by Lily Zante
I shake my head. “They didn’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?”
“I was scared.”
I let out a cry of anguish, as Ward paints a picture of his life.
“He’d take out the lightbulb so I’d be left in the dark. He’d scare me and get great pleasure in doing so. He would creep up into the attic, and I’d be sleeping, and he would shout, or say something scary. The fucker liked making me jump. He was a complete bastard.”
“He sounds like a psychopath.” I lean over him to set my cup on the side table, and my breast accidentally brushes against his face. I didn’t mean to do it. I wanted to free my hands because I want to hug him, because I feel so sad for him. He doesn’t seem to notice. “And then what happened?” I whisper, sitting back in my place.
“It was a night like this when he locked me in the attic once. I wasn’t scared of thunder and lightning then. Even as a boy, I found it exciting. I’d watch the lightning, then wait for the thunder, counting how many seconds would pass. But he changed all of that for me.”
I am so caught up imagining the young Ward and his evil stepdad that my heart races, and breaks a little for him.
“That night I curled up to go to sleep, expecting to be let out again in the morning, but he changed tactics. He started talking to me in the dark. It was heavy stormy weather. The noise of thunder and lightning filled the air, yet in the darkness I was somehow reassured by his voice. But at the next lightning strike, he stepped in front of me. He was wearing one of the Pierrot doll masks.”
I frown.
“The sad-looking clown with the white face and dark eyes,” he explains.
I cry out in fear and sorrow and a mingling of both. “He did that to you?” I can’t wrap my head around this.
“He scared me to death because I wasn’t expecting it.”
“Oh, Ward.” I don’t know what to say. I want to comfort him but I’m scared he will push back on it. I can’t read him, even when I think I can. We sit in silence but I can’t get the image he has painted out of my head.
“It helps with you being here,” he says, looking ahead.
I place my hand on his thigh. “I’m sorry for what you went through.”
“Not your place to be sorry about something you weren’t there for.”
“But I’m sorry all the same.”
He nods. “I’d been scared all my life. I took to writing horror later as a way of dealing with what happened. I learned that the only way to confront my fears was to write about them, and in time, the things from my childhood days didn't scare me.”
I squeeze his hand, feeling grateful that he has shared a hidden part of him. All of Ward is a mystery to me, until he lets me have a sneak peek. Like he did now. I feel I have a better insight into the man. “What can I do to help you?” I consider making him a mug of hot chocolate.
“Just stay here.”
In the silence, the weirdness between us amplifies. The things that happened here in this very room, the episode with the pen, him stroking and touching me with it, all of it comes alive in my mind in brilliant color. I consider leaning across him again in order to reach for my cup, but my nerves and recklessness get the better of me.
Instead I take a risk and move over and position myself so that I’m straddling him. And then I wait for him to ask me what the hell I’m doing.
He looks up at me. The light is dim but not too dark that I don’t see the element of surprise in his expression. I sit on his lap, my knees on either side of his hips, and just like that, oh-so-slowly, his hardness begins to poke at me.
My hands are on my thighs, one of his arms rests on the armrest, the other by his side.
“If you want me to move, just say the word.” My voice is barely a whisper. This isn’t me trying to be sultry. This is me being half scared, half bold. It’s my next move, following on from his seduction tactic with the pen, which has given me enough confidence to know he won’t fire me for this.
He doesn’t say a word, but his cock replies with a little twitch. “Hmm.” I mewl. I like the feel of him against me. It’s all I’ve been thinking about ever since I first felt him against me.
My nightshirt has ridden up to my thighs and I’m feeling warm. It’s not only because the fire is burning. The heat between us grows. I take off my sweatshirt so that I’m only wearing my strappy nightshirt.
Another flash of lightning cuts through the night sky. Ward’s body tenses, and I hold his shoulders. “It’s okay,” I murmur, just as a burst of thunder follows. I put my hands on his shoulders, can’t help but slide them down his arms slowly. I run my fingers over his muscles, loving the feel of his hard-as-rock biceps. There is no stomach between us. I splay my hands over his chest, over his t-shirt. Feel his hard, lean stomach.
“Someone’s been working out,” I whisper. I long to slide my hands under his t-shirt so that I can touch his skin, but I force myself to go slow.
“You notice the difference?” he asks. I bite my lower lip, then slide my hands back up to his arms. “I’ve been noticing a lot of things.”
“Like?”
“The beard. The hair.”
He smiles. “I can think more clearly now that I don’t have the weight of all that hair.”
I mirror his smile. “It suits you.” He hasn’t asked me what the heck do I think I’m doing, so I take it that he’s okay with me sitting on him like this. Besides, I already have confirmation from the bulge between his legs. Feeling brave, I lift up on my knees, then position myself so that the throbbing between my legs, the slick wetness of my arousal, is directly over the tip of his erection.
An animal growl falls from his lips as I push my hips into him then rock slowly back and forth gently. He seems to like it. At least, he hasn’t complained. I also like the feel of him against me. My panties are so wet, and when I reach down to touch him through his sweatpants, I feel his wetness, too.
