Ruthless Love

by Penelope Bloom

  I could feel her walls throbbing against me with the pace of her heartbeat, so rapid it was like her pussy was trying to give me the hottest fucking hand job of my life. I grinned down at her. “You ready, Wheels?”

  Something defiant sparked across her face, and she reached down, gripping my cock in her small hand. She pumped it up and down, rocking her hips in a slow, sensual motion.

  Fuck. Where did she learn that?

  Kennedy might be a virgin, but she had the instincts of a damn succubus—not that I was about to complain.

  I braced myself on the bed, letting her rock her body, teasing the tip of my cock with her pussy while her hand pumped against me. She seemed to realize it felt good when her own hand pressed into herself at the bottom of each movement, and she started grinding her wrist against herself as she jerked me off.

  I had to grit my teeth. Finally, I knew if I let her go on I was going to cum before I’d even had a chance to show her what it felt like to have every inch of me inside her.

  I slid my hips forward until her fist was sandwiched between us, still gripping the last bit of my length she could get her hands on. I pressed again, forcing her hand away as she sucked in a shuddering breath.

  “Oh,” she whispered, almost in surprise.

  I had grand plans for how this would go. How I would slowly tease her to the edge of climax. How I’d show her what it felt like to edge on oblivion so many times that the final explosion was practically nuclear. Except she’d done me in. That little, teasing hand of hers and the tight grip of her pussy were too much.

  I pounded into her, relentless and uncaring. I didn’t give a shit if I lasted thirty minutes or ten seconds. I didn’t care if she came again.

  She was fucking mine, and all I cared about was burying every last inch of my cock into her until she didn’t have the faintest doubt about that—until I was gripping my throbbing cock and coming all over her pale body.

  “Tristan,” she gasped.

  I barely heard her. I lifted her thighs so I could get deeper—until I was absolutely buried in her soaking heat.

  She came when I was fucking her so hard that the headboard of her bed was bouncing loudly against the wall, probably leaving dents. I felt her convulse around me, gripping me like a vice. I slid out of her. My dick pulsed with what felt like wave after wave of a never-ending orgasm.

  I blinked through it, eyes feeling blurry until they settled on the drops of my come speckling her body.

  She lay there like she could fall asleep, her entire body shaking with the force of her breaths.

  “No wonder people like doing that so much,” she said, gasping for breath as she came down from her orgasm.

  I gripped one of her tits, smearing my come against her skin as I did. “You’re mine, Wheels. Remember that.”

  27

  Kennedy

  Tristan and I walked to his house together for the first time. He didn’t push me in my chair, carry me, or anything in between. I walked. I wasn’t sure how long those small victories would keep feeling so good, but I was happy to enjoy them while they lasted.

  “What if your parents are home?” I asked when we got closer to his house. “Will they care that you’re bringing me in the middle of the morning?”

  Tristan paused, looking at me strange. “How much did you overhear that first morning?”

  “Between you and your dad?” I asked, surprised he wanted to talk about it for once. “Just that he wanted you to clean up the house, pretty much.” What do you tell them? The question came back to me—the one his dad had asked that never quite made sense. I’d given up trying to figure out what he meant, but now…

  Tristan shook his head, laughing slightly. He looked like he was about to say something more, but he started walking again. “It’ll be fine.”

  Inside, we gravitated toward the kitchen, where Tristan started rooting through the pantry for supplies. He claimed he was going to make me the “best damn pancakes I’d ever had.” When he opened the pantry, I noticed it was almost nothing but cases of beer and a paltry assortment of cereal boxes and some other odds and ends.

  “Not the greatest shoppers, are you guys?”

  Tristan finally found a box of pancake mix and set to work, ignoring my question.

  I enjoyed watching him. I’d grown so used to angry Tristan. Even in the good moments, there was always a dark air to him, like you could imagine him snapping at any moment and going feral on someone. But this morning, he seemed light—almost happy.

  I twirled my hair, sitting at the counter while I watched him struggle with the simple recipe. He looked so intent on getting it right that I didn’t have the heart to laugh, so I just waited patiently, even when he mistook baking soda for flour.

  It ended up not mattering anyway, because he burnt every last pancake, which sat in a tall tower of failure when he was finished.

  Tristan snapped his fingers, pointing to the ceiling. “Better idea. How does the best cereal you’ve ever had sound?”

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  He opened the fridge. “Shit. No milk. Okay, new pl—”

  Someone knocked at his door.

  We both turned, looking. “Expecting someone?”

  “No,” he said. His face was dark again, like all that lightness had just drifted away in the moment I’d taken my eyes off him.

  “Should I go?” I asked quietly.

  “Stay,” he said, moving to the door.

  When he opened it, there was a well-dressed woman in her mid-thirties standing there, looking confused. She was holding a small stack of “for sale” signs under her arm. “Tristan Blackwood?” She asked.

  “Yes.” Tristan’s voice was stiff. Hostile.

  “Your father led me to believe the house was unoccupied.”

  “If he wants me out, he’ll have to get on a plane and physically remove my ass. You can tell him that.” He slammed the door shut on the woman and stalked back to the kitchen.

