by Aubrey Irons
So, Stephanie and her toothy blow job and the annoying sex sounds she makes when I have fucked her before mean nothing. The mild, passing high I’ve got from Ash’s weed means nothing. The lasagna was pretty fucking good, but it’s nothing that’s going to bring me out of this hole tonight, which means it also means nothing, at least right now.
Water water everywhere and not a drop to spare.
The line from the Samuel Coleridge poem comes to mind as I slump into the deck chair out on the patio and glare off across the property.
A light goes on, and suddenly, I’m alert.
She’s still up. Second floor, left-hand side, right above the back patio.
“She ever bring any dudes over? I mean, hell, you can probably see into her room from up here.”
It’s been about two weeks since that party and all of our bullshitting up here on my balcony, but Tyler was right. Yes, I can see into her room from up here. No, she most definitely doesn’t know that, or she’d be keeping her blinds drawn a hell of a lot more often.
They’re open right now, as it happens.
It’s one in the morning on a school night senior year. For me, that means staying out late, smoking weed, and getting a blow job in my Land Rover. For Anastasia, that means studying, cramming, and going to bed by ten.
Except, she’s up.
I’m intrigued.
I reach for my cigarettes, lighting one and dragging on it as I lean forward, resting an elbow on the stone railing of the balcony and focusing on the lit room in the gardener’s cottage. It’s a dim light, and as I peer at her window - yeah like a total fucking creep - I can see that it’s just a low light of a bedside table lamp. A shadow crosses, and as I watch, Ana walks past the window, a guitar in her hand, and sits on the edge of her bed. She strums, and while I can barely hear it, I can hear it.
I’ve never actually heard her before, and I am spellbound. Because goddamn she’s good. Not like “oh, that sounds nice” good, I mean like actual, real “holy shit you can fucking play” good. And then the voice comes out, and I’m just done.
I can’t make out the words from here - at least, not enough to really understand what she’s singing, but fucking hell does it sound amazing. Her voice is low and breathy, this sultry sound that I swear to fucking God gets my dick hard just listening to it. It’s like a mix of singing and moaning or something, and I am listening. In fact, I’m listening for the next twenty minutes, just smoking cigarettes and watching and letting the sounds of Anastasia playing just melt through me.
Eventually, she puts the guitar down.
I frown.
I want more of that. I want more of that all the damn time. Hell, I’m almost about to march over there, pound on her door and tell her to keep playing, when suddenly, without any warning, she stands, reaches down, and pulls her shirt off.
And I am very much paying attention.
Her back is to me, and I can feel my blood pounding as I take in her bare back. She tosses the shirt aside, followed by her plain white bra, and I can feel my pulse thudding harder in my ears. Her hands go to her belt, and my cock becomes fully hard as she slips her shorts down and kicks them away.
Black thong panties.
Now that I wouldn’t have expected. At all.
I’m staring at that ass when she turns towards the full-length mirror on her closet door, and I growl. I actually growl, out loud. Every neuron in my brain is firing, every nerve ending in my body is sparking, and every inch of my cock rock hardens in my shorts as I see the girl who’s both infuriated and entrapped me for the last eight damn years.
And she’s perfect.
I’ve slept with many girls. I’ve seen even more naked. And without a second’s hesitation, I can say that none of them hold a fucking candle to Anastasia.
I stare. I stare like it’s my first time seeing tits for fuck’s sake. Because she’s literally perfect. Petite and soft in all the right places. Long legs, pert little tits, and an ass I legitimately salivate over.
She turns in the mirror like she’s checking out her own ass over her shoulder, which makes me grin since Ana is the last chick on the planet I can imagine preening in a mirror. Her hands slide up her body, cupping her breast slightly and making my cock lurch. She slides her hands down to her panties, and I lean forward, jaw tight and my hand drifting to my dick, just waiting.
