Kiss the Sky

by Ritchie, Krista

  I sit up on my forearms and my knees. His movements are so fast and domineering. In a matter of seconds, he hikes up my dress, rips off my panties, and kneels behind me, his pants at his thighs, his boxer-briefs down. His cock hard and exposed.

  Fuck…me.

  Before he pushes in, he rubs my ass and dips his fingers towards the spot between my legs. “What do you say?” Connor asks.

  I smile into the leather. “Please, sir?” I nearly laugh at the words.

  He smacks my ass so hard that tears crease the corners of my eyes.

  “Don’t call me sir, smartass,” he reminds me sternly, no humor to his voice. I turn to see his face, to check if his eyes say the same. But he grabs me by the collar and forces my face straight.

  Fine.

  Be that way, Richard.

  “What do you say?” he asks again, more huskily this time. He lets out a low groan as he edges closer to me. And he drops his hold on the collar so he can massage my breast, lowering my dress so I’m free for his touch.

  When he pinches my nipple, I gasp again.

  “Rose…”

  I swallow. “Please…fuck me,” I beg. I check to see if the privacy screen is still up in the limo. Yes. Thank God. Gilligan, his driver, has no view of this. But I wonder if he can hear my voice pitch high while my mouth opens in a giant O.

  Connor is doing a number on my breast with one hand while his fingers rub my clit with the other. And then his fingers dive into me, filling me so much, and the short plunges try to catapult me into the door.

  He scoots me back so I stay a safe distance away from it. And he grips one of my shoulders to fix me to this place.

  His motions are decisive, hard and unrelenting.

  “Connor!” I cry. He fucks me with his hand so fast that it’s not long before my eyes flutter, and I feel myself clench around him. The high is there—in sight. At the top of the hill. Just a few more—

  He stops.

  Pulls his brilliant fingers out. Every part of me, mind and body, pleads and aches for him.

  I think I hate him now.

  “I know you’re glaring and I can’t even see your eyes,” Connor tells me. “Would you call that intuition or magic?”

  Well, Connor doesn’t believe in magic. If Hogwarts actually existed I’m sure they’d send an owl to shit on his head.

  “I’m sorry,” I say rather than answering the question. I try to relax my face.

  And then his long, hard cock barrels into me. Holy…

  My arms weaken beneath me and I moan into the seat, biting the leather at one point. Fuck…fuck…

  My thoughts have been fucked into submission—only curse words passing through.

  Fuck…me…

  He holds onto the crease of my hips and ass as he slams into me from behind. Thank God, not in the ass. I am nowhere near ready for that.

  His breathing is more controlled than my ragged gasps. But he lets out deep, satisfied groans that vibrate my core. Each thrust against my body jellifies my limbs until I am being supported only by his hold around my waist.

  Fuck…ahh…fuck, fuck, fuck… “Connor!”

  And then the driver turns sharply, and my whole body jerks forward with the car, my head slamming into the door handle. Hard. My vision darkens to black for a split second before dots flicker in my eyes.

  “Dammit,” I barely hear Connor curse.

  I’m disoriented from the climax and the cranial impact.

  I gather my senses when I’m in his arms, on his lap, his boxer-briefs and pants back up on his waist.

  “Rose, Rose.” He snaps in my eyes. “Look at me. Rose!” His head spins to the privacy screen. “Gilligan, we’re going to the hospital!”

  What?

  “No,” I say softly, finding his gaze and trying to meet it clearly. I blink a few times. “I’m…okay. Just let me…” I touch my head, a knot swelling. I wince. Lovely.

  Connor inspects the spot with concern tightening his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he immediately apologizes. He rubs my arm and holds me tenderly like he’s trying to mend his favorite toy that he dropped on the ground. The possession feels good. Because it means he’s not going to leave anytime soon, and that he won’t ever hurt me. On purpose, that is.

  “It’s not your fault. It was an accident.”

  He grimaces at that word. “I’m not a child who wet the bed. This is serious.”

