by Eden Butler
Girlfriend? Modi. Of course he had a girlfriend. Someone as big and good-looking and sweet as him? What else could I have expected? Still, my heart plunged into my stomach.
But, I managed to hide my disappointment well, brushing past it by stepping up on the stairs. “Whatever it takes, I guess. Thank you though, I really do appreciate it.”
Again Ransom looked around and scowled. “I still worry about you being around here on your own.” He looked up at me. “Don’t forget about the dead bolt and make sure the windows are locked too.” I laughed and Ransom shook his head. “Sorry. It’s not my business, but I can’t seem to help myself.”
“I’ll take care of it, don’t worry,” I told him walking backward up two steps before I turned away from him.
“Um, okay. If you’re sure.” I was almost to the top before he called after me. “I forgot, I can’t get the bed for you until tomorrow. Is it okay if I drop by then?”
I didn’t understand why my heart fluttered a little when he asked that. He’d offered the second-hand bed set that morning and I thought that once he’d delivered it, I’d likely not see him around much. But him coming back, well. That had my hopes higher than they had any business being. Ransom was still in high school. He was a full year younger than me. He was my boss’s cousin and he had a girlfriend. He was just being nice, I knew that.
“Sure. I’ll be around,” I told him, waving him off before I went into my apartment. But as I went inside and moved to the window overlooking the parking lot, I couldn’t make the smile leave my face or keep my heart from racing as I thought of seeing him again.
He’d rescued me when no one ever had before and all I’d thought about watching him pull his Mustang out into the street, was how the hell I’d ever be able to return the favor.
I wouldn’t. Not until over a year later. And when I did, it would change us both. Forever.
1
September, 2015
Shadows have weight. They reach and cover, they devour. Sometimes they seem insurmountable, all consuming. Every failure, every struggle, allows them to grow.
I was covered in shadows. I wore them like a grungy, dirty coat.
But that night, after our third straight win, I didn’t let the shadows overtake me and the only thing devouring me was the hot steam of shower water. It was the day, the worry that I’d fail, the relief that I hadn’t and the overwhelming reality of the clusterfuck my life was turning out to be that had me wanting to never leave that spray.
The hot water hadn’t taken the headache from my skull or lessened the constant bump of the bass line downstairs. Fuck, how I hated being forced to listen to Chris Brown.
After the game and telling my parents I just wanted to decompress at the team house, I’d managed to get away from Ronnie Blanchard and the bullshit music he liked to play by leaving the party. Nearly a month into my first college football season and I’d already learned one thing about Claiborne-Prosper University: these assholes considered partying a God-given right. But then, this was New Orleans. Partying was sort of an expectation.
The bathroom was small, with barely enough room for my big body and a full tub and shower and the hot water fogged up the mirror, filtered the air with heat so thick I hastily wrapped one towel around my waist and grabbed another one for my face, and swung the door open before even attempting to dry off. It didn’t matter. No one would see my naked ass in this room. It was mine, private—large enough for a queen-sized bed, oak dresser and desk—just one of the perks of having a high ACT score and a coaching staff that hoped I’d play as well as my father had when he was on the defensive line. Didn’t hurt that my father was now coaching that defensive line.
My dad’s shadow was massive, just like him, just like I was going to be someday. He was not an easy man to follow. His athletic records, his successes were overwhelming achievements fueled by the fear of loss, by desperate ambition. He’d struggled. He’d lost some big damn battles and somehow those hurdles urged him on, made him want more, need more. He’d told me once, “If you’ve ever been hungry, you’ll never be full.” That didn’t come from him. My father isn’t a philosopher. What he is, what added weight to that shadow of his, was accomplishment, gratification and the seemingly impossible reality of real, all-consuming, uncontrollable love.
Something I couldn’t have. Not again. That shit doesn’t come twice in one lifetime.
