104 - The Distance

Richie laughed, one long arm laying claim to Petey’s waist.  She stood demurely by his side looking at the floor, as though embarrassed to be there.  “I knew you weren’t man enough to keep her, you selfish sonofabitch.  You take and take and take in every single relationship you’ve ever had.  The only ones of us still standing are well paid to be here.”

“That’s not true,” Jon argued.  “You’re my best friend.  You’d stand by me through anything.”

Again, that cold laugh echoed through the air.  “Man, you’re my meal ticket.  I let you believe whatever the hell you want up to this point, but now I have Petey.  She’s more important than anything else.”

He angrily pushed at Richie’s chest so that he was forced to let go of Petey.  “She’s mine!  She said she was going to marry me!”

“You idiot, she left you.  Petey realized how much I love her and that I’m not afraid to show it every minute of the day.  She feels loved and cherished now instead of like a contractual obligation.”

Jon jolted awake, eyes flying open, heart racing.  The room was dark, save the little bit of light filtering in from the windows.  His hair scraped against the soft Egyptian cotton of the pillow case as he turned his head to the left.  There, not a foot away, was the inky head and bare shoulder of the woman he was going to marry.

It was only a dream.

He shivered under his clammy skin and lifted the blankets so that he could scoot closer to her.  Feeling silly, he laid a light hand against her back just to feel her breathe.  Convinced that she was, indeed, real, Jon curled himself around her.  One arm draped over her waist, he hauled her panty-clad bottom against his nudity.  Desperate fingers sought out the warm flesh of her tummy under the tight, ribbed tank she’d worn to bed.  Somehow he managed to burrow his other arm beneath her so that she was completely encircled by his embrace.

Jon rocked her back gently against his chest, burying his face in her sweetly scented hair and listening to her snuffled breathing.

It stunned him to realize how much he didn’t want to lose her.  Yeah, he’d already made the decision to marry her and commit the rest of his life to her, but that decision process hadn’t packed this kind of emotion for him.  The thought of her walking away – walking into someone else’s arms – twisted in his stomach like a sharp knife. 

You’ve been left by one wife.  Don’t you think you might want to do things a little differently this time around?

He wasn’t going to be obsessed with money anymore.  He just wasn’t.  If he didn’t have his kids, family, band, Petey…  all the money in the world couldn’t take away the pain or the loneliness that would be left behind.

Remember where you were when she came knocking on your door?  Bored, lonely and questioning every single fuck up in your marriage.  

His arms cinched a little tighter, and Jon slid his leg between hers, trying to get closer.  He didn’t want to lose this quirky little woman who had rattled his world by stomping through it with her pint-sized combat boots. 

“Mmnnh.”

Petey stirred against him.  His jostling had finally pierced her blanket of sleep.    

“Shh,” he soothed, still rocking and touching soft lips to the ball of her shoulder.  “Go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you, Baby.”

“Mm.”  She didn’t get a chance to display her infamously cranky morning temper before she had drifted off again.

He fought to relax himself, but as his fingertips touched the silkiness of her skin, he couldn’t keep from getting horny.  She was so little and perfect in his arms, and she was his.  Whether he deserved her or not, she’d given herself to him.  She needed to know how much that meant.  What he had been unable to say without feeling like a putz in the light of day might be easier under the cloak of darkness.

Slowly trailing kisses over her shoulder and down  her arm, his unencumbered hand roamed freely across her abdomen.  The faint sweetness of her lotion tickled his nose and inflated his arousal another notch.  He could never go to another circus.  The smell of cotton candy would have him sporting wood the size of a tent pole and everybody would think he was some kiddie-loving pervert.

That, however, was not going to stop him from indulging in its effect right now.

“Petey?” he whispered, gently bumping his erection against the cleft of her bottom.  The friction of the satin against his hard, primed skin sent shivers down his spine.

“Mmfph.”

Her disgruntled mumble transformed into a soft purr when his fingers slipped into the front of her bikini panties.  It was her hips doing the bumping when he slid his wide middle finger into her wet folds. 

“Ohh,” she let out on a gasp when his fingertip grazed her clit.  Her body went from soft and pliable to taut with need.

“You’re wet, Baby,” he breathed into her ear, the slickened tissue easily allowing him to slip a finger inside her when she parted her knees and gave him access.  “Were you dreaming about me?”

“Mm.  I dunno.”  Her voice was thick with sleep and had a dreamy quality to it.  “I think I just always want you.”

She wasn’t trying to seduce him, she wasn’t trying to impress him.  Hell, she was still half-asleep.  She may not even know what she was saying, but it slammed him low in the gut intensifying the desire coiling there.

“I always want you, too.”  His finger worked slowly in and out, savoring the hidden textures her body kept hidden.  “You’re so damn beautiful, just looking at you makes me crazy sometimes.”

On a sigh of appreciation, she dropped her head back to his shoulder when he added his ring finger to stretch her wider.  She tipped her pelvis forward, silently begging for deeper penetration.  Jon was glad to accommodate her and buried the digits as far as they would go, hooking them forward to lightly scrape against her g-spot as he pulled out again.

