She wiggled closer and positioned herself so the head of my cock pressed her clit. The sensation of her wet heat through the cotton almost sent me over the edge. Blood pumped through my cock. The tension grew.
I gripped her thighs. “Liv, I’m going to come.”
“Wait. Let me…” She stroked the head of my cock against her, her muscles straining. Most of her hair had escaped her ponytail. The long strands fell over her face and forehead in a mess of tangles. “Oh God. I’m… oh.”
She let out a cry as her body shook with tremors. Explosive pleasure boiled inside me. I grabbed my shaft. Liv kept writhing her clit against my prick. The sight of her all quivering and sweating was too much to take. Within seconds, I came with a groan, shooting all over her cotton panties.
Liv shuddered, her chest heaving as she lifted her skirt to look at the semen dripping down her thighs. She rubbed a hand over my damp prick and glanced up at me with those big, brown eyes that revealed everything and nothing.
“There is so much I want to do with you,” she whispered.
A groan caught in my throat. I speared my hand into her hair and pulled her toward me for a hard kiss that made my blood pulse all over again. She softened against me, her body pliant and yielding.
“You have no idea what I want to do with you,” I muttered.
“Well, then.” She shifted, her naked breasts rubbing against my shirt, her ass sliding over my prick. “You’ll just have to show me.”
Oh, I will. I breathed her in and sank my face against her shoulder.
It was good for my ego, showing her how hot things could be, watching her arousal, getting her off. It was good for me too, this blinding spell of release. Staggered my senses. Obliterated everything except us alone.
I tightened my hands on her hips. A sudden dizziness filled my head.
Us. Alone.
Exactly the way I wanted it then.
Exactly the way I want it now.
CHAPTER SIX
Olivia
January 19
ou’re sure you want to do this?” Over the phone, Allie sounds worried. And her anxiety doesn’t exactly inspire me with a bucketload of confidence.
“Yes, but I can’t promise I’ll be any help.” I scroll down the loan application on my computer screen.
I’ve filled out all the information as best I can, though I didn’t list any of Dean’s financial information as collateral. Shortly after we married, Dean merged our finances—or, more accurately, made me joint owner of all his accounts. I still have my own checking and savings accounts, but I haven’t used either very often since we got married.
“Did you get the business plan I sent you?” Allie asks. “Brent helped me revise it, so it’s solid.”
“Yes, I’ve already included it. Here’s the bank guy’s info, in case he contacts you.” I give her the name of the loan officer with whom I’ve corresponded about the application. “I’m sending it right now, so he said we should hear back soon.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know if he calls. Thanks, Liv.”
We chat for a few more minutes before hanging up. I turn off my cell phone and stare at the meager numbers on my loan application. I am struck, with sudden and unwelcome force, by the realization that I do not have collateral of my own… or much of anything else either.
Dean pays the rent on our apartment, plus bills, groceries, and utilities. I have full access to our joint checking and savings accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, stocks, bonds—but all the money is Dean’s. He pays the credit card bill. He even pays for my subscriptions to a few gardening and entertainment magazines. His assets are the reason he established a living will and trust, and why he is already laying the groundwork for including the baby in everything.
I take a breath and hit the send button to submit my loan application. Your information has been received and will be processed shortly.
Fear ripples down my spine.
Without my husband, I have so little of my own. I don’t know how I let that happen. All those years of trying to stay on my feet, plant myself somewhere—leaving my mother when I was thirteen, finishing high school, the full scholarship to Fieldbrook College, even battling the aftermath of what happened there, then finally graduating from the University of Wisconsin—all of that was supposed to set me on a path toward self-reliance.
I close my laptop—a birthday present from Dean last year—and push away from the desk. The bedroom door is open, but no noise drifts up the stairs from either the kitchen or the living room. Dean has gone out for a run, and I have no idea where his mother and sister are.
I also haven’t seen Helen Morgan since we arrived a few days ago.
I go downstairs. Everything is silent and still, aside from the slight movement of the curtains in front of the open windows.