by Kade, Teagan
It’s practically all the savings I have. I still don’t know why I’m doing it.
The deputy eyes me with suspicion. “You sure about this?”
“Yes,” I conclude, not entirely confident.
“Your funeral,” and the deputy is off. He arrives with Storm a few minutes later.
Storm struts over, still without a shirt, feeling his wrists, which are ringed red from the cuffs. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Was it yours, the drugs?”
The looks past me when he answers.
“No.”
“Are you saying they planted it?”
“Yes.”
“What’s going to happen?”
He starts walking out of the station. “Not a damn thing, like always.”
“You can’t just let them get away with it?”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not right!”
He laughs. “Not right? Nothing’s right around here, Alice. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
I stop. “Let me help. I can talk to Dan.”
‘Won’t do any good.”
“Please.”
“No, and what the hell happened before? With the picture?”
“Tim and I dated, in school. I freaked out. It’s just too weird.”
“You were there, weren’t you, when he died?”
“Yes.”
He rakes his hands through his hair. “This is too much to take in.”
“I know, but we can talk about it. I can help you. Let me.” I realize I’m pleading now.
He places his hand on my chest, holding me back. “No. Just let me go. It’s better this way, trust me.”
I do, helpless. I watch him walk down the road until he becomes a speck on the horizon.
Chapter Thirteen
The next day an envelope with $5000 in it arrives for me in the letterbox. There’s no questioning who it’s from.
Dad’s been on my case all morning. “You really shouldn’t go hanging around Millertown, baby girl. It’s just not safe.”
“It’s my job, Dad. Safe does not make for interesting reading.”
“I know it’s all exciting and fun in New York, but it’s different out here, love. People lead simple lives, harsh lives, and it’s been bad over there, real bad, for a long time. Who was that guy you were with, this Storm character, the drug dealer.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s not a drug dealer. He actually does a lot of…” but I let it go. It’s not worth it. I’m tired. I’m sore. I want to get back into bed and forget all about it.
There’s a knock on the door. Without thinking, I step up to answer it and come face to face with Dan.
I go to shut the door right in his face, but he holds it open. “I just want to talk.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Look, I didn’t mean to barge in on you like that. I apologize.”
“Apology accepted. Now leave.”
He keeps holding the door open. “I just wanted to tell you, there’s been a development.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m afraid one of my men was paid off by the local MC crew looking to put heat on your boy. It was one of my own officers who planted that baggie, I’m sorry to say.”
He looks embarrassed.
Good.
“They confessed?”
“Not exactly, but we pieced it together. As such, and because I am an honest man, I’m afraid I owe you both a debt of apology. I’m headed over that way right now to put it right.”
“Well… that’s considerate of you.”
“Can I see you again, Alice? Please.”
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
He smiles, and something crosses me. Maybe I’m wrong? “Well, that’s your decision and I will respect it, but if you ever change your mind.”
“Goodbye, Dan.”
“Goodbye, Alice.”
I close the door softly and Dad pretends to go back to his paper. “Great man, that sheriff.”
I roll my eyes again and swat his paper as I walk past. “Really, Dad?”
*
I meet Jemma for coffee at the diner.
“Three times in one night! Alice, you are a little slut. You’ve been holding out on me all this time.”
I hold the mug in two hands, blowing on the fiery bowl. “It wasn’t like that. He’s… different.”
She makes out the shape of a penis with her hands. “You mean he’s loaded, like this?”
I laugh. “He’s… a good size, yes.”
Jemma sits back, running her hands through her hair. “Wow. Amazing.”
“Don’t act like you had no part in this. I know you made sure he was at that concert.”
She shrugs. “I can neither confirm, nor deny, but I am enjoying these juicy details. I have to live vicariously through you now. No one’s going to want to touch a pregnant heifer.”
“You’re going to be even more beautiful with that baby bump, trust me.”
She prods her belly. “I just have no idea how two of them are going to fit in there, you know?”
“Or come out.”
“My poor vagina will be like an aircraft hangar after that.”
I almost spit my coffee out. “Jemma! They do have these things called Caesarians now, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah, but you’re avoiding the big issue. Are you going to see him again?”
“Who?”
“You know damn well who!”
I recall the way he walked away from the police station. “I don’t think he wants to see me. He’s being all ‘high and mighty, sacrifice myself’.
Jemma leans closer. “Hey, hey, I won’t have that attitude here. You really like this guy, huh, the mysterious brooding biker rocker boy?”
“You make him sound like a cardboard cut-out. He’s not a cliché.”
“No, could have fooled me, not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
“He’s Tim’s twin brother,” I blurt out.
Jemma’s face twists up. “What?”
“There was a photo of them together on his shelf. It was him. No doubt about it. He even said so.”
“Whoa. What are the chances?”
I’ve asked myself the same question. Here I am screwing my first love’s brother. What would Tim think if he was here? Maybe that was the attraction in the first place, that I see Tim in Storm.
