Dropping my eyes to crotch of his pants, I wet my lower lip with a sweep of my tongue, a wicked smile curved my mouth.
Icarus’s pupils dilated, swallowing his icy blue eyes. He stared at my lips, a man consumed. Just as quickly, he shook it off. “No,” he said weakly. Then, reaffirmed it with a stronger admonition. “No. I’ve changed my mind.”
“Too late.” Straddling his legs, I reached for his belt, unwrapping him like the best gift ever. I was careful to lift his boxer-briefs over his erection, but he still caught a bit at the tip. I wasn’t practiced at unclothing a man by any means. Springing free, he fell heavy against his stomach. I had a moment of frisson.
Icarus took advantage of my hesitation to capture my wrists in his hands. “This isn’t a good idea for several reasons. The foremost of which being your aversion to bodily fluids.”
“Mind over matter,” I said, using his own words. Kissing the planes of his chest, I rubbed against him, caressing his thick length with the silky skin of my breasts.
“You might not like it.”
“Only one way to find out.” I tried to twist my hands from his grip, but his fingers tightened around my wrists.
“I want to make love to you, not traumatize you.”
I dipped my head, my breath rolling over the satiny head of his erection. “I don’t need to use my hands.”
“Thaleiaaaoooooohmyfuckinggod,” he groaned, yielding under my persuasion. I’d never done it before, but his reaction left no doubts of my ability. “Jesusfreakingchristhelpme!”
Backing off, I swirled my tongue over him. “I didn’t know you were religious.”
“Sweetheart, I thank God for you every d-d-day. AAaahhh fuck!”
“Can I have my hands back now?” He was squeezing them in a death grip as I teased him mercilessly. Who was stuttering now?
“AAhhh Jesus! I cccccan’t let go.”
“I need to balance myself,” I insisted. “Here,” I said, placing his hands on my head. “You can hold my hair back.”
“Not a good idea. I’m afraid I might ram my dick straight down your throat.”
Stopping, I blinked despondently. “Am I not doing it right? Am I supposed to…” I shrugged, blushing. “…go deeper?”
“Sweetheart, I don’t think you could screw it up unless you keep talking.”
“Oh.” I smiled sheepishly and delve back into the matter at hand. No pun intended. I took my time, watching all his nuances as I pleasured him, learning what he liked and not. There was little he didn’t like, I noted quickly. Cupping him with my hand made his toes curl. Skimming my teeth lightly over him made him curse under his breath. But taking him deep, he could barely contain himself from releasing a full out verbal onslaught of expletives, his eyes pinching shut in complete and utter rapture.
Close to the end, he wrapped his hands into my hair, unable to refrain from bucking his hips. My heart fluttered in an emotional ambush. I hadn’t thought it would be like this, expecting the act to be less personal, but I felt a sense of satisfaction that I could cause him to react so viscerally. He was primal in his race to the end, thrusting faster. Deeper. Harder.
I kept my eyes locked on his, my hand cupping his boys from underneath. I could feel them tighten in my palm. His lip curled. His teeth set on edge. Breaths coming in hungry gasps.
“Ohfuckohfuckohfuck,” he chanted, abruptly rigid. “Stopstopstopstopstop.”
I didn’t.
Icarus bellowed, pulling my hair until I had to place my palms against his thighs. Ten years of built up lust rushing forth in a torrent of spasms I could feel from my lips to my throat.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
He seemed to go on forever, knees locked, body like a statue. Nobody ever prepared me for any of this. Not even Peyton. And we discussed everything. Everything.
What to do… I had already chosen when he tried to warn me. It was too late to turn back. I didn’t want to insult him. Hopefully my gag reflex didn’t get the best of me.
Thus, I was flabbergasted when he extracted himself and sealed his lips to mine. I murmured a protest against his mouth, distraught with the notion. I’ve heard guys talk. I never really understood the injustice. When the roles were reversed it was ok. Cowards.
But damn if he didn’t rise to the challenge.
