Thrive

by Krista Ritchie

  “Am I?” Even with his lips together and flat, he’s still smiling. I see it in his eyes.

  I nod wildly. “Oh yeah. The tables have turned, Loren Hale. This is a monumental day. You are aroused before me.” I grin.

  He shimmies my jeans to the ground, and I’m too elated to realize that my panties have gone with them. When his fingers enter me, I gasp and drop my hand off his pants. His fingers pulse just slightly, and my head collapses back on the mattress. “You feel aroused to me,” he says softly.

  Fuck.

  “Key word: Before,” I reply in a staggered breath.

  I’m about to lift myself on my elbows, but I don’t have time. He doesn’t give me warning before he replaces his fingers with his erection, entering me fully. I cry out in euphoric pleasure. Every inch of me thrums, like an instrument vibrating in blistering joy.

  He hikes my leg over his hip, deepening himself. He doesn’t pull away, not yet. His lips find mine and he kisses me fervently, without pause or hesitation. Ever since I started recovery, I could see the reluctance in Lo’s eyes. Like a nightly passenger to our passion. I never thought he’d gain enough confidence in himself, enough trust in me, and enough hope in our relationship to let all those hesitations go. To make love to me so unrestrained that every movement is an impulse and nothing takes a second thought.

  It’s just natural.

  He thrusts and lets me move my hips to meet his. I moan deeply, the noise catching in the back of my throat. He smiles and his movements become harder, more aggressive. I no longer attempt to rock my body into his, not when I’m white-knuckling his biceps and holding on for dear fucking life.

  His low grunts fill my ears and send my body over the edge. I feel myself riding the steep mountain to my peak. “Lo,” I choke. “I can’t…hold on…”

  He stops moving all together and I let out an involuntary whimper. At least, I think it’s involuntary. I would never make that noise on a voluntary basis.

  Lo rubs the sweat off my forehead with his hand. “Come now,” he tells me. He presses feather-light kisses to my neck.

  Now?

  “You stopped moving,” I remind him. I squirm underneath him, and he pulls his lips away, his jaw clenched.

  Oh. He’s having some trouble.

  His hands brace my hips, settling me. “Please come now,” he tells me, “because when I start moving and you have an orgasm, I’m finished.”

  “So?” I frown. “We can do it again after. I’ll blow—” His hand rises to my mouth, silencing my words.

  “We won’t have time. Ry…” he pauses to catch himself. “People are coming home from the gym in a half hour.”

  He removes his hand. I’m grimacing. I can’t help it. “You almost said his name. And now you want me to come?”

  He moves his hips just slightly and the pressure of his cock numbs my body and clears my head. “Ahhhhh….” I moan into my arm.

  “Come,” Lo commands, kind of meanly.

  “You’re mean,” I mutter into my pillow, my cheek smashed into it.

  His lips brush my ear. “I said please first. You just didn’t listen.” He combs my hair back out of my face, and my legs stay tightly wrapped around his waist. And then his hands descend to my shirt. It’s ripped open before I have any say in the matter.

  Still no reluctance in his movements.

  He stares at my bra like it accosted him.

  “Looks like you’re not the Hulk,” I say into a smile.

  His eyes flit to mine, humorless, and then he pulls the bra up to my chin, my breasts popping out. Shit. I go to restrain them, partly just to rile him, but he beats me to it. He grabs my wrists and hoists them over my head, and as he does so, his pelvis moves and I crumble underneath him.

  My moans are soft and sound more like whining than actual noises of pleasure. Lo lets out a heavy breath and clenches his teeth like he’s struggling to control himself.

  Coming sounds very blissful right now. I’m not sure I could do it without his help though. I think he knows this. His tongue grazes my hardened nipple and I try to jerk forward, but his large, heavy body holds me still to the bed.

  It doesn’t take much to get me off.

  He sucks gently on the small bud and then lifts his head. “Just think about my cock, love,” he says. “It’s waiting, very fucking impatiently, for you. Can’t you feel it?”

  Yes. I feel very, very full.

