Sweet Ache

by K. Bromberg

  How did Hawkin and I go from hot, curl-your-toes sex before the lecture to him going out with Delta Sig girl? Something is screwy and I’m so fucking sick and tired of thinking about it—being hurt by it despite telling myself I shouldn’t be—that I just want to go to bed to prevent myself from doing the one thing I’ve wanted to do since I walked up the steps of the auditorium: Call him.

  I refuse to be the desperate groupie clinging on for one more roll in the sheets when he made it obvious he’s already put me with his other dirty laundry. I could answer my phone when he calls to ask him myself but just need to figure this all out before I do that. I’m not a weak person but something tells me I could easily fall back under his hypnotizing spell.

  I close my eyes, the couch beneath me a little too comfortable, and drift off. At least I think I do, because when the pounding starts on my front door, I’m startled and jump up off the cushions, heart racing, head foggy, and adrenaline pumping. My immediate thought is fear. I mean I’m still trying to clear dreams from my head as I trudge to the front door, my mind not even considering that I’m wearing my cami-tank and panties.

  The knocking begins again and when I look through the peephole, I’m shocked wide awake with anger. “Go away, Hawke! You’re not welcome here.”

  “C’mon, Quin!” He pounds again, the door vibrating beneath my cheek pressed there so I can watch him through the hole.

  “No. Go away.” I flick the porch light off, holding tightly to my resolve and dignity, and shuffle down the hall. I stand in the family room for a moment, indecision reigning over what to do next as he bangs on the door again. I flick the light off by the couch, certain that I just need to sleep this off and maybe like a hangover, it’ll be gone in the morning.

  I head to turn the light off in the laundry room, where the washing machine is running midcycle, when the door to the backyard flings open. I yelp out in fright as it bangs against the counter behind it but then it quickly turns to anger when I see Hawkin there, shoulders leaning against the wall framing the jamb, head down, looking more than worse for the wear.

  “Quinlan,” he slurs, head lifting slowly for his eyes to meet mine. “I need you.”

  My heart skips a beat at the desperation in his tone. Hurt me and want me back, shame on you. Hurt me and I take you back twice? Dream on. In theory it sounds brilliant but when the man you want is standing before you with a pout on his lips and those words falling from his mouth my tough-girl facade wavers.

  C’mon, Westin. Don’t cave. He was an asshole. Discarded you and now realized what he did and is looking at you like a puppy dog kicked to the curb.

  I lean against the washer behind me, willing my damn heartstrings to quit tugging on everything inside me, and cross my arms over my chest in a futile attempt to keep him at arm’s length. “What? Your thirty-second flavor expire and now you’re coming back for more?” My tough-girl front returns momentarily with much more bravado than I actually feel.

  “Q,” he sighs. “I need to explain.”

  “You’re damn straight you do. You think I deserve—anyone deserves—to be treated like that? Discarded that way?” My voice rises as the hurt overrides the anger and fires in my veins. All of the pent-up emotion of the day that I tried to pretend didn’t matter bubbles up and explodes.

  “There’s an explanation,” his voice is quiet, resigned, and I recognize the sadness but I’m on a roll here and nothing is going to stop the rejection I felt from coming out now.

  “I don’t care, Hawkin! You may be some hotshot rock star but you know what? It doesn’t give you the right to be an asshole,” I yell at him.

  “If you’ll be quiet I’ll explain!” he yells back, stepping into my space. He reaches out to my arm and I yank it out of his vicinity.

  “No! There are no excuses good enough. We’re just friends, remember?” I shout like an adolescent throwing a tantrum. He runs a hand through his hair, eyes on mine, and muscle pulsing in his clenched jaw. “You think—”

  Before I can finish my thought, his mouth is on mine. I struggle against him, arms pushing, legs moving, head darting from side to side but he holds me still: hips pinning me against the spinning washing machine at my back so that my arms are trapped between our bodies and his hands hold my head firmly in place. The fight in me rages stronger.

