by CM Wondrak
Such muscles. Such masculinity. Such raw power. Enzo Lee was everything, and anyone who dared to claim otherwise was nothing more than a liar.
Every single part of him was impressive. I didn’t know where to look, really. As a man, he was the perfect specimen, and he was all mine. Mine to have, mine to belong to, mine, mine, mine. He could be as possessive as he wanted over me, because I would be the same about him. No one else would ever be able to have him the way I do.
Before coming onto the bed with me, Enzo went out of the room, his feet pounding on the old wooden floors. I waited, resting my head on his pillow and smelling the scent lingering there. His scent. Pure musk, and it was glorious.
He returned carrying a shopping bag, and it was only a few moments before I realized what was in it: a box. A box of condoms. Well enough, I guess, since it wasn’t like every time we were together I wanted to take that morning after pill. Eventually, once we got out of here, when I didn’t have Kayla to deal with, I’d want to be put on some kind of formal birth control.
But for now? For now the condoms would work just fine.
Enzo crawled onto the bed after tearing into the box and ripping one off. I didn’t know what I expected when I’d called him earlier, but I wouldn’t complain. Being with Enzo was like touching the sky.
His body blocked out my view of the ceiling, and he tore open the wrapper and rolled it on, his veiny length straining beneath it. Enzo’s movements were quick and controlled, and I swore that man would be sexy as hell doing anything. The sex appeal oozed off him. Just being around him made my body go haywire and my core to throb with a carnal need.
Enzo ran his hands down my body, pinching my nipples and causing me to squirm beneath him. The corners of his mouth quirked into a smirk, and he roughly opened my legs, those hands drumming up my inner thighs and making my core clench in anticipation. Those dark, black eyes ate me up as if I was a cool drink of water and he was a man who’d just walked ten miles in the desert.
As he positioned his cock at my entrance, I closed my eyes, biting my lower lip as I waited to feel the bulging pressure of his length sliding in. Enzo guided himself into me, his hips bearing down as I moaned out an incoherent sound of pleasure. There really was nothing else like it in the world.
His body leaned down on mine as he began to thrust. Harsh, almost violent thrusts of his hips, filling me up over and over, my heart wild in my chest as the bed rocked beneath us. The air around us turned hot, molten as the desire we felt toward each other went wild. The sounds that escaped Enzo’s throat were low, rough, and deep, mimicking his voice in that I could listen to them all day and all night.
Seriously. There wasn’t one thing about this man I didn’t love.
He took my wrists in his hands, holding them on either side of my head, and I cracked open my eyes to see him gazing steadily down at me, watching as my body rocked beneath his. He watched my mouth, my bouncing tits, his mouth open slightly as he licked his lips. Enzo wanted to eat me up, and I’d let him. I’d let him devour me in a heartbeat and do it with a smile on my face.
This wild, crazy girl—I didn’t recognize her. I didn’t know who she was, but even though she was a stranger to me, I looked forward to getting to know her. The real me. The real Tenley Goddard.
Enzo began to rock his hips in a different rhythm, filling me up to the brink. I arched my back, my wrists still held down by his hands, allowing him to push even deeper inside of me. Fill me up. Fill every part of me up. My lower stomach burned with heat, my entire body growing hot as the pressure began to build inside of me.
Fuck, it felt so good. He felt unreal. It was fucking perfect. We were perfect, there was no denying it.
Fate. It was fate. We were so in sync that we reached the height of our pleasure at the same time, each of our bodies tensing and jerking, muscles spasming uncontrollably as cries of bliss left us. I felt his cock twitch inside of me, but I was too lost in my own orgasm, riding the high that came along with it.
Orgasms were nice. Who knew?
He took his time in withdrawing from me, releasing my wrists only to pull the condom off his length. The rubber was full of his cum, but he didn’t seem to care, for he dropped it on the floor near the bed before laying back down beside me.
