In the middle of washing my face, I got a text from Elias. I quickly clicked on the message splayed across the top of my screen and read it.
Elias: I’m sorry I’ve been absent.
I was traveling for work.
I thought of you every moment of every day.
I missed you.
I sat on the sink, staring at the message and couldn’t tame my bright smile. I counted the minutes before I decided to respond:
Me: I missed you too.
I wish you were here right now.
Elias: Leave a light on in your bedroom.
Me: It’s already on.
Elias: I’m at your door.
From the bathroom, I heard a soft rhythmic tapping on the French doors of my bedroom. I gasped and jumped back at the same time. I looked in the mirror at my bare face, my hair piled high on top of my head while wearing only panties and a white T-shirt in preparation for bed.
I couldn’t make it to my walk-in closet to change without him seeing me. I turned off my phone, leaving it on the bathroom counter. Collecting my anxiety, barely, I walked across the room to close and lock my bedroom door prior to opening the French doors leading outside.
“You have to give me better notice than this,” I hissed, eyeing him looking the most casual I’d ever seen him. Had it not been for his fresh clean scent, I would’ve thought he came straight after a session at the gym. The clingy T-shirt and the revealing, yet loose, jogging pants made me think so. His hair wasn’t in its usual defined style. It fell slightly forward, down over his forehead, and glistened with dampness.
He eyed me from head to toe, taking his time at each body part to silently admire what he saw. “I feel like a teenager again, Ley. Sneaking into your room…” His eyes slowly lifted to my face. “Come here.” He pulled me close as he bit his lip “Wow,” he gasped.
“What?” I asked, self-consciously touching my hair.
“Naturally beautiful.”
I smiled big enough to create a popping sensation in my inner ear.
Lurching forward, he kissed me. His kiss was needy and amorous. It stole my equilibrium and my need for him manifested into a painful and burning ache between my legs. I reached up to run my fingers through his soft hair. He lifted me up, forcing my legs to wrap around his hips and halfway placed, halfway tossed, me onto the bed. He left me wanting more when he abruptly lifted away from me to stand at the edge of the bed with a skewed smile.
“You’re getting better.” He looked down at me with his chin tilted to his chest, specifically taking notice of the way my legs were spread. “I made you wet…again,” he observed huskily with a cocky smile. “I think I should do something about that.”
My heart began to thump within my chest. Logic and desire swirled around my thoughts, making me feel dubious. I quickly closed my legs. “We can’t. You came here to sleep…right?”
“Of course. That’s exactly what I came here to do after missing you so much I found it hard to think straight. Sleep.” The sarcasm in his voice was perceptible and coerced me to laugh coyly. He gave me a wink and grabbed the hem of his shirt, lifting it over his head.
I clenched my jaw, suddenly feeling frozen. My eyes darted everywhere but at him.
“Is this an issue?” The snap of a waistband and the rustle of more clothes indicated he’d removed his pants. I was now staring at the ceiling. “Am I supposed to sleep in my clothes?” Reaching forward, he moved my chin to face him.
My eyes drifted to his lean muscled body and down to his black boxer-briefs. Upon sight of a sizable and excited part of him, I quickly turned and got into bed, pulling the covers up to my shoulders. Finding a way to regulate my breathing pattern became an impossible task. Instead, my breaths came out as loud pants. I wanted him. I wanted him so badly I could picture every single dirty thing I wanted to do to his body in my mind. I shut my eyes as I tried to jam the rules into my head. Don’t feel. Don’t have sex with him…yet.
The bed dipped and bowed as he slipped into bed next to me. The warmth of his naked chest pressed against my back. My bottom lip parted from my top to take in air since my nose wasn’t able to work properly.
“Ley,” he whispered into my ear. “I want to make you come all over my fingers.” He ripped down the covers and gripped my torso, pulling me until my back rested flat on the mattress. “I need to see that beautiful face as I make you come so hard, you’ll clamor for more than I’m going to give you.”
