And in time... (20 page)

“Do you want this in your hair?” Alexis asked while showing her a butterfly bobby pin.

“Me wike a pony.”

“I don’t have a pony one. I have a blue birdie.”

“Me wike a birdie.”

Alexis parted her hair on the side and slipped in the hairpin. “There, now you’re pretty. Can you go in your room and find panties in your bag?” Setting her down and sending her little, naked bottom running off, Alexis smiled and pulled a couple strands of hair from her messy bun, dangling them around her face.

“Me wike a neckwace, too,” Riki alleged. Alexis slid the panties up her legs and told her she had a hummingbird necklace she could wear.

“It will match your hairpin.” 

“Where me dwess.”

“Let’s go eat breakfast first and then we’ll put it on.”

Riki looked adorable in lace socks, ruffled bloomers, and a silver necklace with the tiny blue bird. She didn’t need a dress, it couldn’t have made her any cuter.

Cory placed a stack of pancakes on the table when they entered the kitchen. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened. 

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Alexis used his own words against him and brushed his lips with hers. His hand wrapped around her back and she fell right into him. She loved being there more than any other place on Earth.

“I am speechless. You’re very easy on the eyes.”

Score! “Your pancakes look delicious.” That conversation was better left alone, especially if she planned to keep her clothes on before they left.

Riki barely touched her breakfast before she was off playing. Mr. Dog was outside and she wanted him in.

“He likes it outside,” Cory tried to tell her. Of course, she argued otherwise.

“No him wikes a wiv inside wif me.”

“I wike you in this skirt,” Cory teased with his attention back to Alexis, letting his hand glide up the back of Alexis’s leg.

“I wike for you to go get dressed. Go,” she ordered with a quick kiss, pushing his hand away.

***

Cory parked the car right next to Bernie and Travis. Her parents were just getting out of the backseat of her sister Sam’s car when they arrived.

“Damn, you look hot,” Bernie spouted.

Alexis shushed her and bumped her shoulder.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Did you get laid?”

“Oh my God. Shut up!” Alexis ordered while waiting for Cory to get Riki. “Hey, Travis,” Alexis greeted with a hug. “Cory this is Travis, it’s okay to feel sorry for him.”

Cory laughed and shook Travis’s hand. “Nice to meet you. I do feel sorry for you.”

“You should.”

“Hey, you can forget pot roast. You’re getting bologna.”

“I’m sorry. I was kidding,” Travis countered while pleading for a home-cooked meal. He didn’t get those often being on the road so much.

Alexis introduced Cory to the rest of her family and walked inside with her dad’s arm around her shoulders. Bernie took his place and walked with Alexis, taking the kids back to their classes, whispering as they strolled behind the kids.

“You got laid, didn’t you?”

“Bernie, shut up, we’re in church!”

“Just tell me if you did.”

“Yes, now stop before we get struck by lightning. Hey, Emily,” Alexis said to her niece, squatting to her level. “This is Riki, can you be her friend and show her the ropes?”

“I not have a rope.”

“Can you show her what to do?”

“Yes, come on. I can be your friend.”

Alexis briefly worried when Riki squeezed her hand and ducked behind her leg. Emily took her hand and Riki looked up at Alexis.

“Do you want to go sit with me today?”

“No me wike Emwy.”

“Oh my God, Lex. That is the cutest kid ever,” Bernie boasted. Alexis agreed with a nod and a smile when Riki took Emily’s hand and walked to the small classroom. The little dress helped. Too cute. Epically cute.

Alexis pulled on Bernie’s arm once Riki sat at the round table. “Come to the bathroom with me.”

Bernie tried again in the bathroom. “Tell me about you and Cory now.”

“I’ll tell you at work tomorrow, now behave,” Alexis scolded.

Alexis slid between a half a row of knees before getting to Cory.

