by R. J. Lewis
“Yeah, I think I’ll go into psychology. Mrs Anderson said she could see me in a stuffy office, helping people.”
“We know you wouldn’t make that office stuffy, Jamie,” Laura replied.
Jamie’s eyes lit up. “See, that’s what I said! I literally jumped on Pinterest the whole walk over and, ladies, if my sweet gentle face isn’t going to comfort someone, the fucking office will be like a trip to Disneyland.”
“See, he knows what he wants,” Laura told me, pointing at him. “Jamie won’t regret his degree. I think we need to re-evaluate what the fuck we want our next step to be before running off to the city.”
I smiled softly. I knew she was right, but I’d been looking forward to leaving this place for months.
Confused, I kicked at the sand beneath my feet, knowing I’d have to talk to Conor soon.
We talked for a while and then began our trek back in the direction of school. The sun was blistering, but the wind was cool. As they talked to each other, I glanced up at the clear blue sky and began to consider staying another year in Blackwater. I’d have to find another job. One that paid a little more, and it would have to be full-time. Maybe Laura was right. Maybe we had to consider a bit of time to figure ourselves out just a bit more.
As I entertained that thought, I saw a car trailing slowly alongside us. I turned my head, catching the grey hood first before trailing it slowly. I knew it was Billy’s car straightaway. I knew I’d find him behind the steering wheel. What I didn’t know was why I still felt surprised when I saw him.
He was wearing his black sunglasses, hiding those dark blue sinister eyes. He turned his head, staring straight at me, a soft smile curving his lips. The windows were down, and he leaned to my side.
“Want to run away with me, Charlotte?” he asked.
A shiver crawled down my spine. I slowed to a stop, glaring at him as he stopped his car completely. By then, Laura and Jamie had stopped and turned to us.
“You okay?” Jamie asked. “Is this creep bothering you? He looks like Count Dracula, doesn’t he, Laura?”
“Shh, Jamie.” Laura scolded. “Come on, Charlotte. Ignore him.”
She’d never seen Billy, but she knew straight away it was him. I’d loosely told her I’d left home because of him. She connected the dots herself, but never pried.
Thinking of the last time I saw him, goading Conor outside his mother’s house, I knew I needed to talk to him. A quick word.
“You guys go on without me,” I said. “I’ll catch up.”
Their first steps were hesitant and slow, but then Jamie slapped Laura’s arm and forced her to go faster. When they were a good distance away they couldn’t hear, I bent down, staring at Billy through the window and growled, “What are you doing here?”
“It’s your last day,” he said, smiling wide. “I want to see you, sis.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“But why? By law, you’re my stepsister.”
“I don’t give a fuck what the law has to say, Billy. Why are you here? Are you following me?”
A gross feeling came over me that he may have been. It felt like spiders crawling down my body. The twisted feeling in my stomach returned, making me taste bile in my mouth.
I had to be calm. I wasn’t trapped in a room with him. I was out in the open, and he couldn’t force me in the car, or come all over me with my back to him. I hated him, hated his nanosecond of shame after he violated me. Hated that he had control over me because I let him get away with it, and I couldn’t even talk about it.
“I was in the neighbourhood,” he said.
“Bullshit,” I seethed.
“How’s Thames?”
“Go away, Billy.”
“He gets shitty really quickly.”
“You goaded him!” I snarled.
“He didn’t have to rise up to it. I guess he can’t help someone getting the better of him. I don’t know why you’re with someone so hot-headed. I would never act like that if I had you. Why won’t you have me, Charlotte?”
Billy was too fucked up to talk to. I didn’t know why I was trying. I straightened up and began walking, ignoring him. His car followed, and my anger went up a notch. I wouldn’t let him see it.
“You live in a nice house now, sis,” he called out.
My stomach clenched, but I continued.
“Things are changing for me now, Charlotte! I’m doing better. I can put us in a nice house like that.”
I wasn’t going to ask what he meant. I didn’t care. I was sure working for Reid’s dad helped his pockets. I didn’t believe he’d hold down the job for much longer. He never could.
“He’s going to go back to prison,” he shouted, and then he laughed, this weird fucking cackle you’d hear from a madman. “What are you going to do all alone without him?”
He revved his engine obnoxiously loud and rocketed down the street ahead of me. I heard his music switch on and metal music blasting through the air.
Laura and Jamie waited for me now, and when I caught up to them, I looked gravely into Laura’s eyes and said, “And that’s why I’m not staying here.”
*
Seeing Billy didn’t get to me as much as I thought it would. I chalked it up to knowing I had Conor in my corner, there for me if I ever needed him.
The way I felt for that man was unprecedented. He was so beautiful, so male, so…everything.
I ended up racing home after school.
Home.
It really felt like it, lately. That man had taken me in without skipping a beat and demanded it. No more bouncing from bed to bed. No more uncertainty where I would lay my head at night.
I found him in the office, looking at the screen of a computer he’d recently bought. His overalls were halfway pulled down around his waist, and he was shirtless. His face had traces of dirt, and his ripped upper body was gleaming with sweat.
