Ruin You

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Chef?” she whispers. “Everything okay?”

  I nod, but I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore.

  I serve breakfast and immediately go hide in the garden. The garden has a thousand distractions and I embrace all of them, like a life preserver. Because I feel myself slipping over my head. The newspaper has me rattled.

  Simon has me wrecked.

  “Penny?” a voice calls out and I am chagrined at my joy and my horror.

  “Simon,” I say coming up from where I was kneeling behind the tomatoes. “I’m back here.”

  “Back where?”

  “Follow the peas.”

  “Am I supposed to know which those are?”

  He’s laughing and I’m smiling like it’s no big deal. When it is a big deal.

  You’re lying to him. It feels like you’re not, but you are.

  It’s a good reminder and I try to use it to harden my heart. My soft, damp lady parts.

  But when he turns the corner, grinning in my garden, I’m a mess. I’m a soft, willing mess and I don’t understand why, why I can’t just sleep with him.

  Have him. In whatever capacity and for however long I can.

  Because you are made of lies. Because you want more than you should.

  Because he’s dangerous to everything you’re trying to hide.

  “There you are,” he says. “Who knew tomato bushes were such good hiding spots?”

  “You can hide just about anywhere if you try hard enough.”

  The silence after my words makes them seem important. Prophetic or something. And I didn’t mean them that way, but that’s the weird thing about truth.

  You can’t always control it like you can a lie.

  Simon’s smile falls from his face and I see something hard in his expression. The same thing I saw in his expression that first night. And last night. Like the kindness or the affability is a mask he wears and there is something different underneath.

  All at once I want to see what it is he hides underneath the charm.

  “Do you have a lot of practice hiding, Penny?”

  Yes.

  I actually have to stop the word from coming out of my mouth. I have to bite my lips and swallow it down.

  I have been hiding my whole life.

  “Talk to me,” he whispers, like he can see my distress. Feel it. Like he understands.

  “I can’t.”

  Even that’s too much. Way too much.

  “It’s the picture, isn’t it —”

  I moan and close my eyes, dying in my tomato plants.

  “I think you should leave,” I say.

  “The tomatoes or the inn?”

  “Both.”

  He touches me, his hands on mine. His fingers twined with mine, like we’re high-school sweethearts.

  “I came back here apologize for yesterday,” he says. “To tell you that I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you really want. Is that what you want?”

  “You’re leaving tomorrow,” I say.

  “I am. It’s my last night.”

  I open my mouth to tell him to go. To leave. Now. Early.

  But he kisses me. His hands at my neck. His lips against mine. It’s hard, this kiss. And I rise up against it, reaching for more. Because pretending right now is like holding back the tides.

  He groans and pulls me closer and I do the same and my hands are around his neck. My body tight against his.

  It’s not easy. It’s not careful. And if he’s surprised by my ferocity, he doesn’t show it. All he shows me is that he likes it.

  That he likes me.

  And he wants more.

  “You don’t want me to leave,” he says against my lips and I, to my total shame, shake my head no.

  “Say it.”

  “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “Tonight,” he says. “Your trailer.”

  Oh, my God, what am I doing? What kind of disaster, what kind of heart ache am I setting myself up for?

  And why don’t I care? Why…don’t I stop this?

  “Penny,” he groans.

  “Tonight. My trailer. After dinner.”

  I’ll hide the photos. I’ll deal with the pain. All of it. I’ll handle all of it.

  And everything will be fine. It will be taken care of.

  It’s the same lie I told myself on my seventh birthday as I burned it all to the ground.

  IN THE END Simon is our dishwasher.

  He just arrives at the right time and asks if we need his help and there’s no way to say no. Because we do.

  Megan is out front. I’m making individual gorgonzola soufflés; my staff is putting final touches on the vegetables we’re serving family-style at the big round tables.

  The dishes are piling up.

  Simon throws on a white apron, steps into the corner where the industrial sink and dishwasher sit and he does the dishes. Like a pro.

