by A. D. Roland
“Whatever. I don’t feel like driving you to the hospital with a broken ankle.”
“What, you don’t think I can handle a little jump like that?”
“I just think you have really bad luck. How many times have you fallen out of my truck? Remember falling off the seawall? Slipping up the stairs?”
“I told you. Somebody pushed me, and somebody put something on the stairs.”
“This isn’t a crappy romance story, Mattie. Nobody’s plotting to kill you or trying to hurt you in any way, and I sure the hell am not some white knight.”
“Well, obviously.” Miffed that he didn’t believe her, Mattie pulled away from him, walking a few steps to the side. She looked around warily for the dogs. She hated his mutts with a passion. He had a herd of them, mostly mutts and mixed breeds.
“Don’t worry. They’re in their pen.” West pointed in the direction of the chicken-wire-and- plywood dog pen. They walked around the trailer and across the front yard before heading through some low, thin scrub.
After stepping on yet another sandspur, Mattie protested. “West, where are you taking me?”
“Just through here.” He led her through a gap in the scrub.
“Oh.” Mattie found herself at the foot of an old dock that stretched out over a small pond. The edges of the little body of water were thick with water lilies and other vegetation. The remains of an anchored wooden raft drifted out in the middle of the water.
A wave of imagined nostalgia washed over her. She should be feeling all misty and wistful. West stood close to her, almost touching her. He was waiting for her, for something.
He was going to be waiting a long time. He had the wrong sister.
“When we were kids, we spent a lot of time out here, splashing around. When we were like four and five, this gator moved in, so my dad wouldn’t let us come out here alone anymore.”
“We played out here alone before that? In the water?”
“Yeah. We both could swim and we were together. We pretty much had run of the place.”
“Is the gator still here?” Mattie squinted into the sunset-stained water, looking for the creature. West nodded.
“Yup. Alexander Alligator.” They stood in silence, swatting mosquitoes and watching the red and gold and pink fade from the sky.
“It won’t be so bad, West,” Mattie said, touching his hand.
“It’s just a year.”
“Yeah. See? We can just enjoy it.”
He gave her a funny look. “Enjoy it?”
“Yeah. Why not? And we’ve...enjoyed each other before.”
He turned red, glancing away from her. “I’m not sleeping with you.”
“Why not?” He stammered for a second before shrugging and stalking off. Mattie chased after him. “Why not?” she called. At the trailer, he turned back to her.
“It’s just not right. This isn’t a real marriage. We’re friends and that’s it.”
“Okay. Well, friends have sex with each other.”
“I don’t know, Mattie. I don’t want to get too attached. I fall fast, and I fall hard.”
She slipped her arm through his. “I’m not going to hurt you, West. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m throwing myself at you. You have to admit there’s a connection between us.”
Reluctantly, he nodded.
“I’ve never felt that with anybody before. I’m not really sure how to handle it, so I’m just sort of doing what feels natural. I’m attracted to you, and…well…”
They watched the sunset for a little longer. West pulled away from her. “I just don’t think it’s right. My parents taught me that sex is something special between two people.” He went in, leaving her alone on the creaky dock.
When she finally made it in, he was sprawled on the couch in his boxers and a T-shirt, a beer in one hand and the remote in the other. Mattie helped herself to a bottle of water from the fridge and plopped down in West’s battered old recliner.
“I’m not sorry,” she said, not looking at him.
“So.”
“You’re still being stupid.”
“Why, ‘cuz I don’t want to sleep with you? Have you never been rejected or something? If that’s the case, then who’s the whore, Mattie?”
Unexpected tears welled up in Mattie’s eyes. She blinked them away. “No. You won’t even give me a chance.” Heated with embarrassment from the ridiculous bout of emotion, Mattie hurried to the bathroom and started the shower. The rush of water hid the sound of her half-stifled sobs. The familiar loneliness set back in. For a while, she had hoped she might have found a like soul, a kindred spirit. Someone that shared her interests. Somebody she could talk about music and art with.
Somebody that, someday, maybe, she could love. Somebody that might, someday, love her. Sex isn’t exactly the way to a guy’s heart. Even when there’s something as insanely powerful between you.
***
West heard her shut off the shower and pad down the linoleum-padded hallway to the bedroom. He dreaded tonight. He couldn’t sleep on the hard, narrow couch, though, so sleeping in the bed with warm, receptive, willing Mattie was his only option.
Reluctantly he joined her in the bedroom. She was brushing her hair, sitting on the foot of the bed and staring at her reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Her eyes were blank and red-rimmed. She had the look of a hurt, vulnerable child.
Damn it, just apologize. You’ve got to keep this as pleasant as possible. He stretched out on the bed. “Listen, Mattie, we just need to make some rules or whatever here.” Her shoulders twitched in a shrug.
“Whatever,” she said softly. “We’ve got to make this work, somehow. I’m not real good at handling things when I’m tense.”
“Yeah. I know.” He nudged her with his foot. “Can you look at me?” With a slow sullen blink she tossed her brush onto the dresser and turned around. West sat up and grabbed her arm, tugging gently until she scooted backwards. She stiffened up and leaned against the headboard.