Swirling his tongue around mine, he softened the shock of his orgasm. Kissing me until the tension and uncertainty unwound from the coil drawing me tight. It wasn’t long before I was climbing him like a six foot ladder, eager to have him inside me.
Rolling me beneath him, he parted our lips. “You didn’t need to do that.”
“Neither did you.”
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”
“Really. It wasn’t bad; I just didn’t know what to expect.”
“I warned you.” Humor sliding from his face, he kissed me once then again, brushing the hair from my face with a gentle sweep of his hand. “Choose me.” Expecting the worst, his eyes drifted shut, his thick fringe of black lashes resting on his cheeks.
Choose him? “There is no choice to make. I love you.” His eyes flashed open, exuding contentment and relief. He released a pent up breath. I repeated myself, holding his eyes. “I love you, Icarus Quirinus.”
He put into the kiss what words couldn’t express, his lips moving against mine with urgency. Pushing up on his toes, he lifted his weight from me, using his knee to part my thighs, resting himself between them with gentle ease. My legs encompassed his waist, pulling him closer, hugging us together until we both moaned, greedy and desperate with need.
Breaking the kiss, he reached down, gingerly seeking home. He searched blindly, nervously, clashing with my thigh, slipping past home. “Thaleia, what you do to me…it just ain’t right. My hands are shaking like a damn virgin.”
“Lower,” I directed, lifting my hips for him. “Just…go slow.” I’d only done it once, and the experience from what I remember was uncomfortable.
Holding my eyes, he pivoted his hips forward, barely entering me. My fingers tightened around his shoulders. Loosely seated, he released himself and stroked his thumb between my legs. My eyes rolled back in my head, my body going limber beneath his.
“Icarus!” The door slammed two floors below. Max had returned early. I could hear his footfalls as he rushed through the house. He was panting heavily. I wondered briefly if he ran all the way home.
“Busy!” Icarus shouted. “Go away!”
“Whatever you’re doing, this is more important!” He was running up the stairs now, his feet ascending the treads with haste.
Icarus grinned roguishly, snorting to himself. “I seriously doubt that.”
“Damn it!” Max gasped. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Upstairs!”
“I ammmmm upstairs!”
After having given up, he stretched to look over his shoulder, and his hips pivoted, inadvertently driving home. I yelped over the unexpected incursion. Icarus ground his teeth.
“Holy fuck…Jesus….Ah Gods!” Instinctively, his hips began pumping. My knees clenched over his hips and my hands pushed against his chest, endeavoring to slow him down.
Too fast. Way too fast.
He mistook this as a prompt to move deeper. He pivoted his hips, eager to please. My nails perforated his chest, my eyes widening and then pinching shut. Wholly crap did it hurt!
The cold splash of water didn’t help either. I squealed, hiding under Icarus’s weight, shivering from the chill of the water and the cold attic room. Icarus looked ready to tear Max limb from limb. Withdrawing from me unceremoniously, he pulled the sheet over us.
Max stood at the top of the stairs, his back to us. Despite this, he shielded his eyes, his dark curls hanging like a drape over his hand and face. “I’m really, really sorry to have to interrupt. But Thaleia’s parents’ house is on fire.”
Icarus slid from the bed, disregarding—as was I—the need for modesty. After the scene,
Max just witnessed, and the news he was bearing, my state of undress was irrelevant.
“What happened?”
“Don’t know. We couldn’t get close enough. The police have everything blocked off. Wouldn’t let us through. I’ll um…I’ll wait in the car. It’s running.”
I dressed perfunctorily, running through the possibilities. Naturally, none of them were good. It was in my nature to think the worst. When things went bad, they went bad in a big way.
“It could’ve been a toaster fire.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to. You’re white as a sheet.”
Grabbing my Beretta from my dresser drawer, I checked the magazine then clipped the holster to the back of my pants. I headed for the stairs. Icarus grasped my arm as I walked past. He meant to, but didn’t promise that everything would be fine.
I wish he lied.
The drive to my parent’s house was agonizing. I could’ve run faster on foot. I was stuck in the backseat of the Mustang, my knees crammed, my mind wandering. You could think a million things during the course of a ten minute drive. “God, please let it be a toaster fire.”
Icarus squeezed my hand in his, equally lost. “What?”
“Bennie has this Star Wars toaster that burns a silhouette of Darth Vader onto the bread. Maybe you’re right. It was a toaster fire. The thing never worked right.”
Or maybe it was dad. He liked to make these hash browns in the toaster. They were so greasy they left puddles of oil on the counter. I always thought they posed as much danger to the house as they did to his arteries.
I thought of the countless times I forgot to shut my straightening iron off before I left for school. I’d come home to brown v’s burned into the white paint of my dresser. Bennie had started using a straightener. It gave him these perfectly coiffed spikes that he tipped with blue chalk. Perhaps he forgot to shut it off.
Perhaps mom was blending vegetables again as Bennie predicted. The blender we used at home was antiquated. It always gave off a burnt rubber smell. I was making pignoli cookies over the summer. They called for almond paste. Dad always liked it fresh, said it was the way his mother used to make it. But the almonds tended to clump around the blades, and I swore I saw smoke. I should’ve thrown it away, but mom was sentimental about the thing.
Max pulled next to the curb and shut the engine down. I couldn’t see anything from the backseat. The fire trucks and the cars blocked the view, anyhow. Icarus slid from the car and tilted the seat forward so that I could climb out. I gave up trying to find a better vantage point—and unfolded myself from the backseat. I nearly fell in my haste to exit the car, but Icarus caught my arm. Once I gained my footing, I bolted, weaving through the crowd of bystanders, leaving Icarus and Max trailing after me. I made it to the yellow police ribbon just as they wheeled out the first stretcher. Strapped to it was a body bag, containing at least one of my parents.
I must’ve screamed, because everyone turned and stared, but my eyes saw only the second stretcher roll out. And then the third. The ground quaked beneath my feet. My whole body began to tremble. The world tilted off its axis. Icarus caught me as my legs gave out, sinking with me to the ground. He cradled me in his lap, rocking me as I cried.
I was broken. Irrevocably broken. My world would never again align.
Chapter 19
Icarus stood, lifting me with him as I watched them load the last stretcher into the coroner’s van. He shifted my weight in his arms, and started for the car. My head lay like a lead weight against his chest, temples damp and curling with tears. My breaths came in sobs.
“He’s alone.” Bennie. They’d taken my parents together in the first van.
“He’s not alone. He’s with your mom and dad.”
“No.” I shook my head. “He wouldn’t leave me alone.” Never. Wherever he was, he had to be scared.
“You’re not alone. You have us. Bennie went somewhere better.”
Helping me into the passenger’s seat of the Mustang, Icarus buckled me in and pressed a kiss to my forehead. I sat motionless in the seat, my heart feeling like it shattered into a thousand jagged shards of glass. I bled despair from every organ. I heard of people dying from grief, but I had never thought of it as literal. Now, I understood, implicitly.
I curled up in the seat, leaning my head against the window, staring at the burned out frame of my home. The second floor had collapsed, and the first floor was barely standing. They’d died in there, my whole family. They were gone. I had no one left. I was alone.
“You’re not alone,” Icarus repeated. “You have us.”
Had I spoken aloud?
Max reached around the headrest and rubbed my shoulder.
A rap on the window gathered our attention. It was Detective Gentry. He gave up trying to see through the tinted windows and straightened, tugging the collar of his trench coat around his neck, hiding from the brisk December breeze. His breath vaporized in fleeting white puffs.
“What does he want?” Lucius asked from the backseat.
I dropped my head against the window again, uninterested.
Rolling down the widow, a blast of cold air rolled through the car. “Detective,” Icarus said, not entirely courteous in tone.
“I’m sorry to have to do this now, but it would really help to tie up the investigation here.”
“Investigation?” Icarus inquired. “This wasn’t an accident?”
Interest piqued, I lifted my head, causing Detective Gentry to remove his hat, his expression sympathetic. “Sorry for your loss, Miss Llorente.”
