HICKEY Read online

  “I don’t want to talk,” I whispered.

  “That makes two of us,” he said just before he grabbed my wrists and pinned them above my head. I could have squirmed away with ease if I wanted to, if the musky scent of his body and the heat of his skin hadn’t turned me into a batch of brainless, voiceless dough.

  While he restrained my arms with one hand, he used the other to boldly hitch up my shirt. I gasped when his fingertips played across my belly and groaned when his touch strayed lower, cupping me in his hand like he had every right in the world to do whatever he pleased. I couldn’t make myself do a thing to stop him. It had been too long for me, too long since I felt this consuming desire to be handled roughly by the only man who’d ever managed to push all the right buttons.

  “Is this what you wanted?” he asked, hooking a thumb into the waistband of my panties and tugging until the elastic stretched.

  “Damn, you,” I said through clenched teeth even as I writhed and moved my body to give him better access.

  “Damn us,” he growled and slipped his thumb inside me.

  While I strained and moved my hips and urged him on, Bran decided to torture my neck. He sucked hard at the tender spot just above my collarbone and the rough bristle of his unshaven jaw scraped against my skin, sending a fresh shudder of desire careening through me. He remembered how to work me, what turned me on. Or else he had the same moves for everyone. Every inch of me was in a fever to get handled by his hands, his tongue, his dick. I didn’t care who he was or what he’d done or what it said about me that I was so eager to give in like this.

  I bucked shamelessly against his hand as he pushed another finger inside me.

  “Fuck,” I panted as a massive wave grew higher and higher inside of me. It would crash. Very soon.

  “Oh, you’re not allowed to come yet,” he growled and withdrew as he released my arms.

  Bran pulled me to him roughly, crushing my body against his and then deliberately sliding me up and down so I’d feel how hard he was through his jeans. His dark eyes were so full of raw lust it was nearly frightening. Then he did me a favor by pulling back and yanking his own shirt over his head. I was grateful. The shirt should be too, since I’d just been wondering if I was strong enough to rip the fabric with my bare hands so I could get to his body.

  Speaking of his body, I could really see now that he was about three times more ripped than he’d been seven years ago. And to anyone who knew him back then, that was really saying something. Branson Hickey had become a motherfucking chiseled masterpiece. All traces of boyishness were gone from this cut monument, complete with a six pack and a patchwork of thick tribal tattoos that curled around his rock hard abdomen like erotic snakes.

  I knew I was staring. I also knew I couldn’t stop myself unless I got rid of my eyes.

  Bran raised an eyebrow, but he looked pleased. “You scared of muscles now?”

  I tipped my chin in defiance. “No.”

  He pulled at the hem of my shirt. “Take it off, Cess. Nice and slow.”

  I swallowed. I wanted to do it but part of me rebelled against making everything so easy for him.

  When I hesitated he lost patience, shoved his hands under my shirt and pulled it over my head. Bran tossed the thing aside without missing a beat. My pink satin panties were ruined, the waistband stretched to oblivion, although they still hung on around my hips. He tugged slowly, so slowly, letting the ball of his thumb graze my throbbing clit teasingly while I bit my lip and tried not to moan.

  Bran let out a low whistle. “Goddamn it, honey,” he swore, his voice husky as he admired the view. “You’re more fucking gorgeous than ever.”

  I opened my mouth because I felt like I had to retort in some way or make a last stab at some dignified resistance, but I had nothing to say. This was happening. I wanted it to happen. I could use Bran’s body and still manage to guard my heart.

  Bran unsnapped his jeans and dropped them in two seconds flat. His voice was the sound of sex itself. “Inside my head I’ve fucked you at least a thousand times so don’t expect me to hold back. This is gonna be rough, Cecily.”

