by JA Huss
“I want to flip you over,” I say.
“Do it,” she says.
“I want to grab a fistful of your hair and pull your head back so far you have to look me in the eye when I slip my cock between your ass cheeks and fill your pussy.”
“Do it,” she says. Our heads touching. Our eyes meeting. Our souls connected.
I shake my head. I want to be gentle with her. I want to make her feel special. Cherished. Loved…?
How could that word even come up? Even as a passing thought in my head?
I haven’t even known her a day.
And it feels like a lifetime…
But I have no idea who she really is, what kind of trouble she’s been in, or where she plans on being tomorrow.
With me. She’s going to be with me tomorrow.
She grinds her hips down, forcing my cock even deeper inside her.
“Yes,” she moans. “Yes.”
Her nails are digging into my shoulders, pinpricks of pain that mingle with the pleasure. She notices something—an expression on my face, or the growl that comes from my mouth—and takes these things as some kind of signal to do it again.
Which she does. Only this time her nails drag down the curve of my shoulder. When I look down, there’s a bright red welt rising up off my skin.
“You want it rough?” I say, grabbing her hair and pulling until her head jerks.
“I love it rough. I love it. Give it to me rough, Finn. Make me remember this night forever.”
But I only hear the begging. Not the warning of what’s coming tomorrow. Tomorrow is far away. Hours upon hours away. And hours to Issy and I are like years to other people. I have years to think about that last sentence.
I hug her tightly. Her legs grip my thighs like she knows what’s coming and she’ll do anything to keep my cock from slipping out of her pussy.
But it can’t be helped.
I rock forward, get my knees underneath me, then bounce her back onto the mattress.
She laughs like a girl. Like a woman who is about to get the fuck of her life. Her legs wrap around my middle, scissoring me in her grip, like she’s gonna use some secret jujitsu sex position on me.
God, I hope she does that.
“You like it this way?”
She nods, still laughing. “More,” she says, teasing me. “More.”
I reach behind my back, grab her ankles, and slowly push her legs open. She bites her lip, chews on it for a second, then closes her eyes and sucks in a breath of air when she’s spreadeagle, my hands pushing her knees into the mattress. I lean forward and kiss her belly.
She writhes, bucking and squirming, pressing her breasts up towards my face until her nipples seem to be begging for my lips.
I can’t deny them. Even if I wanted to, it’s beyond my control. My tongue flicks against her peaked nipple, making her moan, and then I nip it with my teeth. Not too hard, but hard enough to make her squeal, “More, more!” again.
“I’ve got more for you, don’t worry,” I say, backing away. Giving myself enough space so I can flip her over on her stomach. Her knees bend, feet swinging up until they hit my chest. I grab them both, bring them to my mouth, and kiss her toes.
This… I have to stop and laugh. Because this undoes her. She screams, “No! Oh, my God! No, no, no!”
But I just say, “Be still.”
“I’m ticklish! I told you that!” She laughs.
“I’m not gonna tickle you, Issy. Be still.”
“Just your touch—”
But she stops. Because I’m kissing the sole of her left foot, my lips barely brushing against her tickle spot.
She holds her breath. I know this, because I’m watching her. I count to ten, then fifteen, still kissing the soft pad of her foot. And then at twenty, it comes out in a rush.
And I say, “See?”
And she sees. She goes still. Her whole body stops fighting. Her mind relaxes as I hold her foot up to my lips.
I reach down and place my other hand flat on her back, right between her shoulder blades, pressing the breath out of her again. Pushing her down, stealing her air and making her exhale.
And when her chest is empty of every molecule of oxygen, I grab her hair, right up next to the scalp, and I pull her head back. Slowly. So slowly. And let her breathe in. I let her take what I’m offering, forcing her head and back to arch as I knee her legs open and position my cock right between her ass cheeks, just the way I imagined it. And when we’re eye to eye… soul to soul… only then do I lunge my cock deep into her pussy.
She’s propping her upper body up with her hands flat on the mattress. And I’m riding her ass. My groin pounding her, my balls slapping against her skin.
She repositions her knees, so she’s up off the bed a little, giving me more room to fuck her. And just as she starts begging, “More. Harder. Harder still!” I slow.
I still.
This time her begging cuts off. Because she only feels what I want her to feel and I want her to feel me. I’m not just a man behind her. I’m not just another guy trying to make her fantasy come true.
I’m Finn Murphy and I want her to know… this is what I can give her. Me and only me.
“Open your eyes,” I growl. Her pussy feels so tight. So wet. So perfect I want to come right now. But I don’t. Because I’m not done with her yet. She tries to obey my request, but can’t quite do it. I’m easing in and out of her so slowly now, she’s whimpering. “Open. Your. Eyes.” I say it again.
This time she does it. And in the same moment, I release her hair and wrap my hand around the front of her throat. Not choking her. Not even squeezing. Just holding her in position.
But it’s enough.
She whispers, “Please.”
And that’s as far as she gets, because just as her request escapes her lips, I thrust forward so hard, she exhales again.
Empties herself for me so I can fill her up.
“Come inside me,” she says.
I thought she’d never ask.
