I looked down at my clothes, thinking the black shade would allow me to get away with recycling my clothes throughout the week if I changed up a few things. They were freshly laundered regularly. But the skirt and blouse were the same exact ones I had worn the first time we’d met. The amount of clothes in my closet dwindled down a long time ago. I was doing the best I could with what I had. Having spent a limited amount of time with Elias every night, during the last couple of weeks, it was easy for him to realize how little I had.
He touched the hem of my skirt, thumbing the material. “This looked brand new when you first wore it. Quality material doesn’t pill this quickly.”
I grinned. “That’s not odd at all, Elias,” I chided him with a laugh.
“I’m a straight man who loves fashion, obviously.” He gestured over what he was wearing and matched my expression. The dark straight-legged slacks and standup collar sweater would definitely thrust him into the fashion-conscious category. “Is that an issue? It could work to your benefit.”
“How?”
With a grin holding the untold answer to my question, he leaned forward with his legs splayed, his arms resting across his lap, and his hands clasping one another. “What happened to you?”
Fully aware it was time I gave him a tiny piece of me to keep him interested, I braced myself for the conversation. “My father was an orphan living in a small village in Ethiopia. He doesn’t remember the name of where he was born or anything about his childhood there. He was adopted by a very nice family in the States when he was young. They died tragically before I was born. My mother was second-generation Sicilian-American. She claimed she had to share a room with three other siblings—she had six in total. When she got pregnant with my older sister, her family disowned her. I’ve never met my mother’s family.
“She went through a lot to get to the point she eventually reached in her life. She became the breadwinner in the family. Even after she married her first husband, she never stopped providing for us. It’s how my father was able to afford to live in more affluent places.
“My mother's second and third husbands spoiled us during the rare times my sister and I were able to spend more than two days with my mother.
“She was a contradiction. She worked hard in her profession, but took money from the men she was involved with in order to get where she wanted to be.”
“When did your mother and father divorce?” he asked, holding to genuine interest and concern.
“Her first husband wasn’t my father. My parents were never married. But I don’t believe it means they loved each other any less. Marriage didn’t mean to my mother what it meant to everyone else. It meant the opposite. She said she couldn’t stay married to the love of her life and she never told me why. It’s a very skewed thought-process. She hurt my father, repeatedly, every time she married another man—which happened four times.”
He digested my information in silence, holding me in a gaze which entrapped me and made me feel things that might not have been true. “You should want for nothing, Hanley. If your mother married into wealth, you should be much better off than you are.”
“Hmph.” I leaned back on my elbows and looked up at the night sky. “I’m in my late twenties, Elias. I think their job is done. I’m an adult. My parents are no longer responsible for me.”
“Their job is never done. With the way my parents continuously intercede in my life and my decision-making from a distance, believe me, I’m not just talking out of the side of my mouth.”
“Talking out of your ass?”
He cut his eyes at me.
Sitting up, I tried to stifle my laughter. “What the fuck is the deal with you and the issues with my cursing? It’s so weird.”
“There is a time and a place. I definitely do my fair share of abusing the English language when needed, or when I’m in the bedroom.” His expression transformed to one that stopped me cold and aroused me at the same time. “I shouldn’t say bedroom since I don’t confine sex to just one place. I can have a very salacious mouth when I’m in that mode.”
I quickly crossed one leg tightly over the other with my hands between my thighs. “Mode? You’re in a mode when you have sex?”
His fervid stare intensified along with the reaction he evoked from my body. The effect he had on me was easily shown through my hands. “Sex is an all-consuming, mind-manipulating act to me.”
“Sounds like very serious business,” I rasped.
“Which is why I’m not a skirt-chaser. Regardless of what you were told, I don’t invite every woman who is interested in me into my bed. I need a connection first.”
“What’s your idea of a connection?”
He slipped my hand from my lap and intertwined his fingers with mine. The second he closed his fist around my hand, the flutters in my abdomen turned into tickles when he brought my hand to his soft lips. “The way we are when we’re simply talking.” He allowed my hand to fall to my lap, but maintained a firm grasp. “The way your body shakes when I say certain things to you. The way I know I make you feel when I touch you. That’s the connection I’m referring to, Hanley.”
“How do you know I feel anything and I’m not just reacting to the weather?” My vocal chords failed me, ensuring I could barely be heard. “And doesn’t a connection flow both ways? Do you feel anything?”
He opened my hand and brought it up to his chest to hover over his heart. The swift beat startled me. Underneath my palm, I could feel the hard curves of a well-conditioned body.
His demeanor hovered on the verge of phlegmatic when he was with me. It was impossible to know what effect I had on him, if any at all.
“I can see it, and I can feel it. I’m glad you stopped breaking out in hives.” With my hand in his, he lifted my chin. “Your body is showing me it’s desperate for me to fill every single fuckable hole you have.”
I clenched my thighs tighter around my palm, cutting off the circulation in my hand.
“As I’ve said”—his smile turned seductive and tempted me further—“some occasions call for the use of the word fuck.” With his eyes half-closed, he smoothly released his hold on me. “Keep in mind there’s more than one way to penetrate someone. If you thought I was talking about sex…” A coy smile turned into a deviant one and made my unfettered reaction to him worse. “I might’ve been. I might not have been.”