  I repeat his words in my head and focus on his thickness. My heat spasms, and I clench tightly. He takes one hand off my wrists and lowers it to my clit, rubbing me so quickly that I cry out. The whole world rotates, and I lie back, barely hanging onto his motionless body as I ride the waves of pleasure that pound into me. One after the other. Over and over again. Until my clit is too tender to the touch, causing me to shake when he brushes against it.

  He pulls his hand away and leans in to kiss my neck, my breathing too ragged for him to kiss my lips. He sucks gently, then forcibly, and he begins to rock into me again, building up my arousal once more.

  When I catch my breath, he presses his forehead to mine and he thrusts. Strong, rhythmic movements that steal my oxygen every few seconds. His lips are so close that we could kiss, but he keeps them apart. I can feel his breath entering mine and mine his.

  His hands cup the top of my head and he starts to pump faster and harder, until we’re both on the same high, trying to reach the same blistering climax together.

  { 24 }

  0 years : 07 months

  March

  LOREN HALE

  I pull my pants up and watch Lily tuck a pillow underneath her chin. Her eyes follow my movements as much as mine follow hers. I’m not sure if it’s fear or love that keeps our gazes matched. Maybe a mixture of both.

  I tug at a tangled throw blanket on the bed, about to fold it, and a comic book suddenly tumbles to the floor. When I bend to pick it up, Lily springs off the mattress and snatches the comic first. My black button-down hangs on her body like a dress, stopping mid-thigh, but her breasts are exposed when she shifts certain ways.

  My eyes flash from her nipple to her hands, shielding the comic behind her back.

  “That’s my comic.” I don’t ask.

  Her red face answers my question before her words do. “Do you remember that time we had sex and it was so good that I didn’t ask for anymore?”

  “You mean five minutes ago?”

  She nods. “Yeah, well, um…turns out we may have been doing it on one of your comics. Whichjustmakesitmoreawesome!” She slurs the last part together, and I have to piece it apart slowly.

  “Which one?” I can already feel my glare. I try, pretty poorly, to suppress it.

  She lets out a puff of breath, like she’s thinking hard. “You know, I’m not sure.”

  “It’s behind your back,” I deadpan.

  “Oh…right.” Lily steps forward and offers the comic to me. Before I even read the title, I notice the large creases and wrinkled pages. We really did fuck on it. Jesus.

  And then I skim the title: Uncanny X-Men. The latest edition. The one I haven’t read yet. Irritation flares for a second, but it’s gone before I can even bottle it.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says, her eyes big and round. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

  The smallest slights usually grate on me enough to open a bottle of Macallan. Not today. “It’s fine, Lil. It’s just a comic book.” I can always buy another.

  The surprise in her face almost makes me smile.

  I step forward to wrap her in my arms, but our bedroom door opens abruptly, no knock, no warning. I expect Ryke to come barging in. For our secret to catch up to us.

  But it’s so much fucking worse.

  Scott Van Wright stands in the doorway, chest pumping with livid intensity. He clutches a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. I try not to concentrate on it.

  “Get the fuck out of our room,” I sneer, my veins turning to liquid fire. I block Lily’s body from view. I’m used to
our siblings invading our privacy, but not this guy. That’s something that I will never be okay with.

  Instead of leaving, he shuts the door closed with a loud thunk. “We need to talk.” No humor in his voice. He pulls his cell out of his pocket, and his dirty blond eyebrows rise like you know what I’m talking about.

  Oh yeah.

  My lips curve in a bitter smile. “Sure. Talk all you want. I’ll listen.” I mockingly wave him on. Lily plops down on the edge of the bed, a pillow pressed to her lap.

  “You deleted all of my contacts.”

  “Did I?” I feign confusion. “I don’t remember picking up your phone.” I scratch my head. “But now that I think about it…I may have touched it once. With gloves. I was scared of catching whatever disease you have that turns you into such a fucking prick.”

  “Loren, I had contacts stored from executives that I can’t get back without making a billion phone calls of numbers that I now don’t have. You see the problem here?”

  “Yep,” I say. “Sounds like a real fucking problem. Sucks for you, man.” I shrug.

  “I’m not acting,” Scott snarls. “There aren’t cameras rigged in here. This is serious.”

