My Curvy Valentine: A Perfect Fit Novella (18 page)

“Are you sore?” He paused his stroking.

“You’d think I would be after having your big penis inside me all night, but I’m feeling pretty good.”

“You sure?” He touched her swollen clitoris, rubbing in small circles until he heard her pant.

“I’m sure.”

She was becoming slicker with each stroke and he was finding it hard to control himself. “I need you again.” He settled himself between her legs. “Is it okay?”

“You know it is.”

“I feel selfish.” He slid inside of her as deep as he could go. She was so warm and tight and wet. She was heaven around him. This time felt different and as soon as he slid into her again he knew why.

No condom. He had never had sex without one before. “Protection,” he gasped, not wanting this feeling to end, but knowing they had to be safe.

“I’m on birth control and I get tested every year. There’s been no one but you.”

“I’ve been tested too.” And there had been no one, not since his last girlfriend went overseas nearly a year ago. “I’m always safe. I’ve never done it like this before.”

“Then stay.” She wrapped her leg around his hip. “Let me be your first.” There was something about her words that caused his heart to jump. Her words were too sweet. He covered her mouth, kissing her deeply, pumping inside of her with deep slow strokes. She clenched herself around him, making their lovemaking painfully good.

She was no passive partner. She gave to him as well. She stroked her hands down his back, moved her hips under his. She kissed him, on his mouth, all over. It was the first time he ever felt loved while making love.

“Faster,” she panted. “Please. More.” She clenched herself around him again, squeezing him until he was dangerously close to the edge.

“Stop that.” He gritted his teeth. He wanted this to last as long as possible. This was their first time, so to speak.

“No.” She pushed at his chest till he rolled over and she was on top. She put her hands on his chest and started to ride him. Her head was thrown back, her eyes were closed, her breasts were softly bouncing and it was the sexiest thing he had ever seen. She dug her nails into his chest as her climax hit. She squeezed around him one last time, causing him to lose himself inside her. She collapsed on top of him. Her face on his chest, their bodies still connected. She fell asleep like that.

They dozed for a short time and he awoke again when he felt his dick coming alive inside again. She was moving off of him, leaving the bed completely. He thought she might be going to the bathroom, but she bent to pick up her clothes.

“Where are you going?” He sat up.

“Home.” She bent to kiss him as she was sliding her underwear back on her beautiful body.

“Home? Stay here tonight.”

“No.” She kissed him again, a little longer this time. “I might not see you tomorrow. I have an errand to run before work.”

“After work?” He grabbed her hand.

“Dinner with the girls.” She kissed him one last time. “Thanks for today. I had fun.” She walked away from him.

Fun, he thought as she left him. Fun wasn’t the way he would describe their day. It was so much more than that.

Chapter 10

One of the hardest things she’d ever done was pick up her clothes and walk away from Alex that night. The sex had been fun and sweet and wild at times. It was nearly addicting. She could fall in love with him. It would be all too easy, but she knew she couldn’t. She knew that Roya was still around, lurking in the background, still on his mind even if he didn’t want to admit it.

She was going to have to keep her distance. It would be hard, but it was the only way to protect her heart.

“You okay, Maggie May?” Belinda put her hand on Maggie’s shoulder, stopping her from restocking for a moment. “You seem kind of down today.”

“I’m fine. I’m just a little tired.”

“Was Alex’s grandmother okay? You seemed pretty worried on the phone yesterday.”

She nodded. “She landed on her bottom. I’m almost glad she fell. Alex might not have spent the day with her unless she had. With his mother gone it’s important that he holds on to his relationship with Yaya.”

“You and Alex have been spending a lot of time with each other lately. You sure nothing is going on?”

“I’m not sure what’s going on,” she admitted. “He’s my best friend.”

“It’s not so bad to fall in love with your best friend, Maggie.”

“It
is
bad to get your heart broken by him, though.”

“Why are you so sure that’s going to happen? You haven’t even given you two a chance yet.”

“His ex is still in the picture. I think she wants to get back together.”