  “Adults have accidents.”

  “You were unconscious for a few seconds, Rose.” He carefully slips my dress back over my shoulders, covering my breasts. The tender affection is a side of him that I dearly love. “I should have held you tighter.” He lets the pain pass through his features. Maybe he doesn’t care if I see his emotions anymore. “Gilligan,” he calls again. “The hospital.”

  The driver’s voice sounds through the limo’s speakers. “Already on the way, Mr. Cobalt.”

  “I’m okay,” I say again, “just dizzy.”

  “I still want to get you looked at.” He places two fingers on my neck, checking my pulse. He studies my features with a focused gaze.

  “What are you doing, Richard?” I ask softly. I blink a couple more times to keep his face in my line of vision.

  “Making sure you’re fine.”

  “You’re my doctor now?” I ask. “How inappropriate. You’re sleeping with your patient.”

  He smiles only when he’s satisfied by the tempo of my breathing and all the other parts of me that he was examining.

  I know what’s in his heart.

  And if he didn’t love me, he wouldn’t care so deeply. I just wait (rather impatiently) for the day when he can admit it to himself. If it never comes, then at least I’m smarter than him, able to see something he’s blind to. I’ll take that win if it’s all he’ll give me.

  I rest my head on his chest while the limo speeds down the road. Connor strokes my hair, keeping a trained eye on any bad signs in my movements.

  “I feel safe with you,” I tell him, “even if you let me bowl into four car doors.”

  “There won’t be a second, third or fourth,” he whispers, his lips beside my ear. His hot breath tickles my skin. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”

  Promises from Connor Cobalt are like oaths spilled in blood.

  Translation: I will die for you.

  I smile widely.

  I will die for you.

  That will never get old.

  [ 40 ]

  CONNOR COBALT

  1 month and 20 days – Mom

  I read the text on Rose’s phone after it buzzes on the desk. She’s downstairs cleaning the kitchen with Daisy. It was taco night, which meant the entire place exploded in cheese and chips, only adding to Rose’s neurotic hysteria.

  I’d be helping if it wasn’t for this damn term paper. I can almost see the finish line for the first semester, but papers and finals stand in my way. I doubled my Adderall dosage last week just to concentrate.

  The door swings open, and I swivel my chair to watch Rose walk into the bedroom. She glares at Brett who stands in the hallway. “I’m in the no film zone. Run along, now,” she waves him off and then shuts the door. She’d never be as rude to Ben or Savannah, but Brett and Rose get along about as well as her and Lo.

  When she turns to face me, I notice a…bulge where her breasts are. No wonder Brett followed her up here.

  Curiosity compels me to my feet, and I cross the room to Rose. “Something’s a little off about you,” I say and my eyes drift up to her hair as if I’m focusing on her nonexistent bangs.

  I reach towards her breasts, and she slaps my hand away.

  “I’m a lady,” she chides. “I don’t let boys touch me there.”

  Fuck. My cock stirs at her words. I grab her waist and pull her body against mine in one swift motion. She sucks in a sharp breath when her hips knock into me. She’s still in her five-inch-fucking-heels. Almost the same height as me, a few inches off.

  “What about men? Do you let them t
ouch you?” I ask, holding her tight.

  “Definitely not.” Her eyes drift to my mouth.

  I lick my bottom lip, moving my tongue slowly, as I watch her chest inflate with the motion. I slide my hand up her leg, her thigh, between them—her lace fabric already wet to my touch.

  “And here?” I ask.

  “Never,” she says in a whisper.

  When she’s sufficiently distracted with my hand, I take the opportunity and reach down the top of her dress, grabbing whatever’s hidden in her bra.

  “Hey!”

  I already have the baggy in my possession, and I hold it above her head.

  She doesn’t make a pass to retrieve it, just pushes me in the chest for tricking her. I’m too fixated on her contraband to respond.

