by Kira Blakely
Ace flicked the ball of paper over his shoulder, where it landed and skittered away somewhere behind his desk. He grinned sheepishly, privately proud of himself in this moment.
“Oh, my god!” I gasped, bouncing toward him and throwing my arms around his neck. I continued to jump up and down without thinking about how my breasts were pressed up against his chest, grinding with my every bounce. All I could think about was how my heat coil had been replaced for free, how I would be able to afford groceries all winter now. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Ace said, lifting his hands to grip my forearms and pry them from around his neck. He forced my embrace off him, but my breasts were still against him. My head spun until I recognized the sensation of an erection slowly blooming against my thigh. Then I took a step back and returned to my senses. In spite of the softness in his face, his brow was hard. “You’re welcome,” Ace croaked.
“You don’t know how much this means to me,” I went on. “There’s got to be some way I can repay you.” Yes, in the context of the erection, that sounded bad. But I really meant it. I wanted to repay him.
A smile cracked the corner of Ace’s lip, but he wouldn’t look directly at me. “I know exactly how much this means to you,” he reminded me. “Now get out of here before I change my mind.”
I closed the space between us and wrapped my arms around his neck one more time, no longer wild and mindless. Controlled and purposeful. “Thank you,” I said again, a soulful whisper against his neck. I could still feel his hard length pulsing on my thigh. The irrational urge to roll my tongue along his skin occurred to me, but I pulled my mouth away before I did something crazy.
“You’re welcome,” Ace said again. He swallowed and I stood on the tips of my toes to drop a light, innocent kiss onto his cheek.
He exhaled with a shudder as we separated. “Don’t do that again,” he advised somberly. I barely registered that his hands had come up to encircle my upper arms when I kissed him.
“You’re right,” I said, eyelashes fluttering open again. Had I just sexually assaulted him? “I just—”
His rough palms suddenly went gentle as they traveled up my arms to crest my shoulders. He tucked his thumbs into my parka, smoothing it off my shoulders. His gray-green eyes glued to me, reading all the signs, searching for one that said stop. I stared back at him like I was on drugs. My nipples pulled taut and blood crept up into my cheeks. My heart pounded in my fingertips and in my lips. “Tell me to stop,” his voice grated against my earlobe, half-pleading. But I couldn’t do it. I let out a soft moan instead.
My jacket hit the floor and one of my hands snaked into his hair with a mind of its own. My breasts and my pussy felt like they were shimmering to life. His mouth crashed over mine and all the gentility of the moment shattered and fell. I whimpered as he pawed at my ass, hauled me into the air, and twisted to slam me down on his desk. I shook with the certainty of what would happen next, but I still couldn’t say no. He gripped my blouse and tore it open, sending buttons everywhere, exposing my fleshy breasts restrained in a satin bra.
“Michelle,” Ace breathed in a low growl. He blinked slowly, like I’d drugged him, too. “Get out of here.”
“But I don’t have a shirt now,” I said.
Ace sidled closer and scooped his hands inside each velvet cup, his thumbs grating over my nipples. I spilled out into his hands, and he closed his eyes and breathed, “You can borrow mine.”
His hard-on threatened to split the gray overalls sagged around his hips, and I bit down on my lower lip as I stretched my fingers to him, blinking up at him hopefully from behind my glasses. Ace’s eyes opened just in time to see my fingers drifting tentatively toward his manhood.
“Don’t—” Too late. I rubbed over the fabric of his pants, entranced by how detailed he was, even still fully clothed. He rumbled, “Fuck,” and reached behind my head, gripping my messy bun and yanking its elastic free. All the waves fell down around my shoulders as Ace called out, “Go home, Amy!” His eyes never left me. They traced over my body like I was a centerfold in a dirty magazine, and he dropped to his knees, splitting my thighs apart.
I stiffened like I was going to tell him to stop but I knew I wasn’t. I couldn’t.
Ace’s hard hands slid up into my skirt, bending around my wool stockings and stripping them off. My sneakers thudded to the floor next.
