by Brill Harper
“So, you’re going to stay over there, then?” I widen my legs, giving him what I hope is an enticing view.
“Sunshine, you don’t play fair. Lay down. All the way now.”
I do as he asks and feel the bed dip from his weight. Instead of settling over me, he stays to the side a bit. Honoring our pact. I feel him touching me, but not with his hands. With the cock he holds in his hand, he rests it on my breast. My stomach flips at the sight of it there. The way it feels when he uses it to glide across my nipple and back. Hard as iron, wrapped in silky soft skin, he rubs the moist tip of himself against the tight, pebbled peak of my nipple,
“So pretty,” he murmurs, as entranced by the sight as I am.
It is more erotic than I expected. The ridge rubbing across my now diamond-hard nipple. He continues his exploration, gasping now and then as the sensitive underside of his dick strokes over my skin. He is marking me, claiming every inch of me with his thick, hard cock. It’s primitive. A dark desire that should feel out of place in modern times, but doesn’t.
I knot the quilt beneath me in my hands. I want to touch him. I want to taste him. But being owned by him is the hottest thing that has ever happened to me.
He straddles me, bringing that rigid cock to my cleavage and squeezing my breasts around his girth.
Okay, this is the hottest thing that has ever happened to me. He throws his head back like some sort of primal god, the cords of his neck straining with pleasure.
“Look at me, Boone.”
He moves his hips again, hissing in pleasure, but continues to stare at the ceiling.
“Look at us.” I put my hands over his, squeezing my flesh around him.
“If I look at you right now, I’ll come. I have no control left. Not an ounce.”
He rocks again, and I snake my tongue around his crown on the upstroke. He looks down at me then. Fierce passion scorching me, his nostrils flaring, his huge hands squeezing me hard enough to leave marks. “Madeline.”
I love the salty taste of his pre-cum. I try to keep my lips around him longer each time he passes back up. Oh, this is hot. The look on his face. The feel of that fat cock on my tongue. My tits cushioning his shaft, but the crown is for my lips.
He stops thrusting, his body rigid and tight. We’ve only spent one night together, but I know when my man is ready to come. And he is ready.
“I want you to come. On me. All over me.”
“I want to make it last, sunshine.”
He thrusts and holds ten seconds longer when I get him in my mouth and suck. He pulls back, and I say, “We’ve got all night. Let yourself go. I want you to so badly, I want to be sticky and dirty and yours—”
He begins shaking, every corded muscle tense and defined, his eyes glazed over in lust. “I’ve dreamed about you like this,” he says, a clear warning in his voice. “Dreamed of what you would look like if I painted you with—”
He doesn’t finish his thought with words, but his orgasm tears out of him with a violent groan. He spends his come all over me, glazing my chest just as he promised, and I am shaking though I haven’t come myself.
I’m close though.
I didn’t know I could be so animalistic. Maybe some women would not appreciate being in my position right now, covered with sticky hot seed. But I revel in it. The dirtier the better.
“Is there a name for what we just did?”
He eyes me, blushing a little, which is sweet but unnecessary. “Sunshine, I’m...”
“Not sorry. Say it, Sunshine, I’m not sorry. Because I swear to God, Boone—”
“I treated you like a—”
“Woman you’ve been dying to fuck. To own. To claim.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
I raise up on my elbows, still sticky and hot. I look down my breasts, at the trails of jizz. “Not even a little bit.” A look of tenderness crosses his face, so I send him a sassy smile. “What’s it called?”
He shakes his head. “Titty fuck.” He groans and rolls off me onto his back. “That doesn’t sound very romantic.”
I don’t say anything, waiting for him to look at me. To see me rubbing him into my skin in circles with my fingers. His gaze darkens, and he swallows hard.
“I didn’t look after your needs. Tonight was supposed to be about you.”
“I enjoyed myself just fine.”
He raises one brow. “I should have given you a hundred orgasms before I took one.”