She slips her thumbs into the waist by her hips, when suddenly, she stops, as if realizing something. She turns, and steps to the window, glancing out of it casually, taking a slow breath, and giving me one last perfect glance at those sweet tits of hers.
Then she’s pulling the string of the blinds shut, and the show’s over.
I’ve got my cock out and in my hand in seconds. I’m aware of how fucking weird this is, or how fucking creepy this might seem, but I truly don’t care. I’m harder than I’ve ever been, and I want more than I’ve ever wanted with any random chick I’ve ever been with.
And I want her, badly.
I groan, sinking back in my chair and letting my head drop back as I replay what I just saw. My hand strokes my cock as I memorize every detail - every imperfection and flawless line of her. It’s fast, and I’m almost caught off guard as the orgasm hits me like a truck. I groan, my cum warm across my hand as I grit my teeth, muscles clenching.
Fuck.
That’s the night I lose the war I’ve been fighting with myself for eight years. That’s the night the last of my bullshit defenses, and excuses when it comes to Ana fail me.
Because I saw her that night. Yes, I saw her as in I saw her almost naked, but I mean I saw her that night. I caught a glimpse of the Ana behind the armor I’ve spent eight years forcing her to put up when she’s around me.
That’s the night I hear that voice of hers, and I’m lost.
Present:
The blood roars in my ears as I slam the door shut to my own quarters. My pulse thunders, my senses tingling as I lean against the door, my hand clenching over and over again at my side.
I can taste her on my lips.
The beast inside roars the words through my fucking skull as I yank open my belt, pop the button of my jeans, and pull down the zipper.
I can taste her.
I groan as I move to my bed, losing my jeans and my T-shirt along the way and lying across it, my hand still working my shaft. My tongue runs across my lip, and my cock pulses in my hand.
I imagine Ana on her knees, bent over on my bed with her hands clasped behind her back. No, tied. Tied behind her back. I groan, pumping my cock up and down as I imagine biting that peach of an ass, letting my palm slap across it, making it red and tender for me.
I imagine running my tongue up and down the lips of her pussy and swirling it over her clit until she’s begging for release.
And then I imagine claiming her. I imagine fucking her like I should have years ago. I imagine grabbing her hips and the tie holding her wrists together and driving every fucking inch inside as she screams for more.
My balls tingle a warning, and suddenly my mind goes numb. Every muscle in my body tenses and coils as I explode across my hand and my abs.
Slowly, I drift back down from orbit, my jaw clenched tight and my eyes still shut.
Picturing her.
The fuck am I doing?
Bringing her back here was a mistake. Pushing the line and blurring the boundaries is making it worse. She’s here for one reason, and one reason only - for me to win. For me to save my empire, regardless of whether I deserve it or not. But that’s it, and whatever unfinished bullshit the two of us have is off the table. Because it has to be.
She’s an employee.
She’s a means to an end.
I made damn sure she got away from me years ago. But like I said, I was lost the first night I heard her sing. I’ve just been fighting it ever since.
…And I can still taste her, by the way.
We woke on shattered coastlines,
And I sometimes wonder why,
Why I never even tried.
11 Years Ago:
This is wrong.
My pulse thuds like a deep, even drum in my ear. My skin tingling, my breath is caught behind tightly closed lips, and I’m frozen.
Well, frozen except for my eyes. My eyes are very much alive. They dart with his movements, watching the ways his shoulders ripple, the way his biceps bulge, and the way his body coils and springs. Sweat pours down his skin, glistening in the overhead lights of the gym.
His body tenses and dodges, fists flying out to hit imaginary opponents, ducking and weaving to dodge another invisible foe. He roars - again, at nothing, and when he whirls, I shiver at the look of animalistic fury on his face - like a snarling beast.
He’s looking right at me when he turns, still shadowboxing, but I know he can’t see me. I’m in the dark, along the footpath by the side of the pool heading back to the gardeners cottage. But him - he’s all lit up. He’s standing in the glass-walled gymnasium, shirtless, furious, and frightening, fighting shadows and bellowing at the world.
