Be My Downfall

by Lyla Payne

  Still, my desire to watch her lose control outweighed my desire to give up my tenuous grip on my inhibitions and I slid down, tasting every square inch of skin on her torso and heading lower. The moment before I settled in between her thighs, Kennedy tangled her fingers in my hair and yanked hard, pulling my face back to hers. “Don’t. Just…fuck me, Wright. Fuck me so I remember it tomorrow.”

  It pained me to pull my lips away from hers long enough to grab a condom from my wallet, but it had to be done. I hovered over her, sucking her strawberry mouth as I nudged apart her knees, the heat at her center pulling me in like some kind of magnet. I slipped inside, then further, then all the way as my tongue explored her mouth. Being buried inside her, from top to bottom, seized me with pleasure intense enough to pry a groan from my throat. It felt so damn good.

  She grew impatient at my steady pace and wriggled against me, clamping her hands on my ass and tipping up her hips to pull me deeper. I forgot about going slow, or about trying to impress her, as we moved together with increasing fervor. The gasps and moans landing on my neck in quick exhalations of hot air spurred me on. Her skin—that perfect goddamn smelling skin—grew slick under my hands and between our bodies and it was the opposite of an awkward first time.

  “Hurt me, Wright. Make it hurt.”

  The entire, surreal experience crashed to a halt with those words. My eyes flew open and found the tears shining in hers, such gleaming desperation in her blue-green gaze that it made me sick to my stomach.

  “What?” I managed to pause our joint movement against her will. “Why?”

  “I like it that way, okay? It gets me off. Just…smack me around, or choke me. Pull my hair, maybe, but only if you’ll really do it.”

  The request sounded like a foreign language to me—one she obviously spoke that I didn’t. I had no problem with some fun spanking or giving up a rough fuck—in fact we hadn’t been going at it gently at all. But everything about Kennedy right then said she wanted more than that. Something fucking twisted. Something guys like Sebastian would give her.

  She broke our eye contact at my long pause and bit her lip. “I want to feel something, Wright. It’s the only way I can feel anything. Help me,” her whisper broke, dissolved into smoke.

  And even though in that moment I wanted nothing more than to help her, I wasn’t Sebastian. I wasn’t that guy.

  It hurt me in unexpected places to think that, even as I’d been having some kind of goddamn religious experience moving inside her, with her, she’d been lying there feeling nothing.

  Nothing.

  I put a hand on her cheek, forcing her eyes back to mine. “Let me do this my way, strawberry. Just stay with me.”

  Her eyes, still filled with tears, widened but fastened to mine. I trailed my hand down her neck, paused to tweak one of her exquisitely responsive nipples, then reluctantly left it behind and swept lower. The hot wetness, as she stretched to accommodate two fingers, drove a shudder through me, and, as I withdrew them and slipped them up higher, I thrust hard into her.

  She met my movements with her own, but it was different now. Not frantic. Her eyes stayed locked on mine as I worked inside her and rubbed against her, my fingers keeping pace with our thrusts as her breathing quickened again. I found the spot that made her gasp and stayed there, watching her as she closed her eyes and let go, as an orgasm crashed over her and she shuddered beneath me, wrapping her legs tight and crying out at the last moment.

  I came too, unable to hold out for another second with the way she clenched around me, and when I opened my eyes to find tears streaming down her cheeks, I had no idea what to do. This was the most amazing and most fucked-up sex I’d ever had in my life. It mirrored every conversation the two of us had held until now—always a little off and out of nowhere, but not unsatisfying in any way.

  With blood returning to the thinking parts of me, her words—help me—pounded in my brain like a hangover I knew wouldn’t be cured by some painkillers or hair of the dog. I expected her to get up and leave, but she surprised me by rolling to the other side of the bed and curling into a ball. The quiet, wet sound of sobs filled the room. I’d never heard anything so broken, as though she’d even forgotten how to do such a natural thing. It sounded like someone reached into her chest and scraped each one out with a serrated ice cream scoop.