My hand had begun to fall asleep with the way I tortured it between my thighs.
“Do you need a change of topic, Ley?” He didn’t ask a question meant to soothe the burn, he did it in a way that made it worse. Every word that fell from his lips exploded with pure sexual persuasion.
“Yes. Definitely.”
He regarded the parking lot with a thousand yard stare and released the invisible grip he had on my desire. “Four husbands and only two spoiled you? What happened there?”
“None of her four husbands are still with us. My mother was…” I removed my hand from my thighs, feeling the sensation I hadn’t felt in a long time. The ringing in my ears. The tingling up my arms. “Another topic change, please,” I whispered.
He leaned forward, resting his feet on the bumper and slipped his hand onto my knee. “I’ll change the topic, but I need to know you’re all right first.”
Because I was never allowed to, I hardly ever cried, I’d be damned if he’d get me to cry over my mother. I closed my eyes and tried to subdue the sensation bubbling in my chest. In remembering my mother—the mother who couldn’t be labeled as nurturing—I felt embarrassed for being tempted to do something she always told me was a weakness. My father subscribed to the same ideals. His emotional fragility mattered very little in what he tried to teach me, and he knew it was hypocritical of him to direct me to do what he couldn’t.
“Hanley,” Elias gasped, leaning forward until his forehead touched mine. My eyelids slowly drifted open, the tears I fought hard against expelling spilled down my face. Biting his lip, he searched my eyes and gently fingered the
moisture from my cheeks. “You haven’t the slightest idea what it does to me to see you like this.” His arm slipped around my waist, pulling me closer. “I’m not letting you go until I know you’re all right.”
Nothing I felt was in the vicinity of “all right.” “Tell me a secret,” I whispered, slipping out of his hold and off the hood of the car to stand.
He hopped off the hood, standing almost body to body with me. His eyes cast downward as he tilted his chin to burn his stare into me. He ducked down and took one of my hands in both of his. The strong hold he had on me made me realize he meant what he said: he wouldn’t let me go until he knew I was okay. The grip he held on me spoke loudly, indicating the level of intensity at which the man was capable of commanding me. He was a huge threat, because it was clear the man could exert a strong authority over every part of my body, internally and externally, if I opened myself up to him.
“I really want to kiss you.” He bit into his lip again, his body now pressing against me.
My heart responded, pumping loudly and dramatically inside my chest.
“I’ve been torturing myself, restraining myself from doing it for weeks. Your lips are incredible, Hanley. So many things about you are. You make it very hard for me to keep things at this slow place.” His cool breath whirled around my nose, making it hard to breathe.
Making it clear he didn’t need my permission, he gently brushed his lips against mine. They were soft and warm, serving as the primary source for the rise in my external body temperature. He parted his lips slightly and kissed me again, gently tugging my bottom lip between his teeth.
I was like a deer in headlights, acting as though I was unclear on what I should’ve done—when I knew exactly what to do.
“That couldn’t have been your first kiss.” He swayed his lips against mine, giving me a few moments to collect myself. “Is there something wrong?”
“No,” I wheezed, barely breathing. “I’m so sorry, it’s just been a really long time for me.”
“Follow my lead, Ley,” he whispered. Slowly, he parted his lips and kissed me with his tongue tickling my bottom lip. The second I felt his tongue against the swell of my lips, I shuddered and unleashed a quiet high-pitched groan.
The more I gave into him, parting my lips and kissing him back, the more he increased the fervor of his kiss. Slipping his hand from mine, he reached up to thumb my chin. He pulled down until my mouth gaped. With my mouth open, his tongue slipped inside and tickled the roof of my mouth just behind my front teeth.
Like a block of defrosting ice, I melted into him. He grabbed the back of my head, holding me like he owned every part of me and kissing me as though he were staking his claim. The sensation sent a shocking chill through me, slithering down my spine to hit in between my legs, making me burn and ache.
I immediately pulled my lips from his mouth and took a few steps back. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so wet to the point of being uncomfortable; he’d successfully made me experience the agonizing sensation.
“Never let go of me, Hanley.” Elias looked at me with half-closed eyes and reconnected our hand holding.
“I’m…” I squeezed my thighs together to diminish the discomfort.
Looking down his nose at me, he gave me a sensuous, crooked smile. “Extremely wet?” His smile broadened, traveling fully into deviant territory. “I know.”
I turned my attention away from his gorgeous face and the seductive words threatening to make me chuck all sense of purpose and let him have his way with me. “I’m tired,” was all I could say. I peeled myself away from him and got back into his car.
I HALFWAY EXPECTED my father to be waiting for me in the living room as usual, but he was in my bedroom, sitting on my bed in his fleece pajamas and red bathrobe. He hadn’t bothered to get dressed for the day. He wore the same pair of pajamas he’d been in when I left him early in the morning. The dark stubble shading his jaw—many days overdue to be shaved—threatened to become a full-on beard. The beeping and rushing sound of Frankie’s machines resounded in the hall, serving as background noise in the otherwise quiet house.