  I heard him talking but I wasn’t paying much attention because I was busy. I was busy staring at the giant dick pointed in my direction like a heat seeking missile. Some things about Bran Hickey might have changed over time but the unholy size of his cock wasn’t one of them. The longer I stared the more every nerve between my legs eagerly convulsed. Long, hard, thick and everything a dick was put on this earth to be, I wanted it in my palm, my mouth, probing deep inside of me where it was designed to fit.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Huh?” I’d vaguely heard him. I’d never been good at multi-tasking so I couldn’t listen and worship the sight of his dick simultaneously. The thing had deserved a moment of silence anyway.

  Bran gave me a knowing smile that warned he was aware of what was going on inside my head. It was the same smile he gave me two milliseconds before he put an end to my virginity. It was the kind of smile that understood my every desire and arrogantly declared it knew the answer.

  Speaking of the answer, I was still fixated on it. It was right there in front of me, being idly stroked in its owner’s palm. I stared at the flushed head of Bran’s dick, remembering what it felt like at the back of my throat. In seven years I should have racked up some worthy sexual experiences but none of them ever measured up to him. My first, my best.

  “Get on your knees,” he ordered.

  I dropped automatically. Bran wasn’t shy about pushing his dick toward my lips and I didn’t hesitate to suck it greedily into my mouth. His hands were all fisted up in my hair as he pumped against my mouth and I loved his heat, his taste. I loved knowing how much it turned him on when I took him in as deep as I could.

  “Now stop,” he commanded with sudden sharpness and pulled away.

  I looked up at him, surprised and breathless. “Why?”

  He bent down and briefly tugged at my lower lip with his teeth before yanking me to my feet.

  “Because I need to fucking do something first,” he said with narrowed eyes.

  I wanted him so much I trembled. “What?” I whispered.

  “I need to erase the memory of every other bastard who’s ever dared to touch you. I need to make you come so hard you won’t remember what goddamn year it is or what planet you live on. You remember, Cess. You know how this goes between us.”

  I knew. I remembered.

  “Yes,” I moaned because everything he said sounded really good to me.

  “That’s a good girl,” Bran said with approval and I was tossed back in time to being an eighteen-year-old virgin with a thin ring on my finger, about to spread my legs on a motel bed for the undoubted king of Hickeyville.

  Bran was suddenly unwrapping a condom and I was happy to see it. I was so out of my head I might have screwed him bareback six times before pausing to think about the consequences.

  And any scoffers who insisted that smart, capable women simply do not ever lose their minds over the sight of a dick can fuck right off because they certainly never met a worthy dick.

  As soon as Bran casually rolled the latex on he scooped me up so suddenly that I squealed. It was purely a symbolic gesture on his part; the bed was two lousy steps away. Bran always needed to call the shots when it came to sex. That hadn’t changed.

  He set me down on the mattress and loomed over me, taking a moment to run his palms over my breasts, torturing the nipples. Then he slid his hands underneath my hips and I opened for him with eagerness.

  “Cecily.” Bran’s voice had changed. The way he said my name was almost harsh.

  But when I locked eyes with him he only held my gaze for an intense second before the first mighty thrust that almost sent me over the edge.

  Seven years of inadequate satisfaction – a few limp screws and a five-month disaster with an engineering student who only believed in oral – caught up with me. My skin stretched and I moaned with abandon
and barely thirty seconds after he started pumping I was in the throes of something magnificent. No one ever had a chance at challenging Bran in this department. I doubted anyone ever would.

  I tried to keep quiet but a swarm of groans and curses flew out of my mouth and probably made their way past the study lounge, out the west door and across the quad to the dining hall as music for the masses.

  Bran had more self control. He took his time, flipped me over and then turned me back, getting me off twice more before shuddering and exploding.

  “Oh wow,” I whispered as I felt the spasms shake him. When I heard my own words I realized that was probably the dumbest thing anyone has ever uttered in the history of sex.

  Bran didn’t pull out right away. I felt his hot release just beyond the thin barrier of the condom and I heard his sigh of satisfaction as his heartbeat slowed, returning to normal.

