Lost Memories (Forbidden Romance)

by Anya Merchant

  Apparently her emotions and the heat of the situation won out. Slowly, with shaky, but deft movements, Rachel unzipped Ben’s jeans. His cock pushed out against his boxers, and she pulled those down, too.

  It all felt like it was happening in slow motion to Ben. He watched as Rachel’s hand slowly closed around his cock, sending an almost tickle-like blast of pleasure into his crotch. She held his cock like it was the hilt of a sword, the mighty excaliber, and it was her job to pull it from the stone.

  She was still straddling his thighs as she slowly began to pump her hand up and down, teasing him with slight, loving movements. Ben let out a moan and leaned his head back.

  Rachel… is touching my cock?

  “Ben…” Rachel moved off the couch and stared at him as she slowly began to wiggle out of her tight yoga pants. She had taken him in, cared for him when he’d needed it most, and now was stripping her clothes off in front of him, with eyes full of lust and desire.

  Her panties were black with a tiny gold bow embroidered on the front. She climbed back onto the couch and straddled Ben again, and this time his cock probed against the fabric, the last barrier between them and something that would change their relationship irrevocably.

  “Oh god, Rachel!” Ben leaned up, groping her breasts and pushing his hips towards her crotch. His cock pressed against her panties and then bounced away, deflected like a blocked shot on goal. Rachel moaned and then leaned in and kissed him, one of her hands wrapping itself around his hard, throbbing dick.

  “Hold on.” whispered Rachel. “We…”

  She trailed off without finishing her sentence, but Ben knew what she was trying to say.

  We can’t. We can’t, because you’ve been a mother to me for the past four years? Because it’s sick, and wrong, and terrible, and giving in would make things between us more complicated than either of us would be able to take?

  Ben kissed Rachel without restraint, letting his tongue push into her mouth as he let his cock do the same in between her legs. It hit against her soft panties again, but this time Ben pulled them ever so slightly to the side with his fingers, and went a little further.

  Oh my god.

  The head of his cock pushed up into Rachel, just the tiniest bit. It was only barely enough for him to be able to feel her, to feel how warm and insanely pleasurable her cunt would feel if he went all the way. And then Rachel pulled back.

  “No, Ben!” Her chest was heaving up in down, just like Ben’s was, and her cheeks were blushing a deep red. “We can’t”

  “Rachel, I…” Ben couldn’t say what he wanted to say, but the words reverberated in his head, the truth of them unmistakable.

  I love you.

  Rachel began pumping his cock with quick, almost angry movements as she shook her head.

  “We can’t…” She pumped Ben’s cock with gentle intensity, looking at it as though she thought that it was a loaded weapon, just waiting to go off. “We have to go back to the way things were.”

  Ben opened his mouth. He wanted to warn her of what was about to happen, but it felt so incredibly good, and her boobs bounced each time she stroked his rod up and down.

  “I’ve taken care of you for years, Ben,” she said in a lusty, whispered voice. “You’re part of my family… I love you, as a-“

  “Oh fuck!” Ben tried to pull his cock away from her at the last second, but all it ended up doing was pushing it closer. He began to explode, his cum spraying out forward, onto the one person he cared about and loved more than any other. Strings of seed blasted out onto Rachel, onto her tight purple t-shirt, and onto her face.

  “Ben!” Her voice sounded far off, but he could still hear the shock and surprise in it. Ben had never felt pleasure so intense, the warm glow of it threatening to melt him in the couch. All he could do was shake his head back and forth.

  I’m sorry, Rachel.

  She stood up and stepped back from the couch. Ben looked up just in time to see her wiping cum off one of her cheeks and pulling another glob from her hair. He caught her eye for a second and felt an almost overwhelming shame take hold of him. Rachel hurried off to the bathroom, and after a minute, Ben stood up and walked to his room.

  It was midway through the afternoon. Ben sat at his desk, feeling a little unnerved by what had just happened.

  Has whatever this is always been there between me and Rachel, just brimming and boiling, under the surface?

  He spent a while on his computer, doing his best to put a dent in the homework assignments that she'd been neglecting all week. When it became clear that it was impossible for him to focus on anything outside of the chaos of his life, Ben turned it off and stood up from his desk.

  He headed outside. There was still half an hour until the football game started, but Ben decided that there was no point in hanging around Rachel's house, waiting for the awkward confrontation that loomed on the horizon. Danny was outside mowing his parent’s lawn when he arrived.

  "You’re early," said Danny. "Did something happen? I wasn't expecting you for a little bit."

  Ben shrugged.

  "Yeah, I guess you could say that." Ben walked over to one of the chairs that Danny's parents had on their patio and sat down in it.

  “You want to talk about it, champ?” Danny’s voice was sarcastic, but in a way that was good natured and only made Ben smile.

  “Just girl problems, man. I’m sure a player like you knows how it is.” Ben’s reply met Danny’s in tone, and his friend playfully punched him in the shoulder.

  He hung out and waited while Danny finished mowing the lawn, trying not to think too much about all of the drama and emotions that were suddenly on his plate. It felt a little bit like he’d taken a small plate through a loaded buffet.

