Pull Me Close: The Panic Series

by Sidney Halston

  “You got that one from one of your books?” I ask as I settle my hands behind my neck and get comfortable. There’s no way I’m turning down a blow job. I should be noble, but…yeah, nope. I want those lips wrapped around my cock.

  She yanks off my shorts, taking my boxers with them. She looks up at me through her lashes coquettishly. My cock twitches.

  Again, I don’t know what to expect. Everything with her is a surprise. She hasn’t done much in the last few years, but she’s no innocent girl, either. And yet she seems so inexperienced, with the long hair, fresh face, and simple style. She’s flirty and naive all in one, and it’s a heady combination.

  Instead of diving right in, she stares at it.

  “Maybe you do need one of those books. ‘Insert cock in mouth,’ ” I tease.

  She rolls her eyes and smirks. “You’re a great teacher. Is that really all you want? My mouth?” She finally grabs it, and she does it with a firm grip that kind of surprises me. Most women handle a cock as if it’s going to break. She looks down at my dick, which has probably never been this hard, and her tongue peeks out from between her lips. I was wrong—my cock just got harder. Her eyes come back to mine, and she leans in and runs the flat of her tongue from the base of my cock to its tip. “Just my mouth? I thought some tongue would be nice,” she says. “Maybe a little bit of teeth?”

  Teeth? I start to move up. “No. No, tee—”

  Holy shit! I almost fall off the motherfucking bed. And after she does whatever the fuck she’s doing with her teeth, she takes me into her mouth. All the fucking way in.

  The woman is committed to this blow job.

  She moves slowly up and down, going as deep as she can, and I swear to God, my eyes roll to the back of my head. Then she takes hold of my cock again with one firm grip and begins to move with her mouth and fist. Up and down, her tongue twirling around the tip, her saliva running down my thigh. I can’t take my eyes off her. All I can manage is a grunt, to try to let her know I’m on the verge of orgasm, but she doesn’t stop. I know that she knows I’m about to come because her eyes meet mine, and I think the little devil winks at me as I explode in her mouth.

  “Jesus Christ,” I say, running my hand through my hair and down my face to my beard. “You don’t need to read a book. You can write the fucking book.”

  She chuckles, then jumps out of bed and goes into the bathroom. Minutes later she’s back in bed with me, her body tucked close to me, and her fingers are playing with the splay of hair that I’ve got on my chest.

  I’m lying in bed depleted of all energy when her phone rings. “You gonna get that?” I ask but she’s sprawled half on me, half on the bed too sated to move.

  “I probably should. But I don’t really want to move.”

  I laugh and reach blindly toward the sound and find her phone. “Here.”

  She looks at it and blinks twice before jackknifing straight up.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Geo.”

  “Geo? David’s fiancée?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well? Answer it.”

  “You think?” She’s looking at the ringing phone like it’s a bomb. I snatch it out of her hand.

  “Hello?”

  “Do you ever leave that girl’s place?” Geo says in lieu of hello.

  “She has me chained to her bed,” I answer, and Katherine looks mortified.

  “I knew it! She’s into kink, isn’t she?” Geo answers, and I laugh. If Katherine knew what Geo just said, her face would be crimson.

  “What’s up, Geo?”

  “I need a favor and was hoping your girlfriend could help me with it.”

  “Sure, one second.” I hand over the phone to Katherine, who’s kneeling on the bed biting her lip. She doesn’t have friends, so this must all be so new to her. It’s endearingly sweet. “She needs a favor,” I tell her as she takes the phone from me.

  She hesitates for a moment before she says hello. All I hear are “yes” and “no” and “uh-huh.” I have no idea what the favor is, but as the call continues, Katherine seems to get less nervous and is now laughing and smiling. “Okay, no problem. I’ll call them tomorrow and give them my address. See you next week,” she says before hanging up.

