Owning Swan

by Carter Blake

  I pick up a notepad lying on the kitchen island and give it to her. “So, do it.”

  Her gaze alternates between the pad and my face as if she wanted to know how serious I am. “It’s not as simple as that. If I told you that just because you’re an athlete, you should have no trouble playing basketball or baseball or something else with a ball, and you had to be proficient enough at it to hold your own, would you be able to?”

  “No, but -”

  “That tells you how easy it is to just pick a new genre. It’s not. The one time I tried to write a romance, I was in high school and it was a young adult one. I shopped it around to a few agents, who all said they loved my voice but that they just couldn’t get into the romance.”

  I chuckle. “That sounds like telling a guy who’s got some natural talent for the game that he’s raw. I see what you mean.”

  “Raw?” she asks.

  “Yeah. Natural talent but completely unmolded by a professional trainer,” I explain. “It’s not the compliment that it sounds because there are more perseverance-type guys out on the field at any given time than there are sheer prodigies who didn’t give the sport years of their life.”

  “That sounds like writing,” she says. “Lots of books are published every day. The majority of them are not the work of novice writers.”

  Abby eyes the notepad anyway, her finger tracing the bottom of it.

  “Did you think of something?” I ask.

  “Actually, yes. Do you mind if I sit somewhere and jot a few ideas down?”

  “By all means,” I tell her, motioning for her to go to the living room. “I’ll just clean up in here.”

  I spend a few stray seconds watching her pull a loose strand of hair back, and then scribble furiously on the notepad. The intensity of her concentration is a brutal reminder of the power of passions. It’s not lost on me that I’m adrift largely because I don’t have a project for myself. No ambition for what the future might hold.

  Being stripped of that project once was too painful for me to contemplate alternatives. But maybe, with Abby here, I should explore my options. Other sports aren’t a bad idea, but if my knee is a problem for football, it’ll screw with me again.

  Plates rinsed and leftovers thrown away, I take a seat next to Abby on the couch and watch her work. It’s pacifying enough that I don’t notice myself falling asleep.

  Chapter 10

  Abigail

  Quinn dozes off next to me, and I only notice when his faint snoring turns to woodchipper levels of bothersome. To my amazement, I’ve covered seven pages of the notepad with notes and snippets of a story that came to me.

  Front and back.

  One caveat to not having a computer nearby is that it’ll take me forever to untangle the mess of what I wrote later on. That doesn’t make my smile shrink, though. I can’t remember the last time I had such a productive brainstorming session. And I certainly can’t recall the last time my idea had me this excited to sit down and write it.

  The reason for the spark in creativity is sitting there, a noise complaint waiting to happen. The bit about having no neighbors for miles in either direction might sound like it’s because Quinn loves his privacy but the real reason has to be that having someone who snores like that near anyone else’s house is a surefire way to bring property values down altogether.

  A vague patch of hair below his belly button catches my eye. His happy trail. It brings back a flood of memories. Somewhere in an alternate universe, a high school freshman Abby is watching the football team practice. The ball gets tossed to Quinn, who shoots up to grab it before the guy wearing a different color jersey has the chance. He dodges all the blocks and tackles people throw up, and legs it to a resounding touchdown.

  After the practice is over, Quinn pulls his gear off. It’s just the jersey now, with no bulky pads or other protective equipment getting in the way. Before he disappears into the boys’ locker room, he takes his shirt off and fans himself under the sizzling sun.

  I had caught all of that from underneath a shaded canopy on campus. It was the place I went when I needed a break from the teasing and ridicule I was subjected to for being a little awkward and a lot different in high school. I was a girl the same as any other and Quinn Cooper made my heart skip a beat.

  Seeing him bare chested, though? That was the peak moment of my freshman year.

  And now there he is, asleep in front of me. After we’ve spent the last twenty-four hours together and he slept over at my place.