  I just need to do what I said I wanted to do tonight. I need to go to the football game and be a normal teenager.

  CHAPTER 16

  By the time that Danny had returned the gas powered push mower back into his parents garage, the sun was beginning to set over the horizon. The game still wouldn’t be starting for at least another hour, but football games in Emerald Hills were more a social event than anything, and the two of them set out early.

  “Emma should be meeting us on the way,” said Ben. “She invited me to hang out with her at the game earlier today.”

  “You still haven’t given me a decent explanation of why the new girl is so obsessed with you, bro,” said Danny. “Nothing against you as a person, but compared to Emma, well, it’s just a bit of an odd match up.”

  If you only knew the half of it…

  Ben started to answer when he saw the girl in question turn onto the street in front of where he and Danny were walking.

  “Perfect timing, Emma!” Ben called out to her and watched as she looked back at the two of them, a radiant smile spreading across her face as she recognized him.

  “Ben, hey…” Emma slowed and waited for him and Danny to catch up with her, and then casually looped one of her arms around his. “I’m glad that you decided to come out tonight, in the end.”

  “Yeah, well, things were a bit weird back at home.”

  That’s putting it lightly, for sure.

  “Hey Emma, can I ask you something?” Danny continued before waiting for a response to his question, clearly intending it to be rhetorical. “Why are you so infatuated with Ben, anyway? Not that it’s, well, I know it’s really none of my business, but…”

  Ben smiled as he watched Danny begin to blush and fumble his words. Emma had that effect on all of the guys at school, except for him. It was hard to look into the type of eyes she had and not be distracted, almost like having a set of brilliant sapphires flashed in front of your face, except with more warmth and more intensity.

  “It’s… a little hard to explain.” Emma’s voice was quiet, and Ben wondered if he should step in and save her. “Let’s just say that there is something special about Ben, something that I’m not sure that even he realizes.”

  All
three of them were silent for a long, awkward moment. The school loomed ahead of them on the street, and Ben cleared his throat and directed his attention towards the football field.

  “Jeez, it looks like they’re prepared for a ton of people tonight,” he said. “All of the food vendors and security staff are out and about.”

  “Yeah, it’s a good thing we got here early,” said Danny.

  They headed through the ticket line. Without really thinking about it, Ben pulled out his wallet to pay for both him and Emma.

  “Oh, Ben, you don’t have to.”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “My treat.”

  Emma had a strange look in her eyes, almost like she felt bad for letting him pay, more so than she should have.

  Does she have money of her own? She must, if she’s renting that house. Why didn’t I ever stop and think about that, before?

  Ben wanted to ask her on the spot, but Danny was still there, and the last thing he wanted to do was complicate his already complicated social sphere any further.

  “Come on,” said Danny. “Let’s go hang around behind the bleachers.”

  “The bleachers?” asked Ben. “That’s where people sneak off to smoke weed, isn’t it?”

  “There isn’t going to be anything else going on at this time of night,” said Danny. “We might as well see if we can find anything interesting.”

  Ben shook his head but didn’t object further as he followed his friend along towards the area behind the seats. It was also where the football team kept some of their training sleds. Ben’s looked towards one of them which had two girls from his school on it, hidden in the shadows and making out with each other passionately.

  “Told you,” whispered Danny. The girls hadn’t noticed the three of them. Ben glanced over at Emma, expecting her to be put off by the display, but instead finding that she was watching with just as much curiosity as they were.

  He opened his mouth to tease her, but before he could, the sound of laughter and loud male voices approached from behind them. Ben slowly turned around, only to see that it was Cliff and a decently sized group of his wrestling buddies.

  “So where are these chicks at, anyway?” bellowed Cliff. “It sounded pretty hot from what Mike was saying…”

  His face shifted as he saw Ben, Danny, and Emma standing there, eyes lowering into a glare and the sides of his mouth turning up into a thin-lipped smile.

  “Well, look who we have here!” Cliff looked back at his friends and then held up his left hand, which had a splintered index finger. “I’ve been looking everywhere for the two of you over the past few days. Man, am I glad to see you!”

  His gang started laughing. Danny set one of his hands on Ben’s shoulder and started to pull him back, but he shook his head.

  Not this time, not tonight.

  Emma slid in closer to Ben and brought her face close to his ear.

  “We should probably just leave it be,” she whispered. “We don’t want to attract too much attention.”

  “No.” Ben shook his head and stepped forward, waving a hand in a mockingly cordial gesture at the wrestlers. “What’s up, Cliff?”

  “I think you know what’s up, fuck face.” Cliff was visibly angry as he stomped forward, but it wasn’t enough to make Ben back down.

  “If you’re going to try something, go ahead and try it.” Ben had a resigned, confident smile on his face. He had an unusual feeling in his chest, as though the events of the past few days had pushed him to his limit and submitting to Cliff’s bullshit even just one more time would be too much to bear.

  Cliff walked towards him, fast. Ben didn’t notice that Danny was moving to stand between the two of them until it was too late.

