by L. B. Dunbar
“Let me grab a jacket.”
When Evie returns, we head out for ice cream. The seasonal shop is a drive-up slash walk-up kind of place. It will be closing soon, signaling the end of their season. It’s a little bittersweet for some reason, and I don’t even like ice cream that much.
“How did you know about this place?” Its location on the opposite side of town may be something only locals might know about.
“I’ve been here before,” I say after we place our orders. It turns out Blue Balls is blueberry-flavored ice cream, so I pass. I wouldn’t be licking any balls anyway. I go for the soft-serve swirl threatening to melt down my hands if I don’t eat it fast enough.
“With who?” Evie pries, and I try not to falter. So I didn’t date, but I might have been here once when a momentary lapse in judgment was present, and I might have offered to buy her a cone. And then she might have offered to do something to me, and I won’t be sharing any of this with Evie. It was years and years ago.
As I’ve taken too long to answer, Evie narrows her eyes to slits and glares at me. “I see.”
“No, you don’t see,” I say around a lick of ice cream, and I watch her as she licks at the mint chocolate chip on a sugar cone.
“You’ve brought someone here before,” she says as if spelling it out for me. She swirls her tongue around the scoop on her cone once more.
“I didn’t,” I defend, taking another long swipe of my own. Evie opens her mouth and sucks at the top of her scoop, leaving behind a sharp point.
“Did you kiss her?” It’s said in a juvenile tone as though we’re girlfriends instead of husband and wife.
“No,” I choke out. I didn’t and again, not sharing details. I lay my tongue flat on the cool ice cream and spin the cone in my hand to cover my tongue. Evie watches me as I watch her lips suck at her scoop once more.
Dammit, how am I getting turned on by this?
“Did you touch her?”
“Evelyn,” I warn.
“Did she touch you?” She opens her mouth once more and bites that the hunk of ice cream, pulling it into her mouth, and I imagine the heat of her tongue melting that creamy substance down her throat.
“Evie,” I warn once more. I follow her lead and suck nearly half my swirl into my mouth at once. Evie’s eyes widen before they narrow once more.
“She suck you?” She asks this slow and drawn out, slurring the words together to sound seductive and sinister rolled into one. Keeping her eyes on me, she lowers for her cone and sucks up another bite, jiggling the cone up and down a few times, emphasizing her words more.
“That turn you on?” I blurt. I don’t know what she’s playing at, but her eyes are hooded while her expression is hard. “Thinking about another woman taking me deep, shoving me to the back of her throat? Want to see that happen? Want to watch me get off in someone else’s mouth?”
“I’d cut a bitch,” she says, surprising us both, and then we laugh. Evie laughing harder than me. She’s never spoken like that, and she’s definitely never been in a fight before, but something about Evie wanting to do such a thing has my chest puffing, my dick hard, and ice cream teasing time is over. I toss the remainder of my cone and then take hers from her hand.
“Hey, I wasn’t finished,” she cries, her voice still ringing with laughter.
“Oh yes, you are. And now, you’re gonna finish me.”
+ + +
As we ride off to the lake, and I pull onto the secluded property, I don’t really intend to make Evie suck me. I just want to be alone with her and definitely put that mouth to some use, like kissing me.
“What are we doing here?” she says, her voice still a little snippy after the ice cream incident.
“Cooling you off,” I mutter when she slips off the seat, and I follow, standing next to my bike. I take the camp blanket out of the seat and spread it on the ground. Holding out a hand for her, I help Evie lower to the ground, but I’ve no sooner sat than she’s straddling me, and I’m falling to my back.
“Whoa.” I chuckle. Evie reaches for my hands and brings them over my head, holding my wrists beside my ears. She isn’t tall enough to pull off the capture me move, but I let her have her fun for a minute. Her hair dangles around her face as she looks down at me.
“Would you like that?” she murmurs. “Would you like me to watch someone else take you?”
