way up for her.

At the door, when she tried to speak, he placed a warm finger over her lips. ‘Before you say anything, I’m not leaving unless you call the police to come and drag me away.’ Surely it was a dream then. Only in a dream would he say the very thing she needed to hear.

And again she was struggling to unlock the door. It was like déjà vu as he placed his hand over hers and helped her with it.

Inside she stood in the middle of the floor in the lounge not quite knowing what to do until he took her hand and led her down the hall to the bathroom. Everything seemed so real, even the smell of the geranium bubbles, as he drew a bath then undressed her and helped her in. He settled a kiss on her cheek and stood. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.’

She must have dozed some more, and then she was dreaming again. He was standing over her with a fluffy towel and the flat smelt like an Italian restaurant. She couldn’t remember ever having olfactory dreams before. It was nice though.

When she stepped out, he dried her, gently, carefully, like she was his Pet. ‘I’ve made spaghetti bolognese.’ He offered that delicious half smile. ‘Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the only thing men know how to make, but you didn’t have the stuff for enchiladas.’ He eased her into her thick terry robe and guided her to the table.

She remembered eating. In fact she remembered him feeding her as though she were a child. And the food was so tasty. She couldn’t remember tasting in dreams before either. Then he carried her to bed and settled her into the soft, clean sheets. And suddenly she really was like a child, clutching at him, begging him not to leave her, terrified she’d wake up from the dream and he would have never been there at all. But he settled in next to her, nestling her into a spoon position, holding her close. And she had slept.

It was the sun filtering through the gauze curtains that woke her. But she didn’t open her eyes immediately. She often tried to linger in the dream as long as possible, to put off the cold awakening to life without her boys, to hang on to the last vestiges of their warmth before she was forced to wake up alone.

And it had been such a delicious happy-ever-after dream. Audrey was taking over the Pet Shop, and well suited for it, so it seemed. Vincent had fed her bolognese and chatted on endlessly so unlike the silent brooding man she’d come to love. Anne and Alan would start the North American Pet Shop together. They were head over heels, in case she hadn’t figured that out. Strigida UK, well he’d run it himself for a while. It was time he took a bit more of a hands-on approach, and Strigida was doing good things. Besides, he had ulterior motives for wanting to stay in the UK. He’d seemed a bit shy, a bit hopeful when he’d told her that, so much like Tino wanting her approval, that in the dream, she had pulled him to her across the corner of the table and given him a hard bolognese-flavoured kiss between blubbering sobs. Such a dream. Such a delicious dream. She so didn’t want to wake up from it.

But something was coaxing her up from the dream world, refusing to let her bask in its sweetness. She tried to brush it away from her ear. But it was persistent. This time it pressed soft and humid against her nape, and the waking world wedged its way in with the awareness of a warm hard body pressed against hers, and parts of that body were very hard, indeed. Perhaps it was a dream within a dream. Oh dear God, she really didn’t want to wake up. She’d missed having Vincent inside her so desperately, even the thought forced a sob from her lungs.

‘Stel? Stella, are you all right?’

Her eyes popped open, and she was suddenly fully into the waking world with her heart pounding and her chest heaving for breath. She jerked up, nearly hitting him in the chin with her head before he could settle her back onto the pillows. Then he lifted himself on one elbow and held her in a concerned gaze.

‘You’re here,’ she breathed. ‘I’m not dreaming. Vincent? Tino?’ For the first time ever she couldn’t really tell who she was with.

He offered a sleep-kissed smile and nodded. ‘It’s no dream, Stel. We’re both here, Tino and I, and we’re not going anywhere.’

‘Then last night, the bath, the dinner, you saying you’re ...’ She couldn’t bring herself to repeat what he’d said lest she jinx it.

‘That I’m staying here,’ he pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, ‘No dream, all real, even the bolognese stains on your white robe.’ His laugh was warm and tactile. ‘I’ve never seen anyone so tired and still functioning.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, sort of functioning.’

‘Then you came to bed with me, and you just cuddled me, and I just slept.’ Her eyes welled. ‘All night long, I just slept. I’m sorry, it must have been so frustrating for you.’

His gaze softened. ‘Stella, I’m a Pet. I know how to hold my wad, and my cock was the least of my concerns last night.’

She turned into his arms with a sob, and he pulled her closer. ‘Sweetheart, I’m so, so sorry. It was never my intention to hurt you. You have to believe me.’ He pulled away enough to look into her eyes. ‘I never dreamt I’d fall in love with you. That wasn’t a part of the plan, not something I’d factored into the equation. But I did, hopelessly, helplessly. At first I thought it was just a Tino thing. Tino lives from his heart, from his emotions – Vincent doesn’t. But then when I arranged to meet you, I knew I was as head over heels as he was. That’s when I began to suspect I couldn’t keep Vincent and Tino separate any more, not with you marching right in and boldly proclaiming that you wanted us both.’

‘Wait a minute. You arranged to meet me?’

‘Yeah, you know in the woods in your cute little shoes and that oh-so sexy but totally inappropriate skirt.’ He offered her a wicked smile. ‘That was all a set-up, an arrangement I’d made with Bob Paris. Afterwards, after you pursued me to Lincoln City, I panicked. It was absolutely my plan that neither Tino nor I would see you again. I cancelled your weekend with him, and I knew you didn’t know how to get in touch with me.’ He released his breath slowly. ‘But I couldn’t stay away from you, and when I found out Alan and Anne were bringing you in to the Pet Shop and that they had used Tino as an excuse to get you there, well, by that time I would have moved heaven and hell to see you again.’ He placed a soft kiss on her shoulder. ‘You see what crazy things you make me do?’

