by Shayne Ford
She presses her lips together, grappling with the trembling of her chin. Her gaze tears away from my face and slides down. She no longer looks at me.
“On the other hand...” I say, summoning her eyes to me again.
She tilts her face up.
“You know that we are good together...” I say, giving her a flirting smile.
A grin lights up her eyes.
“Hmm. That’s because you are good,” she says.
“I’m not so sure about that... I’m not the one who hired professionals and garnered all that experience,” I toss back at her, amused.
“You are the professional,” she says jokingly.
She leans to me and smiles against my lips while I curl my hand around her neck and pull her close to me.
We share a tender kiss before I murmur against her lips.
“You shouldn’t fear anything, Senna. All I need is time...”
She wraps her arms around my neck as we connect our lips again. My blood speeds up, flooded with pleasure as she slinks her hand beneath my towel, and curls her fingers around me. Her thigh hitches up on my hip.
Her moan vibrates in my mouth as I slide my fingers into her, her flesh already throbbing.
She starts to shake.
I break the kiss.
She looks at me with vacant eyes, her hand running up and down my length, her hips grinding as her chest begins to heave.
“That fast...?” I purr against her lips.
Her wetness soaks my fingers.
I pull them out and fill her up, her groan of pleasure raising goosebumps on my arms.
A faint smile lines her lips as she sinks her nails into my arm. Thrusting deep into her, I watch her quickly scaling up.
Right on the cusp, she closes her eyes and presses the back of her head against my hand. I pick up the pace, my gaze dipping to her lips.
The peak of tension hardens her muscles. Her body arches against mine, her breasts crashing against my chest, her sex soaking me.
I take her mouth.
Her chest vibrates with a growl as her tongue sweeps mine. Hungry, and voracious. Trembling from lips to toes, she’s sucking on my tongue, branding my skin with her nails.
She squirms and moans in my embrace, tipping over the edge as I hammer her, relentlessly. She tears her mouth away from mine, her throat filled with a crying sound.
“Come, baby...” I mutter as another orgasm sweeps through her, stronger than the first.
Lines of blood grow on my back from her nails.
That’s when I come undone.
SENNA
“Jaden?”
The howling wind groans in response.
All I see is the thick darkness and the string of flickering lights leading to the neighbor’s house.
Fresh snow crunches beneath my boots, the long-sleeved T-shirt not doing much to protect me from the frigid air. My breasts turn into mounds of ice.
I hug myself and swivel my head, scanning the woods again, searching for him.
“Jaden?”
“Yes.”
His voice rings out behind me.
Startled, I jolt.
“Fuck. You scared the shit out of me. Where were you?”
“I got the car ready for our trip back.”
Clad in boots, jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt like mine, he walks into a patch of light.
I’m shivering. He barely flinches.
His eyes dance with a smile.
I run my gaze on him again. The cold air adds color to his face, showing off his sculpted cheekbones. Silver sparkles in his eyes borrowed from the moon.
“You look at me as if you’ve never seen me before,” he says.
“There’s something different about you.”
I let my eyes linger on him a little longer, taking in his handsome face.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know,” I say, stifling a smile.
“You’re such a fox. Tell me.”
I clear my voice.
“Nothing. Dinner is ready. I want to eat. Aren’t you hungry?”
He stomps off the snow from his boots.
“Yes.”
I slip inside. He follows me.
“Smells good,” he says, eyeing the table.
I give him a secret smile.
“What is it?” he asks, grinning.
I keep smiling.
“Oh, I know...” he says, sniffing around. “Which one is it?”
“Well, both. Chocolate cake and apple pie. One is in the fridge, the other one is in the oven. We eat first,” I say, sounding all, um... maternal?
He locks my eyes and cocks his head.
My hands shoot up in the air.
“Sorry...” I say, smiling.
Minutes later, we sit at the table.
I spent some time decorating, and now everything looks festive. It’s something Isabel, and I used to do in my parents home when my mom felt generous enough to let us mingle with the staff members.
An hour ticks by, the room filled with laughter reminding me of the way this place used to be when my grandparents and I spent winters here. I had no idea how funny he can be, and what a vital force hides beneath his shell.
It’s been a week.
The start was rocky–– I’m not gonna lie, but things got better. His eyes no longer harbor sadness, a vibrant man coming to life. He’s smart and playful, his zest for life revving up a part of me I no longer thought I had.
We fuck, and then we make love, and then we fuck again.
My body is addicted to him while he gets turned on at the simple sight of me. The nights we share are silent, buried in snow, and wrapped in soft lights.
We spend most of our evenings in front of the fireplace. He writes and draws. I read. Every time I glance up at him and study him longer than a few moments, he slams the laptop shut, pulls me to his lap and lets his body do the talking.
