I told you to “Fuck me. Hard and fast.” Exactly as I could sense you wanted to.
Without hesitation you did, guiding yourself in, plunging deep, over and over. A man possessed. Determined. And focused, but not solely on yourself, because at the same time you kissed me, rough and carnal. You scooped up my leg behind the knee, opening me wider. You thrust your hips, swiveled them, and adjusted the angle. When something spectacular burst inside of me and I moaned in delight, you honed in on that spot, ramming it over and over and over.
I woke up so aroused, on the verge, my body coiled tight, needing release. All it took was a quick touch of my finger and I let go, that very real orgasm one of the best I’ve ever had. Thank you!
I hope you visit me again real soon!
Favorite sexual position: On top and in control. Blow jobs: Yes. Happily. Seems I have some dominant tendencies. Having a guy go down on me: No one’s ever offered, and I’m not sure I’d let them if they did. Anal: No. Not because it disgusts me or anything, just haven’t come across anyone I felt comfortable trying it with.
Okay, well, I guess that’s all for now.
Neve
Damn, she could write one hell of a sexy letter. And they’d only gotten hotter from there. Glancing around the waiting room to make sure no one was watching, Rory smiled, remembering the care package that letter had come in, his buddies hovering around waiting for snacks as he’d opened it, and the harassment he’d been forced to endure as a result of the box’s contents. Oh, she’d put peanut brittle in there, and it’d been just as tasty as she’d promised. But it’d been at the bottom, beneath travel-sized packets of baby wipes and tissues, two bottles of lube, a package containing nipple clamps (he’d only known what they were because of the labeling on the package) with a note (I bought myself a matching pair. I’m wearing them right now. Hope you enjoy yours as much as I’m enjoying mine.), and two of the dirtiest magazines he’d ever seen, hidden between innocent-looking sports covers.
The perfect package for the masturbating male. Amusing? Hell yeah. Still brought a smile to his face. Shocking? Not really—more unexpected than shocking. Not that he’d tell her for fear she’d try harder to shock him with the next one, and who knew what the hell she’d stick in that box?
First chance he got he’d shot off an email thanking her and clarifying:
First off, I do not have a toe fetish. I swear.
And second, for the sake of realism, the me who participated in our dream romp—which I enjoyed reading about immensely, even if I would have much rather been an active participant—needs some tweaking. I’m actually a pretty big talker during sex. You know, stuff like, “You feel how hard you make me?” “You smell so good, feel so good.” “God, baby. I love it when you suck my cock.” (Unfortunately, that’s one I don’t get to say often enough.) “You’re so wet, so hot, all for me.” “You like that, don’t you?” “Baby, I’m gonna make you scream.”
Sharing that kind of stuff hadn’t come easily at first. But Neve’s openness and honesty made him want to respond in kind, and over time he’d gotten pretty comfortable. Turned out he liked writing her sexy letters almost as much as he liked receiving them.
He’d ended his email with a little Rory trivia in response to her Neve trivia:
Favorite sexual position: Honestly, I’ll take it any way I can get it. Blow jobs: One of my most favorite things—to be on the receiving end, that is. Going down on a woman: Hell yeah, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. If ever the opportunity should present itself I would most certainly offer. Then I’d convince you to let me—I can be very convincing. Anal: Same as you. (As far as being on the receiving end, no fucking way, not ever, for any reason.)
Neve came off so confident and sexy. But over time she’d also shown him her thoughtful, sweet, and caring sides. Every part of her was entertaining and fun and full of life—only right now she wasn’t full of life. And the thought of her so sick, for whatever reason, made him feel sick too. She had to be okay.
Movement caught Rory’s eye, someone closing in, fast. He went on alert, jerked his head up to see Nate walking toward him, so he stood.
“I just spoke with Dr. Glassman.”
Jeez, Rory had been so lost in thought he hadn’t even noticed. “What did he say?”
“Neve isn’t pregnant.”
“Isn’t now, but was she?” The question shot out before he could stop it. He had to know.
