by Hazel Kelly
He lifted his eyes to mine. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked, taking my cheek in his hand. “You’re all I want to see.”
I swallowed and realized I would never get over this. Over him. Not after the way he’d taken care of me, the way he’d made me feel. I was a rag doll in his hands, but he’d treated me like a goddess.
“We can’t stay in the shower forever,” he said, perhaps sensing the anxiety rising inside me. “You know that, right?”
I nodded and bit my tongue. Should I tell him how good he made me feel? Were there even words that would do him justice?
He blurred under the jets, and I watched the water run over his face and down his chest, my eyes lingering on his most forbidden parts until white suds impeded my view. I lifted my gaze again and was amused to find him squeezing his eyes shut and scrubbing his head with the same enthusiasm most people reserved for cleaning grout.
When he spun around and stuck his face in the stream, I dropped my attention back to his toned butt, which was permanently flexed as if God had pinched his cheeks together. Coupled with the hypnotic sound of the water, I could’ve stood there all day, admiring the first naked body I’d ever seen that was fit for a trophy.
“Last rinse?” he asked, stepping back and inviting me into the spray.
“I didn’t wash my hair yet.”
His face fell as he remembered the shape I was in when he first joined me, but he didn’t ask the questions that fought for space on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he reached for the shampoo and handed it to me. I squeezed a blob in my hand, keeping one eye on him as he admired the way my breasts rose when I lifted my arms over my head.
“May I?” he asked, lifting a tube of bodywash from the wire shelf in the corner.
I nodded and braced myself, sighing as he slid his soapy hands over my breasts. When I dropped my head back to rinse my hair, I closed my eyes and relished the way it felt to have his hands on me, sudsing up my stomach and my ass before he pulled me against him. I poked my head out of the water and blinked my eyes open, my soapy chest heaving against his. “This is so crazy,” I whispered.
He slipped two fingers between my buttcheeks, and I exhaled when they slipped over my asshole, my gaze locked on his as he traced my most sensitive flesh until I grew lightheaded.
“What are you doing?” I breathed.
“You don’t like it?” he asked, studying my face without interrupting the rhythmic massage.
“I didn’t say that.”
A devilish smile slipped out the corner of his mouth, and he increased the pressure, provoking ripples of warmth that spread through my belly. And right when I began to worry he might want more of me than I was ready to give him, he went back to massaging my buttcheeks and handed me the conditioner.
“You’re a rascal,” I said, squinting at him as I squirted a blob onto my palm.
“If I were a rascal,” he said, leaning close. “I’d have used my tongue.”
My eyes popped wide. "You wouldn’t!”
His eyes told a different story.
I spread the conditioner across my hands and then over my hair.
“On the contrary,” he said, his eyes swallowing me whole. “There’s nowhere I wouldn’t lick you.”
I bit back a smile and tilted my head under the water, my belly boiling as his words echoed through my mind. When I opened my eyes again, he was gone, and for a brief moment, I panicked. As if I’d woken too early from a dream.
“There’s a towel for you out here when you’re ready,” he said, like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be in the bathroom while I was in the shower. Like he hadn’t just fingered my asshole until my insides turned to mush. Like he hadn’t just rescued me from the darkest place I’d been in a long time.
Like he hadn’t made me love him in all the ways I shouldn’t.
T W E N T Y N I N E
- James -
When Brie’s shy expression finally poked out from behind the steamy shower door, an unfamiliar lightness flooded my chest. I held a fluffy peach-colored towel up between us and spread my arms wide. She stepped into it and let me wrap the ends around her.
“Thanks for warming me up,” she said, her voice barely audible over the sound of the fan.
I hugged the peach cocoon in my arms, part of me wishing I hadn’t insisted we get out and part of me feeling relieved the water bill wasn’t in my name. “Are you going to tell me what happened?” I asked, remembering the disturbing sadness she’d been lost in earlier.
“I had a relentless orgasm,” she said, leaning back to look up at me. “You were there.”
One side of my mouth drifted towards a smile. “Relentless?”
She nodded. “Just how I like ’em.”
I laughed. “Good.” I hugged her one more time before letting go so she could dry off. “But that’s not what I meant.”
She cocked her dripping head at me and adjusted her towel so she could pin it under her arms.
“I meant before I got here.” I sat back against the sink top, my towel tight around my waist.
Her face fell. “I’d rather not say.”
Her words created a distance between us without either of us moving.
“I’m too exhausted.”
“Brie.” I put a hand on her shoulder and dipped my head to meet her eyes. “I’ve never seen you like that.”
She scoffed. “No shit.”
“How about you tell me over dinner?” I asked, my spine tingling as her eyes fell down my chest. “There’s a footlong in the fridge. I’ll cut it in half.”
She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
I tried to read between the lines.
“I’d rather go to bed.”
“To bed? But it’s not even—”
“Please,” she said. “Don’t take offense.”