In this quiet moment, I felt the urge to defend myself. “I’m not this kind of girl,” I assured him.
“I’m not this kind of guy,” Ace said as he buried himself in my skirt. I felt a hot mouth against my panties, felt teeth ensnare the crotch and tug it away. My heart hammered and the room spun. Was this really happening? Was I really about to do this? With some guy named Ace, of all—
But then his tongue slathered over my clitoris and every thought in my head spun out of reach. My skirt shoved inch by inch up to my hips and I fell back onto the desk, my head lolling over its ledge. I closed my eyes and let him tongue me as hard as he could. I trembled with the certainty that a complete stranger was going to feel me come all over his face. I’m really not this kind of girl. I just... You... You...
His tongue vanished and the sensation against my clit changed into something hard and soft at the same time, thick and piping hot. My eyelashes flew apart, and I lifted my head to look down. The bare flesh of his gorgeous cock pressed to my clitoris, toying over it, up and down, up and down, up and down, like he was desperate to win some video game and all he had to do was hammer the right button.
Orgasm boiled over inside me. I loved just seeing his cock, as long and hard and round as a fucking scepter. I couldn’t believe that I was doing this and I didn’t have the integrity to stop. I wasn’t so clean. Maybe I was this kind of girl all along.
Ace’s prick slid down a crucial inch and found my hole soaking wet and primed for him. It would be a challenge to not slide instantly inside me, and I couldn’t stop him. I didn’t have the moral strength or the situational wherewithal. I shuddered and moaned and he filled me completely, blasting me into another dimension. My back arched, my neck craned, and my mouth opened wide in ecstasy. His skin singed mine where we touched, and he became so fevered inside me.
“Oh, fuck,” Ace breathed, slamming into me with animal abandon. I clung to him and came explosively, pussy walls shuddering and squeezing on his member, twisting around him like the grip of a python. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” he grumbled, thrusting faster. My back arched off the desktop, and I failed to absorb the sound of my skirt ripping higher. “I’m going to come,” he warned me, breathless. “Tell me to stop...”
But I couldn’t do it.
My mother always said I snap under pressure.
Chapter One
Andrew
There’s nothing more relaxing than a straight shot down Richmond Avenue on a balmy night in May sometime around 2 a.m. Everyone is long asleep, everything is closed, but there are as many streetlights as stars in the sky and you can blast Creed as loud as you want. Nobody’s awake to judge you for it.
But my urban Zen was cut short by a string of brake lights lining the hill and disappearing into the horizon.
“Ah, shit,” I grumbled, tapping the brakes. I had been looking forward to my bed. I’m not ashamed to say it. In fact, I’m oddly proud of the crotchety old man I’m doomed to become. I’m only thirty-two, and I can already feel the reverb from a long night for the rest of the week.
I came to a full stop as each car inched forward, slower than the last.
Local cops waved their flashlights through windows a few cars away from me, collecting identification and insurance, then waving them onward.
Great. A checkpoint.
I tapped the brakes and flicked my radio a few degrees louder. I hate to admit this, but there’s this deep part of me that gets satisfied when I listen to constipation rock from the nineties—all the Cinder and Hinder and Seether and Heether. All of it.
&n
bsp; Ugh. I rolled my eyes when I saw the douchebag on the other side of the flashlight now panning toward my windshield.
Chet Browntooth.
I’m not lying. That was seriously his last name. Browntooth.
Chet and I went way back, all the way to Stonington, the Pelham elementary school. Stonington means “stoning town,” which I found to be appropriate. We also went through middle and high school together, and, hell, we failed to attend college together, too.
Chet turned me in for swearing when we were in the fourth grade. Can you believe that shit?
When we were freshmen, it was for smoking behind the school.
He hated me, and I hated him. An elementary hatred born from our cores. We hated each other without needing to know anything about anything, the distant and ideological rivalry between leather jackets and letterman jackets. I loved how every girlfriend he ever had loudly accused him of being a clingy, dickless psychopath, and he loved sending me to juvenile hall for six fucking months senior year.
