by Lucian Bane
"I'm coming! Lucian, oh God, fuck me! Fuck me! Don't stop, don't fucking stop!" Her body locked up with the ecstasy even while I came, vaguely aware that she pulled the fuck out of my hair with the scream of her release and the bucking of her body. I held her hard, fast, and oh so close through it all, declaring to those demons: Mine. All fucking mine. She's mine.
In the eventual return of reality, I heard Steve's muffled swearing. "God, I think we gave Steve a hard time baby."
"What?" She continued to hold my face and kiss me. Any time she did that after sex was a fucking treat. "What do you mean?"
I moaned and smiled in her mouth. "Imagine it's hard to change a tire while the car is rocking all over the place."
She froze put her head on my shoulder. "Oh my God. How embarrassing!" she squealed in my ear.
I laughed, holding her closer and pressing her down hard onto my cock. "No regrets love. You were fucking amazing. Please talk dirty to me at all times of the day, I beg you. I'll give you all my winnings if you did that. Seriously. Fucking beautiful."
She snorted. "Beautiful?"
"Yes, extremely. Naughty and beautiful."
"That's an oxymoron."
"Fucking no. It's synonymous."
She sighed after a few seconds. "We better get going."
"No. We better not move."
She groaned a little. "We're already late now."
"I don't care. This..." I stroked her body with my hands and arms. "Is worth more than all the money in the world."
More negative sounds, like my words pained her.
"What?"
"You really need to quit."
The pleading in her voice annoyed me. "Why should I?"
"Because what we're doing isn't about that."
I fought to keep her words from penetrating, but like acid, it ate clear through my soul. I gripped her hips and helped her off. "No, it's not, is it?"
"Lucian, it shouldn't be," she said, whining.
I grabbed my t-shirt and wiped myself off, hating how she always ruined something so amazing. "You sit in here and get your game back on and I'll go help Steve so I don't vomit all over you."
"Oh stop it." She put her shirt back on and her little miss pissed at everything armor. "Why do you have to make this into an emotional rollercoaster?"
Amazement made me pause halfway out the door. I looked back at her. "And why… No…fucking how can you sit there… and pretend that it's not?"
I got out of the car and she followed soon after. "Okay so this guy, Mr. Sennat? I got him fired. I ruined his life."
"I really don't want to do this right now, Tara."
"Well we need to," she cried.
"Tell it to Steve. Steve, I'll finish."
She gasped. "I don't want to tell it to Steve."
I stooped down and took over putting the new tire back on. "You act like your problems are my problems, love."
"Uh, hello, they are. Team, remember?"
"Yes, and Steve is part of the team. Steve, give her an ear, will you?"
"I don't want Steve's ear!"
"Well that's too fucking bad baby, because you'e not getting mine!"
"Because you're pissed?"
I stood and stared down at her. "Yes, because I'm pissed. I'm very fucking pissed."
She crossed her arms over her chest. "You're being a baby about this."
Fury hardened every bit of pain she caused me. "Because I don't want you to fuck me like you're some slut? That makes me a baby? Because I want to love you? That makes me a baby?" I pointed in her face. "You. Are the fucking baby. And coward. Scared of the truth, scared of your feelings."
Both her hands flew to her hips. "You're the scared one. You're scared I won't love you and then all of your effort is wasted! You lose your game."
"This isn't a fucking game to me!" I yelled at her.
Tears filled her eyes and she looked around then back at me. "And that is the big problem here, Mr. Bane. You forget the reason we're here. To win a competition. To dominate in all things. This has nothing to do with love. This is a war. A Dom. Fucking. War. And you are fucking that up, you are fucking up our game!"
I stormed to the front of the car, ready to walk, literally. I looked around at all the nothing, feeling trapped. Fuck it. That was the last fucking straw. I took off walking back to the nearest town.
"Where are you going?" she called.
I shot my fuck you finger into the air above my head.
"Oh, real mature. Real mature."
