by Kat Ransom
“Fuck,” I throw my head back and moan, but I bring my face right back because I can’t help but watch her. Her cheeks hollow, and she whimpers around me as she tries taking me deeper and deeper.
Her hand pumps my base up and down. Her wrist circles in time with the strokes of tight lips on my shaft. She brings a second hand up to gently cup my balls and tries taking me all the way.
“Yeah, just like that, gorgeous girl,” I hiss as I feel myself hit the back of her throat. With my free hand, I wrap her ponytail around my fist twice and guide her head over my length. Through the camera phone, I see her eyes flicker with passion as my chest heaves and the pressure builds inside of me.
“Slide your fingers into that wet pussy and touch yourself.”
She moans around my cock, the vibrations sending electricity up my spine, and she widens her knees on the floor. She pulls her mouth off my dick with a pop and runs her hands down her chest, squeezes her tits, and drops one hand to that beautiful pussy.
“Fuck my mouth, Cole.”
If I thought I was addicted to Emily Walker years ago, screwing around hiding from her parents, dry humping each other, and making out in cars, this is next level.
This is like being addicted to oxygen, there’s simply no life without it.
Guttural moans escape me as I drag her lips back over me and start thrusting into her mouth. Her fingers dip into her folds, and she starts circling them over her clit.
She’s so goddamn wet I can hear the sounds her of fluids against her fingers as she rubs more frantically, her knees moving up and down on the floor, wiggling and writhing, chasing her own pleasure while giving me mine. I’m gripping the cell phone for dear life in one hand, her ponytail in the other.
Her cries and whimpers against my flesh intensify, her tight lips running up and down me as she sucks me harder and harder. I hold her head tight where I need it and thrust into her wet mouth. Her knees and thighs start to shake, her eyes snapping shut.
“You’re so fucking sexy. Open your eyes, baby,” I gaze down on her and see her eyes open again, watching me, looking into the camera. “Come on your fingers, then I’m gonna blow in that dirty mouth.”
She lets a loud cry go from deep inside her as her fingers pick up, and she moves up and down on her knees like she’s riding me. My fist tightens in her hair, and her whole body starts to tense up and jerk with spasms.
“That’s it, baby, come for me.”
Her lips never leave my cock as her orgasm hits her, and unimaginable sounds cry out around my dick. Her back arches and her fingers slow, then she grips the base of my cock again and stares right up at me through her damp lashes. I can’t control it anymore.
“Fuck,” I growl as I feel white-hot heat start to sear up from my inside.
Emily doubles down on squeezing me and moaning, sucking me with everything she has, and then the first wave of hot lava erupts from me.
Like a fucking champ, Emily takes me deeper and swallows every pump until I’m empty, drained, and panting, and I release my grip on her hair.
“Holy shit,” I suck in a deep breathe and see her reflection on the camera phone. She licks me up and down, cleaning every inch of me with her tongue. She’s smiling up at me, at the phone, like she knows she’s the sexiest woman that’s ever walked the earth.
I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, in the best possible way.
She kisses my balls then plants a soft one on the head of my dick, and I help her up. She takes the phone from my hand and turns the camera off, smiling at the stupefied look on my face and tossing it on the counter.
“When did this happen?” I pull her into me and marvel at the perfect creature I get to hold in my arms. I don’t deserve this, but there’s no way I can live without it ever again.
“I’ve never done that before,” she looks at the phone, then back at me. “I’m only like this with you.”
“Thank Christ,” I laugh, “I’ll end up in prison, otherwise.” I kiss her forehead and hold her tight to me.
“Delete it if you want, baby,” I tell her. I don’t want her to worry about this video existing, and she has every reason not to trust me.
“Nope,” she kisses my throat, “I want you to keep it and watch it when I’m not here. That’s your early Christmas present,” she smiles.
Well, ho ho ho. Maybe there’s something to celebrating the holidays, after all.
