Vote Then Read: Volume I

by Carly Phillips

  “Mmmm,” he hummed. “That feels really, really good.”

  My nipples tingled in response to the sound of his deep voice vibrating through his chest where they grazed his smooth skin. I licked his throat while his fingers slipped under the loose waistband of the sweatpants I’d borrowed. With barely a flick, they dropped to the floor, leaving nothing between us. He fell heavy against my thigh, but Will did nothing further. This was on my terms.

  But my previously sore state had evaporated. It didn’t matter that I had a day full of chores to get to. A mother I needed to check on. A life I needed to figure out.

  The only thing that made sense in this moment was Will and me. And I needed him inside me. Now.

  “It’s too much,” Will gasped in between kiss after hungry kiss. “You. Me. It’s too fucking much.”

  I agreed, but that didn’t mean I was going to stop. I wanted more. After years of not enough, I wanted too much.

  I opened my legs and pulled his hands down my ribs to my ass. He didn’t need to be directed further as he lifted me like I weighed next to nothing, keeping our mouths fused as the tip of him located my slick entrance.

  “Maggie,” he moaned into my mouth. “Maggie, please. Let me in.”

  “Come,” I begged before welcoming his tongue again. “I need to feel you.”

  I didn’t have to ask twice. There was no need to adjust as Will slid inside—I was ready for him, ready for this, maybe more ready than for anything else in my life.

  I sighed as he sheathed himself fully. My body fit to his completely, like he was a key that unlocked something deep inside me.

  “Fuck!” He pulled nearly all the way out, then pushed back in all over again, then tipped his head back and hissed aloud. “Jesus God, you feel good. Perfect. Just perfect.”

  “Again,” I demanded, my nails digging into his back. “Fuck me, Will. Fuck me as hard as you can.”

  He straightened up as he slid partially out. “Are you—are you sure, Lil? I can—fuck, I can slow down. Or wait. I don’t mind.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed that. But I definitely didn’t care. Instead, I reached up and grabbed a solid handful of streaked gold locks. “Just fuck me, Baker. Make love to me. Whatever. Sometimes they are the same, but I need it. Now.”

  “With fucking pleasure.”

  He slammed into me, causing my head to slam against the wall behind me. It hurt slightly, but I loved it, grappling at his shoulders and biting his neck as he repeated the action again and again. A long, low howl emerged from Will’s chest.

  “You turn me into an animal, you know that?” he growled as his hips pistoned away. “I fucking lose all control with you.”

  “Do it,” I urged him on. “I want you to lose it. I want you to let it all go!”

  I gripped his shoulder with one hand hard enough to leave crescent-shaped marks from my fingernails, while my other hand slipped down between us to massage the sensitive spot that would lead to both our releases. I didn’t need much. I was already hyped, already halfway there when he started.

  At the feel of my hand reaching that juncture where our bodies met, Will hissed again. He slowed his movements, looking down.

  “That’s right. Touch yourself, gorgeous,” he murmured.

  He kissed me again, then went back to watching. I found myself looking too, thoroughly entranced by the movements of his cock, my hand. My body clenched. I arched against the wall.

  “Fuck,” Will whispered as I squeezed involuntarily. “I can feel you getting close, baby.”

  His words only made me squeeze harder—not out of discomfort, but out of impending pleasure. That familiar wave was rising, and the sight of us joining, the ebb and flow of my fingers that moved in tandem with Will’s harsh, steady movements, was quickly becoming too much to handle.

  “Pinch your nipple,” Will urged. “Don’t worry. I got you. Just do what you need. I’m right behind you. You let go, and I will too.”

  His green eyes met mine, and in them, I saw the truth of what he said. That I could let go with this man. That I could be myself, take a leap, and he would be there to hold me up, catch me if I fell. Just like he was doing now.

