by Jordan Marie
I go out of the back door, wanting to yell out her name again, but we try not to announce those, even if it is a private beach, you can’t trust it. I see her down by the water looking out over the ocean, and instantly my fear recedes. It’s probably not healthy to be as obsessed with a woman as I am about Tess. It’s too fucking late now.
“Kitten, you scared me.”
She puts her hand over her forehead to block the sun, why I don’t know. There is no sun. It’s a dark, overcast, cool, fall day in Florida, and you can smell the scent of rain in the air even over the ocean salt.
“I lost track of time, Mad Max. You worry too much.”
“We can’t be too careful, Kitten. I’ve told you that.”
“It’s not me they’re after Max. If they find me, I’ll be fine, and you’ll know; they’d swarm the house looking for you,” she says, and her voice is tense.
I sit down on the sand beside her, watching the waves crash. I’ve lived in Florida my whole life, but never cared much about visiting the ocean. Since moving here with Tess, it has helped me breathe again.
“Do you want out? Is it time?” I ask her, needing to know if she’s done.
“Don’t ask me that, Max, not right now,” she says and that feeling in my chest blooms again. “I’m going back to the house to fix some dinner.”
“Why not right now? I told you to tell me when you had enough; when it became too much, or you just decided you didn’t want this any longer.”
“Yeah, you did. You covered your bases, Max. Relax, your conscience is clear.” She pulls away from my hold and stands, dusting the sand off of her jeans and starts walking back to the house.
“Stop. Don’t you go another fucking step, Tess.”
She stops and turns back to me, but her eyes are shooting fire.
“Are you done with this? Do you want out? They are simple questions woman, fucking answer them.”
“You are such a moron,” she says, before turning away again. Since we’ve been set up here, I’ve pretty much let things become smooth and easy with Tess. She’s dealing with a lot of shit because of me, and I haven’t wanted to rock the boat. But a woman, hell especially my woman, will not get away with that shit unless her ass is glowing red for it later. I follow and stop her before she reaches our back deck.
“What the hell, Tess? You want to tell me what’s going on in that head of yours?”
“Why? What’s the point, Max? It wouldn’t matter anyway!”
“Because you just called me a moron? Because I need to know if you’re ending what we have? Because I deserve to know where your head is that? Name the fucking reason, Tess.”
“You are a moron!”
“Woman, I’m warning you!”
“Warning me of what, Max? What you should have warned me about is that you’re pigheaded, a male asshole through and through and I’m tired.”
“What is going on? Jesus, you were fine this morning when I left.”
“No Max, I was half comatose from three orgasms.”
“See, fine. I take care of you.”
“Ahhh! Seriously? That’s what you think makes a relationship work?”
“Tess. I don’t do relationships. Fuck, the most serious one I had, was with a borrowed club girl that made me sour on the whole damn deal and it fucked my life up so bad. I mean hell, I can’t even take you out on a damned date!”
“No Max, you fucked your life up. You make the decisions you make and to hell with what the rest of us think or feel.”
Her words hit me hard, and they taste bitter. I step back away from her as I take them in.
“Tess, you’re on dangerous ground here. We’ve only been together for a short time. You can’t start acting like you got my shit wrapped around your finger. I am not that man. I will never be that man.”
“We’ve been together almost a month! A very fucking intense month that for regular, normal people time, is like six months!”
“Normal people time? Bloody hell woman you aren’t even making sense!”
“You need to turn yourself in!”
My head goes back as though she slapped me.
“What the fuck are you talking about? We’ve been through this.”
“No, no we haven’t, Mighty Mad Max has been through it, and he just expects me to agree. He expects everyone to agree. But you see here’s the thing! I don’t agree. You need to turn yourself in! We need to start living and not hiding, because eventually they will find you, Max. They will find you, and when they do it will be bad. Like epic proportions, bad.”
“Tess, I told you. If I turn myself in, even if by some miracle I make it alive. That would be the end of us. The end of anything we could have.”
“We can’t have anything now! Turn yourself in, Max. You have to; there’s no other choice.”
“What do you think will happen to us, Tess? If I turn myself in?”
“I’ll visit you! I’d still be here, Max. I wouldn’t go anywhere. We could get married, they have conjugal visits and things. We’ll make do, just like everyone else, Max. We’ll make do until I can get you out of there.”
“You don’t even know if you could get me out of there. And no woman of mine is going to come into a jail to visit me through a glass window every week and have guards patting her down. That shit is not happening. Have you even thought this through, woman? What law firm would even let you work for them, knowing you were married to a felon serving time for murder? And shit, conjugal visits; do you know what shit is? That shit is a joke, and I doubt they’d even let a murderer have them. You’re living in a fucking dream world!”
“No, you are! We’ve been here for weeks, Max! Weeks! And you still haven’t tried to deal with any of it! It’s like you think we can just bury our head in the sand and live in this house and not worry about the outside world. It doesn’t work that way. Eventually someone will find you, and they’ll shoot first and ask questions later! Is that what you want, Max? Do you want me to stand here and watch the man I love, die in front of my very eyes?”