And gorgeous.
I know it’s wrong to think that, like it’s wrong to be staring at him like this, my pulse beating a little faster and my palms getting a little sweatier for my troubles. Wrong because it’s him for God’s sake, but also wrong because Josh literally just dropped me off five minutes ago from our date night.
My boyfriend. And here I am gawking and thinking very wicked thoughts about Bastian Crown.
My nemesis.
My tormentor.
…My shameful, shameful attraction.
What’s worse, as I stand here trying to pretend I’m not getting warmer in very specific places watching a shirtless Bastian Crown flex his muscles, and sweat, and growl like an animal, is that Josh is really nice. It’s not like I’ve come back from a night out with some abusive jerk, on the date from hell. Josh is sweet, and kind, and I know he really likes me.
Even if he does insist on picking me up and dropping me off at the front gates of the Crown Estate instead of at my front door.
…Even if he still did it tonight, even when I invited him over, seeing as my dad’s out of town.
Tonight it was dinner at a really nice place in downtown Sag Harbor - a place I can’t imagine literally ever having the money to go to, but a place that someone in Josh Stedman’s income bracket doesn’t really think about. Josh isn’t rich-rich - not like Bastian, or the Van Der Hauses, or the Forbeses, or the Harringtons - but he’s a level or nine above me and my dad.
We ate expensive seafood, I sincerely tried not to calculate how much each bite of my flounder cost, and we genuinely had a very nice time.
I don’t feel fireworks when I’m with him, but then, that’s just in the movies anyways. The “fireworks” thing is just creative wording in a romance book to make the attraction between two people more of an “it” thing. I have a really nice time when I’m out with Josh. He holds doors for me, he laughs at my dumb jokes, and he likes talking to me about music, even if his tastes are pretty, well, bland.
What we have is mature. It’s an adult relationship - my first relationship, but an adult, mature one nonetheless. Not like, well, Bastian, with his rotating cast of pathetic, plastic, popular girls leaving in the morning carrying the shoes and the shame from the night before.
See what I mean? Fireworks are not real.
Josh has never pressed me on the whole “sex thing”, but I know it’s there. Of course it’s there, like this unavoidable third wheel at the dinner table, or sitting between us in the car on the drive home.
Tonight, I was ready to try. Not, like, sex sex, but at least the first parts. After all, my dad’s out of town, I had a great time at dinner, and it just felt like something I should do.
But Josh said no. Or maybe I wasn’t obvious enough when I asked if he wanted to see my record collection.
Whatever it was, there we were - stopping at the front gates and Josh giving me a sweet but quick kiss. And then I was punching in the code as I watched him drive away.
Maybe I should have gone with “want to come inside and see my pants come off and then maybe we can try this whole second base thing”.
Or maybe that’s third base. Baseball as a metaphor for sex when you’d know sports or sex is extremely freaking confusing.
Confusing like the fact that I’m standing here in the dark, breathing heavily and feeling my pulse beat a little quicker as I watch Bastian like a total creep.
Yeah, it’s time to go.
I yank my eyes away from him and his sweaty, bulging, rippling muscles and growling sounds that do very interesting things to my body, and I start down the path to the gardener’s cottage.
I make it all of one step before I hit the exact spot where the motion sensors pick up movement. I physically wince as the side yard is suddenly lit up with light from the floodlights, freezing me in my steps like a deer in a headlight.
“Texas.”
I cringe, scrunching my face up at the sound of his voice behind me.
“Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it a school night.”
I can hear the jeering, baiting tone in his voice, but I turn anyways.
Hook, line, and sinker, as always.
“I was out,” I meet his eyes. “On a date.” I have no idea why I add the little bit of sass at the end, as if somehow Bastian’s going to give a single shit that I was out on the world’s most wholesome date.
