by Elena Monroe
Scanning the folder, she shrugged, “Okay.” Calm and collected, all the time, even when she’s not only this time I couldn’t find her tells that she was panicking.
“Okay? That’s it? You’re agreeing to marrying me by 27 and having my babies?”
She hadn’t even admitted to loving me yet, but this? No problem.
“Do you have other options I don’t know about?” That elicited a chuckle from my mom at the stove still.
Bringing over two plates, my mom leaned down kissing my head, “Mon Chou, she was in a gang. Hard limits are nothing for her. It’s the other thing you’re waiting for that takes time, trust.” With a small pause I noticed that there wasn’t another plate when she announced her exit.
Hard limits and blind commitment were easy for her.
I must have been in shock because I had never been so quiet in my life when she picked up a fork drawing her attention to the pasta my mom made. “I should shock you more often… only time you’re quiet.”
I had already mentally prepared to beg her to stay and I was ready to explain the contract in different ways until we found what comfortably fit Grace, but she was fine.
No questions asked.
Ignoring the food in front of me, now I was determined to tell her everything and see where her boundaries were. A normal person would be running for the hills, not agreeing with a shrug. Clearly, I needed to up the ante here. “I had to give you blood during the surgery… my blood. No medical reason. Just for a blood oath to keep you safe. We can’t let anyone outside the Clave know too much.”
With chicken in her mouth, she looked up at me with a shrug, speaking around her chewing, “I get it, Khaos. I’m pretty familiar with gang mentalities. I had to do things to keep you safe too.”
Now she was challenging me. The war parts of me crawled to the surface like the animal inside of me had rabies.
“You don’t actually get it though… I’m talking Illuminati, the real Illuminati, Grace. I’m a horseman for the Clave. War, to be exact. That’s my job - planting seeds, controlling the narrative, starting wars, and ending them… that’s what I actually do online. I’m responsible for a lot of secondhand death and chaos that ensues not only in this country but around the world. I throw grenades daily and I walk away...”
There was a reason she was so okay with everything I was dropping on her and I was determined to make her tell me. “This only works if you’re honest with me…” my voice trailed off daring her to shrug and say okay like the compliant little bird she wasn’t.
“It sounds pretty dope. Did they recruit you? Did they tell you to pay one hundred bucks and take some runway walking classes? I saw that at the Grove once, thought it was a scam…”
What a comedian. She couldn’t care less that I just said I’m part of the Illuminati. Grace usually liked giving me a hard time and right now she was giving it to me too lightly, at the wrong time.
“Okay, seriously though Khaos... I do get it. That is all part of your job... you do what you have to do. It doesn’t matter to me. We all have to do things we have no choice in, and I get that more than you know. All I ever did for them was steal stuff and sell drugs - not personally, that’s what Ears did for me. I was supposed to steal from you, but I only ever stole your watch outside of a jewelry shop before I knew you.”
Did she just admit something I’ve been dying to know? Something personal. Just not the three words that were the only thing not outlined in the contract: I love you.
“That was you?! I loved that watch!”
I wanted all the ugly details and I wanted her to have all mine so we could put it to the test right now. If we couldn’t handle the ugly at the bottom of the solo cup, then we could save ourselves some of the ache we’d suffer later.
I was taking accountability before anything even bad happened.
She stabbed her way through the pasta, still shrugging her way through the truths that she was keeping to herself. “Oh, get over it. You have all this - money, a home, family, stability, freedom. Some people will do anything for some freedom… You think I wanted to join a gang where there’s no way out unless it’s in a body bag?” I watched her abandon her plate and sign her full name where the little green sticker pointed to. “I don’t think of this contract as a sentence, it’s you offering to save me and I’m saying yes. That’s as trusting and honest as it gets.”
Standing up, I leaned against the table taking her face in my hands and tickling her lips with mine until I felt them curve up into a smile. That’s always when I gave in, when she smiled, letting my lips catch between hers I kissed her the only way you could an angel: heavenly.
GRACE
I was the ‘waiting for the shoe to drop’ kind of girl. Eventually Khaos would get bored, tired of being a one-man charity, or dig up the past I wanted to keep buried.
He thinks he was waiting for me to say those three words every time he told me he loved me and paused waiting for a similar reply. He was waiting for the shoe to drop too.
Loving Khaos was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
It came as natural as the waves cascading over the beach but the guilt of him being a mark, Dove breaking his hand, and my file telling him more than I did made sure I felt unworthy of his love.
Every time I thought of him, I felt butterflies grow into a sandstorm, then a swarm of bees, the perfect swell, then a perfect 180 off a bowl stirred in my heart.
I had never experienced love let alone one that had me smiling with my knees pulled into my chest in the bathtub.
These two months of pretending to be the person who deserved this felt like home instead of a lie or way out of my bad life.
It’s the greatest present he could have even given me, these feelings.
Khaos was at work, behaving the way the contract wanted him to, leaving me with some time to figure out how to tell him e v e r y t h i n g the way he told me.
It wasn’t just that I was in a gang, it was so much more than that. He deserved to know what he was saving me from.