He’d completely knocked away my will. My head sank against the pillow and I stared at the ceiling as I tried to jam logic and reason back into my thoughts; they were both lost to me.
I convinced myself our relationship couldn’t have evolved into anything real. But he was so different for me. He was as bad for me as I was for him. I knew that very clearly. But here he was with me, looking back at me like I was the most important thing in his world, and making me believe he could be a very real problem for me.
He clasped my cheek and leaned in, kissing me sweetly. The sweet was released when his tongue urged its way inside my mouth. My body began to work on its own accord. I shifted underneath him with my hands behind his neck, pulling him closer to me. When his tongue found the center of my mouth, I bit it. His grip burned into me hard enough to make me whimper.
Slipping his hands up to my head, he forced me back, pushing me to break our kiss. Watching me, he glided his hand down from my neck to the curvature of my breasts and my torso, slipping underneath my panties and stopped at my labia. I hadn’t shaved in a week and it was no longer as smooth as it was when he first touched me.
He watched me, appearing to adore every little face I made in reaction to his touch. “Next time, I want this part of you bare.”
“Why?” I rasped.
“Because I want to feel the lips of your pussy at my fingertips. I want to feel your skin right here." I felt his fingers slide up and down my sex, spreading me open. "I want to know what my lips and tongue feel like here.” He slid his finger down, urging it inside me, making me burn hotter. “I want to fuck you with my tongue, lick you clean, and start all over again." He rocked his finger in and out. The palm of his hand rested against my clit, moving in circular motions.
His movements were slow and methodical, teasing me and making the pleasure build at a painfully slow pace. “Mmm," he moaned with a grin. He rocked his finger faster, slapping his palm lightly against my clit. “You’re so ready to come for me, you’re almost cutting off the circulation of my fingers.”
I writhed against the movement of his hand, the pleasure pulling me deeper under his spell.
He groaned, pushing against me, making sure I felt his straining erection. “I can’t wait to drive my cock into your tight pussy and make you cry for me.”
I bit my lip, trying to keep quiet. He moved his palm in hurried, soft circles around nub keeping one finger inside of me. My hips bucked against the movement of his hand, wanting a pleasurable release very badly.
My body became rigid, pending the verge of an explosive end. I arched my back and pointed my toes. A tingle shot through my nerves. He covered my mouth with his palm and moved his other hand faster and increased the pressure.
I shut my eyes tightly as the fireworks hit my body hard. I cried out. Muffled sounds reverberated against his hand as he continued to release my body from its long pent-up suffering. My skin tingled until my core was covered in moisture and too sensitive to endure his touch. I closed my legs tightly to keep him from moving his hand.
Looking pleased with himself, he sank his teeth into the corner of his smirk. He leaned forward and hungrily kissed me, sucking my bottom lip harshly. When he found my tongue he sucked it as well, making a cooling rush further obliterate my senses. I faced him as he leaned back to lay on my bed. Snuggling up to his body, I rested my head on his chest with a huge, contented grin on my face.
NINE
“WHY HAVEN’T YOU ANSWERED my calls, bitch?” Skylar crossed her arms on the table while we sat a
cross from each other at the diner located across from the mall. We both decided it was the best choice for our dinner on a Wednesday night.
We had worked alternating shifts over the past week and a half and hadn’t had a chance to catch up with one another. Every moment of my free time was spent with Elias. It felt like we were an actual couple, frequenting events, and having romantic dinners at restaurants I thought were way overpriced. Occasionally, he allowed me to pick the location of our date. Each time the choice was left to me, he seemed pleasantly surprised when I selected dinner and a movie at his place.
The level of intimacy was still at heavy petting. If I pushed things too far, he’d recede. It ensured that if he hadn’t tended to me sexually with his fingers, I made sure to complete the job before I went to sleep at night. The things he did to me were very familiar. I knew the tricks very well. I couldn’t find the will to worry about his methods of carefully exerting control over me—preparing me for something unknown. I didn’t care; I liked the way he manipulated me.