He smiles thinly, his eyes flashing something as he steps out of the sliding door to the gym and pads across the grass towards where I’m still frozen.
“And how is Stedman.”
“He’s wonderful.”
“Of course he is.”
I swallow. “Well, I was just heading back to-”
“Your dad’s in Boston, right? For that flower convention or whatever?”
I pause, biting my lip as I nod.
Bastian grins.
“So, let me get this straight. Your dad’s out of town, you’ve got the house to yourself, you go on a date with your boyfriend, and then you don’t bring him back here to do bad, bad things?”
I blush furiously
“Josh isn’t like that,” I say primly.
“What, straight?”
I roll my eyes. “No, he’s a gentleman. He knows I’m just-”
“Jesus Christ, Texas, I swear to God if you finish that sentence with ‘he knows I’m not ready’, I’m going to slice my wrists with a Dawson’s Creek DVD.”
I scowl at him. “You know not everyone’s like you, Bastian. Some guys are nice, and sweet.”
Bastian grins, and I shiver as he steps closer to me.
“Some guys are pussies.”
“Oh, Josh is a pussy for not coming home with me?”
“Unequivocally. That and an idiot.”
I grit my teeth, trying to be mad at how much of a jerk he is, while also trying to ignore how very shirtless he still is.
“I’m going to bed, Bastian. Bye. Enjoy your boxing.”
I make it another two steps before his voice stops me in my tracks.
“That what you were doing out here, Texas? You watching me or something?”
I shiver, my stomach knotting up, even if I know the easy answer here is “no” and then walking away. But I pause, and I pause a hair too long.
And Bastian picks up on that.
He chuckles, and I swallow as I hear his footsteps on the gravel path stepping closer to me.
“Your date that lame?”
I turn, glaring at him. “I don’t know what you’re trying to imply, but-”
“I’m implying that your date from 1952 with nice sweet Josh Stedman left you a little…” He grins that devil smile of his.
“Wanting.”
I can feel my pulse thud in my ears, my body still tingling.
The heat still pulsing in places I wish it weren’t.
“That why you were w
atching me box, Texas?” He purrs it quietly, slinking closer to me. My breath comes a little shallower, my stomach knotting a little tighter. I can smell the masculine smell of him - sweat, and man, and…freaking pheromones or whatever.
And whatever it is is playing havoc on my hormones.
“Let me guess,”
I gasp as he moves right into my personal space, his bare, muscled torso glistening in the floodlights.
“Josh just left you high and not-so-dry, you’re walking home to go write in your journal or whatever about it, and you see me.”
He grins, his eyes burning fiercely.”
“And listen, Texas, I get it. And look, if you ever get tired of Stedman-”
“That’s my boyfriend, Bastian,” I hiss quietly.
“Then maybe he should act like it,” he spits back.
He takes another step towards me, and I shiver, somehow unable to move - unable to just walk away from this.
“What I was going to say is, if you ever get tired of Josh not knowing how to take care of your needs, you know where to find me.”
I swallow thickly.
“You’re disgusting.”
“And you’re blushing.”
He leans down, and I gasp - I actually gasp - as his breath teases over my ear.
“I’m curious where else on you the blood is pumping a little faster right now-”
His hand grips my wrist quicker than I thought he would, before I can land my palm against his face.
“Before you slap me,” he growls, heat flashing across his face as he leans down and looks me right in the eyes.
“Ask yourself if you’ll be able to stop putting your hands on me after you do.”
I blink, breath caught in my throat and my eyes locked onto his for more seconds than I can count, before I finally pull my wrist free of him and back away.
The spell breaks.
“Go to hell, Bastian,” I say quietly, turning and speed-walking back to the cottage.
I scold myself later, for letting him get to me. I know it’s just his thing - that charming, foul-mouthed arrogance that brings girls in like moths to a flame. And I know him trying to turn the charm on me tonight was just to fuck with me and watch me get all flustered.