by Elena Monroe
Every single morning.
Just like clockwork, Juniper strutted through the backdoors with her plastic enclosure completed with a frog. A green frog that was smooth and almost smiling, happy to be in the safety of Juni’s care now.
Juniper was three when she finally placed her small hands on the keys of the piano while she sat next to me like she did every day. It became my morning routine before it morphed into our morning routine.
I played for Eve while she was pregnant and when Juniper, Juni for short, was a baby to lull her to sleep when she would be wide awake in the middle of the night with her big, bright eyes.
Juni was a night owl that forced us to create new odd habits like reading her romance novels, playing the piano, and letting her play with baby safe paints—all the things we loved.
Picking her up and placing her on the piano bench I sat next to her, she was seven now, time flying, and she was growing too quickly for my liking.
Placing a frog on the top of my baby giant piano, I looked at the little guy covered in bumpy skin and not exactly the most attractive looking animal. “Who’s this, Juni?”
She looked at me with the same look her mother gives me when a new wild animal shows up inside my house. Last week she was feeding a raccoon because she was convinced he was starving.
She had personal experience with the feeling of famine and made it her mission to make sure no one felt that. Even raccoons, apparently.
Petting her new friend one last time, she looked at me and smiled. “Prince.” That was the sure-fire way to hear her voice, ask her about the animals she saves.
“Are you the Princess?”
She crossed her ankles, smoothing down her dress, preparing to blow me away instead of answering. A non-answer is my favorite when it came to boys, royal acronyms, and her growing up in ways I wanted to ignore.
“Ready?” I laid my fingers on the keys, smiling at my daughter who was a perfect angel, untouched by any trauma. I was stunned wondering if she saw me play those few notes before or if she simply taught herself before today to impress me.
“How did you learn that, kiddo?” Leaning into her, I planted a kiss on her cheeks that were still chunky.
Smiling and giggling, she took back her hand, dropping it to her lap, shrugging. She was a mystery that I couldn’t solve. Maybe a wonderment or something I wasn’t supposed to solve but just keep loving endlessly.
She kept playing, her small fingers floating above the keys like an expert playing Frederic Chopin NO. 15. Juni had a way of surprising you because she was so under the radar all the time and I couldn’t get used to it.
Eve breezed into the room smelling like waffles and maple syrup, making my mouth water and my stomach growl when Juni instantly stopped playing. Dropping her hand down along with her head, she tried to not be connected to the talent that raged in her bones.
She had an aversion to the spotlight.
Guess she got that from us, two parents who were handed bad circumstances and turned it into a heavy sense of self-loathing.
Snapping up from the piano bench, she manhandled her toad and headed to the kitchen without a word. Wrapping my arm around Evey’s neck, bringing her close to me and pinning her to my side, I watched Juni skip her way to breakfast.
“When should we be worried?” Eve’s voice whispered between us even though I knew she wasn’t truly worried. Only worried people who take advantage of her and break her the way we were.
“When she starts liking boys. Seems like a great time to worry,” I said it smoothly like there wasn’t anything to worry about except boys.
Pulling out her chair, I watched Juni climb into the one at the head of the table like it was where she belonged. She wasn’t a princess; she was just waiting to be crowned queen and every part of me ached for her to not step into power in the world I grew up in.
Being my only child, it was inevitable.
It eats good people up for breakfast and leaves trauma in its wake.
The doorbell rang over my concerns like one of those meditation bowls Eve keeps trying to get me to like. Short of her being naked with that damn bowl in her lap, I wasn’t Vic and was not turning hippie anytime soon.
I was a different breed.
Leaving the comforting smell of breakfast, I headed for the door, yanking it open to see Justice behind the wheel of her eco-friendly Tesla in hot pink like an eye sore as Blaz waved back at her. Twisting towards me, he smiled a shit-eating grin like we were playing battleship and he sunk my destroyer.
For someone who didn’t vibe with Vic, he certainly got some of his DNA he was overlooking.
Pushing past me without the invitation, I watched him make himself at home in my house, kicking off his boots and heading for Juni like he just sensed where she was.
“Oh shit, you guys made food?” He picked up a pancake, dipping it in the syrup dispenser like a little savage before recklessly pushing it past his lips.
Juni’s eyes seemed to get even bigger at the sight of Blaz covered in syrup, running down his chin as he ate the pancake in one bite. Her lip tucked under her teeth as she studied him in his natural habitat the way she did her creatures.
“What? I got something on my face, huh?” Slumping down in the chair, he pushed his face close until I realized he dipped his fingers in the syrup and proceeded to paint her cheek with it.
Wordlessly her features seemed to perk up, come alive, and her voice almost screamed from her throat in a way we hadn’t heard before when she laughed. Covering her mouth, Blaz dropped two pancakes on her plate. “Now you do too, punk.”
EVE
I would disappear randomly waiting for Bowey to find me. I liked re-living the feeling of being lost in another world only to be saved by him finding me hidden in the attic like a Princess in a tower.
Juniper was whisked away by Grace for their Friday game night, so we were all alone.