Jemma places her hand on mine. “It’s crazy, but you can’t think like this. Tim’s been gone a long time now. You should move on.”
“With his brother?”
“Perhaps, if it’s right.”
“I just got out of one dangerous relationship and you want me to jump into another?”
“It’s very different and you know it.”
“It’s still dangerous.”
“I guess the question is then, is he worth it? Are you? Only you know the answer to that one.”
*
I find myself driving back to his place. I don’t know why. I’m a mess.
You just want to talk. That’s all.
Just like my first trip out to Millertown, the clouds close in overhead and the radio squeaks out warnings about coming storm cells and adverse weather. I turn it up, happy for anything to drown out the conflict that’s started up between my temples.
I find him in the garage, under a car, just like the first time, a complete sense of déjà vu pervading the whole strange scenario. What is it with this place?
“Can you pass me that spanner?” comes his voice from below.
“The what?”
The long one with the hook thing at the end.
I pick up something that vaguely matches the description and pass it under the car.
“That’ll do.”
He hits something hard three times, curses and slides out on his back, cleaning his hands with a rag.
I can’t take the silence. “Is this how you make a living, cleaning these car
s up?”
He stands. “It’s more of a hobby, really.”
“How do you survive then? What do you do for a job?”
“Don’t have a job.”
I’m getting frustrated by his short answers. “What do you mean? I know that money came from you. Where did you get it?”
He opens a tool chest on the table and I see it’s stuffed with cash.
I take a step back, a pit of dread opening up in my stomach. “So, you are a drug dealer.”
He laughs. “Afraid not, as glamourous as Breaking Bad makes it out to be. I’m just good with money, the stock market. Numbers make sense to me. He tosses the spanner onto the table. A hell of a lot more sense than people.”
He sees my questioning face. “You don’t believe me?”
I don’t know what to believe.
He walks to the corner of the workshop and uses the rag to clean two frames on the wall. I walk closer. They’re college degrees.
“They’re yours?”
“That’s my name, isn’t it?”
It’s right there clear as day. I look at him with an increasing sense of wonder.
“Cummings? That’s your last name. Oh, that’s perfect.” I can’t help but laugh.
He’s actually smiling as he stands beside me. “Yeah, the old man preferred Black. Sounds a lot harder.
“But how, I mean, college…”
“Monica,” he fills me in. “Like I said, she helped me get through school, then college, helped me get this house back from the bank.”
“It’s you, isn’t it, the anonymous donor?”
He nods.
“And your dad’s dirty money?”
“Invested it years ago. Apart from what you see here it’s all safely tucked away in accounts only I have access to.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
“But why don’t you move away? You could live anywhere, do anything.”
“But I choose to live here, and help these people, my people. They need me.”
“Millertown?”
“Yes.”
His altruism is almost too much, too perfect. “You’re full of surprises.”
He nods. “I won’t deny it, but not many people know about this, you hear. I’m making a special consideration for you simply out of the fact you’re drop dead gorgeous and I don’t know any better. You’re really screwing me up, you know? I trust you.”
I step towards him, snaking an arm around his neck, pulling myself closer to his heat, unable to resist him. “You think I’m gorgeous?”
He answers with a kiss, our mouths meeting.
We don’t make it to the bedroom.
He places me down in the middle of the kitchen and for a moment we just stare at each other, breathing deeply in the darkness.
The longing between my legs is so strong I cannot wait another second. I make the first move, looping my fingers into the straps of my dress and pulling them away.
My dress falls to the floor and puddles around my feet. I step out of it feeling powerful, sex incarnate as I pad towards him in my underwear.
We embrace. I’m caged in by his scent, the hot vapor of his breath sweet against my cheek as I draw in deep breaths. Things flitter and float around in my stomach, pangs of sensation running up and down my spine as his hand molds itself to a breast.
I hold his head in my hands and guide it down. I let him taste the beaded sweat that has broken out in the soft down that runs between my cleavage. He finds a nipple and draws it out until it’s a tight twig in his mouth, letting it snap back into place. His head rises and our tongues meet. I can taste my own perspiration on his lips. An intensity builds inside me greater than any I have known.
His hands dip to my buttocks, working under the thin cloth of my panties. He takes them in two hands and pulls them from my body, tearing them at the sides and letting them float to the floor in tatters.
You’ll have no panties left at this rate.
I hold my breath, shocked at this overt display of power but determined not to let him get the upper hand.
He doesn’t let me.
He lifts me under the bum. I wrap my legs around him as he staggers forward, letting me down on the corner of the kitchen bench as a glass rolls off to clank onto the floor.
My ass settles against the marble. He lays me flat with one hand spread on my breastbone, his tongue whipping around my chest, testing the resistance of my flesh.
I grip onto the sides of the bench, my nipples stiffening to fleshy diamonds in the semi-darkness.
It’s dim, but I can clearly make out Storm’s swollen hardness pressing against the front of his jeans. My lips quiver around his tongue moving deep inside my mouth.