  If there’s a good thing that came from my return, it’s this. Maybe it doesn’t have to be me on my own anymore. I’m not saying to chime the wedding bells or anything like that, but maybe I’ll have some company on what’s been a harrowing and lonely road for me so far.

  A devious idea hatches in my mind. I set the notepad and pen down. Inching cautiously to Quinn, I get on my knees and pull his boxers down a little. His flesh swells at that even though he’s still sound asleep. After the way he ravished me this morning, it’s only fitting that I return the favor.

  I take just the head of his cock in my mouth. The sudden movement must be jarring because he blinks his eyes a few times, disoriented, then sees where I am and groans. “God.”

  “I was just thinking about what you did this morning,” I tell him, swirling my tongue underneath it. See, I may be a virgin but my roommates after high school weren’t. And they went in graphic detail about every last thing they ever did.

  “Abby, fuck!” he shouts when I flick my tongue at the little bit of skin between the shaft and the head.

  I flatten my tongue in my mouth and relax, prepared to take him in. There’s nothing wrong with working my way up to it but I’m not in a teasing mood. The taste of him in my mouth and the way his cock twitches, pulsating with so little stimulation from me, has me curious about what happens next.

  “I want to know something,” I say, licking up and down to make sure he’s good and slick for me. “One, will I be able to take you all the way in?” I eye his massive cock, genuinely unsure, but God, I’m so ready to try. “And two, how fast can I make you come for me?”

  He sits up, allowing me a better angle with my mouth.

  “I think-”

  It’s my turn to interrupt him mid-sentence with unexpected and unbridled pleasure. He moans as I envelope my mouth around his cock, deeper and deeper until I feel him breaching my throat. It’s not the most comfortable position to be in but I love it.

  Love it.

  “Fuck,” he says, his eyes squarely on me the whole time. “Babe, this is fucking hot.”

  I’m lost in the moment, reduced to a creature of desire and primal need. My pussy aches for him for what feels like the thousandth time since I invited him in not even twenty-four hours ago. But now the show is for him. I bob my head up and down, the loud, slurping noise of my tongue on his cock turning me on all the more.

  “Abby, I need you,” he says, standing up. I struggle to catch up with him, but he takes care of it by holding my head still and thrusting, same as he did before. Except this time, I know that each quiver in his body is the direct result of his cock in my mouth, thick and hard, and the way he savagely pumps.

  It surprises me that there’s no shyness. No unpleasantness. Only single-minded release at the end of the tunnel.

  “Get up,” he says, and tries to pull his cock out.

  I shake my head. A little part of me is thrilled to defy him. Quinn Cooper might be polite and respectful, but if the past several hours have taught me anything, it’s that he’s an animal in bed.

  I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to poke this particular bear.

  “Get up,” he repeats, visibly torn between enjoying what I’m still doing to him and wanting my obedience.

  I shake my head again, but this time his reaction isn’t so mild. Grabbing a fistful of my hair, he jerks his cock away. A heady anticipation follows because I don’t know what’s to follow. He wants to fuck me, of that I’m certa
in.

  But how?

  “Get up,” he says a third time.

  This time, I oblige. No sooner than I’m up do his hands go to the small of my back, pressing against my spine until I bend over, my arms propped up against the back of the couch he was just sleeping on.

  “I’m not going to fuck you like you’re the good girl you think you are,” he tells me, sliding one hand on my hip. He hooks his finger against the pair of cheeky panties I have on and nearly tears them off me. “Spread your legs.”

  You’d think this would send me in a tailspin, but it doesn’t. Just this morning, I was mortified of him getting so close to my pussy. Now, he’s getting the eyeful from behind, seeing it, pink and raw, in a way that sends a shiver down my spine.

  I long for his control.

  A hard slap on my ass jolts me. It stings long after his hand is gone, and to my surprise, I want more. The line between pain and pleasure blurs so that when he smacks my ass again, I’m ready for it. I moan despite myself.

