A Terrible Love

by Eros, Marata

  *

  “Let me come in for a little while, Jess,” Mitch asks against my temple as he squeezes my hipbones through my jeans.

  “No,” I murmur as his hand moves to cup my breast through the fabric of my knitted sweater and I gasp. Our breath is fogging up the car windows and I keep myself in check. I might not have the electric chemistry with Mitch that I have with Cas but there's something there.

  “Why,” he asks, caressing my nipple through the fabric and it rises, begging to be touched and he obliges, pinching it almost savagely and my eyes pop open. “That hurts,” I say.

  “Sorry, it's hard not to be enthusiastic with you, Jess. You're so sexy,” Mitch breathes against my shirt that he's torn up to my bra, his face against my belly.

  I'm suddenly uncomfortable with the quick turn the make-out session has gone and I begin to pull down my shirt and he stops me.

  “You know you want to... I thought we'd already talked about it, Jess.” He continues the pecking assault of the flesh between my oohlala and the thin strap of material that holds my breasts.

  We had... I mean, I had agreed to... what had I agreed to?

  He unsnaps my jeans and it's like cold water thrown in my face. I had dance practice, I thought randomly.

  I also had an epiphany: I was major crushing on Devin Castile even if he ignored me. It was so in the way of everything else. Including this.

  I hold Mitch’s wrist as he tries to cram it down the front of my jeans.

  “Come on, baby... I let you in,” he pleads.

  I meet his eyes. “I'm sorry about your sister, Mitch... I am.”

  She's not remotely suspicious....

  “But I am not going to do a mercy fuck in your Camaro.”

  The car is more important than me....

  Mitch recoils like I've slapped him. I instantly regret my thoughtless words.

  I don't want to have sex in the back of a car in the university parking lot.

  Mitch sighs, his hands leaving my suddenly cold body. I can see his erection like a rigid pole underneath the denim of his jeans and avoid breathing a sigh of relief by sheer willpower.

  I jerk my sweater down and button my jeans, my face heating.

  I didn't feel cheap while Cas made love to me. It was amazing, intense... and in the end, the most intimate thing I'd ever done.

  Why did I feel cheap with Mitch? He was offering me so much more.

  “You need to go to dance,” Mitch repeats in a flat voice.

  My face crumples. “I'm sorry... I don't want to do it... here, and it's...”

  “Too soon?” he guesses, making airquotes.

  “Yeah,” I say in a small voice.

  “Fine.” His face closes down and the eyes I thought were like a warm pool of comfort are now like ice chipping at my soul.

  I turn and smoothly jerk the handle on his car, stepping out- I hesitate.

  What the hell.

  I slam the door of the Camaro and walk briskly away.

  Fuck him.

  And fuck Cas too. Although I'd already done that, hadn't I?

  I dance my ass off at practice and receive the first genuine smile from Boel I've ever received.

  I'm angry and passionate in my rage. Shelby steers clear of me and Boel keeps smiling as I lash my pirouettes, attacking my dance steps with precision and focus. When he grabs me to dance, I meet him head on like a battle opponent.

  When Patrick Boel lifts me I am unafraid. His eyes widen at my ferocity but he engages me and we dance.

  I finish and stomp out without a word to anyone.

  Maybe I don't need men. I can just dance, and concentrate on school.

  That's what I'll do.

  I know an empty promise when I hear one.

  I know I can't keep it when I see Castile standing across the hall as I exit the showers.

  We stare at each other for moments that seem like hours.

  I don't know who moves first but before I can take my next breath I'm in his arms, his fingers tearing out my damp braid and plowing through my long hair. He holds my face, slamming his mouth against mine until I groan and open it for him. His other hand goes to the small of my back, then dives down to my ass as he lifts me against him, my legs automatically winding around his waist.

  “Where?” he asks breathlessly. I utter some unintelligible sound in the back of my throat as he presses me against the wall, fiddling with a knob and then I'm inside a dark, confined space, the sharp smell of pine and cotton fills my nostrils.