All the while my head is warning me away. This one’s trouble, Alice. Steer clear.
Wonderland – It’s what Jemma and I used to call Rosie, pretending the smokestacks of the mill were castle turrets and the statue in the middle of the town square was really a sorcerer waiting to be awakened from a century-old curse.
But now I realize, Wonderland has been right here. Storm is my escape.
I don’t care about the consequences, where he’s from or what my parents think.
In some ways I want to be bad. I need to live on the edge a little.
There’s the faintest tickle from the stubble on his chin as he moves down over the flat of my abdomen. He leaves wet rings with his lips until finally his tongue cleaves into my cunt and all I can do is convulse and thrash below him.
He runs his tongue up and down my slit, pulling my swollen clit into his mouth, licking and sucking at my juices. His tongue flickers, probing, seeking out pleasure I haven’t known since that fateful day with Tim.
It comes back to me, the memory too strong. A tear slides down my face as I bury my hands in his hair and pull, pressing my hips forward to meet his ravenous mouth.
Softly, he drifts away from my pussy and then returns, teasing me to near death. I sob and spasm, eventually forced to press his head away from me, his chin wet with my desire.
I push him back and slide off the bench, kneeling before him on the cold linoleum to undo his belt and buckle. I pull his pants and underwear down in a bundle to his knees. His cock flips out, much larger than I remember.
I hold the back of his legs, bring my head up and drop my mouth down upon the head of his penis. I’m surprised when his shaft twitches and tightens in my mouth. I pull my lips tight around it, sucking and then bobbing down deeper, taking him right into the tight confines of my throat until I’m forced to come up for air.
This is bad. This is naughty. This is nothing like the good girl I’ve been raised to be.
He moans with approval, hands on top of my head as my lips break from the flushed helmet of his cock with an audible pop. I make sure he knows I’m watching, eyes fixed to his as I run the tip of my tongue around his glans, licking away the alkaline substance that has gathered in his slit like a lost pearl.
I hold him by the root, mewing and pressing him against the soft surface of my cheek before I open my mouth and drop down until I can take no more, the flat of his pelvis pressed to my nose, his cock filling my throat completely.
He lets out a string of expletives, bucking against me before he moves himself away.
I’m breathing hard, panting and soaking wet. “Did I do something wrong?”
He strips his shirt off until all that’s left are two stony squares and a tessellated series of abs below. He kicks his pants off, takes me by the hips and spins me around, bending me violently over the breakfast table. Utensils clatter to the floor. I stretch my arms out and breathe out.
He presses my face down into the tablecloth. I’m forced to stand on tippy toes, my feet barely touching the floor. My heart thuds like a heavy hammer, pounding against my ribs and the hard surface of the tabletop as I wait.
There’s a long groan when Storm thrusts forward to impale me with his cock. I cry out, halfway between a scream and moan as h
e pulls back and punches forward again, the thought of his cock inside me so hot I release a fresh torrent of milky desire around him. I grow wetter and wetter with every stroke, the table legs crying out in protest, the table is shifting across the floor.
His dick pulls out saturated before he plunges it back inside me, crashing into my body so that the globes of my ass oscillate with every grunt. He smashes into my behind, trying desperately to push as deep as he can into the hot space of my pussy.
“You’re so tight,” he’s huffing over my back, bent and redoubling his efforts. My breath comes out in short gasps. He holds onto my shoulders to pummel away at my body. I grind my hips back against him, squeezing and churning myself around his cock until his thrusting becomes frantic.
“I’m going - to come,” he gets out, struggling with the words. He reaches down and fingers my clit right at the edge of the table, a hot heat soaring through me.
His orgasm arrives. He slams into my backside, yelling obscenities as he pumps his load deep inside me. My head snaps up and my climax follows, his balls pumping against me as I step from the precipice and allow pure sensation to carry me away. I convulse there, my pussy squeezing and milking him out with strong contractions.
I can’t close my mouth. It’s open as wide as it will go, soundless as I lift from the table. My breasts bounce as he thrusts forward one final time.
A word finally escapes my mouth, nonsensical, but a sound all the same. I collapse onto the table and shake through the last dregs of my orgasm, Storm’s cock and cum inside me.
I can’t move, Storm’s flaccid member eventually birthed from my pussy like a baby seal, slipping away to slap against his thigh. My heart just won’t stop. It’s still galloping away from me. My hair is matted around my face, my mouth dry from the labored effort of breathing.
Storm lifts me up, scooping me into his arms and moving us quickly down the hall, casting me onto the bed. His lips crush me, our bodies entwined as, slowly, I coax him back to attention.
Chapter Fourteen
It’s the middle of the night. I snap upright in Storm’s bed. The house is dead quiet.
I go to shake Storm, but he’s missing, only an indentation in the mattress to mark his presence. The sheets are still warm.
“Storm?” I whisper, standing up and trying to make my way around the room.