Nate placed his hand on Rory’s shoulder and added, “As far as Dr. Glassman knows, she never was pregnant.”
The words hit him harder than expected. For the past few months he’d spent hour after downtime hour thinking about Neve being pregnant with his child, so much so it’d become real and he’d actually started to get excited, thinking about them raising their child together, sharing decision-making, costs, and custody equally. He’d be an active participant in his son or daughter’s life. Some nights he’d even gone as far as considering marriage, though Neve wasn’t at all the type of woman he’d pictured himself marrying.
Too bold, too sexy and outspoken. And, he was certain, way too difficult to manage. Not to mention his strict Irish Catholic mother would never approve. And keeping Mom happy was just easiest for everyone.
“Hey.” Nate waved his hand in front of Rory’s face. “You still with me?”
“Sorry. Yes. What else did the doctor say?”
Nate looked around to make sure no one was listening, then lowered his voice and said, “Three weeks ago Neve underwent a procedure to harvest bone marrow from her hip to donate it to a cancer patient.”
“To her brother,” Rory clarified, thinking about the long letter she’d sent him, detailing the pros and cons, how torn she was about whether or not to do it. Last he’d heard the nine-year-old boy had been too ill to receive the transplant.
“What do you mean ‘her brother’?” Nate snapped. “I’m her brother.” He jabbed his index finger into his chest.
Uh-oh.
Nate didn’t seem to care about the predicament Rory had just put himself in. “Explain,” he said in a tone that no doubt got criminals to do exactly what he told them to do. But Rory needed to tread carefully here. Neve had confided in him, had trusted him with a very personal matter. He couldn’t break that trust, not even with Nate looking ready to beat the information out of him.
“Her half brother,” Rory explained. “And that’s all I’m going to say.” He held up both hands. “It’s not my story to tell, so you’ll have to wait to hear it from Neve.”
Nate inhaled a deep breath, then slowly blew it out. He did it again, and again after that, like he was desperately trying to maintain control. “You mean to tell me,” he said, his voice low and deep as he slowly enunciated each word, “that my sister is lying on that stretcher, with a fever of one hundred and four point three, her body fighting some raging infection, because she was trying to help the spawn of her piece-of-shit birth-mother?”
If she didn’t have the flu, then yes. That’s exactly what Rory was saying. He looked up, directly into angry brown eyes, and let his silence answer for him.
Nate got the message loud and clear. And with a “Goddamn it” that got everyone in the waiting room’s attention, he turned and pounded out into the parking lot.
Chapter 3
Neve had landed herself in hell. No doubt it was punishment for the self-centered person she’d chosen to be and the wild life she’d chosen to live for so many years. Apparently it didn’t matter that she’d been trying to change.
There were no flames that she could see, but it was so damn hot. Rather than a destination, hell seemed to be more of a situation you could find yourself in, unable to move, forced to experience a horrible time in your life over and over, a recurring nightmare, a perpetual loop of pain, upset, and regret, with no way to close your eyes or cover your ears, no way to turn it off, no escape, ever.
No sooner did it end than it started up again.
The kitchen in Neve’
s parents’ home came into view, her thirteen-year-old self seated at the round wooden table, all excited, talking about her plans for an upcoming science fair project. Mom listened intently, Dad made suggestions, no doubt mentally planning all the ways he’d help Neve get another first-place medal. Nate, of the bad-hair years, speared a pork chop, as usual more focused on food than conversation.
“Don’t eat so fast. You’ll get sick,” Mom warned.
“I’m meeting Jimmy at the library,” he answered, his mouth full. “Don’t want to be late.”
Actually, Neve had overheard him making plans to meet Janie Krause behind the bleachers at the baseball fields next to the library. But Nate had always kept her secrets, so she kept his.
A knock at the door interrupted their happy family time.
A knock that would change Neve’s life forever. She knew what came next, no longer tried to fight it or call out to her young self to “stay in your room” or “don’t go downstairs” or “it’s better you don’t know.” Instead she just watched it happen, again, resigned to her fate.