“Was it good? Can you at least tell me that?” Bernie asked, not about to let it go, sitting between Travis and Alexis. Alexis elbowed her and shot a dirty look her way. Thank God the preacher rescued her. The congregation stood at his request and he led them with the hymn, “Here I am to worship.”
Cory sang with the words in the book, but Alexis didn’t need it. She’d been singing this song since she was born. Cory locked her pinky with his and smiled at her with his eyes. After two more songs and a prayer, the parishioners took their seats. Cory listened attentively to the pastor preaching about love. That brought a smile and another glance between the two of them. If Alexis hadn’t known better, she would have thought someone in her family put a bug in Pastor Chuck’s ear. The sermon just happened to be about love.

He instructed them to turn their bibles to Proverbs, chapter thirty, verses eighteen and nineteen. He orated, “There are four things that amaze me, no, four things that I don’t understand. How an eagle glides through the sky, how a snake slithers on a rock, how a ship navigates the ocean, and how a man loves a woman.”

Alexis moved her hand to Cory’s lap, listening to the pastor preach his studied sermon. Cory looked down at the scrunched up material in the palm of his hand and then to Alexis. He kept the pink lace in a tight ball while he arched his back and placed what he knew to be a flimsy pair of panties to his jacket pocket, and then put his arm around her. 

“You’re going to hell,” he whispered in her ear. Alexis got a few glances when she snorted and covered her mouth. Cory placed his hand over hers and moved it to where she could feel what was going on beneath his slacks. Yup, she was going to hell. 

As soon as the service ended, Riki ran out with her new friend, Emily, excited to show off what she’d made.

“Me make dis all myself,” she exclaimed. She held up the pink construction paper with a picture of Jesus colored all in green and the Bible verse, John 3:16, glued to the middle of the page.

Cory scooped her up. “That’s beautiful. I think we need to hang it on the refrigerator, don’t you?”

“Me go pway wif Emwy now.” And she was off.

“Call me later,” Bernie demanded with her arm looping through Alexis’s.

“I will if I have time.”

“Oh, what? Some hot doctor comes to town and you forget all about your best friend? Too busy?”

“Uh… Yeah. Duh,” Alexis admitted while walking out with the McKinley clan.

“You’re both going to hell, you know that right?” Travis guaranteed with a nod.

Alexis hugged her mom and dad while Cory buckled Riki in her seat.

“You’re in so much trouble,” Cory assured her before she could escape to the passenger seat. He slid his tongue quickly between her lips and then retreated with a sweet peck.

Alexis looked to see if her family had witnessed the public display of affection. They did. All of them! Ugh. Alexis ignored the gawking stares and the crimson in her cheeks.   

“How did you like church?”

“I liked it just fine for a while, until I got distracted.”

“Distracted?” she questioned while feigning ignorance.

“Yes, Ms. Instigator, I had to sit there and think about you, right beside of me, not wearing anything under that skirt.

“If it’s any comfort, I’m still not.”

“Yes, smarty-pants, that’s real comforting.”

Cory parked the car at Archie’s Country Store for a quick stop. Alexis stared at him like he had two heads. 

“What?” he asked, confused.

“Can I have my panties back?”

“Hell no,” he answered with a sly grin and a kiss. He wasn’t joking. He had no plans of giving them back. She watched him get out of the car, retrieve Riki, and open her door.

“Are you serious?”

“Very, come on.”

“It was a joke. The joke is over. I’m not walking around the grocery store like this.”

Cory carried Riki and held Alexis’s hand, wearing a smirk. “Oh, yes you are. You said you wanted grilled chicken, right?”

“I hate you.”

“I love the fact that you’re holding my hand while—”

“Cory! Shut up,” Alexis ordered with a growl and grimace, stopping him before someone heard him.

Stupid city slicker.

“Will you leave her alone?” Alexis scolded on the drive back home. Cory kept moving his hand to the backseat to shake Riki, who had started to doze off in the back seat.

