Nemesis (Enemies-to-lovers Standalone)

by Maya Rose

  She stirs against my chest, a groan leaving her and driving straight to my defunct heart. I pause all movement when her hand winds up on my thigh, absently squeezing as she comes to. Her palm spreads on my chest and she tries to go upright, looking up at me when she’s managed to pull away a few inches and straighten.

  I always think I’m ready for her eyes on me but I never fucking am. Because she looks at me like she sees me past my shields. Not Eli King. Me. The thirty one year old man who’s close to losing it over a nineteen year old girl. And she looks at me like she really fucking likes what she sees. Likes, lusts, craves. I call on every crumb of my discipline to break our locked gazes and focus on her cut instead. Blood and a wound should be a damper on my hardening dick, right? But I guess not. I instead want to put my lips there and taste her. Is this what they call a mid-life crisis?

  “Jesus, Ariel--how are you feeling?” Scotty breaks in, and I want to both punch and thank him when she switches her focus to him. And then a second later, she peels away from me entirely until we’re not touching anymore.

  “I’m...fine?”

  It worries me that she poses it as a question, and that her voice sounds drowsy.

  “What happened?” She goes to her next question, then winces and clutches her head.

  Scotty answers her. “The nurse said your mom had an episode and hit you? And then all those reporters harassed you until Eli got there--you don’t remember?”

  And she said my name. Before she actually saw me. Like she was expecting me. Does she remember that?

  She aims her eyes on me for the shortest second in the history of time before turning to Scotty again. “I...yeah, I think?” She blinks a few times. “How did I get here?”

  He eyes me before replying. “Some nurse and other staff held the reporters off while Eli carried you out through the service entrance after you fainted.”

  I see her eyes rounding my way, but they don’t complete the trip, rebounding to Scotty again instead. “What about mom? We just left when the reporters were still in there with her?”

  The woman struck her down, and she’s just taking it in her stride, concerned for her instead? This is not the first time it has happened, is it? This kind of episode with the hitting...and you told her that she’s like her mother.

  “Your mother’s fine.” I grit out at her, both mad and guilty as hell. “I got them to cordon off the room.”

  She hears me but glances down at the floor of the car. Why won’t she fucking look at me?

  “Here.” Scotty suddenly holds his hand out backwards, holding a...DumDum sucker?

  She literally snatches it. “Shit, thanks?” She again asks, takes the wrapper off and wraps her lips around it in one smooth move.

  She sucks on it, once, twice, one more time, then licks it with her moist pink tongue, letting it roll all the way around, before deep throating that goddamn candy. Making soft smacking sounds the whole time. She’s giving that sucker a blow job and I’m going to shoot my load right here if she keeps going at it like that.

  “Mmmm…” She moans, making my cock jump nastily, then looks out the front, “We’re going...home?”

  I don’t miss the hesitation in the last word. “No. Press knows where I live.” I explain before Scotty does, but I sound like a frog lives in my throat.

  “So?” She asks, slightly relaxed. Not enough to make her look at me though.

  “So I’m taking you where they can’t find you.”

  She pulls out the sucker and presumably asks it, “I’m going to live alone?”

  “No.” I reply.

  Her thumb and forefinger tighten on the stick of the sucker. “We’re all shifting somewhere else?”

  Her voice is tentative, and I hold on a moment before answering that one. “No.”

  I see the swift flinching that she tries to curb as understanding strikes. The slowing of her breath. The parting of her lips. The ceasing of blinking. I see every tiny thing about her that changes right before she gradually faces me. “I’m not going to live alone with you, Mr King.”

  Her first non-question. I don’t care as long as she’s talking to me. What the fuck do I do with that thought? “I wasn’t asking.”

  “You don’t have to put yourself out.” She says tightly, “Scott can be with me—“ She looks at him to confirm, “...you can, right Scott?”

  The hell he can. And the hell he is. There won’t be a me and her, but she and him stop right here. “I said I’m not--”

  “It should be Eli with you, Ariel.” Scotty inserts, glancing in the rear view mirror. She stiffens next to me, and Scotty looks at her apologetic, but firm. “He knows how to handle shit like this way better than I do. I didn’t have to deal with any of it when dad…” He pauses. “...did what he did. Because Eli never let it reach me. He dropped me to school, picked me up, never let me go anywhere alone. Made me wear these weird godawful hoodies that covered my whole face and reflected any camera flashes--so no one ever got a decent picture of me. One time a reporter followed us from school, and Eli drove for two hours all around Manhattan till the man gave up and left us alone.”

