Chapter 14 – The Ghosts

SPOV

With my egg splattered insides, it only made sense for my mind to be scrambled, feeling Eric’s hands and body pressing against my own.

Too scrambled to come up with an answer for what kind of advice I would need from a licensed cocktologist.

In the grand scheme of things, it really didn’t matter.

Eric was clearly a professional in that department.

I knew it because while I’d been nervous over the thought of having sex again, with my mind ticking off every insecurity I had – and some I didn’t, but got added to the pile anyway – the moment he pressed himself against me from behind, they all fell away.

Like my inhibitions.

So I didn’t miss a beat when he spun me around in his arms and planted his mouth on mine. My back hit the refrigerator door in the next second and a small cache of assorted items – ranging from firecrackers to paintballs, deemed forbidden and confiscated by me, from any one of the boys at some point – rained down on us from where they’d been perched on top of the fridge.

I took it as a sign from God the real fun was about to begin.

If Eric noticed, he didn’t show it and I sure as hell didn’t care, with my hands flattening against his chest and skimming my way up to his shoulders, with a part of me appreciating how broad they were.

So I showed my appreciation in the form of a wanton moan.

It was the polite thing to do.

But Eric definitely noticed that and he showed his appreciation in the responding growl that rumbled up through his chest and all the way out through my Slip and Slide.

It served as a reminder for me to make a mental note to buy Hadley a new car to show my appreciation to her.

For giving me the time to see just how much of Eric there was to appreciate.

And I got a better idea of just how much I had to be grateful for, when he loosened his hold enough so that his hands could run over the top of my ass and pull me against him, with my mind fritzing white at the feel of his erection now pressed against my body.

It wasn’t the first time I’d felt him hard against me, but it was the first time I’d felt all of him at once.

He really did have a lot of wood to hoist.

“You’re about to find out, just how much,” he spoke against my lips, in a sinfully promising voice that made panty angels weep, and alerted me to the fact I’d once again showed my appreciation out loud.

However, my give-a-fuck was at an all-time low, now that about-to-get-fucked had reared its head.

In Eric’s pants.

Hoisting me up in the next second, he held me to him, acting as though I weighed nothing more than a fallen panty angel’s wing feather.

His biceps did wonders for my self-confidence.

Then spinning us around, he matched his leisurely steps to the leisurely kisses he continued to ghost across my skin, not quite touching me and yet managing to touch me all the way to my very core, before setting me down on the center island. With my legs still wrapped around his waist, I discovered his perfection extended to his height, when he pressed into me right where I needed him and my head fell back, at all of the sensations coursing through me.

No matter where or how he touched me, it seemed like I could feel it in every nerve ending on my body.

One small bundle of nerves in particular was throbbing from his faux fondling lips.

But his hands hadn’t been faux fondling me at all, with his fingers gripping my hips as he continued to move his own against mine. So I’d been too busy just concentrating on the feel of all of him, to notice the feel of that one part of him, which gave his fingers free reign to frisk my back pocket, with me completely unaware.

Until he pulled away just far enough to hold up his find in between his fingertips, with a smirk quirking up the corner of his lips.

The condom Hadley managed to shove in there, when Eric had been too busy choking on her audacity by mentioning his wood.

“Hadley,” I smirked in return, needing no other explanation because really…

That said it all.

But she never did anything half-assed – and she was, after all, a licensed cocktologist – so I grinned at him and said, “You should see the inside of the purse I had on our date last night. It looks like a battalion of Trojan horses took a dump in there.”

A lustful haze clouded his eyes and while his smirk was still there, his next words didn’t sound amused.

They sounded like a siren’s song, calling all panty angels.

“Hold this.”

Two words.

A request.

A command.

I couldn’t really tell, but he could have told me to rob a bank and I would have done it.

Using that tone, I was his puppet and he was the master.

