by AJ Elmore
For a flash, I think she's going to press her lips forward. She wants to. But she doesn't. Instead, she says, “I know you want me.”
Again she deflects my jab. My insides twist, until I can't tell if the anger or the lust is winning. At the moment, her game is flawless. Now she leans in the kiss. I pull back, in the last fraction of a moment. The distance between our lips maintains.
“If this is what you choose, I'm walking away after Gram is dead. All of this, I'll leave it behind.”
My biggest bluff yet. Of all of them I've ever made, I'm praying she won't call this one.
She stares, unblinking, as serious as the day Charlie died. Just like any time we've ever played poker. Like she was when she decided to kill Gram. The world has stopped around us. There's no noise, no house, no heat. Just a suspended moment of tension.
“Bullshit,” she whispers.
Our lips clash, and I pin her against the chair with the force of my kiss. I trace a thumb along her cheekbone, then down the side of her throat. She relents control, arches up against me, pliant, trusting. I shift my hips away and grab her by the hip with my free hand. She makes a low noise in her throat – so tempting – but I push her back against the chair. It's the space between us that's always captivated her.
Her eyes are wide open, no romantic notions in that overt stare. The air around us is so heavy with smoke, so potent. The world may never be the same after this, but I can't stop the thought that this is not my place. I break the kiss, and when she moves to follow, the fist in her hair halts her advance. Her eyes narrow, but she hasn't moved but to lean forward.
Once again, our lips are nearly touching. I hold her eyes, that hard glare. She's pissed. Good.
What do I want from her? It can't be everything. Saying I'll walk away in a few days is like predicting that Gram's supply will get shipped up the muddy Mississippi, and that he'll die of a heart attack.
I push the hand on her hip upward, shoving her tank top up to reveal a glimpse of her brown midsection. Her skin burns beneath mine and her glare is hungry. Goddamn her fuck-me eyes.
Finally she moves, reaches – so slowly – between us to grab a hold on my shirt, to slip the top button from its hole. She holds my eyes, unsure of how I'll react as she undoes the next button. I am paralyzed, under her spell when she brushes the fabric apart and feathers her hand along the dusting of hair on my chest. I'm not thin like Freddy, or manufactured like Josh. I'm solid, naturally built, and it occurs to me in a crashing wave that she likes that about me.
I've wanted this for so long, but my panicked thoughts shift. Charlie would be so pissed. He'd kill me, without a doubt. The thought is like a slap and I jerk back. I let her go and take several steps backward. Her hand hangs in the air where I had been. The joint has gone out in her other hand.
“I can't do this,” I choke.
Her eyes widen and she sits forward, a spring painfully coiled. Then her expression slips into something angrier. Her reaction stirs more guilt than I could have expected. I should have walked away, like every other time our toes have gotten too close to the line.
“It wouldn't be right by Charlie,” I say. My voice sounds like there's something solid lodged against it. Feels that way, too.
She bolts upright to a stand, body trembling from her sudden temper. Her voice wavers when she says, “Charlie is dead. Your self-righteousness won't bring him back, so don't use his fucking name as your excuse.”
Excuse? Why argue, she won't see it any other way but hers. I heave a sigh and turn away.
She doesn't make a sound, but suddenly she's close enough to grab my upper arm and jerk me back around to face her. She's so close that I can feel her breath when she says, “And don't you dare walk away from me.”
The world tilts, whirls with my blood in my ears, and there's not a coherent thought to be had. All I know is that my fortitude – and five years of denial – is crumbling down like castle walls, like massive stones that create an earthquake as they hit the ground. All I know is the feeling of her face in my hands as I pull her to me.
This kiss is not the battle of wills the first was. This is a commanding parting of lips and reverence when I taste her tongue against mine – weed and beer and hot temper. Her hands find my waist inside my shirt, her fingers digging into my flesh, and she presses her body against mine.
I run my hands down, over her shoulders, sliding easily across the sweat on her skin. Then I take them lower, until her perfect ass is in my hands. I squeeze and lift her. Her legs wrap my waist, so trusting. As if I'd fail her now.
