“Mia, your tits are beautiful,” he growls. Tax runs the tip of his tongue along a nipple then bites and tugs harshly with his teeth. I yelp as he follows up by sucking on it, like he’s nursing away the pain. “Fuck me, Mia,” he commands. “Hard. Dirty. I know how you like it.”
Tax’s eyes return to mine and he leans back, holding my waist, watching me as I ride him. I explore this new territory, running my fingers along his chest, his shoulders, his ripped abs. His breathing becomes harsh, the pain in his eyes battles to surface. He grabs my hands forcefully, and crosses them behind my back. His tone becomes serious, as if he is growing impatient. “Mia, I said fuck me.”
This man who is so terrifying in and of himself, is petrified of intimacy. Anytime I get close, he bites.
He sits up, biting the flesh of my breasts, clenching my wrists angrily. I throw my head back, relishing in his control. “Mia, don’t fucking test me. I’m still me. I will hurt you.”
Something about his threat turns me wild. Even still, face to face, finally naked and exposed, he won’t let me have all of him. Like a wild animal that has been tied down, I resist his grip in rebellion. It only makes him use another fraction of his strength to restrain me. I am hopeless in Tax’s arms. He clutches both of my wrists in one of his large hands, the force of his grip bites into my flesh.
With the other hand, he slaps my ass so hard I wrangle against him. “Mia, fuck me. Show me who you are.” I bounce up and down on his cock, growling in erotic pain from the depths he reaches. He spanks me again with no restraint. The spot where his hand lands pulsates with fire. “I know you want this. You like it when I hurt you.” Another slap, so hard, I growl uncharacteristically.
“Fuck you!” I shout at him as I bounce ferociously on his dick. My breasts bounce up and down recklessly, and he slaps one hard. “Fuck!” I cry out.
“There you go. My good little slut.”
I rise and rise, again going to a height where only Tax can lift me.
Tax grips my face, kissing me so hard I taste blood.
He rises up to his feet, still inside of me. His show of strength brings out a beast, and I bite his neck fiercely. He slams me down on a table, knocking over decorative vases. The clash of porcelain against tile makes me choke with excitement.
“You crazy bitch,” he says with a smirk. “You wanna fuck like animals? I’ll fuck you like an animal. You’ll howl like a motherfucking animal.”
He brings my legs up on his shoulders and leans forward, elevating my hips off the table. Using that leverage, he rubs his cock inside of me, and it only takes a few thrusts before I am howling as I grip the table. As I reach the apex of my orgasm, Tax pulls out and slams into me over and over adding pain to the incomprehensible pleasure as I let out sounds no human woman should make.
“Fucking shit...” Tax says, digging his fingers into the front of my thighs. He beats my pussy with his cock and shoots his warm cum inside of me, snarling like a savage beast.
Fiona Apple – I Know
Tax is still here and I think he’s staying. He did call this our room. I sit on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, as Tax stares out the window in all of his naked awesomeness. I drink up the view. Despite all the sex we have had, he’s never stripped down to absolutely nothing before.
His body is beautiful. I never thought of using that to describe the male physique until I met him. It slopes and curves with muscle, a topography of masculinity. His shoulders are broad and strong, his back flares with ridges of muscle that cord down his waist to his hips. Those lines on his hips that lead down to his package...they tease my libido.
The tattoo on his neck and shoulder that seems to have a life of its own is a work of art in and of itself. Even his scars, they tell a story, like chisel marks on a statue.
We haven’t really said anything, haven’t even turned on the lights. We are just learning, I think, how to be around each other after sex.
“Shit. I should be downstairs,” I think aloud.
Tax turns. I involuntarily bite my lip at the sight. “I’m your boss, and I say don’t worry about it.”
My comment seems to break the quiet. “Will you sit with me?” I ask.
Tax juts his chin up skeptically, as if I might be holding a knife behind my back. “Maybe I should open up wine or something.” He sounds like an alien life form reciting the ins and outs of human behavior.
“Maybe a little. I’m still traumatized over Tiff’s grand reopening.”
He smiles, and my stomach quivers like harp strings.
“You had a lot of fun that night, didn’t you?”
“I think you did too,” I say with a smirk.
Tax comes to the couch with two glasses and a freshly opened bottle of Prosecco. He sits down beside me and pours us each a glass.
“Your feet are freezing,” he comments.
I didn’t even realize I had burrowed them under his thigh. It’s an unconscious thing I have always done.
“They always get cold,” I say apologetically. I have always had a habit of rubbing them against people. “My mom used to give me so much crap about it.” All these years later, mentioning her still hurts. Tax looks at me and faintly nods like he somehow understands this. He hands me a glass, then puts his down and grabs my feet from underneath him, placing them on his lap and rubbing them in his large warm hands. “If you want me to warm them, all you have to do is ask.”
The tone in his voice reminds me of the day he stood over me mockingly as I cried. If you want it, all you have to do is beg, Mia. Even then, the slightest hint of his softness towards me peeked through as he helped me to my feet and gave me my release.