After answering the door, Mom returned to the kitchen, with a look on her face that somehow managed to merge utter shock and all-out panic. “Both of you,” she motioned to Neve and Nate, “go to your rooms.”
Dad stood. “What’s wrong?”
Neve strained to see who was at the door, to get a heads-up on what she might be getting in trouble for this time. Her mother stepped in front of her, blocking her view. Then she did something she’d never done before. She put her hands on Neve’s upper arms, squeezed so tight it hurt, and pushed her. “Why don’t you ever do what you’re told? Why must I repeat myself? Go. To. Your. Room,” she screamed, pointing in that direction. And when Neve didn’t move fast enough her mom screeched, “Now!” forcibly turning and shoving her, hard.
Adult Neve felt the emotions all over again—hurt, betrayal, fear, anger.
Tears in her eyes, young Neve ran, taking the stairs two at a time, slamming her bedroom door behind her, wrapping her arms around herself, waiting. After she heard Nate’s door close across the hall, Neve, who didn’t much like being told what to do, peered outside into the hallway. Seeing no one, she crept out, tiptoed down the hall, and oh so slowly inched forward to peek around the corner until she could see into the kitchen.
Whoever had come to visit stood out of view. Mom yelled, “How dare you come here!”
Dad told her to “quiet down or the kids will hear.”
Young Neve would not be deterred. Determined to listen in, she descended the carpeted stairs on bare feet, her movements controlled, her breathing shallow. And quick as she could, she backed into her hiding spot between the piano and the loveseat in the living room—being small had its advantages. She slid all the way in until her spine met the cool wall, brought her knees up to her chest, and became one with the darkness.
Mom said, “Do you have any idea what you put me through? Leaving a one-week-old infant on my doorstep? On my doorstep!” she yelled to emphasize the fact. “When I already had my own six-month-old baby to take care of. You didn’t care about that, did you? Because all you’ve ever cared about is yourself. Growing up, you were a horrible sister, and I wish you’d stayed wherever it is you’ve been hiding out all these years.”
Neve couldn’t believe it. Her mother had a sister, yet she couldn’t remember Mom or Dad, Grandma or Grandpa—or any other family member, for that matter—ever mentioning her.
“All she did was cry,” her mother’s sister said in a voice so similar to her mother’s and yet, to Neve, noticeably different. “I couldn’t deal with her, I started to hate her.”
Neve thought how terrible for a one-week-old baby to be so unlovable, for her mother to hate her and discard her on someone’s doorstep.
“All she did was cry for us too, month after month. Put a strain on our marriage, on our sanity, but we didn’t get rid of her.”
“I’m here to make things right.”
Mom laughed a laugh Neve had never heard before. “You can’t possibly make anything right, unless you’re here to give us money. Do you have any idea how much her gymnastics lessons cost? Her braces? Her clothes?”
WHAM! Quick as a fall from the high parallel bar that knocks all the air out of you, Neve realized they were talking about her. That she was the unwanted baby left on a doorstep, the kind you feel sorry for when you hear about them on the news. She was the unlovable baby who’d been hated and abandoned at the age of one week.
She wasn’t her mother’s daughter.
She struggled to suck in a breath.
She’d put a strain on the marriage and sanity of her parents….She gulped, realizing they weren’t her parents but her adoptive parents. They hadn’t wanted her. She’d been an inconvenience, she’d disrupted their lives, and she was costing them too much money. She’d been living a lie, wasn’t who she thought she was. And no one had felt it necessary to tell her.
Just like her young self, adult Neve was having difficulty taking in enough air. Of course adult Neve realized she should be thankful that her birth-mother had carried her to term rather than aborting her, and that she’d discarded Neve on the porch of her aunt and uncle’s house rather than in a dumpster. But at the time she’d been too young and too upset for that type of logical thought. Young Neve felt sick, like she might puke up her heart or something. So of course adult Neve felt that way, too.
