by W. Winters
He’s busy staring at the flowers and that’s when I remember he didn’t answer my text. “Hey, the number you messaged me with the other day… that’s yours, right?” I ask him and he nods once. “I um… thank you for the flowers.”
“I got your text,” he answers and that hard lump in my chest grows. He stands from the chair and walks past me to the kitchen. I don’t bother to look and I’m not surprised when I hear the sound of the fridge opening.
“Make yourself at home.” My comment is complete with a full-on eye roll and then I lay my head back, resting my eyes.
“You want a drink, Babygirl?” Seth asks and I tell him no.
“If I have one, I’ll pass out,” I say.
When he comes back empty-handed I tell him he’s welcome to whatever he wants and that I was just joking, but he shakes his head, slipping his hands into his jeans.
“If I’d known you were coming, I’d have gotten you IPA.” I hint at the reason I’m a little miffed.
“See,” he says as he gives me a weak smile, “same girl.”
The way he looks at me melts something inside that hurts. Something that’s not meant to burn. “Not all the same,” I murmur, pulling my legs into my chest. I’ve fallen asleep here too many times to count. Work’s draining and the long shifts are hard on me some days.
Days like today.
“They remind me of the flowers I got you,” he says as he steps slowly toward them and pauses to observe the bouquet.
“They are them.” I can practically hear the simper that lingers on my lips in my voice when I tell Seth, “I’d never forget.
“Cami said it was a sign that you’d gotten both my favorite flowers and hers. She used to joke that the buttercups were her favorite and the flowers were really meant for her as a thank you for…” I trail off as I almost tell him how she pushed me to kiss him. Cami urged me to go after what I wanted and to stop thinking. Seth didn’t make the moves first. He always let me do it. Times have changed.
“Buttercups?”
“The ranunculus. These ones,” I say and I have to lean forward to reach. I don’t like the way he looks down at me when I look up at him. He’s uncertain; I can see it so clearly.
The realization makes me withdraw, pulling the throw blanket tighter around me before tossing it off altogether. I’m falling into old habits, when I shouldn’t. Everything is different now.
“I have to wash my face and get ready for bed,” I tell him with a sigh as I stand up. “I had a twelve-hour shift and another tomorrow.”
There’s only so much a person can take. I aim to walk around him, but he stops me, cupping my elbow in his hand and then pulling me into his chest. Have I ever given into his warmth as easily as I do now? Sagging into his chest without hesitation. Closing my eyes and breathing him in. My arms wrap around him and I hold him lightly as he pets my hair and then plants a kiss on my temple.
“I’m tired,” I whisper. “And I don’t know what we are.” Insecurity rises and with the last statement my eyes open. “What are we doing?” I ask him.
With sleep pulling me under, it’s hard to remember why I gave myself to him last night.
“We’re feeling better,” he reminds me.
It’s difficult to imagine that this is better. With all the doubt surrounding me.
“Do you forgive me for leaving you?” The moment the question is spoken, I wish I could take it back. Seth’s warm embrace turns stiff and it takes a long moment before he answers, “Don’t asks questions you don’t want the answers to.”
A sad smile plays along my lips. It turns sadder when he goes about petting my hair again and the arm he has around my waist holds me closer to him.
Maybe one day. I don’t believe the thought enough to speak it.
Peeking up from his hold, I get a good look at the tattoo on his bicep. The thin lines are clean but so close to one another, I can only imagine the ink will bleed together and all it will be is a solid black ring.
“You got more,” I comment and run my finger along them.
“More years to remember,” he tells me solemnly.
“Didn’t you skip a year?” I say but my memory is so foggy.
He only looks down at me questioningly. His eyes are tired and he needs to shave. “Your stubble’s turning into a beard.”
He doesn’t say anything, again he only watches me as I leave his embrace, making my way to the bathroom. It’s hot and cold with him and I don’t know what to think.