“Peach.” I laugh, struggling with the sincerity of her question. “No. I don’t need you to watch someone else do that to me, and I don’t want someone else doing it to me.”
“Are you sure?” She drags out the final word and scoots down my body. “You wouldn’t like it if she pinned you down and undid your belt?” As she speaks, she does just that—my belt is unbuckled—and the button on my jeans pops next.
“Evie, what are you doing?”
“Maybe you’d like her to be hungry for you? Release you from the confines and take you deep.”
“Jesus.” What the—? “Gah.” Evie has me in her hand before I know it. With one hand awkwardly holding me, she works at pushing my jeans and boxer briefs down enough to fully expose me.
“What are you doing, you little vixen?” I mean, I know what she’s doing, but I’m wondering what she’s playing at.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? A vixen to match your fox. She’d take you in hand, but it wouldn’t be enough.”
I want to tell her to stop playing around and stop speaking as if it’s someone else who would do what she’s doing. But she’s doing what she describes would happen to me, and I’m growing stiffer by the second.
“She’d squeeze this thick dick and wet the tip.” Evie leans forward and licks across the slit at the end of me like I’m that ice cream cone. My head pops up to watch her and then falls back when her tongue laps at my crown.
“Fuck, Peach.”
“She’d stroke you. You’re so hard,” she growls. “And she’d take you to the back of her throat.”
Oh God. Evie opens and swallows deep. I hit her throat, and her tongue swirls around me. Her cheeks cave, and she sucks hard, sliding up my length and popping off the end. Her hand takes over a second, working on my slippery, slick skin.
“She’d beg to have you. I want to ride you.”
“Evie,” I hiss, warning her to stop teasing me. Both with her tender touch and dirty words, I’m under her spell. I reach for her hips and jackknife upward, but a hand comes to my chest.
“Lie back. This is my show,” she whispers.
Jesus. Fuck. Jesus. I fall to my back again, staring up at the heavens. This woman will be the end of me.
“Better yet,” she says, dipping her face to my dick again. “Maybe she’s watching me. Her mouth watering because she wants a turn, and she isn’t going to get one.” Evie’s mouth takes me again, and I’m so freaking turned on at the idea of someone watching her suck me, I come in seconds. My hips thrust upward, and I tap the back of her throat. She gags, but I can’t stop myself, and she doesn’t stop me. My dick pulses, and I come undone in long waves of relief.
When I can’t take it anymore, I tug at her underarm, and she releases me. She wipes at her lips, exaggerating the cleanup, and flips her hair over one side of her head.
“You’re a proud kitty, aren’t you?” I tease, and she chuckles.
She looks down at me and pouts. “Too bad, you can’t do more.” I’m forty-eight, and she’s busting my balls because I’m not eighteen and ready in five minutes to slam into her.
“You get those pants off and let me worry about you.” I nod at her, unable to move my body, let alone rouse myself for something else with her. But I’ll make it good. Remaining on my back, I watch as she stands, gives me a little strip tease of wiggling her jeans and underwear off, and then she straddles me again.
“Straddle my face, baby.”
“James,” she hisses. It’s not like we haven’t done this before, but it’s been a while since we’ve been this wild.
“She’s watching yo
u. She wants to see what she can’t have. Or do you want her to have a turn?” I tease, and Evie crawls over me, growling once more. I guide her by her hips to where I need her to go, and my mouth meets her center with all the eagerness she took me. She’s on all fours, keening and mewing like a little kitten, and I’m loving it.
“Ranger,” she cries out, and I smile against her, playing along with her dirty little fantasy. I’m growing hard just thinking about someone watching her get off on me. Again, not that I want someone to watch her when she’s all pleasured and crying out with yes, yes, yes, but the fantasy is titillating, and I’m ready to take her again. She comes on a loud whine. Her head back like the night she howled at the moon on my lap. Her hips forward, forcing dripping heat against my face. I love her like this. It’s reckless and uncensored, and she is just everything to me.