I left the bathroom, scrubbing the hand towel over my face to be rid of the internal bullshit whining, ready for a long sleep on my big bed, but stopped short, dropping the hand towel to the floor. “Private room” didn’t always equal privacy, a fact that became abundantly clear when I found a pretty girl I didn’t know sitting on the edge of my bed.
Why do they always send me the redheads?
I knew why. I always knew why, but wouldn’t think about it. Not Emily. Not now. It was pointless anyway.
The girl on the bed had really red hair, more auburn than orange, and it fell past her elbows with a wind-tossed vibe working through the strands. Her eyes were dark, like the color of wet sand that glinted against the street light beyond my window. She looked scared, like seeing me in nothing but a towel with water dotted over my shoulders and chest was some sort of threat to her. Hell, she was in my room and I still got that don’t hurt me vibe from her.
But I never could take a nervous woman; couldn’t stand to be the reason for making anyone uncomfortable, so I pushed aside that little flicker of irritation in my brain and tilted my head, hoping the smile I gave her came off as genuine. “You lost, sweetheart?”
“No.” That answer was barely a squeak and figuring she might be more relaxed if I wasn’t naked, I moved to my dresser to fish out a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. Her voice came out louder, clearer as she moved from the bed. “They said…well, that Trent guy said you might…want to…” She stopped her explanation as a low grunt moved from my throat.
Trent Damn Marshall. That prick was always tossing girls in my room, knowing I wouldn’t be a bastard to them. “He trying to hook up with a friend of yours?” I watched the girl in the mirror over my dresser, tried to pull up my boxers without dropping the towel. But, shit, maybe I should scare her off. She didn’t even look legal.
“How did you know?” Tone light, distracted, her gaze lowered, following the towel as I dropped it. It wasn’t something that surprised me. Girls watched. They liked to pretend they didn’t, but they always watched. I turned to face her and the redhead jerked her attention back to me. “Um. He said I was your type.”
“Did he now?”
The shy, fluttering eyes killed me. You don’t see that often—a girl so nervous, so shy, one that tries to hide honest pleasure behind lowered eyes. Most girls I’m around on a daily basis are all swagger and style, confident women who take what they want and don’t apologize for it. That’s not a bad thing, in fact, women like that generally hold my attention. But sometimes it’s the shy, awkward ones that keep it.
Red was too damn pretty, nice curves, long legs, and skin she’d be grateful for when she was older. If it wasn’t for those curves, the roundness of her tits, I’d say she was maybe seventeen. I really hoped she wasn’t.
That flush against her pale skin grew the longer she raked her gaze over my body and I felt annoyance creeping in. She only nodded in response, played with the hem of her skirt as though she needed to keep her hands to herself.
“He said…” She finally started speaking, deciding, I guessed, that rubbing that small charm from her necklace against her lips would distract me and give her time to snap some sort of sense back into her pretty head. “He said that you…”
Those splotches on her cheeks darkened, telling me her nerves were totally shot. “Hey.” I stepped in front of her, making her look up at me. “You okay?” I doubted the nod she gave me. It was all bravado. Someone must have laid it on heavy and thick and this girl seemed eager to see if the rumors about me were true. I wasn’t immune to a pretty smile, but God knows I d
idn’t deserve this kind of attention. If any of them knew me, the real me, how damaged, how twisted I could be, not one of them would come tapping on my door.
The only thing you will ever give anyone in this life is heartache.
I should get that tattooed on my forehead. It had been an insult that I took like medicine, an insult that I tried to prove wrong every time some random girl came around me wanting a taste. Maybe I wouldn’t get anything out of it, but at least I could give them what they asked for. Couldn’t I?
When the girl moved her head down, looped her silver chain around her finger, I rubbed my eyes. “Are you even legal?” No matter what, I wasn’t going to jail for any damn body.
This time when she nodded, I believed her. “I made eighteen last month.”
“I’m not trying to get arrested.”
“I can show you my I.D.”
There was always a moment when they came to me, when I hesitated, waiting for them to realize I was not worthy. Of anything. For them to realize they could say no, that they could back away from me and I wouldn’t try to convince them to stay.