I searched her soft gaze. Was it selfish to want to spend time with her after what just happened? Was it wrong to take it personally that she didn’t want to confide in me? Or was I being greedy? Perhaps she’d opened up enough for one day. “Okay.”
“Really?”
I shrugged. Not knowing what upset her was bothersome, but what could I do? I couldn’t make her tell me.
“Thank you.”
The gratitude in her eyes tempered my frustration. “You sure you don’t want some tea or something?”
“I’m sure,” she said, her beautiful bare face making her look more innocent than usual.
I swallowed my disappointment.
“Maybe you could tuck me in, though?”
“Sure,” I said, my gut telling me something was seriously wrong. At least I’d gotten her warm again, gotten her smiling. It was a start. But she was still clearly disturbed, and I couldn’t help her if she wouldn’t tell me what happened.
She grabbed a hand towel from the shelf by the toilet and wrapped it around her head. Then she stepped up to me and trailed her fingers along my jawline without speaking.
“Brie—”
“Shhh.” She laid a finger across my lips. “Just come tuck me in.”
I let her take my hand and followed her down the hall, my chest tightening when I stepped into her jasmine-scented room and met Hermione’s determined gaze head on. Brie let go of my hand a moment later and swapped her towel for the fleece robe hanging on her closet door, giving me one last glimpse of her generous curves. Then she crawled in her twin bed and scooted down under the covers.
When she made a face like it was my move, I walked over and sat on the edge of her bed, scooting farther onto it after she made more room for me.
She reached for my closest hand and hugged it to her chest.
“Who was your appointment with?” I asked, wishing she would give me something.
“I wish you’d just forget about it.”
“I wish you’d just tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said, irritation seeping into my tone.
“You do
n’t understand.”
“You haven’t given me the chance.”
She sighed. “I’m processing.”
“At least tell me if it was for school or something personal.”
The shine left her eyes and was replaced by disappointment. In me. Because I’d pushed.
“It’s a fair question.”
“Please stop guessing,” she said. “I’d rather think about the last half hour.”
“Which part?” I asked, a mischievous grin spreading across my face.
Some of the sparkle returned to her irises.
And we stayed like that, neither of us blinking as we remembered how it felt to have each other that way, to hold each other like that. And, of course, she was right. It was worth dwelling on. Because being with her was better than I ever thought it could be, better than it had ever been with anyone.
“I’m on the pill, by the way,” she said. “And I forgive you for offending my feminist sensibilities by questioning that.”
Phew. “I thought you were going to let me lose sleep over that.”
“I considered it, but you were so nice to me tonight.”
Her bizarre word choice forced me back.
“What?”
“Nice isn’t the word I would’ve reached for.”
“No?” she asked, her head sinking deeper into the pillow behind her.
“Epic, maybe? Gallant? Sexy?”
“We can agree humble’s out, then?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Kidding,” she said. “You were all those things.”
“Mostly, nice, though,” I said, pointing a pistol finger her way. “If anyone asks.”
“No one’s going to ask, and if they did, they’d have to settle for my speechlessness.”
“So you feel okay about what happened?” I asked, gesturing between us. “About whatever the hell’s going on here?”
She nodded. “I feel more okay about whatever’s going on here than I do about almost anything else.”
“I guess I’ll take it.”
“Think you have to.”
I let that sink in.
“What about you?” she asked, her brows rising. “Do you feel okay?”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t know.”
“Why?” she asked, scooting up her pillows. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m worried I took advantage of you when you were having a moment of weakness.”
“James.” She sat up the rest of the way and fixed her eyes on mine. “That is not what happened.”
I held her steady gaze.
“You are my weakness,” she said, taking my cheek in her hand. “You always have been.”
I clenched my jaw.
“I wanted that,” she said. “Every second of it.”
I swallowed.
“Even the parts I didn’t know I wanted.”
My expression relaxed. “If it's filth you want—”
“It’s you,” she interrupted. “It’s you I want.”
I reached for her hand, holding it against my face a moment longer before lowering it between us and weaving my fingers through hers for the first time. “I want you, too.”
She laughed. “If you don’t, you have a weird way of showing it.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“You know what else I want?” I asked, wishing she would stay up with me and let me look in her eyes all night.
Her brows lifted.
“I want you to come to a Halloween party with me next week.”
T H I R T Y
- Brie -
When James asked me to go to the Halloween party, I told him I’d think about it. But that was before I realized Maddy and all his closest friends would be there. Not that I expected him to understand why that freaked me out.
After all, he blossomed in social situations so effortlessly it was impossible to imagine him making a bad impression. But I wasn’t like that. I couldn’t be a social butterfly with his friends the way he’d been with mine. He wouldn’t care, of course. He’d just want me to be myself. But even that was a struggle these days.
Because, as I’d so unceremoniously discovered, James Mason wasn’t my only weakness. I also had a weakness for seeking approval in the wrong places.
