When I'm with You (Hope Town #3) Read online

  Blindly moving my hands down the slim torso, my fingers dig in when I hit her hips, giving her a firm squeeze in warning before I pull her body closer to mine. Her legs wrap around my hips easily as her dress rides up and my dick instantly finds a home. Or the warm home he wants to go inside of, that is.

  Fuck. I can feel how wet she is, the thin barrier of her underwear doing nothing to shield that from me.

  I’m drunk enough to know I should stop, but even though the rational thought keeps crossing over the intoxicated waves rolling in my head, I would never be able to step away from this feeling. I justify that decision with the mental reminder that I’m not that drunk.

  Drunk or not, even I have a few reservations about taking her when I don’t even know her name. I might have been fucking my way through life the last few years, but even I have some morals.

  The smell, taste, and feel of her are like nothing I’ve ever felt before. If I weren’t already flying on a beer high, I would swear it was this little firecracker doing it to me.

  Firecracker.

  Even with another woman warm and willingly wrapped around my body, the vision of Emberlyn Locke hits me hard with just that one word. It’s been years, years of fantasies and forbidden desire, and it never changes. I try my hardest to shake the image that is holding my mind hostage, using my body’s desires for the willing woman in my arms to try to replace it as I move against her.

  “Take me,” she whispers on a moan when I thrust my hips harder against her pliant body.

  I know from experience that now that I see her in my mind, I’ll never be able to see the reality in front of me, so I’m not sure why I’m even trying so hard. This chick is just another faceless woman who will wear the mask of Ember’s face. Like many before her have.

  I push my cock rougher against her while reaching behind me for my wallet, hoping I remembered to stuff a condom in there earlier. She loosens her grip on my hips as I struggle to free the damn thing, and I feel one of her legs drop from my body. The sounds of music and people enjoying themselves float in the air around us, reminding me that I need to hurry this along before someone finds us. The last thing I need to get caught doing at my sister’s wedding reception is fucking some chick.

  Her hands roam all over my body as I make quick work of protecting myself, touching every inch she can reach. I go to lift my mouth from her neck, but she just tightens her grip on my neck, not allowing me to leave the spot I’ve been feasting on for the last ten minutes. If she’s so dead set on me not looking at her, that’s all the green light I need to hurry this along.

  Finally, I grab the leg that dropped from me with a firm hold against her smooth thigh while pushing her back against the wall a little harder in order to stabilize our bodies. With one of her legs tight around my back, the other being held in my hand, I reach my free hand between us and curl my fingers into the crotch of her lace panties. In one powerful jerk, they’re on the ground at our feet.

  Turning my mouth from her neck, I bite the skin under her ear before lifting my rock hard cock from her body, feeling like my balls are about to fall off they’re so tight. “Going to fuck you now. Fuck you so goddamn hard, babe.”

  “Oh, God,” I hear, just barely, over the heavy panting coming from the two of us. Her voice so low I almost miss her next word. “Finally.”

  I laugh, the sound coming out more animalistic now that I have her wet heat kissing the tip of my cock. “Yeah, babe … finally. I wish I could wait to get you somewhere more accommodating, but I’ll make it worth it.” Remembering my earlier thoughts, I rush out the next words in a hiss as I start to push inside her. “Tell me your name, babe,” I ask, moaning loudly when the tip of my cock enters her and is surrounded by the tight, scorching wet heat of her cunt. I might be an ass, but I’ll, at least, let her think I care about who I’m fucking by recalling to ask her what her fucking name is.

  Her legs lock and her body goes from soft and pliable to rock hard instantly. Confusion makes me pause in my movements, not pushing any farther into her tight as fuck little body. I can feel sweat beading on my forehead. I’ve never fucked a woman who felt this good around me, and I’m only an inch inside her snug pussy. The painful gasp that comes from her makes me jerk my head up from where I had been nibbling from the back of her ear down to her shoulder. I knew I should have waited until I could get her off this wall before fucking her.