  I’m befuddled. He had headphones on his ears the whole time. But he remembers? And he’s putting in a good word for me? Are they in on this together? Throwing me for a loop all the fucking time? Him then her, her then him?

  “But why can’t you stay with us too?” She persists with him and I’ve heard enough.

  I can live with her not wanting me around. What is flipping my shit is her wanting him. “Because the point is lying low, until we figure out how what happened today doesn’t happen again. Or at least prepare for it. And I don’t want anyone trailing Scotty back to where I’m taking you.”

  “But--” She starts.

  But Scotty talks over her. “Eli, we’re here. Is this the right place?”

  We all turn to look at the townhome we’re in front of. At 1800 sq ft and 3 bedrooms, by West Village standards, it’s on the modest side. A steal at less than 3 mill, it was an impulse buy a year ago when I came to visit a vendor’s office a few blocks from here. Renovated, fully furnished, stocked with toiletries and appliances, ready to move in. Very much alike the other places I’ve bought over the years. For a millisecond, I’d considered moving for more freedom, maybe to bring home whoever the fuck I wanted, but when it came to it, I could never go through with it. Scotty’s a flimsy excuse—I’ve never really wanted to bring any woman here or any place that I have paid money for. So what am I doing now? “Yeah, this is it.”

  The moment is awkward as we look at each other and the house. I don’t want to just pluck her out and kick him away. No. ….Fuck yes, I want to do just that. Three restless days and three sleepless nights with no sight or sound of her. I need to correct it. Now. I’ll analyze later why.

  “Come on.” I order her, and her eyes go wide at my outstretched palm.

  She looks panicked, and turns to Scotty. “You’re not even going to--”

  “No, he’s not.” I grab her arm, then her small backpack, and fling the door open. But when I would have dragged her out, I stop. Fuck, where is my inner dick when I need him? “I meant it, Scotty. Regardless of who you did it for, or why. Thank you.” I say to my brother, and his expression is illegible as he just keeps watching me.

  “Call me if you need anything.” He responds eventually, and I know something has shifted between us today. It affects me, but I like it. Go figure.

  “Scott…please...just...” She says to him slowly, and I have a moment of ridiculous anxiety. It’s obvious he cares for her. Romantically? And her? Her face, her voice...it’s almost a plea. So I’ve been giving her reasons to hate me and they’ve worked?

  “It’s just a few days, Ariel. It’ll blow over before you know it. And we’ll text and call--I promise.” Scotty assures her.

  “Move, Ariel. Now.” I tug on her arm, unable to witness her begging another man to stay so she doesn’t have to be alone with me.

  I don’t
wait to see Scotty drive off. Without looking at her, I tow her up the few stairs to the main door, and key in the code. Then I lead Ariel to the bathroom, dropping her backpack somewhere in the living room, not letting up my hold on her. Inside the bathroom, I open the cabinet under the sink and take a first aid box out, setting it on the counter. Then finally, I flick my wound up gaze at her, my mind still on her exchange with Scotty.

  She gives it right back, eyes blazing. So much fire. All for me. Like I’m the epicenter of her furor. I want to both flee, and never leave.

  I ignore the dilemma, toss her hand free, and grab a cotton swab, wetting it with a disinfectant. But when I raise my arm to clean her cut with it, she slaps my hand away. “It’s a stupid cut—I’ll live.”

  She’s wearing a waist length winter jacket that covers the skin I got used to seeing in the mere three times I’ve seen her. And a simple skirt and boots, both knee length. Probably not very different from any other co-ed. So technically, there’s no reason why a vibrant visual of waking up next to her should pack my chest. But it does. My cock jumps in excitement, the idea of sleeping next to someone apparently giving me a hard-on now.