  “She needs a place for some of her wedding favors to be delivered, so she asked me if she could send them here, and then she’s flying in next week and picking them up,” she says, all in one long breath of excitement. “Here. She’s getting them here.” She squeals. “And she wants my opinion on some band for the wedding. Apparently David likes country music and there’s no good country music bands in Paris that would do for their wedding. So she’s been listening to demos and has no idea if they’re any good. Me! She asked me.”

  “I picked up on that. What’s with the excitement?”

  “Don’t know. Guess it’s been a while since I had a friend. It’s like you came into my life and all sorts of other good things have followed. I’m getting better, I’m making friends…”

  “You’re having great sex.”

  “Yes.” She chuckles and launches herself onto me. “That is most certainly true.”

  —

  “I have something to ask you,” I say later, “and I don’t want you to think about it too much.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I’m going up to visit my father on Monday. Matt’s coming with me, and then on the way back we’re going to stop in and visit my sister. Come with me.”

  “Oh…” she says, her face paling.

  I take her hands in mine. “Do you feel safe with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know I’ll go slowly if we have to. If we need to turn around, I’ll do it. No questions asked. You say the safe word and that’s all. You take your pills with you just in case.” She chews on her bottom lip for too long, but just when I think she’s going to say no, she nods instead.

  “Okay. I’ll go.”

  Twelve

  Speechless

  Katherine

  It’s very early Monday morning.

  Barely five in the morning, actually.

  Matt and Nico couldn’t leave the club unattended over the weekend, so they decided to head out early on Monday. The drive from Miami to Marianna, Florida, is almost eight hours. Visitation ends at three fifteen, and visits are only allowed Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Because of Panic, Monday is the only real option. So I’m barely awake by the time we leave. This is good because it doesn’t give me much time to think.

  I hadn’t realized how on edge Matt really is about this trip. It’s not like I know him all that well or anything, but from the little I do know, based on the times I’ve seen him and the times he’s answered the phone at Panic, I always took him to be calm, cool, and upbeat. Even when he was arguing with Nico at my house, he was for the most part relaxed. Now, though, he’s uncharacteristically quiet. I sit back and take in the scenery from my window, leaving him to his thoughts.

  I’m sitting in the backseat of Nico’s car, which isn’t exactly comfortable. It definitely wouldn’t be comfortable for a six-foot-two man, so that’s why I’m here, even though Matt was sweet enough to offer. I’m sitting at an awkward angle behind Nico, who’s driving, and I have a perfect view of Matt, whose leg is bobbing up and whose index finger is anxiously tapping his knee.

  My biggest issue is claustrophobia, and the fact that I’m in a tight space, unable to leave, is a recipe for disaster. So, to take my mind off the panic attack that is right beneath the surface, I say, “Can I ask a few questions? You know, about your dad. Or is that not something you guys talk about?”

  Matt shrugs. I can’t see Nico’s face from this angle, but I do hear him say, “Shoot.”

  “Okay. So you said your father’s charges were drug trafficking and racketeering? Those are some serious felonies. Marianna is a medium-security prison, and I’d think those crimes warrant maximum security. So how did he get off so easy?”

  “How do you know
all that?” Nico asks, looking at me in the rearview mirror. All I see is my own reflection in his mirrored aviator glasses.

  “I don’t get out much. Maybe you haven’t noticed.”

  “Nope. Hadn’t noticed,” he quips.

  “And, because of the aforementioned issue, it makes me feel somewhat at ease to know where I’m going, so I did some research. By the way, did you know that Marianna has the largest dam in all of Florida?”

  Matt, who’s been quiet and serious, laughs.

  Nico reaches back and squeezes my knee, then looks at me in the rearview mirror again. “Is that something you want to go see, baby?”

  “A dam? Hell no,” I snort. How boring would that be? “It’s just something I learned. Thought I’d impart that little piece of knowledge. Anyway, back to my original question. How is it your dad ended up there?”

  “He’s a fucking criminal who probably paid off a lot of people,” Matt says, which surprises me. He’s not the broody one of the two, and that was more the kind of answer I’d expect from Nico.