“Is there anyone else?” he finally asks the moment I turn to go to the bathroom and get on with bed, with or without him.
“Anyone else?” The confusion settles into a crease in my forehead.
“Are you seeing anyone else?”
“No.” I huff out the response. “I haven’t seen anyone in… over a month now.”
“Good. When I said you’re mine, I meant it.” His tone is hard and unforgiving, like I’ve done something wrong.
“Why do you want me?” I breathe out with exasperation.
“To have you when I want.” Seth’s answer is bullshit and selfish.
So I hurt him back. “That’s the only reason you ever kept me, isn’t it?”
“Only reason you ever stayed, isn’t it?” My response may have been a slap to the face. His is a bullet to my heart.
With my back to him, I sulk to the bathroom, turning on the faucet to run as hot as it can. With a hand on either side of the sink, I stare at the clear water swirling down the drain, waiting for the steam to come.
Seth isn’t quiet when he comes up behind me, and I meet his gaze in the mirror.
“I mean it,” Seth says again like it’s a warning.
“Mean what?” I say and whip around, pissed off.
“You’re mine.”
“Seth… I am very much aware of that.” It’s all I can say. I won’t deny it.
“Good.” He gives the one-word response before grabbing my thighs and pulling me into his arms. His touch is fire, possessive and full of need.
It shocks me. Even as my back hits the tiled wall of the bathroom and his lips crash against mine. The wind is knocked out of me from the sudden wave of desire.
His fingers dig into my flesh as my legs wrap around his hips. His hard touch softens as he nips my bottom lip and pulls back, breathless.
With his body pressed against me and my hands on his muscular chest, I stare into his eyes wanting to know what the hell has gotten into him.
Before I can speak, he nudges his nose against mine and my eyes close from the tender touch. He kisses me once, short and soft.
Then he kisses me again and this time he deepens it. The water’s still running, but I couldn’t care less. I moan into his mouth and let him love me the way he knows how.
He nips my bottom lip, my breasts pressing flat against his chest as he leans forward, pinning me where I am.
Instantly, I’m hot and I feel suffocated. I crane my neck, to breathe cooler air, and he takes that as a sign to rake his teeth down my neck. The hint of pain as he drags his teeth and then bites down on my shoulder only ignites pleasure deep down in my belly and then lower.
“Seth,” I moan.
“I fucking love it when you say my name,” he groans in the crook of my neck before picking me up, one arm keeping me pinned to him.
He turns off the water, turns off the light. He doesn’t ask at all if I was done. I hadn’t even begun but none of it matters.
With the lights still off in my bedroom, he lays me down, never separating his body from mine and continues his slow, deliberate nips and kisses down my body. He peels my clothes down as he goes. When he gets to my waist, I have to prop myself up to take off my shirt. With my arms above my head, the shirt covering my face for just a moment, Seth unhooks my bra and viciously sucks my nipple. Gasping, I arch my back, and nearly buck him away from me because of the sudden onslaught of pleasure. He’s everywhere at once, his hands, his lips, his hard body pinning me down, feeling my cu
rves, worshiping every inch of me.
He only breaks long enough to remove his own shirt and then his pants after he’s removed mine.
With both of us naked and panting he braces himself over me, in the perfect position to have me. I can’t help but to reach up and kiss him, again and again, on his jaw, his lips, down to his neck. My touch isn’t as rough and primal as his, but it’s just as needy.
“Touch yourself,” Seth says, pulling back when I kiss him again. My lips brush against his, the electricity vibrating through my body. It takes me a moment, my head spinning with desire to realize what he said.
“What?”
“You heard me,” he commands, “touch yourself the way you did when you thought about me.”
Thump. My heart pounds from the tone of his voice.
Unconsciously my left leg wraps around his thigh, wanting to urge him on, to have him lose control with me.
“I want you,” I whisper, practically begging him.