So I took the small foil packet from his fingertips and watched, while he used them to trail up my arms, over my shoulders, and down my sides to my waist. Sliding them just underneath the hem of my shirt, he leaned down, kissing and licking every inch of flesh that became exposed, as he slowly inched it upwards.

My eyes fought to roll into the back of my head, but I was too stubborn – too greedy – to look away and I automatically leaned back onto my hands to give him more room, the higher his hands and mouth worked their way up my body.

When the shirt eventually slipped up and over my breasts, his breath hitched in his throat, before giving way to a low rumbling sound that had my thighs automatically clenching against his body.

That wasn’t the only part of me clenching and gripping him with my thighs did nothing to help alleviate the ache in between them.

But as much as I wanted him to just rip my clothes off and fuck me already, I couldn’t say anything.

I couldn’t do anything.

There was something about the look in his eyes that held me in a trance.

And since I was woefully deplete of give-a-fuck – having made its escape by going down my Slip and Slide, no doubt – I didn’t have the wherewithal to care.

Pulling the shirt up and over my head, my hands had no choice but to let go of the countertop, but his hands automatically moved to support my back – and unclasp my bra while they were there – before gently laying me down on top of it.

The cool granite against my skin had nothing to do with the goosebumps that rose up on my flesh and instead were caused by his lips brushing across the shell of my ear, while he soothingly whispered, “Relax.”

Relax?

Relax?

I was so relaxed, I could be called puddled.

In fact, if he checked the countertop underneath my ass, I was pretty sure he would find that truth for himself.

But I only realized I still had him in a death grip in between my thighs, when his lips locked back onto mine – kissing me into submission – while his hands skimmed down my legs, with his fingers lightly tapping the tops of my knees.

An unnecessary action, it turned out, because he had the key to unlocking them all along.

And my knees fell open when he pushed it against my keyhole.

So when he took advantage of his newfound freedom, by using his lips to begin a downward trek – heading towards the Sahara-turned-flooded-oasis he would eventually find – I came to realize something else.

Eric possessed more than one key I could cum from.

And I had a feeling I would be begging him to do his Open Sesame magic lock picking trick for the next One Thousand and One Nights too.

My bra – already open at the back – was the next to go, with him holding the evidence of my underwire fabrication in the palms of his hands. So it was a true testament to how skilled his mouth was that I didn’t care Victoria could no longer keep my secret or even remember the fact sound traveled.

But had anyone been home, they would’ve known Eric was killing me one lick and nip to my nips at a time.

My hands were holding onto his head for dear life – and my hips were doing their version of The Inchworm against his chest – so it wasn’t just the cool air hitting my chest that alerted me Eric was leaving Midtown.

He only needed to follow the map of silvery lines across my midsection to lead him to my Lower Manhattan.

Pushing my shorts and underwear down my legs, they slipped over my feet and dropped to the floor, with Eric slipping my knees over his shoulders before his mouth dropped down.

Taking me with him in a free-for-all freefall, by taking away my ability to do anything but focus on the way he made me feel, when his tongue landed smackdab in the middle of my SoHo.

EPOV

My name left her lips in a breathy gasping shriek and her grip on my head tightened, with her own thrashing side to side on the countertop, the moment my tongue parted her folds.

It was sexy as fuck.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of her – any part of her – and wanting to hear her call out my name again, I flattened my tongue against her clit, licking and twirling around it, before flicking against it in a steady rhythm.

She didn’t disappoint.

Any nerves I may have felt earlier had disappeared. Once I’d made the decision to just be in the moment – to just enjoy this moment in time with Sookie – everything else seemed to fall in to place.

Being with her felt right.

Touching her. Kissing her.

While all of it was new – and I had yet to learn all of the different sounds and expressions I could get her to make – everything about her felt like she was exactly where I was meant to be.

The hesitation – the slight guilt – I expected to feel over being intimate with someone else never came. In fact, I felt no reservations whatsoever.