  Nico palms Matt’s face and pushes it, and in return Matt punches Nico on the shoulder. “Everyone knew him,” Nico answers, “and there’s not a native Miamian who didn’t party with him. So when it was time for the sentencing, even though the crimes included all those things and he could have gotten sent to someplace a lot worse, the judge sent him to Marianna. I don’t know whose palm was greased, or even if anyone’s was. The judge may have just liked him and did him this solid. My father is a charismatic man, and people like him and they remember favors. Shit doesn’t get forgotten.”

  “Well, that’s good, I suppose.”

  “Peachy,” Matt says snarkily. I want to know what Matt’s problem is, but I don’t have any right to ask. The tension is rolling off him, and because I’m already on edge, it’s making me start to get all worked up. I put my hand on Matt’s shoulder and give it a little squeeze. He turns his head to look at me, gives me a weak smile, and puts his hand on mine for a moment. I want him to know that I’m his friend and whatever it is he’s feeling, he’ll be okay. That’s what I wanted to convey.

  “So, tell me about the place. How does it work when you go visit? You talk through phone and a plexiglass window?”

  “No, it’s pretty lax. It’s a room and we just sit and hang out for two hours or so.”

  A room. Full of people. A room that obviously has no windows because of the escape issue with criminals. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and count slowly to ten three times in my head. When I open my eyes, I see that Nico is looking at me in the rearview mirror.

  “Hey, how about we open the top?” He pokes the roof.

  “Really?” Matt says, sitting up straighter. “You never open it.”

  “Well, it’s a nice day out. What do you say, Katherine?”

  “Uh…yeah, sure,” I say, and reach for my purse and take a quarter of a Xanax. I need the help or else I’m not going to make it. I wish I could do this without it, but I’d rather nip it in the bud before it becomes a full-blown panic attack.

  Meanwhile, Nico pulls over to the side of the road, and he and Matt take off the hardtop, which seems like a hassle. No wonder he never does it.

  Matt gets back in, but Nico stays standing outside for a moment. He leans in, putting his forearms against the car frame, and looks down at me. “You okay?” he asks, picking up my hair and using his own rubber band, the one he always has on his wrist, to put my hair up in what I can only imagine to be a crazy knot.

  I nod. This man is just so attentive that it surprises me.

  “You sure? We can stop. We can go back. Just say the word. Tequila?”

  I reach up and run my thumb across his cheekbone. “You’re sweet. No. No tequila. I’m okay. But thank you for opening the roof. Makes me feel better.”

  “Which means you weren’t okay,” he says. “Tell me when you’re not feeling well. Don’t keep that shit from me.”

  I nod. “True. I wasn’t okay, but now I am.”

  He presses a kiss to the top of my head and gets back in the car. He’s so sexy and wonderful and flirty and touchy, and my emotions are all over the place. I’m a thirty-two-year-old woman, I shouldn’t feel like a lovesick teenager.

  Nico

  It’s hot as balls and I’ve lost count of how many bugs I’ve swallowed. Normally I don’t like to drive without the top. And if it begins raining, we’re fucked. I can’t even talk to Katherine, because with the top down we can’t hear for shit. But she has a smile on her face and she’s looking a hundred percent better than she did thirty minutes ago. I’m still shocked that she even agreed to come with us. I’m in awe of her. I know she’s trying, and I appreciate it, but I don’t want to break her. I know she’s still fragile.

  Emerging from my thoughts, I look over and see Matt still quietly staring out the window. “You okay, man?” I yell at him over the wind noise.

  He turns to look at me and shrugs. Not a normal Matt answer. He never wants to visit Dad, and I know that’s responsible for at least part of his pissy attitude. But there’s something else, I think.

  “How ’bout you?” I look into the rearview mirror. “You okay back there?”

  She holds the blowing stray hairs off her face with one hand and gives me a thumbs-up with the other.