Eighteen
Emily
“Of all the things, I’ve missed this the most.” My fingers brush through Cole’s hair, his head resting in my lap. His long legs hang off the end of his sofa, and we’ve been lounging around all day, cocooned in blankets and each other.
We haven’t turned the television on, listened to the stereo, or ventured out of his apartment, other than the trip to the grocery store I requested, in three days.
It’s just been Cole and me, talking, laughing, cuddling, and christening every piece of furniture and room in this apartment.
The only entertainment we’ve dabbled in is reading each other smutty books that I send to his Kindle now, continuing our inside joke.
It’s like I always imagined life with him might be, if those six years weren’t stolen from me.
But they were, and I can’t deny they’ve had an impact.
As much as I want to live in the moment, be the bigger person, and not dredge up the past, I don’t want these lingering fears forever. I don’t want them cropping up when I least expect it, invading my mind like a virus. I don’t want to be insecure forever, waiting for the other shoe to drop. We’re dancing around the topic—me more so than Cole—because sometimes it’s easier not to shine a light in dark corners.
I don’t want to lose him again.
But, if he leaves me again, it’ll be even worse this time, and that’s a darkness I can’t walk into willingly. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…
Lazy blue eyes peer up at me. He looks so boyish and innocent with his head resting on my thighs. Every once in a while, his lips turn up in a contented grin. I don’t need to ask him why, I understand how he feels. It’s the warmth and comfort and contentedness of just being together, being whole again, being complete.
A part of me has been missing for years, and it’s come home.
I trace my thumb over the scar above his right eyebrow, a tiny imperfection on his gorgeous face.
“Tell me about this,” I slowly swipe my thumb across it again as his eyes close.
“Stan, you know that.”
“I know, but you never told me how it happened.” I’ve known about Stan being physically and emotionally abusive, of course, but Cole never wanted to get into specifics. I understood why, no one would want to relive those memories.
He lets out a sigh, “It’s not a fun story, Em.”
“I want to know everything about you, scars and all.”
He shifts on the couch, and I feel his neck tense up underneath me as he stays quiet.
I keep running my hand through his hair, and, after a moment, his shoulders relax again, and he opens his eyes back up, looking at the ceiling.
“I don’t remember how old I was, little. My mom was still around, so I couldn’t have been more than six or seven. He was pissed at something I’d done at the kart track and was fighting with my mom. They were downstairs; I remember being in my room, and she started screaming for me.”
“To leave?”
He huffs, his eyes swipe to mine for a split second, then go back to the ceiling. “No, not to leave. She’d call me to help her every time Stan would hit her.”
My hands still in his hair, and I watch his jaw tense. “Help her? You said you were only six or seven.”
Cole’s shoulders shrug. “Ran down to help her. Stan had her on the ground, and she had blood on her face. Tried to pull him off her, screamed at him to stop. He turned on me, instead.”
Bile starts creeping up in the back of my throat, and I feel a tremor run through my body. I shouldn’t have made him talk abo
ut this. Maybe some things are better off living in the dark, where they belong. Where they can’t infect the sunshine and light.
“The scar is either from the ring he wore or the coffee table he threw me into. Who knows.”
His eyes close again, and I cup his cheek with my hand, trying to control the shaking and quakes of my fingers. I knew things were bad, but picturing the details in my head, Cole, as a little boy trying to help his mother, anger radiates through me, and pain seeps through my pores.
No one deserves that.
I know it makes me judgmental, and I have no right, but I don’t know if I feel more hatred for his father, or for his mother. His dad threw the punches but his mother calling him into it, to redirect the blows? He was a child. He had no one.
“I remember it bled so much I couldn’t go to school the next day, and then he was pissed about that.”
“You didn’t need stitches?”
“Can’t get stitches, Em. Then someone might find out,” he says bitterly. “He locked me in the hall closet, and the next day, when I did go to school, I had to tell them it was from a karting accident.”