“I’ve met a man who loves kids and wants Neve with us,” the woman who had given birth to her said. “I can take her back with me. Tonight.”
Neve slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out, “Noooooo!”
And then her mother said the words that have stuck with Neve well into adulthood.
“You and Neve deserve each other. She can be a selfish, spiteful bitch, just like you.”
Neve’s heart burned, her lungs seized, and the rest of her body went numb at finding out what her mother—no, her adoptive mother—really thought of her. She didn’t love Neve, had never loved her, didn’t want her, and was about to send her off with a complete stranger who was going to bring her to some creepy guy who loved kids.
The need to run surged through her, bringing her body back to life. Neve bolted from her hiding spot, knocked over a vase on the coffee table, tripped over a chair, and ran for the stairs.
“Shit,” her father cursed, and he never cursed. “Neve! Come back here.”
Footsteps pounded after her, but she didn’t care. Safely back in her room, she locked the door, grabbed her suitcase, and started to pack. She’d go to Brooke’s house and hide in her enormous closet, no one would know.
Frantic to leave—and not with her birth-mother, she did not want to stay where she wasn’t wanted—she ignored the banging on her door. All packed, she opened her second-story window and kicked out the screen. Just as she turned to get her suitcase off the bed so she could toss it out ahead of her, the bedroom door crashed open and Nate barged into the room.
He’d kicked in her bedroom door.
She ran for the window and had one leg out, but he was bigger and stronger and grabbed her from behind. “Just where in the hell do you think you’re going?” He hugged her close, so tight she knew she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Don’t let them send me away,” she cried, clutching at his arms. “I don’t want to go with that woman.”
“You’re not going anywhere without me,” he whispered. “I promise.”
And he’d been looking out for her ever since.
Adult Neve had only a few seconds to be thankful that the nightmare ended there and didn’t go on to show her adoptive mother’s heart-wrenching, tearful explanations and apologies for all Neve had overheard. That she wasn’t forced to revisit her years of acting out and pushing boundaries, testing to see if her adoptive parents really did love her, or if they too would get rid of her if she became too difficult to deal with. Better to know that kind of thing when you’re prepared for it than to be blindsided. She
’d been blindsided once and didn’t like that one bit.
And thank goodness she didn’t have to relive her high school years, all the times she’d enticed horny teenage boys to her car or some room at a party. Or her college years and more recently when she’d seduced countless men in an attempt to make herself feel wanted, needed, and valued, worthy of love, even temporarily, because they chose to love her, not because she’d been forced on them.
Oh no.
The kitchen in Neve’s parents’ home came into view, her thirteen-year-old self seated at the round wooden table….
—
Rory stood beside Neve’s hospital bed. Around forty-eight hours had passed since she’d collapsed in her condo. While she’d regained consciousness in the Emergency Room, she’d spent most of her time since then sleeping, responding groggily to prompting by the nursing staff, and reacting none too pleasantly when she had to be helped to the bathroom.
Right now she lay on her back, arms at her sides on top of the neatly made bed, eyes closed, face pale and devoid of emotion, a purplish lump engulfing part of her right eyebrow. A pump regulated the flow of fluid and medication through IV tubing inserted into her right arm. The slight rise and fall of her chest beneath the blue-and-white-patterned hospital gown was the only indication of life.
Every time he’d imagined Neve she’d been in motion—going, doing, laughing, yelling, seducing, kissing, flipping, dancing, active. To see her lying so still, so quiet, affected him deeply, reminded him of the time he’d spent at another bedside after Cyclone—so named because the man could destroy a neat living area within seconds—had taken a bullet to the face. He too had laid so still, so quiet. Just like now, Rory had felt helpless, not knowing what to do or how to help, afraid to touch anything.
Cyclone hadn’t made it through the night, leaving a pregnant girlfriend to raise their baby without its father, making Rory even more determined that his baby would have a father in his or her life. Only there was no baby. And that made him sad.
All I Need Is You Page 3