We both breathed hard, and we lay on our sides, one of his arms wrapping around me as he held me close.
This… this was it for me. How many other eighteen-year-olds could say they’d found their forever? I did. I did, and I would never let him go. In a way, I was lucky, fortunate to not be like most everyone else my age.
Enzo Lee was my forever.
Later that night, I sat in my room, working on the project for Mrs. Johnson’s class. I didn’t mind doing it all myself; really, I liked working alone much better than I did working with someone else, especially Kyle. Kyle had been fine, I guess, but I liked to have things a certain way.
Enzo had dropped me off at Banner High right before the bell let out. He had to drop me off on the road, and I had to slip inside a side entrance, but I was able to get back in and grab my bag all without my aunt knowing I’d ditched. The school never called her; it wasn’t like I had a history of skipping, so it was fine.
That, or everyone was still thrown out of whack thanks to what happened to Kyle.
Luckily for me, I didn’t see Aubree, nor did she try to text me at all. It was fine. She could be angry with me all she wanted, I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. If that meant our friendship was over, then I guess that’s what it meant. It wouldn’t be a loss I’d cry over.
I was in the process of typing out a rough draft of the paper on the laptop I had to share with Kayla when I heard my aunt barge into my room. At first, I thought nothing of it. Nothing at all, but when she spoke, I had to stop what I was doing and turn around.
“What the hell is this?” Kayla’s voice came out angry, a bit shocked and confused, and when I turned around and met her furious stare, I found out why she was so pissed at me.
She held the bathroom’s trash bag in one hand, the pill’s packaging in the other. My eyebrows creased. Did she dig through the trash? I purposefully put stuff on top of it so she wouldn’t see it. I guess I wasn’t sneaky enough.
“What’s it look like?” Perhaps taking an attitude with her wasn’t smart, but I was so sick of being treated like a child.
Kayla let out an ugly chuckle. “Really, Tenley? You’re going to play that game with me?” She shook her head, her dark blonde hair held back in a low ponytail. “I knew you’ve been acting strange. I just didn’t think—was it Kyle? You know these pills only have a certain window when they work—”
“I know,” I said, not getting up off my desk chair. “And it wasn’t Kyle.” If my aunt thought I’d confess to her exactly who had been sticking his dick in me, she was dead wrong.
“Who?”
“It’s none of your business,” I told her. The wrong thing to say.
“You’re living under my roof, so you live by my rules.” She spat out the words, “You will not go out and throw your life away, Tenley. I won’t let you.” Kayla shoved the torn packaging back into the trash, glaring at me all the while, as if I’d done the worst possible thing, having sex and then taking the morning after pill.
Hell, when I took the pill, it wasn’t even the morning after. It was literally the same day. And the only reason I took it to begin with was because Enzo had thought of it. Honestly, it would’ve slipped my mind, because I was too busy riding the high that had come with sleeping with that man on top of Kyle’s grave.
As we stared at each other then, I wondered what she’d say, what she’d do, if I told her the truth. If I told her I knew all about Enzo, that I’d been with him, that I planned on running away with him. She might keel over and die right here.
“If you think I’m going to let you keep going over Aubree’s house, you’ve got another thing coming,” Kayla told me. “From now on, you will never leave this house, except to go to school
. That’s it. No more friends, and no more boys.”
Though it was hard, I resisted the urge I had to roll my eyes. Kayla couldn’t stop me even if she tried. The only way I wouldn’t leave this house to see Enzo was if I was chained to the wall in my room—and even then, breaking my thumbs to get out of the chains or pulling it free of the drywall wouldn’t be impossible. I would literally go crazy if I couldn’t see him again.
Maybe I’d already gone crazy, with how badly I craved that man.
I said nothing in the end, watching as Kayla left my room, slamming the door behind her and leaving me to the silence of my room. Things were a whole lot easier when Kayla just thought I wanted to live my life, but now that she knew I’d been having sex? She would be even more of the helicopter guardian she’d tried to be these last ten years.