“No way, not in a million years. I have plans for you while she naps.”

“You’re bad. You’re so bad.”

“I’m bad?” Cory countered while sliding the white lace from his pocket. Alexis tried to snatch them away from him, but he was quicker. She would think twice before she did that again.

Alexis carried Riki up to her bed and undressed her down to her undies and socks. She rolled to her stomach and Alexis covered her sleeping little body.

“Do you want a beer?” Cory asked when she returned.

“It’s Sunday.”

“You don’t drink beer on Sunday?”

“No, it’s the Lord’s day.”

“Wait, wait, and wait another minute here. You won’t drink a beer on Sunday because it’s the Lord’s Day, but you’ll give me your panties in his house?”

“Okay, give me a beer.” She laughed and reached down to unbuckle the strap on her heels.

“Don’t take those off yet,” Cory demanded in a sexy tone with lustful, hungry eyes.

“Why?”

Cory moved behind her and kissed just below her ear. He didn’t talk. He never explained his intentions, not with words anyway. One hand went up the front of her skirt, and the other unbuttoned her blouse. Alexis dropped her head to his chest when he whispered. “Phase one.” She wondered if he could feel the pulsating while he touched her, sliding her slippery readiness in small circles. Alexis let everything go and let it happen. Feelings surged her body like prickly needles while Cory did all the work. The combination of his fingers between her legs mixed with the ones between the material of her bra pierced the debut of a pending orgasm.

“Aaah, Cory,” she panted in a moan.

His hand slid up her chest and his hand rested around her throat. “Say it, Lex,” he ordered.

“I can’t,” she whimpered.

“Yes you can. What do you want?”

“It’s Sunday.”

Cory snickered in her ear and pinched the beading below the silk bra between his fingers. “Tell me what you want.” She didn’t want anything at the moment. She only wanted him to keep doing what he was doing. A couple more minutes and she’d be spiraling out of control. “Say it.”

“Fuck me. I want you to fuck me.”

And that was enough. Cory walked her forward, keeping the momentum going with his fingers while raising her skirt above her hips. Alexis briefly wanted to protest the table thing, but that was quickly forgotten when Cory straightened her arms and flattened her hands. One hand held her hip, guiding her to push back when he pushed in, and one explored every reachable inch of her body. Cory played with the swelling nub between her legs, but not enough. He tormented her more than anything. As soon as she would reach her highest, he stopped and moved to other heightened, over-sensitive places on her body. By the time he finally let her topple, reeling the buildup of an overzealous orgasm, she was ready to beg for it. Cory brought her arm down and moved her fingers between her legs where he helped her with the same momentum and pressure he’d been teasingly applying. He ordered her not to stop in a raspy whisper while he held both her hips and plummeted in and out, deep, hard, and fast. Alexis was spent. The whole erotic, sensual situation had her calling out in two-point-seven seconds. Cory plunged one last time, steadying himself deep inside her and released with her.  

“I love this outfit,” Cory grunted while his hips shoved one more time and his body fell to hers. Alexis couldn’t respond, not yet. She was still riding waves. Wow, was she ever riding waves.

After another ten-minute make out session, Alexis let him go. She slid around him and wondered how much further she could fall. Was it possible to be this in love with a man she’d known a month? Was it possible to fall even more? Maybe, maybe not, but at the moment, she didn’t care. She was happier than she’d ever been in her entire life, and for the first time, she decided to take Bernie’s advice. Alexis would go with the flow.

Alexis and Cory sat on the porch while they waited for Riki to wake up, talking and learning more and more about each other. They talked about nothing and everything, nothing that really mattered, but mattered a lot, hanging on to each and every word the other one said.

“Do you want to go for a walk along the river?” Alexis asked.

“Yeah, sure. Riki will like that.”

“Me wike a walk,” Riki said from the screen door. Cory and Alexis turned to see her standing in the door, shirtless, holding the long-armed monkey.