Professor Herstall had gone cold on me, and while I knew that was for the best, I found myself questioning whether he’d ever believed in me at all. Which was stupid. The guy was slime. Logically, I knew that. Emotionally, thinking of the way he’d put his hands on me made me want to walk to the bottom of Lake Michigan.
But there was a hole in me where his belief had been, where hope had been. As a result, I felt empty. Discarded. Lackluster. And the more he ignored me, the worse I felt.
I knew it was ridiculous. I should be happy he was ignoring me right back. Because I hated him. He made a laughing stock out of me and took advantage of my trust. He lied to my face, saying I had talent. Promise. And those lies went up in smoke the moment I realized his intentions were impure.
To add insult to injury, I hadn’t written a word since then. Not of my story, which stank all over from his red pen and his betrayal. Not a poem. Not even a fucking grocery list.
Because I felt empty. Like a fraud who only plays a writer on TV, my unfulfilled potential souring inside me like milk left in a swollen udder.
I didn’t know what to do. Before Professor Herstall, believing in myself had been enough to fuel my passion for writing. But it was easy then because my delusion had only been hinted at by faceless, impersonal rejection letters, which were easy enough to discount.
But this? This incident had provoked a crisis of faith so severe I wasn’t sure I’d survive it, wasn’t sure if I should. What if I was a talentless loser, and I couldn’t see it? What if I was blowing my pathetic paychecks on student loans I’d never be able to pay back?
What if my writing was merely an addiction, like the one my mom had to white wine for so long? Just a habit that helped me feel engaged in a world that actually found me tedious and annoying. Ugh.
Even worse, what if he got away with it? What if the next girl he tried that on didn’t grow up asking herself What Would Hermione Do? What if I let myself become a statistic and failed to speak up smack dab in the middle of the goddamn #Metoo movement?
Because it’s harder than people realize to speak up. I could see that now. I could even see the future. It would be my word against his…if I could even find someone to tell. He was the head of the department. If I wasn’t careful, I could lose everything I’d worked for and get slapped with a reputation that could keep me out of the only game I’d ever wanted to be in.
But he had to pay. That much I knew.
I hugged myself as I considered what Hermione would do in my position, hoping he could sense my revulsion across the room. No doubt she’d start with a spell that would make his dick shrivel like a raisin. After that, I like to think she’d curse him with an asshole that smelled like jerky, so every animal he passed on the sidewalk for the rest of his life would treat him like the dog he was.
But even that wouldn’t be good enough. Because he’d still have his position, and that was the thing that afforded him to take such unsavory risks.
I gagged at the thought of what he wanted me to do, feeling ashamed that I ever made him think I was so desperate for his approval that I didn’t know the difference between a favor and a favor. Pervert.
When class ended, I scurried from the room, swallowing the bile that crept up my throat as I passed his desk. Not that he made eye contact with me. Fucking coward. At least he knew better than to gloat. Smugness from him would only fan the flames of my rage, which was slowly blackening my bloodstream like a leaking pen.
Unfortunately, while my rage was necessary to help me survive his class, in which attendance was thirty percent of my final grade, it was also making me feel nasty and ill. As if I’d eaten something past the expiration date. Sure, it wouldn’t kill me, but it was a se
nsation I was eager to be rid of.
I just didn’t know how to shake it off. Or what to do. Or who to turn to.
Crystal wasn’t even-tempered enough to help me come up with a strategy that didn’t involve having to get near Professor Herstall’s penis with a knife, and James…this wasn’t his fight. No doubt he would help me, but until I figured out how I wanted to proceed, there was no sense in worrying him.
Besides, I was having a hard enough time containing my own fury over the whole thing. The last thing I needed was James getting angry and protective when things were going so dreamily between us and—speak of the devil.
I stared at his name on my buzzing phone screen, a swell of joy lightening the heavy feeling in my chest. “Hello?”
“I need an answer,” he said. “I can’t stand the suspense anymore.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The party tomorrow,” he said. “Are you coming or not?”
I nibbled the inside of my lip. “What are you going as?”
“James Bond.”
I scoffed. “Of course you are.”
“Laugh all you want, but I look delicious in a tux.”
I lowered my voice and dodged a group of athletes in purple tracksuits. "I’m sure I prefer you in a towel.”
“That may be true, but the tux gives me an excuse to carry a bottle of Grey Goose around all night.”
“Wow,” I said. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“On the contrary, I’ve been incredibly single-minded of late.”
My heart fluttered. “I’ve noticed.”
“Say you’ll come.”
I sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want to spend the time with you.”
“I should hope not.”
“I just don’t know if a Halloween party at your friend’s house is really the best time for a family reunion.”
“It’s the perfect time.”
I scrunched my nose. “So Maddy’s still going?”
“Yeah,” he said, like he was getting sick of the question. “Along with a bunch of other people.”
“Are you going to warn her?”
“Warn her? Do I need to? You have a really scary costume planned?”
“Yeah,” I said deadpan. “The wicked stepsister.”