Sight Unseen

by AnonYMous

  “Mm.” Riding him would have to wait.

  I inched forward and pressed my tits together and he repeated the movement, fucking my cleavage almost reverently. I dropped my chin and licked the head of his cock. He cursed, and we moved together. It was raunchy and exposed and when his fingers tangled in my hair, I’d never felt so powerful.

  “Want to fuck you, but don’t want this to stop.”

  I sucked his tip harder. How long could I do this before he came? Before he took matters into his own hands? Because I wanted to see Brad lose control. I wanted to be there when he broke. Until then, his skin rasped against my breasts and his energy vibrated under me.

  A few minutes later, he gently pulled me up and rolled me over. “I can’t take it anymore. Need you now.”

  He dug in his nightstand and then rolled a condom down his length. “We’ll do this again later tonight. Slow and soft, with trembling hands and whatnot.”

  “Trembling hands?”

  “I’m going to worship every bit of you, but . . . later.”

  He grabbed my ankle and tugged me toward him. He stopped, muttered something. He twisted me, and I giggled. I couldn’t help it. His mouth was scrunched together and he was looking at me as he might at a puzzle. He’d been made stupid by lust—which I got.

  “You don’t seem to have a plan here,” I teased.

  “My problem is I have fifty plans.”

  Air whooshed out of me as he flipped me again. Now I was on all fours and the head of his cock was nudging against my entrance, just waiting there. He still wasn’t certain, but I was. I was goddamn ready and had been for a while now.

  But his hands on my hips were iron. He slipped into me the smallest bit and worked his hips back and forth.

  His hold was too strong for me to do anything except exhale, and it roared like a chinook wind in his otherwise silent house. He took another half inch.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  Brad lifted one hand and ran his fingertips down my spine. “Patience.”

  I had none. Everything was blind need. I whimpered and he slid forward another millimeter. Then stopped again.

  But right before I started begging, he said, “No, this isn’t going to work.”

  Then I was on my side and with one deep thrust he was in me. One move, and I would have sworn all the oxygen left my body. There was only Brad.

  “Thank God,” I managed. I squeezed my eyes closed and tears leaked out.

  “I had to see your face.”

  I couldn’t handle seeing at the moment, myself. Feeling was too much.

  He thrust again, and I sobbed. I was full, so full, and he was exactly where I needed him. I shifted, one heel now on his shoulder, but I otherwise couldn’t move, could only push against him and take all of him. All of me was lighting up at once, buzzing like in a game of Operation.

  I tangled my fingers in the comforter, seeking some kind of foundation, but there wasn’t one. Because Brad was a force of nature in the sack. Glorious, glorious nature.

  He grazed his mouth along my collarbone, and I opened my eyes. Brad’s arms were braced over me. The muscles of his stomach were bunched and working. Sweat ran down his chest. He bit his lip, but needy groans slipped out. Nothing was held back or hidden. He was chanting my name. My hands spasmed.

  Then I was screaming and he was kissing me and I was done for, satisfied and boneless.

  *

  Brad

  That had been stunning. I had spent hours—no, probably days—imagining being with Wren. I thought I’d catalogued every possibility, every scenario, but she was more. Hotter. Sweeter. Warmer. Wetter.

  If she’d let me, I wanted to play out some tiny fraction of those dreams. I’d be less hesitant, maybe. I’d manage to tell her what she meant to me, to memorize more of the tiny details. I’d make it better for her.

  Not that she was complaining.

  I managed to stumble off the bed and dispose of the condom. I regarded Wren, who was still naked and curled up on the edge of the bed with a happy grin on her face. Her eyes were firmly closed. She was a sexier Cheshire Cat.

  “You’re gonna get cold,” I told her.

  “You’re gonna get cold,” she mimicked. “Shouldn’t it be, ‘You are going to catch a chill, my lady’?”

  “Is that what I sound like in your head?” I tried for any tone other than affronted, but I didn’t succeed. She thought I was a stuck-up snob, probably with good reason.