  Like he’s done it before.

  Like it’s no big deal.

  “What?” he asks when he catches me staring at him.

  I think I could love you.

  “Your shoes are going to be ruined,” I say.

  “I’ll worry about my shoes. Get to work,” he says with a grin like he’s having a good time and the next two hours pass by in a whirlwind.

  I go out front with Megan to talk to the suppliers because these relationships will ultimately mean success for the inn and when I get back to the kitchen, he is joking around with the rest of my staff.

  “And he fired you for that?” Denise asks.

  “No, he fired Tommy for that,” Simon says, wiping one of the stainless-steel bowls and setting in on the table. He’s laughing, but his eyes are distant.

  “You let your friend go down for that shit?” Denise asks, she’s stacking the bowls in their spot under the counter. “That’s pretty cold.”

  “It was Tommy’s idea,” Simon says. “Tommy already had a job working construction. He took the fall, I kept the job, we both had paychecks. Which meant we had a roof to sleep under.”

  Tommy, I remember, is the friend like a brother.

  But the rest of the story has me curious. Everything about him has me curious.

  He’s leaving. He’s leaving. He’s leaving. He’s leaving.

  He looks up and catches my eye. “Uh-oh, boss is back.” It’s a joke, but it’s not either. It’s respectful. And the way my staff treats him is pretty respectful, too. And my heart can’t quite fit in my chest.

  It’s too big all of a sudden. It’s holding too much.

  Megan comes running in after me, slinging her arm over my shoulder. “Guys,” she says. “I’m blown away. You’ve all been so amazing. So amazing. Simon, you’re promoted.”

  “To what?” he asks, laughing.

  “I don’t know, bartender?”

  “Well, I could use a drink.”

  “I think we all could. Finish up in here and let’s go have a drink.”

  “Are you high?” I ask Megan, who shakes her head.

  “I’m happy, Pen.” She sighs, looking over my shoulder at Simon, I’m guessing. “You should be, too.”

  She’s the pied piper leading grateful staff to the bar and I’m left with Simon in the kitchen.

  “Do you want to get a drink?”

  “No,” he says. He unties the apron sets it on the stainless-steel counter. I watch his wrists under his sleeves and I feel my mouth go dry. My body go wet. “Do you want a drink?”

  I shake my head no.

  “Take me to your trailer, Penny,” he says, like he’s run out of patience. Like he’s ragged and raw and wants to ease himself with me.

  And it’s perfect.

  Because I feel the same way.

  I feel filed down. I feel exhausted and bruised and I want this man to bring me orgasms on the tips of his fingers. On the flat of his tongue. I want to sweat and feel depraved and lost in something I can’t control.

  “Follow me.”

  SIXTE
EN

  Penny

  I OPEN the screen and unlock the storm door. I have two locks on the door and I know it’s weird, but he doesn’t comment on it. He’s been silent the whole walk to the trailer and I wonder what he’s thinking.

  But maybe I don’t want to know.

  He walks in behind me and I love how small the trailer feels. I love how he makes it feel that way. A cocoon.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask, without looking at him because I feel near wild. I feel like a lit fuse.

  “No.”

  “I have wine.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  I sigh. Oh, I sigh. I let out all the breath I’m holding and when his hand touches my shoulder I’m turning before he can spin me.

  His hand digs into the back of my hair, the little bit of it that’s there and it stings. Hurts.

  I gasp with pleasure, gulping down air.

  “I’ve been thinking of this all day,” he says. There’s no sweetness in him right now. His eyes are slicing through my clothes.

  “Me, too.”

  “Take off your jacket.”

  I shrug out of the backpack, and I start work on my buttons. My fingers clumsy. As the jacket opens he’s spreading his hand wide across my stomach, over the turquoise tank top I’m wearing. His heat is searing, even through my shirt. My muscles jump in response.

  I get the last button open and he pulls the jacket off my shoulder, his eyes taking in all my ink.