I lick his cream off my fingers. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He growls and moves again, this time pushing my legs open. “You really did like that, didn’t you?” He palms me between my legs, runs a finger over me where I ache the most. “So wet, sunshine.” He continues to massage my clit, and I open my legs more. “Keep touching your tits. Just like that. God look at you.”
I whimper as he brings his face down. Little shocks of electricity are running through my body as if I were a live wire.
“You’re so pretty here. Your cunt is so wet and ready for me.”
My pulse has settled between my legs like it’s my new heart.
“Do you want me to make you come?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He uses the tip of his tongue and very little pressure, a tickle almost. “Better ask nice, dirty girl.”
“Please,” I beg.
“Please what?” Another soft tickle and the scrape of his stubble on my inner thigh makes me squirm, but he tamps down my legs so I can’t move. “Don’t stop touching yourself and tell me what you want.”
I pinch my nipples, and we both groan. “Please make me come, Boone. Use your mouth and make me come.”
He hardly moves his jaw, just adds a little pressure, and I fall off the cliff chanting his name. He doesn’t stop. He keeps at me, licking and sucking the area around my clit until I come down, and then he licks me there again, setting me off one more time.
I shake and my body quakes, knowing that pieces of me are cracked forever. I am broken. He’s broken me.
“That’s it, love,” he says in that deep, rich voice that settles over my raw nerves like a blanket. “I’ve got you. Such a good girl.”
I guess I went somewhere else. I have no idea how long I was gone, but I become aware that he is holding me, stroking my hair, telling me how good I am. How beautiful. And he kisses me, feeding himself back into me, filling the strange new cracks and making me feel whole again.
Chapter Six
Boone
One Week Later
I guess I knew it would happen eventually.
The last couple of months, I’ve seen glimpses of Amy and her family around town, but I haven’t run into her. I’ve been dreading it. I’m not in love with her anymore, and I don’t hate her. But part of me is still sore inside when I remember how she didn’t believe in me. Didn’t visit me once.
I feel trapped. Like the drugstore has morphed into my old cell. I want to pace the aisle like a tiger in a cage.
“Do you have a toothpaste preference? Boone?” Madeline nudges my arm. She’s holding up two boxes. “Paste or gel? Earth to Boone...” She follows my gaze. “Oh.”
Amy, my very pregnant ex-girlfriend, is headed directly toward us, pushing a cart with a child.
My head is buzzing. My hands clammy. This is it. The confrontation.
Amy stops near us and sends me a weak smile. She’s still pretty, but looks a little tired. Pregnancy agrees with her, though. She has a glow. I hope that means she’s happy. She exhales a huge breath. “Hi, I heard you were home. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to hear from me, but I’m glad you’re home.”
My chest feels tight. “Thanks,” I grind out and then take another breath. “You look...different.”
She blushes, and her left hand goes to her round belly, her wedding ring catching the light. “Yeah, I...I’m a lot different than the girl you knew then, I guess.” I count a hundred heartbeats off before she speaks again, looking down at her hand instead of loo
king me in the eye. “I like to think in addition to being rounder, I’m more mature than I was back...then...too.” She bites her lip. “I was young and scared. I’m sorry. It’s no excuse, Boone. You deserved better from me.”
Now that the original zap of adrenaline has dissipated, I’m not feeling so intense. Maybe it’s because I waited five years to hear those words. In my fantasies, she would make it up to me on her knees or sometimes she’d beg me to take her back and I would let her humiliate herself trying to make it up to me. Now, it’s just closure. Closure I needed. “It’s fine, Amy. It was a bad situation all around.”
“I think I could have made it better, but didn’t.” She gets teary. She was never much of a crier in high school or college. But this situation is tense, and well, she’s probably got pregnancy hormones adding to it. “I was really happy that they got the right guy. I...” She smiles a little at Madeline.
Shit. Madeline.
