He's Back

by Aria Ford

  I want to punish Simpson. I want to strike at him in some way he’ll understand in his reptile brain.

  “You should take the money,” I tell her.

  “No,” she says. She’s not sobbing anymore, she’s just talking into my shirt. I can feel the heat of her breath, warm and damp through the Armani.

  “Why the hell not? There’s no way he can ever make it okay, what he did, but you should take anything from him that you can, make it cost him something,” I insist.

  “It’s too humiliating!” she cries out, pulling back from me.

  I see the wretchedness in her face, and my throat feels tight. I’ve been making it worse, hurting her more by trying to pay her off. It hits me all at once. I reach for her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have done that. I wasn’t thinking about how it would make you feel. I wasn’t thinking at all.”

  It occurs to me how strange that sounds. I’ve apologized maybe twice in my life before today. I don’t regret my actions, or if I do, I don’t mention it. I’m also sorry that I dragged a traumatized woman out to display before her attacker’s brother and tried to give her money. It sounds debasing when I think about it now. I touch her face softly, just my thumb tracing along her cheek. Her eyes are shining with tears and she’s worrying her lip with her teeth. I see that her bottom lip is split.

  I curse then, bolt away from her and jerk open the door. I’m going to hurt him now. He’s bitten her, torn the soft flesh of her lip with his teeth like an animal. I want his blood on my hands, want to hear him beg for his life. My vision has gone almost black with rage. I can feel the metal door under my hand as I throw it back. Then I feel small hands in my arm, at my elbow, dragging me back.

  “Please, don’t. Don’t leave me,” she says.

  I look at her, at her pleading face, cheeks red from crying. I turn back to her, forgetting Simpson. Forgetting everything but her voice telling me not to leave her. As if I could leave her now. Her hands are on my arm and, though I’m much stronger, it feels like she’s holding me back, like I can’t move away from her, all due to her wanting me to stay.

  “I wish I’d never let that man touch you,” I say. “You didn’t deserve that.”

  She smiles at me. This slow, knowing smile that looks almost indulgent. “Please,” she whispers again.

  I can’t stop myself, so I wait for her to stop me. I go slow, my face slanting down to hers, my mouth brushes her swollen lips tenderly, the barest caress. I feel it, the jolt of it down the length of my body, and I feel myself stiffen in response to this first sensual touch. She moves toward me, raising up on her tiptoes, one hand to my chest. Her lips cling to mine softly. I cup her head in my palm and kiss her, lightly at first until I feel her lips part beneath mine. I slide my tongue in her mouth and the pleasure of it is a hot rush, as overwhelming in its way as penetration would be—the way she opened for me, the responsiveness, the yielding softness of her body and her lips. She gives a soft cry, her arms sliding up around my neck. She tilts her head, opens her lips to take more of me, her tongue touching mine a little shyly. I coax her, tease her until she’s giving me a passionate kiss, until she’s controlling the rhythm, the depth, and I’m her instrument. I’m flooded with need for her, awed by her resilience, her warmth.

  I feel like she’s taken my soul with that kiss. I grin against her mouth and draw back, feeling uncertain for once. I want her too much. It’s not like me to be all in after one kiss, to care that much if she decides to call it a night. I need her. She’s like a fire in me now, and I can hardly see.

  “Please,” she says, her beautiful, full lips wet from our kiss.

  I brush back a lock of hair that has come loose. I tuck it behind her ear and press my lips to her forehead. “Anything,” I say, and I mean it.

  “I—I want you. If you will. If you’re interested…I want every trace of him off me. I feel like he left fingerprints on me, and I want you to burn him off me. Put your hands where his were. Put your—”

  “Are you sure?” I ask, disbelieving my good luck. I want to hold her and touch her and make her feel as precious as he made her feel worthless. I want to make her say my name while I drive her higher and higher. I want to take her until she’s too weak to stand.