The door to the bathroom flew open and I jumped wrapping my arms around my legs tighter like covering myself would save me. I was walking around his place with a kitchen knife and even I knew the paranoia wasn’t going to be taken away by us being together.
We were both stuck in this purgatory of happiness dashed with paranoia. It felt ripped from the pages of Romeo and Juliet, only we were both banished to Mantua.
I might have picked up the source material since he wanted to speak in Shakespearian.
Khaos stood there in his cut off shirt that showed off every tattoo, every tense muscle, and his skinny jeans doing the same. His hair was beautifully messy and that smile I loved took over his face while holding a box in his hands.
“Happy birthday, baby. You thought I forgot, huh?” Setting the box down on the bathtub ledge, he kissed me gently and fished out a lighter, placing it on top of the box making me wonder.
“Thank you,” I said softly instead of saying how I really felt because I was still too busy waiting for the shoe to drop.
Kicking off his shoes and socks, he stepped into the oversized tub fully clothed across from me. For a split second I couldn’t help the jealousy I felt thinking of his alphabet being in here with him.
Trying not to laugh, I let my eyebrows raise up, questioning him, “What are you doing?”
“I’m wishing my girlfriend a happy birthday and it’s less effective in the kitchen when you’re in the tub.” Watching him pry open the box producing a cupcake with a single candle on top, he lit the candle and smiled even bigger when he said, “Make a wish babe.”
That’s exactly what I did.
Everyone got to make wishes on their birthdays and for a long time I was convinced silly things like that were the reason they had everything they wanted.
I never made any wishes, and my life went up in flames. One wish now couldn’t hurt.
Leaning forward I closed my eyes trying to decide how to encomp
ass everything in my wish. Squeezing them shut, I knew exactly what I needed to wish for: the strength to accept my happy ending.
I was scared to open my eyes and find out blowing out candles was just another thing I missed out on.
Peeling them open I watched Khaos swipe his finger along my cupcake and my frosting thinking he was sly. Teasing me with his frosting covered finger he sing-songed his words, “What do we say, Grace?”
Before I could think of a comeback my lips fell open and I finally said it, “I love you, Khaos.”
Four words instead of three because I’m a rebel like that.
Every funny bone in Khaos seemed to grow serious when he seemed too stunned to function as he stared back at me. Slipping through the water I found his legs straddling his lap, letting my small perky boobs dance above the water.
Maintaining eye contact, I sucked on his finger, watching him swallow hard as my lips pulled every ounce of sugary frosting off like it was good luck for my wish to become a reality.
“I love you, Grace,” his lips tugged into a big smile and his hands grabbed my ass so hard I felt it belong to him more than me. “What do you wanna do today, birthday girl?”
“Ice cream we never got to have?”
“Wear pants this time,” he playfully smacked my ass under the water as laughter combusted from his chest causing the water to ripple around our bodies.
Slapping his arm, he sat straight up, our chests flush and the desire to be as close as possible still too strong to manage in moments like these. He was a beautiful mess and he didn’t care how that looked anymore because he was exactly who I fell for… himself.
Our lips were so close I could feel the tension shoved between us when I searched for the hem of his shirt, pulling the wet material off.
“Juliet has a healthier sex drive in our story,” lifting his arms, he let me take off his shirt as I examined the tattoos.
Juliet wasn’t scared of what people thought this time either. And Romeo was a lot more reckless.
Tracing the hashtag over his heart, I wondered why he had some of these tattoos. “Why a hashtag?”
Pulling me even closer, I felt his hardness against the inside of my thigh. His eyes stared at my lips while he spoke, “Part of the persona. A reminder I’m whatever fills in the blank that day. Whatever’s trending. With you that bullshit doesn’t matter.”
My hands on his shoulders, palms scaling their way to his neck, I couldn’t have felt closer to him than right now. He wasn’t acting with me and I wasn’t being tough with him anymore.
Leaning down into his lips, I let mine press against his slowly in soft pecks until we couldn’t bear to wait any longer. These feelings would eventually build up into the kind of torture that always started as a fire in our stomachs and ended in an orgasm.
Multiple orgasms.
Fumbling under the water to unbutton his jeans, I felt exasperated realizing I was still holding my breath with anticipation even after telling him I loved him. His fingers found my chin lifting my eyes to meet his while my hands worked to pull down the band on his boxer briefs.
Khaos had no issue maintaining eye contact. He bore into your soul and made a home there.
His hands caressed my ass holding me against him before I felt his knuckles knock around the inside of my thighs lining up his tip for me to sink down onto. Whimpering against him our lips brushed as I adjusted to exactly how far he was stretching me.
He was always stretching every part of me: soul, heart, body.
Sinking slowly onto his lap, I felt the back of my thighs touch his and my hard nipples scrape down his chest as I took all of him. We were both silent, our eyes not breaking contact, taking in every aspect of this kind of sex driven by a different kind of heat. This was soft, careful, and demanded every bit of your attention otherwise you’d miss a pivotal breath.