She's watching my face through half-lidded eyes, still searching me for something despite the euphoria. Does she see a stranger? Or has she always seen what I've tried to keep hidden?
I carry her the short distance to the table, lay her back on it. She keeps her legs around me, like maybe she thinks I'll bolt again. That's fair. She has no idea what she's set into motion.
My hands are all over her, running over her curves and planes, until I'm pushing her tank top over her head. I slip a hand under her and snap open her black lace bra. She doesn't wait for me to pull the straps over her shoulders. She does it for me, flinging the thing to the side without pause.
She knows exactly what she's doing, knows that once she has freed those gorgeous tits, my hands can't resist. The whole of me can no longer resist. I take both breasts in my hands, squeeze and roll her nipples between my fingers. She whimpers, arches again.
I burn a hot trail down her throat with my tongue. She sighs, long and slow, and her hands shove the shirt off my shoulders. It hangs at my elbows, but I won't let go of her perfect breasts to let it fall. Her fingernails dig into my shoulder blades just as I circle my tongue around one nipple.
Her breath catches and she lifts one knee to gently massage my confined hard-on. It's torture. Surely she's counting on it, returning the ecstasy and agony. If she thinks I'll fuck her like a bitch in a bar bathroom, she's sorely wrong.
I suck her nipple, nip at it with my teeth, and tiny moans escape her. I glance at her face. Her eyes are closed now. Her hair has mostly escaped its captivity and is splayed around her head on the tabletop. I bite down again and slide my now-free hand down her side. She writhes a little, increases the pressure of her knee against my cock, just the slightest bit. She's trying to incite me.
But this is not her game.
I leave another burning trail to her other nipple and lavish it with the same attention. My other hand follows the first, and they meet at the button to her denim shorts. The fabric clings to her damp skin when I pull the shorts and underwear down together. They stand no chance against the sins I'm about to commit. She has to release her leg hold on me to let me strip her, and I have to pull away.
As I drop her clothes to the floor, I travel her naked body with my eyes. She's perfect, just as I knew she would be. No tattoos as memories, just a few scars, a testament to the shit she's survived. I realize she's watching me now, eyes cracked open.
She starts to sit up and reach toward my shorts. I stop her, my hands on her tits again, and push her back onto the table. Her eyes come to life, that same temper I saw earlier and I smirk. She chose this, she'll deal with the consequences.
I lean forward, tease her lips with my tongue, and I relinquish one breast to slip my hand between us. I run a light touch across her clit and she shudders. She whines into the kiss I claim. She's so wet.
I dip two fingers inside and hook them. Her voice breaks free in a half-surprised moan. I massage in tight circles, and she tenses around me. I bite down lightly on the side of her throat, just in time to taste the vibration of her voice. Her breaths are coming quicker.
I slide my thumb upward, parting the folds of her defenses, slicking my touch. Her clit is swollen, waiting – so close.
I bite just a little harder, as I make answering circles with my thumb. My fingers are on her two most sensitive pleasure points, and my tongue is on her pulse. I c
an feel the pleasure building in her, and the way she starts cussing in Spanish nearly breaks my composure. Sure, I could fuck her now, and it would be amazing, but there's something she needs to know – the difference between a man and a boy.
Again she clenches around my fingers and her body arches off the table. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and there's the best hitch in her brow. If she never understood it before, she knows now to appreciate the harmony of muscle tension. Her body is a live circuit of push and pull. She curls her fingers onto the edge of the table and cries out.
She comes all over my hand, and she keeps coming, because I maintain the rhythm inside of her and on her clit. The cries that leak from her are borne of pleasure and the utmost pain. The escape she's constantly searching for is here within my grasp. I push her until her voice cracks, a near sob.
She's heaving for breath as I pull my fingers out of her and sweating, and I can no longer take it. So I shove off the rest of my clothes.