  “Mm, yes. You’re very proper. Especially when you’re fucking my tits.”

  My cheeks flamed and I was grateful for the dark. “Get under the covers and stay awhile, my lady.”

  She snorted. “Hey, if I’m your lady, can you get me my phone?”

  I didn’t want to ponder how much I wanted her to be my lady. “You can’t even sit up yet. What do you want a phone for?”

  “I’m sitting.” Wren pushed up onto her arms. She was mussed and beautiful, and her legs didn’t seem to be working yet. She dragged herself across the bed and onto the pillows. My pillows. Every bit of her moved in alluring ways. She flopped down and waggled her head at me. She didn’t blow a raspberry and say, I told you so, but she didn’t need to.

  “Why do you need your phone?” I repeated.

  “To call the police.” She said it like it was the stupidest and most obvious thing in the world.

  Oh hell. That part had been bound to show up again now we’d dealt with our lust.

  “Tell me your plan,” I said.

  She fumbled with the covers and slid in. I followed and curled my arm around her waist. This was happening—every bit of this was happening. I should be joyful, but the emotion was tempered by a healthy measure of fear. I knew she was right, but I wanted to skip over the next few days.

  “Well, we know where the drugs are,” she said. “That won’t last, so I should let law enforcement know, don’t you think?”

  I rested my chin on her head. “What do you think your father will do?”

  “There’s a chance he won’t get to do anything,” she finally said. “He’ll be in . . . prison.”

  She wasn’t lying to herself about what could come from calling the cops, at least. She didn’t have any illusions. Good.

  “Have you thought about what that means? Sending your own dad to prison?”

  “I don’t see what else I can do—except ignore it. But that would be accepting . . .”

  “Him flooding Fallow with drugs.”

  The only thing she loved as much as her father was this town—this dried up, shriveled husk on the Hi-Line. She was only considering acting because it was better for Fallow if she did. I knew that with every speck of myself.

  “I don’t want him to go to jail, honest. I’m not heartless.”

  “Jesus, Wren. The last thing anyone would think you are is heartless.”

  “Ratting out your dad is pretty heartless.”

  It was going to mess her up, doing this. She was being tough now, but it wouldn’t last. I just hoped she’d let me help her hold it together.

  “I don’t see another way,” she went on. “Drugs are bad.”

  I chuckled. “That’s deep, babe, very deep. Nancy Reagan would be proud.”

  “Shut up.” She pinched me. “You know what I mean. It’s bad for the town. And it’s bad for my dad, for Uncle Paul. It’s bringing bad people into their lives and into Fallow. And I can’t . . . I can’t let that be.”

  “Is there any way this blows back on you?”

  What I didn’t ask—though I thought it—was is there any way this blows back on me? On my family? Wren and I were involved now, and Larry knew it, which meant Mike knew it and Zack knew it. If Wren did this and there was reverb, it might hit me. It might hit a lot of people.

  It didn’t mean she shouldn’t. It just meant . . . hell, I didn’t know.

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t involved. I’m innocent. I don’t have anything to be scared of.”

  “The system doesn’t
always work that way.” She wasn’t naïve, but she was optimistic. She’d hit me—not gently—if I said it, but it was true. She believed in justice and in institutions. It was adorable.

  “That’s a risk I’m going to have to take.”

  “And if you dad doesn’t go to jail for some reason, and finds out it was you—”

  “They have anonymous tip lines, right? And I can dial *67. There’s no reason he has to know it was me.”

  There was a long silence in which I hoped against hope she might have fallen asleep. Then she shattered the illusion when she whispered, “You think this is a terrible plan?”

  “No. It’s not quite that. I don’t think there’s anything else for you to do. It’s only I . . . I don’t know how this is going to work out. All the endings here are bad.”

  “Life’s like that—I was going to say sometimes, but it seems like it’s all the time.”

  Including for us? But I already knew the answer.

  Let’s say this went perfectly. The cops went over and arrested everyone and believed we were innocent: the end. What then? Was there a picket fence and a sunset for Wren and me?