I respond to his voice, his smile, the glint in his eyes. I yearn for his touch, his lips, and his cock filling me up. I’ve been starved for someone like him for so long there is no end to my hunger. The more he feeds me, the stronger my craving for him grows.
Tonight is no different.
We eat dinner, and one hour later we find ourselves in the living room.
I lie on the couch with a pillow stuck behind my back, and my tablet on my lap while he sits in his armchair, his ankle resting on his knee. In one hand he holds a paper pad. With the other, he handles the laptop.
His eyes dash at me.
“What are you looking at?”
I breathe out a soft laughter.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as someone who’s reading, writing and drawing.”
His lips quirk into a mischievous smile.
“Enjoying a quiet evening at home,” I add, amused.
“I can say the same thing about you.”
“It sounds... uneventful...” I mutter.
“And yet, it feels good,” he says.
He slips the paper pad onto the table and starts typing on his laptop.
His eyes fly to me from time to time.
“I’ve had enough of an eventful life. I can fill a book with it. Which I might do, in fact,” he mutters, focused on his writing.
“Are you serious?”
He glances at me again. A cocky smile sprouts on his lips.
“Yeah. Why not? It’s business, isn’t it? Besides, I already have an audience for it.”
“You’re really serious, aren’t you?”
“Of all people, I’m surprised you are the one who asks that. You’ve made your money cashing on people’s curiosity for stuff. Sex is just another thing that sells. I didn’t invent this,” he says, his eyes slanting down to his screen.
Silence rolls over us.
“I can help you,” I say.
His hand shoots up, his eyes coming fast to me.
“Uh-huh. Not gonna happen. You have your business, and I want mine.”
“I understand, but the
re’s no point in wasting time when you can skip a few steps.”
“No, no. It’s gonna be my thing, and my mistakes, no matter how long it takes. You have to trust me.”
“It’s not that,” I murmur.
He waves me off, his eyes rooting to his laptop.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says curtly, a wall coming promptly between us.
I pull my mouth shut and sink back into the pillow.
12
SENNA
The wind swirls snow, dressing the windows and the woods in white glitter. The fire roars in the background, consuming the logs and turning them into ashes, filling the air with a scent of earth and smoke.
Naked, we lie on the bed, facing each other. Eyes locked heads resting on the elbows. His fingers trail my face, his gaze sunk deep into my eyes.
“How were you before?” he asks.
My lips curve into a soft smile.
“I’m not so sure you would’ve liked me back then. I was different than now. Pure and innocent, I liked different things. I loved stories, mysteries, and magic. I believed in romantic love, and finding that perfect man who makes you feel complete.”
I let out a soft chuckle.
“I didn’t call them men back then. They were boys. Same thing. I couldn’t get close to them anyway. My mom was against relationships with random boys. She enrolled us, the girls, in a private school where we were confined to our quarters and closely supervised. Living at home with our parents wasn’t much different than spending time in that school. Boys didn’t have access to us. She never admitted to it, but she resented the idea of us mingling with people not vetted by her. She was also a firm proponent of celibacy until marriage.”
I go quiet for a moment, suddenly annoyed.
“So, yeah... That’s how I grew up. As beautiful as our life looked from outside, we were brought up in a very strict environment. It didn’t affect my sisters much, but it broke me. I guess there’s always that risk, but my mom didn’t care. She was betting on the fact that sooner or later, I’d get with the program. Well, I didn’t, and her attempts to make me more like my sisters fueled my resentment against her. Also against my dad who was quietly enabling her. The rift between us was bound to happen, but I didn’t think it would unfold the way it did.”
I pause again, getting lost in his eyes for a few moments.
He studies my expression, a thought flitting through his eyes before he pulls his gaze away.
“What about your first man?” he asks.
I can sense a shred of tension in his voice.
“It was, um... I don’t think I was ever... sexually innocent,” I say with a shaky voice.
He glances at me.
“Was he your first man?”
My heart starts pounding, slamming against my ribcage.
Oh, how I feared this moment. I had the truth locked in a long-forgotten drawer of my memory for so many years, and now it’s coming back to life.
A shadow slides over his face.
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he says, thrown off by my reaction.
I roll away from him.
He grabs my arm and pulls me back to him. I don’t fight him, but I whip my face to the side to hide my eyes.
He clasps my chin and tips my face back to him.
“Look at me.”
I do. Fighting my tears back, and trying to suppress my panic–– although the panic never goes away. It’s always there, shaking my body, feeding on my blood, and filling my mind with dread.
“Whatever happened back then it wasn’t your fault...” he says.
But that’s because he doesn’t know.
I slowly nod.
“Oh, yes it was...” I quietly say.
His grip softens. He pulls away slightly and looks at me, baffled.
I keep nodding.