  His finger traces the vine from the inside of my elbow back up to my shoulder, across my collarbone to my neck. And he spreads his hand out wide around my throat. Not hurting me.

  Just holding me.

  My heartbeat pounds against his touch.

  “Take off your shirt,” I tell him and his eyes flare, his lip curls.

  “Bossy,” he says and I have to lift my head, my eyes meeting his. Endless and dark. The only thing I read in them is desire.

  I lean towards him, towards his beautiful mouth, full of words I’m not interested in. But he stops me. Not by leaning back, but by holding me harder. Keeping me still. I swallow and can feel his hold on my neck.

  I’m not scared. I’m really not.

  I’m painfully — awfully — turned on.

  “Please,” I whisper and, for a moment, it seems like he’s fighting himself. Torn somehow and I’m not interested in that either. I’m raw. And I’m in need of ruin.

  “Fuck me.”

  He swears low and dark under his breath and he lets go of my neck to grab the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head, revealing his chest. Covered in dark, curly hair, ridged with wiry muscles. Everything about him is interesting and I lift my hands to run my palms against him. To touch as much of him as I can. His breath stutters and stops and my fingers touch his abs. The rise of his pecs. The curls of his chest hair. I put my hands on all of it and when the shirt is gone, thrown somewhere in my tiny trailer, his hands are back around my face, cupping my cheeks, pulling me closer.

  He is devouring me. Or maybe I’m devouring him. I don’t know. I don’t care. But the ruin I need, he clearly needs it, too, so there is nothing gentle about what we’re doing. Nothing gentle about how we’re feeling.

  My tank top is taken off from the top, his fingers wrap around the thin straps and pull them down my shoulders, snapping them as they go. I shrug out of the scraps and let him pull the rest of my shirt down, revealing my breasts. Small enough I don’t wear bra.

  Small enough his hands cover them completely and I’m gasping into his mouth as he palms me. Squeezes me.

  I whimper when his fingers find my nipples, rubbing his knuckles across them, back and forth.

  “Yes,” I whisper, my fingers reaching for his pants. The belt and the button and zipper in my way. Between me and what I want. And I tear through them, sliding my hand down his stomach.

  My hand touches his cock, his erection fills my palm through the cotton of his boxer briefs. I squeeze him and he hisses and I want more. I want to pull from this man every sound he has. Every curse and groan. Every cry and whimper. I want everything.

  And I want it now.

  He seems to get it. He steps back, pushing me up against the kitchen table, until I’m sitting on it, my legs spread around him.

  I close my hand into a tighter fist and he fucks into it.

  He gasps into my mouth, arching into me.

  Unrelenting. His hands go back around my face, pulling me up to him, into his kiss. It’s teeth and tongues and kisses so deep we may never find our way out.

  Suddenly he breaks away, his mouth falling to my neck. The old birthmark and then the tattoos beneath it and then my breast. He pulls my nipple into my mouth with a stinging force and I pull against him, drawing it out, making the feeling sharper.

  Hotter.

  My thumb circles the tip of his cock, spreading the drops of come around him with my fingertips. I wrap my other arm around his back, where I can feel his muscles and bones. The ridges of his spine. And I want him on me. In me.

  I want him closer.

  I push his pants down over his ass, suddenly frantic.

  He leaves my breast, my nipple cold and hard in the air of my trailer and he pushes me onto my back so I’m spread out on the table in front of him.

  He’s so tall from this angle. So big. His muscles pronounced. The florid red head of his cock the most sexual thing I’ve ever seen.

  My hips lift up on their own. I have no power. No control.

  And I like it like this.

  “Look at you,” he breathes, his hands pulling at the shirt, torn and hanging in shreds from my waist. His fingers work the button of my jeans, pull down the zipper and I lift my hips so he can pull them down my legs. I didn’t wear my boots today and my old running shoes fall off my feet with barely a nudge from him. My jeans follow and I push down my underwear until it’s just me on the table in my torn shirt and all my ink.