  My arms spread across his back while his face rested in the hollow between my neck and shoulder. There was a moment, just a moment, when we weren’t two hot bodies that just slammed together recklessly. It was a moment of blissful connection and for an instant I was seven years in the past, back to a time of ‘I love you’ promises and other vanished things.

  Then Bran sat up and I closed my legs. While he was disposing of the condom I grabbed my shirt and covered myself up.

  “Well,” I said as I was smoothing the cotton over my breasts. Then I couldn’t come up with anything else to say. One simple mind-blowing fuck and I had lost access to the English language.

  Bran crossed to the window, cracked open the blinds and just stood there for a minute. I sat on the edge of the bed and wondered what ought to happen next between two people with a history like ours.

  Then he turned around.

  Branson Hickey was smiling.

  And it didn’t seem like a ‘So happy I could dance’ kind of smile.

  No, to me it looked more like a ‘Fuck yeah, I just breached the enemy gate’ devilish grin.

  “Damn, I’ve missed that,” he said and then started hunting around on the floor for his shirt.

  While he located the green puddle of cotton and slipped it over his head I stared at him. The call of my libido wasn’t loud anymore. It wasn’t making a sound. In fact the only thing I could hear was the way my ex-husband had just said “I’ve missed that” like he was talking about his favorite fast food hamburger.

  After all, there is a Texas-sized distance between ‘I’ve missed that’ and ‘I’ve missed you’.

  In addition to twenty pounds of solid muscle, the last seven years had apparently also given Bran another layer of arrogance. He was always full of himself, even when he was whispering all kinds of sweet promises in my ear. He was used to winning, whether it involved knocking people over on a football field, commanding high school hallways or casually proposing marriage on the concrete bank of a municipal reservoir. Even though that had always been the case, something about it rubbed me the wrong way at the moment.

  Bran caught my eye and winked. Then he pointedly zipped up his fly before he leaned against the wall and started whistling. To my supreme horror I recognized the opening bars of The Star Spangled Banner.

  Because right after you fuck your ex like a wild animal the thing to do, always, was to whistle the national anthem.

  I folded my hands primly in my lap and crossed my legs at the ankles despite the fact that it was a little too late for ladylike gestures. “Well, that was fun, but you need to get the hell out of here now.”

  The Star Spangled Banner stopped. Bran’s eyebrows rose. I had surprised him. He actually looked concerned.

  “Cess, I was thinking maybe we could go grab a drink or something.”

  “A drink?”

  “Well, it’s a little late for dinner.” He tried to reach for my hand. “Come on, let’s go somewhere. Even just for a drive.”

  I snorted with disgust. “As much as I appreciate your generosity, I’m going to have to decline.”

  He stopped trying to reach for me and scowled. “Don’t do that. Don’t talk to me like you’re a professor and I’m one of your students.”

  “If you’re so averse to academia, Bran, you shouldn’t be at a university.”

  “Just talk to me straight, dammit.”

  “Okay, I’ll use smaller words for your sake.” I stood up. “I’m not having a fucking drink with you. I’m not taking a fucking drive with you. And I want you to fucking leave.”

  He didn’t storm out. He didn’t even seem angry. He looked around the room in the same way he had when he walked in here and just looked….sad.

  “Cecily, I came here tonight to talk to you. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “Oh, I know. Your dick must have slipped and fallen inside my vagina.”

  “Cess.”

  “I really do hate when dicks are so careless.”

  “Cecily!”

  “Good thing you had the foresight to bring latex protection in case of such an unforeseen emergency.”

  His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t angry before but now he was getting there.

  “We’re still good together,” he said. “What the hell is wrong with that?”

  I shook my head miserably. “Everything, considering who we are.”

  “Why are you acting as if you didn’t want it too?” he challenged.

  “You’re a piece of work,” I snarled. “I can’t believe you’re searching for fucking gratitude.”

  Bran shrugged nonchalantly. “Already got fucking out of you, sweetheart. Now I’m asking for honesty.”

  Honesty?