But his days of busting me were long over. I hadn’t broken the law since that bullshit grand theft auto charge. I stole his car and parked it in the middle of the rival school’s football field. I pranked the quarterback from my own school. That was how much I hated Chet Browntooth.
I hadn’t had a single exchange with Chet for the past several years, and that was the way I liked it. We were probably both better men if the other stayed out of our universe.
Ah, fantastic. I was up.
I turned off Blue October and rolled the window down. “Evening, Deputy Browntooth,” I greeted Chet knowingly. He felt safe and snug behind that uniform, but he and I both knew the truth. He told the truth again every time we made eye contact. His brown eyes were beady little turds.
“Hey there, grease monkey,” he retorted. “Out at Baja’s tonight?”
Baja’s was the most boring, conventional bar in town. Always filled with girls who couldn’t rub two brain cells together, and a halo of sweaty, hopeful men waving their dicks around like cavemen with clubs. I’d been choosing to avoid the rigmarole and Netflix and chill by myself for the past three years.
Holy shit, or was it five years? What year was this?
“Out at Lola’s, actually,” I answered. “Just as much drinking and annoying-me per capita, though.”
“Ah, drinking with the ex. That’s nice. You and Lola always were a better couple than you and no one.”
I smirked. “I suppose I should try to convince the entire female population of Pelham like you did.”
“Good luck with that. Hey, you going to Grant’s wedding? He’s locking down that dark girl with the tits, ain’t he?”
I smirked. “Yeah, man. Her name is Lisa. And she’s Dominican.” Not only was she one of my oldest friends, but so was Grant. In high school, we’d been in the same clique of pouty punk kids. The thought that I wouldn’t attend their wedding was laughable and perplexing. “Don’t go to that wedding calling her the dark girl, ‘kay?”
“I’ll probably head over that way,” Chet volunteered, feeling for something between his teeth with his tongue. “So, how much did y’all get to drinking tonight?”
“Wasn’t drinking, Deputy Browntooth. While I’m clarifying the obvious, Lola and I are not back together. I was just there to visit with Connie until she got home.”
“Ahhh. You mean you were babysitting. I’m familiar with the term, Ace, no need to dress it up for me.”
“I’m not a babysitter,” I seethed. “Connie is my daughter.”
“All right, Ace, stay calm now,” Chet chuckled. “We could argue about the definition of the word ‘daughter’ all night if we wanted to.”
“You don’t think she’s got my genes?”
Chet snorted. “She don’t look just a little bit like Mike Shemp?”
“What?”
“I said sure.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“All right, Ace. All right. How about you move along? If you weren’t sober before, you sure as hell are now, ain’t ya?”
“You can tell me what the fuck ‘sure’ is supposed to mean, Browntooth.”
Chet’s countenance changed, stiffening. “I’ll tell you what ‘spread ‘em means, how about.”
I cocked my head to one side. “Are you threatening me or hitting on me?”
“I’m ordering you to get out of the vehicle.”
“For what?”
“For obstruction of justice, asswipe.”
I was in the middle of saying, “Are you serious?” when Chet pulled the door open and grabbed a fistful of my shirt, dragging me out of my seat. I instinctively yanked away from him, and he took obvious relish in clocking me with his elbow—once, twice—and driving my chest down onto the car.
I still could have driven my head back into his, but I knew what was happening here now. It had taken me a minute to realize this bullshit was real.
Face pressed into my hood, I glared into the row of headlights still behind me. Great. All of Pelham had a front row seat.
“You’re preventing me from assessing the checkpoint,” Chet declared. “And now? You’re resisting arrest, grease monkey.” He read the Miranda rights as handcuffs tightened around my wrists.
I took advantage of my right to remain silent as I was led away to his cruiser.