Leaning down, I kiss the scar gently and swallow hard to keep my emotions at bay. Memories of kissing small scars on his body, years ago, come back to me. At first, he told me they were karting injuries, too.
“By the time I met you, my mom had left, and I was old enough to fight back, so most of the hitting had stopped. Or, I could at least hit back.”
I nod, remembering him saying as much—that his dad used to hit him. That didn’t stop the emotional abuse, though. I witnessed plenty of that myself. “I’m not judging you, Cole, I just want to understand. Why do you still talk to Stan? He’s a monster.”
His hands scrub his face up and down. “I don’t know. It’s fucked up. Guilt, I suppose. Everyone tells you you’re supposed to honor your parents, family is supposed to be some unbreakable bond. I wouldn’t be where I am now if he didn’t stay and put me through all the training and practice, pay for karting. I know it’s wrong, but…”
I shake my head. Everything Cole has achieved is despite his father. He’s earned it through hard work and discipline and has overcome every obstacle Stan threw in his path. And his mother who abandoned him to it.
He clawed his way out of hell.
“I don’t want pity, Em,” he misinterprets my expression.
“I don’t pity you,” I cup his cheek. “I’m proud of you.”
His brows furrow and I feel his muscles tense, like it’s painful for him to hear this, like he doesn’t believe me.
Stan had been poisoning Cole against me the entire time we were in high school, and knowing he still has some influence on Cole makes me wonder how much he had to do with Cole leaving me.
I don’t need one more thing to hate Stan for, and I understand why Cole has issues. It can’t be easy to cut your parents out of your life, even if they’re monsters. But it would make sense if Stan was the cause of Cole leaving me.
“Did Stan push you to break up with me when you left?” A pit forms in my stomach as soon as the words leave.
“Yeah, sure. You know how he was.”
I nod, remembering. We avoided Stan at all costs, back then, because every time he’d see me, Cole would get screamed at about me being a distraction. Stan said I was a gold-digger, and I was just using him like Cole’s mother did. Even though Cole was just a teenager when we met, Stan had already projected all of his fears, shortcomings, and vicarious aspirations onto Cole.
But, if Cole believed him then, and Stan is still in his life—to some extent—it can happen again.
“You believed him, though,” I whisper, the gnawing in my stomach growing by the second.
“No,” Cole reaches a hand up and makes me look at him. I hadn’t even realized I turned away, afraid of what his eyes would tell me that his words would not. “Stan’s a self-serving prick. I never believed anything he said about you and I will never let him near you again.”
“Then, why?” Two simple words. Six years boiled down into a couple syllables. They’re finally out into the open and swirl around us in space like smoke trails.
There are times when silence is comfortable, even needed. And there are times when silence is the loudest noise in all of the world. A sound so loud it shatters your eardrums, and the percussion deafens you.
As Cole sits up on the couch and runs his hands through his hair, thinking of his response, his silence is deafening.
“You see the good in people, Emily. It’s one of traits that makes you so beautiful, inside and out. When we first met, I was a mess, do you remember?”
I nod my head. But Cole wasn’t a mess, his situation was. Once he wore me down enough to let him in, I saw him the gem hidden inside of him. How strong and decent and protective he was, despite everything he had stacked against him.
No one ever listened to me the way he did, understood me, made me feel so cherished and valued. So safe.
No one ever believed in me the way he did, was so excited for all of my silly ideas or encouraged me to be myself and make all the mistakes I dreamed of being free enough to make. He had no expectations of me to be perfect. His affection was never conditional.
“The moment I met you, I felt this thing in my chest,” he grips his shirt like it’s physically painful for him, like the cotton is on fire. “I had this deep-seated urge, this need, to pull you into my arms, tuck you into my chest, and protect you from every danger in the world. You don’t always see the bad in people. You don’t see it in me.” His face turns to me, and the blue of his eyes has gone glacial, “I had all the bad inside of me, Emily.”
