by L. A. Sable
“Is this a quid pro quo thing?” I ask, because I just can’t help myself from pushing. Asher is like a barely healed wound that I can’t stop poking, surprised every time at the little shock of pain.
“I already gave you the pills,” he points out as his hands move higher on my back, seeming to know without being told which areas are the most painful. “Do you want me to leave?”
I don’t answer him, because I have no idea what will come out if I open my mouth. All I know is that this feels good and I desperately need something in my life that does. His hands continue to massage my back as his mouth places small, close-mouthed kisses against my neck. He seems content with leaving me on the fragile edge of not enough and too much, drawing out the moment and giving me plenty of time to decide if I want to shove him away and tell him to leave.
But I don’t push him away.
Eventually, his touch becomes less about relieving pain and more about rekindling the fire that always seems to burn inside of me. The pressure lightens as his hands move down, sliding over my thighs and down the curve of my ass before he pulls me back against him. The hard length of him presses between the cleft of my backside as if it were made to fit there.
I turn in the circle of his arms and stare up into grass green eyes that are narrowed in both suspicion and lust. It’s impossible to know which one of us makes the first move, but in one moment my gaze is caught with his own and in the next our mouths have crashed together with the force of ocean waves battering the shore.
Kissing him is like breathing, perfectly natural when you don’t think too much about it and a strange effort if you focus on it for too long. He tastes forbidden and sweet, like all the delicious things that you enjoy in the moment but cause devastating consequences when you overindulge.
His hands shift to my thighs and lift me higher against him. My legs wrap around his waist as he walks us toward the bed until my back hits the yielding surface. Without breaking the kiss, his body crawls up mine until he hovers over me and I’m trapped in the cage of his arms and legs. My fingers push into the fine hairs at the nape of his neck, marveling at the softness there.
Everything about this is wrong and I know that. I’m supposed to be the traumatized victim who walks around unable to bear even being looked at. The other guys tiptoe around me like I’ll shatter into a thousand pieces if they say the wrong thing. There isn’t a name for what the five of us have become, but the other guys think they need to be so careful and wait for me to make a decision. But not Asher, he takes what he wants without bothering to feel guilty about it.
Right now, I need that.
We’re still kissing as my fingers work frantically at the small buttons of my shirt, ripping off at least one in my haste to get the thing off. Asher laughs against my mouth as his hands cover my own, slowing me down enough that I can get my shirt off without ripping the fabric. He seems to content to just be kissing me, but that doesn’t stop his fingers from stroking over the revealed curve of my breasts just above the bra as he makes an appreciative sound deep in his throat.
“God, you’re gorgeous,” he murmurs against my lips, almost as if he’s talking to himself.
A haze has settled over me and it feels like I’m floating in the air on a cloud. His hands on my skin are all that keep me tethered to the earth. The pain has fled to be replaced with a feeling of contentment that I haven’t felt since I was a child and climbing into my mother’s lap kept everything bad in the world at bay.
The smell of expensive cologne wafts over me as he pulls me closer. I stare up at the ceiling in a daze. His head lowers to my chest where his lips tease along the exposed skin just above the line of my bra. One of his hands worms its way underneath my body and undoes the strap of my bra with a simple twist of his fingers. Distantly, I wonder how much practice it took him to manage that particular trick.
His mouth makes contact with the peak of my nipple and my back arches off the bed, urging him to take more of the sensitive flesh. The sensation is enough to pull me from the pleasant haze and I writhe beneath him, squirming to press more of my body against his. But my urging just makes him want to slow things down even more. He lifts his head and shifts lower down on my body.
Asher speaks with his mouth pressed against my abdomen, just above the navel. The sound reverberates through my body. “Patience is a virtue.”
I push against his head with both hands, trying to force him lower but to no avail. It’s like trying to move a boulder. “I thought you were supposed to be a sinner, not a saint.”
“I can be both, believe me.” He rises up enough to grab my wrists with one hand and force them up over my head. His tongue tracing a wet line between my now bared breasts at the same time. “But right now, I’m in the mood for slow. Now lie back and relax.”
And I don’t have any choice but to comply, even as I marvel at his apparent restraint. My fingers curl against the headboard as I try to calm the rapid pace of my heart. The more the frenzy builds in me, the more that the opposite seems to happen to him.
His hands move to the waist of my skirt, but he doesn’t undo the buttons along the side. Instead, he flips the skirt up and presses his mouth against the growing wet spot in my panties.
Shooting stars chase across my closed eyelids as his mouth teases me over the fabric. I grind my face against his mouth and his hands move to my thighs, holding them down and keeping me still. He kneads the taut flesh as I make helpless noises that are barely recognizable as words.
I hear a ripping sound and then cool air blows over my skin that immediately turns to heat as he tosses aside my ruined panties and lowers his mouth to my exposed skin. He licks along my seam in one sure stroke and I stare down the line of my body to meet his gaze.
An electric shock passes between us.
Just like that, the frenzy overtakes him in the same way that it has me. In a flurry of movement, he rips off his pants and hauls my body into the air. I end up straddling his lap as he sits on the bed. My hips grind against his cock, the tip of him moving over my slit without quite slipping inside.