  She lifts her fingers to my jaw and touches me there, turns my face with the barest touch and puts her mouth to my neck. A bolt of sensation drives through me with searing heat and my palms burn with wanting to roam all of her curves. The spot where her thumb strokes my throat throbs with my racing pulse. I wrap my arms around her, take her mouth again with mine. She’s quivering, with desire and excitement now, not fear.

  She takes my hands in hers and pushes them inside her shirt, over her bra. I pull back instinctively, “Not like that,” I say. I want to touch every inch of her, want to fill her with pleasure. I don’t want to grab at her the way he did. She kisses me back, and it’s like a conversation. I know what she wants just like she said it out loud. I have no idea how I understand her, but I do.

  She doesn’t want to wait for the healing gentleness of my touch. She’s keyed up on fear and anger like I am, and she needs release. Needs me to burn him off her just like she said, so I pull her shirt off and place my mouth on her shoulder, her collarbone, making her shiver with a delicious sigh. I stroke the curve of her stomach and dip my fingers lower, opening her pants and letting her kick them away when they fall. My fingers are in her panties now. Unbelievably, she’s wet for me there, my fingers slipping along her cleft. I feel the want rising in my mouth. I want to do it, so I do. I drop to my knees and loop her leg over my shoulder. Drawing her panties aside, I put my mouth to her. I feel her groan of pleasure at the first stroke of my tongue. I let myself taste her, let her feel my tongue inside of her and my thumb rubbing a harsh circle just above. She comes against my mouth, her legs jerking and a little cry of shock that splits the silence in the alley.

  If anyone comes out of the kitchen to take out the trash, they’ll see me on my knees. Armani in the filth of the alley, a supplicant with my face buried between her thighs. I’m a jetsetter, a rich playboy. I don’t go down on waitresses out in the street. But here I am, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be. It would take a plane crashing into the building to get me to stop now. I trail my fingers along the velvet of her thigh and get to my feet. She’s wide eyed with shock, her hands clenched at her sides. I take them and put them on my shoulders, and I kiss her again. She can taste herself on my lips, I know. She’s trying to talk, and I’m trying to stop her. Except, she’s not talking, she’s unfastening my belt, dragging my zipper down. I peel off her bra and toss it somewhere, her breasts filling my hands. I like how they’re soft and heavy, how the friction of my palms makes her nipples hard.

  In seconds, I have her up against the wall. Her thighs in my hands, her legs parted around my hips, her back flush against the bricks. I see the haze of lust in her eyes, the way she reaches for my mouth again and again until I’m dizzy from kissing her instead of breathing. I’m buried inside her, so sweet and so wet. My blood is pounding in my ears and nothing matters but these tight thrusts, the earth tilting off its axis as I come hard and fast inside her, those silken hot thighs around me. I want to roar with it.

  She’s kissing me. I’m not letting her down off the wall, still balls deep inside her, her passage still milking me. I run my hand down her sensitive body as she squirms. I reach between us and rub at that spot above our joining that makes her thrash and squeal. I’m relentless, making her come even when she’s drooping against the wall and whimpering. Her hands beat at my shoulders as it goes on and on, her voice mewing that it’s too much, she can’t take it. Tears course down her cheeks by the time I’m done with her.

  Except I’m not done with her. We both know it. I may never be done with her. This girl whose name I don’t even know. This girl whose taste is in my mouth, whose imprint is on my body now as sure as if she’d branded me. Everywhere she touches, she claims. I don’t
know if it’s her innocence that’s got me undone, or if it’s the fact I rescued her. She feels like mine, like she belongs to me.

  I set her back on her feet and take her in my arms and hold her. I kiss the top of her head and hold her close for a minute, not quite wanting to let her go.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Caleigh

  I just screwed some guy in an alley.

  Actually, I just screwed some rich, powerful guy in an alley, which makes it weirder and, if possible, worse.

