by K. L. Savage
He doesn’t take praise well. He isn’t used to it.
“We know that isn’t true,” he says, glancing away from me, suddenly shy.
Tongue is a contradiction. There is no doubt about that. He’s a brutal killer. Obsessive. Intense. But in intimate moments like this, I manage to see the glimpse of the innocence inside him.
“I’ve lived to experience your love, Wayne. I think out of all people, I’d know.” It isn’t often I call him by his first name, but sometimes when I want what I’m saying to really stick, I make sure not to call him Tongue.
He wipes above the top of my brow, then brings his thumb to his mouth and sucks it between his lips. Tongue moans as his eyes flutter shut. “Even your sweat is sweet, Comet.”
“Now I know you’re lying.” I play with the strands of hair curling along his nape with my fingers.
His eyes snap open. The abyss of those chocolate eyes swirls with anger as his nostrils flare. He pops his thumb out of his mouth and the skin shines with his saliva. Before I can blink, his hands are around my neck and his wet thumb presses under my chin. I gasp, trying not to get turned on by his dominance and rage.
“And when have you ever known me to lie to you?” He sits forward and hovers his lips over mine. “I’m livid that you think I would.” He nips at my chin, gliding his thumbs to my mouth and tracing my lips. “I should punish you for saying such a thing.”
“I was only kidding.” I stretch my neck back to give him more room to explore.
“I don’t like jokes like that. They aren’t funny.”
Tongue isn’t the kind to find amusement in jokes. He doesn’t seem to understand what is funny or what causes laughter. I don’t hear him laugh or see him smile much, hardly ever; but every now and then I’ll catch him looking at me and the slightest of grins will tilt his full lips.
And then, poof. It’s gone.
But I get to be the lucky one to witness it.
“Tongue.”
“Yeah, Comet?”
“Kiss me,” I beg him, since he is the reason why my body is on fire right now.
“Not until you tell me about your dream and why you think you need to see Doc.”
“That’s blackmail.” I lift my hand and caress his bare chest and over to the puckered scar from where he got shot a few months back. “How’s your arm?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
He knows me too well, but I am worried about him. Even with physical therapy, he hasn’t gained all the strength back in his arm. The heaviest thing he can lift right now is a gallon of milk, and even then, his bicep shakes. Some days, he is fine, because everyone has good days, but there are days where it’s limp at his side. Doc says it’s normal, but I can’t help but worry. A part of Tongue’s persona that I know he needs is his strength. He acts like it isn’t affecting him, but I know better. I see him looking at himself in the mirror, flexing his hand and trying to lift his arm above his head, but he can’t manage just yet. He’s struggling and he won’t let me help.
“Tongue, I don’t want to talk about it because it scares me, and I don’t know what’s real anymore. And when I don’t know what’s real, I start to look at everything like it’s a symptom of my psychosis.” I tilt my head down, the desire on pause as I fiddle with the frayed edge of the blanket. “I need to know that everything around me isn’t a version of something morphed and completely—”
“—Fucked up?” he finishes for me, rubbing his hands down my sides until they land on my hips. He gives a quick squeeze before roaming up my body again and pushes the long brown strands of my hair behind my shoulders.
“We’re all fucked up here, Comet.” He wraps his fingers around my wrists and drags my hands down his chest. His abs ripple under my touch and the ‘Unscarred’ tattoo comes to life as if it is trying to jump off his skin.
“You feel that? I’m real, Comet. This is real. And whatever you have to tell me,” his voice is a rasp after speaking so much. Talking isn’t one of Tongue’s favorite things to do. He has scars all over his tongue; sometimes when he speaks his words slur from overuse. “Whatever you tell me, I’ll tell you what’s real or not. You can always count on me for that, okay?”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, Comet. You know you can always count on me to tell you the truth. Please, talk to me. I don’t like that you’re having nightmares and waking up sweaty the last few nights.”