“Yes. It fucking was. Everything was my fault. Something was not right with me from the very beginning, and he unleashed that thing.”
His eyes widen with surprise.
“I should’ve known,” I mutter. “And I should’ve stayed away from him. I knew who he was... Perhaps because he always had an eye on me. And I always had an eye on him as well. Besides, I caught him fucking other women around the house... And not only once.”
I search his eyes, expecting a reaction. Not much reads on his face.
“Yes. I got what I deserved... I should’ve left him alone, but no, no. I went to him. More than once,” I mutter, letting out a sarcastic chuckle. “And guess what. I liked it,” I say, all the bitterness I can muster seeping into my voice.
Taking me by surprise, he tears away from me and rolls off the bed. He scoops up his clothes from the chair and pulls his jeans and T-shirt on.
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” he says with an icy voice.
I’m suddenly cold as if a blizzard spins in the middle of the room. He sinks into an armchair, next to the fireplace.
“I’m listening,” he says deadpan.
His eyes go vacant, rooted to the trembling flames.
I slip off the bed and throw on some clothes as well.
“Does it make a difference to you?” I ask, nervous, as I take a seat in the chair next to him.
Frosted eyes turn to me.
He gives me a cold-hearted smirk that spreads pain down my spine. He clicks his tongue, carelessly.
“What happened that night was between you and that man. It makes no difference to me. But lying about it makes a lot of difference.”
My heart stops.
“I didn’t lie.”
His eyes shoot at me.
“Oh, yes. You fucking did. You lied to me... Perhaps to yourself as well. You led me to believe it was something else, and I hated him for what he did to you, but now it turns out it wasn’t what I thought.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You didn’t tell the whole story. That’s a fucking lie.”
I take a long breath. His eyes shoot at me for a moment.
“You said you couldn’t stop him. And now you say you actually pursued him. Why did you go to him?”
“To confront him.”
He huffs, and shakes his head in disbelief, his fingers running through his hair.
“I can’t fucking believe this...” he says, leaning back in his chair.
His eyes go empty, stripped of any shred of empathy or warmth. It’s hard to believe this is the same man who held me in his arms moments ago.
“Why did you actually go to him?” he asks, dark and suspicious.
I lower my eyes, the silence stretching between us.
“Were you attracted to him?”
I finally shift my gaze to him. His eyes grilled me, filled with questions.
“I think I was...”
He cocks an eyebrow.
“You think?” he sneers.
“I was. I had never been with a boy, let alone a man before him. I was untouched. Not even a kiss. I was stupid. Curious. That night, we were the only two people in the house. Half of the staff was on vacation. The rest of them were in their quarters...” I say in one breath.
“Go on,” he says.
I shift my eyes to the flames.
“My sisters were supposed to come back from a trip. They were on their way home, but they had to stop at a hotel because of the bad weather. I didn’t think much of anything that evening. We dined together before he left for his room. Minutes later, I followed him. Don’t ask me why. I’ve asked myself that very question so many times. I couldn’t find an answer. As I said before, a lot of it was sheer curiosity. Perhaps it was something else as well. Deep down in my heart, I knew it was against the rules to be alone with him in the same room. That’s what stirred up the rebel in me. I was not supposed to be anywhere close to a man, let alone him, and I saw an opportunity to misbehave. So, I took the stairs and moments later, I knocked on his door. He wasn’t surprised when he saw me as if he was expecting me.
In the beginning, we talked about books and paintings. He told me stories from when he was a teenager. I listened to him, entranced. Up to this day, I have no idea how much time we spent talking. And then he came closer to me and brought his hand to my face and ran his fingers over my lips. The lines began to blur that very moment, and that’s how everything got started.”
I sense his stare on my face, but I can’t make myself meet his eyes.
I keep talking.
“That night, he touched me for the first time. He knew why I was there, and when he laid his hands on me, my body was already his.”
Tense, Jaden shifts in his chair.