I lean down so my chest is pressing right up against her back, reach underneath her belly so my fingers can find her clit, and strum her. Back and forth so fast, she begins to wail. Begins to beg. Begins to yell, “Yes! Oh, God, yes!”
She clamps down on my cock, gushing on my dick and coating it with her sweet release. Her whole body goes rigid as she gasps, sucking in air like she’s desperate for it, her throat constricting underneath the grip of my hand.
And when she empties herself of breath this one… last… time…
I spill into her.
My mouth is on her ear, kissing it before I lose control and drop my lips to the fleshy part of her shoulder so I can nip her skin and make her whimper.
Sweat breaks out on my stomach, making our bodies slick from the sex. I grab her tight around the waist and roll over, taking her with me.
We suck all the breaths now. Greedily. No longer cherishing the deprivation of life-giving air. Her chest rises with mine as I hug her close and hook my leg around hers, caging her in so she can’t even think about that escape plan she’s been cooking up all day.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I growl into her ear.
She smiles. I can’t see her smile, but I know she smiles. She wants me to keep her prisoner here with me forever. I know it.
“Because you’re my bodyguard.”
“Yeah.” I laugh. But then I shake my head. “No. Because hours to us are like years for others. And we’ve spent a lifetime together since we met last night.”
She exhales again. “Finn,” she whispers.
“No,” I say. “No. I’m not gonna let you run. I’m not gonna let you. People love you, Issy. You know things and you share those things with them. Those women need you and an online course is a good start for a lot of them, but they need more than that. They need to see you. Feel you. Hear you. Know you. And I need all that too.”
She squirms in my strong embrace. I don’t want to give in and
let her go. Not even to just change position. But I do. Because she’s asking, and right now I want to give her everything she asks for.
When she’s done squirming we’re face to face, her eyes on me, my eyes on her, mirrored smiles in the fading, hazy light of sunset filtering in through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“You don’t know me,” she says.
“Wrong,” I say. “I know you.”
She shakes her head. “No. I think if you really knew me, you’d… you’d be ashamed of me.”
“Issy—”
“Finn,” she says, placing her fingertips on my lips. “Just listen. I have a story to tell you. One that starts and ends just like the one I told on stage today. But it’s all the parts in the middle that I left out that matter.”
“So tell me,” I say. “Tell me everything so I know what I’m up against.”
“Up against?” she asks.
“Yeah. Tell me who I gotta kill to make it right.” I regret that immediately. Because she knows now. She knows a little bit about what I’m capable of. And I don’t want to scare her.
She huffs out a breath. “I wish it were that simple.”
It is that simple. But I have enough sense to keep it to myself this time.
Because Issy has no idea who I really am either. It’s me who carries the shame and guilt in this room, not her. There’s no way she can be as dirty as I am.
She is pure in my eyes. Pure and innocent. Sweet and strong. Perfect.
No. It’s me who has the shameful story to tell. And if she thinks that what I told her last night is all there is… well, I’m gonna disappoint her.
But not yet. There’s time for that later. Now, I just want to know her. “Tell me,” I say. “I’ll make it all go away. And if you still want to leave this life behind when that’s all done, we’ll leave together.”
She stares at me. We are eye to eye. Soul to soul. Her forehead is sweaty from the sex and her hair is damp. I brush a piece off her cheek so I can see her unspoiled.
“It all started when I was eleven and he was twenty-eight.”
I have to repeat those words in my head several times to make sense of them. To force myself to accept what is surely coming next.
Death.
Because I’m going to kill that motherfucker and I’m going to make it hurt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - ISSY
I regret the words the moment they leave my mouth. I want to take them back. Eat them up. Swallow them down and keep that shit buried deep, deep inside me.
But I can’t. There is no such thing as rewind in real life.
“Caleb?” he asks.
I just enjoy things as I nod. The view. The sunset over the mountains off in the west. The room. His body. What we just did. How I feel about him.
“He… how?”
I hear the anger inside him building. I hear the fear too. And there’s a part of me that wants to say, Just kidding. Nothing happened. But there’s no rewind. And fuck it, right? So I say, “My mom had me when she was fifteen.” And then I glance up at him, kind of afraid to see the pain on his face, but used to it. I’ve told the story before. Probably a dozen times to various people over the years. So it’s not like this is something new.
“OK,” he says. I can hear his heartbeat in his voice. You know how a person’s voice shakes a little when they’re angry, or afraid, or frustrated to the point of tears?
He’s definitely the first one. Angry.
I take a deep breath and begin on the exhale. “She was fifteen, kinda wild, kinda remarkable. The kind of teenage girl who gets attention. Not because she’s bad, or beautiful, or smart. But because she was just born… special. You ever know someone like that?”
He’s just staring at me when I glance up again. “Yeah,” he says. “You. You are that special someone, Issy. You’re strong, and sensible, and courageous. I can’t take my eyes off you. Even if I wanted to, I can’t. You’re the only thing there is to look at. Everything else just fades into the background.”
I press my lips together. Afraid. That he’s lying. And not even that I’m not special. Just afraid of falling into him. Losing him. Because this… this whole situation isn’t going to end with the happily ever after. It’s just not.