Great.
Chapter Fourteen – Tenley
The next day, things were awkward in the house. Kayla hardly spoke to me, hardly even glanced in my general direction, but I was fine with it. If she wanted to pout and freak out over me having sex, that was her prerogative, and far as I was concerned, none of her rules would matter to me. Not for much longer, anyway.
Enzo was going to get us out of here. I was sure of it.
Beyond the whole thing with Kayla, I had Aubree to look forward to. I didn’t know if I expected her to talk to me, but when school rolled around and I went to my classes, I saw she wasn’t in today.
Huh. That was odd. The girl hardly ever missed school. She came to school sick and loaded up with medicine during the winter months if she caught an illness. The only time I could remember her missing days was when she’d almost killed herself a few years ago.
The day passed slowly. So slowly it was almost unbearable, and when lunch rolled around and I sat at my table alone, I wondered if Aubree didn’t come today because of me. Because of what I told her yesterday.
Hmm. Maybe I should text her and apologize, even if I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know whether she would even accept an apology from me, but I realized today I did not like sitting alone at a lunch table. It made me feel like an outcast. Not someone who was merely invisible, but someone who the rest of the school overtly shunned.
There was a difference between being invisible and being disliked.
All Enzo had told me was to be patient; I didn’t know how long it would be until we actually got out of here. Could I stand sitting here, alone, for possibly weeks? I really hoped it didn’t take that long, but you never knew.
Ugh. Fuck. I guess I should suck it up and text her.
I pulled out my phone, holding it in my lap as I went to our previous message thread. I sent her a trite apology, short and sweet and to the point, sighing as I put my phone away in my pocket. Even though it was lunch, you still technically weren’t supposed to have your phone out, which I thought was just stupid.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I waited for a response, but I did expect something.
But… I got nothing. Nothing as the afternoon wore on. My phone was silent and message-free when the bell rang to signal the end of the last period of the day, and I walked to my locker in the crammed halls, lost in my own head.
I really fucked up, didn’t I? I shouldn’t have said those things; I should’ve held it in a bit longer. With everything that had happened recently, I should’ve swallowed my tongue and not said a single thing to her, just smiled and acted like everything was fine. It’s what I’d done for the last decade, so surely I could’ve held out a bit longer?
It didn’t matter now. What was done was done, and I had to learn to live with the consequences.
My spirits were pretty low, considering, and I took my time in getting my backpack out of my locker and gathering everything I’d need to finish my homework for the night. I moved slow, so slow that, by the time I was finished in my locker, the halls were mostly empty, save for a few stragglers.
Pulling a strap over my shoulder, I sighed and started toward the main entrance. Kayla’s car was parked just up the sidewalk, and I wished I could turn and run the other way, that Enzo would be here, somewhere, waiting to take me out of here forever. I didn’t care about making it to graduation. I didn’t care about anything other than being at his side. Whatever the future held, we would get through it, I knew.
I knew it, and that’s probably why it felt so miserable to be stuck in this grind.
I didn’t look at Kayla as I got in her car. Two could play the game she did, and besides, I wasn’t in the mood to argue with her. I felt… the only way I could describe it was like I was trapped, locked in a cage, able to see the life I wanted through the bars but unable to attain it.
Patient. I had to be patient. It was just so fucking hard to be patient when the life I lived sucked.
My jaw tensed as I buckled my seatbelt, Kayla driving away from the school, not saying a single word. The radio wasn’t playing, so there was nothing but silence to accompany the drive home.
“Is there anything you want to say to me?” Kayla’s question broke the silence, and I stared at her reflection in the window, refusing to look at her.
“No.”
“Tenley, I didn’t raise you to be this rude.”
My response came instantly: “You didn’t raise me. You kept me locked in that house for the last ten years, and now that I’m trying to live my life, you’re acting like I’m out doing stupid shit like drugs or something—”
Kayla’s mouth fell open. “Since when do you swear?”