“That gorgeous Brazilian woman he brought to visit you last year?”

“He had never brought a woman just to meet me before. I was sure they were going to get married.”

“But they didn’t. She went away right after that.”

“I think she might come back.”

“So what if she does? She’s not any better than you. Your ass is way better than hers.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” She felt herself smiling for the first time that day. “Alex seems to think so too.” The memory of him running his hands all over it brought back memories of last night. She throbbed just thinking about him.

“Does he now? You’ve got to give him a chance.”

The bell over the door sounded and she turned to see the customer coming through the door, only to find herself disappointed. “I’m not sure I can. My parents screwed me up too much for that.”

Belinda turned to see what she was looking at. “Oh, shit. Is that your father that just walked in here?”

“Yeah. Is it okay if I talk to him in the back?”

“Do what you got to do, babe. I’m here if you need me.”

Maggie steeled herself, holding her head high as she walked over to her father. “Are you here for a Valentine’s Day present for Tina? I can help you pick one out. Or maybe you’re here to pick out a bathing suit for Mom? She’s going to need one for the vacation you’re going on.”

“Enough, Maggie,” he said in that commanding voice he used on her when she was a kid. “I came here to talk to you.”

“We can go in the back.” She wanted to talk to him too. She had a lot of things to say.

She took him to the break room, and shut the door behind them. At first all he did was stand there and look at her. She was so used to seeing his critical gaze, but this time he was looking at her with sadness.

“It bothered me when you left the other night.”

“And it bothered me that you spent my whole life being verbally abusive to my mother.”

He nodded. “You’re angry with me. You should be. I was wrong. But I have worked things through with your mother and we are both in a good place. But you seem mad at me about that too. I can’t seem to win with you.”

“You’re like a different person now. You’re happy and you never were when we were kids. How is that supposed to make us feel? Life is better without us? Your family was making you miserable?”

“My family was not making me miserable, but
I
was miserable. And you act like I threw you away. I didn’t leave you, you left me.” He wiped his hand over his face in frustration. He was always deadly calm when he was angry, but this time it was different, this time he seemed
shaken. “I tried with you. I tried to keep contact. I tried to see how you were. I tried to talk to you, but you never had time for me.”

“You expected me to make time for you? Pretend like we had a great relationship when I spent my whole childhood afraid of you.”

“Afraid of me?” He looked stunned. “I’ve never laid a hand on you or your mother. I never raised my voice.”

“You were controlling. Mom couldn’t breathe without your permission. She was so afraid of displeasing you it drove her to tears.”

“Your mother wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t all my fault. I’m sick of always being the bad guy here.”

“You are the bad guy. You—”

“She cheated on me! She had an affair. You want to know why I was mean to her? You want to know why I was controlling? That was why. I was hurt and I didn’t know how to handle it.”

“You’re lying.” She backed away from him, shaking her head. Not Betty. Not her mother. It was impossible.

“We agreed not to tell you. She didn’t want you to think poorly of her. I agreed, but you should know, Maggie. You have the right to know.”

She did have the right to know, but she didn’t want to hear it from him. She needed to hear it from her mother. Everything would have made so much more sense if she had.

“It wasn’t always so bad. Remember?” he said when she didn’t respond. “We used to be happy until I found out that she was sleeping with my friend while I was in Desert Storm. I know I was wrong for the way I treated your mother, Maggie. I pray for forgiveness every day, but the damn woman broke my heart. And I thought if I controlled everything, that I could prevent it from happening again. I was too stupid to realize that it never healed in the first place.”

She didn’t know what to say. She was too stunned. There were too many thoughts circulating in her head. “I spent my entire childhood wondering why she wouldn’t leave. But now I’m wondering why you didn’t.”

“I loved my kids. I wanted to hold on to my family. I still do. I would have never divorced your mother, but I’m glad she was brave enough to do it. Because if she hadn’t I never would have gotten the help I needed.”

“You got help?”