  The fact that it was amazing is not even the point. The point is I don’t go around having sex in public places or with strangers or…pretty much anywhere with anyone ever since college. I haven’t been with anyone since I dropped out two years ago. So, when all those feelings came to the surface, when he took me in his arms and held me, but before that, when he just looked at me, and I nearly dumped his salad on him—he could have me anytime he wanted me. Any way he wanted me.

  That was never even in question.

  So, when he saved me, when he came after me, it was going to happen. There was never a moment I thought it wouldn’t happen. Him and me. I didn’t think it would be up against a wall necessarily, but I knew it would be somewhere, that it would be tonight. Because there was something between us, attraction or lust or some kind of link, because he rescued me—it didn’t matter what I called it. It was there like chains binding me to him. Like the pull of the moon or the tug low in my belly that I already felt again, the need to be filled by him, by all of him.

  I was torn between shameless lust and complete embarrassment. I stooped and picked up my pants and put them on. I looked for my bra in the alley and found it by a dumpster. I pick up the scrap of white lace and its cheap underwire that always jabs me. I turn my back to him and put it on, then retrieve my shredded black blouse and shrug it over me, holding it together in the front. Now, suddenly, I guess I’m modest. Not so modest when I was screaming my head off up against that wall with my legs wrapped around Griffin. A man whose last name I don’t even know. I mean, I could Google it. There can’t be that many super rich hot guys named Griffin in town. But I think whipping my phone out to try and figure out who he is would be even tackier than finding by bra by a dumpster if that’s possible.

  He looks perfect. He doesn’t look like the back-alley walk of shame. He looks like a damn cologne ad on the back of Vogue. That devilish dark handsomeness, the looking-for-trouble grin, the dark suit that costs more than my entire net worth. I go up to him and raise up on tiptoe and kiss his cheek. I want to thank him since he saved the day in more ways than one. He rescued me from being raped by Simpson. He kissed me when I was at my lowest point, when I stood in this alley wishing I could just die because there was nothing to hope for. I’ve lost the catering job that was my only meager hope to save money for college. I’ve been treated like garbage by an entitled creep. I’ve run away, and I’ve got nothing good to run to. And he came out that door to find me. Like I was worth looking for, worth saving. So instead of thinking this was probably the second worst day of my life (losing my mom and dad and Josh still ranks higher), I feel like I’m not totally lost for the first time in a long time. Because he found me. Griffin found me.

  When I kiss his cheek, he puts his arms around me. My silent goodbye isn’t going to be so brief, it seems. I let him fold me in his arms, and I lay my head against his heartbeat. I feel better than I have in years. I don’t feel alone. I don’t feel like he’s a stranger. He kisses the top of my head, which is sort of a sweet thing to do. He doesn’t look like he would be sweet, but he is. Like how he kept asking me if I was sure, how he made me come again even after he was done. I think I could stand here outside this club forever if he’d stand here with me like this.

  I remember I have some shred of pride left, and I pull away, give him a shy smile. I can’t quite meet his eyes. I know he’ll be one of my best memories. That I’ll remember this for years to come when I’m feeling lonely. But I don’t want to cling. I don’t want to hang around until he tells me he has to go meet some woman. Someone he’d be really interested in, someone smart and glamorous and beautiful, who could be more to him than a pity fuck behind a bar. It stings to think of it like that, so I think of it again. To remind myself how far apart we are, to remind myself that someone like me could never be with someone like him.

  I turn and walk toward the street, giving him a halfhearted wave goodbye. I’ll go to the bus stop and wait. I have a plan: going home, taking a shower, crying, and eating Chips Ahoy.

  I’m blinking back tears and holding my top shut. Before I make it to the sidewalk, his hand is on my arm. I feel a rush of relief, even if he’s just being polite. He turns me around, drapes his jacket over my shoulders. It’s warm from his body heat, the silky lining sleek against my torn cotton shirt. It feels so good. I thank him, tell him it’s a nice thought but I’m headed for the bus.