Her cheeks are tinged red. Her mouth is partially open. I pull her body to me with a firm grip on her hips and bury myself in her. She's so tight and wet, and I can only grunt as I begin to buck into her. She cries out hoarsely and I join her.
The heat, the impending mayhem, the competition – everything ceases to matter within the perfection of her. Soon she's answering my thrusts with her own and our bodies are pounding together. She's riding the line of another orgasm, I can tell by the way her muscles go hard. Her fingers are bruising on my lower back as she pulls us together repeatedly.
I fuck her until her voice is just a shell, until I can feel the evidence of her pleasure running down my legs – until the whole world falls away. Cosmic wrong or right no longer matters, the past no longer matters. There's no guarantee of anything from here and I don't even fucking care. I could stay here, in this moment, for eternity. Fuck Gram, and Josh, Freddy, Abuela, anyone and everyone who isn't this.
I fuck her until I can't stop the welling release, with all the rage and grace I've managed to repress until now. She's screaming when I lose it, when I pull back and come on her already-dripping pussy.
My energy fails, as I stumble back a few steps. For a stretch, I just stare as she slows her breathing, eyes still closed. I consider walking away, but my old faithful method of dealing with shit has failed me enough today.
Instead, I amble over to grab my smokes off the table. I lip one, light it and, finally, she opens her eyes. She props herself on her elbows, not the least bit modest in the wake of our sex. Her eyes slip to the cigarette in my hand, then back to my eyes.
I huff through my nose and hand over the smoke. She makes a one-sided smirk and accepts. I retrieve another, light it, and inhale. My throat's so dry I'm sure my tongue will split open. The only thing close is my beer. It's not a good remedy, but it'll do, so I swipe it off the table and take a swig.
Maria sits up and back and pulls her legs up so that her heels are perched on the table's edge. She takes a hit off her cigarette, staring blankly at the room. She wraps one arm around her legs and swivels her eyes toward me.
She says, “It's always been your choice if you want to leave. But if you really want to, please, do it before this shit with Gram goes down. There's no good reason for you to die. This isn't your fight.”
Instinct says to argue, but my drowsy thoughts question it. She's right, in a way. She said it herself. Charlie is dead. No actions will bring him back, nothing in the whole world can. How is dying in his name honoring him? But, then, what is she doing? She's not avenging him anymore, she's seeing to the future, and she's playing innocent with me, this shrewd and ruthless bitch. Charlie would be proud.
I hold her gaze, let her project that mask, and take a drag off my cigarette. She is at least patient as she waits for my response. She won't rush her next move. She won't have one.
“Bullshit,” I say, scooping my clothes off the floor and turning toward the stairs to go take a shower. I pause just before leaving her and add without looking back, “The debt was mine, too. You know damn well this is my fight.”
Chapter 25 Picket Fence
Maria
Dawn has just broken. I'm watching the sun's brilliant ascent spread across the sky in pinks and purples. I sip at a mug of steaming coffee. This time of morning is the only time I can stand coffee, before the humidity rises for the day. Swamp bugs are waking and the workers are beginning their tasks.
Izzy is still asleep upstairs, or if he's awake he hasn't come downstairs yet. He's barely spoken to me since he turned his back on me after his loss of control yesterday. He's all but avoided me. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. That's the way he deals with everything, by avoiding it.
His kiss has been heavy on my mind, though, and the fire in his hands. I've always known there was a more primal side to him, a side he didn't want to show me. Why he didn't want to show me, that's what I never could figure out. Try as he might to pretend I'm just a girl, I'm not naïve enough to believe he is in love with me, or that he'd be my white picket fence and two and a half kids. Neither of us wants that shit, but we are adults who have been mutually curious for quite some time. Sexual attraction is just science, right?
The anger that rose in him was intoxicating, to see him finally stop evading and step up. The fight he put up was epic, but it just stoked the flames higher, made the fall sweeter.
The sound of a car rumbling along the dirt driveway perks my attention. I listen for a moment of anticipation. That's not the sound of Abuela's fancy new Caddy. No, that's my car. Frederick.