“What are you talking about?” I reach out for him, but he pulls his arm away from me like he’s toxic, like his skin will burn me. His retreat cuts me open, a simple action as sharp as a paper cut that stops you in your tracks and lights your nerves on fire.
“I couldn’t protect my mother, but I could do right by you. Keep you away from me.”
Watching emotions ripple through Cole, every muscle in his body tense and taut, my head is swimming, drowning in emotions. Confusion as to what he really means—this alleged evil inside of him. Hurt for him that he is living with wounds and traumas inflicted on a little boy, and anger.
So much anger.
“You can’t possibly think you are your father,” I rasp between my teeth. The idea is absolutely preposterous. Cole is many things, but stupid is not one of them.
“Aren’t I?” He stands and starts pacing the living room. “My great-grandfather, my grandfather, Stan—they were all the same. We’ve all got the same DNA. Why would I be different?”
Rage courses through my veins over everything that has been lost over the past six years. Not just our relationship but my self esteem, my sense of sanity, my confidence—it all took a hit when Cole ghosted me. It launches me to my feet. Getting right into his face, even Cole draws back when he sees my face shaking. “You tell me right now. You left me because you think you are your father? You were trying to protect me? From yourself?”
“You have to understan…”
“Answer me!” I scream at him, letting it flow through me like floodwaters destroying everything in their wake. “Is that why you left me?”
The dam is open. All those nights spent crying, alone, wondering what was wrong with me that Cole didn’t want me anymore—they are rapids rushing through my veins, and they’re ready to take down everything in their path.
No words are needed. Polar blue orbs stare back at me and give me my answer.
Without forethought, my body harvests all the pain, anger and sadness it’s harbored all these years and it launches it upon Cole. For a split second, I want him to hurt just as much as he hurt me.
“You fucking asshole! You hurt me worse than anything you could have done physically! You did all of this so you wouldn’t be like Stan but what you did was worse! You’re a monster all the same, just a different kind!”
As s
oon as it’s off my lips and I see the light in his eyes dull, the pain I caused, I’m disgusted by my horrible, hateful words. I’ve just realized his deepest fear, poked the hot spear straight through his heart.
“You… you think I’m worse than Stan?” He whispers with a haunting crack in his voice and he steps back from me as if his very presence might infect me.
“No,” I take a step toward him and stretch my hand toward him but he takes another step away. “I didn’t mean that. I’m hurt and angry, but I didn’t mean it.” Despite his retreat I need to be near him, reassure him.
He moves against the kitchen counter and when I try to put my hands on his waist he takes them in his own and slaps my palms again his chest. “Just hit me Em, it would hurt less. At least I’d deserve it, from you.”
“No,” I pull my hands down and wrap them around his hips. “I’m sorry. You are not Stan. I don’t want to hurt you.” I think I’m going to be sick. What is wrong with me?
He turns his back to me and continues pacing around the living room. I can see the muscles rolling under his shirt, tension cascading over him in waves.
I wouldn’t want to touch me if I were him, but I can’t stop the gravitational pull, and I wrap my arms around him from behind. “I’m so sorry. There’s no excuse. I was so angry because all this time… You’re not him, Cole. I’m so sorry. I’ll leave.”
“Goddamn it, I don’t want you to run away again,” he turns with me still attached to him and wraps his arms around me even though I don’t deserve it. “Even if you wanted to leave, I wouldn’t let you. I can’t do it a second time, Emily, even if I should.”
“You’re not him,” I plead. “You’d never hurt me.”
“Haven’t I already, gorgeous girl?” There’s so much pain behind his eyes that it breaks me in two.
I know the answer to this question, I would bet my life on it, but I ask it anyway, so he can hear it aloud, “Have you ever hit a woman?”
“Jesus, no,” his arms drop from me, and I take both his hands in mine. I won’t let him retreat. “I would literally rather end my life than hurt you.”