  “No!” I half shout.

  “Yes!” Cas says, his forearm an ass rest as his tongue moves over my collarbone.

  “Are you fucking him, Jess?” he asks, his forehead against mine, his hand pinning me against the wall, half with his body as his other hand holds me in place where my thighs split and that delicious weight settles in there from the hard contact.

  “Are you?” he removes his hand and grinds me against the cinderblock wall and I cry out, my channel giving a single pulse of need and heat as it drives down my body.

  His deep brown eyes, outlined in the gloom from the light that seeps underneath the door pierce me like a sword through my body. I can't breathe or think for the need.

  “No,” I grind back, my body a soft and supple weapon against Cas and his hardness. “God, Jess... you're killin' me,” he says, giving me a reactive hip thrust back and we both gasp at the electric connection, my hips cradling his erection, key to lock.

  “Say yes,” he pleads.

  But not like Mitch.

  “Yes,” I breathe my assent and he strips me in seconds, plunging his hands under my ass again he surprises me by kneeling before me in semi-worship.

  “What are...?” I begin and his mouth is on me.

  “Oh...” I moan, my head falling to the side against the cool textured concrete of the wall, my hands finding their way on top of the stubble of his head.

  “Put your feet on my shoulders,” he growls and I do. He nibbles at my lower lips and little tethered shock waves run through me in trembling pulses, my legs begin to shake and I know he's bringing me.

  Just as I'm on the brink of coming he stands, laying me on a surface... I don't know what... and I don't care. The juices of my arousal coat his face and he licks them with his tongue as he pops his dick from his pants.

  “I'm going to fuck you now, Jess,” he says, his face a mask of hard planes and unyielding, tightly contained emotion.

  “Okay,” I say in languid resignation as my hand floats up and I wrap slender fingers around his shaft and he throws his head back. “No... you don't,” he says and he's in me, the thick blunt end of him begging at my entrance and I spread my legs wider. He grabs my ankles and rocks deeper, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “Watch me, Jess,” he says in quiet command and I don't look away, can't. He pulls out torturously slow then slams his cock so deeply inside me my walls clench around him and he moans softly, the beautiful ebony of his eyes disappearing when he closes them in paused ecstasy.

  When he opens them, his cock retreats from against my womb like a warm tide, to rush deeply inside me again. With each thrust he rocks us closer to that mutuality that you only hear about.

  And that's what Cas and I have: synchronicity.

  He grabs my face, his hips burying himself inside me again and again. I feel his cock harden even more and know he'll come.

  He stiffens above me, his eyes fluttering, the sooty lashes feathering to a close on a face that's at once relaxed and tense. He brings me over the edge, like the ocean sweeping over a bluff.

  The crashing waves of my orgasm engulf me, lifting me to the surface of a detached and beautiful satisfaction. A completeness.

  Instead of drowning, I float.

  I don't react when Castile brings me against himself, holding me with a tenderness reserved for lovers.

  Not casual sex partners.

  If he held me any tighter we'd be one person. I say nothing and listen to our hearts beat toge
ther in perfect harmony.

  I just let Devin Castile take me to the moon in the custodian's closet.

  The irony isn't lost on me.

  I smile and snuggle closer as Cas presses a warm kiss to my temple, then another on the healing wound of my cheek before he tucks me in against him.

  I still don't feel cheap, I feel cherished.

  14

  I realize I'm basically naked, that my clothes are hanging off my body instead of on my body. The loop of one of my bra straps dangles off my shoulder and I sit up in Cas's arms and he gives a low chuckle, giving me a short hard squeeze before letting me up.

  I look around at the inside of the closet, feeling horribly vulnerable.

  I just screwed Cas's socks off... after I'd promised that I'd get questions answered.

  Clearly, that wasn't happening.

  And on the heels of that little revelation:

  Gawd, we hadn't used a condom.

  I hear the snap of a lighter and a flame illuminates Castile's face, the square jaw hardly moving as he takes a drag of his smoke.