  “No,” he says.

  “No?” I blink at him.

  “I’ll give you a ride. Make sure you get home safely.”

  There’s no room to argue with him, and I don’t want to argue anyway. I want five more minutes or ten just sitting near him and breathing in the cologne and the salted caramel smell of his skin. He takes out his phone, and seconds later we’re getting into a black Town Car, a driver holding the door for me. The interior is leather and there’s warm air from the vents and soft jazz from the speakers. It’s like rich person heaven in here. I sink into the seat gratefully.

  He doesn’t ask me where I want to go or where I live. I don’t tell him. Instead, Griffin slips an arm around my waist and pulls me to him, kissing my lips. At first he nips at them gently, teasingly. I lick his top lip playfully and get the hot, wet slide of his tongue in my mouth as payback. I feel the heat pool low in my belly, and I want him again already. It’s like there’s still a pull I can’t resist, even though the sexual tension should be gone now that we’ve done it.

  Nothing seems to have dulled the sparks I feel, the fireworks that flare behind my eyelids when he kisses me. His fingers pry the elastic out of my ponytail so my hair falls free into his hands. I feel him weave his fingers through my hair, soothing my scalp and making me tip my head back. He uses the opportunity to kiss my neck and my toes curl.

  “Tell me your name,” he says against my throat.

  “No,” I say, “I know this is only one night. Let’s not pretend it’s anything more or less than that. Don’t spoil the—the magic of this with our real lives. We won’t look for each other that way. We’ll let this be perfect as it is—”

  “I knew you were a romantic,” he says with a sort of growl. He captures my earlobe in his teeth and a sharp sensation of wanting jars me. I hold his head down, not wanting him to stop.

  I’m already attached to him, connected. Like he understands what I need. I don’t need to fool myself into thinking he wants anything to do with me after tonight. I won’t give him my number and then spend months being disappointed when he never calls. I’d rather be a perfect memory than a girl he doesn’t bother to text back.

  “I have to call you something,” he says, “So I know what name to scream.”

  I feel that down to my toes when he says it. I get to be with him again tonight. I get to make him scream. It feels like an unexpected gift.

  “Call me anything you want.”

  “Kate,” he says decisively, and I’m surprised how close that is to my real name. I wouldn’t care if he called me Ethel, though.

  “Griffin,” I say.

  “It isn’t fair that you know my name and I don’t know yours,” he says, nuzzling my neck.

  “It isn’t fair that you’re so gorgeous and so far out of my league. Who cares about fair tonight?” I tell him.

  I don’t hesitate. I wrap my arms around him, pull him down over me. He slides me down beneath him on the seat, and I stretch out to full length. I love feeling his weight on top of me, his legs twisted up with mine, all that body contact. I arch against him as we
kiss. It’s easily the hottest kiss I’ve ever had, but it’s more than that too. The way he kisses me, the way he cradles my cheek in his hand make it feel like he’s kissing me, and not just anyone. My shirt’s fallen open and his jacket is underneath me somewhere. My breath comes faster. I rise against him, my breasts rubbing against his muscled chest. I don’t want fabric between us. I don’t want anything between us.

  The car stops and he sits up, pulling me into his lap.

  “I live in this building. Will you come upstairs with me?” he says.

  I don’t stop and think. I do what I want for once, and I say yes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Griffin

  She’s letting me take her upstairs. I haven’t felt this completely lucky since I bought my first club. This girl, the one I’m calling Kate, has me wrapped around her finger. If she told me she wouldn’t go upstairs, I swear I would’ve asked her where I could take her, or if she just wanted to stay in the car. I would’ve closed the window between us and the driver and just stayed.

  I had her spread out on the seat, her softness yielding beneath me, and I couldn’t keep it together. All I knew was this powerful sense of focus, of need to get inside her, to join with her, like that was my only reason for anything, for breathing.