* * *
“Of course she’s your real daughter,” Lola Haynes reassured me two days later, pushing her pedicured feet into red strappy sandals. Connie was in the backyard, swimming laps in the pool. I didn’t want to have this conversation in front of her. “She looks just like you.”
“No,” I corrected her, “she looks just like you. Not that I would wish this jawbone on anybody.”
“Oh, my god, Ace.” Lola rolled her eyes and made a dramatic show of slumping forward, her bleached blond hair falling into her face, then sitting up straight and flipping it back. She wore a strapless sundress and cherry lip gloss, ready to run the gauntlet with some random Tinder match yet again. I didn’t get it, but then again, I’d never really gotten Lola. Our casual status turned serious solely because she got pregnant early on—and I hung in there as long as I possibly could.
“When have you ever let Chet bring you down?” Lola pointed out.
“Never.” I hated to admit when Lola had a point, but this time, Chet’s barb rang true. I knew Lola could lie like a professional actress if it suited her needs; that was how my dumb ass stayed with her for three whole years, trusting every “work conference” and every “family reunion” she supposedly had. I shook my head to clear the web of her deception from my brain. “But you and I both know I wasn’t the only man in your life when you got pregnant with her, Lo. Chet mentioned something about that fucking stump, Shemp.”
Lola sucked in her cheeks and pouted her lips, a duck-faced expression she often made when she was under pressure. If she was bluffing, this was her tell. I never mentioned that to her.
“Look, Lo... I want a paternity test.”
“Oh, come on!” Lola cried, throwing her hands up and standing from the couch, striding into the kitchen. Was she trying to avoid me? Did she feel guilty? “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
“Come on yourself,” I sneered, thanking God that we weren’t together for the millionth time in the past five years. I followed her into the kitchen and she busied herself with pouring a cup of water at the sink. “You’d understand if it was possible that Connie might not be yours.”
“And don’t you know how traumatic that would be for Connie?” Lola dumped the water out of the cup and absently scrubbed at it with a rag from the sink. “How am I supposed to tell her that her dad might not be her dad?”
“Lola.” I kept my voice measured and calm. “All you need to do is pluck a hair from her brush. That’s all. Please don’t tell her we’re doing this.”
“We’re not doing this!” Lola cried, throwing her cup into the sink and running the faucet over it. “I’m not giving Connie
a goddamn paternity test!” She pulled the same cup from the sink and began scrubbing at it again.
“Yes, you are!” I grabbed the cup out of Lola’s hands and pitched it into the sink. She was going to look at me, damn it.
“No, I’m not!”
“Why?”
“Because!” Lola huffed out a breath and wrenched free from me, bracing a hand on the sink and her other hand on her hip. She shook her head and fixed her gaze on her French-tipped toenails. “Because she’s not,” the whispered answer finally came struggling out.
In that instant, my breath whooshed out of my lungs and the floor disappeared beneath my feet. I felt every cell in my body deflate, flatten and drain completely. My daughter wasn’t my daughter. Connie wasn’t my daughter. I was the one who mopped her spit-up from her chin. I was the one who scooped her up when her bicycle toppled sideways in the driveway. But she wasn’t my flesh and blood. She wasn’t my DNA. She never had been.
The birth certificate was a lie. The past eight years were a lie.
“What?” I said, even though I knew exactly what she had said. It sounded so faint and impossible to my ears. Maybe I was just having a stroke. “What did you just say?”
Lola’s shoulders rounded, and she shook her head. “She’s not your daughter.” Lola twisted to face me, eyes shimmering with tears. That shit meant nothing to me now. “I—Mike Shemp is a fucking stump, you’re right,” she rushed to explain herself.
My hands clenched into fists, and I told myself that I would never hit a woman. I told myself those words again and again, boiling where I stood.
“I couldn’t—couldn’t let that guy be a part of my life forever!” Lola pressed her hand to her forehead and pursed her lips, gazing at me with such thick self-pity. This bitch was a one-woman show. I had to give her that much. Never a dull moment... if it was a show that you wanted to actually watch. “And you were so nice,” she finished weakly.