It takes me a minute to grasp what she is saying. She’s yelling at me, and her body is shaking from the depth of fear she has inside of her. There’s tears in her eyes and rolling down her face, and I really think this is it. It’s over. Then her words crash on me. She loves me? She has to be talking out of her head. She’s only known me for three weeks or so. Still. If she thinks she loves me, I need to encourage that. I need to wrap her up tight to me, so she doesn’t get away.
“You love me, Kitten?”
“I don’t want to talk about this with you, Max,” she says turning away to walk on into the house. The sky picks that moment to open up and hard, cool rain drenches us, and everything around us.
“Answer the fucking question, Tess. Do you love me?” I yell over the hard falling rain and booming of thunder in the distance.
“No, Max! Of course not! I don’t love you! How on Earth could I love you?” she asks, and my chest hurts. I don’t know why it was important, but the thought that she loved me…mattered. Her answer just adds salt to the wound she’s already opened. “I studied you for a solid month, reading everything I could about you. I spent weeks pouring over the laws and precedents to make sure you had every shot of getting parole. Then you take me hostage and wow, look, weeks later and I’m still here! I threw my life away to go on the run with you. I only give you my body every damn night! How could that equal to love right? See, Max? This is why you are a moron! Of course I fucking love you! Because the truth is I’m a moron too! I’m a freaking lunatic!”
The rain has plastered her shirt and hair to her body. She’s breathing hard, and she’s so soaked I can’t tell where her tears start, and the rain begins. But hope blooms in my heart. It’s a strange feeling for a man who has never had a heart, to suddenly feel.
“Then go away with me, Tess.”
“I am…what did you say?”
“Marcum got us new ID’s and papers. Go with me Tess we’ll cross th
e border and start a new life. One together.”
“I…Max…”
“What do you have here, Tess? There’s nothing here for either of us.”
“I…Max, this doesn’t solve our problems, it’s just running away.”
“We can have a life together, Tess. It may not be the life you pictured before. But it would be a life.”
“And if they catch you? What happens then, Max?”
“We’ll face that together. Give me this, Tess. Give us this chance.”
“Max…”
“I’m asking you, to give us time together, Tess. I’ve never asked anyone for one thing in my life until you came into my life. I asked Marcum for his help, and now I’m asking you to do this with me. Say, yes.”
I hold my breath waiting for her answer.
21
Max
“You’re crazy, Max.”
“Is that a no or a yes, Tess.”
“I’m crazy,” she whispers, her head down. “I’m standing in the rain, soaked and wet, talking about fleeing for the border with an escaped murderer. They make cheesy made-for-television movies from this shit, Max. You’ve turned me into a cliché!”
“Answer the fucking question, Tess.”
“Go fuck yourself, Max! Quit telling me what to do! This isn’t easy! What you’re asking is a lot! A hell of a lot!”
“Fine then! I’ll have Marcum and the boys take you into Ormond tomorrow. To hell with it!”
She looks at me, and her face is unreadable for a moment and then…then everything changes.
“It’s so easy for you, right, Max? Just send me on my way. Simple. Easy. Clean. No harm no foul.”
She stands there acting like I have nothing invested. Maybe I don’t; compared to her. I know I am living in borrowed time as it is. That still doesn’t make this shit easy. This is her fucking fault anyway. Walking into the prison and fucking up my life—making me want. Fuck her if she’s leaving anyway, I’ll show her exactly what being with a man like me is about. I’ll show her it all.
I stalk over to her. It’s a mere six steps, but they are steps that announce I’m done. Her eyes grow large, even with the deluge of rain pounding us both. I grab her by the neck, yanking her roughly into my body. “There’s not a damn thing that’s easy about this, Kitten. There’s not a fucking thing easy about me.”
“Max, I can’t do this,” she starts by pushing me away. I don’t let her. Fucking hell, she’s twisting me in knots, and I’m tired of it. She’s the one who made the decision to let me into her pants. She’s the one who spread her legs for me, even after seeing what I’m capable of. Turn myself in? Fuck her and the high horse she rode in on. I’ll let her see the monster she’s set free.
I stop her with my mouth, swallowing her words that don’t mean a fucking thing. Love? She doesn’t even fucking know me. How dare she try and say that shit. This is sex, pure fucking, elemental sex and she craves it as much as I do! My tongue pushes into her mouth, owning her immediately. Her sweet taste mixes with the water on her face and does nothing but make her sweeter. My hold on her neck is hard, punishing. There will be bruises there tomorrow, and I war with two different emotions. I’m glad. I want to mark her, and I’m mad that she would bring me to this point. She’s not stopping me. Fuck no. If anything, she is meeting every thrust of my tongue, everything I pour into our kiss, she’s just a step behind.