“I want to make better memories for you.”
I swallow, wishing that we were naked. Wishing I could impale myself on his sweet and sexy cock inch by inch. The more he hardens, the more I rub against him.
“Is it helping?” I whisper, my need to come getting stronger and stronger. The thick tip of his cock isn’t going to do it, but it helps in some small way to quell the desire that has been building up inside me for weeks.
“Helping with what?” he asks, his breath ragged.
I close my eyes, wanting all of him and yet forcing myself to hold back. The next move isn’t mine to make. He grabs my hips with both his hands as I continue to rock against him.
I don’t want a barrier between us, I don’t want clothing. I want just him. I close my eyes, and throw back my head back, taking all I can from him in this constrained position. He squeezes my breast, holding it in place as I rub against him. And then he puts his mouth to my other breast, still through the fabric of my nightshirt.
I long to be completely naked. To feel skin on skin, but we make do with this. The sensation below is dulled, but my frenzy makes me ride him harder. I can’t help but cry out. I haven’t had an orgasm in weeks, and yet I’ve spent most of my nights thinking of Ward and imagining such a moment as this. I’ve been a walking, throbbing mess for days.
His cock is upright, and I can’t position myself directly over the tip. I need more. As if he knows, he slides his fingers inside me, and I lose myself, thrashing against his hand as he sucks my breast even harder. I lift up, kneeling so that he can move his fingers more freely, and he does, setting up a rhythm with his fingers and thumb. I am light, and dizzy, and weightless in his arms. I’m on fire as I collapse in a heap in his arms.
He’s still hard. I slide my hand into his pants and taking a hold of him. For a shock-filled second, my eyes widen at the size of him in my hands.
Sweet Jesus.
I pump him hard and fast, and relentlessly. He comes quickly, with a grunt, his face collapsing on my shoulder. We hold one another, my arms around him
, his hands around my waist. He clings to me as another crash of thunder bursts.
“I don’t have a good track record with women,” he murmurs after a long time. We don’t pull apart, and he doesn’t look at me.
“I don’t have a good track record with men.”
And maybe we might just fit together because of that.
Chapter Twenty-Six
WARD
* * *
I’m sticky, and sweaty, and I can feel her wet heat through her panties. I rub my thumb over her nipple, feel it rise beneath the fabric. Feel my own dick slowly rise again like a sleepy giant waking from its quick short nap.
Her soft body curls around my chest, her face buried in the crook of my neck and her arms over my shoulders. I don’t want to break the intimate spell which holds us together. I don’t want to be left with nothing but the cold, hard reality of my daily life. Mari has unknowingly added a tinge of intrigue and flirtation to my world which has been gray for so long. She has added color.
The thunder and lightning have stopped and the rain seems to have trickled to nothing.
She shifts on my lap and yawns against my shoulder before pulling back.
“See, it’s gone,” she says. “Nothing to be afraid of.” She peels her body away from me, even though we’re both still joined at the hip. I touch her hair, running my fingers through her silky locks, wishing I could do that whenever I wanted, instead of snatching a moment like this. “Thank you for changing my memories.” She smiles. I want her to stay here all night.
“I should go and shower,” she says, ungluing herself from me. We haven’t kissed, we haven’t seen one another naked, we haven’t made love, and yet we have shared a deeply intimate moment, one which sears deep into my soul, and which will haunt me in those fretful hours before sleep. I don’t want her to leave. I’m not done. We’re not done. I want more, and every part of her that I touch tells me she wants more, too.
“Stay.” I grab her hand as she stands up.
“I can’t.”
“Says who?” I want to know.
“Says me.”
Our fingers slide out of one another’s hand as she turns to go, leaving me with a hard-on and a good look at her delectable legs.
Now that I’ve had a taste of her like this, I want the real thing. “Why are you doing this?”
She pulls up a strap that has fallen down and exposes a bare shoulder. “I don’t know how things will be if I stay here all night.”
I rush to reassure her. “We don’t have to do anything.” I would never expect anything from her. Just like now. It only happens if she wants it to. She cups the side of her neck, as if she’s thinking, as if her head’s telling her to leave and her heart—her heart or her pussy—is telling her to stay. This is pure lust, but women are more emotional. That’s why she’s leaving. She’s scared she’ll get hurt. That’s why I stay away from women, because I’m scared I’ll get hurt, too. For two relative strangers, we have a lot in common.
“It would be a mistake,” she says.
“This wasn’t a mistake.” I rise up from the couch. An uncomfortable soggy patch sticks between my legs. She needs to know this wasn’t a mistake, and that I’m grateful she came along and changed this miserable night for me. She gave me the relief I needed.
She smiles. “That’s good to know.”
“I mean it,” I tell her.
She turns to face me fully, and I can’t help but admire the outline of her full and perky breasts. Just looking at her turns my cock rock hard again. I want to be inside her, I want to make her writhe and moan harder. The thought makes me harden. Her gaze lowers to the telltale signs of my attraction. My tent pole rises once more, bringing a mischievous grin to her face. “Someone’s wide awake.”