I glanced from the window next to where we were seated then back to Skylar. “I sent you a text, didn’t you get it?” I asked, not exactly remembering if I had sent her a text.
“Liar. You never sent me a text.”
“I’ve been—”
“Busy with Elias?” she stated more than asked, leaning forward, partially resting her breasts on the table. She began to stir her straw around her half-empty glass and poked at the whipped cream left at the bottom. “I thought we were friends. Why did you invite Claudia to Elias’s race a couple of weeks ago instead of me? She wouldn’t stop telling me about it, trying to make me jealous.”
I sucked down the last of my chocolate malt milkshake, pushing my stomach to the limit of what it could hold. “She wanted to come, and she wasn’t as bad as you said she was outside of work. Of all the things she could’ve called me on the carpet about, she only warned me about wearing a lipstick that was too nude for her liking one day.”
“She couldn’t complain about shit else. You’ve been putting more than five minutes into your look lately and it shows. I like it a lot. You look like a seasoned La Dentelle employee. You’ve done good, kid.” She glanced over my hair, styled in voluminous curls and reached over to finger a strand.
She was right about the changes. I’d also managed to wear every single product of makeup that was required of all employees on my face as of late. “It means a lot coming from you.”
“Well…you had a good teacher,” she said with a laugh.
“I definitely did.”
“So are you”—she flipped her hair over her shoulder and peered at me through rapidly moving eyelashes—“dating him?”
“Yes,” I replied nonchalantly, “we’re dating.”
She sank back in the red leather booth with a force that rattled the table. “Keep being stupid, he’s going to turn you into a thot, Hanley, and you’re going to regret it.”
I pushed my plate away, no longer in the mood to finish my monster-sized burger. “Sky? Take it easy on the name-calling.”
“I'm sorry,” she offered, her apology genuine. “It’s hard to be happy about it. I’ve met a lot of the girls he’s dated through mutual friends, and you’re the only one I’ve ever cared about—or really liked.” She looked out at the car parked in front of the lot. “I haven’t seen him do that a million times, but you did say you bought it, so I don’t know. I probably need a good cock so I can stop focusing on you.” She sighed heavily. “Or, maybe I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I contemplated whether or not it was the perfect time to dig into the nature of their relationship. In the end, it didn’t matter. She seemed to be more of a nuisance than an issue in Elias’s life.
“I like him…a lot.” I startled myself with the admission.
Skylar’s boisterous laugh called the stares of the other diners. “He must think you’re naïve. I think you’re naïve.”
“If he thinks I am”—I rolled my shoulders up and dramatically released them—“let him.”
Suddenly interested, she leaned forward. “I was so wrong about you. You bitch, you’re playing the player.” She nudged me under the table with her knee. “Why didn’t you just say that from the beginning?”
“How do I introduce that into the getting to know each other conversation?”
“I don’t know. ‘My name is Hanley and I’m going to fuck up Elias Cari’s world,’ would’ve been a good start. I think I would’ve instantly fallen in love with you.”
My eyes lifted with interest, but my reaction went unnoticed. She was too busy staring at my car parked outside.
She sat back, her mood appearing to level out. “Brent is still interested in you. Come out with us tonight. Even if you don’t like Brent, do it to make Elias jealous.”
She affirmed my assumption—and Elias’s statement—that he had spies everywhere without knowing she did. “At this point, I think being with Brent would be dangerous for Brent. I think instead of Elias’s mildly cute temper tantrums, he’d take his anger out on Brent’s face. You’ve been in this town longer than I have, I think you know how intense Elias can be more than I do.”
“Yeah,” she said, frowning.
“I’m sorry if you thought I abandoned you.” I reached across the table to hold her hand and fiddled with the stack of gold rings on her thumb. “I like being with you, you remind me of a different time in my life. Let me make it up to you. Let’s do something tonight.”
