by Hamel, B. B.
I walk up to her and throw my arms around her neck. She squirms a little bit but lets me hug her tight.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Nobody hurts my friends,” she grumbles.
I hug the strange girl tight for another second before Jenna pops out into the hall.
“It’s over already?” she asks, eyes wide. She’s holding a hairbrush in one hand and a straightener in the other. “They’re leaving already?”
Azrael gives her a look and rolls her eyes as I step away and laugh. Jenna looks absurd holding her beauty products.
“What were you going to do with those?” I ask her. “Were you going to give them the worst makeover of their life?”
She looks down at her hairbrush and straightener almost like she’s surprised she’s holding them. “I don’t know,” she admits. “I thought I might hit them with it?”
I crack up even more. Relief is flooding through me. Even Azrael is smiling as Iris and Macey come running out to join the group.
Soon half the dorm is out in the hallway, milling around and talking. Azrael tells the story of her punching Aylin in the face like ten times. I hope she doesn’t get in trouble for it but she doesn’t seem too worried.
It’s like an impromptu party. Even girls I don’t see much or don’t get along with all that great are out and socializing. Azrael is clearly the center of attention but a lot of girls are talking and laughing with me.
It’s actually pretty nice, and all it took was one stupid jerk getting her face punched in.
“I owe you one,” I say to Azrael as the party’s slowly dying down.
“You sure do.” She frowns at her fist. “Punching someone hurts.”
I laugh and hug the girl again. I can’t wait to tell Walker about this… and immediately wish I hadn’t thought about him.
Because I feel the stupidest thing imaginable. I feel something so dumb, so childish, so absurd that I instantly wish I hadn’t let myself go down this path.
I miss him. He’s only been gone for a little while but I miss him. I think he’d love this. He’d love watching Aylin get punched and he’d love hanging out in the hall like this. I wish he could’ve been here for it all.
“Thinking about him, aren’t you?” Az asks me.
“Maybe,” I admit.
“It’s okay,” she says. “If you like him, it’s fine. You don’t have to keep holding on to your baggage.”
I frown at her. “When did you get so wise?”
“Always was.” She sighs. “I’m going back to my room. I gotta do some raiding.”
And without another word, the hero of the day disappears, back to play World of Warcraft. I wonder how many times she’s been a hero in that game, too.
I stretch and lean against the wall, a smile on my face. I don’t think Aylin’s going to be bothering me again soon… but if she does, I’ll just punch her in the nose.
12
Walker
My father’s estate is the most ostentatious thing I’ve ever seen in my life.
It’s a huge compound in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. It used to be some ranch years and years ago but now it’s a pleasure palace dedicated to the religion of digging oil and making as much money as humanly possible.
I hate this place. My father calls it Crude Ranch, after the crude oil he digs up, but I think the title works on a different level. Everything is crass and big and absurd here and I never wanted to come back.
Manny’s happy I decided to come along though. He’s been in a good mood the whole trip, although I’ve mostly been ignoring him. I’m not surprised that he’s happy, since he was ready to pull his gun on me to get me to come along. Fortunately, we didn’t have to turn to that.
“What changed your mind?” he asks as we step into the entrance hall. I can tell he’s been holding that question back since we stepped foot off the Gradus campus.
“I knew it wouldn’t end until I showed up,” I say to him. “Either you’d bring me in or he’d send more guys. Sooner or later he’d get what he wants.”
“Always does, doesn’t he?”
I shake my head. “Not this time. He won’t be happy with what I have to say.”
Manny watches me carefully for a second before nodding. “Well, son, best of luck to you.” Without another word he walks off.
I sigh and stand in the hall for another moment, taking deep breaths and steadying myself.
I didn’t grow up in this place. We had a different house closer to Houston when I was a kid. My father’s always been rich, but it wasn’t until the last fifteen years that his business really took off. Back then he was merely wealthy, but now…
Well, the money hasn’t been kind to him. Oh, he has whatever he wants, but I think that’s the problem.
I walk down the short hall to the left of the central stairs and follow it forward a few paces. It ends in a large wooden door, almost absurdly ornate for something interior. I knock on it and wait until I hear a voice call out.
The door swings open and I step into my father’s study. It’s a large room with a desk straight ahead flanked by shelves, bookcases, and filing cabinets. He has antique American flags, antique rifles, and stuffed deer heads mounted on the wall. It looks like a Texas businessman owns this room, and I guess that’s exactly what he is.
“Glad you could finally grace me with your presence,” he says as I step into the room.
I nod at him and sit down in one of the chairs. “Wasn’t sure I was going to.”
He grunts at that. “Boy, you never did know what was best for you.”
I don’t take the bait. “What do you want?”
My father is an older man in his early seventies with gray hair pushed back and going thin now. His nose is small and pointed and his gray eyes are hard. He looks like the kind of man that would be the perfect actor for a Western film, if only my father had an iota of acting talent in him at least.
Instead, he wears all his emotions on his sleeve, always has. And right now he’s not happy.