  Masters would fold. She’d probably leave town to get away from the talk. And she’d come to hate me for how I’d brought it to her attention.

  Our days together could be counted on a single hand, probably. But there wasn’t anything for it.

  I found her phone, and I handed it to her.

  She looked at it and nodded. “Let’s do this.”

  So we did.

  Chapter 9

  Wren

  I lifted Brad’s arm from my waist and attempted to slide from his bed. I didn’t account for my left foot, which was knotted in the sheet, though. I managed not to fall, but it wasn’t pretty. I had not stuck the dismount.

  Luckily, Brad slept on as I wriggled into my clothes, stole some of his toothpaste, and splashed water on my face.

  I was creeping down the hall when he stuck his head out of his room. “Going somewhere?”

  He was amused, and his hair was mussed, and something like guilt thumped in my stomach. It had been wrong to use him. Fucking him had been good—no, great—but jeez, it had been selfish. He’d known about the drugs before me, but I’d dragged him right into the middle of it. Whatever was going to go down, I’d brought it onto him, maybe onto his parents.

  I was such a bitch.

  “Home.” The word was serrated.

  His almost-dimple showed at that. He needed ten or twenty more pounds on his frame, and there it would be. “Babe, you’re not.”

  “You think I haven’t done the walk of shame before? Watch me.”

  He caught my arm. “Please. Not without me.”

  He’d whispered like that against my skin last night, and in an instant, I was dizzy with the memory of being under him, clinging to him.

  I shook him off on an exhale. “Fine, but I’m going to work.”

  “Give me ten.”

  “Brad.” He needed to let me go. I had to see what, if anything, had happened with the cops, and I needed to beat the shit of myself for using him. I couldn’t do either with him as an escort. “About last night—”

  “I know. It was just a one-time thing.”

  I could feel my skin wanting to bristle and deny what he’d said, but I tamped the impulse down. It was good he saw it like that. Right now, it was how things had to be. “We work together.”

  “For a motorcycle gang, Lone Gun sure does take sexual harassment seriously.”

  I snorted. “HR is our specialty.”

  “And see, I thought it was meth.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Only Brad would joke with me right now and about that. But I couldn’t enjoy it.

  I buried my face in my hands. “I don’t know what last night was,” I told him honestly. “But I can’t again. Not until this is settled.” I left off, And maybe not ever. I wasn’t good for him. I might not be good for anyone.

  I peeked through my fingers. His color was ashen and his tongue was in his cheek. He wasn’t pleased, but I couldn’t worry about that. Not now.

  “Yeah.” He acknowledged after a few beats. “Let me shower. We’ll leave in five.”

  We didn’t talk anymore. He got ready. I made some coffee, but that was a shit peace offering. He took his own car and followed me.

  But whatever internal drama I had going on faded when we got within sight of Masters. The screaming red and blue lights, almost vulgar against the gray of the place, blotted everything else out. The cops were here. So was an ambulance. The tips I’d left for various crime-fighting agencies had worked.

  Brad was at my door before I’d gathered my stuff. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered.

  I knew he didn’t believe it. He said it because there wasn’t anything else, anything better, to offer. Maybe it would be okay, maybe it wouldn’t. We had to get through it either way.

  “You Wren Masters?” a sheriff asked as we walked over to the crime scene tape cordoning part of the lot, the clubhouse, and garage off. This sheriff must have lived out of town; I didn’t recognize him.

  “Yeah, that’s me. Is everything okay?” Obviously it wasn’t. None of this was remotely normal.

  But the sheriff didn’t say a goddamn thing.

  Shit. How would I be playing this if I didn’t know? “This is my dad’s place.” I waved at it and started babbling. “I’m the office manager.” I felt Brad’s shift behind me. “And this is Brad White, our accountant.”

  The sheriff took all of this in with the same amount of interest a tombstone does the rain. Then he spit into the gravel. “We need to talk to you both. Your dad will be by in a second.”