She’s been quiet as a mouse and is trying to fade into the shelf behind her. I was too selfish to think how awkward this must be for her. “Baby, I’m sorry. This is Amy. She was my high school girlfriend.” I look at Amy. “Amy, this is Madeline. She’s my wife.” A sense of pride fills me at the words.
Amy blinks a few times. “I...heard that rumor, but didn’t believe it.”
I put my arm around Madeline’s waist and draw her into me. “Not a rumor.”
She slinks out of my embrace. “I’m going to go pay for this and meet you at the truck. You two catch up. Nice to meet you, Amy.”
I have no idea what that was all about.
“This is awkward, right?” Amy says. “Everyone says she’s a nice girl, though. I’m happy if you’re happy.”
“I’m happy, Amy.” I’m watching Madeline walk away until she turns the corner and I can’t see her anymore.
“Right. It does seem strange though. You guys didn’t know each other very long. I’m sure that she’s feeling a little insecure right now. It’s all very sudden, isn’t it, Boone?”
I bring my gaze back to Amy. “I’m in love with her.”
“Oh. Ohh.” She smiles. “That’s terrific then. I’m glad. Really.”
It’s a turning point for me, I guess. Seeing Amy and her beautiful little girl and her pretty pregnancy glow and ...not feeling like they should be mine. That they were ripped away from me. “I need to catch up to Madeline. Take care of yourself, Amy.”
Madeline
The next day
I’M STARING AT THE pregnancy test I bought yesterday. I bought it in secret when Boone was in the aisle with Amy. He doesn’t even know I suspect I’m pregnant. I don’t think I can breathe.
In through the nose, out through the mouth, Maddy Mae.
I was so excited at first, when I missed my period. But seeing him with his ex-girlfriend made me remember that we still have two weeks. He might change his mind. He might realize that he should fight for his old life again. She’s so pretty. What if what he really wants is Amy pregnant with his baby, and I’m just a poor man’s substitute?
I hug myself around the middle and wait.
If I am pregnant, it’s just barely. I only just lost my virginity and...oh my God. It’s a plus sign. I swallow. Should I take the other test? Like a second opinion? Or should I wait a week and then take it. Give things a chance to...
Oh my God. Is this real?
I wrap the test in toilet paper and hide it in the back of my drawer, remembering how I used to squirrel away books so my father wouldn’t find them.
If this marriage was real, I would go running out and find Boone and we’d celebrate. Instead, my first instinct is to hide it from him. He can’t hurt me if he doesn’t know where my weak spot is, right? I learned that from my dear old dad. He never knew that I had hopes or dreams or he would have crushed them just because he could.
Boone is not like that. I know he isn’t. But I’m so afraid of wanting this marriage. This baby. This life. It’s better, safer, to not care. Not want. Not need.
I have to get out of the bathroom. I have to just keep this to myself for now. For two weeks. If he changes his mind in two weeks, I won’t tell him. I’ll figure it out on my own. I’ve done it before by myself. Not well, but I managed. I throw open the door and run into the hall.
“You okay?” He’s standing at the top of the stairs. “Madeline, you look pale. What’s wrong?”
“I thought you were going to the feed store today?”
“I decided to wait until tomorrow. Have you been crying?”
I sniff loudly. “No.”
“Madeline—”
Do I stand a chance competing against his past? Yet his past is all around us. Even now, in the hall, there’s the room across the hall from ours that could threaten us. “You never go in this room.” I point to the always closed door of his childhood bedroom. “Why?”
It’s his turn to grow pale. “There’s nothing I need in there.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Madeline, what is this about?”
“Your past. It feels to me like you’re holding on to it.”
He shakes his head. “If I were holding on to it, wouldn’t I be spending all my time in that room? Reliving my glory days. Maybe going to the bar every night and reminding everyone how I won that game. How I was the king. No, I’m not holding on to it. I put it firmly behind me.”