  “Tristan… What’s going on?”

  He dug in the fridge for beers, offering me one.

  I shook my head. “Can you just talk to me?”

  He sat down heavily, just staring at his beer instead of making any move to open it. “I thought you already knew all this. Fuck. It’s why I was such an unbearable dick to you. You realize that? I was punishing you for something you didn’t even know.”

  I waited. I hadn’t put it all together, but the truth felt like it was on the tip of my mind. What do you tell them? That question his dad asked—I knew it somehow was at the center of it.

  “You ever wonder why my parents are never home? Why I can throw parties all the time and not give a shit about all the alcohol and drugs people use here?”

  “No… I mean, I saw your dad laying into you for it that first night. I guess I just figured you got in trouble for it all the time and didn’t care.”

  “That was the first time I’ve seen him in three years. Still haven’t seen my mom or my sister. When I was fifteen, I was getting into a lot of trouble. Fights. Alcohol. Then I got caught with weed. My coach told dad about the weed and the fights. He said they could look past the fights as long as I tried to keep it in check, but the drugs were a line in the sand. One more time and I was done for good. But that wasn’t enough for him. For them. He told me he was done. They threatened to sell the house and leave me on my own, but after a few months, I started to think that had been a bluff.

  “They flew out to our place in California and never called or came back. But they left the safe with about twenty grand of cash in their bedroom, so I’ve had money for gas and food, but that’s not going to last much longer.”

  “They just left?” I asked incredulously. “You were only fifteen…”

  “Yeah, well, one thing about rich people is they think you can throw money at problems and make them go away. Maybe leaving the house and all their toys here was their way of washing their hands of it. But that was the reason he came the morning you were here. I
t’s what I thought you heard. They’re out of money, and they’re going to sell this place to try to pay off some debts.” Tristan looked back at his beer, laughing humorlessly. “The only reason he bothered coming was because I ignored his calls. He just wanted to try to scare me into cleaning the place up for him, so it’d sell faster. You know, I almost burned the fucking thing down that night. But I thought you knew enough to pin it on me.”

  I reached for the beer I’d refused and tried to open it, only managing to hurt my hand.

  Tristan took it from me and twisted off the cap, handing it back to me.

  I squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. God,” I said, feeling it all fall together in my head finally. “I thought a football scholarship would be a joke to someone like you. But it’s not. Is it?”

  “That scholarship would mean I don’t have to worry about where I’m going to live or how I’ll pay for college. Yeah. Like a golden fucking ticket out from under my parents, once and for all.”

  I thought about what he’d said, then my eyes went to the fresh beer he was pulling out the fridge. Maybe my gaze lingered there just a few seconds too long. His face hardened.

  I tried to think of something to say to break the tension, but nothing came to mind. I just awkwardly pressed my lips together in a fake smile.

  “I should probably get you back home before your mom gets in.”

  He hadn’t seemed like he was in the slightest hurry to send me home until now, but I nodded and let him walk me out. I felt a little part of myself retreat in that moment. Last night, it seemed like I’d wrapped my heart in a nice, careful little package and handed it to him. Now, I wondered if I’d really known what I was doing.

  28

  Tristan

  Kennedy met me at a place on the main strip of town called Dead Ringers. It was a diner with pretty good hamburgers and shakes, even though the fries were those shitty, noodle-thin types. A lot of guys from the team went there after practice and games, which meant a lot of the hot girls from our school hung out there, too.

  Most days, you could find a small gathering of a dozen or so kids in the parking lot, leaning on cars and talking around greasy paper bags full of food.

  Today, it was hot enough that most of the action was inside. The bar area was crowded with young kids sipping on milkshakes and the booths were all packed.

  Kennedy sat across from me, sipping on a strawberry milkshake. My eyes were on her lips, making my memory burn with the taste of them—their sweet softness.

  “What?”

  I titled my head, not making any attempt to keep my voice low. “Just thinking how much I enjoyed fucking you.”

  “Tristan,” she said, bulging her eyes and dipping her head, like she expected a stray bullet to come flying over the top of our booth.

  “You’re my girlfriend. You think people don’t realize we’re fucking?”

  “We had sex. Once. It’s different.”

  “You’re right. You busy this afternoon?”

  She threw the balled-up wrapper of her straw at me, missing so badly that it sailed over my head. “Would it kill you to act like a gentleman, for once?”

  “I made sure you came first. If that’s not acting like a gentleman, I don’t know what is.”

  She winced again. “Could you just—not announce it to the world, maybe?”

  “In the world of bargaining, this is what’s called leverage. I have something you want. That means I can bargain for something in exchange.”

  “Tristan.” Kennedy’s voice was quiet and laced with warning, but I wasn’t backing down.

  “Lift up your foot and put it on the bench.”

  “What?”

  “Do it. Lift your leg up.”

  She worked her lips to the side, studying me. Finally, I saw her body shift a little. I reached blindly under the table and found the soft skin of her calf. I bit my lip, tugging her a little closer. Then I slid her sandal off, so her foot was bare before I set it between my legs.