  Kennedy clearly hadn’t shared my stunned feelings about the sex. Or maybe she had, and she was too fucked up to deal with it. Either way, I couldn’t stand her pained whimpering another second and reached out, resting a hand on her shoulder.

  She jerked away, shaking like an injured animal, but I refused to lie here and do nothing while little pieces of her tore off and stained my sheets. I wrapped my arms around her waist and tugged her against me, holding on tight until she stopped struggling and sagged into my chest. The weight of her felt as perfect curled into me as it had underneath me, and the rightness of holding her scared the shit out of me.

  Crying chicks usually sent me running, but we’d just had sex, and neither of us could really drive, so there wasn’t anywhere to go even if I wanted to leave.

  Which, I realized, I didn’t.

  Her torn sobs quieted to silent tears and then sniffles. I waited for her to speak but she never said a word, just burrowed tighter into the warmth blooming between us. Her breathing evened out, but I didn’t let go.

  I lay awake a long time, breathing in the scent of her mingled with the scent of me. Kennedy felt warm and whole plastered against me, her silky hair soft across my shoulder and chin, but if I’d learned anything tonight, it was that wholeness was her illusion.

  There were girls who enjoyed it rough, and that was probably normal. There was a time and place for everything. But even I, with my fairly limited experience, realized that not being able to feel anything except pain meant Kennedy Gilbert might be a bigger mess than anyone—including me—had guessed. Every last piece of my gut said she’d be out of here in the morning and we’d never talk about what passed between us tonight. I knew I should be glad. I couldn’t fix her. That had been my big brother’s last lesson to me—that people had to want help.

  I also knew that no matter what tomorrow brought, for the first time I didn’t want to walk away. The sex had pretty much blown my mind, even after her strange request, but it was more than that. I liked her—she was funny and serious, smart and sad, and mostly just a mystery that begged to be solved. I knew something else, too.

  She was going to be really pissed she’d fallen asleep again with me in the room.

  Six Years Ago

  The girl had fallen asleep peacefully, as she always did during rides in the car. Her father behind the wheel, her mother going on about the options for their summer vacation, what hospital they should apply to next, and what friends they should visit, her baby brother gumming a toy in the car seat next to her, lulled her with its familiarity. Moving objects put her to sleep—the car, a boat, an airplane.

  The sleep itself offered little peace. There were nightmares filled with loud noises, with crying and pain. Her father left without saying goodbye, and even though she held tight to her mother’s cold, slippery hand, eventually she disappeared through an impenetrable curtain, too. Her brother was quiet, even though he’d been screaming for days while his teeth came in. It seemed as though other people were there, but when the girl finally fought her way free of the dreams, she woke up alone.

  She cried out and tried to move, but there were needles and tubes and wires, and her feet wouldn’t reach the floor. The lights were dim. It smelled like antiseptic and death, and the girl wanted her parents. She didn’t want to stay in this place alone.

  Eventually a nurse came in, and then a doctor. They shined lights in her eyes and forced her to move her arms and legs, to answer silly questions like her name and how old she was and where she went to school. The girl asked and asked for her mother, then her father, but they wouldn’t take her to them so she stopped talking.

  A stranger cam
e in, an older woman with a fat face and mean eyes, to tell the girl the truth. That she had woken up alone and she would always be alone forever, because the nightmare had been real. Her family had died and they had saved the girl’s life, even though she never asked them to.

  Her grandmother—her father’s mother—came a few days later to take the girl home. The girl didn’t talk, and neither did her grandmother, except to say, over and over, how she didn’t understand how the good Lord would see fit to take her only son and leave such a useless girl child behind.

  The girl had thought the same thing the moment she found out the truth. Her mother and father had been good. Surgeons. Her brother had only been a baby. She should not have been the one to survive. It had to be a mistake. Must be. All she had to do was exist until God decided to fix it.

  Chapter 7

  “Wake up, please.”

