Some Kind of Perfect (Calloway Sisters 5)

His erection, so hard, thick and long, wastes no time outside of me. He thrusts in. I’m so full, no space separating us, and he rocks his hips to ram deeper. One hand on my ass, the other imprisoning my wrists.

I try to force out new words, “I’m…going to ki—”

“Kiss me?” he teases.

I glare but gasp, my head hitting the wall. He runs his thumb down my lips.

“Kill,” I moan.

He pushes in so hard. My toes curl.

“Go ahead,” he taunts, his words against my ear, “try to kill me, Rose.” His deep, ragged breath is the equivalent of his fingers stroking my clit.

I can’t kill him.

I love him. Still, I try to escape from the wall to fuck with him, but he only fucks me faster. I lose it at this. His pleasure erupts in his eyes and parted lips, and mine coats my entire body.

I constrict and clench against him. My moan dies in my throat, but I can’t shut my mouth. He breathes hot against my neck, coming hard while I twitch around his cock, full of intense pleasure.

It takes a full five minutes for Horny Rose to get the fuck out.

And then I realize what just happened.

I broke the six-week, no-sex rule.

I broke the rule when Lily never even did.

* * *

We’re both clothed again. I lie on the bench in the dressing room where my betrayal occurred. I have my legs raised against Connor’s chest and shoulder while he straddles the bench. He has the little shopping bag, and I wave my hand for him.

“Pass it here.”

“You rejected my peace offering. Did you forget already?”

I glare. “So you just brought the bag in here to show me what I missed?” I’m about to fling my legs off him, but he hooks them with one arm, keeping them in place. It’s actually more than that. He lifts them higher and forward, so his semen will move towards my eggs faster.

I’m serious.

He came inside of me, and we’re not squandering the opportunity to have another girl. Please, God. Give me a girl. I’ve been able to get pregnant fairly easily, but I still like over-preparing and putting in extra effort.

Connor already called me an excellent pupil, but I made sure to note that I’m not his pupil. We’re equals. And I am fucking excellent.

“Do you want what’s in the bag, Rose?” he asks.

“The bag can go to hell. I’ll take what’s in it.” I hold out my hand.

He smiles, and he reveals a garment. A black…lacy bustier, almost similar to the one I was sketching. It’s beautiful. I hold it up, my head still on the bench. It’s soft and the perfect shape for my body. Years ago, I would’ve shuddered in distaste at the idea of a man picking out lingerie for me.

Connor knows me so well, and the gift is never an overt suggestion. It’s simply: I saw this and knew it’s something you’d buy yourself.

“And?”

“It’s hideous.”

He gestures for me to give it back to him.

“You can’t have it back.” I clutch it to my chest. “You already gifted it to me.”

“You must love hideous things,” he banters.

“I do love you,” I snap back.

He runs his hand down the length of my legs, drinking me in. My hot words should sear him dead, but they only pool love in his eyes. I could set Connor on fire a million times over, and he’d never burn to ash. I suppose that’s why we’re made for one another.

He can withstand every single inexhaustible part of me.

Willow & Garrison Abbey welcome the birth of their baby girl

VADA LAUREN ABBEY

May 11th, 2024

[ 40 ]

August 2024

The Cobalt Estate

Philadelphia

CONNOR COBALT

It’s 7:00 p.m., and after baths and story time with everyone in Tom’s room, Rose and I make rounds and tuck our six children into bed, each with their own rooms. I have to tell one of them something tonight, and to be truthful, I’m uncertain how he’ll handle it.

I pass Rose in the hallway, her hand on the door frame to Ben’s bedroom. “Tonight?” she asks.

“Tonight.” I nod. We’ve been putting off telling him because he won’t like it, but school starts soon. We can’t wait any longer.

“Just one of us should be in there,” Rose whispers. “I don’t want him to feel…”

“Picked on?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll do it.”

Rose tightens her ponytail. “Beckett gave Ben his tooth to put under his pillow, so who’s dealing with that tonight?”

My jaw tics at the subtle mention of the fictional Tooth Fairy. I have played into the charade for years, which has been the equivalent of chewing gravel. It’s been tolerable because all of our children treat Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and yes, the Tooth Fairy, as fables, not real creatures.

Everyone but Ben.

He believes he can actually meet the Tooth Fairy.

It makes the pretense a little more grating. I’d rather be upfront and explain to him that it’s not real, but I made a promise that I wouldn’t extinguish this childhood magic.

I haven’t, and I wouldn’t begin now.

Though I have to mention this, so I lower my voice. “It’s not Ben’s tooth. The Tooth Fairy shouldn’t reward selflessness.”

Rose glares. “You’d rather the Tooth Fairy promote greed?”

“We’re paying our children for their teeth. If anything, we’re teaching them they can sell their body for money. It’s linear to prostitution, but it’s acceptable because everyone does it, isn’t it?”

She scoffs. “You took it there.”

“Society took it there. I simply think about what everything means. It shouldn’t be a hard concept, using your brain, but so many people forget to do it. It’s why I’m better than them.”

Rose raises her hand to my face to shut down my narcissism. I’m not close enough, but I imagine kissing her palm. She whispers, “It doesn’t change the fact that one of us will be slipping money under Ben’s pillow tonight. You or me?”

“You, darling.” I willingly hand her this task.

Rose glances at the door that I need to head through. She tenses. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Yes.”

A moment later, Rose slips into Ben’s room. I keep walking to a different door, a different room. When I go inside, my five-year-old son is already beneath his green covers but wide-awake. He asked for a portrait of a raven for his fifth birthday, and the dark oil painting hangs above his dresser.

As soon as Eliot sees me, he sits up and pulls three old hardbacks from underneath his pillow. “One more story. Just one.”

“One more, but it can’t be long.”

Eliot smiles. He loves stories more than he loves physical books. It seems, at a glance, that there’s no difference between the two, but there is. His lamp casts a warm glow over his bed, and I take a seat next to him. He quickly pushes the hardbacks on my lap.

“Which book?” I hold them together and show him the spines.

Eliot has my brown hair color, the strands falling straight. He always has an impish look in his eyes, as though he’s seconds from a dramatic entrance and exit with folly swept frenziedly in between.

He takes a very long time examining the spines. “This one.” He points at Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems.

“What is that one?” I ask him.

“Poe.” He memorized the color of the book and remembered the title that was spoken to him before. He isn’t reading the words. It’s currently his favorite, which is why he asked for the painting of a raven. Rose is itching to give him Shakespeare, but we both think he’ll be overwhelmed by the words right now.

I set the other two books aside and open this one to the table of contents. “Which story?”