He was listening to it and letting the sound of it ramp him up as he alternately nibbled and tasted her neck.
“Baby, faster,” she breathed.
“In a minute,” he murmured, stroking inside slow.
Real slow.
Christ, her wet pussy felt fucking amazing.
“Jag, honey, faster,” she repeated.
“In a sec, sweetheart.”
“Then lay off my clit,” she ordered.
And have her amp down?
Fuck no.
Instead of doing what she said, he rolled it harder.
“Jag,” she whimpered.
Yeah, he liked it like that.
He grinned against her skin.
She pushed up, hard, driving back her hips so he fell to his calves and both their torsos came up.
Then she bounced on his cock.
And she did it fast.
“Damn, baby,” he teased.
“Shut up and back at my clit,” she moaned.
He didn’t backtalk and did as told.
Archie’s head fell to his shoulder, and she panted, “Ohmigod, I love your fucking cock.”
“No shit?”
“Aren’t you close?” she asked, sounding almost desperate.
“Archie, you sucked me dry half an hour ago. I’m not a jizz machine.”
She stopped and she did it full of him.
Nice.
“Jizz machine?” she asked.
“I can produce, as you’ve forced me to prove over and over. But every man’s got his limits.”
“I want you to come with me.”
“Then you’re gonna be riding for a while.”
She twisted her neck to look more fully at him. “I need you to do it now.”
He grinned at her. “Baby, just go. I’m good.”
She pouted.
Shit, she was hot.
He resumed his work at her clit, and went after her tit, her eyes closed slowly, and she started bouncing again.
“There you go,” he murmured encouragingly. “Kiss me, Arch.”
She turned to him and kissed him.
It didn’t last long before she was arcing into her work on his dick at the same time coming for him.
When she was evening out, she rode slow until she stopped, again full of him, and twisted her head to rest her forehead in his neck.
“What are you gonna do with that hard-on?” she asked, her voice gentle and sated.
“That’s my question to you,” he replied.
She chuckled quietly and said, “I told you to come with me, boyfriend. That orgasm was sweet. Now I’m about clean up and shut-eye.”
“I can do that.”
She lifted her head and looked at him.
He lifted her totally off him, put her on her back in the bed, then rested on top of her.
“You want me to clean you up?” he offered.
“Yeah, Jag.”
He touched his mouth to hers, then to the hinge of her jaw, and he left the bed.
He came back with a washcloth, took care of business, headed back to the bathroom to dump it, then out again to Archie.
When he arrived at the bed, he found her wrapped around the sheet in a way that was her signature, and an invitation, the side of her ass, hip, thigh, the curve of her back, shoulder and arm on display, hair all over the pillows.
He accepted her invitation and went in for the spoon, tucking himself close, and curling his arms around her.
“Only boy I know who’s good with giving a girl a rush then moving on, his dick still hard.”
“Hmm,” he hummed.
“I’mma gonna get up in a minute and brush my teeth,” she mumbled.
“All right, baby,” he whispered, knowing by her vibe there was no way in hell she was getting up to brush her teeth.
He was right, she was asleep in less than five minutes.
So he was careful when he moved away from her to go to the bathroom to brush his own teeth.
He had eyes to the mirror and the brush in his mouth when her words came back to him.
I hope I’m a lot like her. I try to be.
And with these words in his head, he remembered something he hadn’t thought of in years.
His mom, sitting alone at the table in the kitchen, her hand wrapped around an empty bottle of beer, staring at the refrigerator like it’d open itself and spit a fresh one at her.
He also remembered the expression on her face.
And he had to stop brushing, because suddenly, he felt like he was going to hurl.
He spit.
Rinsed.
Put his brush back in Archie’s holder.
And bracing his hands in the sink, he went back to staring at himself in the mirror.
“That fridge wasn’t gonna spit a beer at her,” he said to himself. “My father would never let his wife sit with an empty bottle without bringing her another beer.”
He dropped his head and closed his eyes.
If your mom was even one percent like you, how your dad got over losing her…
After his dad died, Jag’s mother had lost herself in grief for nearly twenty years before she pulled her shit together.
That was the man his father was.
That was the magnitude of her loss.
I hope I’m a lot like her. I try to be.
“Christ, Christ,” he bit off toward the sink.
He got it then.
He knew what was eating at him.
And it was huge.
Unwieldy.
And ultimately unanswerable.
Because he was grappling with how he could give Archie all he should be if he didn’t know who to be.
He wanted to give her a love that wouldn’t die even with death.
The kind of love his mom had with his dad.
And the man who could give him that not only had he never met…
They had no chance in hell ever to meet.
Yeah.
What was eating him was huge.
Unwieldy.
And lost to him forever.
Chapter Sixteen
Free to Be
Jagger
“It’s set for next Tuesday, yeah? The parents are gonna show at the Compound for dinner?” Jagger asked.
“Yeah, baby,” Archie answered.
“Right. Good,” he replied. “I got the guys sorted. Dutch, Joker and Hugger are gonna swing by in their trucks to ferry the kids to Ride. We’re gonna do a store tour, a garage tour and finish with the parents showing and a cookout at the Compound.”
They were in her kitchen.
He’d just finished pounding some pork chops into cutlets for the schnitzel Archie was making for dinner for him and his parents. She was at a bowl that was full of broccoli, cheese, red onion and bacon she was mixing with some dressing made of mayo, sugar and vinegar.
She hadn’t yet met him, and still, she was going to serve the perfect Hound Salad: mayo, bacon, cheese, sugar with a nod to something green.
“They’re really gonna like this food, baby,” he told her after she turned to the fridge to shove the salad in.
She shot him a smile. “Awesome.” She wandered the short way to him and leaned against the counter close by his side. “Now, can we talk about how cute it is you’re all in to plan this field trip?”
“Sure, but before you push me up on that pedestal, when I do good things for your kids, I get head, so it’s not entirely altruistic.”
She busted out laughing.
The buzzer sounded.