  HONESTY???

  Was he joking? Was he delusional? Or did he just assume that I was delusional, that I’d forgotten everything?

  I tipped my chin up and stared him down. “If I admit that we can still manage to fuck like champions would that make you get out of my life more quickly?”

  He stared back. “Try it.”

  I cleared my throat. “I, Cecily Elizabeth Barnett, am telling you, Branson Thomas Hickey, that I appreciate the fact that we joined together in unholy orgasmic fury five minutes ago, however I do not make any further commitment to you.”

  Bran didn’t respond for a full minute. Then he nodded slowly, understanding that I was making a mockery of our ancient wedding vows.

  “You’re angry,” he said.

  “You’re perceptive,” I shot back.

  “Cess, please. I tried to give you some space but I knocked on your door tonight because I couldn’t stand wasting any more time. There are things I need to say, things I should have said years ago. It wasn’t my plan to get you on your back within five minutes but hell, it shows there’s a whole lot of unfinished business between us.”

  “There’s nothing between us, Bran,” I said coolly. “Nothing but bad memories.”

  In two strides he was right in front of me, cradling my face in his big hands. I moaned a little when his fingers lightly massaged the nape of my neck. I couldn’t help it.

  “This doesn’t feel like nothing,” he said, pressing his forehead to mine.

  I stared at his lips, craving to feel to them everywhere. He was right. It didn’t feel like nothing. It felt like too much. It felt like something that would send me hopelessly off course and deliver me to the mercy of someone who’d already thrown me away once.

  I squirmed away. “I have an early class in the morning,” I said. “You need to leave.”

  “An early class,” he echoed, like he knew I was full of shit, which I was.

  Bran sighed and slowly retreated to the door as I watched. A pathetic voice in my head was shrieking that I needed to tell him to come back and I wondered where it came from, why it hurt to see him go when I’d been the one to order him out.

  I was afraid. Afraid I’d dwell for countless hours how it felt to be held by him again. I couldn’t escape being reminded of a fact that I had buried for so long; that it was possible to feel so connected to someone that it seemed like you shared the
same soul.

  He had his hand on the knob when he turned around.

  “This isn’t the end and you know it,” he warned and then didn’t wait to see if I would answer.

  I flinched at the sharp sound of the door closing.

  “I know,” I whispered.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Cecily

  The first time I ever went out with Bran he took me to a movie and then gave me a hickey on the front porch of my mother’s house.

  Later, as I dreamily brushed my teeth before bed, I kept replaying the scene over and over in my head, thinking about the fact that he’d called me ‘baby’ before he took off.

  I stared at the mirror and touched the distinct red patch on my neck. My hair could hide it easily but I didn’t want to hide it. I was amazed. It seemed like Branson Hickey had claimed me somehow.

  Then I scolded myself for jumping to conclusions. For normal people, one brief make out session didn’t mean a damn thing.

  It turned out that Bran’s word was good. He really did show up the next night to take me out again. And the night after that and so on. If that wasn’t surprising enough in itself, he wasn’t even trying to get me horizontal. Sometimes I caught him staring at me with unmistakable hunger and I wondered what was holding him back. We got along tremendously and I never saw him even glance sideways at another girl when he was with me. He would drive clear across town on his lunch hour to visit me for fifteen minutes at the restaurant.

  Before Bran strolled into Berto’s one late summer afternoon I thought I knew the kind of guy he was. I’d be lying if I insisted that I’d stared straight at him for all these years and never noticed that he’d evolved into sex on a stick. Tall, black-haired, with sharp, dark eyes and a body that made women stop and stare, he was something special. Add in the mysticism of the all-American football idol and you had a recipe for mass, panty-sopping worship.

  Bran was a dog when it came to hookups but somehow he avoided being a jerk because he was also nice. Sure he’d messed with with half the girls in our class by sophomore year and was working on the other half but he never promised things he wasn’t willing to give. Girlfriends weren’t his thing and there was no mystery about it.