“You had one job,” he says softly. “One thing. I sent you out to that damn school for one reason and one reason only. You were supposed to marry that damn Aylin girl.”
“I was?” I smile at him. “Guess I forgot.”
He glares at me. “I know you dropped her, boy. I know you did it just to spite me. And I’m done playing.”
“That’s good.” I lean toward him. “I’m done too.”
We stare at each other for a long moment. I know this is absurd, fighting with my father like this, but I need to get it out of my system. After this, I’m finished with him and all this bullshit. But right now, I need to get some closure from him and move on.
Finally, he breaks eye contact and reaches into his desk drawer. He takes out a cigar, clips the end, and lights it. Pungent smoke drifts into the room.
“You really want war, huh, son?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t.”
“So why pull all this? Why not just marry the girl? I’ve seen pictures, she’s not bad to look at. You want more of the pie, is that it?”
I clench my jaw. It’s always about money with him. He can’t understand doing anything that isn’t profitable. He can’t see why a man wouldn’t want to marry a woman just because she might make him a little bit of money.
“It’s not that,” I say to him.
“Then what? What do you want, son?”
“My own freedom,” I say softly.
He takes a puff of his cigar then laughs. “Freedom? Boy, you were born rich. You can have anything you want. You think you ain’t free?”
“No,” I whisper. “I wasn’t. But I am now.”
I stand up. He watches me with surprise.
“You walk out that door, I’ll destroy it. How you gonna explain that to all your employees? A good man doesn’t turn his back on his people.”
I hang my head. For a second, I almost turn back. I almost do it, because that was the exact right thing to say to me in t
his moment.
Instead, I walk straight ahead. I don’t turn. I leave his office and let the door shut behind me.
I let out a long breath.
Freedom.
That’s what all this costs me.
I know it seems strange, a rich man not being free. But for my whole life I’ve been under the thumb of my father.
Now though, now it’s over.
I walk back to the main entrance hall. I run my fingers down the wall, a little smile on my face.
I won’t even come back to this place again for as long as I live. Or at least for as long as my father lives.
Manny’s on the stairs when I emerge. He nods at me. “Go okay?” he asks.
“Depends for who,” I answer.
He chuckles. “Guess that tells me all I need to know.” He clears his throat. “Nothing personal from here on out, you get me?”
“Sure, Manny. Just doing your job.” I cock my head at him. “But if you ever want to work for someone that’s not just a petty tyrant… you look me up.”
And then I leave my father’s ranch, my father’s life, for good.
13
Kylee
Walker comes back a couple days later and I feel like he’s almost a different man. He smiles at me when he sees me and walks right up to me, wraps his arms around me, and pulls me tight against his chest.
“Glad you’re back?” I ask him with a laugh.
“You have no clue.”
“Things really that bad with your dad?”
“Not anymore.” He pulls back and grins at me. “Not anymore,” he says again.
I smile back but I’m not sure what he means. He squeezes my hand and tugs me along. “Come on. I’m hungry.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, but I already know.
He leads me along the campus sidewalk back toward the sponsored dorms. We head inside, nodding at the man at the desk who just beams at us passively like he always does. We ride the elevator up and I follow him back into the apartment almost in a dream.
“Anything good happen while I was gone?” he asks, making himself a drink.
“Azrael punched Aylin in the face.”
That makes him pause. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I let out a laugh. “It was amazing.”
He grins at me, shaking his head. “I knew that girl had balls, but I didn’t know how big.”
“You would’ve loved it. She broke her nose and then the whole floor came out to celebrate. It was crazy.”
He walks over and sips his drink before sitting down on the couch. “Tell me everything.”
I sit down and put my feet in his lap and tell him the whole story. He watches me carefully with a smile on his face as I go through it all in detail.
“That’s a friend right there,” he says softly. “You’d better keep her happy.”
“Are you kidding? She’ll slug me if I don’t.”
He laughs at that. “True. I think she might solve all her problems with violence now since it worked so well once.”
“Oh, great. She’s going to be a nightmare.”
“Yep. Think you can handle it?”
“Definitely not. She’s going to punch me every time I try to interrupt her video games.”
“You created this monster.”
I groan and we both laugh together. I forgot how good it can feel just sitting around with him.
“You know, you never did tell me what you were doing at home,” I say casually.
He glances away and sips his drink. I watch his face as it goes through something, flips through a few different emotions, but I can’t seem to read them.
“It was nothing,” he says finally. “Would you believe me if I said that?”
“Probably not,” I admit.
He laughs. “I figured.”
“You don’t have to say if you don’t want. I guess I just… I want to know.”
He stares into his drink for a long moment before speaking. “The reason I’m here is because of my father,” he says. “He wanted me to marry Aylin for some political thing. I just… I let it go on because if I didn’t, he’d destroy me.”
I nod a little bit. “Okay, right.”
“So I went back to tell him that I don’t intend on marrying that girl. Not now or ever.”
I blink a little bit. “But that means he’ll…?”
“Take what I’ve built.” He says it so bitterly. “But I can’t keep letting him push me around. It’s time to burn it all down if I have to.”