When she settles, I take her hips again and move her down my body until I position her at the tip of my dick and slide into home. Evie sits upright, riding me fast, taking what she needs. Her hands dig into her hair, lifting it higher over her head.
“She still watching you?” I strain as Evie sucks me in a new way, clenching at me as she bounces up and down. My thumb finds her clit, working it in rapid circles while she works me.
“There’s a him now. He’s watching. He wants a turn.”
“Fuck that,” I hiss, bucking upward and driving into her faster. “No one’s gonna know how wet you are. How you slick my dick and slide all juicy on me.”
“He wants it too,” she whispers.
“He can just keep watching, bastard. Because he’s never getting what’s mine,” I bellow. Evie’s hands come to my chest, and she rocks herself up and down my shaft, lost in the fantasy until she slams down on me, and I grunt. She arches her back, her head dropping forward and her mouth hanging open as she groans.
“Oh my gawwwd.” I come undone myself, clutching at her hips, holding her in place, and letting her milk me dry a second time. Then collapsing against the ground—arms splayed at my sides, legs loose and liquid—I’m spent. Evie folds down to my chest with me still inside her.
I blink up at the dark sky seeing my own set of stars after what we just did.
“That was fun.” She giggles, and I press a kiss into her head on my chest. My heart races within, but it’s more than that. I feel alive, really alive despite the sexual exhaustion, with this woman over me.
“Fun, but it ain’t ever gonna happen,” I moan. “I will never let someone watch you or watch me take you.”
“I know,” she says softly, and I search for disappointment in her tone but don’t find it. “I was only playing.”
“You play all you want, baby. Just only with me.”
28
False Negatives
[Evie]
When James takes me back to the rental, I slip from the motorcycle as I do after each date and stand next to him. He looks at the house like he longs to come inside, and I’d like to invite him in, but I don’t. I don’t know if it’s the house itself, the fact it belonged to Dolores, or if it’s just that we’re trying not to cross a line, but he doesn’t come in, and I don’t ask.
However, after what we just did, I’m not sure there are any lines left we haven’t crossed.
I don’t know where that came from. One minute, we’re having ice cream, and the next, I’m getting all worked up while pissed off that he obviously bought some other woman an ice cream cone, and then she gave him head in return. I should be skeeved out, and in some ways, I am. Then I just lost myself to the fantasy, and he played along.
As I stand next to him, I cup his jaw like he cups mine. I’m not half as forceful as he is, but I still work the edge of my hand to tip up his face. He smells like me, and I still taste him.
“Just want you to remember who’s the last one on those lips,” I say all gruff and grumbly like him before I lean forward and lick at the seam of his mouth.
“Jesus, woman.” He laughs hard and tugs me to him, wrapping his arm around the back of my neck. He holds me like this and kisses the top of my head. “You’re so fun, Evie.”
I laugh myself at that and then pull back. Every night when we separate, a little sadness fills me despite the good time. I don’t want to keep sleeping alone at night. I don’t want to separate from him, but I understand what we’re doing and why.
“Maybe you should pick a date,” James says, his voice still playful. In the last two weeks, he’s loosened up, smiled more, and laughed a lot. It’s such a nice change in him. It’s nice for us. We aren’t skipping the heavy stuff. We just aren’t bringing it up every five minutes.
“Actually, there is something I want to do,” I state sheepishly, looking down at his belly and curling my fingers into his shirt. He’s still straddling his bike.
“Anything,” he says.
“I think we should go to the groundbreaking event together.”
“That is not a date,” James immediately retorts.
Not every date is a pretty one, but I want to attend in Michael’s name, and I think James should be there with me.
“I think it could give you some closure.” I keep my tone low, and my voice soft. I don’t want to tell James what to do or how to feel or when he should work through his grief, but his grief, anger, and guilt have lingered a long time, and he needs to work through it. Perhaps the groundbreaking ceremony will help. Something positive will be built in Michael’s name.