  “No!” I yell against his lips, hating my body for betraying my mind as it begins to hum with the heat of our connected bodies, remembering just how good we can be. “How dare you!” It’s a halfhearted protest.

  His fingers grip my hair and pull just tight enough that I am forced to look into his eyes. “I was trying to protect you.”

  The sarcastic laugh takes me by surprise. “Really? Wow, you sure have a funny way of showing it, Hawke. What are you trying to protect me from? You?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nice try, rocker boy,” I sneer at his pathetic excuse. My anger drowns out the sincerity tinged with shame that is in his tone. My emotions war as what I think I should do and what I want to do clash against each other. I try to push him off me again, hating and loving and wanting and not wanting the warmth of his corded muscles against my body.

  “Quin. Me. The shit in my life. All of it … Hunter was behind you,” he grunts out as he blocks my knee from connecting smartly. “I didn’t want him to mess with you. To hurt you to spite me.”

  And the fight leaves me. My mind spins with the comment, with how hard that confession was for him to make.

  Our breaths are panting with our exertion, our faces are close and his eyes search mine to make sure I understand. Suddenly there are so many questions I want to ask and he must see them all because not a second passes before his mouth crushes to mine and takes once again without asking. The difference is this time I let him.

  I open up to him as his mouth searches for the answers to the problems his own eyes tell me he can’t find. I never understood when people said a kiss tasted this way or that way. I thought it was part of that fairy-tale princess world that I don’t subscribe to.

  But I was wrong.

  When our tongues connect, when his lips bruise mine, I can taste his desperation, understand that he needs something, someone, right now to help dissipate the pain and confusion that is rifling through his eyes.

  And I may not understand it, in fact I may never know the truths that lie in those depths of gray but I do know that a man rarely admits he needs anything and when he does you better sit up and listen. And I’m listening.

  I let him take, let him lead so the control he seeks is beneath his fingertips, willing and wanting and tangible. Where our connection earlier today was more a mutual meeting of frenzied desire, right now I can feel his need for so much more from me. To control so that he can calm, to sate so that he can feel whole, to have the release so that he can ease some of his restlessness.

  And I’m here for him. I throw my threats from earlier out the window because he needs me and right now I’ll give him whatever he asks for to clear the pain from his eyes and the grief from his countenance.

  “I’m sorry,” he breathes into me and I just nod my head in acceptance as his mouth claims mine once again. He kicks the door shut behind us without skipping a beat. His hands palm my breasts through my tank and mine slide beneath his shirt to feel his skin heated and taut with anxiety. I pull his shirt over his head and he does mine in turn and then my fingers unbutton his jeans earning me a pained groan as my hands find him hard and ready beneath the denim.

  I shove his jeans and underwear down his hips and encircle him. He tears his mouth from mine, his head falling back as my name slips from his lips in a desperate moan. As I place a trail of openmouthed kisses down his exposed neckline, his fingers tighten on my arms when I sink to my knees on the floor before him.

  I look up the plane of his defined torso to study him, jaw set, eyes burning, nostrils flaring, and when we lock eyes, I take him into my mouth. His hands immediately fist into the messy ponytail at the back of my head,
wrapping the hair around his hand as he hisses in pleasure. “God, Quin.”

  I may not be able to fix his problems or even know the answers to them, but this? Making him feel so much pleasure he can’t think otherwise for a bit? This, I can do for him.

  His grip tightens; one of my hands is on his forearm while the other is holding his cock so that I can take it in my mouth. He holds my head still and fucks my mouth so that he hits the back of my throat before grinding his hips with a moan of ecstasy and then pulling back out. Where I’d normally explore more, tempt and taunt, I can sense from the volatility of his emotions, as well as the muscles tensed beneath my hand, that niceties aren’t welcome. He’s in this for the endgame, for the pleasure that might dull the pain, even if for a bit.

  He holds my head still and moves his hips into my face. I know he’s close, can feel him hardening in my mouth but this time he presses himself a little too hard, a little too long so that I gag on his length. I hear his curse, feel the immediate release of my hair and his hands on my shoulders dragging me up, apologies on his lips as tears burn my eyes and I cough from the intrusion.