I wanted her in ways I secretly thought had died along with my wife, but the even scarier part of my new reality was the fact I wanted Sookie in ways I couldn’t remember ever feeling for Aude.

The thought alone should have had me feeling guilty, but I didn’t.

I didn’t even feel guilty over not feeling any guilt.

But – if anything – the absence of guilt only strengthened my belief that Sookie really could be the one for me.

Whatever obstacles we faced in the future, I knew we could overcome them together.

But with my nervousness gone and my confidence making its return, with every inch of her I touched, another side of me came to the forefront.

The primal animalistic side, whose only purpose in life was to claim his woman.

So it was that brute who growled against her skin and – staring up at her still closed eyes – ordered in a voice and tone that was nothing like my own, “Look at me.”

Blue eyes met my own, glazed over in lust and slightly unfocused, which only deepened when I continued on in my quest to make her fall apart.

But I wanted her to see me do it. I wanted her to know it was me making her feel that way and I wanted to watch it all happen.

Teasing her with my mouth.

Testing her resolve with every flick of my tongue.

The voyeur in me couldn’t get enough.

I noted every gasp. Every sigh. Every flutter of her eyelids and the actions that caused them.

Every time I could tell she was approaching the edge of no return, I would back off, slowing down and denying her the slight push she would need to fall over.

And smirking at the evil glares she gave me in return, undoubtedly telling me with her eyes alone that payback would be a bitch.

The joke would be on her though.

By that point, Sookie would probably only have to touch me and I would erupt like Old Faithful.

It was just one of the many reasons why I was making the concerted effort to ensure she would be a tightly wound string, snapping the moment I slid into her.

Hoping she would forgive the brevity of the act and focus on the quality of her climax over the quantity of time I spent inside of her to reach it.

With my long drought and age being a factor, I had no idea what my turnaround time would be.

Either or could work for or against me, but seeing her eyes fall closed again and watching the way her body writhed from everything she was feeling because of me, I’d reached my limit.

I needed to be inside of her.

Now.

With her eyes now closed she couldn’t see me take the condom from where she’d dropped it on the counter.

With my lips never leaving her body, she had no reason to suspect I was working my pants down my own.

With the sounds she was making, she had no way of hearing the sound of the foil wrapper being ripped open.

So she probably had no idea I’d rolled it on until her eyes snapped open in surprise when I slammed into her.

Hearing my name shouted from her lips was a test of my control in and of itself. But the feel of her surrounding me – pulling me further into her body with every contraction of her inner walls – I took a moment to gather every ounce of willpower I had to not give in to my body’s wants.

It had been so long.

And she felt so slick and hot and tight, pulsing around my shaft.

But it was hearing her next plea that shredded whatever control I had left.

With wild eyes and swollen lips, she pushed herself up onto her hands and her hips against my own, while her legs locked around my waist and she ordered, “Fuck me.”

Fuck. Me.

That was all it took to make me grip her hips to the point I was sure she would have bruises the next day and I pulled almost all the way out before slamming back into her. Her back immediately bowed into an arch, pushing her chest out towards me, and her head fell back, with the ends of her hair flying in all directions from the force of my thrusts.

It was sexy as hell.

But then I found everything about Sookie to be sexy.

Her chanting out my name, interspersed with her profanity-laced approval of what I was doing to her, only strengthened that fact.

But having been brought to the edge and back so often, it didn’t take long for her to fall over it.

Her orgasm exploded through her body, with her arms buckling under the pressure and only the severe arch in her back kept her head from slamming back onto the countertop.

But being caught up in the moment – and caught in the concussive blast of her climax, with the shockwaves pulsing along the length of me inside of her – that was all it took for me to surrender.

With a strangled roar coming through my lips, I slammed into her one last time, with my body seemingly seizing, unable to unlock any muscle while the one inside of her spilled weeks’ worth of pent up want for her into the condom.

It triggered a smaller secondary explosion within her and only added to the Taser-like effect she had on me.