Nerves and relief blossom in my chest. Relief because he's alive and nerves for the information he brings back to me. I stand, leave my coffee mostly untouched and walk around to the front of the house in time to watch the dirt-coated car roll to a stop. The door swings open and Frederick steps into the morning like a movie villain, dark hair tousled from the drive, shades covering his eyes. His black button-up flutters in a lazy breeze, and his pale skin is covered in a sheen of sweat.
He hesitates when he sees me, hand on the car door. That's when I see it, an ugly purple bruise peeking from beneath the left lens of his glasses. My shock must show on my face, because he curses as he slams the door closed.
I meet him at the bottom of the stairs, invade his space before he can protest. I gently pull the glasses from his face and eyeball the shiner. He pulls away from my touch, catches my hands in his to stop my inspection. For a moment, we just stare at each other, questions heavy on the silence.
“I'm fine,” he says, as soft as the rising morning.
Our faces are only inches apart and I search his gaze for some truth. I can see the plea there in his gray eyes for me to leave it be. But now is not the time to dodge me. Surely he can see that I don't quite believe him when he says he's fine.
“I promise, I'm OK,” he says, squeezing my hands in his.
My brow furrows anyway, but I step back, pull away from him. What a strange reversal of roles. Usually he's the one withdrawing from physical contact and I'm the one soothing him. I turn away toward the house and say, “What happened?”
He lets me have my retreat, stays where he is. There's a sadness in his gaze this morning, something I didn't expect and don't know if I can handle.
“Just a little something I had coming,” he says to my back. His tone is some strange blend of bittersweet. A few beats later, he adds, “Call it an old debt.”
Guilt won't do much good now, but the pangs of it wrack my chest anyway. He's wearing that bruise because he accepted this mission from me. I bite down on it, take a lesson from his book and bury it.
“And what did you find out?” I ask.
I hear the sounds of movement, his shoes on the dirt, his shirt as it brushes my arm. He rounds me and faces me, blocking my way to the stairs. He's close enough that I can smell him, sweat and men's bath products. For a moment, I think he's going to touch me again, or lean into me, he's so close. But he just catches my eyes with his and hold
s them.
“Where is everyone?” he asks.
Everyone?
“Izzy's still asleep,” I say with a frown.
“And Abuela?”
“She's gone. Didn't come back last night. I guess she has some business.”
He stares for another stretch, then flicks his chin at the house.
“Let's go inside.”
He turns and I follow him up the stairs. The sun is already hot on my back.
He leads the way into the kitchen, grabs two coffee mugs from the cabinet, and pours them. I neglect to mention the cup I left abandoned on the back porch. Instead I'm intrigued by his measured movements, the way he won't rush the moment. He spoons sugar into the cups and he doesn't look at me as he snatches the milk from the fridge with precise grace.
He knows he's got my attention and he knows I'm watching, waiting for him. He passes me a mug and leans back against the counter. He stares down at the creamy liquid for a long time, his expression downturned.
I take a scalding sip. Pushing him won't do. Anxiety spreads like a rash through my insides. Still, he won't look at me.
“About three months ago, Gram lost his deal with his biggest supplier, which nearly stalled him dry. He re-formed ties with Derrik in order to secure another source, something I would have known if we had still been here, instead of out in the bumfuck country.”
His voice is quiet, but his eyes fire. He hasn't sipped his coffee, but it seems to be a good anchor for his hands. He continues.
“Word is that those connections kept the Reaps afloat, but they still took a big hit. Turns out Gram's supplier went through a division of Abuela's operation. When she found out, she put it to a stop. A couple weeks ago, Gram found out that she's the reason his man cut him off.”
Now, finally, Frederick looks me in the eye. Suddenly I'm paralyzed. My head becomes a rush of buzzing. The coffee shakes in my hand, spilling some down my hand. I don't even feel it. My stomach turns. For a moment I believe I'm going to puke in the sink beside me. Tears threaten to rise, but a slow rage forces them down.