  “You like that?” he asks, slapping me harder.

  Next, his two hands spread my ass cheeks, exposing every last bit of me. I’m caught in the moment, confused by the conflicting emotions I feel. If someone had told me I would be here right now, doing this with a guy I only had a proper conversation with for the first time yesterday, I would’ve cowered behind my usual insecurity.

  But it’s not that. I feel safe with Quinn. Him taking over like this, dominating my body and taking it the way he wants it, is his way of cherishing me. It’s that tacit understanding that I’m sure we both agree on that’s fueling all of this.

  There’s nothing more freeing than having him treat himself to me.

  He pulls my hair again, forcing me to look at him. “I’m going to fuck you raw.”

  “Please,” I say, bucking my hips against him. I can’t find his cock but I yearn for it, my whole body vibrating with need.

  This time, there’s no teasing. No making me beg for it. His hands grasp my hips and in a split second, he’s inside me. Instead of the deep thrusts I’d grown accustomed to, he barely moves. He’s pumping only an inch or so, barely taking himself out only to come back. No, he’s filling me up with no reprieve.

  I fucking love it. I claw at the cushions, a cry of ecstasy stuck in my throat. He takes my silence as a kind of affront, because he leans on me so I’m forced to bend lower. His body covers every inch of my back. It’s like I have no personal room as he’s pounding away at me, grunting with the effort it takes to subdue me.

  Finally, I cry out. My pussy clenches around his cock, and I decide to take some of my agency and back into him. I have no idea how he’s to go any deeper, but that’s what I want him to do.

  Never in my life have I needed something or someone more than I need for him to fucking ruin me.

  Quinn responds in kind, holding to my body as he explodes in a raging orgasm that threatens to topple us over. My body quakes and trembles, only a hint of energy left in me before I fall over the cliff and into the delirious abyss that awaits me. My body succumbs to a series of orgasms that take away my ability to breathe, think or even be.

  I black out from the pleasure.

  Chapter 11

  Quinn

  Let’s just say that Abby wasn’t the person who made me discover my dominating tendencies. I didn’t have any interest in staging an elaborate scene to explore power dynamics in a sexual setting. Some role playing is nice and all, but what really gets me off is the spontaneous control she gave me. To use her how I saw fit.

  I found this out about myself on my own when I was a teenager. The idea that this is what fascinated me and made my blood shoot straight to my cock without hesitation was daunting at first. And I never got the kind of release I sought with anyone, so those fantasies only existed in my mind.

  Until Abby. Who was a virgin until I got my hands on her. How someone so new to the world of pleasure was able to bring it out of me and engage in that kind of play, I won’t ever know.

  But it’s enough to make me addicted. I have no interest in controlling her until kingdom come or treating her like an object. She’s my equal in every way, and when she bends over and allows me to do with her as I see fit, it’s the greatest possible expression of the bond that exists between us.

  So, it’s not without a lot of protest that I agree to take her out to eat. And then go back to her place because she doesn’t feel comfortable sleeping over just yet.

  “You can sleep over,” she tells me. “I just… I hate that cabin but at the same time, I came back here for it. It’s twisted that I want to go back when that thing is literally my albatross but it is what it is.”

  “Say no more,” I reply. “Your wish is my command.”

  I watch her get dressed, my mind jumping back to the last scorching moment we shared. I fully expected her to tell me to take it easy or to dial it down, but she didn’t. If anything, she goaded me to doing much more than I ever would have permitted myself. To go further than I suspected anyone else would.

  My cock twitches again, stiffening for the millionth time.

  The clock on the dashboard informs us it isn’t yet seven in the evening. “It’s early enough that most restaurants in town are open. Like I told you, a lot changed in your absence. But there’s still plenty that’s exactly the same. Where do you want to go?”