Fifteen minutes of walking later, the limousine pulled slowly alongside me with Tara hanging out the window. "Lucian, I'm sorry." Her tiny voice immediately snagged me. "I'm such an ass. It's not that I don't care, I promise. It's just…it's just now isn't really the best time? Can we…can we maybe talk about doing this part of our relationship…after the competition? So I can focus? I'm not like you, I can't do both. When I let that other stuff in, I lose focus. I get scared. I know I'm the baby, I'm the coward. I'm sorry. But it's what I am, I don't know how to be different. I need you. Not just for the competition. Well yes, I need you for the competition but I mean…I do want you for other things only…can we wait till after? Maybe go on a date or something where we're not getting random texts to fulfill sexual directives from a third party?"
I slowed my steps, hating that she was right. All I cared about was being with her, it didn't matter what, how, or why, just so that was the outcome. Was it really a crime that she wanted to focus on winning? To help her grandmother?
A selfish feeling took over me until I couldn't walk. I turned and looked at her. God, I should be helping her instead of only thinking of ways to suck her into my soul before another second passed. "You'll date me after?"
She gave a small smile. "I think I can manage that."
I looked all around me, nodding. "It's a fucking deal, love."
She hopped out the car and jumped on my waist, squealing. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
I held her close to me, inhaling her, already regretting my resolve to not devour her into my soul every chance I got. But to not feel how I felt was just not possible. I'd have to fucking do it. For her. Suffer silently until this miserable competition was over. Then there would be no legitimate reasons for her to hide behind.
Chapter Eight
"I don't like the looks of this place." Fucking horror movie shack in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields. Alabama fields. The sun dipped below the western horizon, signaling the end of our second full day of dominating demons. Looking at our surroundings, I had no doubt there was a very real demon here that needed dominating. "Maybe you should tell us exactly what happened between you and this Mr. Sennat."
Steve killed the engine and rolled the panel down between us and turned in his seat. "I agree. I mean, what are we walking into here?"
Tara stared at the rundown two-story house, chewing her thumbnail. She shook both her hands then put her fist to her forehead. "Okay." She shot out several calming breaths and did a rushed synopsis. "I was seven, second grade and we picked at him. He was a janitor at our school. Well, I hid in the janitor's closet to play a joke on him and scare him, but I fell asleep instead and he never saw me and locked the door. Well I just know that I screamed a long time to get out and I used the bathroom on myself and when they finally opened the door, I was crying scared. And he got in big trouble."
I looked at Tara. "What kind of big trouble?"
She shook her hands again. "He was fired. Ruined the family business reputation."
I shook my head, not really getting that part. "Why?"
"Well…see, that's the thing. They kept asking me if he locked me in there. I thought he had, but really, I didn't know. I think they wanted to believe the worst? And so it was all over the papers. They wanted my Gramma to press charges but I begged her not to. It still ruined his business, we had a small town. And then…" she tapped her fist on her forehead a few times, "then five years later, he lost his son in a car wreck. A
nd two years after that, his wife left him. He became a drunk. I quit following his life when I couldn't…couldn't stomach it."
"So wait. What was the therapy for?"
She jerked to me with wide incredulous eyes. "The guilt! My God, I ruined that man! I ruined his life!" She rocked back and forth a little and I couldn't help be amazed that she would care so much about another person.
"So…" Steve whispered. "Worst case scenario—"
"Is he'll want to kill me!" Tara hissed. "And I wouldn't blame him. Only I don't really want to die! Right now."
"He's not going to kill you, sweetheart. Not for that, you were a child. The question is, what do you need to do to dominate this? What does the audience want?"
"Who knows?" she cried. "My blood! My tears! I am not a-a-crier, a-a bleeder, that is not me!" She sliced her hand in the air emphatically before going back to biting her thumbnail.
"Okay well. I would think they'd want you to make it right for one," I said.
"Oh my God, how?" she squealed.
Steve shot her a pointer finger. "Start with 'I'm sorry'. That always helps." He nodded with his weird smiling face and wide eyes.
I looked around at the rundown place. The lights were on in two windows unfortunately. He could be drunk. "Let's get this over with."