  I glare. “As serious as you approaching my girlfriend every goddamn day and calling her a slut?” I take a step towards him. “You’ve been making our lives miserable for the past three months. And you just walk around here—smiling.” Another step closer. “You think I’m the weakest person in the house, so you’ve been going after me and Lily. But get this straight, Scott. I’m the last person you wanted to fuck over. You try to pull my arms like I’m a fucking marionette, and I’ll yank yours out of the socket.”

  His nose flares.

  And before he has a chance to say a word, I ask, “So how’s texting going for you? Has it sucked?” I reprogrammed his auto-correct. Every time he types in yes, it reformats to say cocksucker. No is now blow me. And the phrase, I’m on my way is retranslated to I want to smell your asshole. It’s as unpoetic as I could get. And I fucked with probably fifty common phrases and words.

  His skin reddens the longer he fumes. “The cat shit was you too?” The litter box was in the laundry room. Decided to give him a surprise in his expensive loafers.

  “That was Sadie,” I say. “Congratulations, you’re the first guy she’s ever hated.” I clap, watching his face morph into pure rage. Good. He looks how I’ve felt.

  He closes the gap between us quickly, and I drop my hands.

  I threaten, “You make our lives hell; I make yours hell. That’s how this works, Scott. You leave me alone, we have no problems. Your choice.”

  Scott tries to break me by simply staring into my goddamn eyes. That’s not going to work. I’ve stared down Jonathan Hale many times before—Scott is sweet in comparison.

  “Did you come here to cry?” I ask him. I could have easily accepted my father’s help and fucked over his life, emptied his bank account, totaled his car. What I did was small but still significant—or else he wouldn’t be so upset.

  “Fine,” he finally says. His eyes flicker to Lily, but I sidestep so he can’t see her. “I’ll play nice from now on.” He slips his cell in his pocket and then he shoves the bagged bottle in my chest. “Cheers.”

  He backs up, waiting for me to unwrap the paper bag.

  I don’t have to. I’ve opened enough Maker’s Mark to recognize the red waxy seal on the neck. He handed me bourbon whiskey.

  He wants me to drink and break my sobriety. It’s not going to—

  Lily darts beside me with a high-pitched scream, steals the bottle out of my hands and chucks it at Scott. The bottle, still in the bag, makes a loud impact on the wall beside his head. He jumps back in surprise, the glass shattering and whiskey dripping down the wallpaper.

  I’m so stunned that I can hardly move. Did Lily just…yeah, she did.

  “Don’t you dare give him alcohol like it’s nothing,” Lily says.

  Scott grinds his teeth and flashes a pained smile, his lips twitching. Then he slams the door on his way out.

  It takes me a moment to speak. “Lily Calloway,” I say, shocked beyond belief. I turn my head towards her. “Did you just defend me by throwing perfectly good booze at a douchebag’s head?”

  “Yes,” she says with a nod and then tilts her chin up for further effect.

  I touch my heart. “I’d propose to you, but I already did that.”

  She smiles but tries to stay serious, pressing her lips tightly together. “He can’t screw with your addiction.”

  “He’s not.” I draw her to my body.

  Lily shakes her head, more worked up than me. “He’s like Draco Malfoy,” she says, resting her hands on my arms. “Slimy and evil and a complete narcissistic buffoon.”

  “Plus he has blond hair,” I add.

  She catches the humor in my eyes. “It’s not funny. The whole thing is so not funny.”

  “Lil…” I cup her cheeks between my hands. “No one is going to mess with us or make our lives harder just for shits and giggles. Okay?”

  After a short moment, she nods in agreement.

  My hands fall to her ass that peeks out of the button-down, but she walks out of my grasp. I watch her bend down to the wet paper bag. “I’ll clean this up,” she says. “You shouldn’t touch the alcohol since you’re taking Antabuse.”

  I grimace, but she can’t see my expression, her back turned to me. I haven’t exactly told her that I stopped taking the meds. After the premiere of Princesses of Philly, everything got crazy. Superheroes & Scones has been packed, more and more manuscripts are sent to my office, Rose bugs me to bug Lily about the wedding, and then Scott—I started running on empty.