  Something hard and sort of sharp poked me in the ribs. I opened my eyes, squinting in the sunlight that banged off my face to see Kennedy. The light framed her like a halo, warming her hair to that perfect strawberry shade and wrapping her pale skin in a glow.

  “Morning, strawberry.”

  She withdrew her toe and stood up, backing away and crossing her arms over her chest. She’d borrowed some clothes from one of the Rowlands’ stocked closets and looked unbearably adorable, and even normal, in a pair of gray running shorts and a white tank top. I realized she usually favored loose clothes from the waist up—even her dress last night had covered most of her chest. This tank top dipped low, skimming the top of her black bra so that the lace peeked out, and putting the cleavage I recalled all too well on display.

  I felt the unstoppable beginning of morning wood and sat up, shifting blankets to do my best to hide it. The look on her face said we wouldn’t be going for round two before saying farewell.

  “Did I actually have sex with you, Wright? I mean…my body says we did, and that it was maybe even satisfactory, but my brain wonders how we could have approved that decision.”

  She said it all with a straight face, but the words blurred in my mind about halfway through. Cold shock numbed my limbs, curing my boner and smashing every feeling other than complete horror. Could she be lying to save face after breaking down, or did she really remember nothing?

  I didn’t know her well enough to be able to tell, but last night had felt honest.

  “You’re saying you don’t remember?” I forced my voice to stay calm. I didn’t want her to think this hurt my pride or my ego or my feelings—that shit didn’t matter. It freaked me the fuck out that she’d been drunk enough to black out and fool me at the same time.

  Because I’d only known one other person able to do that, and my brother Trent had the kind of substance abuse problem that had erased his dignity and stole his family—after his HIV diagnosis had already put his future in doubt. The thought of Kennedy in that same place oiled up my guts worse than any hangover I’d ever had.

  “Don’t be offended or anything. I hardly ever remember the nights when I party. You’re a good boy, though. I’m sure we used protection and it was nice and vanilla.”

  The placating statement was clearly meant to be an insult, and it hit me that way. My instinct was to argue, but it didn’t matter. I was terrified, and I wanted her and her crazy out of there.

  “I’m not offended, strawberry. We were safe. You even seemed to enjoy yourself, until we finished and you sobbed yourself to sleep.”

  Kennedy’s liquid eyes hardened into jewels, losing their light and laughter in the blink of an eye. When she replied, she had to unclench her jaw first. “I’m dealing with the fact that I’ve now fallen asleep with you twice, Wright. That’s all I can handle. It’s more than I want to. Got it?”

  I nodded once, confusion yanking my stomach into a knot. Tipping her over a ledge didn’t interest me at all, even if honesty was my go-to. I’d learned with Trent that the truth didn’t mean dick unless he’d come to it himself—and until Kennedy admitted to herself that being with me had broken some emotion loose inside her, even without pain, it wouldn’t do any good to push.

  “Are you headed back to campus?” Her voice shook but she quickly steadied it, a bit of color returning to her pale cheeks.

  “Yeah. Give me ten minutes to grab a shower.” I could have waited until I got back to the SEA house, but all of the sudden I needed to wash the smell of last night down a drain.

  “I’ll grab you some clothes. Hurry, please.”

  “Do you have big lunch plans? I mean, I know midterms start tomorrow, but you’re not exactly into studying.”

  “I’ll have you know, Wright, that I have a perfect G.P.A. at Whitman. Don’t believe everything you hear on the street.”

  I was starting to believe I should have believed everything I’d heard about Kennedy on the “street.” It might have saved me from this awkward and horrifying-as-fuck morning after.

  “Whitman doesn’t have much of a ‘street’,” I countered, striving for our previous level of comfortable banter. It would get me through the next forty-five minutes.

  “You and I go to the same school in name only.”

  At least, that’s what I thought I heard her say before I closed the bathroom door and breathed in the blessed, blessed silence.

  The shower helped, and I felt more in control when I stepped out and reached for a towel.