  “Why do you have a bag of marijuana?” And where did she get it? Four messily rolled joints fill the plastic. The papers don’t have neat creases, which means that Rose didn’t roll them. It takes her two hours just to meticulously fold her panties and place them in her drawer.

  My eyes fall to her with interest.

  She stays quiet, twisting her diamond necklace in her fingers.

  “Care to explain?”

  “I thought we could do something different tonight…” she says. “I usually don’t try new things, and with you…” she trails off, lost for words. This must annoy her because she rolls her eyes.

  “I accept,” I say instantly.

  Her eyes brighten in surprise. “Really?”

  I nod, willing to try anything with her. I want her to experience as many firsts with me as she possibly can. I’ve smoked only once—my first and only foray into illegal drugs. It was strategic. Boarding school. Trying to gain a connection I needed for Student Council.

  “On one condition,” I reply. “You tell me who gave these to you.”

  “Daisy.” She doesn’t even hesitate. “If I have the drugs, then she doesn’t have them. They’re much safer in my position.” She grins.

  Devious and intelligent. I like this side of her.

  My face suddenly falls as I remember something important.

  I’m on Adderall.

  And I’m not a hundred percent positive it’s safe to smoke pot on the stimulant. The small percentage of doubt is not something I’m willing to live with. I’ll never forgive myself for impairing my brain or my body over something so stupid.

  “What’s wrong?” She touches my arm in concern.

  The one question makes me frown even deeper. I’m getting worse at hiding my emotions from her. Or maybe…maybe I just don’t care if she’s sees this part of me anymore.

  For the first time, I really want to be honest with her.

  Not just my half-assed attempt at honesty. I want her to know me as well as I know myself. So I prepare to admit the one thing that could cause her to storm out, pack her bags, sleep in Daisy’s room and maybe even sling my clothes out the window.

  “I’m on Adderall,” I let it go. One sentence. One breath.

  She drops her hand from my arm, and her I’m-going-to-rip-your-dick-off glare heats her eyes. “Bullshit,” she says. “You would never take Adderall.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I agree. “But I was losing sleep, and I wasn’t putting a hundred percent into Wharton or Cobalt Inc., so I decided to start taking it.”

  “For how long?” Her collarbones sharpen as she holds in a breath. I remember what Frederick once told me when I was only eighteen and I thought I was finished discovering who I was and what I wanted to be. He said, “Lies tear at relationships until they’re nothing but unwound threads.”

  I hate that my own has begun to unravel.

  I hate that, in this moment, I am ordinary.

  “The end of January.”

  “Almost four months,” she says, dumbfounded. But she doesn’t attack me, doesn’t throw up her hands and call it quits. Her eyes are on the ground as she thinks it over.

  “You would’ve given up something if you didn’t, right?” she asks, her eyes flitting to mine, so many questions swimming in them.

  “Not you,” I tell her. “I would have never given up you.”

  “Wharton?”

  I nod, and she shakes her head in dismay. “I don’t want you to choose me over your dream,” she says. “But I can’t stand here and be okay with you choosing me over your health.”

  It’s not fair for me to put her in a position, to trap her into giving me an ultimatum. I know what I have to do. Even if the semester is almost over, I still have a year and a half left. I’m not even close to graduating and earning this final degree.

  I notice the space between us. Five feet away. Five feet too much. I imagine that space so much further if I make the wrong decision right now.

  Frederick is right.

  My mother is right.

  I can’t have everything. So I’m going to have to fucking choose.

  “I’m withdrawing from Wharton,” I deliver the lines with finality. It hardly topples me backwards. It doesn’t even make me sway. In fact, a weight rises off my shoulders—a heaviness that I didn’t even know was there before. Dragging me down.

  It’s not as earth-shattering as I once believed it would be. Sometimes the dreams you construct for yourself at ten, twelve-years-old aren’t the same ones you thought they would be at twenty-four. And it just takes a while to finally make peace with that.

  I think I just have.

  “Connor—”

  “I’m going to quit taking Adderall.” I step towards her and place my hands on her shoulders.