“Touch yourself first, Babygirl.” The depths of his eyes reflect only lust and that gives me hope in the uncertainty of what he’s doing. “I want you to know the difference,” he says, his voice deep and jagged with his own need that he’s resisting. “I need you to feel what you can do all by yourself and then feel what I give you.”
I crash my lips against his frantically and before he can pull away, my right hand moves to my clit. My nipples are pebbled against his chest and every small movement feels like heaven against them.
A small protest of a moan slips by me when Seth sits up on his knees, watching me in the dark bedroom as I touch myself beneath him. My head falls to the side as I circle my clit, but Seth’s quick to put an end to that.
With his hand on my throat, he forces me to look up. “I want to see you,” he whispers roughly with his other hand wrapped around his cock and I cum, just like that. I could see him stroking himself as I do the same to myself and the very thought of him losing himself on me was my undoing.
“So easy,” he teases me in a murmur, leaning down to kiss me as the waves of my orgasm rock through me, heating my skin, paralyzing my senses in overwhelming pleasure.
Before the pleasure has waned, Seth grips my hips and flips me onto my belly in a swift movement that causes me to yelp in surprise. Lying flat on my belly, he teases my entrance, his thick head probing and playing.
“So easy, so wet. Tell me it’s just for me.”
With my eyes closed his command envelops me. Of course it’s just for him. It’s always been him.
“Just for you. It’s all just for you.” I barely get the words out, still struggling to breathe. In a forceful stroke, Seth enters me, brutally and with a blinding pleasure that has me screaming his name. My nails dig into the sheets and a cold sweat layers every inch of my skin. He waits a moment, his forearm brushing my shoulder until his front is against my back. Simply hovering over me, touching me although his weight doesn’t push me down.
“You were made for me,” he whispers at the shell of my ear, slipping his hand between my hip and the bed, not stopping until his fingers brush my clit. “This is how you did it?” he questions.
“Yes,” I answer quickly and honestly.
He circles my clit and I bury my face into the sheets, moaning low in my throat from the sweet, decadent pull in my core. Bringing me closer to the edge once again. Just as a sheen of heat lifts from my body, as the coiled pleasure threatens to burst, Seth thrusts his hips, never relenting in the attention he pays to my swollen and sensitive nub. And again, and again. Picking up his pace and steadily fucking me deep and raw and possessively.
I have to bite down on the sheets. I try to move away from him; it’s all too much. At the same time, I want more, I want him deeper, I want to feel him pulsing inside of me.
“Seth.” The only word I can say is his name. Even the friction between my breasts and the sheets is igniting as he ruthlessly fucks me from behind.
He made his point with the first thrust. He made his point without even touching me. I know I can never have what he gives me with anyone else, let alone my own touch. He doesn’t stop though, not until my voice is hoarse and raw, my body and lips tingling with a heated sensation that feels like it will last forever.
Seth
Parked in the lot across from the Rockford Center, the police station is about a mile down the road and easily monitored. From here, in the driver side of my car with the window rolled down, the cop cars come and go, seemingly insignificant at a distance. I remember a time when I’d get anxious from just the thought of one.
Time changes a lot of things.
An old man in blue jeans and a thin dark gray hoodie mows the circular patch of grass out front of the large cement building directly in front of me.
Other than the small garden of roses on either side of the sidewalk that divides the grass, there’s no color at all. The upper half of the three-story building is painted gray. The lower half is the same shade as cement.
Men and women go in and out of the Rockford Center, but the police station is far busier. There’s only been a handful of nurses, out on smoke breaks, the mailman and now the gardener taking up residence out here. Even the parking lot is barren. Employees park around back and that leaves only myself and one other parked car with no one occupying it in this lot.
It’s an odd choice to plant roses in a place like this.
It reminds me of a book we had to read in school, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. It was about some girl in a place like this. I didn’t read it, Laura did though. She cried at the end. I wonder if she likes the roses out front, or if they make her want to cry like the book did.