“Did he drop you off?” Appearing enamored with the area rug covering the dark wood floor, he kept his eyes to the ground.
“Yes.” I sat next to him on the couch. “Why are you here instead of Frankie’s room?”
“The nurse is in there.”
I fiddled with my hands, apprehensive about broaching a subject we had spoken about many times before. “Why won’t you ever let me see her? Even before the fire you—”
“If it’s hard for me to see her that way, I know it will be just as difficult for you. Someday.” With palpable emotional distance in his words, he repeated, “Someday.”
Propping my chin on his shoulder, I gazed absentmindedly through the window panels of the French doors. The hedges, in need of trimming, swayed in the breeze and tapped against the door.
“Sometimes, I lay awake in bed and I think what’s happening to her is my karma.”
“It’s not, Dad.”
“You think the best of me, when you shouldn’t.” He put his arm around me, holding me close. He smoothed my hair, humming to me like he used to when I was a little girl. His beautifully deep, smoky voice lulled me and pulled my thoughts toward less depressing things.
I missed this part of him. He was everything I could ask for in a father growing up—a stellar example of a parent who came apart when his anchor was forever lost.
“I’ll make everything that was done to us right again,” I swore to him.
“I love you, you know that, right?”
Shifting my chin away from his shoulder, I nodded at him. The severe melancholy behind his eyes concerned me. He’d often descend into a dark space that was hard to get him out of. The scars surrounding his neck revealed hints of just how deep his emotional hole could be. It happened a year ago, and if I’d returned home a minute or two later, he would’ve died. I hadn’t the slightest idea of who I would’ve devolved into if I had ever lost him.
My phone buzzed while it remained in my hand, urging my father to release me. Giving me his approval, he nodded at me. I flipped my phone over and read the text:
Elias: Your lips are like a narcotic.
Consider me a self-admitted addict.
My mood changed and I smiled broadly. When I looked up at my father, he smiled back at me. His smile was so empty and dry, I could read his thoughts through his silence. He was concerned about me developing personal feelings for a man who should’ve only been looked upon as an instrument to dig out the black heart of a man who wronged my family.
“See, Dad.” I showed him the text, hoping to eradicate his fears.
He’d spent too much time worrying my nightly meetings on the hood of Elias’s car were heading toward a dead end. The message was my proof they were going somewhere. “You have nothing to worry about.”
He never looked at the text. He simply stood and cupped my face in his hands. “It’s never you I’m worried about, Hanley. You never usually give me a reason.”
FIVE
IT WAS A NIGHT I couldn’t sleep without tossing and turning. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Elias’s lips and his smile. I could hear his voice in my head, repeating the dirtiest thing he’d ever said to me, “…every fuckable hole you have.” It didn’t make sense to be so enamored with someone so soon. The attraction was an inconvenience and completely accidental. The more I attempted to shove him from my thoughts, the more everything about him would swarm my mind, flooding it with him and little else.
I clenched my thighs together as the irritating sizzle began to increase my discomfort. I tossed my body to the side and clutched the pillow on my right. I shoved it between my thighs and squeezed the stiff pillow between my legs. The small corner of the cotton grazed against my clit for a brief moment—easily felt through the thin lace portion of my panties—making the feeling intensify and pushed me to release my pent up tension.
My hand skipped down my body, fingering the light mist of perspiration coating the skin on my sternum and stomach. I slid my hand underneath the lacy fabric of my panties, raking my fingertips against my closely-trimmed pubic hair. I discovered my closely shaven labia and began to rock my fingers up and down my slick slit. Lifting my wet fingers up, I circled my nub, making it swell and throb under the manipulation of the pads of my fingers.
I closed my eyes, imagining the sight of Elias’s naked body. A sight I was sure would stun me once he revealed it to me some day. Feeling as though my fingers were his, a quiet moan escaped my throat. My breaths grew sharp and ragged as my fingers moved quickly. My back arced off the bed as my toes pointed, preparing for the purging rush with his name on my lips.
A buzz on my dresser called my attention to my phone.
“Hello?” I didn’t take note of the time or the name of the caller when I answered breathlessly.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” It was Elias, and I could’ve sworn he had a smile on his face. The genial inflection of his voice almost mocked me. His seductive raspy voice always held a tinge of what could’ve been assumed to be exhaustion, but in the middle of the night, he didn’t sound tired in the least.
“No. No. I wasn’t doing anything.” In trying to sound innocent, my delivery made it clear I’d, in fact, been caught doing something I didn’t want him to know about.
“It’s three o’ clock in the morning, and I can hear you panting.” An elongated silence passed. “Hanley”—his voice lowered to octave and rumbled down my spine—“where are your fingers?”
I immediately removed my hand from my clit. “No,” I stated in a high pitched voice, answering him as if he asked me if I’d been masturbating. Reprimanding myself for my erroneous slip-up, I slapped my forehead. I couldn’t have sounded guiltier. “I meant to say my hands aren’t anywhere near the area you think they are.” I drew my legs up, tucked my knees, and stared at the shadows dancing across my ceiling. “I was going for a run.”
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