“You sure your asshole boyfriend won’t pitch a bitch fit?”
I grinned at her, a sign of false assurance. “He won’t.”
SKYLAR’S DIRECTIONS TOOK us hours east until we wound up on the outskirts of Bakersfield. I parallel parked in front of a white house with gray shutters and loud music emanating from inside.
Skylar removed her seatbelt and pointed at me. “What’s with the judgment face?”
“I’m not judging.” I removed my seatbelt and got out with her, making sure to turn on the alarm system for my car.
She grabbed my arm and pulled me along the cracked concrete path leading to the front door of the home.
In the still air, I could hear the busy sounds coming from the house in front of us and the other houses in the neighborhood. Music, dogs barking, an argument between a couple, and the sound of a screaming toddler, who should’ve been in bed at that time of the night, flooded the air.
“When you said we’d do something together, I didn’t expect this.” I pulled my arm from hers, stopping short of the front door.
She pouted, pulling at my need to make things up to her. “You owe me for forgetting about me.” She opened the screen door and tugged me inside the house.
Inside, slow-blinking strobe lights illuminated the otherwise dark house. Very little furniture was inside, and what was, looked to be on its last legs. Men and women crowded the fraying couches in the living room.
The dining room table was full of men and half-dressed women indulging in the powder that lined the entire table. In the darker corners, couples canoodled. The house smelled of stale beer, sex, and weed.
Skylar was approached by two men who immediately ushered her toward the hallway at the back of the house. As she entered the narrow corridor, I spotted her slipping a pill into her mouth.
Disappointed that a woman with so much potential would squander it this way, I shook my head in disapproval. “Skylar, are we going back in time at least a decade? We’re not in high school, and I’m not comfortable here. I think you knew I wouldn’t be, so what’s going on? Why are we here?”
Swiveling around, she shoved my hands away from her and rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t be such a baby. We’re partying like rock stars.”
I hoped she was kidding with her statement. Unfortunately, I knew better. “A baby? You’re behaving like a teenager.”
She snatched my keys from my hands and proceeded to walk backward. “How’s that for a teenager?” She giggled, playing a game with me feat
uring my keys. When they were almost within my reach, she threw them at one of her male friends.
“This isn’t funny,” I retorted. “Give me back my keys, we’re leaving.”
“We’re not leaving and you’re not leaving me here.” She grabbed my shoulders and grinned.
“Are we still friends, Skylar? Because you have one more chance to piss me off before I think we aren’t.”
Her hands slipped from my shoulders to my waist. “I don’t know, Ley, are we?” She walked forward pressing her breasts against my chest. “I see you checking out my ass from time to time, so is it that you want to fuck me more than you want to be my friend? Maybe you’ll get a chance to do it.” She leaned in my ear to whisper, “I’m not that way, but I’ll make an exception for you tonight, you sexy bitch.”
I grabbed her hands, pushing her away from me. “This is your last chance to come with me before I leave you here.”
Frowning, she regarded the ground between us. “I won’t go with those guys if you stay.” She looked up at me, her expression holding to sadness. “I wanted you to be here to have fun with my friends, Hanley. Can you please just stay?”
“I’ll stay, but only for one hour,” I told her, bringing a smile to her face.
We kept our distance for the duration of the party. I watched her make a fool of herself, dancing and sucking face with every guy she encountered while taking hit after hit of everything offered to her. When I saw that she forgot what she promised me earlier and decided to follow three men toward the back hall, I stepped forward and blocked her path.
“Go away!” she protested.
“I can’t let you do this, Skylar.” I stretched my arms out on either side of me, halting her stride up the stairs. “You’re clearly too high to think about what you’re doing.”
One of the men accompanying her came forward. He shouldered me so hard, I fell backward. A small coffee table broke my fall and fell apart underneath me.
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