STORY EXCERPT

Wondering what else he could do to help her feel better, Richard looked in the kitchen cabinets. He spotted tea bags and decided to make her some tea, which might help settle her stomach.

She emerged from the bedroom dressed in a pair of snug knit pants and a T-shirt. Her hair was wet, and she was blotting it with a towel. Richard thought she looked paler and brought her to the dining room table. After boiling the water, he put the cup of tea together and set it before her and joined her at the table.

“I wish this night was different,” she said as she dipped the tea bag in the steaming water.

“I know, honey. Me, too. How does your hand feel?”

The doctor had warned her she’d have some pain and swelling in her hand and possibly nausea and fatigue from the antivenin injection.

“It hurts. My stomach still feels wobbly,” she murmured as she blew on her tea after stirring honey in it.

Richard knew of something that might make her feel better but waited until she was through with her tea. They sat in comfortable silence while she sipped the hot brew.

He hoped she wouldn’t think he was crazy for suggesting it as he said, “Would you like me to rock you?” He gestured with his thumb to the big rocking recliner in the living room.

Maya looked up at him, and her eyebrows knit together. She seemed pale and fragile to him, but his heart leaped in his chest when she smiled and nodded. He put her empty mug in the sink and walked over to the big recliner and sat down. She followed and didn’t hesitate when he opened his arms to her.

He eased her gently into his lap, barely suppressing a groan as she cuddled up to him. He knew she didn’t feel good because she was usually playful and talkative. He sometimes didn’t know what to say for fear of sounding like a dunce, whereas conversation seemed to come easily for her. She rested her cheek against his chest and melted into him as he began rocking her and stroking her back. She was like a kitten curled in his arms.

“I don’t think I’ve been rocked since I was a little girl.”

“Am I going too fast?”

“No, it’s perfect.” The drawn-out, expressive tone she used in the last word made him smile, and he was glad now that he’d suggested it.

Richard made a vain attempt to distract himself and keep his swelling cock from turning into a full-blown hard-on, which she must’ve been aware of beneath her hip. Her body was warm and pliant, and the delicate scent of her just-shampooed hair was making him harder by the moment. He was painfully aware of how velvety her fingertips were as she stroked his biceps.

“Do you miss her, Richard?” Her soft-spoken voice was hesitant and had a poignant quality to it.

He shut his eyelids, not sure he wanted to go there yet. “Yeah. Sometimes I miss her very much.” In his mind’s eye, he could still see Michelle’s face, the way her eyes would light up whenever she looked at him.

“I’m sorry she was taken from you.” She stroked his arm in a soothing fashion.

“I’m sorry about Morgan, too, honey.”

“Richard?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you ever feel lonely?”

“Well, I have Kendall and Boone, so no, not lonely but…” If he said he missed physical affection, she would think he meant sex. He did, but not under these circumstances.

She slid her good hand around his back and squeezed lightly. “I’ve missed the simple, physical connection and intimacy.”

Richard nodded. “Yeah. Having someone to touch and hold.”

Maya looked up at him, and the vulnerability in her eyes made him feel protective of her. She asked, “Do you think we’ll ever get over losing them?”

Rocking slowly, he lifted a damp lock of her golden-blonde hair and caressed its silky length between his forefinger and thumb. “I remember when they told me she’d died on the operating table. I wanted to die, too. I felt that way for a long time.”

“Me, too,” she whispered, and he saw her lip tremble before she pressed her face to his chest.

Hoping the words came out right, Richard said, “I know she and Morgan would want us to live our lives and be happy. I want, I mean, I’m ready—”Shit.

“To try and love someone else?” she asked, stroking his pectoral muscle. “Even though it hurts to think of it?”

“Yeah.”

She sat there with him, asking no more questions, just stroking him until her movements gradually stilled and she fell sound asleep. Richard would’ve gladly sat there holding her until morning, but Kendall and Richard arrived a short while later.

“She okay?” Boone asked, fingering a lock of her drying hair.

“Wiped out. I don’t think she feels well,” Richard whispered.

Kendall pressed the backs of his fingers to her forehead and said, “Her temperature feels normal. You want to put her to bed?”

Richard didn’t say it, but in his heart he didn’t want to part with her when she was like this. Her sweet, solid weight against him was the most satisfying thing he’d felt in years.

Proving his uncanny ability to read his brothers, Kendall said, “I’m dog-tired, but if you’re worried, you’re both welcome to bed down with us. It might be a little crowded, but the offer stands.”