“He didn’t waste any time. Why would he?” I continue, smiling bitterly. “His hand traveled from my face to my neck and then to my shoulder, his fingers no longer touching the fabric of my dress but running straight onto my skin. My eyes couldn’t pull away from his as for the first time in my life, I was flooded with a mysterious sensation. So powerful and sinful. So irresistible, I was shackled to his touch. Heat exploded in my blood. And all I did, was watch him change my life, witnessing my own surrender. He slipped his hand over my breast. I felt a pulse between my legs. He held my eyes and cupped that breast and pleasure stormed my belly. I couldn’t move. I barely breathed. He cupped the other breast, and skillfully, pushed my dress down. The fabric fell to the floor, leaving me almost naked. His gaze ran slowly on my body, his lips curving into a knowing smile as he got a glimpse of my beaded nipples and my soaked, cotton panties. One hand followed the trail of his gaze, his index finger tracing down to my lower stomach until it reached the edge of my panties. All that time my eyes stayed glued on him, my heart beating madly. He glanced at me once, briefly taking in my parted lips, and registering my clipped breaths, and eyes reflecting pleasure and panic. He ignored my angst and focused on the pleasure, knowing full well that it was the way to get to me. It took one soft touch of his finger, tracing my slit through the fabric of my panties and my fate was sealed... That small gesture shaped my life for years to come. What I felt that moment was something I had never experienced before. He took his time, indulging in my pleasure. His finger was joined by a second one. Not only that he brushed my cleft but also dipped his fingers in my softness, pressing gently on my clit. I didn’t pull back. I only looked at him, unable to react. He felt compelled to continue, so he curled his arm around my waist and pulled me closer. His manly scent was drugging me. Still, I didn’t put up a fight. Grinning, he slid his palm down my stomach, spurring pleasure in his wake, and then he slipped his hand beneath the fabric, pushing the panties lower to my hips. There was nothing between us to prevent his touch. A cloud of tension started swirling around us. I stood there, frozen, as he ran his fingers over my flesh. Once. Twice. Many times. I could tell how wet I was from the way his fingers were slipping. Turned to stone, I was unable to say a word, fire flowing through my veins. He gently grabbed my mound, and I could’ve easily come in his hand. And then he asked me if I liked it. I didn’t say a word. I couldn’t. He brought his free hand to my chest, and cupped a breast, kneading it while he kept playing with my clit. I didn’t know much about men then, but one thing was clear to me. He was way beyond aroused. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, his breathing getting progressively heavy. He was getting tense as I was slowly falling into his trap. His whole stance clued me in. I could see the outline of his erection bulging against the expensive fabric of his pants. He caught the direction of my gaze and peeled his hand from my chest to palm his cock. To give me an idea... of what he had for me. He asked me to touch him. I didn’t. I was too scared. He didn’t mind it, or perhaps he did, but he didn’t complain. My panties were still hanging low, crumpled between my thighs as he was stroking my clit, smoothly moving his fingers lower. I closed my eyes. Even now, I remember that sensation as if I relive it. As if it flares through my senses. It was way more than I could’ve resisted. ‘It feels good, doesn’t it?’ he asked. I didn’t answer. His finger was slowly probing my entrance, his thumb sliding up and down my clit. My flesh was melting at that point. I think he knew. That’s why he didn’t really need my answer. He slowly pushed his finger inside me. A storm of tingles swirled between my thighs, building tension in my belly, fueling my need for more. I think I licked my lips. His touch became stronger, more demanding, accompanied by his quiet growl. He pulled his zipper down, and then, instead of his fingers, I felt a different touch tracing my clit. It was something hard and warm and throbbing. Something wet at the tip. I flicked my eyes open and met his stare. He waited. I knew it was wrong, and yet I couldn’t help it. He wrapped his hand around my neck and brought me close to him to feel his breath on my lips and rub my clit with his erection. The heat coming from his shaft threw me in a pool of pleasure. He finally took my hand and guided it to his cock. Reluctantly, I curled my fingers around it. It didn’t spoiled his pleasure. He moved my hand with his, and soon I started stroking him on my own. For a moment, I was stunned by his expression. His eyes burned wild, his lips glistening, bloody red, crushed beneath his teeth. He looked at me as if he could barely hold himself back from fucking me. That was not far from the truth. Smoothly, he pushed me against the closest wall. Not even when he pressed my back against that wall I fully understood. He rolled my panties down, and slid his hand between my thighs. At that point I was so turned on, all I wanted was to grind against his fingers. He must’ve known. He grabbed my mound and slid his fingers to my entrance, eagerly pushing them into me, and that’s when my blood exploded. The pain I felt couldn’t curtail the pleasure. His breaths sped up, and so did mine. And then, in a final moment of lucidity, I realized what he was doing. His hard cock was trailing my sex, getting closer to my entrance. That was my moment of clarity, when it dawned on me how wrong it was. It was also the moment to stop everything. I tried. I pushed him back. He didn’t budge. I told him I’m a virgin. He laughed, and looked at me incredulously. He said it was hard to believe since I got so turned on from his touch. The more we argued the more I panicked. I fought him, and then he crashed with me against that wall, stopping me from leaving. The more we wrestled, the more turned on we got. I wanted to scream, yet he cupped my mouth, wrapped me in his arm and twirled with me away from that wall, crashing with me on a couch. I was nothing for a muscular man like him who was already on top of me. His fly was already open and his erection was jutting in the air, heavy with blood. He speared through me in one long, hard motion that left me breathless and made me see only light for a moment. He buried me in his arms and ran his cock into me again, tearing through me, opening me for him and for life, not caring if he left a scar on me or in my heart.”