  I clamp my jaw and aim the swab for her wound again. She swats at my wrist once more and then turns away from me, bolting for the door. I can’t let her out of my sight. I won't. After that reporter called, every inert protective instinct in my body was firing haywire in high gear, all day today. I wasn’t able to go ten minutes without thinking of her. Not in a bent-over-my-desk-offering-her-ass-to-me kind of way. In a she-better-fucking-be-safe kind of way. I sprint behind her, grab her wrist, pull her back, and boot the door closed. And before she can say anything else, I press the damn cotton where her skin is ruptured.

  “Owww! That stings!!” She hisses, then yelps.

  “It’s supposed to.” I shoot levelly.

  Peeved, she tries to pry my hands apart from her skin, first the one on her face, then the one holding her wrist. When she struggles to even nudge them, she resorts to smacking her closed fist on my chest and fuming, “I don’t need this! So take your freaking hero complex and shove it up your--”

  She gasps when I let her wrist go, and wind my hand around her waist. Yanking her hard to my chest, I goad the swab deeper into her wound until she winces. The sucker drops out of her hand and falls on the floor with a dull thud. Then I seethe on her face, “You will never fucking switch your phone off on me again.”

  She hits me again, and again, spitting through clenched teeth, “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do. You have no right--”

  “Save it. And you will listen to me, Ms Jenning, whether you like it or not.”

  Her hand unclenches, like it’s done assaulting me, and she squirms her body backwards in my grasp, her eyes suddenly deflecting to focus on her hand on my suit. The hand with that band. I realize belatedly that what I’m doing might trip her. I cannot stomach the thought of her being scared of me. And I still don’t want to back the hell off and just let her go. Fuck. What do I do? What do I say?

  “I did not have sex with Selena that night.” I blabber urgently. “I tried, but I couldn’t, and she stopped me because I was making a mess of it.” I tell her because it has been eating me alive that I let her believe that I did it.

  The frown on her forehead redoubles, her brown eyes coming up to angrily appraise me as the rest of her body goes still. “Then go try with her again.” Her breath shakes when she talks.

  I clutch her waist harder, and smush her against me, inhaling the scent of her hair, committing her features to memory, dangerously at the edge of starting something. Finishing it. None of it sensible. “Are you sure that’s what you want, princess?”

  “Stop calling me that!” She bites, beautiful and livid.

  With the cut it’s sort of hard to tell, but I’m fairly positive there’s a blush. Christ, this girl is such a dichotomy. Blushing when she’s angry?

  “Don’t call you what? Princess?” I linger the word on my tongue again, and she blushes even more. God, it makes me smug. “Why? Because it bothers you?”

  “Because it makes me wet!”

  God. Damn. Fuck.

  Our eyes clash heatedly, and our breaths mingle in the air between our faces for all of three seconds. Then I ditch the cotton swab, and her arms circle my neck at the same time as I slant my mouth over hers. Watermelon. Strawberry. I don’t know what the damn flavor of the sucker was, but it goes beautifully with the taste of her. Decadent as hell. How did I go without this for so long?

  She’s so fucking pliant. Matching my frantic battering tongue stroke for stroke, while I kiss her with all the pent up frustration and lust I can’t contain anymore. Greedy and desperate, my hands traipse over her soft curves, the swell of her tits, the indent of her waist, the flare of her hips, the fullness of her trim round ass cheeks--fuck, my cock is in so much trouble. Placing my hands below her ass, I lift her up, precumming like an open faucet when she locks her thighs around my waist. I turn, amble two or three steps, blindly swipe over the sink counter, clearing it of everything, without letting her lips go. Then I set her on top of it. Bite me, she said? Fuck yes. My tongue retreats so my teeth can scrape over her lower lip, and I grip the collar of her jacket for better access to her mouth.

  She whimpers, makes these sexy sounds that work my nut, and I’m perilously likely to reach for my cock and give it the reprieve it desperately needs. Twisting her fingers through my hair, she crushes her breasts against me, and why in the name of fuck am I bent on denying myself this? I just have to work her out of my system so I can start functioning at full capacity again. All this overthinking has given me nothing but blue balls and an evaporating brain. I haven’t checked my email in the last three hours--I haven’t even thought about work. I was so distracted when I left for work looking at her door, that I did not wear a vest. Just a shirt and jacket, almost even forgot the tie. It’s an itch. Just an itch. And fuck it all, I’m scratching it.