  “Moe’s Diner?” She smiles at me. “I used to go there after school all the time when I knew there was a game. No offense, football isn’t my thing and I could only watch so much before I zoned out. The coast would clear at Moe’s and I got a lot of writing done. Vampire novels, mostly, but every respectable writer needs to have a solid number of trunk novels.”

  There’s so much about her sentence that I want her to explain but the first thing I need to address is her choice of venue. Going to Moe’s isn’t as easy as, well, just going to Moe’s. If we had met under different circumstances, I’d agree with her. But that traitorous fucking bet I accepted meant I had to avoid my brothers when I was with her. At least until I got a chance to talk to them myself.

  “Quinn?”

  “Sorry, I was just thinking that Tate and Killian and maybe even Derek will be at Moe’s. You know how high school never ends for some people? They’re regulars there almost every day of the week. Except for the days they’re at Marty’s.” It’s slimy of me to make her come to the same conclusion as me like this, but it’s the best I’ve got.

  “You know, I think I had a change of heart,” she says, bolstering my hope that she’s about to side with me. “High school was awful for me but I’ll need to get over it. Nothing can bring me down today, so it’s not a problem if they’re there. Not for me, anyway.”

  Shit.

  “Are you sure? A triple dose of my asshole brothers...” I shake my head and sigh. “I avoid them like a plague most days of the month.”

  It’s patently obvious that her interpretation of what I said is a lot more offensive than what I meant. Abby slumps her shoulders, a look I am familiar with enough to know it’s synonymous with defeated, and she nods. “Sure. You pick the place then.”

  “Abby, you know this isn’t about you, right?” I try to keep my eyes on the road but I keep peeling them away to look at her.

  “No, I get it. High school never ends and I’m not the kind of girl you introduce to that crowd.” She plasters a smile on her face and turns to face me head on. “It’s fine. Really. You’re protecting me.”

  “That is not what I said. I’m worried that they’ll put a damper on your mood. Just seeing them last night was enough to bring up a lot of-sorry, I don’t mean to pressure you. I don’t know what it is that they did, but when you want to share it with me, I’ll listen. And you’re right, I want to protect you.”

  “Then take me there,” she says defiantly. “I have you as an ally. They won’t mess with me. And if they do, I can take it.”

  “If they do, they’ll have to take it up with me.” I glower at the road ahea
d, trying to cover all my bases. If I send word that they need to keep their trap shut, there’s a good ten percent chance they don’t step in it.

  Moe’s Diner appears down the highway. I enable the turn signal and pull up. Abby sees the familiar establishment and lights up.

  “Are you sure?” She bites her lip.

  “Yes, but you still haven’t explained to me why this place. Of all the other restaurants we could go to or even the grocery store and I’ll cook for you.”

  Really, there’s nothing special about Moe’s. It’s the only diner in town, which is where it’s claiming to fame begins and ends. It’s a popular place for high school kids because it’s open 24/7, so if you sneak out and go on a bender with your friends, it’s only natural that you’ll need coffee and some comfort carbs afterward.

  Abby unbuckles her seatbelt. “Moe used to be a big deal. He wrote a ton of sword and sorcery stories for pulp magazines back in the day. It earned him enough to build his business from the ground up.”

  “He struck gold and this is what he wanted to invest in?” I say, glancing at the shabby building. It’s not that owning your own business isn’t an enviable position to be in. But when I got my own windfall from my dying career, I splurged on a place that I could enjoy to myself. Not somewhere that would entail me serving others for the rest of my life.

  I seem to have struck a nerve.

  Abby crosses her arms in front of her and scowls. “Do you know how long this place has been here? Decades. It’s an institution. And back in his time, this kind of business in a sleepy town like ours was the American dream.”

  I hold my arms up. “I’m sorry. It was a shitty thing to say. I guess times have changed.”

  “Like you said yesterday, the homogenization of the American economy. They have. And I feel strongly about supporting a business-like Moe’s.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we’re here. Shall we?” I open the door and step out. Her frown disappears when I stride to her side and open the door for her.