We break away as I capture her lip, biting down on it, pulling it. I can taste the faint coppery taste of blood, but even that doesn’t make me stop. Her eyes are on mine, shooting fire at me, but not stopping me. In fact, her sweet little claws are biting into my sides, leaving marks themselves. I’ll wear her marks though, any fucking day of the week. She’s got another of my flannel shirts on, and I grab the collar at each end and rip it apart. The rain makes it harder, but I’m so worked up by this point, it tears easily. She doesn’t bother with a bra these days, claiming I just end up destroying them. She’s right.
“Max,” she gasps, but I don’t respond. I watch as the rain slides down those taunt nipples of hers, and my eyes follow the path, the drops take, as they trail down her stomach. It fucking pisses me off that I can’t watch them travel farther. So I unbutton the jeans she’s wearing and push the zipper down. I don’t know what I expected. I guess I thought Tess would fight me but there she is, her hands greedily joining mine to push the wet, soggy material down her legs. She kicks off the shoes she’s been wearing and then she’s naked.
Naked; with raindrops caressing every inch of her soft, white skin. She pushes her hair out of her eyes, and I know she’s waiting to see what I will do next. She’s never been more beautiful.
“Turn around and get on your fucking knees, Tess. Now.”
She’s gasping for air, and a flash of something shows on her face, but she does as I order. I don’t worry about my clothes; this is going to go too fucking fast to waste time removing them. I’m too worked up, too close to the edge. I undo my belt buckle and push my pants down just enough to free my rock hard cock. I use my body to wedge between her and push her legs apart to make more room for me.
One of the things I love about fucking Tess is that she’s so small I can lean over her, as I am now. I can wrap my hands hard in her hair, just like now. Pull her neck back and dominate her from behind. Just. Like. Fucking. Now.
“You think this is easy, Tess? Do you think anything about this is fucking easy? You want to act like this is all on me? Spout your words about being in love with me? You don’t know a fucking thing about me. I think it’s time you met the animal you let rut between your legs.” I let go of her hair and wrap my hands around underneath to hold her breasts, squeezing them tightly, maybe a little too tight. Her hips thrust up in the air, her ass rocking against my crotch. Searching for what I can give her. I slide my hands roughly down her soaked body, the water highlighting the differences between us. Tess, soft, slick and sweet and I am the complete opposite, hard, callused, and rough. I crudely grab the cheeks of her ass, kneading them hard. Spreading them apart and looking at the tight pink rosy opening to her ass. What would she think if she knew what I was going to do to that ass some day? Someday, very, very soon. Fuck, my cock throbs at even the idea of taking her there.
She’s panting now. Her hips pushing back into me, searching and wondering what will happen next. I slide one hand between her legs. My fingers sliding in between the lips of her pussy, raking against the tender wet flesh, finding her hard clit. I pinch it. Her body jumps, and I slam my hand down on her ass, the sound echoing in the rain as the water splatters.
“Max…oh god, Max…” she gasps. Her body is riding nothing but air because I won’t give her what she needs, what she craves. She’s not getting that until I’m good and goddamned ready. I push two fingers into her pussy. I don’t know why I worried if she’d be ready for me. She’s more than ready. I thrust them hard into her, curling them up to reach that spot that will rocket her into space. I retreat before she has a chance to ride my hand and she cries out in disappointment. My response is to slap her ass again, harder this time. Her body bows and she cries out. Her sweet cream flows against my fingers in a quick spurt of release. One thrust into her juicy little cunt and she’d set off like a bottle rocket. Instead, I gather her sweet juice and drag it along the outside of her pussy and then back to her ass. I drive my fingers into her ass, letting her own cream be the lube to aid me. She cries out again, her head going down, her ass arching higher. She was made to fuck hard. My fingers pop through that tight ring of muscle and this time it’s me that groans at how tight and fucking right she feels. I move my fingers in a scissor-like movement inside, stretching her hole. I withdraw slightly and then thrust back in, fucking her ass with my fingers, and showing her just who owns her body. I bend over her, so I know she can hear me. I need her to hear me.
“I’m taking this fucking ass soon, Tess. There won’t be a part of you that I don’t own. I’m going to own and brand every fucking inch of you. Y
ou think you could walk away from me? Do you think anyone else can ever give you what I can?” I growl. I shove my fingers back in her ass when she doesn’t answer, only this time I need more. I use my free hand to position my cock, and as I slide my fingers almost out of her ass, I slam my cock home. There’s nothing soft and easy about it. I slam into her hard—balls deep. I want her to taste me; I’m so fucking deep. The thick denim of my jeans abrades the backs of her legs. This is rutting. This is letting the animal out of the cage. This is me, showing her; love is not an option here. This is need—pure and simple. I set a rhythm in her ass with my fingers, matching it with my cock. I’m so close to coming that my balls are drawn tight. I can only concentrate on the rhythm of our movements, on the way I’m fucking her, owning her.
“Max!” She screams out as I feel her body start to writhe, and the delicate muscles in her body convulse and tighten against me. “Max! I’m going to come!” She screams out again. I slip my fingers out of her ass, regretfully. I want to stay there. Hell, I want my cock there. Now is not the time though. Instead, I use my fingers on her clit and send her skyrocketing over the edge and let her release trigger my own.