  “You're not smoking in here,” I hiss at his flagrant disregard for rules. Rules of any kind. It's easier to focus on that.

  He gives me a puzzled look, then stares at the cig. “Doesn't look that way.”

  “Somebody's going to smell that, Cas!”

  He takes another drag and the tip glows red, his inhale making it fiery orange for a moment then he snuffs it out.

  The darkness descends and I dress quickly.

  “Wait,” Cas says in a low voice when I move toward the door to escape what we've done, what I know I'm too weak not to continue. The smells of tobacco, male, soap, sweat and spice are a unique mixture of scents now burned into my memory... the smell of Cas.

  He tackles me from behind, my palms slamming into the door and I want to weep, I want Cas so bad I can hardly stand it. I try to protect myself even as I wish for more of the same kind of harm only he can give.

  But I know he doesn't want me. It's like that invisible glass wall stands between us. A hammer won't shatter it... but maybe my heart will break.

  Cas puts his arms around me, cupping my breasts and burying his lips against my neck.

  A little pathetic sound escapes me and he tightens his hold, blowing hot breath against the sensitive flesh of my throat and a riot of goosebumps breaks out.

  “Don't see Maverick, Jess.”

  I stiffen in a muscular embrace that feels like flesh encased steel. All that strength has been against me, moving with a tenderness that belies the contained violence I know is an inherent part of Devin Castile.

  “No,” I say, knowing Cas doesn't realize that Mitch is putting the full court press to consummate a relationship that is moving too quickly. I'd yet to make a choice.

  But one might be choosing me whether I liked it or not.

  Cas nips my neck and the gooseflesh travels, spreading and growing. I can't help it, my head falls back to give him better access.

  “You came in me,” I say in accusation while he eats, pecks and licks at the neck he just attended to moments before when his flesh was a part of mine.

  “Yeah,” he says and with great deliberateness I pull away, his hands caressing me as I turn to face him.

  “Ah... pregnancy?” I state.

  He looks down at me with unnerving intensity.

  “STDs,” I say, begging for a reaction.

  Nothing.

  His eyes glitter coolly in the dark and I seethe, “Can you say something, Cas?”

  “I don't want anyone but you. Only you,” he says and caresses my face, his hand moving down to cup my chin, a rough thumb moving back and forth over lips swollen from kisses.

  “You're lying,” I say softly, those eyes on mine.

  “I'm many things, but I'm no liar.”

  He bends to kiss me and I let him, his lips moving over mine in a slow savor.

  When his head rises I back away. “We can't do this!” I say, my hand covering my mouth, the heat of his lips burning against my skin.

  He cocks a brow, putting a large hand next to my head as he backs me up against the door. “Which part?” he asks. Then he puts his hand on me, cupping the sensitive mound of flesh between my legs and I gasp at the contact, my sex pleasantly sore from his attentions earlier. “This part?” he whispers, kissing my forehead with a featherweight's press. “Or this part?” he leans in and kisses first one eyelid, then the other.

  I can feel his lashes like silk lace against my skin, heating where they stroke, then they move until a path of fire has been laid where they've been.

  “Or this?” He straightens, swinging his palm at the humble surroundings.

  I sigh and fidget, flustered. Castile undoes every single strand of logic I possess. Unraveling them without mercy.

  “Which part did you not want to do, Jess?

  I can't answer, I can't look at him.

  “Don't you want to fuck me, Jess?” he asks softly as he bends down, lifting my chin with a finger, his eyes pegging me to the spot. It isn't dark enough to hide his expression.

  “Don't lie, I deserve more,” he says.

  “Yes,” I whisper reluctantly.

  “Then tell me What. The. Problem is?” he demands, his voice threaded with anger.

  I instantly turn the tables now that our passion has cooled. My frustration with him hasn't.

  “Why were you following me?”

  He gives a disgusted grunt, scrubbing his skull trim ruthlessly and stepping away. I see the lie before he tells it, “I don't know.”

  I stalk him, moving back into that intimate space. It's not sexual now, but filled with a different kind of heat.