I always waited for the brakes, but all I ever got was a green light.
I didn’t think about what I’d get out of her being here. I never did anymore, because it really didn’t matter, but it always blew my mind when girls hit on me, when they begged to be with me like I was some sort of big Hawaiian rock star and not the dumbass jock I knew I was.
She watched as I tugged on my shirt, ran the towel through my damp hair and gave her a second to change her mind.
“I heard things…” she started, her voice following me as I sat on the desk next to the door. She seemed more relaxed now, more curious than nervous.
“I bet you did.” Those rumors had inflated my reputation to stupid proportions. I wasn’t the whore of CPU. I didn’t fuck anything that offered it to me. That much, at least was all bullshit. But yeah, I touched. I serviced and girls, I guess, talked just as much as guys did. Maybe more. Word got around, some of it ridiculous, along the “Poor, broken Ransom” variety. Some were spot on. “He won’t let you touch him.”
No. I wouldn’t. No one touched me. Not ever.
“The thing is, I didn’t believe them.” The shrug was cute, a little self-effacing but I didn’t think it was an act. This girl was genuinely curious. “I just wanted to know if it was true.”
She watched me close, eyes sharp, focused as I nodded, but didn’t ask for any explanations. She only stared back at me as I assessed, wondered if she wanted what they all did. Hoping she didn’t. Knowing she did.
My lips felt thick and chapped as I licked them and I caught how Red straightened her shoulders when I stood in front of her, attempting to keep my tone light, curious. “You wanna know if I can make you come?” That shy, embarrassed downward cast of her eyes returned and just then I didn’t care why she was in my room. The innocent, sweet bit wore me down. “Has anyone ever done that to you?”
“No.” Red pushed her hair off her shoulder, looked at her feet and when she spoke, I had to twist my head down to hear her. “Not really.”
“Alright.” She took my hand when I offered it and glanced up at my face like she wanted to make sure I wasn’t messing with her.
“My name is…”
“No.” She didn’t recoil or step back when I dropped her hand. “I can’t know it.”
“So. It’s true then?”
“Is what true?” There was a little challenge in my tone, something there that dared her to get in my business, but she didn’t. Red only nodded, took to biting on that chain again and I felt like an asshole, like I’d just deflated whatever bullshit ideas she’d had about me.
Her skin felt like satin, pale and soft and fine to the touch when I brushed my fingers over her face and there was a faint hint of cinnamon from her breath and the sweet scent of lilac in her hair. Sensory overload had once been my downfall. I liked all mine engaged, the sights and sounds and smells that women put out. It had always been that way until…well, the accident.
Back then my anger, the temper I tried to keep on check fired quick and steady. Now the shame and guilt replaced that rage and I took it down within myself, feeling every prickle, every inch of hurt I deserved. But there was another side effect. One I couldn’t be rid of. Now it didn’t matter how good a woman smelled, how sweet her skin was, my body would not react. It would ignore everything inside me, all those natural urges that every eighteen year old guy has to feel and touch. Pushed back, ignored, whatever it was, I was immune. Even if I wanted this woman, wanted all of her, my body wouldn’t listen.
My mom said it was psychosomatic. My dad was horrified that I’d even told them about this little problem. But when my mom meddles, she puts the CIA to shame. That conversation ended with my parents yammering about seeing a doctor and me feeling like some kind of flaccid joke.
The doctor agreed. Offered me meds. Jackass.
Red’s warm breath against my wrist when she kissed me there forced me to pull away from her, to take control, to tell myself not to forget that I didn’t deserve pleasure, not after what I’d done at sixteen.
“Lay on the bed and I’ll show you what I can do for you.” She wasn’t overly eager, didn’t shoot straight to the bed and I liked how cautious she was, how she kept her eyes up, straight at me as she climbed in the middle of my black sheets. She even lost her shoes, tucked her feet under and kept her hands on her lap, like she needed me directing her. I appreciated how perceptive she was, how she let me take the reins, but she sat with her back too stiff, with her shoulders too straight. That wouldn’t work. I needed her relaxed.