  “Hold on a second, how about we all just talk about this?” Danny’s hands were up, and he had his most conciliatory expression on his face. “I’m sure we can find a way to-“

  Cliff lashed out with his fist, punching Danny square in the jaw and dropping him to the ground with the single blow. Ben heard Emma yell something from behind him, but he couldn’t hear, and almost couldn’t see anything, outside of Cliff and the color red.

  This is so familiar.

  The jock was underneath him. He had tackled Cliff, and somehow held both of the large wrestler’s arms against his chest with one hand while he rained down powerful blows onto his face with the other.

  “Ben, stop!” Emma’s voice rang out again, but he still couldn’t hear her.

  Cliff managed to get one of his hands free and reached up, as though to wrap his fingers around Ben’s neck. He twisted out of the way and struck him across the face with his fist again, following it up with a hard elbow to the jock’s neck. Cliff stopped moving, but Ben continued his onslaught.

  It was Emma’s panicked cries that finally brought him out of it. Ben looked down and saw what he’d done, saw the blood on his knuckles and Cliff’s face, and felt sick.

  How did this just happen?

  “We have to get out of here!” yelled Emma. “The security guards are going to try to hold you, arrest you.”

  Ben barely heard her but followed as she took his uninjured hand and pulled him forward. Instead of heading back towards the main entrance to the field, where there were already some authority figures approaching from, they went towards the back fence.

  “Come on!” Emma struggled to climb over the fence, which was just high enough to be difficult for her. Ben set his hand on her soft waist and lifted, feeling a little torn by the way his eyes were drawn to her butt as it wiggled in front of him as she made her way over.

  I just destroyed a boy, and now I’m ogling a girl’s butt?

  “Hurry up!” Emma yelled. Ben snapped out of his reverie and threw himself over the fence.

  The Emerald High baseball field was right next to the football field, and the two of them sprinted across it as quickly as they could, heading for cover under some nearby trees. Ben was completely out of breath by the time they’d made it, and collapsed against one of the thick tree trunks as he dropped to a sitting position.

  “Are you okay?” asked Emma. Ben took a couple more deep breaths and then nodded his head.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I hope Danny is, too. I don’t know what happened, I just… lost it, all of the sudden.”

  “Ben…” Emma’s voice was worried, and as she moved in close to Ben and pulled him into a side hug, he could see the concern on her face. “This isn’t the first time that I’ve seen you fight like that.”

  “What?” asked Ben. “What are you…”

  The shift was sudden and without warning.

  Oh god…

  ***

  “But he’s just a boy, isn’t he?”

  Ben was in the pit again, and across from him stood a lanky, young teenager, who leaned back against the wall defiantly.

  “He’s no more of a boy than you are, honey.” Lenka’s voice came from the top of the pit, soft and sweet.

  As soft and sweet as a woman’s voice can be when she’s in the midst of explaining why a person needs to die.

  “It just doesn’t seem right.” Ben was having trouble getting words out, let alone making a convincing case. He could feel the weight of the many violent, terrible things that he’d done in the time he’d been with The Syndicate weighing down on him, but this was different.

  He saw himself in the boy across from him. He saw eyes that had seen too much, and a body and mind that were both equally scarred.

  “He was one of their assassins,” said Lenka. “They called him Trojan. They would send him in, looking like a poor, helpless child, and he would take advantage of their good will and kill without remorse.”

  How is that any different from what I am, from who I am?

  “Lenka, please!” Ben turned away from the boy for a moment to call up to her. “I can’t-“

  Something, or rather, someone, slammed into Ben hard from behind. He felt his fists begin to swing automatically as he fell to the ground, Lenka’s training
deeply engrained in his muscle memory. And then he saw red and heard screams.

  ***

  “It happened again, didn’t it?”

  Emma was sitting against a tree trunk, cradling Ben’s head in her lap. She ran a hand across his forehead and gazed down at him with soft, loving eyes. Ben forced himself back up into a sitting position.

  “Let’s just go,” he said. “I need to get away from here.”

  Do I need to get away from here, or from my memories?

  CHAPTER 17

  The two of them took the long way back to town, not speaking much as they went. Emma grabbed at Ben’s hand and held it, but it was all he could do to limply squeeze back. It was too hard for him to relax, to let his guard down.

  “Let’s head back to my place,” said Emma. Ben glanced at her a little skeptically remembering the photos and the guns.

  I’m still not entirely sure if I can trust her or not, but it doesn’t look like I have much choice.

  “Fine,” said Ben. “But only for a bit.”

  “I just want to get your hand cleaned up,” said Emma softly. “And get you calmed down.”

  Emma’s house was just down the road from them. She brought Ben inside, and again, he was momentarily taken aback by the sparse decorations and crumbling décor.

  “Emma, how are you renting this place?” asked Ben. “Tell me the truth.”

  The question had been on his mind for a while. Emma froze in place on her way to the bathroom and slowly turned back to him.

  “With the money that I took with me…” she whispered. “…When I left the syndicate.”

  Just as I expected. Does that mean what I think it means?

  “Money that’s going to be missed?” asked Ben. Emma shook her head.

  “Money I was paid, over the course of my time there.” She dipped down the hallway towards the bathroom and came back with a small first aid kit. “Ben, you had money too, you know. We both took what we could with us when we left.”