KEPT_ A Second Chance Fairy Tale(65)
“Think of all the opportunities I’ll use to take you when you’re here every day,” I add, running her nipple between my fingers, then pulling slightly to hear her desperate gasp for breath.
“And when I’m bad?” she asks.
Caught off-guard, not following her question, I stop moving inside her and look down to find her smirking and biting her bottom lip.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ll make my ass red,” she answers. Using her tongue to lick my throat, then my jaw, she stops once she reaches my mouth. Putting together what she’s asking in her own crazy way, my cock hardens to the point of pain. “When I’m naughty,” she whispers in my ear.
I fucking knew she’d win. Son of a bitch.
Not giving her a verbal response, I rock back and forth into her. I don’t stop until I’m on the edge. Although she’s beneath me, taking every inch, I can’t get enough of her.
Never enough.
Grabbing her hands to keep them from touching me, I pin them over her head. She has no choice but to look directly into my eyes. I finally form the words to answer, “I’ll beat your ass red, but I’ll gag you for saying naughty the way you just did.”
Lucy giggles, causing her to grasp me tighter. It sends my pending release to the surface and I spill into her without warning. Before I’m finished, her body tightens as her legs pull me in closer, holding me as she climaxes at the same time.
A life I hope to have full of Lucy will require tactical decisions and well-made plans.
Recognizing this, I immediately plot my next move.
Lucy
“STOP THROWING IT SO HARD,” I offer my motherly advice to Michael from my place on the bench. He’s showing Dillon how to catch a ball while protecting his face at the same time.
Both of them are dressed in jerseys and baseball pants. Dillon’s wearing the jersey we bought for the Yankees game, and Michael is wearing one I’ve never seen. They both have hats to block the sun, but a lot of good it’s done. Dillon’s lost a few tosses in its bright rays.
“Mom, he has to throw it that hard,” Dillon smarts, losing more of his patience with each of my interjections.
Michael hits his gloved hand against his leg, turns to me with displeasure, then moves his finger to his mouth to shut me up.
“Go easy, Michael,” I add, mainly because I’m a mother fearing for her child’s teeth.
Holding two bottles of water, Shannan plops down beside me. Handing me one, she observes, “Your man looks hot in that uniform. I’ve never had a thing for baseball players, but I’m thinking–”
“Don’t talk about that now,” I clip. “Dillon’s getting dehydrated. Look at him.”
When I point to Dillon, laughing at a ball he threw over Michael’s head, Shannan feigns concern. “Yeah, he looks super sick.”
Once Michael and I got to the apartment this morning, he had a chance to meet my mom. It took all of two seconds for Dillon to process what the sight of Michael and me together meant. Then he smiled – big.
“So.” Shannan grins before taking a drink. After she’s swallowed, she wipes her mouth. “You two are together?”
“Yes,” I answer. “He asked me and Dillon to move in with him.”
The memory of how he asked, more so demanded, has my thighs clenching.
My best friend gasps, just as I thought she would. “Oh, my god, Lucy! That’s huge.”
“I haven’t told Dillon. If he doesn’t want this, we won’t.”
Shannan takes a second to see what I see – Michael standing next to Dillon, pulling his glove apart and placing the ball inside it. I assume he’s showing him where a catch should land. I can’t hear their debate, but Dillon nods and starts to walk away before Michael raises his arm to throw it again.
“You were never not together. Dillon likes him and you love him. What’s to think about?”
Nodding, I only reply, “I know.”
Shannan and I turn our heads to see Corbin coming up from behind us. He’s wearing a yellow polo which offsets his bronzed skin and tan khakis.
He looks at the open spot next to me first, then the one beside my gorgeous friend.
He chooses her and settles in, but looks over her head to me. “What’s going on?”
I point. “Baseball.”
“Ah,” he answers, grabbing Shannan’s water from her hand before taking a healthy drink. He hands it back and casually utters, “Thanks,” as she sits between us with an open mouth, probably mentally cursing his bold move.
Shannan, this is Corbin.
