My head fell back on my shoulders, and a long sigh of satisfaction escaped me as her mouth closed down and slid along my shaft. It was wet and tight, her tongue stroking even as she sucked me into her throat.
Sweet ecstasy, I was going to come.
I gripped her hair and pulled her face from my erection in warning. Instead of letting go, she suctioned her mouth around me and latched on tight, determined to finish the job she’d started.
Spots exploded in front of my eyes as I exploded into her mouth, and I clutched onto her head for balance, the fucking pleasure ripping a growl from my chest. Vibrations shot through my groin and down my leg as she sucked every last drop.
A sound penetrated the roaring of blood in my ears, and I slowly opened my eyes to locate it. Belinda beat me to it.
“Your phone,” she said as she handed me the black device that had fallen from my pocket. Shit, it was Holly, probably to talk about the dates. When I reached for it, ready to cancel the call, Belinda’s thumb slid over the screen, answering the call prematurely.
“Oops,” she giggled. “Sorry.”
Why the hell did I care that Holly probably heard that?
CHAPTER TWO
Holly
I pulled the last cake from the oven for my three-tiered creation and sat down at the kitchen table to wait for it to cool. Business was booming, and I was taking a few classes at night to learn new techniques for my decorating. Everything was great. Almost everything.
“Holly!”
I closed my eyes as Dad’s voice boomed through the house, and released a long, pent-up breath. He was drunk again, on a rampage of course, and since I was home, I was the lucky recipient of his rage.
I didn’t answer him right away, hopeful that he’d pass out or give up. No such luck.
“Holly!” His voice grew louder and angrier, and the longer it took for me to answer, the worse he’d get.
“I’m in here.”
He pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen so hard it almost came back and hit him in the face. I struggled not to giggle; I didn’t dare let it show on my face. Unfortunately, the humor didn’t get to last long.
The yellow t-shirt he wore was stained, most likely white at one time. His arms were covered in thick black hair, his eyebrows dark and bushy, while the top of his head was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. I was thankful that I inherited my mother’s long blonde locks and not his curly black ones. Well, the ones he used to have.
“Why don’t ya do something useful with that oven?” he snarled.
“I am.”
“Ohhh, bullshit. You have a Holly Hobby oven to bake those fucking cakes in.” He moved closer, and I held my breath. His was saturated in alcohol as it spewed out drops of spit in my direction. “You should be in here makin’ dinner.”
I honestly didn’t understand what my mother had seen in this man.
He was a mean man, a drunk, and after years of mental and verbal abuse, Mom finally escaped — to heaven. Not to a free life like I wished for her. That left my sister and me with our dad, an angry man who only wanted to crush our dreams and control every aspect of our lives, especially mine.
It was sickening how self-satisfied he would appear whenever he saw me cry. So I learned to hide my feelings at a pretty early age. He didn’t deserve the satisfaction of seeing my pain.
Hannah, my younger sister, didn’t seem to get as much of the old man’s wrath as I did. But that was okay. I didn’t want her to feel the pain I felt. So I let him use me as a verbal punching bag, just as long as he left her alone.
“You’ll never be anything more than a maid to some man who keeps you pregnant,” he said to me one night not long ago. He laughed and then snorted as he continued his insults with, “Damn, you’re gonna look awful all fat, and your body’s gonna get all stretched out and ugly.”
I didn’t understand why he wanted to hurt me so bad. I always just told myself it was the alcohol, that it wasn’t me. He was a drunk, and drunks usually drank to mask their pain, although I couldn’t exactly see what he had to be unhappy or in pain about.
My mother was a beautiful woman, kind, and extremely patient. She worshiped him, even though he was so hateful and acted as if he despised her. “You don’t know the sweet man hiding underneath that tough exterior,” she told me one night as I cried on her bed. Her hands wrapped around me and pulled me close. I could still feel her warmth and smell her perfume when I closed my eyes and thought about that moment. “He’s a good man, Holly. He’s just troubled.”
I remembered hating her in that moment. How could she excuse the way he acted and how he treated her and her children? Now, as an adult, I understood her heart was pure, probably purer than most, and that she’d seen something in him we didn’t, and possibly never could. And she never stopped wishing he’d turn into a better man.
My baking kept me busy, and even though I finished a four-year degree at the community college in business economics, my heart longed for the peace I experienced when creating confections that always made people smile. It didn’t take long for our small town to spread the word of my delicious treats. With word of mouth, I was baking five to ten cakes a week. In the kitchen, my dad didn’t seem to bother me as much. He had a fridge beside his recliner where he kept his beer, and Hannah brought him dinner from the steakhouse she waitressed, so he had no real reason to venture into the small room that smelled of vanilla and cocoa.
“Hannah will be home soon,” I assured him.
“Ugh, another fucking baked potato,” he grumbled, his face curling into a snarl.
My heart raced as I stared into the eyes of the man who helped create me and wondered how he had become so ungrateful, or if he’d always been that way.
Was it really pain he tried to drown with alcohol or was he just a dick?
“I can make you something else.” I caved, realizing that he was only after a fight and not willing to give it to him.
“Don’t fucking bother. You’d probably burn it anyway.”
Relief fell over me when he finally turned and ambled from the room. Seconds later, I heard the familiar squeak of his recliner leaning back just before the television boomed to life. The recliner had been nice once, soft brown leather that was now ripped and faded. My mother had begged him to get rid of it, promising to buy him a new one. I remembered that fight and how angry he had grown at her suggestion. He told her she was an ungrateful bitch that didn’t know how to manage money. That was the night her sewing chair flew through the front window. It was brutally cold, and after he passed out from his raging fit, I stood in the snow with her, nailing plywood over the hole that leaked the harsh winter into our small home.
I need to get out of here!
I pulled my phone from my purse and stared at it, wondering who to call. I opened my contacts, and alphabetical order dictated that Ace be at the very top. I immediately smiled.