“All right, what?” She crossed her arms over her chest and eyed him darkly. She must have been a brat growing up. If this were a real relationship, what would their kids be like?
He dragged himself back to the present situation. “Well, we started out as friends, so we should stay that way, right?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged.
“Good.” The brush got stuck in a knot. She winced and worked it free, holding the strands of hair so she could untangle the knot.
“Well, then, I’m glad to hear that.”
“And about...you know, um—”
“Sex?” she supplied without so much as a blush. Hell, that turned him on. Something about the intensity of her gaze made him think she would be the best fuck he ever had, if he had the nerve to take her.
“Yeah. I think we need to work on this thing between us before we go that far.”
“You are really old-fashioned.” The bold look in her eyes faded. “I mean, I like that. I don’t like rushing into things either. I know a act like it’s nothing, but sex and stuff like that means something to me.” She squirmed around until she was comfortable. “I’m not into the mushy- gushy stuff, but I like real passion and emotion. Something that I can feel all the time. Casual sex doesn’t do it for me.”
“I grew up pretty conservative.”
“Wouldn’t your fangirls just love to know that you’re not all sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll?” She stretched and snagged one of the pillows out from under his head.
“Hey!”
“I need something between my legs, West. I don’t see you volunteering.”
“Are you going to hump my pillow?”
Mattie laughed and rolled her eyes. “No. I just need something to hang on to during the night.”
West snatched the pillow back. “My pillow isn’t going between your legs.”
“I’m not going to defile your pillow. Seriously, I need something to hold on to. I hate sleeping without something propping me up.”
“Very. Can I please have one of your three pillows?”
He smacked her in the face with it. To his horror she fell off the bed, hitting the floor with a yelp and a mighty thud that shook the trailer. “Ow!”
“Shit, Mattie, are you okay?” He crawled to the edge of the bed and looked down. The second his head cleared the bed, she grabbed his shoulders and dragged him down. West fell on top of her, getting an elbow in the collarbone and a knee jammed into his hip seriously close to his groin.
She slugged him in the arm as she squirmed out from under him. “You’re an ass, West.”
“I didn’t mean to. Sheesh, woman.” He rubbed at the spot her elbow had pegged him. He stood up, and she pantsed him. With a wild giggle she scuttled away from him on her hands and knees. “You little bitch!” He covered his junk with one hand, chagrined by the fact that he was getting harder by the second. Mattie was in the corner a few feet away, still laughing at him.
The way she was sitting, one ankle beneath her butt, the other knee pulled up to her chest sent a surge of hot blood through his veins. He yanked his boxers up fast and turned back to the bed, but her image was burned into his head. Her laughter died away. “You okay?” she asked, sounding troubled. “I was just playing around.”
“Don’t do that again,” he said through clenched teeth. Knee-walking across the bed, he risked another glance at her. Shit, it made his hard-on even worse! Her hair fell into her face, framing it. The straps of her tank top had fallen down her shoulders. She’d moved so she was sitting with her knees to the side, her tiny shorts low on her hips and high on her thighs. He could so easily see her crawling across the floor to him, kneeling over him, taking his dick into her mouth.
The afore-mentioned body part pulsed and pushed at the slit in the front of his boxers.
Why had he made that damn promise to himself? What did it matter? He wanted her so bad he could practically taste her.
Well...he had only promised he wouldn’t have sex with her.
Uncertain and a little wary, Mattie came back to bed. She slid under the covers, practically hugging the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry, West,” she said. “I really am. I just got a little carried away.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She turned off the lamp and settled down on her side, facing away from him. He heard her digging in the bedside table for a second. Frustrated with himself, aching like somebody had punched him in the nuts, West stretched out on his back and tried to force himself to relax. He pictured a million things he thought would kill the hard-on, but nothing worked. No matter what he summoned into his mind, it turned into Mattie.
He started thinking about the night after the club when he cornered her in the courtyard at McKendrick’s house. She’d been so tight around his hand, so wet and welcoming. Encouraging him even, to add more and more fingers inside her.
West sucked in a breath of air through his mouth. He couldn’t take this much more. He needed some relief.
Something started buzzing on Mattie’s side of the bed. Startled, West reached over and clicked on the lamp. “What is that? Do you hear it?”
“What?” Mattie asked, biting her lip to conceal a smile. She had both hands under the covers.
West frowned and turned the lamp back off. Before he could even settle back into his body- heat-warmed spot, he heard the buzzing again. Before she could stop whatever it was, he yanked the covers off of her. A flash a metallic green rolled across the sheet.
“Oh good grief,” he mumbled. It was her vibrator. Her vibrator. He felt the blood rush to his face—then slam painfully back into his dick. She grabbed it and gave him an irritated look. Her eyes wandered down, then widened.
“Something I can help you with?” she asked sweetly, pointing with the rounded, angled tip of her toy at his dick, which had freed itself from his boxers.
“Shit,” he moaned, drawing the covers back over himself.