She needed to be around kids her own age. I could tell being an only child must have been lonely when she started talking to animals.
Juniper was a lot like me, managing what life handed her.
Hiding upstairs with my oil paints and canvases, I kept painting the same thing: Bowey. I never stopped painting him.
I wanted to suffocate every second of my life in the love of my life. In all shades of blue because that was the only color that could be sad and happy all at once.
Finishing the shading on my latest piece, I stepped back, looking at my work and admiring his sharp features that were a lot less cruel now.
I had paint covering my hands and I could feel it drying on my cheeks, tightening on the surface.
I got used to being covered in paints wearing nothing but a smock as I waited to be saved for the millionth time by the only person that I would let me save me.
“Evey? You up here?” I heard him from the spiraling stairs that led up to my hideaway. The corners of my mouth curved up just at the sound of his voice.
There would never come a day where my soul wouldn’t recognize him, my was heart so full it could burst. I would never stop feeling connected to him in a way that made me feel like our lives were entwined.
Looking over my shoulder, honing in on his footsteps, I smiled to myself, turning back to the canvas to finish the shading under his brow bone when I felt his hands hug my hips under the smock.
“It’s not fair, you know. You worshipping me like this.” His husky voice fell over my shoulder as his bare chest pressed into my shoulder blades. His warm lips planted a kiss on my neck as my head dipped to the other side to let him do it again.
Dropping the paintbrush in the cup of water, I exhaled feeling worshipped the same way he admired in my paintings of him. “You aren’t worshipping me right now, Bowey?”
His hand dropped from my hips, pushing between my legs when he whispered against the corner of my mouth, “Not yet I wasn’t…” I felt the pads of his fingers bully my clit into awakening when he whispered again, “Now I am, baby. Worshipping you
the exact way you worship me. It’s a reckoning kind of feeling, isn’t it?”
I shuddered against his fingers teasing me, and my paint covered fingers grasped onto his bicep for leverage. I was already putty for him and he barely laid a finger on me. The wetness between my legs and the goosebumps on my arms told me a silent orgasm already waved through me.
He could breathe on me, twinkle those stormy eyes in my direction from across the room, flash the smile that only I got to see, and I would come for him.
Untying the smock from the back, his hands vacated the place I wanted them the most, helping me to bare my body that was no longer frail or broken. My hips had curves you could get into a car wreck on, my breasts were more teardrop, and my thighs had a jiggle to them that made me smile at all the delicious things I liked to eat now. His arms wrapped around my waist when his fingers muddled their way through the cool tone blue left on my palette and he drew a line from my neck to my nipple. “No song, no words, no amount of paint can capture the amount of beauty you have.
I was suffocating in Bowey. Being surrounded by paintings of him, with his body against my back, and his fingers trying to paint me all at once—it was everything I would ever need. My cheeks flushed in a kind of heat that felt unnatural at his words. I was still getting used to the version of my Bowey that was no longer afraid to let me see how much he loved me, even years later after saving each other.
His mouth covered my neck and shoulder before his hand in mine dragged me away. There was a couch upstairs in the attic that had been there before I claimed the space as my own. An emerald green, velour couch with a sheet half draped over it, doing a poor job of protecting it from dust.
Before I could twist around to sit on the couch his hand grasped my hip and his lips whispered against the shell of my ear, “On your knees, baby. Hands on the back of the couch.”
I wasn’t going to argue. There wasn’t a position or genre of sex that I didn’t like, as long as Bowey was filling me, I was content.
Although we did land somewhere that was much more desperate than love making. We devoured each other the way true lovers did. We didn’t waste a second on mediocre sex, we fucked until we couldn’t come anymore.
Pressing my knees into the soft surface, I stuck my ass out and pressed my forearms into the back of the couch waiting for Bowen to touch me. When he finally did I felt his flat hand smack against my ass with an unfamiliar wet sound echoing in the room.
Looking over my shoulder, I saw Bowen standing there, holding my paint palette with that infamous smirk that knew exactly what he was doing.
His belt jingled, undoing it before unzipping his pants, the sound echoing only in my ears while I waited patiently for him to close the gap between us. When his hands finally touched me again, I felt his warm crotch nudge against my ass until my knees fell even more apart and my back arched for him automatically.
“Bowey,” I begged him to stop toying with me the same instant I felt his tip stretch into me in a way that made me still. My hands fisted the back of the couch, already shaking like I was coming, and he wasn’t even inside me yet.
Letting me adjust to his size, his paint covered fingers ran up my spine, the cold paint making my nipples tighten and my pussy clench around him.
Slamming into me from the back, I felt my breasts sway with each thrust from behind and my hands grasp on tighter like it was the only leverage I had to keep myself up right. “Fuck, still so tight after all these years, Evey. When are you going to let yourself get used to me?”
It didn’t matter how many times he invaded the space between my legs, I was his regardless and the space that was molded to him was my heart not my pussy.
The moans lodged in my throat finally escaped my lips in a needy way that begged for more. “I’ll never get used to you. Harder,” I muttered between moans trying to lean into how dick drunk I already felt.