We all got out and I reached for Tara's hand which she accepted with a strangle hold. We walked up to the old rickety porch and thankfully the ferocious pit bull I'd imagined charging out of nowhere never came. The sound of music made its way to us from inside and I listened.
Blues?
I looked at her. "Is he…black?"
"Yes," she whispered.
Oh fuck. "Add that to our worst-case scenario. Three white strangers. On his property. Uninvited. In fucking Alabama."
Steve made the sign of the cross and kissed his fingers then boldly knocked loudly on the wood door frame before taking two quick steps back.
The music stopped suddenly and I was sure we all held our breath. Uneven footsteps grew louder and we all took another step away from the door.
A light came on overhead from a naked bulb and the door opened. The whites of his eyes came first followed by his towering frame. She forgot to mention he was a giant.
"Mr. Sennat?" Tara waved.
His eyes narrowed as though the name irritated him. "Who the hell are you? What you want?'
"It's me, Tara, from elementary school! Um. I was just…in the neighborhood and wanted to see you."
"Tara who?"
"You were the janitor at my school. A great janitor, wow. I remember how amazing you kept that place."
"I was fired from there. A little white brat got me fired, lied on me."
"Ohhhhh right! I remember that! I knew her."
"Maybe you was her best friend." He opened the screen door to reveal a massive wall of shirtless black muscle. "What the fuck you doin on my property? You don't look like girl scouts. You better not be Jehovah's Witnesses either, I'll fuck you up. Blaspheming sons-of-bitches."."
"Indeed," Steve said. "No, not Jehovah's Witnesses. Catholic. I am."
He glared at Steve. "Now there's a brood of snakes. Biggest cult goin." He eyed me next and nodded. "What about you white boy? What God you serve?"
Shit. I raised both hands in surrender. "I…haven't really made it that far yet."
He gave a light harrumph and looked at Tara next.
"I just need to talk to you Mr. Sennat. For a few minutes and then we're gone."
"For what? To tell stories about me?"
"No, no, no." Tara shook her head. "Just…I need to make things right."
"Right." Like he'd never heard the word before.
"I'm…the girl that um…that um…"
"Spill it lady," he growled.
"I'm the girl that…knows the girl that got you fired."
I gave a mental eye roll as the man stared at her for many seconds. I wished to hell I knew what was going through his mind before he acted on it.
Hadn't Tara said he'd become a drunk? Funny, I didn't smell booze on him. And he was clean-shaven, with neatly trimmed graying hair.
He opened the door wider and stood aside. "I got a few minutes."
We all walked into his house. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling, but the light inside came more from a pair of antique-looking glass wall lamps, one above an armchair, the other over one end of a couch. A scarred coffee table sat in the middle, with an ancient television on a stand opposite the chair. The large wood-burning stove in the corner could heat both levels of the house.
The front room looked the same as it might have forty years ago, judging from the wallpaper covered with giant faded peonies. I almost missed that I'd slipped back into the vernacular of my childhood. I glimpsed a kitchen through the doorway before us, worn, but immaculate, from what I could see. A door by the single chair led to a dark room.
Mr. Sennat waved us to the couch and we sat. I kept hold of Tara's hand, and she didn't resist, just sat there staring around as if she'd been dropped on another planet unexpectedly.
Our host dropped into his chair and waited, elbows on his knees. From the scowl he wore, he expected we were there to bring his peaceful little world crashing to a stand-still.
I noticed a guitar propped beside the chair and a worn harmonica on the table. I gestured to them. "That was you playing?"
He eyed me, one brow lower than the other in distrust. "You play?"
"Nah. Never had the talent or the discipline to learn."
"I can sing." Steve waved a hand from his rigid perch on the edge of the couch. "I even know some blues."
God, did he have to wear that freaky ass smile now?
Mr. Sennat turned his full attention to Steve. "Is that right?" Mr. Sennat took up his guitar and harmonica like he was answering a challenge. "What you know, white boy?" He blew into his harmonica.