  If my dad was coming to talk to me, he hadn’t been arrested. The cops were here. And he hadn’t been arrested.

  My heart was thumping in my chest in time with the strobe of the police lights, but I only nodded. “Sure. I hope everything’s all right.”

  “It’ll be a sec.”

  Brad tried to fit his hand against my small of my back, but I shook him off. It wasn’t going to ease the tension and I couldn’t let either him or me pretend we were a couple. Not anymore.

  A minute later, Dad came out of the garage. His mouth was closed, his movements tight. A cop walked with him, talking in low tones. Dad was nodding, but not saying anything.

  They stopped a few feet from us.

  “I’ll make sure Paul knows,” Dad finally said. Then he looked up at me. His eyes were blood shot, and his jaw set. “Baby.”

  The word was thick with sadness, exhaustion, and disappointment. No menace, no threat, but a world of other things.

  “What’s happening, daddy?” My voice came out thin, young, and I was embarrassed.

  Dad shot Brad a look, but then must have decided I wasn’t going to let him chase Brad away, because he said, “It’s your cousin. It’s Larry.”

  Moisture clouded my eyes, and I blinked it away. I knew it all, all at once. But I needed to hear it. “What’s wrong with Larry?”

  “He’s dead.”

  I doubled over and puked on my shoes.

  *

  Brad

  A few hours after I’d arrived at Masters, I’d given my testimony to the cops. After the tips Wren had phoned in the night before, they’d come ready for a raid, and they’d found Larry.

  They weren’t certain if it was an accidental overdose or a suicide, and they didn’t appear to be terribly concerned about the distinction. He wasn’t my cousin, but I’d call their attitude flippant at best.

  They’d released me to the office with the weak warning not to destroy anything. Then I’d paced and waited for Wren. She was still in with the authorities. They thought she might have been the last person to see Larry alive—except for whoever had killed him. Because if this was an accident or a suicide, I was a turnip.

  I’d texted my parents frantically and begged them to leave town, but when they’d called, no doubt to ask why, I’d ignored the ringing. W
ith the cops here, my brain had gone on conspiracy overdrive. It suddenly occurred to me Mike or Paul or Zack could have stashed a nanny cam in here—something I probably should have considered weeks ago. A lifetime of watching crime shows had not prepared me well to live in one.

  I opened some work, but only to have something to do with my hands. I stole some candy out of Wren’s desk. I buried my face in a scarf she’d left hanging by the door that smelled like her. And I prayed when she came back, she’d let me take her away. We could get away from this place forever.

  When she’d tried to brush me off, I hadn’t been surprised. I’d been hurt, sure, but not stunned. Of course she didn’t have time for this—but also of course, she was trying to pretend it hadn’t meant anything. I’d been there, and we were amazing together. She might not say it under pain of death and she might not ever need me again. Fine. But someday when this wasn’t hanging over our heads, I was going to get her to admit we were incendiary together, if only for my ego’s sake.

  Finally, finally, a cop knocked on the door. “You can go, sir.”

  “Thanks, but I’m going to wait for Wren.”

  The cop looked away, fast and guilty. I didn’t need to be an armchair psychologist to read the meaning in that: this was about to get really bad, but before I could say anything else, he gestured. Across the parking lot, Wren, her dad, her uncle, and the rest of the members of Lone Gun had been cuffed, and the police were loading them one at time into squad cars.

  I started down the stairs, but the cop put out an arm to stop me. “There wasn’t any evidence of your involvement with the drugs—you’re just the accountant after all. But you’re still a person of interest. I know about your . . . involvement with her, but you should give her a wide berth if you want to avoid being arrested.”

  She looked at me and gave one curt shake of her head. She wanted me to walk away, to let this happen to her, because it had just been one night, because I was just the accountant.

  Fuck that.

  Chapter 10

  Wren

  One of the things you don’t get from Orange is the New Black is how goddamn cold prison is. All the cement, the metal, the guards: they only generate enough heat between them so the water in the toilets doesn’t freeze. At least the jumpsuit itched. Scratching kept me moving.