But hearing her soft spoken whimpers and moans pulled me out of my stupor enough to move my hips again, softly thrusting in and out of her to draw out her orgasm, with my hand sliding across her abdomen, so my thumb could run small circles over her clit.

Seeing the way her body jerked in response gave me my first indication that my turnaround time wouldn’t be very long.

But it was seeing her plastered to the granite countertop that had me sliding my hands underneath her body and lifting her up, holding her against my own as I walked us back to her bedroom.

Laying her down on the bed, her lips pouted when the act itself caused me I slide out of her, causing me to chuckle before I pressed a kiss against them and went into the bathroom to get rid of the condom.

She hadn’t moved at all by the time I returned and joined her in the bed, but taking a look around and seeing a framed picture of her and Alcide on the dresser made me ask, “Is this too weird for you?”

But not being a mind reader, she had no way of knowing the meaning behind my ambiguous question.

So when she asked for clarification with nothing more than an arched brow aimed my way, I explained, “Me, being in a bed and bedroom you shared with your husband.”

As much as I didn’t want to spoil the mood, I felt the need to ask because while I’d been in the bathroom, the thought occurred to me that I might have subconsciously kept us in the kitchen – instead of naturally moving us to the bedroom – to have sex for the first time for that very reason.

Her brow came down and her eyes softened in understanding.

That I – for reasons identical to her own – would understand if it would feel weird to her.

After my earlier realizations about how much Aude’s presence still permeated my house, I would probably feel a little weird having Sookie there now.

But I would cross that bridge when we came to it.

Shaking her head as much as she could when lying on her side, her lips curved into a small sad smile when she answered, “No, but that’s probably only because I cheated.”

“What?” I asked, feeling my brow hit my hairline and my heart sputtering to a stop.

I had no right to judge her – no right to feel betrayed – and yet I couldn’t make it stop.

Judging her or feeling betrayed.

But not being a mind reader, I had no way of knowing the meaning behind her words, until her eyes widened and she gasped out, “Not like that. I meant I cheated by switching bedrooms.”

While my heart restarted and my lungs worked to expand, now willing to draw in air again, I watched her shrug and listened as she explained, “I waited a year. Everyone says to wait a year before making any big changes and I thought about selling the house, but I really like this one and I didn’t want to upend the boys’ lives even more. But at the same time I felt like I still needed to find a way to move on – a tangible way I could see and feel – for both my sake and the sake of the boys. Every time I stepped into that room, all I could see was him. Remember him, but not in a good way. All it really did was make me focus on everything I’d lost instead of being grateful for all of the great memories I still had thanks to him. So after the first anniversary, I exchanged rooms with the Things. They’ve been sharing a room since Trey was born and they were both toddlers by that point, so the extra room was a plus. I redecorated the master bedroom to suit them and then I did a little remodel to add square footage and another bathroom onto this one.”

Had I not already begun drawing up mental blueprints to merge our two families into one, I might have followed her lead and drawn up actual blueprints to do the same thing at my house.

But for whatever reason – as both nonsensical and logical as it was – I felt better, knowing this wasn’t the room she once shared with her husband.

While our former spouses would always be a part of our pasts – and our present, when it came to the children we had with them – a part of me had worried their ghosts would always haunt us and any future we tried to make with each other.

And Sookie unknowingly pushed that idea even further away, when she offhandedly remarked, “I even bought all new bedroom furniture.”

But there was nothing casual about her tone or her expression – both were deliberate and her intentions clear – when she added with a knowing smile, “And a new – as yet un-christened – mattress.”

“Well,” I smiled at her in return, rolling over and sliding my body on top of hers. “Let’s see if we can rectify that.”

And we did – several times – throughout the rest of the night.

Not only did I find out what my turnaround time was, but that was the night it all really sunk in for me.

Because as it turned out, all I needed was Sookie in my life to turn that around too.