  It’s really not a big deal, just a hazard of the act, but it’s almost as if something breaks within him because of it. He’s gone from angry and pent up to confused and regretful, trying to gather me into him and apologize. I’m sure it’s a mix of the alcohol and whatever happened to him today that has pain and grief written all over him and is the cause of his emotional instability. I’m probably so far off in my thinking, but my gut check reaction is that the only way to calm these manic extremes is to put him back in charge, tell him what I want, force him to finish this out.

  And I have no clue what I’m doing, but I act on instinct, and what I can read in his expression.

  “No, Hawke …” I try to push myself out of his arms. When I look into his eyes, I see emotion swimming within them, and press my lips to his in a no-holds-barred kiss. I force my tongue between his lips, thread my fingers through his hair, wrap a hand around his cock, and begin to pump it in my hand.

  At first he doesn’t react but then my actions begin to spark him back to life. “Fuck me, Hawke. I need it hard, fast, rough.” I breathe my demands into his mouth and nip his bottom lip as I pull back and meet his eyes again, but this time I see the haze of desire begin to darken them as need washes over him.

  And from one beat to the next, Hawke grips my hips and lifts me up onto the top of the washing machine. I don’t even have a moment to realize my victory because with the machine on spin cycle vibrating beneath me, he wastes no time jacketing up, parting my sex, and slamming into me in one slick, desperate stroke.

  We both cry out as he bucks his hips before stilling momentarily, trying not to succumb to my wet heat. He waits a beat before pulling back out and setting a frantic, punishing pace as his hands hold my thighs apart and I press my back against the wall behind me. I watch his dick slide in and out of me and with the vibration of the machine beneath me, urging my release on, I slide a hand down between my thighs and add the friction to my clit needed to push me into the oblivion he’s holding out for me to find first.

  I know later I’ll recall how even at his worst, Hawkin is thinking of me, but right now, I can’t think. All I can do is feel: the rapturous sensations of his thickness sliding against my nerve-laden walls with each hammer of his hips, the movement of the washer, my own finger knowing just how to pleasure myself. Recognizing my body’s signs that tell me my orgasm is just within reach, I hold my breath as my legs tense and my feet flex. I look up to see Hawke’s face pulled tight with pleasure, the muscles in his neck and shoulders strained, his eyes squeezed tight as his body draws orgasms from the both of us.

  I go first. His ability to give me the hard and fast I asked for earns me an explosive orgasm that has white-hot heat streaking down my spine and exploding in my core before ricocheting out to every single nerve in my body and holding them hostage.

  I can’t recover fast enough to watch Hawkin reach his, so my eyes are closed, body slumped on the machine when his harsh shout of “Fuck!” fills the small room. His fingers tighten as he rides his out.

  I can feel the tension leave his grip on my thighs and open my eyes just as his head falls forward for a second before he reaches out in a move so unexpected that I hesitate momentarily when he gathers me to him and wraps his arms around me.

  Our bodies are still joined in all aspects and as he holds me tight in my confining laundry room, I can also feel our souls begin to intertwine, and my heart slip a little farther down the cliff toward the ocean of love below.

  “This band’s got a good vibe about them,” Hawkin murmurs quietly as he taps his fingers to the beat on the bare skin of my back. It’s the first thing he’s said since we fell in the couch after moving from the laundry room what feels like forever ago. We’re a tangled mess of temporarily satisfied desire as I lie half on top of him.

  “Mm-hm.” It’s all I murmur as our hearts beat against each other’s, and the warm night air teases our bare skin. Honestly, my mind’s still thinking about the evening’s unexpected turn of events. The sex that was tinged with greed and desperation on both of our parts but for different reasons.

  And with the sex came the shift in my state of mind and emotions. I’m falling hardcore for Hawkin, no question. We may have walked into whatever this is between us without any suppositions to where it’s going, but I doubt either of us will be able to walk away unscathed.