  The last thing I wanted to do was take Antabuse, accidentally eat something cooked with alcohol and puke. I don’t have the energy to check the ingredients of all the restaurant dishes. So yeah, I flushed the pills that physically make me ill if I relapse.

  At the time, it felt like I unstrapped a fifty-pound weight from my ankles. Now I’m just terrified to see the disappointment in Lily’s face if she finds out—or worse, she’ll blame herself. Like it was her fault for not motivating me more or not realizing it sooner.

  I’ll tell her.

  Not today.

  Maybe when the reality show ends, when everything slows down and I can stomach the thought of popping those pills. I’ll come clean, then.

  I pass her a waste basket. “Be careful,” I warn.

  She pinches the ends of the paper bag like a dirty diaper, the glass shattered inside, and dumps it into the trash.

  “This stuff with Scott stays between us,” I remind Lily. “The moment Rose knows that he’s fucking with us, she’ll want to end the show.” Connor will probably convince her otherwise though. Rose’s fashion line has seen a major boost in sales since Princesses of Philly aired. But we don’t want to be the ones who ruin her success or cause her trouble.

  “I know,” Lily says, standing up next to me. “We can’t tell anyone.”

  { 25 }

  0 years : 07 months

  March

  LOREN HALE

  I wake up at 5 a.m. with a massive headache and nonstop, rambling thoughts. I sit on the edge of my bed, careful not to disturb Lily who lies on her stomach while she sleeps, arms outstretched to embrace her pillow.

  I pull the blankets up to her shoulders, and she lets out a quiet sigh, her eyes still closed. I wish I could fall back to sleep next to her, but I can’t turn off my brain this morning.

  I leave the room, gently shutting the door behind me. Shower. Coffee. Office. It’s like I’m a full-fledged adult. Most days, I feel like I’m still pretending.

  When I aim my sights on the bathroom door, Connor suddenly steps out of his room and into the narrow hallway.

  I freeze in place, scanning his navy blue, cotton pants, shirtless with abs that make mine look like child’s play. He’s going to take a shower in the communal bathroom. And I’ve been more or less avoiding
him since the premiere, when he confessed to not loving Rose.

  “Morning, beautiful,” he banters like nothing has changed between us. He saunters to the bathroom and holds open the door for me. “After you.”

  Screw the shower.

  I walk to the stairs with flexed arms and rigid shoulders.

  “Lo,” he calls out, sounding conflicted.

  I stop on the first step and look back. He stands in the bathroom door, but he offers not a single extra word for me, not I’m sorry or you were right or I do love her.

  I shake my head at him and then descend the staircase. Only after I enter the kitchen and start the coffee pot do I finally hear the pipes groan through the walls, the shower starting.

  “What are you doing up?”

  I jump at Rose’s cold voice, the blue coffee mug almost tumbling out of my hands. I take a deep breath. “Jesus Christ, don’t sneak up on me like that,” I whisper, leaning my back against the counters.

  “Please, if I announced my entrance in the room, you’d call me the Queen Bitch. If anything, I’m doing you a favor. You need new material.” She retrieves a red mug out of the cabinet beside my head, already showered and wearing a black dress with a gold necklace.

  “Great,” I say, too early to have a verbal battle with her.

  She waits impatiently for the coffee to brew, her high-heeled foot tapping the floorboards. “He’s not perfect, you know,” she says.

  My jaw hurts from clenching, I realize. Now I really want this stupid machine to hurry up. “You don’t say,” I mutter, both our gazes glued to the coffee that drips too slowly.

  “Connor feels horribly,” she adds.

  My stomach tightens. “Wow, Connor Cobalt can feel?” I quip. “I thought his insides were all IP addresses and router cables.” I cringe; the insult stings me worse than I thought it would.

  For some reason, Rose doesn’t feed into my dry sarcasm today. “You’re his best friend,” she emphasizes, now staring at me while I avoid her piercing eyes.

  “I thought his best friend is his therapist.”

  “He was,” Rose says, “before he met you. And what Connor sees in you, I have no idea. Hanging out with you for more than five minutes is like lying on a bed of nails.”