He reaches for his discarded jeans and takes a foil square from one of the pockets. My hands stroke the impressive length of him as he tears open the condom wrapper. The feel of him fascinates me, softness and hardness together, like steel wrapped in brushed velvet. It practically pulses in my hands. With a laugh, Asher pushes my hands away so he can get the condom on.
When he finally enters me, it feels like homecoming. Even though sex is always deeper from this angle, I don’t just feel full. I feel complete.
“Ride me,” Asher growls in my ear. He leans back with his hands flat on the mattress as my hands come to rest on his shoulders so I can keep my balance. “Just like that, baby.”
My movements are violent and uncoordinated as I shudder in his arms, pleasure building deep in my belly like the pressure in the air before a coming storm. I shift up and down on him, my body taking control as my mind floats to a place just beyond reality.
I only come back to myself when Asher grips my hips and drives himself up into me, the force of it enough to draw a silent scream from my open mouth. His breath teases my cheek before he captures my mouth in another searing kiss, as if he’s staking a claim to something that belongs to him. The kiss turns hard, and he bites my lower lip as my body continues to grind against me.
The force of the orgasm takes me by surprise. My nails drag down his muscular biceps, hard enough to leave matching welts on his skin. With only another few thrusts, he comes hard enough that his whole body jerks with the force of it. His arms wrap around my back, which is the only thing that keeps me from tumbling off him.
He holds me in his arms as the aftershocks slowly fade and I’m forced to come back to earth. The pain that had temporarily receded threatens at the edge of my awareness. It’s nothing that I have to focus on overly now, but I know that soon it will be full blown and impossible to ignore. Asher has given me a bit of respite, but that would be over s
oon.
Because that’s all pleasure is really: momentary relief from the pain.
Chapter 5
Strange instructions have been coming from our blackmailer over the last few days. It’s always minor things, like telling me who to walk to class with or what table to sit at for lunch. But I get the feeling that we’re being prepped for something more, or tested. Whoever made that video wants to be sure that we’ll cooperate before they ask for whatever they really want.
Asher has been coming to my room at night, for sex or even just to talk, and being nicer than I’ve ever seen him. None of the other guys know that we’ve been sleeping together, mostly because I haven’t figured out how to tell them. It’s not their jealousy that I’m worried about, but more that they’ll be disappointed in me. Nothing good has ever come of Asher and I together and everybody knows that.
Today, I’m sitting alone in the library at the end of the lunch period with a textbook open in front of me. I’ve been having a hard time paying attention in class because my mind always seems to be on other things, so I’m playing catch up.
A shadow falls over the book and I don’t even bother to look up.
“You’re in my light,” I say, voice caustic.
“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Or maybe it’s just that time of the month.” Kai slides into the seat beside me, his smile widening as I glare up at him. “You look like you could use a distraction?”
“Do I? Because that sure isn’t what it feels like.”
What I really need is a pain pill, but Asher won’t be able to get me anymore until the end of the weekend. And if I take another one today, then I won’t have enough to last until then. The pain hasn’t been any worse than it always is, but irritation rises in me. Everything seems to be getting on my nerves, like sandpaper rubbing against my skin.
Despite my obvious prickliness, Kai just casts me a sardonic smile as he takes a seat next to me at the table. “What are you working on?”
“Math homework.” I didn’t want to admit that’s at least a small part of my general frustration. Mr. Cardill is back in his classroom, but I’m still stuck with that geriatric sloth, Mr. Sommers. A bunch of students were switched to Liam’s class, but I wasn’t one of them. “The old fart has been giving out tons.”
“That sucks.” He peers over my shoulder at the swirl of letters and numbers. “Jayden hasn’t said anything about being overloaded.”
I had to resist the urge to grit my teeth. “Math comes easy for him. He’s tried to help me study, but he’s terrible at explaining things because he just gets it.”
“That sucks.”
“Is that the only thing you know how to say,” I snap the question, just wanting to punch him in the face. I recognize that it’s not even Kai I’m upset with, but the state of my life in general. “Look, I’m sorry but I’m not great company right now.”
“You’re always great company.” A smile teases at the corner of his mouth, but his gaze is serious. “Even when you’re being a bit of a bitch.”
“Wow, I don’t think you’ve ever called me that before.”
“Well, if the class slipper fits, Cinderella, then you won’t have to shove it up anybody’s ass.”
The words could be interpreted as harsh, but his fingers play along the back of my hand where it rests on the textbook. A flash of electric awareness washes over me and I raise my eyes to meet his hooded gaze. “What brings you in here, anyway? Nobody ever comes in the library.”
He picks up his phone and waves it in front of my face. “I’m on orders to be here. You?”
“Same.” The instructions from our blackmailer have become more frequent, but also more inexplicable. I haven’t figured out yet why anybody cares where I do my homework or who eats lunch with me, but I have a feeling the truth will reveal itself soon and I’m not going to like it. “This is getting weird, right? I keep waiting for them to ask us to do something difficult, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
“It is pretty fucking weird.”
“Nothing beats a good mystery, especially when there’s a sex tape of you floating around.”