  Obviously something happened tonight to drive him to drink, something bad enough that led him to need me. It had to be more than his simple explanation that Hunter was behind me today to set this off. My thoughts race but all I can determine is that only he holds the secrets to reveal.

  I feel like I’m an open door to him and yet he still seems like a hallway full of locked ones. Am I walking into a dead end? I just don’t know. I’m trying to keep my feelings on lockdown, trying to prevent the heartbreak I sense on the horizon because I need him to give me at least a few keys to unlock his past. It doesn’t mean I’ll use them, but they’re necessary to feel like we’re on an even playing field. And I just don’t know if he’s at a place in his life where he’s willing to share.

  Because if he can’t, something like tonight is going to happen again. The silence wraps around us and I question myself, ponder whether I’ll be able to live with another tonight, especially if he doesn’t explain his actions any further. I wonder if letting him between my thighs when he hasn’t let me in his private life makes me seem like a pushover, or a woman willing to forgive at the drop of a dime. I let the thought settle and know that it doesn’t, it just makes me human.

  But at the same time, I’m going to have to make sure he understands that the word “doormat” is the furthest thing from what is stamped on my forehead.

  A small part of me revels in the fact that whatever he’s distraught over, he came to me tonight, needed me tonight. Not one of his other thirty flavors from his past. That’s a pretty heady feeling when you combine it with the emotional highs and lows of the day.

  I’m so caught up in my thoughts I don’t even realize that I’m tracing the tattoos on the inside of his forearm, the treble clef and the symbol for strength, moving over them in a rhythmic movement. And something strikes me suddenly, so I shift my body so that I can look at the wrist of the arm Hawkin has resting on my back. He obliges my nonverbal request and lets me look at the skin sans tattoos on there.

  “What?” he asks as I shift back over, curiosity now getting the better of me.

  “You never explained the pink heart thing the other day. Do they all have them? You don’t?”

  He stares at me a beat before he laughs. I welcome the sound after the heaviness of our exchange, and wait for his answer. “They’re … oh God.” He chuckles, his chest beneath my chin vibrating from it. “For as long as I can remember, the four of us made bets—about anything: songs, women, you name it. We did it so much that it became a habit, but at some
point we realized that there was no recourse for losing.”

  “Uh-oh,” I say, the smile on my lips contradicting the shake of my head.

  “Yep. So one drunken night we decided that loser gets a tattoo, winner’s pick. More drinks, more decisions were made and we decided that it had to be a uniform image and location. We figured why not make it an image of what we love….” He pauses, the self-deprecation in his laugh humorous. “Ah, I can’t believe I’m telling you this…. Rocket said he loves the pink color of the inside of a woman’s pussy…. And, well, our decision was solidified. A pussy pink heart.”

  “Well,” I say, but I’m so busy laughing it’s the only word I get out.

  “Yeah, I know. Can you see why I make sure I can win any bet I take so I don’t ruin the significance of the ones I have?” I nod my head, envisioning each of the guys’ wrists and their permanent reminder, as he continues. “The guy has to get the heart outlined to make it bigger with each bet he loses … hence why Gizmo has the biggest one. Love the guy to death but he’ll bet on anything.”

  “I’m afraid to ask what the bets are.”

  “You should be.” He snickers.

  “And you’re just that good, you’ve never lost?” I ask, immediately assuming he has to cheat the system somehow.

  “Nope, I’m just that good,” he says, causing me to smile as he clears his throat. “It’s hard to explain…. Sounds stupid, really, but my tats have a meaning; they tell my story in a sense, and I refuse to lessen their significance by scarring myself with a pink heart.” His voice fades and a silence falls around us, so that even though we are lying on top of each other, I feel the distance.

  “How long have you guys been together?” I ask, wanting to keep him engaged, learn more about him, and I figure this is a safe topic of conversation.

  “Vince since sixth grade. Him, our other friend Benji, Hunter, and I used to be inseparable. We met Giz and Rocket in high school.”