“I want to see Doc because I don’t know what my dreams mean. I keep having the same nightmare.”
Tongue presses a kiss against my collarbone, causing sparks to scatter along my skin. “Yeah?”
I nod, pinching my brows together as I piece together what I remember from the dream. “It always starts off with me holding the only Barbie I ever had. My mom got it for me. She worked long hours at the diner, and we could hardly afford anything growing up. In my dream, dad was an alcoholic and mean, so damn cruel and—”
“What makes you think he wasn’t those things?”
I scoff. “He couldn’t have been. I never remember him being mean to me. Impatient, yes, but mean? No. And he would drink but it never made him a bastard like he was in my dream. He even stopped drinking before I moved out here.”
“What happened in your dream?” Tongue asks gently. “What’s got you so shaken up, Comet?”
Anxiety clenches my chest when I remember the hatred in my dad’s eyes as he looked at me. “He would call me worthless and stupid. He ripped my doll from my hand, and he threatened that if I didn’t get him another beer, I’d never see the doll again. He got louder and he kept spewing these words that made me scared of him, so I ran to my room and locked the door.” I quickly wipe my cheek when a tear slips free. “My window was nailed shut. I had nowhere to go. I hid under the covers because when you’re a kid, monsters didn’t exist if you hid under the covers.”
“Monsters always exist, no matter where you hide. I don’t understand,” Tongue says. I know he is doing his best to understand, but he isn’t like most people, and I doubt he was like most kids.
“It’s just something I thought,” I say simply. “Anyway, Dad kicked the door down and he yanked me out of the bed, tore the head off my doll, pulled my pants down and started to spank me because I was so ungrateful.”
“He touched you?” Tongue growls, digging his fingertips into my thighs. “He fucking touched you?”
“In my dream,” I remind him since I don’t know if my dream was real. “Breathe, Tongue. Like I said, I don’t know if it’s real.” I place my head on his shoulder and kiss the side of his neck where his scruff tickles my lips. “My mom came home and hit him in the head, picked me up, and we ran. She told me to run through the woods and go to the neighbors house to call Aunt Tina, her younger sister. Dad came after us with a gun and we ran to the sliding glass door. My mom tossed me outside and told me to run, slammed the door, and my dad shot her. I was so shocked I just stood there, but she begged me to go, so I jumped down the steps and ran to hide behind a tree. I made the mistake of peeking around the trunk to see my dad aim the gun at mom’s head and shoot. Blood went everywhere. And that’s when I ran and then that’s when I wake up every time.”
Tongue’s chest is heaving, and a growl is constant in his throat. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking murder him.”
“No, Tongue, my dream can’t be real, because I lived with him, remember? Was he the world’s best dad? No. I came here to prove I didn’t need him. My dreams can’t be real.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one… my Aunt Tina would have never agreed to send me back to Dad after he killed my mom.”
“What if she doesn’t know?” Tongue says distantly. “What you’re dreaming, those aren’t normal dreams, Comet. It’s like something deep inside you is trying to tell you the truth. Remember when you were at the asylum with…” he sneers in disgust before he says his brother’s name, “Porter? You said you saw your mom. Then, your dad showed up and shot her. C
omet, what makes you think your dreams aren’t real? Trauma caused your psychosis, and for the longest time you thought your mom killed herself. What if that isn’t the case?” He reaches for the bottle of water next to the bed, unscrews the top, and drinks half of it. The plastic crunches in his hand. “And I’m going to relish in killing him.”
“No,” I shake my head as I fight the urge to sob. “Promise me, Tongue. Promise me you won’t do anything until we know the facts.” I stare at him dead in the eye and lay my hands on either side of his face. “Promise.”
He wraps his arms around me and hauls me to his chest. “Only until we know more,” he states. “After that, I can’t promise anything.”
“I know, and I wouldn’t want you to.”