So I take a deep breath and continue. “I found a photo album of her once. My grandpa had it in the attic. I lived with him in Montreal until I was eight. By then my mother was… what? Twenty-three? Jesus. She was so young.”
“Was?” Finn asks.
“We’re getting there,” I sigh. “So I was up in the attic one day looking for old clothes of my grandma’s. For a school presentation. I was doing a report on Viola Desmond and wanted an old-fashioned dress. I don’t know why I thought my grandma would have one of those.” I laugh. “Because she was young too, when she died. Only thirty-nine. But I was like seven then. So I had no concept of what old was. And I found a photo album. It was all about my mom. This woman I barely knew because she was twenty-two years old and wasn’t raising me. I saw her every now and again. Sometimes she’d show up on my birthday. She came by the Christmas before, I remember that. Brought me a book called How to Be a Lady.” Which makes me pause to laugh. “Ironic, since she wasn’t what I’d call a lady. More on that later.”
I feel Finn let out a breath. A sigh comes with it.
“My mother was… I dunno the word for a person like her. I’m not really sure what it’s called. Maybe charismatic? But that word, for whatever reason, makes me think of a man. So not that. Maybe alluring. It was in her eyes, I think. She had very dark hair, like me. And pale skin, like me. But she had these weird brown, not-brown eyes. Unlike me, because mine are blue. But it wasn’t her looks, it was her… personality? Her soul?”
“Charming?” he asks.
“What?”
“She was charming, like you.”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“She was… captivating?” he tries again.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes. Captivating.”
“Like you.”
“Maybe.”
Which makes Finn smile. And I stop my story, all thoughts of my story, to enjoy his smile. Because he won’t be smiling much longer if I keep going.
“Go on,” he says, after his smile fades and I stay quiet. Still trying to burn that smile into my memory. One day I might need that smile. One day I might have nothing left but that smile. So I like to keep things like that tucked away for future use. “I want to hear the rest.”
He really doesn’t. What he really means is that he needs to hear the rest.
Which I get. So I do. Go on.
“So when my mom was twenty-three and I was eight, she showed up at my grandpa’s house with this guy. Her new husband.”
“No,” Finn says, jumping ahead.
I nod. “That was Caleb Kelly. He was a little older than her, but still very young. Like twenty-five, I guess. And there was a lot of yelling, and a lot of crying, and a lot of threats. From both sides. My grandpa, who already had lawyers in place for this, kept his head. I do remember that much. All the drama came from them. He knew this visit would come eventually and he was well-prepared. But she was married now, her life was in order, and her record was clean. So… what’s a judge to do? Right?”
“Fuck,” Finn whispers.
“It took three years of legal battles, but she won. Mostly because my grandpa was really sick by that time. He died shortly after I was sent to live with her in Philadelphia. And then my new life began as the daughter of a Mob… well, what was he back then? I dunno. Not a boss yet. But he was making a name for himself.”
“Caleb Kelly is…”
“One of you,” I finish for him. Because that’s just the truth.
The silence that ensues is painful.
I burn that into my brain as well. Because one day there might be a time when I’m happy. When I’m satisfied. When I feel safe. And then I’ll take this moment out and turn it around in my hand, looking at it from all angles with det
ached acceptance. And it’ll bring reality crashing back into focus.
“And then… and then he started touching me. Pretty much almost immediately.”
There’s this low rumble that fills the room. It takes several full seconds to realize that it’s Finn. Some deep, animalistic growl emerging from his chest.
I go on, because this story isn’t even close to over yet. “I started taking kid karate when I was six. You know those classes, right? Fifty small children in a room wearing white gi and white belts. Screaming and punching and kicking the air like kids do. Well, I took that seriously. I dunno why, I just did. I had passed the kids’ black belt test by the time I went to live with my mom, and even though he’d have never encouraged me to continue if he knew what I’d eventually become, Caleb let me continue. Used to parade me around his gang, I guess, if you want to call them that. It might’ve been more of a cartel by then though. Make me fight them. He used them to scare me, and then he used me to scare them. And I just kept going to the dojo, kept getting better, because it got me out of the house. It was all I had back then. The fight was all I had.”
“So that’s how you won that world championship?”
“Yup,” I say. “That’s how I did it.”
“Did he rape you?”
“More times than I can count.”
Finn’s body was stiff before, but now it’s rigid. Like death.
“Until I came back from winning that world championship. I was seventeen then. And he came at me, drunk. I was riding high. Feeling powerful, and angry, and… So I took him out. Kicked his fucking ass. Broke all his fingers for touching me. Kicked him in the balls until he was writhing in pain on the floor, unable to even move. And then I called the cops, filed a report and, well, the rest you can figure out. My mother cried, begged me to…”
Finn waits. But this is the hardest part for me to say. I can tell him I was raped, no problem. But what came after… that’s the part that hurts. “Begged you to what?”
I shrug. “Stay quiet, what else? She said they’d come after me. After her.”
“Did they?”
“Of course they did. They killed her two days after he was found guilty and sent to prison.”