  My other hand released his shoulders, and drifted down his arm until I found my breast. I trapped my nipple lightly between my thumb and forefinger, enjoyed the surge that shot through my body at the light twinge of pain. All touches converged—Will’s iron grip on my ass, the punishing rhythm of his cock, the pinch of my fingers at my nipple and clit. It was too much, in the best possible way. Two, three, four more pounds of Will’s hips driving into me, filling me completely, and suddenly, I was lifted high on that crest of pleasure. My control evaporated. All pain was gone, replaced only with ecstasy.

  “Will!” I shouted as my hands fell away. I didn’t need them. My orgasm shook through me, matching Will’s steady, unforgiving thrusts as he braced me against the wall.

  “Fuuuuccckk!” he cried as he followed me. He shoved in deeply, so deep I could feel him at the limit of what I could take. It was almost painful, but I was so overcome by the pleasure of him, I could register nothing else. He was right. We were too much together. But too much was exactly what I needed in a world where until now, I couldn’t manage to feel enough of anything.

  It was only then, as we slid to the floor, still shaking out the remains of our pleasure, that the green light of the console caught my eye. The tapes had been rolling the entire time, capturing the sounds of our bodies joining right along with the sounds of the songs I had just played. Our cries mingled, creating harmonies I’d never heard, new rhythms I’d never forget. We were making our own kind of music after all.

  24

  “Okay, you have to stop. Mama is going to think I dropped off the edge of the earth.”

  I twisted in Will’s arms at the top of my stairs, but did nothing to disengage from the kisses he was feathering over my neck and bare shoulders.

  We still couldn’t stop touching, and it had been like this for almost two weeks. Instead of sating whatever appetites we both had for each other’s bodies, a dam had been broken, and now a river of sexual tension was being released. The interlude in the studio had just been the start. Nearly every night, when Mama left or fell asleep, I’d either sneak over to his house or find him waiting for me at the shack. It was starting to turn into a game—how long could Maggie and Will last without having sex? So far our record was eight hours. Will had surprised me in the outdoor shower, in his boathouse, even the back of his pickup when he’d pulled to the side of the road halfway around the lake in order to shove his hand down my shorts and kiss me until I was practically unconscious. I was just as bad—I’d torn two separate t-shirts of his (granted, both had already had a few holes in them), and most of the time, his hair would have looked like it had been attacked by a wild animal if he didn’t have it pulled back.

  After yet another night and morning being occupied with each other, it was now well past noon, and I couldn’t ignore the guilt blooming in my stomach at the fact that Lucas’s truck was parked in the driveway, and probably had been since early that morning while I’d been getting plowed better than a cornfield since late last night. Will and I were acting like irresponsible teenagers, not two grown people of twenty-six and…

  “How old are you?” I asked suddenly as his tongue flickered in a way that made my knees grow weak. I’d have a mark there in a minute, and I couldn’t have cared less. “Thirty? Forty?”

  Will broke away, looking adorably wounded. “I look fucking forty?”

  I giggled, trying and failing to ignore the way his fingers had slipped under the waistband of my shorts. Again. “Honestly? I can’t tell. With that pelt covering your face, you could pass for twenty or fifty. So I’d appreciate being told if I’m robbing the cradle or indulging in some daddy issues.”

  “You really hate my beard, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “No. You’re just so adamant about keeping it that it makes me want to see what’s under
neath that much more.”

  Will snorted, even though he stole another kiss that left me breathless before answering. “I’m twenty-fucking-nine, woman.” His voice was practically a growl against my lips. “Fifty. Jesus Christ.”

  But I couldn’t respond as he consumed me all over again, one hand twisting my t-shirt into a knot at the small of my back while the other took a solid handful of my ass and squeezed hard.

  “Mmmmm,” Will groaned just before his tongue twisted around with mine. “Fuck. Lil, I need you again. Where’s that flat rock? You think anyone would notice if I fucked you there right now?”

  “Well, considering it’s broad daylight, I think they probably would,” I said, even though my hands were already ruining his messy knot of hair all over again. The rubber band fell to the ground, and his newly trimmed locks fell about his shoulders in bedraggled waves.

  Will bit his lip. “Damn. All right, plan b: a really big tree.”