“Why now?”
He just looks at me for a long moment before smiling. He leans forward and puts his glass down on the coffee table before shifting toward me. He reaches out and takes my cheek, pulling me toward him, and kisses me gently.
I know this is his answer. I know this is the reason. I just don’t fully understand it. Why this… why me?
But as the kiss drags on, I know why. I know the truth.
“I told you I was hungry,” he whispers softly, shifting his weight. He spreads my legs and pins me back down onto the couch, easing himself between them. I can feel his cock against me and I bite my lip. He’s already hard, already granite pressing against my soft folds. I’m wearing a skirt today and thin cotton panties, so there’s barely anything between us.
“This is what you’re hungry for?” I ask softly.
“You’re what I’m always hungry for. I’m a starving man and you’re a feast, little Kylee.”
He kisses me again, this time crushing his lips against mine. I groan as he grinds his cock between my legs and I feel the pleasure flare up my skin. I know what he wants, what he needs and I need it too.
All this shit between us, the pain and suffering, it disappears when he’s with me. It all goes away. I don’t care about the outside world, about Aylin or whatever else. I only care about him, about his body against mine, about the way he makes me feel.
He kisses me before dropping down between my legs. He spreads me wide and kisses my inner thigh. “I’ve been thinking about your taste every second of every day since I left,” he whispers. “I’ve been craving it like you wouldn’t believe.”
I bite my lip as he moves my panties aside to lick me top to bottom. He runs his tongue along my slit, tasting my juice, lapping me up. I groan as he finds my clit and sucks it softly, rolling his tongue around it, driving me absolutely wild. Pleasure flares along my skin and I can barely breathe as it overtakes me.
He licks and sucks me, making me wild with it. It’s like the man was born to lick me like this, to touch my skin, to roll his tongue along the most sensitive parts of my body. I didn’t know someone could be so…
So in tune with me. So good at this.
It’s almost terrifying, but it’s exhilarating too. It feels too good to question and I know I don’t want this to stop. I can’t let this stop. I’m not going to ask questions or worry or do anything else. I’ve spent too much time wondering if I’m doing the wrong thing, if I’m breaking the rules, if I’m being stupid by getting involved with a man like Walker.
I’m done wondering. I’m done asking.
I’m giving myself over to him and I know he’s going to take me, every inch of me.
He licks me top to bottom again before sliding two fingers deep inside my pussy. I groan, low and throaty. He smirks at me as he slides his fingers deeper, moving them in and out, curling them to roll along the roof of my cunt. I lean down, grabbing his hair with one hand, supporting myself on my other elbow as he looks up into my eyes.
“You know I can’t get enough,” he whispers. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Show me,” I moan. “Show me what you mean.”
There’s a spark in his eyes. He kisses me before going back between my legs. He sucks and licks me faster now, like a man possessed, his fingers still buried inside my pussy. I groan and roll my hips, letting him push deeper, the pleasure flaring all over my skin.
This is what I need, this is what I dream abo
ut when he comes into my dreams.
He lets out a growl as I gasp, back arching. He kisses me again and I can taste my pussy on his lips. I like it, I like that it’s dirty, that he likes it. I let his tongue slide into my mouth as I kiss him back, tasting him, tasting myself, letting it linger and mingle and mix.
He grabs me and turns me, my hips up in the air, my skirt pushed forward. He slaps my ass and licks me from behind, his tongue ringing around me. I groan and wiggle my hips as his tongue moves all over, licking me from behind, so dirty, so filthy, and yet it feels so good.
I didn’t know it could feel like this.
I’ve always dreamed, always wondered.
But there’s something about a man like Walker just taking what he wants, when he wants it…
It’s magic. It’s perfect. I’m pushed past my limits and into something so much better.
He growls again and I look over my shoulder as he unbuckles his belt. He stands and takes off his jeans. “Don’t move,” he commands. “Stay right there. I want to watch your juices drip down the side of your leg.”
I bite my lip but he’s right, god, he’s right. I’m so excited, so turned on, that I’m literally dripping down the side of my leg. I can’t help myself. His eyes are like fire on my skin and his body is chiseled granite as he finally gets his clothes off, his cock in his hand, stroking himself slowly.
“I could look at you all day long,” he says. “That skirt lifted up, those soaked panties, that fucking pussy.” He growls and uses one hand to pet my cunt front to back before burying his fingers inside me.
“I don’t think we’d get much done if you did that,” I croon at him.
“I don’t think I’d care,” he whispers. “I think this is the only thing I want to do right now.”
I bite my lip and god, I hate myself, just a little bit, because I completely agree. I don’t want to go to class, I don’t want anything else. I just want to stay in bed with this man and let him… do things to me.
Let him push my boundaries, way past where I thought they’d be.
I groan as I feel him grab my hips. His cock rolls against my soft slit again, teasing me just a bit with his big tip. I grab the couch, arching my back, as he sinks himself deep inside of me. It’s slow, agonizingly slow, but god, it feels so good.