  I pull my head back, and Jesus, she’s inflamed but aroused, and fucking ravishing. Hauling her roughly off the counter, I spin her around and bend her down. Her palms slam on the counter for support, her ass prodding against my erection.

  “Oh God…” She gasps, this sexy sound of breathless but pleasant surprise, and it puts my heart rate through the wringer.

  I wrap her hair around my hand, and bend to bite her earlobe, before whispering, “Eli. That better be the only name I hear from you. Not Oh God. Not Mr King. Eli. Clear?”

  She answers with a quiver of her body, neck twisting sideways over her shoulder. But her gaze stays dropped, and it pesters me that she won’t let me see her eyes as she succumbs to me. Fuck her and finish this, Romeo.

  I straighten and hike her skirt over her hips, bundling it between her belly and the countertop. The sight that meets me cuts my breath off. Round, firm ass. Yellow panties with lace edges. My fingers slip between her legs, pressing firmly against the crotch of her panties, and fuck, she’s drenched. And trying to drive me up the wall with that scent. Rip them off and thrust in, my cock roars, about to sprain a muscle the way it’s forcing against my pants.

  “Goddamn gorgeous. Every inch of you.” I find myself saying out loud instead, my tone furious adulation. “But you already fucking know that, don’t you?”

  Before I can think about slowing things down, I act. My hand comes out from between her legs, and I bring it down hard on one ass cheek. Then I grip that flesh roughly, and it’s warm where my palm stung her.

  “Ah!” She moans, shimmying that hot ass with abandon.

  I spank her other cheek and she gasps louder. “Eli!”

  “There we go.” I murmur, kneading the cheek I marked, inserting my leg between hers and widening her stance. Then I tug her hair till her neck arches up. “You’ll let me play with your pert little ass, won’t you? Maybe suck on your pretty tits if I want. You’ll let me because your pussy is starving for my cock, isn’t she, princess?”

  “I...oh shit.
..Eli...”

  She’s finally saying my name. I wait for more, but she simply moans. Purrs. Wriggles her hips and raises her ass for me like she wants more of it. Fuck, I need to be inside her. I want to be inside her like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. And I’m enraged at the cotton that still hides part of her ass and pussy from my eyes. So I let go of her hair and rip her panties off with both hands, throwing them to the side as the threads tear, not caring where they go.

  She gasps and turns sharply, looking over her shoulder. “Did you just--” She trails off, her hand lifting from the counter and coming back around to feel her ass where her panties were.

  “Now now. Be a good girl for me, princess.” I warn her, then grab her arm and slap it back on the counter over her head. She puffs heavily for breath, but takes it wordlessly.

  That’s when the distinct black elastic of the band around her wrist falls inescapably in my field of vision, and my thoughts hopelessly clutter over the scene in front of me.

  I’ve turned her so I won’t have to see her face. Like I always do. My clothes are still on, like they always are. She’s bent at my mercy and I’m in control, like it always is. Because my plot here is the same, right? Fuck her once from behind and move on. How am I so good at this? Compartmentalizing. A stud at sex but a dud at intimacy. Is that why I feel so alone even when my dick is inside another human being? And why is she okay with this? Fiery fucking goddess that she is, how the hell is she okay with this? Is this what she thinks she’s worth? A quick impersonal fuck? Is that why her sharp tongue is suddenly tied? My chest twinges and coils inhumanly tight at the possibility of some schmuck having ruined sex for her. That someone impaired her innocence, and made her believe she can’t ask for more. And I’m doing the same.

  Fuck. That.

  I grab her hips and turn her around, lifting her up back onto the counter and spreading her legs wide. When my eyes slip down to her swollen pink glistening pussy before going up to her face, her teeth dig hard into her lower lip. Naked want is aglow on her face, even as she flushes, glossy red waves of hair framing her face in the prettiest way. Her gaze is coy, wandering at the collar of my suit instead of meeting my eyes, and her fingers grip the edge of the counter tight. Not as confident about this as she projects, is she? This--this is what I was missing? All signs that behind all that sass, are a whole lot of qualms. And I would have been one of them. I won’t permit it. Itch or whatever, I won’t be the experience she wants to forget.