“You nervous?” She only nodded, her apparent go-to response, but I didn’t laugh at her, didn’t do much more than mimic her nod and sat in front of her with my thumb tracing across her knuckles. “Don’t be, sweetheart. I don’t bite.” Those thin fingers of hers shook under my touch and I slid closer, hoping my size, my width, didn’t scare her. It was damn hard making this body seem less threatening, but I always tried. “At least…I don’t bite hard.”
The little joke worked and Red gave me a smile, moving her shoulders down, then laying back against the pillow when I caught the back of her neck and led her there. “You ever touch yourself?”
“Sometimes. Well, not a lot.”
“You’ve never…”
“No. Not ever.”
A twist of my chin to let her know I understood and the feeling of sudden determination took over. I wanted to make this right, to make it perfect for her. Maybe this night would set the tone, lift the expectations of what she wanted. Maybe the way I touched her, taught her, would have Red expecting nothing but mind-blowing orgasms from anyone she would ever be with. I could not fuck this up.
“Can you unbutton your shirt?” She tried, her movements a little shaky, disjointed and I covered her trembling fingers with my hand. “Want me to help you?” Another nod and her throat worked as she swallowed, the small breaths moved past her open mouth as I slipped each button open. “Don’t be scared about this. If you are, it makes it more difficult.” The bra was pink with white lace covering the cups and I closed my eyes again wondering what would happen to my guilt if I let myself forget just this once.
A spattering of freckles speckled along her collarbone. So similar. Spotting each one, the first time I’d touched a girl, the first time I’d kissed skin this soft, came back to me. I had to squeeze my eyes tight, force out that first time, all the times after that one. And then the shame came back, the guilt and the odd voice in my head, the one that sounded so familiar, so bitter, haunting me like it always did. It had me even more determined to make this girl happy, to satisfy her.
She needs this. You don’t. Remember what you did.
That petty reminder always put me in my place. I gave pleasure. That was my lot in life, but didn’t deserve any for myself. A quick flash of memory, those violent, vicious images of Emily, of me, and I felt the dread, the burning pain filter through my
body, making me desperate to forget everything else. To simply, single-mindedly, do my job.
“I…I can make you feel good.” I doubted she heard my promise. Either of them.
The girl laying in front of me was still nervous, hands trembling, matching the quick shiver of my fingers, but I couldn’t stop her from worrying, from feeling whatever it was that had her shaking as I came closer, lowering those pink straps, running my tongue over the curves of her generous tits.
“You’re beautiful here, sugar.” She tasted like her lilac-smelling perfume. She was delicious and the sounds she made as I kissed up her neck, over her collarbone encouraged me. “And here…” I said, marveling at those perfectly round nipples I uncovered, smiling at the shocked, awed expression on her face when I grazed my thumbs over those peaks. “Pink and hard, and so damn sweet.” She moaned, the sound louder, breathless when I took one nipple between my thumb and forefinger. The sensations rose up then, her voice like a melody, those raspy intakes of breath heady, shooting straight to my chest, speeding my heart. “That feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah…yes.” And the rasp in her voice only caught, became breathless when I rolled the nipple with a little more pressure. “God I’m…”
I caught the signs, knew what she wanted, knew that she was scared, still nervous around me, but that she was ready to fall. She gripped her inner thigh, tugging on her loose skirt and I couldn’t help but grin, knowing she was just on the edge of having what she wanted. She was right there and I’d gladly see her off that cliff.
“Touch yourself if you need to.” Red’s quick glance, her widened eyes and the return of her blush pulled a small laugh from me. “You don’t need to worry about me, sweetheart. Nothing you do leaves this room. On my hon…” No. I couldn’t say that. I had no honor. Not anymore. I wanted it back, I wanted to earn it, but it wasn’t mine, not yet. “I promise.”
“I don’t know…how.”