“Seeing as you are already warming them, I guess I don’t.”
There is a lull, because we could go on about pleasantries, but this thing we have is the opposite of casual. It’s loaded, full of unanswered questions and unspoken feelings. If there is anything I understand about this labyrinth of a man, it’s that talking doesn’t come easy. At least when it comes to anything other than anger.
He said he wants more, but I don’t think he knows how to define that. I have to have to guts to show him what that is, even if he lashes out.
“Tax, what are we doing?” I ask. I brace myself for a harsh reminder. This is just fucking. You owe me. I own you.
He reaches forward for his glass and takes a sip. “I don’t know.”
I huff out a single laugh. What a casual response. It’s honest though. Finally.
“You said you want more...”
His body language becomes rigid. Those words mean a lot to him. I reach out and softly put my hand on his shoulder.
“I do too.”
He looks over to me, his brown eyes reflecting the lights of the city. “I know.” He says it sadly, as if my words are tragic. “Why?” he asks.
Even he doesn’t get it.
I chug the Prosecco. “Tax, I ask myself that all the time. I think about it a lot when you vanish on me for days.”
His eyes turn away. Could that be remorse?
“I know you think I am just some stupid woman who did something really stupid by hiring someone to come after me. But I was trying to find something I couldn’t find anywhere else. And I did.”
He leans forward, digesting my words.
“Mia, I’m trying to fight this. I’ve been trying to fight this. I’m going to hurt you. Not because I want to, but because that’s what happens. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at.”
“I think you believe that about yourself. I think that’s why you told me once you can’t receive love. But I don’t believe that about you.”
“Mia, you don’t know anything about me.” He’s told me that before with disdain, but now, it’s full of regret.
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“I’m still here...after what you—“ I hesitate to say the truth and put him on the defensive.
“After what I’ve done to you.”
; I look down, but then I meet his eyes again. He did do horrible things to me, I shouldn’t be ashamed to say it.
“Tax, we can’t go on like this forever. Eventually, the truth will need to come out. I can’t give you more if you won’t give me more.”
“Just because we want more, doesn’t mean we can have it.”
My heart plunges and my fiery side jumps from that low point. “Tax, maybe you haven’t noticed this about me. But I usually get what I want.”
He shakes his head at me as if to set me straight, but then he furrows his eyebrows in realization. “Actually, you’re right...”
“What you’re doing to me, holding back the truth, it’s not right.” I plead.
“You don’t know that.”
“I can’t keep giving you more if you hold back. Eventually, I will have nothing left.”
“Mia, I promise you will regret anything more than what we have.” His honesty is so brutal sometimes it physically hurts.
“Bullshit.” I say stubbornly.
“No,” he says, firming his stance. “Not now.”
“I’ve thought about it so much...I haven’t hurt anyone. I don’t owe anyone anything. My father, he was a cop. Is it something he did?”
“Enough, Mia.”
“I deserve to know why you blackmailed me.”
“Not tonight.”
“Then when?”
“When the time is right.”
I sigh.
“Mia, trust me when I say there are reasons you will understand someday. I’m trying to protect you.”
“Protect me? Is someone after me?”
“No one will touch you. No one.” His eyes grow black. What he did to that harmless guy at Tiff’s club tells me it’s an oath.
“I won’t stop asking until you tell me.”
“I know.”
I look him up and down, my eyes outlining the trauma on his body. I reach out and run a gentle finger on one of the marks. His nostrils flare and lips purse as he looks ahead.
“What happened to you, Tax?” I ask tenderly.
“I was set up by a friend.” He says, the hard sentence making it clear he won’t say more.
“That’s horrible. To have someone you trust hurt you.” His jaw tightens, and the snakes on his neck stir.
“There’s an easy fix for that: Trust no one.” Tax has hardened again.
I stroke his silky hair, knowing that his hurt lies deep and no words I say now will change that.
“I guess I should ask you then...” I blow at segues.
“What?”
“Have you been with other women, since we—“
“No.”
“Because we have—“
“The answer is no. I have only been with you. I very much enjoy fucking you raw, and I also very much enjoy my cock, so I keep him well taken care of.”
If my pussy could smile, his comment about fucking me raw would illicit one. I am such a mega perv.
“I’m trusting you on that Tax.”
“I know.”
I rest my head on his lap, nuzzling into the scent of our sex that lingers on his groin. I bury myself, hoping that I’ll get under his skin the way he has gotten under mine. That he’ll go against his instincts the way he has made me go against mine.
His fingers stroke my hair. The room is silent, but not quiet, the volume of Tax’s introspection is deafening.
“Tax,” I say in a woozy voice. “I wish you would trust me.”
“So do I.”
14 Years Earlier
I almost chickened out and played hookie today because I was so nervous about Mia’s reaction to the letter. She had to have read it by now. She officially knows how I feel about her, that I think she is a beautiful person, and I think she deserves better than the asshole she is with now, even if that means not being with me.
I chose to give her the letter yesterday because we wouldn’t have any classes together today. If she wanted to talk to me about it she had a choice. And honestly, I could use the extra day before the awkward hell of facing her. There is no way her reaction would be anything other than: “I like you as a friend.”