  “Your MBA—”

  “I don’t need it.”

  “You never needed it,” she reminds me. “That’s not why you were trying to get one.” I see the guilt in her eyes. I’ve chosen her over my dream, and I told her never to do that for me.

  I cup her face with my hand, skimming her bottom lip with my thumb, her lipstick a dark red that makes her look as fierce as she is. I want to be with her every day of my life. I want to be here, not in class. And I have the means to do so.

  “My dreams have changed,” I say. The future I once imagined is gone. Where I proudly accept my diploma, where I prove to myself that I’m the best because I can be. The longer I’ve been with this girl, the faster it’s flitted away.

  I kiss her deeply, and she reciprocates in reply, silently telling me that she’s accepting my decision.

  “That was easy,” I say as we part, holding her around the waist while I stare down at her smooth skin, her cheeks reddened with blush and heat from the kiss. “I thought you would fight me harder.”

  She shakes her head. “You should see the look in your eyes.”

  I frown.

  And she smiles. “You’re wearing your emotions, Richard.” She runs her hands over my chest, smoothing down my navy-blue shirt. “I can tell you don’t care about Wharton as much as you used to, and I want you, my sisters, their boyfriends and Lo’s brother to do whatever makes them happy. Isn’t that the goal?”

  It is for me now, but I’m not so sure it’s always been that way. “Your sisters’ boyfriends?”

  Rose’s nose scrunches in disgust. “Daisy is still with Julian.”

  “And I’m not happy about that,” I tell her. “What were we saying about happiness?” I feign forgetfulness. “We…do what makes us happy.” I keep her in my arms, one hand lowering to her ass, glad that five feet no longer separates us. “I’d happily like to remove him from your sister’s life.” I see the gangbanging text he sent Ryke, which worries me the most. I don’t want him with her for longer than he has to be.

  Rose says, “I’d happily cut off his dick and toss it into a tank of flesh-eating piranhas.” She flashes a cold smile that would shrivel his balls too.

  “Creative,” I grin.

  Rose saw the text like the entire nation did. On television. Production aired my conversation with Julian in the hallway. I thought people disliked me, but I learned it’s more of a love-hate after the intense backlash Julian h
as received.

  No one has started an online petition to have me thrown in jail.

  He definitely beat me on that account.

  Julian should be fired from the Marco Jeans campaign that he booked with Daisy. But the designer won’t let him go. He likes the media attention, even if it’s negative. So Daisy has to work with him.

  I try to not think about Rose’s little sister whose life is more complicated than any seventeen-year-old’s should be. And I glance down at the joints in the plastic baggy, still in my hand. I step back from Rose and pull my phone out of my pocket.

  “Who are you calling?” she asks curiously.

  “Frederick. I need to know if I can mix Adderall and marijuana.” I put the phone to my ear.

  Her face fills with surprise. “You still want to do that?”

  “Yes, darling.” I rub her bottom lip and kiss her once more, right before the line clicks.

  [ 41 ]

  ROSE CALLOWAY

  Connor won’t feel the mental sluggishness of pot, but he’ll still feel the body high. At least those were Frederick’s words. He wasn’t pleased about the drug-mixing, but Connor put me on speaker phone, and I softened Frederick’s worries, explaining how Connor just threw away his Adderall. I didn’t mention dropping out of Wharton, or the fact that he took a giant immeasurable leap for me.

  I’m sure they’ll discuss that on Monday.

  I cough into my third drag since I never learned how to smoke properly. I was too focused on my company, grades, and extracurricular activities (which did not include pot) to dive into any sort of illegal paraphernalia. But I’m twenty-three. It’s not too late to experiment and try new things. If I told my seventeen-year-old self that I’d be choked and spanked by my number one academia rival (and I would like it) and I’d pass a joint with him six years later—I would have never believed me.

  But I think my seventeen-year-old self would be so damn tempted towards that image. I think she would want it to be true.

  I watch Connor blow a line of gray smoke from his lips, not hacking up a lung like me.