  “How ’bout some food?” We don’t have a lot of time to stop and eat because if we miss the three fifteen cutoff, we’re fucked. I look at Katherine, who’s anxiously chewing the sides of her nails. “Drive-through,” I quickly add, and I see her shoulders visibly relax.

  “Yeah, man, I could use some food,” Matt says. We drive a few more miles until I see an exit, and we pull off and stop at a fast-food restaurant. I order all the food and hand it to Matt.

  “Wait—before you drive off, let me run inside to use the bathroom,” Matt says. I park the car and he steps out. I’m finally alone with my woman, who looks delicious in her white cotton shorts and some sort of strappy platform shoes that make her legs look miles long. I love that even with her insecurities and fears she’s so sure of herself. A confident woman wears whatever she wants regardless of what other people think. In my line of work, I’m surrounded by insecure women who value their worth by the amount of attention men give the tits hanging out of their clothes. Katherine is different in so many respects, and it’s eye-opening.

  “You have to go to the bathroom too?” I ask.

  She looks over her shoulder and then back at me.

  “Look, it’s a Monday, and we’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s bound to be empty in there. I’ll go with you.”

  “This is my worst nightmare right here, you know that?”

  “I know that isn’t true. There are things you’d hate more.”

  “Yeah, like if the bathroom was in an elevator or an airplane.”

  “See, there’s the silver lining. I’ll hold your hand and make sure the bathroom is empty before you go in. I’ll even go in with you if that makes you feel better.” When she still looks uncertain, I add, “What are you going to do, baby, hold it for four more hours?”

  She groans and covers her face with her hands. I step out of the car and go to open the door for her. “Come on.” I extend my hand.

  After the bathroom, which was not at all the ordeal she thought it would be, we are back in my car eating greasy food in silence. After a few more hours and one more pit stop, we’re almost there. “Got two choices, as far as I can see,” I say to her from the front seat. “One, you can come in with us to meet my father. Not too excited that you’re meeting my old man in prison, but it is what it is. If you can handle it, you’re welcome to come. Right, Matt?”

  “Of course. Not sure why she would, but I don’t mind.”

  “Second choice is, we check into the motel before we go visit Dad and you stay there. We’ll probably be gone about two hours. And—full disclosure—the accommodations around here aren’t great. What’s it gonna be?”

  She bites her lip as she c
ontemplates the two choices. “How about I stay in the car while you visit? You leave the top down. I have my Kindle to keep myself entertained.”

  “Stay in the car?” Matt says. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because I’ve spent a good chunk of my life sitting in a small apartment. I don’t want to go on my first road trip in years and sit in a crappy motel. And I can’t handle going into the prison with you. I’m not being a snob about this. It’s the no-windows, one-door thing that makes me nervous. But sitting outside, even if it’s in the car with the top down, reading a book…It’s been a long time.” She’s wearing a huge smile, as if we’re actually doing her a favor by leaving her outside a prison for two hours in a car.

  Matt looks over at me, and his face seems to relax a fraction. Then he looks over his shoulder and smiles at Katherine.

  “I think waiting outside sounds like a plan. We’ll try to make it fast,” he says.

  “Don’t. Not on my account. Pretend I’m not here. Take as long as you need.”

  —

  We park the car in the lot, which is swarming with police cruisers. I wouldn’t have left her if I didn’t think it was safe. She has a soda in her hand, her legs are up, and she’s reading, looking relaxed. Like we’re on the best vacation ever. I kiss her hard before walking inside.

  Matt and I go through security and screening and are now sitting in the meeting room waiting for Dad.

  “Never thought this would be my life,” Matt says.

  “I know. It’s surreal. Dad in prison. Jesus.” I run my fingers through my hair. This isn’t the first time we’ve visited him, but it still hasn’t completely sunk in yet.

  “You did good with Katie, Nick. Real good. She’s great,” he says.

  I appreciate his words, but he still seems so tormented. I put my hand on his shoulder. “You okay, Matt?”

  “I hate coming here. I tagged along to see Julia and the kids, but I shoulda skipped this part of the dysfunctional family reunion.”