His palm cups the side of my neck and his thumb is on my cheek, wiping away the tears. “I think your dreams are real and I think you need to start cutting yourself some slack. You aren’t insane, not in the way you think you are.”
“And in what ways am I insane?” I ask, setting my arms on his shoulders.
He bites his lower lip as he brings his face closer to mine. “You’re crazy about me,” he says. “Downright mad for me.” His nose brushes along mine.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because the only way a woman like you could love a man like me is if you’re fucked up in the head in some way.”
The way he views himself absolutely shatters me. “You know how you said I needed to cut myself some slack?”
A hesitant nod bobs his head, and he isn’t able to look at me. “I need you to be able to do the same. There is nothing wrong with you, Tongue. Nothing. You are perfect for me and what this world needs you to be. When you give yourself a break, that’s when I’ll give me a break,” I say to him, enjoying the feel of his chest pressed against mine.
Tongue is the epitome of darkness, a long dark tunnel that leads to the middle of nowhere.
At least, I know that’s what people think.
What others fail to recognize is someone’s nowhere, is someone else’s somewhere. And wherever the darkness leads Tongue, that’s my somewhere, because wherever he is, is where I’m meant to be.
There it is. The rare tilt of the lips, a crooked grin that could hardly be classified as happiness or a real smile. Again, that’s what others would think, but I know Tongue. This is as real as it gets for him. I trace the outline of his mouth, trying to memorize the small change to his face.
He has such beautiful teeth too. Smiling takes the hard edge off from his face.
Tongue surprises me when he swings his legs over the bed and lifts me into his arms. “Where are we going?” I ask, but he doesn’t say a word.
He walks into the direction of the bathroom, stepping over mounds of books. “Open,” he states when he gets to the door.
I reach a hand out and twist the knob, then he steps inside the large en suite bathroom. I turn on the light, and he plops me on the counter. The cold surface against my bare butt has me shivering. “Holy Moly, it’s cold in here,” I say, wrapping my arms around my midsection.
“Not for long,” Tongue informs me as he turns the shower on. Steam fills the room and fogs the mirror. I’m left with the view of his back flexing as he dips inside the shower to check the temperature of the water. My eyes travel down the impressive canvas of his body, mapping the geometric tattoos across his shoulders that lead halfway down his back.
With every bend and twist he makes, the ropes of muscle tense. As he shifts his feet, his plump bubble butt flexes too, then leads down to his thick thighs that have my mouth watering.
“I can feel your eyes on me,” he tells me, keeping his back to me. “I can always feel your eyes on me, Comet.”
“I can’t help it. You’re a sight no woman in their right mind would ever look away from.” Even his scars hypnotize me. He hates them and tries to cover them with tattoos, but they will always be there, and I’ll do my best every day to reassure him that his scars are beautiful.
When he turns around, his cock sways left to right, hard and long, thick with a livid red tip. His sack is heavy, hanging between his legs. His abs ripple and his pecs jump as he struts over to me like a peacock showing his feathers.
My eyes land on the small lines on his upper chest from our knife play. The memory of feeling the sting of pain as he plunges his thickness between my legs has stolen my ability to breathe.
“And what are you thinking about?” he growls, caging his arms on either side of me.
My folds slide together from the liquid heat dripping out of me, and I moan when he drags his hand up my leg. He stops when he gets to my inner thigh, his fingers brushing the spot just below my pussy.
“No need to tell me. I can feel what you are thinking about.” He drags his fingers long my seam, gathering the juices but not applying pressure. He’s a tease. “You want me?”
“I always want you.” I hold my breath as he sucks his fingers into his mouth. He tilts his chin down and a strand of dark hair falls across the left side of his face.
He picks me up and takes us into the shower stall. Since we live in the clubhouse as our home is being built on the property, the bathroom is your typical one. Plain white tiles, plain ceramic tub, shower, and sink. It’s nothing special. But Tongue is making sure that the bathroom in our new home will be what dreams are made of.