Boone looked at Richard and smiled, saying, “I think she’s in good hands. Richard, I’ll switch with you during the night so you can get a little shut-eye.”

Richard nodded and carefully rose from the recliner with her in his arms. She stirred slightly and shifted so that her nose and lips were pressed against his neck. She made a barely perceptible happy-sounding noise. A pleasant shiver raced down his back at the contact.

Adult Excerpt

Maya reached for one of the items from the table, and Kendall realized it was her MP3 player. She clipped it to his shirtfront and placed an earbud in her ear and the other one in his and turned the player on. At a low level, “Feelin’ Way Too Damn Good,” by Nickelback began to play. Kendall grinned lazily and dribbled more ice cream over her other breast. He wondered if she understood how much she got to him as he greedily licked more of his dessert off her flesh.

Maya had a gift for staying in the moment with them, and Kendall planned to make sure she felt his full appreciation.

He fed her another bite, grinning with enjoyment as she shuddered when he slid a hand around to grip one of her ass cheeks. His fingertips teasingly slid lower in a tickling touch until they were down her cleft to her spread pussy. He took the spoon from where it was stuck in a scoop of ice cream and licked it, leaving it clean but very cold. She bit her bottom lip and watched him lower the spoon in front of her between her spread thighs.

Kendall smiled with satisfaction when she arched her back and pressed her pussy against his hand while at the same time watching what he was doing with the spoon. He turned the bowl of the spoon upward and slid it slowly through her opened slit, enjoying the strangled moan that escaped her as the cold spoon pressed against her clit.

He raised the copiously damp spoon to his lips and licked it clean of her tangy juices. “Oh, Kendall!” she gasped in a shaky voice, then tilted her hips reflexively against his hand.

“Delicious, baby. Again?”

“Yes.”

He scooped up another generous bite so the spoon would get cold again and pressed the softened ice cream directly to her nipple, delighting in her little squeal. The last rays of the sun illuminated her shoulders and her opened thighs and glinted through her thick hair.

He licked the spoon and latched on to her cream-covered nipple, then touched the cold surface of the spoon to her clit again. He sucked hard on her nipple, then lightly nibbled, and she shuddered and leaned against him. All the while Nickelback played through the earbuds.

The spoon was even more drenched as he paused in his nipple play to lick it clean. His woman’s pussy was the sweetest dessert he’d ever had.

“Had enough ice cream?” he whispered in a gravelly voice that sounded unlike him. Maya nodded and he returned the spoon to the bowl. She reached for the condom she’d laid on the table earlier, and he tore the wrapper open with shaky hands. He groaned as he rolled it on, watching Maya stroke her clit with a delicate finger.

A new song began to play as he held his cock in position for her. She acknowledged the song change with a very sexy chuckle. The music sounded vaguely familiar but not something he normally listened to. Maya had varied and eclectic tastes in music, and he liked that she wanted to share that part of this experience with him.

His eyes adjusted to the dimmer light as the sun sank fully beneath the horizon and dusk fell. She rose up on her knees as the intro to the tune played and the seductive beat of “Like This,” by MIMS throbbed in a syncopated rhythm. At that moment, it was definitely climbing his top ten. He held his painfully thick shaft for her and licked the last of the ice cream from her torso as she settled her creamy, wet cunt over his cock. He growled as she teased the tip, pumping up and down as she gripped his shoulders.

She slid on his cock a few inches, groaning quietly as she ground down. What she did to him for the next few minutes would undoubtedly go down as one of his top ten favorite memories. Using the beat of the music as her guide, Maya fucked him into a state near insanity.

The first chorus came around, the female vocalist whispering, “Baby, do you want it like this, like this, like this…” and she pumped on his cock in long, slick glides, squeezing his cock with her pussy muscles on every upstroke. Her movements were graceful and unhurried, timed with the beat. He groaned, sure that she was going to rip the orgasm right from his balls, but then she settled down into shorter strokes with the next verse. She watched him through half-lidded eyes and gave him a sexy little smile.

She tortured him through three choruses of the female vocalist whispering, “Baby, do you want it like this, like this, like this.” He didn’t remember the song being quite that long and felt his control begin to unravel as she whispered along with the final chorus, taking all of his cock with every slippery, tugging stroke.

“Baby, I gotta come,” Kendall groaned, way past caring if he sounded like he was begging. Hell, he was pleading. Maya smiled at him, and she began panting as if her own control were slipping, too. He stroked her clit firmly, and she let loose a sobbing wail as her pussy liquefied and clenched on his surging cock.