“Not going to happen. Pick something else,” he states, and I sense him working to keep calm, but an edge still fills his voice.
“You said anything,” I tease, trying to restore us to the playfulness by the lake.
“No.” The word is firm and definite.
“Why aren’t you even considering it?” I really want to understand his opposition to the event.
“I . . . I just can’t do it, Evelyn. Why can’t you understand that?”
Honestly, because I just couldn’t. I don’t know how he can be in that house, surrounded by all the haunting memories of Michael and the shrine he’s kept in his room, yet he can’t go to a little dirt digging and a presentation in Michael’s name.
“I guess, I’ll just go alone,” I say, hoping a little guilt from me might prod him into agreeing to go, but I can see his rejection is firm. He starts his bike to emphasize this conversation is over. I stare at him, waiting for him to say something. Kiss me good night. Tell me he’ll call me. But he doesn’t do any of those things. Looking over his shoulder, he walks the bike backward until he U-turns, and then he’s out of my drive. I stand there staring after him, wondering what just happened.
Later, I lie in bed, thinking about things.
When Michael’s body disappeared over the ridge, a search and rescue team was activated. James was not allowed on the search. His mental breakdown prevented it, and no one thought it’d be a good idea for him to find our son. The local sheriff’s department, along with members of the fire staff, used their best search and rescue members before June Barne came to our home to deliver the news. It wasn’t a relief, although it should have been. No one wanted to stare at an empty casket. At the time, we’d been on autopilot. Our son was coming home, though not how we had planned, and days later, he was laid to rest near his great granddad. Pap would look after him, we said, though the words were rote and uncertain.
Then James and I began to fight, and it wasn’t long before he’d kicked me out of the house. We were nearing our thirteen-year wedding anniversary at the time, but we wouldn’t make it to the date. I was gone within weeks of the funeral, and I had to fight my way out of my grief on my own. I’d come to terms with not being in Blue Ridge. It hadn’t seemed real that our child was in the ground at the cemetery outside of town. Michael was everywhere else—the breezy wind, a sunny day, someone else’s child’s laughter. I took the little things and lumped them together to give myself closure by the end of one year. Part of that process had been calling James on Michael’s birthday and asking him to celeb
rate with me, even from a distance. I lit the candle on a cupcake and blew it out with one wish.
Peace in my heart.
Forgive James.
Miss my child.
Move forward.
I wasn’t convinced James had gotten there. He held onto the house, Michael’s room, and his things. He was everywhere but not in the way Michael would have wanted us to celebrate his life. The community center was going to be a celebration of his town and of the people who lived here and loved him. It would be a place to gather for events and baseball. It was a perfect testament to him.
+ + +
I didn’t hear from James the day after our ice cream date, and then I received a texted image. I didn’t respond, didn’t know how to address it. I’d already been feeling like being with James was too good to be true, and the picture proved it.
Instead, I turn off my phone and spend a solemn day at the cemetery. Then I take a long drive around Blue Ridge with no real destination. Just a drive to lose my thoughts in the twists and turns of mountain roads and beautiful scenery.
My phone stays off. James doesn’t come to the house.
At the groundbreaking ceremony the following day, I don’t feel right about being here. I’m present in the name of my son, but my smile is false, and my nerves are shot.
“You doing okay?” Letty asks me as she stands next to me, and I shake my head. She must feel the vibration coming off my body. I’m on the edge of shattering. It’s Michael’s loss and James’s rejection all over again.
“Just a little while, and then we’ll get you out of here,” she says, rubbing a hand up my back. I don’t even feel her touch, but the collective ‘we’ in her words settles over me. The entire Harrington clan is present, surrounding me, supporting me.
George Jr and Elaina each hug me, and Junior lingers.
“Evie, Elaina and I wish to apologize.” I startle at their words and sense Letty stepping back from us. “We think we greatly misunderstood what happened between you and James because James is James, and you were silent. And we feel just sick that we let you slip away like he did.”