My hips started to sway making the water break out into small waves around us as our bodies rubbed under the water. Droplets dripped from his fingers when he pushed my hair behind my ears and every part of me felt full in a way I still didn’t feel like I deserved.
It was like he could read my thoughts when he whispered against my lips, “We deserve this, baby. Trust me.”
Picking up my pace I let myself believe him, instead of just being a victim to how good this felt I was taking the pleasure like I was never able to do before him. Wrapping my arms around his neck our lips collided, tangling, pulling until our tongues found each other.
He tasted like birthday cake... like the cupcake was never my real treat.
I moaned into his mouth as his hand held the back of my neck in place, his tongue chasing after mine and my hips swaying faster on his lap. He was harder than I had ever felt which was saying something.
It wasn’t the chaoticness of his life that got him off, but the sole attention of my love. He truly was cupid before he became Romeo.
Lifting my ass up with his hands, he stood up with his wet jeans still around his ankles weighted down by the hot bath water. I wrapped my legs around his waist determined to cling onto him while he desperately attempted to shimmy out of his jeans. Standing on one leg he pressed my shoulder blades into the cold tile of his bathroom, leaving lazy kisses on my chest while he tried to free himself.
Neither of us could help the urge to laugh when I buried my face into his neck completely pausing my hips from creating more friction with him still inside of me. Carefully stepping out of the tub he stopped at the Jack and Jill sinks, placing me on the cold marble surface that gave me goosebumps making me clench tighter around his girth.
Leaning back onto my hands, he had me breathless as I watched his hand grip my hip as his other hand slowly and lightly traced my tight nipples, smoothed down my stomach, and teased my clit before rounding to the small of my back. Lifting my hips up higher to meet his, he thrusted himself deeper in one quick motion that made me gasp for air.
Pulling him closer with my legs around the back of his thighs I let out a breathy moan that begged him to stop toying with me. Instead of multiple orgasms he was shooting for a drawn-out climax that would end in fireworks.
Looking over his shoulder at our bed behind him through the open doorway, he turned his gaze to me again with a smirk tugging his lips up at the edges. “We haven’t done it in a bed yet…”
Without any warning, his arm was under my ass and he was headed for the bedroom before he set me down on the soft pillow top. It was the one place we had avoided having sex, not purposely, we just never paused long enough to make it to another location when these feelings took over. Especially a conventional one like a bed.
I already felt empty without him inside of me as he stood at the end of the bed for just a moment before dragging me down to his legs, his mushroom tip slipping back into me effortlessly. Pawing at his chest, he finally fell down to his forearms boxing my head in while his pace took an incline, pinning me to the bed and chasing my steady breathing away.
My lips left a mark behind his neck, wet lips staining his perfect skin as I ran my fingers through his messy hair, whispering in his ear, “I want to worship you for once.” He was always making me feel special when he was trying to convince me we both deserved this. He needed to accept some worshipping too.
Pushing his giant body down was like breaking the fifth wall, only Khaos was solid muscle and six foot four easy. Straddling his lap, his hand wrapped around himself while his eyes darted down my body.
His big hands reached out to pinch my hard nipples when I swatted them away - this was about him right now, not me. “No touching, only enjoying,” my voice was raspy and barely above a whisper when I lifted my hips sitting on his length again watching his eyebrows raise and a devious grin spread across his face.
I wanted to be in charge.
I wanted to feel powerful in the bedroom.
I wanted to see how much I could bring him to the brink of desperation and control every drop of salvation.
Rocking my hips, I pressed
my palms to his, our fingers lacing, using him as leverage, I already felt close to the edge of spilling over. His face twisted up into bliss when his legs bent at the knee cutting off my motions, making them harder and faster.
“If you don’t want me to come like I’m fourteen you should slow down,” he was warning me, but I didn’t care. He could have come instantly, and I would have found a way to break under the conditions because I was always on the edge with him, waiting to break.
He was always the one in control, always deciding the stakes and exactly how much you gave in. Now the tables were turned, and he was going to have to submit as much as I was.
Kissing and suckling the soft skin on his neck all the way up to his ear, he let out a groan as I whispered, “It’s my birthday… this is my birthday wish… you’re gonna come how I want you to.” By Khaos rules he couldn’t argue with birthday wishes - those were law.
“Fuckkk, baby.” He looked tortured with pleasure when I fell over on top of him, our chests touching and my lips covering him in kisses with his hands pinned on either side of his head by my own. I felt him crumbling under me when he clamped his eyes closed and his breath rattled in his chest, not making it up his throat properly.
“Grace...,” his voice was a smooth last warning that he was losing control as his grip on my hands tightened.
I felt my body start to shake unwillingly on top of him and holding off coming felt like an impossible task when he sat up wrapping his arms around me. Burying his face in my chest I felt him still my hips with the feeling of him spilling inside me pushing me over the same cliff he jumped off of.
His full lips left kisses all over my chest while I shook on top of him and my legs trembled. His deep voice soaked in California whispered, “I love you. No matter what… even though it’s all your fault that was embarrassingly fast for me.”