  With a gasp, I open my eyes for the first time. Confusion holds me in its grip for a beat before I realize I had been dreaming. What the fuck? The same one had haunted my dreams for longer than I care to admit and it never fails. I wake up with my cock hard, seconds away from coming, but never getting past that one fucking moment.

  I search through the darkness of my room as I try to grab hold of the dredges of the dream that I never get to see the end of. No matter how hard I try, I never see her. I never get anything past that breathy gasp. Well, that’s a lie … I did get a bed of my own come once when I decided just the thought of that tight cunt was worth letting a load out.

  “Goddamn,” I bark, the sound echoing off the empty room around me.

  Lifting off the mattress, I toss back the covers and move to stand. My whole body is alive with the dream that never seems to leave. The location changes, as it always has over the years, but lately, it’s been the same.

  Me taking a woman I mask as Ember in some drunken haze fuck against the side of my parents’ house during my sister’s wedding reception. The hell if I can remember when it turned into that, though. I only recently started picturing and hearing the sounds of everyone partying around us.

  The dreams started shortly after her graduation party, but they have never, not once, felt this real. Reaching down as I walk, I wrap my hand around my balls, feeling for the wetness that had been falling from her body in my dream, only to come up empty. Well, not fucking empty since I can feel just how real my mind thought that dream was.

  Walking through my bedroom, I keep my hand on my balls as the discomfort from each step I take seems to hit me right between the legs. A painful reminder my cock needs attention now.

  As I walk past my open bedroom door, I’m thankful that I live alone now. Not bothering with the light, I walk into the bathroom, opening the glass door of the shower, and turn the water on. I don’t wait for the water to heat; I don’t even feel the cold blast when I step in and under the spray. I’m too busy still trying to continue the dream.

  With a sigh of resignation, I realize it’s a fruitless endeavor even to try. Might as well give me a memory I would love to have had a chance at making a reality. My hand goes for the body wash as my mind brings up the most recent picture of Ember in my mind. Squeezing blindly, I fill my palm before soaping up my body, trailing my hand down my abs before moving back to my balls. I give them a little attention before my fist wraps around my painfully hard cock, stroking slowly as the vision fills my mind like a motion picture.

  She hasn’t changed much in almost three years. Her small body, big tits, and face that would tempt a saint have only matured. She was beautiful at eighteen, but now, just shy of twenty-one, she’s breathtaking.

  The last time I saw her feels like a lifetime ago, but it was maybe six or so months ago standing outside my parents’ house during one of the monthly dinners we all have. Our parents have been a tight-knit group of friends since way before we were all born, and ever since they started adding kids to the group, monthly dinners have become a must for all to attend.

  Everyone was there that night since it was her father’s birthday. Thinking back, that was probably the only reason she was there, since she’s made it a point to make herself scarce. Even before that night, she hadn’t come but every other or so month.

  The vision of her fills my mind, and I moan deep in my throat when the hand not busy with my cock rubs over my hard nipples; twisting the metal piercing through them causes the hard cock in my hand to jerk.

  She’d pulled her dark auburn hair back in a high pon
ytail that day, highlighting her long neck. I remember wondering what it would be like to wrap her thick, long hair around my fist as I took her from behind with just that hold on her hair. She never took off her sunglasses, which, at the time, pissed me off because I could always tell what she was thinking with one look in those dark brown eyes. She kept herself distant from me, which also pissed me the fuck off, but I remember a breeze bringing the intoxicating scent of her to my nostrils.

  Lemon and wildflowers.

  Licking my lips, I stroke myself a little faster and let my mind continue with the thoughts of her.

  I watched her all night; the vision in my mind as clear as it was that day. Every step she took highlighted every tan inch of her bare legs in her cut-off shorts as she walked around the backyard. Her legs, long and toned despite the fact that she’s so short, moved gracefully with each step. But that’s when I stop thinking about that night. Instead, I use that vision of her as a mold to place her in the dream that had woke me up. Now, in my dream, she’s wrapping those legs around my body as I finally feel what the reality of fucking her is like.

