Dad Chose Three Husbands, but His Best Friend Crossed Them Out novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Veto Me
In her father's kitchen Karin makes Amos prove he can say yes, and he does with his mouth until she comes on the counter; then he carries her out into the dark.
"You said veto you," Amos said.
His voice had dropped, and it had gone rough at the bottom.
"I did."
"Say it again, so I know I heard it."
I didn't look away.
"Veto me, Tuck."
He closed the distance in one step and took my face in both his hands.
They were so big they covered my jaw and my ears.
He kissed me as if he'd waited two summers to.
It wasn't polite.
His mouth was hot and hard, and I made a noise I'd never made in my life, and he swallowed it.
I got my fists in his shirt.
He walked me backward until the kitchen counter hit the backs of my thighs.
"Two summers I've kept my hands off you," he said against my mouth. "Not one more, Arvidson."
"Put me on the counter."
He lifted me by the hips and sat me on the edge of it, between the bread box and the coffee tin.
My boots hung over the cabinet doors.
He stood between my knees and looked at me.
His chest was going up and down.
"Two summers," he said. "Since you handed me that beer."
I heard it, and my stomach dropped and rose again.
"You went up the high country for a month," I said.
"I did."
"I thought you couldn't stand me."
"Arvidson." He laughed, very low, with no humor in it. "I couldn't stand myself."
I pulled him in by the belt and kissed him again.
His hands went to the buttons of my shirt.
They were big, scarred hands, and they were not steady.
He took them one at a time, and I watched his face.
He had a look of such terrible patience that I wanted to scream.
"Faster," I said.
"No."
"Amos."
"No." He undid the last button and parted my shirt with the backs of his fingers.
My bra was plain white cotton.
He looked at it as though it were lace.
"Look at you," he said quietly. "God, look at you."
He pushed the strap off my shoulder and kissed the place where it had been.
He worked his way across my collarbone with his mouth, slow, and his beard scratched, and I put my head back against the cabinet.
He unhooked the bra with one hand.
When it fell I heard him breathe in.
"You're perfect," he said. "You hear me? Every inch."
Then his mouth closed on my nipple, hot and wet, and my whole back arched off the counter.
I made a sound that was almost his name.
He sucked and used his tongue, and his other hand cupped my other breast and rolled the nipple between two fingers until I was panting.
"That's it," he said against my skin. "That's a good girl. Let me hear you."
I'd have been furious at those words from any other man.
From him they went straight between my legs.
"Take my jeans off," I said.
"Not yet."
"Now."
He raised his head.
His mouth was wet, and his eyes were nearly black.
"You're going to let me do this my way," he said.
"I've been thinking about it for two years, and I'm not going to rush a single minute."
My hands were shaking.
"Then do it."
He undid my belt and the button of my jeans.
I lifted my hips, and he drew the jeans down over my boots, which took longer than either of us liked.
One boot hit the linoleum, then the other.
He kneeled on the kitchen floor of my father's house, in front of the counter, with my jeans in his fist.
He put them aside and ran his palms up the outsides of my thighs.
"Lie back."
"On the counter?"
His eyes never left mine.
"Lie back, Arvidson."
I lay back on the cool laminate and heard the bread box fall over.
He pulled my underwear down.
He pressed his mouth against the inside of my knee, and then my thigh, and I could feel his breath getting closer.
"Look at that," he said, as if I weren't there. "Wet already. For me."
"Yes."
"Say it."
I had never said anything so shameless in my life.
"Wet for you. Please."
He put his mouth on me.
The first stroke of his tongue went up through my whole body.
I grabbed the edge of the counter with both hands.
He was slow and thorough, and he didn't tease me for long.
He found my clit with his tongue and circled it, firm and steady.
Every time I jerked he made a satisfied noise against me that I felt in my teeth.
"Right there," I said. "Right there, don't stop."
"I'm not stopping."
He slid two thick fingers inside me, and I cried out.
He curled them and found the place that made me see white, and his mouth never left my clit.
"Good girl," he said into my skin. "Let go. I've got you."
"Amos, I'm going to."
"I know you are."
I came with my hand knotted in his hair, and I heard myself shouting.
It went on for a long time.
He kept his tongue on me through all of it, gentle now, until I went limp and shuddering and said, "Stop, stop, it's too much."
He lifted his head.
His beard was wet and shining.
I couldn't speak for a moment.
He wiped it with the back of his wrist and looked up at me.
I had never seen a man look so pleased with himself.
"Again," I said.
He stopped, with his mouth against my thigh.
"You said it was too much."
"Now it isn't. Do it again."
He laughed, and the sound ran straight through me.
"Yes, ma'am."
He used his tongue flat and slow this time, and I felt every inch of him pay attention.
He held my hips down when I bucked.
"Hold still for me."
"I can't."
His tongue slowed against me.
"Yes, you can. You're doing so well. Look at you, all of you, shaking for me."
His voice did as much as his mouth.
He pushed two fingers into me again, deeper, and I heard how wet I was.
"Tell me what you want," he said.
"Harder. Your fingers. Your tongue, at the same time."
"There it is."
He gave me exactly that.
The second one came up from the soles of my feet.
I screamed his name at the kitchen ceiling and didn't care who heard it on the creek.
When I could see again, he was resting his forehead on my belly, breathing hard.
His free hand was clenched on the counter edge, white across the knuckles.
He had not touched himself once.
He climbed up over me and kissed me, and I tasted myself on his mouth.
It made me wild.
I dragged his shirt up his back and he reached behind his neck and pulled it off in one hand.
His chest was broad and brown from forty summers outdoors, with dark hair going grey across it and a long white scar under the ribs.
I put my mouth on the scar.
"Rope," he said roughly. "A bull, years back."
"I want to put my mouth on every one of them."
"You'll have to get in line."
He grinned at me.
"There's no line, Tuck."
I bit his shoulder, not gently, and he groaned and hauled me tight against him.
His erection pressed hard into my belly through his jeans.
I rubbed against it and he swore under his breath.
"Don't," he said. "I'm warning you."
"Warn me again."
"Arvidson."
I pressed against him again.
"You're so hard for me."
"I've been hard for you since a beer on a tailgate," he said.
It was nearly funny and nearly a confession, and I wanted to laugh and kiss him for both.
I sat up on my elbows.
My legs were shaking.
"That was the veto?" I said.
"That was the start of it."
I slid off the counter on my knees, which would not hold me, and he caught me around the waist.
I pushed him back against the cupboards and got both hands on his belt.
He stood very still.
I opened the buckle and the button and drew down the zip.
He was hard through his shorts, thick and hot against my palm.
He let out a ragged breath when I wrapped my hand around him.
"Now you," I said.
"Arvidson."
"Now you, Tuck."
His hand closed over mine.
"Not in your father's kitchen," he said. "Not on this floor, where he taught you to walk."
I looked up.
His face was wrecked, and he meant it.
He pulled his hand back and zipped himself with a wince.
Then he bent and picked me up, naked from the waist down, in his arms.
He carried me out the kitchen door into the cold April evening and across the yard toward the cabin by the creek.
← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend