His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas

by Theodora Taylor

He doesn’t do his usual rough push in this time. Instead, he plays with my pussy, moving his fingers in deep. “You think I don’t know how much you want me to take your pussy? You think I ain’t been going out of my mind with the smell of you all day?”

  And just like that, I go from struggling to melting. From protesting to helpless. His tox report came back clean, but he’s the drug, I think. And I find myself once again becoming aroused, even as his erection circles into the slit of my ass. He’s a drug, and he’s killing all my willpower.

  “You don’t think you know me, but you do,” he tells me. “You’re going to give me what I want, because you know I’d never do anything to hurt you, Doc. You know at the end of it, I’m going to make you feel good.”

  I grab on to his words. “But I don’t think it will feel good. No guy’s ever…”

  “Yeah, I got that. And that makes me want it even more. Fuckin’ all of you, Doc. I ain’t settling for nothing less.”

  He continues to plunge his fingers into me, kneading the top of my pussy until a druggy arousal takes over my core.

  “But I want you inside me,” I tell him. “In my pussy. Please…”

  A dark laugh erupts behind me. “Oh, you’ll be getting me back in your pussy. Probably about two or three more times before this night is through, but first we got some loyalty to prove.”

  This is stupid. So stupid, I have to tell him. “This is stupid. You’re being stupid. I don’t have anything to prove to you.”

  “Humor me, Doc,” he whispers in my ear. “Please…”

  His rough please is what finally makes me stop fighting him. I find myself curving forward, spreading my buttocks a little wider. Giving him the invitation to get it over with, so we can get back to the other stuff.

  In the next moment, I feel my ass being split apart by his cock, pushing in, inch by inch.

  As big as he is, it’s not painful. Not at all. He takes it slow, pushing in a little at a time. Giving me a second or two between each push to get used to having him there.

  Then I can feel his balls on my butt cheeks.

  “Okay, Doc…” he whispers.

  His hand finds it’s way between my legs and he starts moving again, this time with deliberate care. And it’s…not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, the only pain I feel is one of bittersweet need as I get closer and closer.

  I finally understand what my best friend Sola meant when I worried about the Russian fiancé who followed her abusive ex.

  “There’s a difference between dominant and domineering,” she’d told me when we’d flown back to California to attend the funeral of one of our favorite ValArts teachers and met for dinner beforehand.

  Ivan Rustanov was so large, so commanding. I couldn’t help but worry. But Sola assured me he was nothing like her ex, and I could see how happy she was with him. So I’d chosen to believe her, stood up at her wedding less than a few months later, still not quite understanding, but somehow accepting in my heart that Ivan Rustanov was a good fit for her.

  But now I get it. I know exactly how it feels to give yourself to someone with more trust than you could ever imagine you possessed.

  John’s thrusts speed up, and he whispers all sorts of dirty words in my ear. Telling me I’m really his now. That I belong to him. That I’m so fucking beautiful, and I’ve saved him.

  The orgasm hits me, unexpected and brutal, ripping through me and tearing me completely apart. I’m incoherent and babbling by the time it’s done, and so far gone that I don’t realize he’s coming until he pulls out of me.

  I’ve just come from my first ass fucking. And surprisingly, it’s still not enough. I lie there, battling tears even as my pussy clenches and unclenches, once again milking air it’s so desperate to be filled. The bed rises up again and the next thing I hear, other than my hitched breaths, is the sound of water running in the bathroom.

  Then he’s there on my side of the bed, filling up my blurry vision, opening the nightstand drawer again.

  “Move over, Doc,” he tells me.

  I do, trying to get a hold of myself, as he sits on the bed with his back against the wall. I’m a Pediatric Oncology Specialist at the end of her residency. I’d thought I’d pretty much trained myself out of crying.

  But not with him. He unravels me. Completely dismantles me. Scares the everlasting shit out of me.

  And he’s putting on another condom.

  “C’mere,” he says, voice somewhere between a command and a sigh. “Climb on.”

  I sniffle. “I thought you didn’t like women on top.”

  “I don’t,” he answers with a hitched smile. “But I’m pretty sure I’ll like it with you.”

  You’d think my being close to tears would have diffused everything in the achieving erection department, but on the contrary, his half-flag becomes full-on Viagra when I climb on top of him.

  “Your leg… I don’t want to hurt you,” I start.

  “Not your patient, Doc,” he reminds me. Voice mean until it gentles to say, “It’ll be all right. Trust me.”

  I do trust him. It feels like this entire weekend has been one long trust exercise, culminating in this act which he told me earlier he never allowed.

  I sink down on top of him, pussy soaking wet and slovenly grateful to finally be getting what it’s been wanting all day.

  He curls a hand around the side of my face and asks, “You still like kissing me?”

  No words. No words for how this man makes me feel. I can only silently nod.

  “Kiss me, then. Let me know I didn’t break you worse than I did me. No traumatic brain injuries.”

  I’m shaken, I realize, but not broken. I lean forward, hips rolling into his, and this time it feels like I’m the one doing all the dominating as I fuck him the way I’ve been wanting to all day.

  I can tell he’s holding himself back with me. His hands fall to my hips, but he let’s me enjoy the ride as I kiss him.

  I want to go like this all night, but I come faster than a teenage boy in this position, moaning and going wild in his lap.

  At first he watches me come with that lazy blue stare, but then he inhales sharply, his head jerking to the side as if he’s been hit with something unexpected and foreign. “Oh, fuck, Doc, I think I’m going to…”

  No more holding back now. His cast knocks against my hip as he pulls me into him. Again and again. Until he explodes into the condom, pitching forward against me with a yell.

  And now I’m the one lazily watching him as he looks around with the wild disbelief of an ER admit who’s just been resuscitated with a defibrillator.

  Then he looks up at me, gaze awed and humbled as he says, “Damn, Doc, I really didn’t think I could come that way.”

  I give him an ironic smile. “Think about all the stuff you were missing with those other girls.”

  But instead of laughing, his face clouds over. “Why did you say that?” he asks. “Why you bringing other girls into this, Doc?”

  I shift, uncomfortable on his lap now. “Because there must have been other girls,” I answer, my tone frank. “Maybe even one who’s looking for you right now, one you’ll eventually remember—”

  “No, Doc, there’s only you,” he says. “I’m brain damaged and confused. But you…” He pats his heart with his good hand. “You fill up my chest, and I know there ain’t anybody else but you in here.”

  I swallow. Wanting to believe him. Upset because I’m even thinking about taking the word of a man who can’t so much as remember his name.

  “Okay,” I say. Voice small. Agreeing with him just to get out of a conversation about disagreeing.

  It’s been a long day and I barely have the energy to climb out of bed and go to the bathroom to wash away all the things he’s done to me.

  He lets me clean up. But he says, “No pajamas,” his voice sharp, when I return and start to head to the dresser drawer.

  I simply reverse direction and climb into the bed without a word of protes
t. Trusting him to keep me warm. Trusting him more than any woman has any business trusting a man she barely knows. A man who barely knows himself.

  No, he definitely doesn’t have to keep me home from work tomorrow. He’s already fucked me out of thinking too much. But still…

  I go to bed wondering how bad or possibly good it will be when he finally remembers who he really is.

  Chapter 10

  MASON

  Shitty little state. Shitty little warehouse packed with SFK’s guns. Shitty MC’s standing around while Mason “questions” their prospect.

  Mason’s becoming more pissed off by the second that D’s put him in this position. Somebody’s going to pay. Mason doesn’t know who, but somebody’s definitely going to pay.

  Maybe it’ll be the guy hanging in chains in front of him, while the rest of his motorcycle club, including the prez, watches.

  “Where is he?” Mason demands, stabbing his bowie knife through the prospect’s shoulder. A family heirloom, passed down from a grandpa who would definitely approve of the way Mason was using it now.

  The biker screams, but none of his fellow MCs step forward to help him. They know better. Know who Mason’s family is, and what they’ll do if any of these West Virginia fuckers so much as raises a finger to help this guy.

  New Rebels, his ass. Mason wouldn’t be at all surprised if a few of these pussies peed themselves watching his bowie go into the prospect’s shoulder, then come back out with the sickening squelch of skin and muscle losing against steel.

  In fact, the Rebel’s prez looks like he’s going to lose his dinner as he snivels, “I swear on my mother, man! I don’t know where he is. This prospect and the old sarge did the deal with him and he left with the money. We ain’t heard from him or seen him since. I swear!”

  The old sergeant at arms, the New Rebel Mason questioned last month. Meanwhile, the prospect hanging from the chains starts full on sobbing.

  Oh for fucking…

  Mason studies the prez, then the prospect. Decides. They’re telling the truth. They don’t know anything.

  Which means D. is either dead or hiding. Mason has not one ounce of Native American blood in him, but he senses it’s the latter. Which only makes shit worse. Hiding is way worse than dead in Mason’s opinion. One earned a little bit of Mason’s respect. The other earned his bullet.

  If D. is hiding from him, ignoring all Mason’s calls to his burner phone…

  Mason’s hand clenches and unclenches around the bowie’s wooden handle, and he suddenly decides to put it back in his waist holster. Not because he has to, but because D’s been missing near three months now, and these New Rebels fuckers have no clue where he went.

  These baby motorcycle clubs that keep springing up all over the country make him sick. Bunch of wannabe bad-asses who’d let anybody in, and when push really came to shove, you got a lot of them crying like pussies instead of taking a beating like a man.

  Mason puts the knife away.

  Then he pulls out something else his grandpa gave him before he died. A Beretta .92 compact. Now the prospect really starts sobbing. And screaming. And begging the other Rebels to help him. But not for long. Mason shuts him up with a bullet straight through his forehead.

  A hell of a lot nicer and cleaner than what he’d done to their sergeant at arms the month before, letting the guy bleed out with his bowie in his gut for not knowing what Mason wanted him to know. But a few of the New Rebels actually jump back like this bullet is so much worse, just because the sound of the shot hurt their sensitive little ears. Like they’re trying to figure out whether to run or stand their ground.

  Before they have time to decide, Mason holds up a picture of the man he’s looking for: a man who is the opposite of Mason, without any of his hulking darkness. No, this guy is clean-cut, blond, blue-eyed, and too clever for his own good. Mason suspected that about him from the start, and now it’s pretty much been confirmed.

  “Listen up!” he yells at the shitty group of men daring to call themselves a motorcycle gang. The men who ordered SFK guns, but have no idea where D went with the money they supposedly paid for those guns.

  “We been through this two times already!” Pointing to the prospect now sagging good and dead against his chains, Mason yells, “You fuckers know who I’m looking for, and what I do each and every time I come here and you don’t have anything new to tell me. I’m going home, but I’ll be back in another four weeks...”

  Now Mason’s eyes connect with the large swastika on the New Rebels President’s jacket. “And I swear to fucking Hitler, next time I ain’t settling for no prospect. I’ll take another one of your board members. Maybe even your president.”

  Nobody answers, but nobody has to. They know his reputation. Know he means every word he says. They’ll either figure out where D. got off to by the time he comes back, or be fully disbanded.

  Either way, Mason has no plans to stop looking until he’s found D. dead or alive, along with the SFK’s one hundred grand.

  Chapter 11

  No more thinking. A month passes faster than I ever imagined it could.

  John and I settle into a routine fairly quickly. He’s not my patient, but he lets me guide him through yoga every morning. His jaw clenches when an Amazon delivery with six sets of sweats, a 12-pack of boxer briefs, a bunch of weights, resistance bands, and a small all-in-one gym arrives. But I often come home to find the workout mix I made him blasting rap on his Beats headphones, while he lifts more weight than recommended.

  Cooking is new, but he’s taken over my kitchen, making recipes we both like and adding meat at the end to his plate. He’s not the first meat-eater I’ve been with, but he is the most respectful. Never mixing it in the same pans or making recipes with chicken broth, or any of the other million things that can come between couples on opposite sides of the vegan line.

  Which makes the fact that he’s dominated me every single night that much more curious. John is a man made up of contradictions. Tender and mean. Serving and dominant. Proud and humble. 100% clear on his now and a total blank on his then. I don’t know what to make of him, and I wonder if he knows himself.

  Or if his mystery frustrates him as much as it does me.

  Everything about us feels so fragile, but our co-habitation is shockingly strong.

  Weekday mornings, I go to work while he goes outside, no matter the weather. I’m still not quite sure what he’s doing out there, but I often imagine him taking long, meditative walks to the “Walking” playlist I made for him. Communing with nature like Walt Whitman, before he comes home to listen to a lot of gangsta rap while working out on the sad little home gym we set up in my living room.

  “Doctor Dunhill? Doctor Dunhill?”

  A voice rips me away from my thoughts and back to the real world. The one not filled with the crazy sexy mystery that is my John Doe.

  I look up from Ronnie Greenwell’s chart to find one of the peds nurses at the door of the office I’m allowed to use when my attending is making rounds. “Veronica Greenwell’s mother is here. She’s asking to talk to you.”

  I start. “Do you mean Dr. Higgson? She’s doing rounds, but if Caren has more questions…”

  “No, she’s already met with Dr. Higgson, but now she’s asking to speak with you directly.”

  I look back at Ronnie’s chart, then close it before standing.

  “Okay,” I say softly. Not wanting to speak with Ronnie’s mother. Deeply aware I’m a three-year fellowship away from becoming an official Pediatric Oncologist. But knowing I can’t turn down her request.

  “Okay,” I agree again. Then I get to my feet and take a deep breath.

  The house smells amazing when I walk into the apartment that night; the very opposite of a hospital. As usual, John’s finishing up his workout in the corner, so instead of bothering him, I go straight to the kitchen and find a curry simmering on the stovetop.

  “Indian food?” I ask a few minutes later when he joins me in the k
itchen; Meek Mill’s “Ima Boss” bleeding out of the the black-and-gray Beats around his neck. “Is that new?”

  “Yeah, Indian food is new,” he tells me, pressing a kiss into my temple. “But the recipe sounded good and you had all the ingredients.”

  “Thanks to Amazon,” I grumble, thinking of the first time I discovered that unlike L.A., most grocery stores in West Virginia don’t carry garam masala.

  “Speaking of that…you got a package delivered. But it ain’t from Amazon.”

  My eyes go to the rather large box waiting for me like a specter on the coffee table. I sigh, wishing it had come any day but today.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asks.

  “My day or the box?” I answer with a tired smile.

  “Either,” he answers back, hooking the cast behind my back, and caressing my face with the side of his knuckles.

  “Not really,” I admit. Because it’s the truth. Because I don’t feel like recounting my day or my past to him tonight.

  He studies me for a moment, shrewd eyes gauging. But in the end, he presses another kiss to my temple and says, “All right, I’m gonna go take a shower before dinner.”

  As soon as he’s gone, I go over to the box. I don’t even bother to read the return label. It’s from Sandy. Of course it is. Inside I find the usual: a Hermés Birkin, which I will never actually wear on my person; a new special phone with a post-it reading “same number” attached; a couple of shoe boxes, most likely filled with the kind of heels a real doctor wouldn’t wear outside a TV show.

  After a few minutes of fishing things out, I throw everything but the new special phone back in the box and go through the monthly routine. Print out the label from my laptop. Tape it to the box with the same industrial-sized roll of packing tape I’ve been using for years. But this month, instead of putting the package by the door, I take it all the way downstairs and throw it into the trunk of my car.

  “How many times do I have to ask you to stop sending me these boxes?” I text Sandy after I close the trunk.