Kai grimaces, as if the memory is enough to make him shiver. “I’ve been doing a good job of forgetting that ever happened. Thanks for the reminder.”
I vacillate between wanting to crawl into a hole from embarrassment and dying to tell the whole world to fuck itself when I think about that video. It’s impossible not to think about how much the shame I feel is manufactured, performance art for the rest of the world. “Having people see it would be that much of an embarrassment for you, huh?”
His eyebrows go up. “It’s not my embarrassment that I’m worried about. It’s yours. If that video gets out, it will follow you for the rest of your life.”
It’s a sweet sentiment that absolutely rubs me the wrong way. I don’t need him worrying about me, don’t want it from any of them. I want to forget all about the bullshit and focus on the things in my life that actually feel good.
I lean over in my chair, closing the already small distance between us. “Maybe I don’t really think there’s anything to be embarrassed about. Maybe I don’t give a shit about that stupid video.”
“Lily…” He trails off as he looks at me like he’s never seen me before. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” If you ignore the fact that my back feels like it’s on fire, I’m faintly nauseous and I’ve been sweating through my shirt all day. “I just need you to stop tiptoeing around me like I’m going to burst into million pieces if you make a move.”
His mouth opens and closes as he eyes me warily. It takes a few seconds for him to finally come up with something to say. “What the hell happened to the old Lily?”
I hold up my fingers to count each item. “A bunch of sexy assholes making my life a living hell, a bus accident that almost killed me, a sextape with aforementioned assholes, and now a mysterious blackmailer who only seems interested in telling me when to go to the bathroom. Is that enough?”
“A living hell, really?” Kai asks with a frown.
“That’s the point you’re going to focus on? Yes, hell. And I’m the girl stupid enough to forgive you for it. But the Lily you met a year ago died in a bus crash, so I’m the one you’re stuck with now. And this girl doesn’t give a shit about a sextape. She’s just wondering why Asher is the only one of you willing to man up.”
He looks more confused than I’ve ever seen him. The expression would be cute if I didn’t find it, and everything else, so infuriating. “What does this have to do with Asher?”
“He doesn’t treat me like I’m about to fall apart. We hooked up last term and he doesn’t pretend like it has to be this big important thing. We’ve been hooking up.” My voice act is full of defiance, daring him to have a problem with it. And I really want to know what emotion is going to be the first one that I see on his face: anger, jealously, lust?
Kai’s whole body tenses, his face freezing into an expression of disbelief that quickly morphs into something else, something pained. “For how long?”
“On and off for a while. The first time was before my accident. For a while I felt bad about it, like there was something wrong with me for wanting something that I know is really bad for me.” I watched the play of emotions crossing Kai’s face, even though I don’t want to hurt him, this has needed to be said for the better part of a year. It just took me no longer giving a shit about the consequences to finally pull the proverbial trigger. “Say something.”
He shakes his head and glares down at the textbook as if there’s some answer to be found there. There isn’t and not just because he’s two years ahead of me in math. Finally, he opens his mouth to speak but won’t look me in the eye. “Why him?”
The implied question, the one he chose not to put into words, is: why not me?
“Asher is like candy, good every once in a while but it will make you sick if you have too much.” I don’t continue until he finall
y raises his gaze to my face. “But that’s the thing, every one of you has something that I can’t get out of my head. I don’t want just one of you. I kissed Jayden the other day, but he’s doing this thing where he insists on acting like a boy scout.”
But the hesitancy is still in there in his face as he regards me with an expression that’s equal parts wary, hurt and aroused. “I’m not sure that I get it.”
So I decide that it makes more sense to show him than it does to tell him.
Kai doesn’t pull away as I lean forward, but I watch his eyes widen in surprise just as my own slide closed. My lips touch his in a hesitant way, giving him time to pull away if that’s what he wants to do. But he doesn’t pull away and instead his hands come up to grip my shoulders as his mouth finally moves beneath mine.
The kiss starts out sweet, but quickly turns sultry as his hands pull me closer until my body is pressed close between his spread legs. My hands rest on his thighs, the muscles twitching under my palms. His mouth parts and our lips tangle in a way that sets my body on fire. Even with my eyes closed, I would never mistake him for Asher or Jayden. The feel of him is something wholly its own.
Pleasant sparks move under my skin and for the first time, I’m not thinking about the pain or the discomfort from being without my pills. All I can think about is how soft his lips are and how good his hands feel on my body even through the thick fabric of my uniform blazer.
Nothing about Kai is urgent, he’s content to take his time and do the job right. His tongue leisurely explores my mouth like he wants to lay claim to every inch of it. It could be minutes or hours, and he’s going to take exactly as much time as he wants.
His teeth scrape my lower lip and I let out a low moan. His kiss turns sharper and harder, as if he wants to wipe out every trace of anyone else and establish that he owns me now, at least for the moment. I lean into him, resting more of my weight on my hands where they balance on his thighs. If the pressure is too much for him, Kai doesn’t complain. His hands slip inside my open blazer to tease along my stomach, still covered by my thin dress shirt. I want to tear off my clothing and then his so I can feel that touch directly on my skin.