  Kennedy tried to yank her leg back, but I held her there firmly. “Your choice,” I said. “But I need some part of you on my dick or I’m not going to be able to stop talking about it. Loudly,” I added.

  She cupped her hands over her eyes, ducking her head even more. “What if someone sees?”

  “They’ll think one of us has some kind of weird foot fetish.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Do you?”

  “I have a you-touching-my-dick fetish.”

  Eventually, she managed to convince me she needed to use the bathroom. I was fairly sure it was just an excuse to escape, but I allowed it. Once she was gone, I pulled out a small flask from my jacket and added a generous dose of whiskey to my chocolate milkshake. I swirled it around, sipping. I felt a small wave of relief at the bite of the alcohol, knowing it’d start to help soften my thoughts.

  When I wasn’t directly in contact with Kennedy, my mind had been going to dark places ever since dad’s realtor showed up. I wasn’t sure I’d been entirely sober since, but it was either that, or I’d do something even more stupid, like burning the whole house down.

  A group of guys stopped by the table while Kennedy was still gone.

  “You’re the QB from Parker, right?” asked one of the guys. He was short and round, with mousy features.

  “Yeah.”

  The guy looked to his friends, backhanding them each on the shoulders and grinning, like they’d just stumbled upon some kind of golden opportunity. “Your coach know you’re day drinking the day before your game against us?”

  I didn’t move at first. So, he’d seen me drizzling the whiskey into my shake, had he? I wondered if he thought he’d be able to snitch on me to coach and get me benched for the game.

  Whatever his plan, I didn’t intend to let him carry it out.

  I stood suddenly, making the table screech as I jostled it to the side. The guy didn’t even have time to move before I had two fistfuls of his shirt and drove him backwards into the bar between two girls, who jumped out of the way, knocking over their shakes.

  The place went from a happy hum of conversation to shocked silence in an instant. It was just me and the guy, our faces inches apart.

  “You want to ask me that again?” I whispered.

  His eyes were wide, and his face was shaking. He finally shook his head tightly.

  I told myself to let him go, but my hands didn’t want to listen. I kept thinking of the fucking realtor and my dad—of how much I’d like to sink my fist into his face.

  “Tristan!” Kennedy said. I felt her hands on me a second later, urging me back from the kid.

  It was like snapping out of some kind of trance. I let him go, watching distractedly as he scurried away. One of the employees was on the phone, watching me with fear in his eyes.

  I held my hands up. “I’m good,” I said. “He was just talking shit.”

  Kennedy was looking at me in a way that made my stomach clench. I walked outside, part of me hoping she wouldn’t follow. But she caught up with me by my car.

  Her eyebrows were drawn together. “What was that?”

  “I told you. He was talking shit.”

  She breathed out, chewing the side of her lip.

  “What?” I asked, growing impatient.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Do you mind just dropping me off at home instead of taking me to your house, though? I think that milkshake upset my stomach.”

  I searched her face for some sign of what she was really thinking but found nothing. “Yeah. No problem.”

  29

  Kennedy

  I found Tristan in the library after school. He was tutoring the same little freshman kid from the first time I’d listened in. I waved at Tristan, who nodded back at me before returning to finish his session with the freshman.

  I waited nearby, reading over the essay I felt like I’d been working on for weeks while I listened to him. After a few seconds, I realized they weren’t talking about writing.

&
nbsp; “…you’d be surprised,” Tristan said.

  The kid sighed. “Okay. I’ll actually try this time.”

  “In person,” Tristan said warningly. “I don’t want to hear that you texted her, dropped a note in her locker, or anything in between. You walk up to her and say it. Okay?”

  The kid nodded, then left, giving Tristan the customary fist bump on his way out.

  “Relationship advice again?” I asked, taking the chair where the freshman had been sitting.

  “Something like that. Look, I’m sorry about yesterday at Dead Ringers. I’ve been on edge ever since…”

  I nodded, knowing what he was talking about. I’d figured as much, but it was good to see he felt like he could be open about it. “You can talk to me, Tristan. I’m not the enemy anymore.”

  He laughed softly. “You shouldn’t have ever been the enemy. That was me being a dumbass.”

  “No comment.”

  Tristan pulled my essay over by his forefinger, shooting me a curious glance. “You finish it?”

  “Until you read it and tell me it’s garbage. Yes, I did.”

  He hunched over the paper, reading it slowly, running his finger along as he went. Sometimes, he’d circle back to the top of a paragraph, rereading a single sentence several times. Finally, he pushed it back a hair and nodded his approval. “I’m afraid I can’t give you any feedback on this. Not here,” he added quietly.

  “What?”

  “Trade secrets of the essayist. If the wrong person hears, I could lose my gig as the best tutor in the school.”

  “What a tragedy that would be.”

  “You can be sassy, or you can come with me and get what you need to turn this from an ‘A’ to an ‘A+.’ It’s your choice, Wheels.”

  I slapped his arm. “Don’t call me that.”

  “The best terms of endearment are the ones that started as insults.”

  I frowned. “I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”