Bowen took my desire and made it a reality when his fingers dug into my hips and drove into me like a freight train, wrecking me the way he promised.
The second orgasm came as a surprise when it waved through my body, fanning the heat between my legs and boiling in the bottom of my belly. My eyes closed and I bit my lip around the moan.
“This is far from over, baby.” Pushing my hips, he flipped me over and lifted himself against me. Kneeling into the couch, I felt my ass land against the back with my shoulder blades pushed against the cold wall.
Reaching into the paint palette laying on the pillow, I dipped my fingers into the vibrant blue that matched my eyes and drew a heart over where his was. He painted me so I painted him.
Bowen looked down like he was shocked to see his heart outside his body, the organ he hid from the world too well. Swiping his fingers through the light blue, mixing it with the vibrant blue, he lifted his fingers to my body and drew hearts around my nipples in a slow erotic way that made me tingle.
The tight buds seemed to pinch even more at his touch while I stayed still enough to soak up every touch lingering on my skin.
Plunging back into me, I felt my legs close around him tighter at the sensitivity of coming twice already before he was even halfway done with me, halfway there to his own bliss. Bowen was a master of control. He could expertly navigate every inch of me and not come until he let himself.
Pressing me into the wall with every inch, I wrapped my arms around his neck tighter and buried my face in his neck. “Oh my god, Bowey. I-” The words got lost before I could even form them when his lips caught mine.
His soft tongue tangled with mine, and I felt the drunkenness of being with him overwhelming me. His mouth only pulled away from mine to whisper between us, “I want to know what happens after four, baby.”
That was my hard limit, four orgasms.
The control Bowey had was unreal but once I hit four orgasms, I always bit his shoulder in a plea to come otherwise I would be a ragdoll. Now he wanted to see first-hand how much he could make me match him; how wrecked mine could match his.
My fingernails dug into his biceps, making him wince when his lips brushed mine. “I can take it, Evey. Always could, always will.” I came right against him, our mouths nearly touching and my legs shaking around him. “That’s it, beautiful.” His words hummed against my orgasm like he was flirting with me mid ecstasy.
“I want you to come undone, Bowey,” I whispered back as my hands pushed against his abs, carefully pushing him back. His hand squeezed mine like he could read my mind and guided my hips to stand up even though my legs felt like jelly while he fell to his ass on the couch.
That was his weakness, me asking him to come in a pleasure-soaked voice and fuck me eyes even though I’ve come four times already.
Before I could straddle his lap, his hands yanked my hips forward in a hungry motion making me lose my balance and my hands landed against the wall to stop me from colliding into him. Falling into the wall, I felt my nipples touch the cold surface just as his lips grazed the inside of my thigh.
My head fell back and my hands tried to sink into the wall the way his mouth sunk between my thighs and captured my clit whole between his lips.
Sucking my clit against his tongue, I felt my hips shake and his hands dig into my ass keeping me close to his mouth. I was coming undone when I begged him to break for me. That’s how Bowen worked though; he would break once you did, not before.
My hands slipped from the wall, grasping the back of the couch when I felt his tongue flick at my wetness, knowing I was on the edge of coming again. His grip on me softened when he whispered, “That’s not how I want you to come, Evey.”
Lowering me slowly, my thighs automatically positioned themselves on either side of him, his fingers laced with mine, watching me adjust to him and slide down every inch until I was skin to skin with him. Swaying my hips forward, hands laced, I bit down on my lip to keep the overwhelming moans from raining down on him. “Please, Bowey, I want it again.” I begged and pleaded on top of him, knowing he wouldn’t refuse.
I watched his face melt into a silent groan when his hands gripped mine tighter and his abs tensed, all of him tensed in a way that made me want to smile but I was busy trying to keep from coming. It was impossible with Bowey penetrating my soul straight to my heart.
“Fuck, Evey.” He was out of breath, and I was soaking up every second when my head fell backwards, and my own orgasm had me teetering on the edge of him coming inside me. Falling into me, his mouth laid kisses all over my chest and collarbones. “It’s not human the sounds that come out of you after four…”
Laughing at how many times he was able to make me come, I saw us both covered in dried paint with hearts and lines drawn over our sensitive parts like a road map to how to love each other even though it was embedded in our soul.
AMHERST SINNERS SERIES (college series):
❝When I hurt, I hurt everyone else. I'm a wrecking ball in a room full of hearts.❞ - Ollie
#1: ➜ books2read.com/THEBESTYEARS
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SINNERS SPIN OFF NOVELLA:
❝Crazy bitch just wanted to hold hands while we were handcuffed...❞ - Hunter
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THE CELESTIAL SERIES (paranormal/urban fantasy):
❝I take it back, okay? You're just an asshole in an aluminum crown.❞ - Arianna
#1: ➜ books2read.com/AWFULCURSE
#2: ➜ books2read.com/AWFULINENTIONS
THE 4H SERIES (new adult/dark romance):
❝My dad shoved religion so far down my throat I was deep throating crucifixes.❞ - Abigail
#1: ➜ shorturl.at/duNS0
#2: ➜ shorturl.at/dfrDO