at the party at your parents’ house. Saw you react to him then too. He’s the one.”
I saw no reason to deny or confirm what Owen accurately guessed. He’d already heard the entire story of that horrible night.
“Yes. That’s him.”
Owen kissed my hair. “You scared of him?”
Am I? “I don’t like being around him and wish he lived somewhere else, but I’m older now and know better. When it happened, I was a kid who didn’t know how to handle things and I was by myself. I’m not alone anymore. He can’t hurt me.”
He can’t hurt me. Those four words made my heart grow light and my head giddy. It was true. He could stare, make rude statements, try to fuck with my accounts, even resort to physical intimidation. He could do whatever he wanted, but he couldn’t hurt me.
Owen moved my hair to kiss the back of my neck. “No, he can’t and won’t. He comes around, he has to go through me to get to you.”
His hand moved over my breast, and he lightly thumbed the nipple. “I move in, I’m not moving out. Not in a month, not in a year, not ever. This is it for me, Mel. I’ve waited for it a long time, and I’m not giving it up.”
I slipped off my panties and raised my leg to hook his hip behind me.
“I love you, Owen MacAteer.”
He freed himself from his boxers and pressed the head of his dick against my opening. He slipped in like a well-fit glove. Christ, I would never get tired of this!
His hips flexed as he slowly made love to me, moving in and out of my pussy at his leisure. Each stroke pressed against my G-spot, drawing a gasp from me every time he flexed. He filled me not only with his dick, but with his love, until I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began. His hand shifted from my breast down between my legs, and his fingers plucked at my clit, rolling it gently between them.
I came breathing his name. He came breathing mine.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Um… the decimal point goes where again?”
God save me! How did this kid plan on getting a good SAT score when he didn’t have basic math concepts? He needed to scrap the idea and take a remedial course instead of wasting my time and his parents’ money. This was my last tutoring session for the evening, and I couldn’t wait for his mom to come pick him up. My back had been aching all fucking day, and I was ready to put my swollen feet up and relax. That was, if I still had feet. I hadn’t seen them in a long time.
Owen texted to ask if I wanted him to pick up food on the way home. I smiled and texted back my latest craving for Panera Bread potato and bacon soup.
It was mid-January. New Year’s Eve had come and gone. School started back, and life had settled into a new norm. Owen moved in the day after Christmas. It didn’t take much time, as he mostly owned his clothes and a few personal items. The rest of his belongings consisted of his tools. The camper stayed parked at Bevvie’s, as it was a pain in the ass to move and Garrett would be using it for a while. He showed up at Bevvie’s on Christmas Day, having broken up with his girlfriend. Owen didn’t say much about it, but I got the impression it was a bad scene and Garrett needed time to heal and figure out his next steps. I’d listed my condo as an Airbnb rental and planned to keep it that way for a few years. If Garrett planned to stick around, maybe I’d offer it to him to use.
I was also nearly two weeks late and on the verge of having labor induced. Junior just didn’t want to join us in the big outside world.
Coral had taken over my classes at the school, but I still did some nighttime tutoring to help some of the more challenged students, Gary Tharpe being one of them. His lanky build, towering height, and prowess on the court put him in the perfect position to earn a basketball scholarship, but he had to score well on the SATs. That possibility diminished bit by bit the longer I worked with him on his limited math skills.
I stood from the spot at my kitchen table and felt rather than heard a