Our lockers are on opposite ends of the floor, but we usually see each other in passing a couple of times a day. Usually she waves and smiles, but has her friends flanking her on either side, like some sort of high school popularity guard. So while I might not have to sit with her for an hour, it’s not likely that I will get through today without running into her.
As I rummage through my locker, the bell rings for second period. I make my way down the hall, and spot her walking in the opposite direction from the other end. We lock eyes and I swear I am going to hurl.
But before we can get close enough to say anything, Mrs. Strumbull, the principal, taps her on the shoulder. Mia turns around and follows her down another hallway, out of sight.
I don’t see her for the rest of the day, and I wonder what would have happened if she wasn’t called over. Would she have smiled? Spoken to me about it? Pretended it never happened?
It’s pointless to guess. Tomorrow, we’ll have to present our final project and have no choice but to talk.
I open my locker to grab some stuff before going home and a letter falls to the floor. I look around, to see if anyone is watching, but the hallway swirls with people going about their own business.
I carefully open the letter, which is written in Mia’s handwriting, using big circles to dot her “I”s.
Dear Sil,
Thank you for your letter. It was so beautiful. I like you too. Ever since we started this project together, you are the only person I think about. Getting to know you this semester has been amazing. But, I’m with Tripp, so I would like to see you in private. Please keep this a secret and don’t tell anyone. It’s the only way this could work for now.
I want to meet you tonight at the old boathouse at 8pm. Please come alone. Bring swim trunks in case we decide to go for a dip. <3
Love,
Mia
I hide a smile as I fold the paper and shove it into my pocket, and gently shut my locker, like someone might notice my excitement if I close it too hard. This cannot be happening. Girls like Mia don’t like poor, skinny pieces of shit like me. But maybe that’s not true, maybe there are people who see past the obvious, and are attracted to the good in others. Maybe I have finally caught a break.
I shoot another quick glance around and run out to meet Jude in front of school.
14 Years Earlier
As soon as I walk into Mrs. Strumbull’s office and see my dad standing there, I know. The look in his eyes, like they each weigh hundreds of pounds, makes me so sad for him. I know dealing the loss of his wife is hard enough, but on top of that, he has to tell his daughter that her mother is gone.
“Dad?” I ask, my eyes welling up to the brim, my voice clogged with unshed tears. I don’t even say the words. We’ve known this day was coming, but she seemed to be getting better again. I hold onto that last sliver of hope that maybe she’s just in bad shape, and I still have a chance to say good bye.
“Mia, baby girl—“ he chokes up. And I know there is no hope, that I’ll never get to hold her warm hand again, or read to her, or hear her laughter as she tells me to stop warming my icy feet under her butt. “Mommy had a heart attack. She just got too weak from the cancer, she couldn’t fight back.”
I knew this day would happen, it had become clear my mother would never be cured, but like magic, every day she was still there. She would get sick and come back, and I guess stupidly, I thought she would keep fighting for me. I thought maybe she could will herself to live so I wouldn’t have to be without her.
I try to stay stoic when I hear the news. All this time, I didn’t want anyone to pity me. I never really talked to my friends about it. My dad was so stressed with work and my mom, that I didn’t want to make him worry about me. And my mom, I cried once in her arms when she first told me she was sick, but after that, we tried to make al
l of our memories happy. We would go to the park on our bicycles, and then when she got sicker, we would take short walks and have pizza and movie nights. Eventually, when she couldn’t walk anymore, I would read love stories to her. Sometimes they had happy endings, sometimes they were tragic.
Today I am living in one of those tragic books. There is no sunlight even though the sun burns bright, there is no laughter even though the hall is full of silly teenagers. There is a hole. It’s a hole that can never be replaced. No one will be as wonderful and special as my mother. No one else stayed up with me at night when I was sick, no one else made my Halloween costume from scratch so that I was the coolest kid in town, no one else kissed my ouchies and made the pain disappear. No one made the best spaghetti bake in the universe because she made it with her special ingredient: love. Her love was gone. Yes, I still lived with it in my heart, but I would never feel it in her hug, I would never hear it in her words. She doesn’t exist. It’s so final. Nothing in life should ever be so final.
She’s too young to be gone. It’s not fair. Who will help me pick my dress for prom, or help me plan my wedding? It’s not fair. She was too good to die.
I don’t even realize I am collapsing until I my dad catches me in his arms. I sob uncontrollably as he whispers in my ear, “We’re gonna be okay baby girl. I’m gonna take care of you. Daddy loves you.”
I wake up to the sound of Mia fumbling out of bed. I look up at her, and her hair is a mess, her face swollen with sleep. It’s clear she’s not a morning person, which only makes me more of an asshole for requiring her to meet me for weekly fuck sessions at five in the morning. It’s good to know I wasn’t the only one struggling to get out of bed.
I glance over to the clock on the nightstand. It’s almost 7:30. My sadistic side relishes in watching her scramble through her luggage.
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