Mattie sighed. “Come on, West. We can make the best of this situation. We’re married. Legally, morally, we can do this. Even if you’re not attracted to me, per se, you know what this is—” She rubbed the tip of the buzzing vibrator along the center of her panties, sighing as it affected her. “You know what it’s for, and you want that, at least.”
“Mattie—” The look on her face when the tip of that thing had touched her nearly sent him over the edge. In the moonlight, the blue shadows made her look angelic.
She was still lying down. “I really need...something. It’s like it’s been building up for weeks inside me. Since that night in the courtyard, I’ve wanted you to touch me again so badly. And I want to touch you. One little taste isn’t enough.” She reached out and ran her finger along his hard length.
Her touch made him gasp out loud. Shifting forward on her elbows, she gripped him in one hand, lightly kissed the tip of his penis. He groaned and laced his fingers in her hair. Her tongue flicked insistently at the sensitive bundle of nerves behind the head. Her hand moved up and down, pumping in rhythm with his hips. Deeper into her throat she took him until he felt the clench of her gag reflex. She drew back and went back to dancing her tongue against the tip.
Her other hand cupped his balls and began to squeeze and pull. She didn’t lose the rhythm, taking him deeper when he began to thrust into her face.
“Mattie—” he grunted.
He pulled out of her mouth and stretched out on the bed. She rose to her knees, her bottom high in the air while she greedily sucked him back in. She made soft little noises in the back of her throat, the vibration of her voice sending him high and high, closer to coming.
Closer, closer. He shut his eyes and concentrated on the building pressure, the promise of sweet, mind-blowing release—
When his orgasm finally overtook him, it was so strong it surprised him. He clutched double handfuls of Mattie’s soft hair.
She lapped at the head of his dick with her sweet little tongue until it felt like every drop was gone. Groaning he pushed her away and rolled on his side, one hand over his eyes.
“Mattie, how do you do it?” he gasped. “How do you make me feel like you’ve sucked the very life out of me?”
She stretched out next to him. “Maybe we just have good chemistry.”
As he drifted off into sleep so heavy he felt drugged, he heard the soft buzz of her vibrator. Damn it, I shoulda...
He fell asleep before he even finished thinking the thought.
Chapter Eleven
The first thing Mattie became conscious of was the smell of West on the pillow bunched up against her nose. He used Irish Spring. Everything he wore or used ended up smelling like him.
His side of the bed was empty. Opening one eye, she squinted at the bright red digital numbers on the alarm clock. Just after eight o’clock.
Groaning, she stretched, arching her back and kicking the covers off. She had a funky taste in the back of her throat.
She felt...used. Dirty. Whore. He didn’t care for her, like that. She was just a warm body, a place to stick his cock.
“And it’s my own damn fault for throwing myself at him. Bet if I completely ignored him, he’d be falling all over me.” Feeling like something he’d scraped off his shoe, she made it to the bathroom just before she puked. Not having eaten anything since lunch the day before, she was wracked by dry heaves. What the hell is my problem! I’m not one of those girls. I’m not a whore.
Damn hormones. Damn West for being so hot. For smelling so good. For being nice to her. Just fuck him. Up one side and down the other.
Mattie turned on the shower and waited until it ran so hot she could barely stand it. Why did men make her feel so used? It was starting to become the norm.
K hadn’t touched her sexually since she was sixteen. He found other ways to torture her. He was a cruel, cold bastard. Nothing was taboo. He hadn’t touched her, but he hadn’t stopped his buddies from messing with her.
Suddenly the thought of sex,
of submitting the last little bit of herself, made her shudder. But West wouldn’t hurt me like K did.
How did she know that?
The way he held her told her. It didn’t matter if his fingers left bruises; he wasn’t hitting her. He wasn’t demanding her submission. He wasn’t ordering her to do things that made her feel filthy for days. He only took what she offered.
The way he clutched her hips, her hair, and the way he’d held her through the night said more than he could ever say with words. She wanted to give him control.
She soaped up her hands since West didn’t have a bath puff or even any washcloths. Running her hands over her body, she wondered if West would ever notice the deep, faded stretch marks that striated her belly like the outer rind of an overripe watermelon. Under the hot water, the silvery-white stripes turned pink. The pregnancy had taken a toll on her immature body so many years ago.
She shut off the water and climbed out of the tub. Refreshed and feeling a little less dirty, she toweled off in front of the wide, slightly warped mirror over the sink. Well, at least West had admitted she really affected him. Her own body responded as she thought about how hard he’d been, how he’d tasted and felt in her hands and in her mouth.
And he said I was pretty yesterday.
West didn’t seem to notice she didn’t have the faintest clue what she was doing. He was the first man she’d ever gone down on, willingly. Before West, the act had always seemed sort of gross and degrading. She got a weird, hot thrill through her groin as she thought about doing it to him again.
Out in the quiet hallway, she wondered if West was even home. As she walked the few steps back to the bedroom, she heard voices at the other end of the trailer. He must be in his office. He used the master bedroom as his office and headquarters for his business.