Page 34 of The B!tch is Bad

Busted. I stepped so close to him our thighs touched. It was my turn to brush the back of my hand against his face. “And you called me little girl.”

He forked his fingers through my hair and kissed my forehead. “Yes I did. Because you are my little girl. All I want to do is protect you.”

In my typical awkward fashion, I went for it. “And fuck me.”

His hand slid to my waist. On its way down, his finger swept over my stiff nipple, causing my inner pussy to clench, and I gasped. “Yes,” he murmured, “I do want to fuck you. But only when you’re ready.”

I smiled against his mouth. “You’re a zaddy.”

He chuckled, but kissed me. “Oh God, no. Am I that age to be a zaddy? Jesus.”

“But I like zaddy.” I squirmed my torso against his, sanding my nipples and driving bolts to my snatch. Running my fingertips over the slickness of his skull, I sighed. “I like to be told what to do. Otherwise I fall apart.”

His mouth curled into a smile against mine. A hissing smoke from the grill distracted us, and Creed snatched up the metal spatula to turn the chokes. Right then, my watch timer went off for the salmon. That was how we managed to not waste food a second night in a row.

It was too chilly to eat outside, so we set up around a corner of his dining table. Creed broke out an estate-grown Zinfandel. He didn’t agree with the pairing trope of only whites with fish. We’d argued about it before, contrasting the acidity of the food and wine, like a perfumer building a scent. Wine is an element, I’d said, but Creed wanted whatever he was in the mood for.

We sat close together around the corner, angling our placemats so we could touch knees. I rolled my tongue around a chunk of salmon, half-closing my eyes like the professional Creed was. No one had ever cooked in our family. We ate whatever crap was handy, and of course my mother urged me to not eat at all, so my tendency was to anorexia. I’d done a good job eating healthy since moving to Arizona. I weighed more of course, but I felt so much more grounded.

Acting as my regular romantic self, I said, “Dementia runs in my family. I’ll get it sooner or later if I make it that far. You have to either laugh or cry, or both.” I stabbed a broccolini with my fork. Yes, I talked with my mouth full. “My grandmother was around when I was little. She’d read the exact same chapter of a John Grisham book and tell me how great it was. The next week, same thing, over and over.”

“The Mediterranean diet is supposed to help dementia.” Creed grinned as he lifted his glass. “And wine.”

“Well, nice surprises pop up for me when I find something I forgot I’d bought. Like, I thought I ran out of printer ink, but voila, there was a whole new box of it in my desk drawer. It’s all in my treasure box of a hole.”

A sly thought entered my mind. I rose and went to my phone on the kitchen counter. When I returned, I snuggled my butt into my chair with the relish of revealing a secret. Creed had swallowed his fish, and leaned a bit forward in anticipation.

“I hope to hell no one ever gets their hands on this burner phone.” I swiped around, then held the phone to my bosom. I felt my eyes shine with reminiscence and love. At last I turned it around to show Creed.

My dog.I’d kept some photos from my old phone just in case I forgot who my dog and friends had been. I saw from Creed’s slow, adoring grin that he was looking at Brutus, my Bernese Mountain Dog. I’d left him with a trusted friend in Edmond, Oklahoma before I’d vanished. “For a few days,” I’d told him. I didn’t want Fingerhut taking his ire out on my puppy.

“A Berner,” he breathed.

“Yes,” I said, billowing with pride. “I love big dogs.”

He looked me in the eye. “We’ll see about getting you another one.”

I inhaled, but never exhaled.

And that was how we left a lot of food on our plates.

It was just like in a drama when Creed half-stood and swept aside our dishes with his forearm. Grasping me by the shoulders, he raised me and pasted me with an urgent kiss.

I crawled around him like a spider. My arms enwrapped his broad torso, my mouth open over his. I had only one tiptoe on the floor as I hitched a foot around the back of his knee. Tits bursting from my bra against his firm, heated chest, my sopping pussy lips clenched with a need to be filled.

But Creed had other ideas.

Breaking the kiss with a loud snort and smack, he panted, “I saw you once. I came to your cottage. You were on your dining room floor.”

Holy water sprinkler.

I knew right away what he meant. A few days ago, overcome with a fit of lust for him, I’d grabbed my faithful and shrill vibrator Victor. Fallen on my back rubbing the damn thing all over my clit. He’d probably heard it from his courtyard and come over to see what lumber I was chopping. Victor had imitated a buzz saw for ten years now. But he was the best game in town.

I gasped. “What did you do?”

He grinned. “Planned for this.”

Seating me more squarely on the glass table, Creed strode to the kitchen and whipped a towel from its rack. When he strode back to me, I tingled at the authority in his bearing. Testing the strength of the towel, he stretched it between two fists, looking up at me from under his brow with a new, devilish look.