Tongue pushes the blue curtain to the side and steps into the tub. The hot water sprays against my back, but not for long, because he presses me against the wall. His cock is nestled against my entrance. His shoulders hunch. His teeth dig into my skin of my neck.
“Yes,” I whimper, clawing my nails into his back.
But then he steps away, leaving me hot and bothered. “What… what the fuck, Tongue?” I don’t curse often, but when I do, it’s usually when I’m overly frustrated.
He holds out his hand for me to take, and I pout my lips as I slide my palm into his. “I want you, you know that. You can see that, but right now, I want to take care of you.” He tips my head back so the water soaks my hair. “I’ve realized that maybe I haven’t like I should be. “
“Don’t say that. You know that isn’t true. You take better care of me than anyone.”
He grunts in reply, not believing what I say. He massages my scalp as the floral scent of my shampoo invades my senses. I close my eyes and let him do what he wants. If this is what he thinks I need, then I’m going to let him do whatever he wants.
“That feels good,” I slur as sleepiness hits me from waking up in the middle of the night. I could go back to bed right now.
Mmm, he’s right. I needed this.
He tilts my head back again, careful to keep the soap out of my eyes as he languidly rubs his palm over the curve of my head to get my hair free of shampoo.
“You’re mine.”
“I am, Tongue.”
“All mine,” he growls, rubbing the sudsy loofah over my breasts.
The scratchy material glides over my hard nipples. The sleepiness that weighed on my body moments ago is gone, replaced with lust he seems to love to stir inside me. I open my eyes to see him staring at the space between my legs as he drops the loofah between them. Inhaling, I stand on my tiptoes and dig my nails into his shoulders. He rubs back and forth, cleaning my most delicate area; it shouldn’t be such a turn on, but it is.
His cock is still hard, curling up and over his belly button, the vein pronounced with the blood pumping through it. Right as I think he is going to do more than clean me, he pulls the loofah away and drops it to the bottom of the tub.
“Tongue, please,” I beg of him, needing him to do something, anything to alleviate the pressure inside me. I wrap my palm around his cock and squeeze, needing him to snap out of this idea that the way he can make me feel better is to handle me like glass.
He growls low in his throat and unhooks the showerhead from above us, switches the settings, and washes me off.
I stroke him just as he changes the settings a
gain on the showerhead until it is a quick, pulsing rhythm. Tongue doesn’t leave me guessing with what he is about to do, he just does it. He inserts the showerhead between my legs until the constant flow of water is cascading on my swollen, sensitive clit.
“Tongue, oh god,” I moan, trying to remember to stroke him as I get taken higher with every hard beat of water against me.
He rocks his cock in and out of my fist to bring himself to orgasm along with me. It doesn’t take long for the showerhead to do its job. My toes curl along the floor of the tub and my stomach flips with warmth. I have to rip my face away from his and take in a much-needed breath as my orgasm shatters me from the inside out.
I cry out his name, clawing at his chest as waves of ecstasy course through me. There is a distant voice in the back of my head telling me that I let go of his cock too soon, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Tongue drops the showerhead and forces me to my knees, pries my mouth open, and thrusts himself between my lips.
I gag and choke but let him use me anyway because he deserves it. I love it when he does this.
Holy Moly, he has a big dick. I can’t take it all, but it never stops me from trying. He grabs the side of my head and his sack slaps underneath my chin. My eyes lock onto the sharp edge of his jaw. The water is a river flowing down his chin as he stares down at me. His hair from this angle looks like wet branches hanging down his face. His piercing eyes are black as evil as he uses me.
He plunges his cock as far as he can down my throat, grunting as warm creamy streams fill my mouth. I do my best to swallow, but instead of holding himself still, he ruts through his orgasm and continues to fuck my mouth until he is satisfied.
When he is done, his come is dripping down my chin, and I’m licking my lips trying to get it all. His right hand grips my face and hauls me to my feet, slamming his lips down on mine to help clean himself off me.