  His slides his hand from my collarbone down the center of my body. Slowly his thumb and pinky finger touch the sides of my breasts. His palm covers up much of my tattoos. My belly trembles under his touch, my hips reaching for him as he slows down, the heel of his hand covering my pussy. The slightest pressure is applied and I can feel it on my clit.

  My eyes shut, my hands reach out for the edge of the table as if to hold myself here. To keep myself from flying right up to the ceiling. Through it. Into the night.

  He uses the heel of his hand against me, this thick deferred touch, like I’m a teenager again, learning to squeeze my legs together until I come.

  It’s agonizing and exciting, a slow, deep build-up that I can feel in my belly. He shifts his hand, his palm still against me, but I feel his finger, tracing the seam between my legs. Featherlight and too soft.

  “More,” I pant.

  “No.”

  I open my eyes. He’s leaning over me, his eyes catch mine and I’m helpless. I’m caught. I can’t blink and I can’t move. And I lie there and let him tease me, his fingertip finding its way inside my body, delicate stroke by delicate stroke. I am teased and tortured out of my mind.

  “Shhhh,” he whispers when I whimper. When his finger brushes my clit, my whole body shakes. The orgasm, the thick wave of it, is pressing down on me but it’s too far away. Too big and too close all at once.

  “Please.”

  “You can wait.”

  “I can’t. I…can’t.”

  Fast and hard is the punishment I like. The brain-clearing orgasm that leaves me fevered but clear. This…this feels dangerous. Like something that will pull me apart.

  “You can,” he says.

  This is bullshit, I think, and start to sit up, but his hand is there on my chest, pushing me down. And then, because he knows. Because, somehow, without saying anything. Without ever talking about it, he knows. He puts his hand back around my neck.

  No pressure. No pain. Just…control.

  And he’s holding me down with both hands.

  “Take it
,” he says.

  And I have to. Because he’s taken away the choice. And the slow unraveling of me gains momentum. It’s two fingers toying with me as the heel of his hand pushes unrelentingly on my clit.

  I’m covered in sweat. It’s running down my body. I’m both sticking to the table and sliding on it.

  “I want you to come,” he says and I nod. Breath, voice, thought lost.

  And those teasing two fingers, are suddenly deep inside of me. So deep. And I’m bowed off the table, screaming into the darkness as the thick, long wave he conjured up crashes over me.

  I’m left panting, spots in front of my eyes. His hands lift off my skin and, for a moment, I think I might rise up to the ceiling. Through it. Into the night.

  For a moment, I have what I needed. I’m just a body. And barely that. I’ve left behind my lies and the past I lied to get away from. I’ve left behind my failures and my secrets have no hold over me.

  I’m just pleasure. I’m just so much pleasure.

  He leans over me, not smiling with his mouth. But his eyes have a certain glint in them that I like. I reach with heavy hands to put my fingers through his hair.

  So flirty this hair. So thick and whatever he puts in it to keep it under control smells like a California night.

  “Thank you,” I breathe.

  “You’re welcome,” he breathes back.

  I kiss him. Our lips cling to each other like long-lost friends. I sit up, pushing him back, my hands leave his hair to find his shoulders, wide and smooth, and then his chest, the rippled muscles of his abdomen. And then the hard, thick length of his cock.

  I lick my lips and he groans.

  “I don’t — This may not —”

  “Shut up,” I say and he does. His throat bobbing as he swallows and I love that the man who held me down and made me come, feels ragged right now. Vulnerable right now.

  I push him back and slip off the table. Kicking aside my shoes and discarded clothes, I fall to my knees in front of him.

  “Oh. Fuck. Ti —”

  I pause. Stop. My blood freezes and I glance up at him. He’s watching me, eyes unreadable. But his hand curls around my neck, his thumb brushes my lips and he pulls me towards him.

  “Take me,” he says and I blow out my breath.

  Take me. That’s what he was going to say.