  I have to reach out to stabilize myself at the thought and I place one palm against the cool tile in front of me before dropping my head and feeling the water run down my back. My breathing speeds up until grunts of pleasure start to fall from my open mouth. I tighten my fist and work the straining flesh with a renewed fervor as thoughts of me taking Ember overwhelm me.

  “Ah, fuuuuck,” I moan, moving quickly so that my back takes the place of where my palm had just rested against the tile. The bite of the cold against my skin doesn’t even register because the second my body is stable and braced against the wall, I bring my other hand down to join the one frantically pumping the top half of my cock. I squeeze my balls before moving up to fist the bottom of my cock as I tighten the hold I have over the tip, using both hands as I begin to fuck my tightly clamped fists, pretending with each thrust that I’m taking her.

  My arms burn as I continue to fuck myself, my cock getting even harder under my wet hands until my orgasm rips through me. The thick jets of my come shoot forward, falling with the steady stream of the shower, as I ride out my pleasure.

  My legs start to shake with the force of my orgasm, and I almost lose my footing. Releasing the firm hold I have on myself, my cock falls, still heavy with leftover desire, against my body.

  I hate this feeling. No matter how great the pleasure my body gets from picturing her, I always feel empty after. A big giant reminder I’ll never know what having her feels like. Like it or not, this is all I’ll ever have. A hollow pit inside me that I’ve only ever felt was filling up when her smiles came at me without pause. A pit that’s taken up residence inside me since the night she admitted to having the same feelings I’ve been feeling for a long time. Fighting with myself, I evaded the magnitude of fear those feelings brought with them.

  “Fuck, it’s going to be a long day,” I say to the emptiness around me, stopping myself from continuing the depressing thoughts rolling through my mind.

  I finish showering before I get out and start to get ready for the day, unable to shake the feeling of loneliness that I’ve had plaguing me lately.

  AFTER MY MIDDLE OF THE night shower, I had given up any hopes of returning to sleep. If I was honest with myself, it was more about self-preservation than actually not being able to sleep. I worried I would be haunted with more thoughts of Ember in my arms, and I just don’t have the energy to deal with that shit right now.

  Three hours later, just when the clock in my truck’s dash turns over to seven in the morning, I’m pulling into the parking lot of the security business my dad owns with some of his old Marine buddies. No matter who you ask, they all say Corps Security was what brought all of our families together. I think after the parents of our group started having us kids, there was always a hope that we would all, in some way, join the business. Unfortunately, like our parents, we had our own dreams and many of them didn’t include anything CS related.

  Cohen Cage, my best friend and brother-in-law, started working here after he left the Marines himself, right before he married my sister, Dani. He followed his own father’s footsteps into the ‘family business,’ which was probably the catalysis for my dad’s desire to get me here.

  Cohen’s dad, Greg, was one of the men my dad had served with before they both joined the two security businesses they separately owned to form CS. My dad brought along John ‘Beck’ Beckett and Zeke Cooper when he moved to Georgia from California. Uncle Zeke passed away a few years later, but now, his brother, Asher, works for CS. Ember’s dad, Maddox Locke, was also part of their brotherhood and the man I currently work side by side with.

  I respect the hell out of my dad and the men who work here, but I’ll never be the man he wants me to be. I’ve been here for about a year and a half, but it wasn’t until six months ago when I finally put my foot down and told them it wasn’t for me. It only took one long-as-fuck stakeout with him before I realized watching cheating spouses will never be something I want for my future. Sure, they do a lot of other shit, but none of the cloak-and-dagger shit will ever be for me. Nah, not me. I’ve just been biding my time until I could do what I really wanted.