“Then stay.”
She bites her lower lip, as if she’s thinking about it. “I shouldn’t.”
“Do you want to stay?” I ask, but she slips out, like a shadow, leaving me alone in the shadows of the crackling fire, with another boner to tend to.
The next morning, our eyes meet across the hallway. Jamie’s arrived and he’s talking to Mari. He has his back to me, while Mari looks directly at me. A bolt of heat passes through me. Memories of last night, her scent, her arousal, her sighs as she came, all of these things fly through my head.
“Good morning.” It’s not something I usually say. I’m not polite and I don’t care enough about people to wish them a good morning. But there is something especially good about this morning. My mood has been lifted. I feel better.
Mari looks at me but it’s more through me than at me.
Maybe she’s embarrassed, maybe she regrets what happened. I hope not, because I don’t.
After my workout with Jamie, I have lunch and try to get back to my manuscript, but I’m still stuck with the ending. And then I start thinking about Mari. She seemed closed off again. I don’t want to go back to how things were between us in the beginning.
I want to see where this could lead.
Maybe I’ll have my dinner in the kitchen this evening and talk to her then.
* * *
MARI
* * *
I can stop walking on eggshells while Ward is in the training session with Jamie. A sense of shame rolls over me.
I couldn’t look Jamie in the eye when Ward came over. It was out of character, him saying ‘good morning’, in that over-the-top happy voice. I should be glad that he’s not sullen and miserable, but in the cold light of the day I question my actions.
I would hate for Jamie to find out what happened last night. I myself can’t understand it, but Ward obviously has an effect on me which turns me to mush. I couldn’t sleep last night even after I showered and washed Ward’s scent off. All I did was think about him, but I’m worried about what he will think now that there is no fear to confront, no lightning from his childhood days.
He can act it out better than I can. He can be cold whereas I can’t hide my emotions because I’m not built that way. I can’t hide what I feel, which begs the question, what do I want?
I’m not here for long.
He’s leaving soon.
We don’t even know one another.
What we have isn’t even a friendship. It’s an understanding, a raw, carnal, desperate understanding. I thought I knew myself, but Ward brings out a part of me I didn’t know I had.
I’m in the kitchen preparing lunch when Jamie passes by after the workout.
“Raleigh’s finally having that get-together,” he announces. “She got a job and says she’s got something to celebrate. Let’s go.”
“I could do with an evening out.” I make a face because she was never one of my favorite people. But maybe what I need most of all is to get out and have fun. Meet people and enjoy life. Otherwise I’ll end up making more mistakes like the one I made last night.
“It must get boring being stuck here all day long.”
I feel my cheeks grow warm. Being here is a mixture of many things. Boring, frustrating, claustrophobic. Fun and exciting, too. “It is a bit,” I say, even though this is not entirely true now.
“Come along. It might be a good opportunity to see what everyone else is up to. They might know of any jobs available.”
That is a good idea. I scratch my cheek. “I might come along.”
“You said your job search hadn’t come up with anything yet,” Jamie counters.
“I’m not officially looking.”
“This will be over once Ward finishes his book.”
“I know.”
“So, is that a definite ‘yes’ for Raleigh’s get-together?”
I sigh heavily. “I guess so.”
He shakes his head and looks at me with a grin. “I never had to work so hard to get you out of the door before. What’s Ward got that’s keeping you here?”
I shift uneasily and try not to fidget, but before I can think of something to say—which would have probably been something silly because I’m so p
aranoid about Jamie knowing—he says, “Ward’s getting ambitious. He’s outgrown the routines I’ve created for him, so now we’re boxing.”
“Boxing?” That surprises me.
“I let him throw some punches while I held up the shields.”
“You do look slightly red,” I remark, taking a closer look at Jamie’s face.
“It was his idea. He’s turned it all around pretty quickly.”
“Yeah?” He has turned it all around. Last night I found out. His body was hard. His thighs were solid, and his arms were built. He no longer has that belly. I blink and try to force myself to look at Jamie instead of getting pulled back into a replay of me and Ward in his study.
“He’s in a good mood,” Jamie comments. “Is he close to getting his book finished?”
“Must be.”
Jamie sniffs under his armpits. “I need to shower and get to work. Come on Saturday.”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Let me know? You mean I haven’t convinced you?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
When it comes to Ward and me, anything could happen between now and then. Anything.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
WARD
* * *
I’m harder. Toned and leaner, and I’m making progress. Sparring with Jamie, I can see just how far I’ve come. I myself can see the changes in my body when I feel my arms and run my hand along my stomach. The flabbiness is gone and in its place are the dips and valleys of muscles which are defined.
Mari likes it. I know she does. She wants me, I can read her so easily. When there’s an end goal, a motivation, it’s always easier to do the hard work.
I shower up after my session and look forward to having my lunch. Having it in the kitchen marks a new change and it gets me out of being in the study all day long. I’ve also figured out my ending. It came to me during that boxing bout with Jamie. I now know exactly what to write and how to wrap my story up, and once I’m in the flow and writing, I’ll get it done in the next few days.