“I think you won’t go in there because then you’ll remember what you’re missing. What you want and don’t have anymore. How you’re settling.”
“Settling? Maddy Mae, what has gotten into you? You’ve been acting weird since we ran into Amy yesterday. I told you. I’m not in love with her anymore.”
There is this part of me that wants to revert to the old me. Go deep inside myself where nothing hurts. Where my father’s tirades didn’t affect me, and I didn’t hear the snickers and taunts as people veered around us on the corner. Where I spent hours in a hard chair reading the bible, turning pages, but never really reading the words. Like I was watching myself. Never complaining to my father that chair hurt my bottom. That I was too young to be forced to read for hours. That I should bathe more often, eat more food.
That Madeline was as numb on the inside as her butt was on the outside.
But there is another part of me. The part that is so in love with Boone that I’d do anything to stay, even if he doesn’t want me. I’d trap him with a pregnancy. I’d pretend we’re okay even if we aren’t. I’d lie to myself if I had to.
What I need to be is neither of those Madelines.
I need to be truthful. I need to be upfront. I need to say what bothers me and go after what makes me happy. Otherwise—my father wins. He tried to break me. I’m so tired of being broken.
“Boone, let’s go in there. Together.”
He shakes his head.
“Please. It’s important to me.”
He considers this for a long, tension-filled moment, and then he nods and opens the door.
For better or worse, we’re going in.
Chapter Seven
Boone
It’s freezing cold in my old bedroom. Which makes no sense since it’s summer and hot as hell outside.
Madeline isn’t shivering though, so it must just be me.
Nothing has changed since I moved to campus. I would only stay in this room during college breaks, so nothing has been done to it since I was in high school. It looks like a time capsule from the first decade of the millennium. My plaid curtains match the plaid bedspread. There are trophies on the shelves of all my accomplishments. Hell, there’s even unopened mail on the desk. It’s also dusty as fuck.
But there are no ghosts. Not like I thought there might be.
I sit on the bed and remember the time my dad came in with a beer and talked to me about sex while we shared a cold one. God, that was awkward. But necessary. He treated me like a man, and I wanted to be one worthy of him. I remember a dog name Misty who used to sleep at the foot of my bed. I remember a
lot of things, but they don’t hurt. I guess I’m doing better than I thought.
“How are you?” Madeline asks me.
“My mom would be pissed at the dust in here.”
“Well, I hope she’d at least be happy with how the rest of the house is shaping up.”
“She’d love you.” I don’t know what is going on in my wife’s head. I thought that would make her happy, but she looks stricken.
“Did she love Amy?”
“Is that what this is about?” I hold my hand out to her and she takes it warily, joining me on the twin bed. “Yes, my mom loved Amy. We all did. She’s a nice person. But she’s my past. You’re my present and my future.”
“Your past is so much a part of everything. It feels like we are walking in two worlds everywhere we step in this house.”
“Does it?” I look around. “I guess it’s partly because I haven’t faced it all the way. I keep trying to deny it. Like I’m not him, the kid that grew up in this room. That he died when I was arrested. But he’s part of me, I guess. Part of us.”
“Is he? He loved Amy...and I’m so different from her. I don’t know if I’ll ever believe...”
“Madeline,” I cup her jaw and make her look at me, “I love you.”
She inhales a shocked breath.
“I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you. Now I see you needed the words sooner, and I’m sorry. I love you. I love that you are so brave and took a chance on me. I love that you call me on my bullshit. I love that you sit with me every morning and plan our life. That you make me face,” I look around the room again, “you make me face my demons, but you are at my side when I do. You’re the woman I want.”
“I’m pregnant.”
She’s watching my expression so carefully, so I don’t hide my smile. I don’t know that I could. “You’re sure?”
She nods. “I took a test. I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“What? Why?”
“Loving you scares me.”
I feel like the sun is exploding warm light in my chest. “You love me?”