They met briefly at Tryst when he all but threw us out. I’m not sure she remembers, though.
“Mike texted this morning. Asked me to stop by for backup.”
Shannan isn’t following, but I am. “Backup?” she questions. “The kid is six. What’s Michael need backup for?”
Corbin smiles, his teeth sparkling and his dimples huge. “Wasn’t backup to protect Michael from Dillon.”
“Me,” I snip. “He sent you for me.”
Corbin looks down, bracing his elbows on his knees and holding in a laugh. “Yep.”
“Wow.” Shannan sighs. “Does your man know you or what.”
I’d tell her to shut up, but now she has Corbin on her side. It wouldn’t do any good for me to defend myself.
“Lucy, you got a minute?” Corbin quietly asks.
“Go. I’ll watch. Pick me up another water, though,” Shannan sneers at Corbin, holding up her nearly empty bottle.
As Corbin and I walk the distance from the bleachers to the car, he stays quiet. I haven’t talked to him since the night he told me everything I thought I knew wasn’t real.
“I know what you’re going to say,” I tell him, although I really have no idea.
“You don’t know,” he returns. “Fuck, maybe you do. You are Lucy.”
“What’s that mean?” I hiss, turning to check if Dillon’s face is still uninjured.
Corbin lifts the trunk of Michael’s car, then pulls two water bottles from the cooler.
“I want to apologize,” he explains. “I owe you that.”
“You don’t.”
“I hired you knowing everything I did. There were opportunities to tell you what I should’ve, but didn’t.”
“Thank you.” His eyebrows lift because he doesn’t understand, so I explain, “If you’d have told me, I wouldn’t have…”
I lose the words, but he fills them in. “Fallen in love with Michael.”
Yes.
“He’s a good man, and he loves you.”
“I know.”
Squinting in the sun, he continues, “I have my best friend back, Lucy. That’s something I never thought would happen.”
Corbin’s sentiment is sweet, but he’s appreciative only of what I’ve done for Michael. It’s not only my life Michael has changed, fighting my battles without my knowing it. He’s also given that to Dillon.
Thanks to Michael, my son is getting firsthand experience of what life’s second chances have to offer. How, if you leave yourself open to them, they’re just as good, if not better, than the first.
Gabe gave me Dillon. I wouldn’t change those years of contentment for anything.
But, in the end, it’s Michael who’s bringing everything together.
“He gave Dillon more.”
Corbin silently contemplates. For a moment, I think he understands, then he asks, “What do you mean?”
“Because of Michael, my son will know what ‘happily ever after’ looks like.”
Four months later…
Lucy
“TELL ME I’M BEAUTIFUL,” SHANNAN insists, standing in front of the mirror in our changing area. “Tell me I’m as beautiful as Corbin. I don’t want to walk out there looking cheap next to him.”
Nothing about my best friend is cheap.
“You look beautiful,” I reply, rolling my eyes for the third time. How she made my wedding about her is beyond me, but she has.
When Michael brought Dillon home from his first official baseball practice, his expression was ponderous. Dillon stood at his side, smiling from ear to ear, but said nothing.
“Lucy,” Shannan says quietly as we stand side by side, looking at each other in the reflection. “I’m losing you,” she whispers. “You’re getting married today.”
Again, all about her.
“You’re not,” I assure her. “I’m still me.”
Standing in her pink dress and silver shoes, Shannan turns to look at me. She grabs my arms and squeezes as if offering reassurance. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Me, too.”
“I’m heading out. One last check.” She smiles, ensuring I inspect her teeth. When I give the okay, she turns around for me to inspect the back of her dress, which dips far down, showing so much of her flawless skin. “Everything where it needs to be?”
“It is,” I tell her, but with more meaning than she could understand.
Michael’s proposal wasn’t a traditional one. He didn’t wine me, dine me, then pop the question. Instead, he was standing in the doorway of what’s now our home with a smirk I couldn’t place. He and Dillon had been out shopping, he said. He told me they found exactly what I’d been missing for too long.