  I giggled as he attacked my neck again, though somehow, I managed to press my hand against his shoulders.

  “Will, we can’t. Half the day is gone. I really do need to check on my mom, and poor Lucas is probably halfway done with the demolition today.”

  “Let’s just demolition Lucas,” Will grumbled before he worried my earlobe between his teeth.

  I moaned lightly, and my hips pressed into his of their own accord. “Will.” My voice was breathy and unstable as he squeezed my ass harder and ground into me. “Will.”

  He groaned lightly. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop.”

  Will released my waist and lifted his mouth from my neck. He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, looking like he wanted to take another bite out of me. I couldn’t stop my blush.

  “Damn,” he murmured under his breath. “Tonight, then. I’ll be coming for you, Lil, and you won’t be able to run from me.”

  I swallowed. The words seemed meant as a joke, but his tone was fierce. “O-okay.”

  We tramped down to the house, Will holding my hand the entire way, like he wasn’t totally ready to let go. Not now. Maybe not ever. From above, the harsh sounds of a sledgehammer slamming through the walls echoed from the topside cabin—Lucas, hard at work.

  Guilt reappeared, like a bad penny.

  “I just want to check on Mama,” I said again. “Then we can go help Lucas.”

  But when I pulled open the sliding glass door, those plans were immediately smashed. The smell of toast snaked through the house, and as I stepped inside, I waved my hand through the light haze of smoke that filled the air. Something was burning.

  “What the…” Will’s dismay floated around me.

  He jogged immediately into the kitchen while I scampered around the house, opening windows and turning on the ceiling fans. The smoke alarm hadn’t gone off—which made me wonder if there were even batteries in the damn thing to begin with. I wouldn’t have put it beyond Mama, in one of her 2 a.m. fits, to have robbed them to replace the ones in the TV remote or something equally mundane.

  “Mama!” I called out. “Mama, where are you?”

  “It was the stove and the toaster oven.” Will returned from the kitchen. “She left bread in for too long, and there were some eggs burning in a pan.”

  I headed for the bedroom off the end of the living area, but she wasn’t in there. “Dammit!”

  “She’s, um, in here, Lil.”

  I turned toward a sound I knew very well coming from the bathroom—the throttled chokes of my mother losing her breakfast and probably last night’s dinner too.

  “Shit,” I muttered. “Will, maybe…maybe you should go up to help Lucas. I’ll be up soon.”

  Will looked at me like I was crazy. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I sighed. Apparently all of my secrets were being laid out on the table this morning. Sure, I had already told him my mother was an alcoholic, but most people didn’t really get that until they saw it up close. If, of course, I let them at all.

  “Maggie!” Mama yelled. “Where are you? Where did you go?”

  I froze for a moment at the threshold. I hadn’t heard it for several years, not since I had stopped accepting her phone calls at certain times of day, but I knew that voice. Torn with pain, like her vocal chords themselves had been tossed into a blender, that voice was the one that told me when I was a child that I needed to keep at least a five-foot radius away from her unless I wanted to get slapped, or worse. But it was the voice that also told me if I stayed away, my heart would be paying for it for days.

  Maybe it was growing up in the church and being shunned by its members. Maybe it was never knowing if I was going to be my mother’s greatest love or greatest disappointment. But I had always had a guilty conscience when it came to the people I loved. Nothing was ever good enough to fix her, and God knew I’d tried my damnedest for a very long time.

  “Mama?” I pushed open the bathroom door.

  She sat on the edge of the bathtub with her head hanging over the rim of the toilet. The bathroom was a mess—she hadn’t quite made it in time, which meant I’d have a hell of a mess to clean up after she was done. Fuck.

  She looked up. Her eyes were ringed with smeared makeup, and half her curly brown hair was matted down to one side of her face while the other side stuck up in haphazard tufts. Her skin was pale, sickly, but shone with the peculiar sweat of vomit and the slight redness of the blood still rushing out of her head.

  “Who’s that out there?” she demanded weakly. “Who did you bring here to embarrass me?”