  “Tell me,” I say, leaving off the I deserve more.

  “I can't say,” he says in a low voice.

  I stand there in disbelief. He wants this casual thing we have between us that is anything but casual, on his terms. He gets to fuck me when he wants, where he wants, tell me who I'll date, who I'll screw (him) and follow me around without reason or accountability.

  “No,” I say, my own voice matching his pitch perfectly, but filled with anger and something I don't want to recognize.

  Regret.

  “No... Jess, wait!” Cas says, his hand grabbing my shoulder and I shrug it off, whirling on him and look up... way up.

  “No! Casual I agreed to; this domineering cave man thing without commitment? Ah... no.” I put my hand on the knob and think that he'll grab me again.

  Hold me prisoner with his heat and kisses on my body.

  I'm pathetically disappointed when he doesn't. I twist the knob in self-disgust and step out of the closet and into the corridor.

  I pause, seeing who's standing there, Brock's expression one I instantly recognize. It takes all of two seconds to scream.

  It's cut short by a hand. It backhands me and my head slams so hard into the wall that it rings. My vision doubles and I slap my palm out, hitting the reverse of the same wall that I'd been pinned against with Cas.

  I feel my body half collide, half- slump against that cinderblock and wonder vaguely where Cas is.

  There's a dull roar in my ears.

  It's Cas.

  I hear flesh beating on flesh and don't know any more. My brain is closing down in protection mode, the spiral of my thoughts leading down a long funnel of black.

  My last thought was of Castile; I'd lied to him and myself.

  I loved him and that is all.

  And everything.

  *

  “Is she gonna be okay?”

  I hear low voices, murmuring around me. I feel like I'm underwater and hear people's muted conversation from a distance. I swim to the surface.

  Cas.

  Cas is here.

  My eyes open and the blurry surroundings shift and my vision sharpens.

  Hospital.

  I raise my hand and an IV bag is playing court beside my bed.

  My contacts.

  They could type
my blood... DNA. All sorts of conceivable ideas to reveal my secrets pop into my polluted brain. I'm sorting it out when I catch footsteps making their way to the bed.

  My heart speeds and the monitor shrieks its despair into the sterile environment.

  Hard and heavy, those steps draw nearer.

  I turn my head and wince, it hurts.

  Cas swims into my vision and he smiles at me, his face wearing the evidence of fists. I take in his split eyebrow, and tracks of stitches that bisect the ebony perfection at the top of the arch. His lip is twice its normal size, a cut that has a single stitch protrudes from the skin in a standing unwieldy spike. A jagged cut is a lightning strike against his skull. My eyes travel to his hands and I see most of the skin of his knuckles is gone, some on his left hand, all of the right. Even his pinky finger has been relieved of its flesh.

  Hands that were expert and tender when he touched me.

  My lip trembles at the disaster of his face and with a shaky exhale, I burst into tears.

  “No... shush... I'm here babe, I'm here.” I feel the bed depress as he sits on the edge of my bed, gathering me against him and the monitor shrieks a second time when my heart rate goes too high.

  Cas jerks out the electrical and it falls silent. A nurse enters and takes one look at the all black and leather that is Cas, his face a beaten mess, his six feet four, two hundred thirty pound body bent over me and says, “You, out.”

  Cas stares at her. “I will if Jess tells me.”

  They look at me.

  “I don't think Miss Mackey is in any shape to decide anything of the kind.”

  I look into Devin's face. His battered face. “Did you...” I swallow and try again, my throat parched. He hands me a cup, pushing the bendy straw against my lips. The water is heaven as it slides down my throat. I nod and he takes it away, never removing his arm from around me. “Did you save me?”

  He stares at me. Finally, he gives a nod.

  I close my eyes.

  “Let him stay,” I say.

  The nurse gives a snort of indignation and closes the door. It's almost a slam.

  Cas's lips curl into a smile. “Battle ax,” he comments and I laugh again, making my head throb. I grimace and his face turns serious.