The thought settled so warm and full in her chest that she thought she’d burst from it. ‘How did you know I was coming home?’

‘I do have a few resources, Stel. Did you think I wouldn’t rip everything apart and turn it upside down to find out where you were, what your plans were. Anne and Alan have been helping, though I have to admit, none of us would have thought to look for you with the seabirds in the Outer Hebrides. Stella.’ He lifted her hand to his lips and planted a lingering kiss on her knuckles. ‘None of us ever meant to hurt you. Ever. We all love you and respect you. We wanted you to be a part of what we’re building, and I ended up wanting a whole lot more than that. But you have to believe our intentions were always for the best.’

‘This isn’t a dream then?’

‘Nope. All real. He gave her a little poke in the hip with his insistent erection then raked a thumb over her nipple, which had somehow managed to peek out over the edge of the duvet. ‘All of it.’

She giggled softly. ‘I’m so glad to know I wasn’t dreaming that.’ She reached down and stroked his cock.

He slipped a hand between her legs and wriggled two fingers to spread her labia, and she felt his cock surge. ‘It must have been a very good dream,’ he said, feeling her wetness.

‘The best.’ She wriggled closer to him and nodded down to where she awkwardly fondled his cock. ‘And he was the star.’

‘Oh he likes that.’ He offered her a wicked chuckle and raked the pad of his thumb across her clit causing her to grip at his fingers, which wriggled and pushed deeper and deeper into her cunt. She shifted her hips and rocked against him catching the salt marsh scent of herself mingled with the familiar blend of sleep and perspiration and spicy, yeasty maleness that made her hot all over. She whimpered softly at another rake of her clit. ‘Please,’ she breathed, giving his penis a hard squeeze, making an effort to turn her body toward it.

But he held her tight. ‘You’re not ready. I’ll hurt you if I push into you now.’ He settled a long slow kiss onto her lips and spoke breathlessly against her mouth. ‘You were so impatient the first time Tino made love to you, and he hurt you. You have no idea how much he regretted hurting you.’

She groaned her frustration, but he kissed her again and ran a quick tongue across her hard pallet. ‘Trust me, Stel, I’ll make the journey worth the wait. My cock may be the star of your dream, but the rest of me’s not bad either. And when I push into your pussy I want it sopping and gaping and ready to devour me whole. Now stop struggling and let me get you there.’ He dropped a tight kiss onto each nipple before he slid down her belly with his tongue leading the way. Instinctively she opened her legs wider and bent her knees as her pussy clenched and pouted in anticipation.

He splayed her with two fingers and ran his tongue up the length of her gash in deep, probing strokes, bringing his whole mouth to rake up over her apex and concentrate the full force of a hard, suckling tongue-kiss onto her straining clit.

She bucked and gabbled and arched, curling hard fingers into the rumple of his hair wondering if she’d even survive the first assault.

When he pulled away she felt the hot humidity of his driving breath against her slit. ‘My God, Stel, I’d forgotten just how much I love the taste of you.’ His fingers went back to probing and stretching her while he caught his breath, then he took her again, mouth first, face deep like he would tongue and nibble and eat a path all the way up to her heart.

As he cupped his hands beneath her arse to pull her closer, the press and probe of alternating middle fingers teased at her anus, and her cries became deep-bellied animal sounds that would not have been out of place in Vincent’s wood. When the first orgasm hit with riptide force, she growled and arched up to meet it, wrapping her legs around his shoulders and digging her heels in with each ecstatic wave of heat.

When the wild celebration between her hips had settled to aftershocks, he crawled up the length of her body, smelling of her pleasure, his face glistening with her lust. ‘I think you’re ready now,’ he breathed. A slight shifting of his hips and his cock pushed home, spreading her, pushing at her, splaying her until she felt like every inch of her body was completely full of Vincent. And Tino was there too. There was a blending of the two she’d never experienced until today. Vincent had always kept them separate, and neither had ever been complete without the other.

She could feel the tension building in him until his rhythmic undulations had become hard, desperate hammering that telegraphed the intensity of his own need all the way up her spine and into her head. There it was translated into a drunken, delicious buzz that overloaded circuits and totally scoured her brain of any thought other than the wild, raging animal between her legs. Not a Pet. Not even close. She hung on tight, hammering him back until her muscles ached, until the world around them imploded down to their joining point then flashed bright in feral, brain-melting heat. As they fought their way deep into the mattress in a tangle of sweating arms and legs and knotted sheets, the thought flashed through her head that surely this had to be a dream. Surely nothing this good could exist in the real world. Consciousness drifted in and out of a haze of heat. The sunbeams lengthened across the duvet, and her breath slowed to the relaxed in and out of bliss. Then the warm body on top of her shifted slightly to the side, enough to give her breathing room, and Vincent brushed a stubbled kiss against her cheek.

‘I love you, Stella James.’ His voice was tight, thick with emotion. ‘Vincent Valentino Evanston III loves you totally and completely and unreservedly.’

She hugged him to her, his cock still deep inside her, his heart hammering against her own. ‘I get both of you, then?’

He dropped another kiss onto her parted lips. ‘You get both of us, the whole enchilada quirks and flaws and all.’

It was the sob of laughter that erupted from her throat that made her aware of the tears in her eyes. She wiped them away, took his face in her hands and held him so he couldn’t look away. ‘Good, because I love you both with all my heart, and I could never give up either one of you, flaws, quirks and all.’

THE END

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