“Thank you.”
“The Fire Marshall will have to determine that,” Detective Gentry replied. “We did find something raising suspicion, but it could just as easily be dismissed. I hope you understand it’s routine to investigate all possibilities.” Flipping to a fresh page in his notebook, he flattened the paper down and habitually licked the tip of the pencil. “Do you know a Michael Dougherty?”
Icarus and I exchanged a look.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Detective Gentry observed. “What relation is he to you?”
“He’s an ex-boyfriend of Thaleia’s, but he harassed her for a while when she first transferred to Rock West. They have it on file at the school.”
“This the same boy from the altercation in November?”
“Yes,” Icarus answered. “You think he’s responsible for this?”
“It’s weak, but it’s a motive.” His eyes traveled to me. “When was your last contact with him?”
“November,” I answered, my voice small. I was tired and numb. “He never returned to school after his suspension. There’re all sorts of rumors flying around that his parents sent him to military school or that they just flat out disowned him. I don’t know what’s true.”
Detective Gentry deliberated, his lips pressed to a thin line. “We found his cell in the hedges along the path. On it, he had a video of the confrontation in the lunchroom someone messaged to him. I need to investigate this further, but until then, take all precautions. If, indeed, he’s holding a grudge, and responsible here, he’s a dangerous individual.”
“Thank you, Detective. Is that all? I’d like to take Thaleia home. As you can imagine it’s been a long day. We have arrangements to make.”
Detective Gentry nodded. “I have your number. I’ll be in contact.”
I closed my eyes, my thoughts returning to my parents and Bennie. Beside me, the window rose with a whir. Icarus shifted the car into drive and pulled away from the curb. The burned out ruins of my parents’ house faded from my sight as we coasted down the street.
This time as Icarus drove me away, it was final. I had no home, no family to return to. I hadn’t even the comfort of a phone call or text. They were gone from my life forever.
No kisses and hugs. No I love yous. No goodbyes.
“They’re here,” Icarus said, placing his hand over my heart. I thought I had spoken again, murmuring my
thoughts aloud, but it was my fresh bout of tears that alerted him to my anguish. “And here.” He touched my temple gently with fingertips. “You remember them, and they’ll always be with you.”
He wiped at my face with his thumb then began rummaging the glove box. “You got any tissues anywhere, Max? Or at least a damn paper towel?”
“No.”
“Why the hell not? You always keep something in the car. How many times have I told you? For God’s sake, what do you do when you’ve gotta blow your nose?”
“You really don’t want to know,” Lucius muttered under his breath.
“I do not pick my nose!” Max said with umbrage.
“Bullshit!” Lucius argued. “You’ve got a booger spot under the driver’s seat!”
“Do not!”
“Do too! I suppose we should all be thankful you don’t just eat ‘em!”
“Never mind. NEVER MIND!” Icarus shouted, raising his voice above the boy’s bickering. They were only trying to ease my mind with their inanities but I was beyond consolation. “We’ll be home in five minutes anyhow.”
Up ahead, the flashing red lights of the train crossing vaguely caught my attention. Icarus pulled to a stop, shifting the car into neutral as the boom gates dropped down, barricading the road. The R5…
Disengaging my seatbelt, I reached for the door handle. Icarus grasped my arm, his hand encompassing my bicep. “Where’re you going?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Jerking my arm from his grasp, I lunged for the door, throwing myself out of the car, and trotted toward the small path leading off the road and into the grass along the tracks.
“Thaleia!” Icarus called, following me. He wasn’t overly worried, just concerned. I turned back holding up my index finger, hoping I could persuade him to stay with the car.
“Just a minute.” I bent at the waist, watching the approach of the train through my veil of hair. It was hard to estimate. I’ve never paid attention to the timing of the gate before. How many seconds or minutes before the train reached the crossing? The lights were visible. Two at the top, above the door, and two at the bottom on either corner. I could make out the front of the pilot car. Maybe a good twenty or thirty seconds was all I needed.
Feral Page 29