"Let's see." Steve looked up at the ceiling and began calling out names I didn't recognize. But the black man sure did. He gave a hint of a grin and started playing. And then Steve began to sing. Holy fuck! Did Steve ever. Begin. To sing.
Tara and I exchanged glances and burst out laughing at how fucking amazing he was. Why was he driving? Wow! The black guy's eyes were lit up on him as he played and Steve sang his heart out, sang like he'd done it all his life and could finally breathe again.
After the song, Mr. Sennat burst out laughing and set his guitar and harmonica down. "Boy you sure you ain't got some black in yo blood? Where the hell you learned to sing like that?"
Steve joined in his laughter with an eager nod that jiggled his chin fat. "My father was a minister. And on the weekends, well…I liked to misbehave a little."
Mr. Sennat shook his head and got up. He went to a cabinet and came back with a huge stoneware jug and some old tin cups and set them on the table. "I do believe this calls for a little celebration." He howled in raucous laughter as he put the cups down and filled them to the top.
I took the cup he handed to me and stared at the dark red liquid.
"I made it myself. Muscadine wine." He sat with his own cup. "I'm known for it around these parts. How I make my livin."
I peered speculatively into the cup again, a little doubtful. I wasn't about to insult the man's hospitality, though. I took a small taste and was surprised at how smooth it was. I nodded at Tara who eyed me. "It's good."
She tried some herself and mmmed. "Mr. Sennat, this is good!"
His face fell. "Call me Dale. Nobody calls me that anymore," he mumbled.
"Oh, ok. Dale." She lifted her cup to him. "This is good."
Dale and Steve got busy playing while Tara and I drank. Tara was on her third cup when I stopped her. "Oh my God, it's good! Let's dance!" She pulled me up from the couch while Dale and Steve played on. The opportunity to touch her and hold her was more than I could resist and so I took her in my arms and decided to show her a side to myself she didn't know. With my hand pressed at the bottom of her back, I held her against my leg a
nd began moving her in an erotic rhythm.
"Ohhhh, my goodness you can dance! Figures."
"It does?" I wrapped my other arm around her waist and put my mouth at her ear. "Why does that figure?"
She giggled. "Because you're so good in bed."
I smiled and moved my leg, forcing her hips to follow. "You're perceptive, love."
She gave another throaty laugh. "And you're so sexy."
"Am I?" My heart thundered in my chest and dick as I turned her so that my back faced the audience. "Tell me all about it."
"Mmm. Just…the way you move. Your hips."
"You mean when I fuck you? You like the way I move my hips?" I lifted her leg along mine and dipped her back, making her squeal and laugh before bringing her back close to me, my mouth again at her ear. "Or you mean when I hit that sweet spot inside you, the one that makes you call my name."
Her fingers slid up into my hair. "Yes. That. And…when you… pound into me, that's a dead give-away that you can dance."
I had to laugh at that. "Dead giveaway, huh?" I swayed our hips side to side. "You're not so bad yourself baby."
"Pffft. I suck and you know it."
"God yes, you do suck. So fucking good, too." I pushed her face aside, hungry, and planted my lips on her neck and sucked too hard. I moved to her ear. "Your mouth looks so good wrapped around my cock sweetheart."
She moaned and pulled my hair in response then burst out in laughter when I bit her earlobe.
They began playing another song with a faster tempo. I pushed Tara away from me then pulled her back to my body with an oomph. She loved it and laughed and I began spinning her, shoving her, dipping her. Hearing her laugh that way was gold. Fucking made me so happy that I could give her that.
Between songs, Tara danced her way to the table and drank more. I didn't stop her. She needed to get good and drunk. Maybe it'd help her when it came time to do what needed doing.
Which did eventually come when Steve and Dale got tired of singing and playing.
And then we talked about everything but what needed talking about. I finally took Tara's wrist and held it up. "Nice bracelet you have there, Miss Reese."
She jerked her hand away and slapped my leg. I'd finally talked her out of more drinking, I didn't want to have to carry her out. Or sleep at the man's house.