The smell of freshly cut grass hits me as the breeze drifts into the car. Picking up the paper bag next to me, I realize the sandwich inside it isn’t quite hot anymore. It’s still warm though.
I must’ve been sitting out here for longer than I realized. At least the coffee is still hot. I picked up everything from the corner diner by the bar; they have the best coffee in town. It’s something sweet, caramel drizzle, or some shit like that, for Laura.
She may have eaten lunch already. I don’t know. My phone’s been in my hand, the bag on the passenger seat, and all the while, I’ve just been sitting here, watching, not going in.
The flowers have fucked with my head more than they should. They’re just too much like the ones I gave her. It’s unsettling. It feels like a sign or something. A signal that what we’re doing is wrong. That it’s not supposed to be this way.
I always knew I’d see Laura again, talk to her. Sometimes my thoughts would be only of a moment. One moment where we recognized each other and maybe even kissed, but never more than that.
A girl at the bar one night talked about star-crossed lovers and ever since she rattled on about it, I wondered if that’s what we were meant to be. Because every time I’m around her, it hurts and I know it hurts her too.
It’s like falling down a spiral where nothing else matters; I can’t even see anything but her when she’s in front of me. But I know I’m falling. Some falls you don’t recover from.
Last night, sleep evaded me, the image of the flowers and reckless thoughts haunting me every time I closed my eyes.
My phone pings and I’m grateful to be ripped from my thoughts. The message I get isn’t what I want to see though. Cursing under my breath, I don’t respond.
Declan’s got nothing.
The box the flowers came in was in the trash in her kitchen. I searched for it the second she passed out last night. It didn’t have any identifying information. No note, no nothing. Declan can’t find a record of any flowers ordered online to be delivered to Laura’s address either.
It doesn’t sit right with me.
If she wants to believe they came from me though, I’ll let her believe it.
It’s something more though, something unsettling deep in my bones. It feels like a warning. Like her leaving me is going to happen all over again. I barely survived the
last time. She’s the same, better even. But me? I’m a fucking shell of the man I was when I was with her.
Declan messages again and I have to respond to his text which reads: Did he get the list?
Looking past the center and to the police station, as if I can see Walsh opening the note I dropped in his box outside his office, I text Declan back: Yeah. I left it at his office. A list of all six names with the note, they’ll lead you to the man you’re looking for.
Declan sends a series of texts and I read them one by one. Little things he’s wondering about from the copies of the diaries he has. He wants me to read them to get an idea of what I think about his conclusions. It’s years of scattered thoughts from a tormented woman and right now, that’s the last thing I want to do.
“Seth?” Laura says my name like it’s a question.
“Shit,” I hiss and get over the jolt that pinned me to the back of my seat. My back teeth grind and I have to unclench the paper bag to put it down. “You like scaring the shit out of me, don’t you?”
My comment comes as I shake off the unease of being startled without her knowing. Her smile never falters. With her hair pulled high into a bun on the top of her head and a pair of scrubs with a print of coffee cups and hearts, she looks like she doesn’t belong here. It’s too much sweetness for a place that’s made of stone.
“I thought it was you sitting out here.” She rocks on her heels before lowering herself to the open window, folding her arms over it and getting closer to me. “I needed some fresh air… didn’t expect to see you.”
It strikes me for a moment how easy she makes it seem. Like there was no hesitation, no reason she shouldn’t come to me.
My gaze darts to her lips as she licks them and the wind rushes, making her shiver.
“I was just thinking of you and brought you some coffee.”
“As an apology for keeping me up all night?” she jokes and then hums, “Smells good.”
Grabbing the bag and the coffee, I hold them in my lap. “Kiss first.”
As the smile grows on her face, so does something warm inside of me. Something that covers the nagging feeling that everything’s wrong. It comes with that first step down the spiral staircase. Blindly moving. Just like she does when she lets me hold her chin between my thumb and forefinger and steal a kiss from her. And then another.