  The second my dad realized how much I hated just about every aspect of CS, he decided to put my computer knowledge to work, and I’ve been doing the IT shit that no one but Maddox has ever been able to do since. Of course, when you can hack into just about anything, even Maddox couldn’t keep up with me. It’s never been more than a hobby out of boredom, or stinginess to get free porn. No matter how much fun I find the challenge of a good hack, the last thing I want is to spend my hours locked inside some dark room staring at computer screens. The plus side, though, is that the pay is ridiculous, and because of my time here, I was finally able to save enough to start living my own dream. So for the last six months that I’ve been working here, I’ve gone down to part time. Eventually, I’ll be too busy for even that and only come in when they need my skills for a special case.

  Unlocking the front door, I walk through the doors of CS. I look over at the picture of my Uncle Coop front and center when you walk in before moving to disarm the security system. The lights flick on after I punch the codes into the high-tech monitor. It takes a few seconds of my fingers flying over the screen to rearm the system and make sure the screen registers me as ‘in,’ so the alarms don’t start blaring the second I move farther into the building. With a sigh, I walk around the empty reception desk to the thick closed door that separates the lobby from the offices. I press my thumb on the panel, waiting for the multiple locks to disengage as they recognize me before pushing the heavy door open. I repeat the same process when I get to my ‘office’ door; only, this time, I tip my head up and look into the camera above the door as it registers my facial imprint before disengaging the door lock and allowing me to walk into the dungeon. Or IT central, rather, but dungeon fits.

  Not a single window exists in here and they painted the walls black for a reason I will never fucking understand. Being that it houses about twenty computers and enough technical crap to give the biggest nerd a wet dream, the air in here is kept cold as shit to prevent anything from overheating.

  We monitor numerous residential and business properties around the clock, so this room is always humming, but since we don’t currently have any active cases that require constant monitoring, things have been quiet in here. I hate when we get those cases. Maddox and I tend to switch off duty with a few other guys since it becomes tedious to stare at that shit for hours on end.

  I move around the hub in the middle of the room that houses the bulk of our monitors and slide into my chair. My desk is pushed up against Maddox’s, forming a square of sorts in the back corner of the room. It’s easier this way, and our own personal computer monitors are designed so that, when we need to, we are able to swing them around to face the other person when another eye is needed. It’s easy enough for me to get lost in my coding,
surfing the dark corners of the internet looking for all the things that people think they’ve hidden forever. However, when he’s sitting in his chair, I always feel like he’s studying me more than he’s studying his own monitors.

  Secretly, I don’t mind his dark looks or attitude since his frustration usually warrants it. I’m usually easily fifteen steps ahead of him on cases he’s been stumbling through for days. Normally, anyone at the receiving end of his death glares would probably shit themselves but not me. No, I love it because while he focuses on being pissed at me, I can focus on things he doesn’t need to notice me taking in. Sitting on the left side of his desk, butted up to the wall and turned slightly so I have it perfectly in my line of sight when I jot something down, is a picture of his girls.

  Maddi and Ember.

  But I only have eyes for Ember.

  I do my best to ignore the taunting frame to my right as I quickly power on the computer. I grab the file I had been working on yesterday before I closed up, and it doesn’t take long before I lose track of the things around me. I’m finally able to let go of the tense feelings I’ve been carrying around all morning.

  I had been working steady for an hour or so when I hear the steady beep of the security system, alerting me to someone else showing up for the day, but I’ve been so close to closing this case that I don’t budge. They’ll see me show up on the security panel when they shut that shit off. I designed that brilliant system, knocking the old shit Maddox had installed out of the water. The iPad-size panel I had fiddled with when I came in the doors this morning not only works for the boring alarm functions of arming and disarming, but this one also keeps a running tally of the bodies in the whole office.

  After an incident that ended with the death of Uncle Coop, they had installed some safeguards. But none of them had made this place as secure as my program. Now, you need to go through a few steps just to get in the front door when no one is manning the desk, but also, thumbprint and facial recognition is needed once you get deeper into the bowels of the building.