  “Well, by the looks of that bod, I have no doubt that I at least should have enjoyed the vanilla sex last night.”

  I whipped around, finding Kennedy through the steam. She perched on the edge of the toilet, holding out the brown towel I’d dropped on the sink before stepping under the spray. Her eyes dropped between my legs and held, causing exactly the reaction she’d intended before I wrapped the proffered terrycloth around my waist. Drops of water dripped down my chest and onto my shoulders from my hair as she and I stared, some weird mixture of lust and challenge thick in the air. Maybe it made me some kind of loser, but right then, I didn’t have the stomach for either.

  “Did you find me some clothes?”

  She tipped her chin toward the sink. A threadbare SEA shirt, boxer briefs, and a pair of khakis were folded neatly on the counter.

  “I wanted to enjoy those abs for a few more minutes at least.”

  It sounded almost wistful, as though she was sorry it would only be however long it took us to drive back to campus, but I knew better than to believe it. In some ways, Kennedy Gilbert and I were peas in a pod. And while I generally didn’t cry myself to sleep after sex, I did understand not wanting to get emotionally involved.

  Also like Kennedy, I chose to pretend that didn’t mean I had problems.

  “Are you going to watch while I get dressed or what?”

  Kennedy got up and left, letting the steam out of the bathroom and a chill in—from the air or the lack of her presence, it was hard to tell. It took me all of two minutes to yank on three pieces of clothes and towel dry my hair, then we walked downstairs and let ourselves out the front door. The house had been, if not empty, quiet. But out front there was a handful of pledges changing out the landscaping mulch—which struck me as ridiculous, given the amount of money the Rowlands made in any given month.

  Jax said hello to Kennedy, staring a little too hard at her ass while she walked toward my Jeep. It wasn’t my choice vehicle, but Dad being in politics meant buying American.

  “Keep your eyes on your work,” I snapped at Jax.

  It wasn’t him. Kennedy had a nice ass. And a nice face and a nice rack and a beautiful smile and a great sense of humor. I couldn’t blame him, and she wasn’t mine to stake a claim on. But it made me feel better to be able to make somebody do what I said, even if it was only because he was afraid of my ability to make him do something crazy during the next hazing session.

  I left the Jeep locked until I caught up with her so she’d let me open the door, then helped her inside, even though she refused to take my hand. Ridiculous, considering she’d taken a lot more than
that eight hours ago. Kennedy felt, for the first time, fragile. Like a sandcastle on the beach—meticulously constructed over time but easily destroyed by a single, well-placed wave.

  I didn’t want to be the wave. I had a feeling I’d come way too close last night, even though I had no idea what had happened to make me that way.

  Once we were both buckled in and on the road, the silence started to get to me. We’d had sex, not shot up heroin, but we were acting as though last night was some kind of horrible secret. It was weird, but I wanted things back the way they were. Lighthearted and sexy, with an occasional side of insulting.

  “You really have a 4.0?”

  Kennedy snorted, and even that intrigued me. “Can’t believe it, huh?”

  “I’ve seriously never seen you anywhere on campus except tailgates and bars. So, yeah, it’s pretty curious.”

  “That’s me, Wright. Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “Ah, and a Lewis Carroll fan to boot.”

  “What self-respecting addict isn’t a Lewis Carroll fan? Be serious.”

  The word addict slammed into my chest and tried to stop my heart. I gripped the steering wheel tighter, sweat popping out on my palms, and breathed through my nose. Panic attacks and driving didn’t go well together, and I hadn’t had a full-blown one in over a year.

  “Jesus, Wright, are you going to barf?” She laid a cool palm on my cheek. It felt nice, but didn’t do a whole lot to stave off my meltdown. Good thing I had a therapy appointment tomorrow. “Seriously, you’re making me curious now. What’s the story?”

  I didn’t want to talk about Trent. About all the times we sat in family therapy talking about the anatomy of an addict, being reassured none of his actions were our fault. That we hadn’t failed even though it felt like we had.