“I see a therapist every week. I need to. I lost your mother, but I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t know what to say, Dad.” He kept stunning her. And with just a few words everything she had thought was true had vanished.

“Say that next time I call you’ll pick up the phone.” He stepped forward and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Maggie May. Tell Alex his cake was good.” He walked away, leaving her feeling like her world had crumbled beneath her.

*

Maggie had stayed at work the rest of the day. Going through the motions, selling lingerie and helping ladies pick out dresses for their Valentine’s Day dates, but her heart wasn’t
in it because it was too heavy, sore from thinking about the bomb her father had dropped on her that day.

She knew what he said was true. Her father was a lot of things. But he wasn’t a liar. He wouldn’t make up that his wife had hurt him. But she still needed to see her mother, to hear the words from her mouth.

She knocked on her mother’s door in the condo complex she’d moved to when she left two years ago. Betty opened the door, a smile on her face, a dish towel thrown over her shoulder. “Hi, baby girl. I just finished making dinner. Come in.”

“Did you cheat on Daddy?” she asked as calmly as she could.

Her mother’s cheeks went red. “Oh dear.” She patted her face.

“He came to visit me at work today. I want it to be a lie. Please tell me it’s a lie,” she said even though she knew that it wasn’t.

“Come inside, Maggie May.”

She shook her head. “I just need to hear you say it.”

Betty looked stricken for a moment. “Yes, I had an affair.”

“Why?” It was something she couldn’t wrap her head around. Her mother was good and sweet. Her mother wasn’t the type of person who cheated.

“I was lonely. Your father was away all the time in those days. There was the Gulf War and before that he was in Africa doing God knows what. He never told me. I never saw him. I barely spoke to him. I was raising two kids alone and Dave was there. Dave listened to me and helped me. Dave made me feel pretty and desirable at a time I was terribly depressed.”

“You loved him?”

“No. But he was there when your father wasn’t.”

“How could you?”

“I’m human! It was wrong. But it happened.”

“I’m not mad about the affair! Don’t you get it? I’m mad because you stayed and let him treat you like shit. You let him degrade you over and over just because you felt guilty. Do you realize how screwed up that is? To allow yourself to be punished for twenty years for one mistake.”

“Maggie…”

“Why couldn’t you tell me, Mom? I thought we were close. I thought we shared everything. I think that’s what hurts the most, that you couldn’t trust me enough to love you anyway. I had to hear it from him. From the man I spent the last twenty years hating.”

“I never wanted you to hate him.”

“Did you give me any other choice? I grew up thinking he was a monster and you were just his innocent victim. I never understood why you let him do that to you. Why, when you always told me that I had to be strong, that I had to stick up for myself.”

“I stayed because I loved him. Because I hurt him so badly and I wanted to make it up to him. I stayed because I wanted my family to stay together.”

“We stayed together, but what good did that do? Did we have the life you always dreamed of?”

*

Alex sat on his couch looking over the final menu for the Valentine’s Day ball on Saturday. He tried not to think about it, but there was a lot riding on this evening. It could be the push he needed to make his business successful. Plus he’d rather think about that than Maggie. He hadn’t seen her since she left that night. She didn’t stop by for coffee like she used to every morning. She warned that she wouldn’t have time before work, but he thought that was a flimsy excuse. He opened at 6:30. She could have stopped by. He was starting to think that she didn’t want to.

He tried not to let it bother him, but it did. After having the best sex of his life with her, he wanted to repeat the process. He wanted to never let her out of his bed. She could have been having second thoughts, thinking that they crossed a line, that they were putting their friendship in jeopardy. The thoughts had entered his head for a moment, but he didn’t regret a single thing. He couldn’t regret taking her to bed last night if he tried

There was a knock at his door. He got up knowing it was her. It was like his thoughts had conjured her. She was standing there looking pale and miserable. His stomach hit his feet. “What’s wrong?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth the tears hit her cheeks.

“Tell me.” He pulled her inside and into his arms. “Did somebody hurt you?” He kicked the door closed. “Am I going to have to kill someone?”