This was the lord’s most blessed creation.
“Hey, mister,” I smiled, coming in.
He immediately looked up and paused, looking me over slowly. “Jesus, dove, you look like a fucking dream.”
Jamie had picked me up this morning. Conor had still been passed out in bed after staying up working on the car last night. I liked that he was sleeping in. He was always tired, and lately all he wanted to do was be in the workshop. At one point, his mother showed up at the door because she couldn’t get a hold of him. The second she saw him working, she let out a sigh of relief.
“This is good for him,” she’d told me. “Keep him distracted, Charlotte.”
I didn’t have to. He did it fine enough on his own.
Now here I was holding my report card. I felt like such a loser as I rounded the table and placed it in front of him. I was stupidly giddy, and no parent in my life had ever truly given two fucks about my grades. “Want to see my marks?”
His hand squeezed at my bum before he grabbed the manila envelope. “Fuck yeah.”
Pulling out my paper, I didn’t care that he’d gotten dirt and grease marks all over it. I watched his face as he scanned the grades, a slow sexy smile spreading on his lips.
“You’ve got brains,” he remarked, looking up at me now. He genuinely looked impressed, and it made my heart speed. “What’re you going to do, Charlotte?”
“With?”
He motioned to the paper. “You going to college? You’ve been beating around the bush about this.”
By reflex, I went to squeeze at my skirt and found my tights instead. With a wavering smile, I shrugged, keeping my eyes glued to the paper.
“I got accepted into a school,” I explained.
“Here?”
I blew out a breath. “In the city.”
When I risked a glance in his direction, I didn’t see disappointment. He was smiling softly at me, looking genuinely okay with that.
“You think we can make that work, babe?” he wondered, studying me.
A flash of panic shot through my chest. “I want to
at least try, right?”
“Yeah.” His voice was distant, his eyes faraway.
“I can stay, too.” Those words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. What the fuck, Charlotte? But it was true. I couldn’t stand the thought of being far from him. It made my stomach flip-flop.
When I wasn’t near him, it made sense to leave.
But when he was here, in the flesh, my mind was all kinds of fucked up.
He set the paper down and pulled me to him. He wrapped his arms around my hips and buried his face into my stomach. It was a reaction I hadn’t expected.
“Conor?” I ran my fingers through his thick hair, worried I’d upset him.
But he didn’t answer. I felt his breaths quickening suddenly. Without warning, he gripped the edges of my tights and shoved them down my legs and off. Then he pushed me down on the desk and pulled the tights all the way off. Spreading my legs wide, he buried his face into my pussy before I could even think.
I sucked in a breath, shocked every time his tongue ran up my slit. My trembling fingers gripped his hair, keeping him there as he ate me out slowly, sucking at my clit, taking his time as his fiery eyes looked up to watch me. I moaned, frenzied and hot, unable to stop my shakes as I climaxed hard against his mouth.
He stood up quickly and pushed his overalls down further. He pulled his briefs down and his dick sprang out, hard and heavy. He was panting, his lips glistening, his eyes hard on mine. Still drunk off my orgasm, I watched him spread my legs further and plunge into me hard. The desk rocked beneath me, which was a feat considering its heavy quality. He leaned over, gripping the edge of the desk above my head and pounded into me harder and harder. They were sharp, hard strokes. He didn’t kiss me as he went. He watched me closely instead, panting into my mouth as he fucked me, filling me to the end of my channel and back out again. I felt empty every time he pulled out. My arms wrapped around his shoulders. I dug my fingers into his back, groaning into him as another orgasm tore into me, dizzying me. His release followed, and he growled out deep in his throat as he came, his mouth ghosting over mine.
After we’d come down from the rush, he picked me up and set my feet down on the floor. He picked my tights and helped me back into them, smiling to himself when he saw his cum running down my leg.
“You want to shower with me, pup?” he asked.
I stared at him, confused by his reaction. He was back to being calm and sweet, when he had just fucked me out of nowhere like he was pent-up about something.
“Yes,” I answered. “Are you okay, Conor?”
He grabbed my chin and pressed a chaste kiss on my lips. “Yeah, angel. I’m fine.”
Walking past me, he kicked his overalls off, leaving them in the middle of the office on the floor. His briefs were tight around his ass, and I took a moment to appreciate it before following.
“You could have had me fooled,” I muttered.
He grabbed my hand and led me to the master bedroom and to his shower stall. I could have sworn he’d put the tights back on just to take them back off again. He kneeled to my ass and bit into my left cheek, making me yelp. He turned the hot water on and took me in.
We spent the entire time making out under the spray, and then he took me back to bed, dick pulsing for more.
Chapter Fourteen
Thames
I can stay, too. She’d said.
Thames shook his head, fucked beyond belief. So, this was the power of the pussy. A gentle woman could bring out the light in even the darkest of men. What a mindfuck.
The fact she could even say that…Like she was so willing to throw away her plans for a violent fuck like him. He let out a long breath as he booted the computer again. Freshly showered, freshly fucked, and she was still in bed, passed out. The power of the cock worked too. He smirked. He was such a cocky little fucker.