  “Will’s here to help with the property, Mama,” I said as I grabbed one of the faded washcloths stacked over the toilet. There was the audible sliding of the front door, and the sound of another pair of feet entering the house. “And Lucas.”

  “You want them to see me like this, don’t you?” she bit out, swiping ineffectually at my leg before she turned back to the toilet and lurched as her stomach emptied itself of contents that it no longer had. “Why’d you bring them here, Margaret?” she moaned. “Why’d you let them see me like this?”

  “I didn’t pour the drinks down your throat, Mama,” I argued before I could stop myself. “They are helping us. Getting the bed and breakfast ready to let, remember? So you and I can run it.” Shit. She was clearly still drunk. At noon on a Sunday. Jesus.

  “Oh, to hell with the bed and damn breakfast,” she spat against the toilet seat as she set her cheek on it. Her eyes closed in relief. “You don’t really believe we can do it, do you, Margaret? Not when the only good thing either of us has going is what we’ve got between our legs, huh? Ain’t that where you were last night? Doin’ what your mama taught you?”

  I recoiled, taking longer than necessary to wet the cloth and wring it out in the sink.

  “We should be opening a whorehouse,” Mama continued, forcing herself back up. She turned, reached out with a shaky hand, and tapped me on the nose. “You could be my number one girl. All them boys been chasing my Maggie Mae since she was little. No different now, is it? Got two of ’em out there. Who do you think would be the highest bidder?”

  “That’s enough, Ellie.”

  I looked up to find Lucas’s solid form filling the narrow bathroom doorway, watching us with a mixture of disgust and pity, while Will just stood behind him, looking confused.

  Mama laboriously pushed herself up from the toilet, flushed the remains away, then grasped roughly at my arm while she wobbled like a newborn deer out of the tiny, stinking room.

  “You think you’re so high and mighty, Lucas Forster?” she sneered as we pushed past him and Will. She practically dragged me with her toward her bedroom. Her language was slurring now, like she was almost too tired to pronounce each word. “You think I don’t know what you want from my daughter? And you, Mr. Mysterious? Don’t none of you want nothin’ more than what’s in her pants.”

  “Mama, come on.” I tugged her down to her room, but her feet dragged.

  “And you,” she said softly, turned to me. “My pretty l
ittle mini-me. Two little sluts, the both of us. One day, you’re gonna feel it, just like I do. There are two types of women on this earth—Madonnas and whores. I’ll give you one guess which one we are.”

  I didn’t meet her eyes, and definitely didn’t look back at Lucas and Will as I finished helping her to her bed. I had heard this before—heard some version of it my whole life, even when I was a child—but it had been years since I’d heard it in person. My heart fell, hating how familiar it still sounded, even after years of stepping away. How familiar…and true. I hated myself a little bit for still not being able to ignore the possibility that had sunk in when I was far too young to fight it. That maybe she was right.

  Pretty little whore, Theo would say as he forced himself in. That’s what you are, aren’t you? My pretty little slut. My pretty little flower. Pretty little whore.

  And I had never once suggested otherwise.

  “You think they love you, Maggie Mae,” Mama said as she crawled on top of her sheets. She collapsed into her pillow, her forehead still wrinkled, like she was engaged in some other battle. “But they don’t. We don’t deserve their love, baby. It’s in our blood.”

  I emerged about ten minutes later, after she’d fallen asleep. I’d sat at the edge of her bed for a solid five minutes, my head buried in my hands, then took another five before I could get back up, clean the bathroom, shower again, and finally leave the house. I could sink myself in the hard work on the property before the time came for an evening run. By that point, Mama would be awake, hardly aware of what had happened. And if she was, she’d be mournfully apologetic, and we could at least try to put the episode behind us, like we always did.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have the sweet bliss of manual labor waiting for me when I reached the topside cabin. The sanding was finished, and Will and Lucas were both sitting outside on the porch, drinking sodas in a tense detente while they watched my approach.

  “She’s all right,” I said to Will’s wordless question. I sat down on the porch beside him, and he rubbed my shoulder.