All I could do was grind my teeth at that. I wanted to say always, you stupid bitch, but I didn’t think that would go over too well.
“You’re not acting like yourself. What has gotten into you?”
I opened my mouth, wanting to tell her the truth, wanting to confess everything—not to ask for her forgiveness or anything like that, but to show her that I was not the blind child she thought I was. I’d felt things, lived through things she couldn’t even imagine. I’d spent the last ten years in the dark because something was missing, and now that he was back in my life, now that Enzo was here, I could finally see again.
I settled for saying, “You wouldn’t like the answer.”
“Try me,” she said, glancing at me as she made a right turn. “Because, as much as I try to understand where you’re coming from, I just don’t get it. I don’t get it. You were never like this before.”
“Maybe I was, and you were just too blind to see it.” A lie, a lie I spat out like venom, but at least it was a lie that got her to shut up for a bit.
The car was silent for the rest of the drive, and as she pulled into the driveway, she looked at me. Her green eyes were rife with concern, her mouth drawn into an ugly line. Today her smocks were a light blue, covered in a hideous pattern of rabbits. Where she got her selection of work clothes I had no idea.
“I got a call today while I was at work,” Kayla spoke, turning her top half to stare at me.
I should just get out of the car, go into the house, pretend I didn’t hear her. But I didn’t. I stayed rooted in my seat, slow to meet her eyes. “About what?” I didn’t really care, but the way she stared at me was like I was the antichrist or something. Like she hated me.
And maybe she did. I always wondered if she resented me for taking her adulthood away from her. What twenty-five year old wanted to be saddled with their niece?
“What did you say to Aubree yesterday?” Kayla questioned, catching me totally off-guard.
What the hell did Aubree have to do with anything?
I made an annoyed sound, muttering, “Why does it matter?” When Kayla refused to stop staring at me like I’d become the biggest disappointment in her life, I added, “I just said she was being annoying.” That… that wasn’t exactly what I’d said, but my aunt didn’t need to know all of the details.
Kayla let out a sound that was a mixture of a gasp and a sigh, as if she could not believe I’d said something like that to her. “Annoying? Didn’t you tell me she had a huge crus
h on that boy who killed himself? When you’re friends with someone, you support them, whether you think they’re being annoying about something or not.”
A lesson in being friends with someone else. Great.
I started to get out of the car, but Kayla’s hand shot out and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me back down. “Her parents called me. They must’ve looked me up. Aubree came home yesterday in tears, told them that she hated her life, and hours later they found her in bed, covered in blood, with a razorblade.”
That wasn’t what I thought she’d say, and I was speechless. Totally speechless as I held her stare. “Is she…” For some reason, I couldn’t say the last word: dead. Aubree dying not even a week after Kyle—it didn’t seem right.
Was it Enzo? I’d called him yesterday, told him all about how annoying Aubree had been. Was this his way of taking care of her, just like he’d taken care of Kyle for me, to keep him away from me?
My heart hammered in my chest. I should be scared. I should tell Kayla everything, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“No, she’s not dead, but she’s in the hospital. I don’t know if her parents are going to send her to a facility or what—I didn’t ask, because it’s none of my business.” Kayla paused, expression hardening as she looked at me. “Do you know why they called me?”
I’d have to be an idiot not to know, not to at least suspect that her parents blamed me. If she was in the hospital, odds were they had her phone, and they’d seen the text I’d sent her. My half-assed apology. Even if they weren’t aware of our little falling out before, they sure were after that text, and I’d bet they only called Kayla after I stupidly sent that message at lunch.
She took my silence as cluelessness, saying, “They saw your text to her today, and they wanted to ask me if I could address your recent behavior… and tell you not to text or call Aubree again. Do you know how terrible that makes me feel? I tried my best, Tenley. I did everything I could to provide for you. Don’t you understand that?”