“Oh, Jonnn.”  A tiny strangled groan got lodged in her throat and she clutched at his forearm.  The tendons in her neck were stretched tight and he bent to nip at one.

“I want you to come for me,” he rasped against the fragrant column of her neck.  “Think you could do that?  Hmm?”

“Oh God, yes.” The shallow breaths she took bounced off the wall of his chest.  “Touch my clit and I’ll come for you.”

Jesus H. Christ.

He almost came all over the back of her panties. 

“You will, huh?”  The barest tip of his thumb scraped across the stiff, swollen nub, testing the waters as it were.

She sucked in a loud breath and bucked against his hand.  “Yessss.  I’m sure of it.”

“You’re gonna come for me if I diddle your clit?”  He barely touched it again.  “How about if I do that and whisper sweet things in your ear?”

“Sweet…  things?” Petey’s head twisted against his shoulder and she was trying to ride his hand like a wild stallion. 

“When you look at me with those big, soft eyes of yours and flash those dimples…”  He gave one firm swipe to her clit and her thighs clenched to keep him there.  “… I’d do anything in the world for you.”  Another light flick had her undulating and moaning behind closed lips.  “I mean it, Baby.  The soft way you touch me when I’m getting mad drains it right out of me, and the sweet taste of your mouth is my kryptonite.  Whether you know it or not, you’ve got me wrapped around your little finger.”

“Jon… Jon…  Baby, please…”  She was restless against him, seeking what he was deliberately holding out of her reach. 

“You ready to fly high, Sugar?”  His tongue swiped out to flick her earlobe as his drenched fingers slid free from her clutching muscles. 

“Yes.  I wanna come for you.  Let me come for you.”

“Shhh…”  he breathed hotly in her ear, his erection thick and tight against her backside.  He moved his fingers to begin a slow, erotic dance with the slippery nub that craved his touch.  “It’s almost time.”  His first two fingers took turns lightly brushing the pulsing arousal point.  “I want you to be very quiet when you come,” he instructed, intensifying the pressure for a brief second.  “Can you do that for me?”

“Mmm-hmm.”  Her breaths were bordering on gulps as he eased his touch and flicked lightly, back and forth, drawing a pitiful whimper from her.

“I need to you to be very quiet,” he explained, fingers picking up the pace to frantically swim in the flooded valley of her sex.  “So that when you come, you can hear me tell you how much I love you.”  His fingers drove with purpose - teasing, rubbing, tapping, until she she froze, teetering on the brink of release.  Anticipating.  Waiting for him to push her over the edge. 

Fingers still expertly manipulating her body, he began whispering directly into her ear.  “I love you so much Petey Diehl that it makes me ache.  I love everything about you.”  Toppling into bliss with a silent scream, she bowed against his hand, clamping her thighs together to keep him near.  Her body went stiff and still as the muscle spasms worked their way down her through her toes and fingertips.  “You make me whole, my beautiful, sweet-smelling imp.  I’ll never love anybody the way I love you. I swear to God.  Never.”

He continued to tickle her ear with uncensored words from his heart as she slowly came down from her high, limbs quivering in the aftermath.  Whether she was trembling from physical release or emotional impact, he didn’t know or care to guess. Jon slipped his fingers out of the dewiness, tenderly rubbing the moisture from them into the smoothness of her outer lips. 

Still panting for breath, Petey twirled herself around in his embrace, pulling his hand free of her panties in the process.  Both of her palms came up to cup his face and she swooped in, sealing her lips against his with a passion he had yet to experience from her.  Dampness transferred itself from her cheeks to his as she put her final seal on his heart.

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips between kisses.  “I love you just like that.”

“I know you do.”  He pushed one hand into the long locks of raven hair  while the other wiped the tears from her cheeks.  Jon peppered her lips with damp kisses.  “I know, Baby.”

Pushing against his shoulder she rolled him onto his back and straddled his hard-on.  “Why now?” she softly queried even as she glided her satin covered crotch over his manhood.

“I wanted to deserve you.”

The expression on Petey's face was obscured by shadows, but she fused their mouths together in one of her intimate, soul-searing kisses.  Even while refusing to unlatch their lips, she still somehow managed to get rid of the panties and impale herself on his rigidness. 

They rode together in the night, a tangle of sweaty limbs and incoherent sounds of passion, driven by their love.  At their feet lay the dust of the last crumbled brick.  The last brick in the wall that had shielded their hearts. It was gone and they both lay bare and open, at each other’s mercy. 

No matter what happened with the rest of the phone calls that had been put off until tomorrow, Jon knew that he held the rest of his life in his arms.   If nobody else believed it now, they would in ten, fifteen, twenty years. 

What started out as the solution to a problem had quickly become the solution to so much more for him.

This would go the distance.

"I couldn't ask for more romance than that," she murmured sleepily, afterward.  "I told you all you needed to do was talk to Richie."

Jon smacked her on the butt and locked her up in a bear hug.  "Have I ever told you that I hate it when you're right?"