He loaded up the surveillance footage over the past few days. He’d installed the cameras out front the day he spoke to Jem, determined to silence his paranoia.
As he passively forwarded through the footage, his mind drifted back to Charlotte.
Okay, yeah, he was fucking raw about her going, but that was a few months away. He needed to be present and enjoy his time with her now. If he obsessed about what might happen in the future, it might form into a dark cloud and follow them.
For a few insane minutes, he entertained the thought of chasing after her. He could do that. He could cash out here. Sell the house, the apartment, cash out the gold and pass up on the chop shop with Jem and Locke. He could find a nice place in the city and then…
Well, then what?
He frowned.
Thames didn’t play nice with people, and he would be in a city with a population of two million. He considered the endless triggers, and he wasn’t going to bullshit himself.
He had a problem, and he found a solution by hiding out in his house, in his workshop, and working away with his hands. He figured if he was fucked by the end of the day, he’d feel no urge to chase trouble. Plus, Charlotte offered her pussy without a moment’s notice, and he couldn’t hold back. She was addictive and sexy, and he couldn’t resist her.
He knew that night at Halloween she was going to be his.
Thames felt it in his bones. In his being. In a place so deep in himself, he’d never even known it existed. The law of attraction was mysterious and certain, and it had formed a fork in his journey so he could find her.
He considered how close he was to skipping that party for Jem’s pub instead. Even if, he had a feeling their paths would have merged at another point.
She was finding a place in his life and settling into it. It was a place he hadn’t even known needed to be filled, and now he couldn’t imagine her out of it. Every time he considered there was going to be distance between them, a surge of panic tore through him, followed by impulse.
He would chase her.
He would force her back here.
He would woo her and fuck her and make her stay, and then he would make her want to stay. She didn’t need the city, or to be chased by countless other cocks with their impressive degrees and college boy hairdos. These idiots wouldn’t know how to change a tire if they were stranded. They wouldn’t punch a guy out if she was hit on.
Thames could protect her.
Not these sissy fucks with their loaded purse strings and Gucci glasses.
What happened to a real man? He wondered. What happened to fixing shit with your hands and letting a beard grow out without fucking babying it every other day?
No, Thames wanted her to stay. Needed it too. But fuck, he also wanted her to make her own decision.
There was no grey car in front of the house again. In fact, there were no cars around at all in the night. His paranoia had fucked with his head, then. He shut off the computer and re-entered the bedroom, striding straight to the window. He stared out at the road, frowning at himself for being such a paranoid tit.
Billy had fucked with him that night just for the sake of it. He found that reasoning more fucked up. Turning, he met Charlotte’s gaze. She was still under the covers, but she’d woken up and was giving him a groggy look. He crawled into the bed and she immediately moved to him, wrapping her arm around his chest.
A contented sigh left his lips. This – her gentle touch, her affection – was what he craved the most out of her. Their silent moments were the best. They fit so well in the quiet. Unspoken thoughts were communicated through light touches and gentle squeezes. He explored her body with his hand, revering every inch of her.
“Will this get old, dove?” he asked quietly.
Her fingers circled around his nipple before trailing down his abdomen. “What part?” she asked, tiredly.
“All of it.”
Her hand wrapped around his swelling cock, and his eyes drifted in euphoria.
“Fuck,” he rasped under his breath, body tensing. He stared down at her soft hand, at her beautiful short fingertips and nearly came just watching.
He smirked at her flushing face. “That’s my girl,” he murmured, gripping her ass with both hands, helping her slide in and out of him. “Ride my cock. Fuck me, dove.”
He cursed under his breath, raising his head up to suck at her tits swaying over him. She was in another world. Her eyes were still shut. Her body grew more desperate, her lips mouthing silent pleas, begging him to make her come.
It was all too much for him; her face, her tits, her hips moving at her own pace, her ass so fat and…She came hard, shaking against him. Her forehead fell against his. He stalled, waiting for her to come down from her orgasm. When she opened her eyes and looked into his, he felt a spark run straight to his cock.
God, he wanted her.
God, he wanted her to be his.
To be owned and spoiled and used.
He wanted to own her soul and her smiles and all the moments in between.
Thames knew he’d found something special, and he never wanted to let go of it.
He gritted his teeth, wrapped an arm around her waist and fucked her like that. Hard and fast until he came in her fatigued body.
Fuck, he was depleted. He spread his arms out, breathing hard, spots clouding his vision as he looked up at the ceiling, trying to remember a time he’d ever felt this fucking good – this alive.
She stayed over top of him, resting her head against his chest. He felt his come drip out of her pussy, running along his stomach. It was too hot, too much, too fucking good.
“I hope it doesn’t,” she finally answered.
Charlotte
You can almost feel the moment you fall in love. They’re subtle moments. The moments when you’re looking into each other’s eyes a little longer than normal. The realization that you’re not on a high, but you’re dipping lower, spiralling down a hole quickly. You’re caught up in all his victories, wanting nothing more than his happiness to bloom further. You need his touch like your next breath, you need his lips like it’s a separate heart that pumps blood into you.