by A. J. Downey
“It still hurts,” she whimpered, and I nodded.
“I know. I get that.” I pulled her in and held her close and sighed. “I want to help you, but I don’t know how,” I said.
“I don’t know either,” she said brokenly.
“We’ll figure it out,” I promised her and she sank into me a little. I guess it was the right thing to say, and to be honest, it was the stone-cold truth. I would help her figure it out. I would work on the problem with her until the end of our fucking days if that was what it took.
“I don’t want to drag you into this,” she said thickly.
“Into what?” I demanded.
“This,” she said, stepping back and bringing my scraped and swollen hand up between us, cradling it gently between her own. She shook her head and murmured, “Where I come from, in my experience, fighting back and standing up for yourself only makes things worse.”
“Yeah,” I whispered, swallowing hard. “I bet you never hit ‘em, though, did you?”
“No, I’m not a violent person.”
“I’m not either, babe. Believe me. There are just some things you cannot let pass in this life. Disrespecting my property is one of them.” I cradled her face in the palm of my hand, smoothing my thumb against the soft skin of her cheek.
I took a breath, paused, and finally said, “This? This was only half you. I had no problem beating the brakes off of one of them – the other I let off easy. This, is mostly my life, the MC life. This is how you settle things with violence. Honorably. You don’t pick up a gun unless it’s necessary. You don’t blow away women or innocent bystanders because of some words. You punch them in the mouth, make them swallow their hate and you walk away. I guaran-damn-tee they won’t fucking do it again.”
I swallowed hard when she didn’t say anything right away. Her eyes flicked up to mine then back to my hand, and I made her a vow. “Anyone wants to fuck with you, they have to go through me, and by extension, the rest of the club. They aren’t so tough when they realize someone’ll beat their ass for it. Just… just don’t give up on us yet.”
She gasped and lifted her eyes from my injured hand to meet mine.
“I don’t want to give up on us. I’m terrified you won’t want me anymore. When my problems get to be too many, when defending me gets too tiresome – what then?”
“Never,” I said, and I didn’t let anything about the single word leave room for argument. Not my tone, inflection, nothing.
I kissed her then, sealing the deal. When words failed me, actions spoke loudest and I poured every ounce of commitment to her that I felt into that kiss. She made a surprised noise against my lips and I pulled her closer. She came to me willingly, dropping the throw she’d had around her shoulders to the floor, her arms going up and around my neck. I gripped her ass beneath the hem of the tee I’d put her in and pulled her against me harder. She gasped at my erection pressing against her stomach through my board shorts, the sound killing me with desire.
“I need to love you,” I growled against her mouth. “Please say yes, that you’re good for it.”
“Yes,” she gasped breathlessly as I trailed my mouth down the side of her neck.
Awesome.
I lifted the hem of the tee and she let me go just long enough for me to pull it over her head and off her arms, dropping it to the floor. She came back to me, pressing herself against me, her kiss desperate, and her touch demanding as she went for the drawstring on my shorts.
While she worked that, I slid out of my cut and gave it a gentle toss to the chair in the corner of the room, eyeing it carefully, satisfied when it pooled in the seat and didn’t slip off to the floor.
I went back to kissing my woman as she shoved my shorts to the floor. I stepped out of them and my thongs as she pressed herself against me with a strained half-whimper, half-moan.
She tore her mouth from mine and gasped out, “Condom?”
“Always. I got you baby,” I murmured into her mouth and it struck me – every time we had sex, she asked for one. Every time, without fail. I filed it away for later and snatched a condom out of the drawer of the bedside table, smirking that I’d put them on top of the typical hotel room Bible.
Sacri-licious, I thought to myself as my ol’ lady practically climbed my body like a fucking tree to get close to me.
“You good to ride me?” I asked, tearing the plastic wrapper open with my teeth.
She plucked the condom free and stroked me with her other hand.
“Yeah,” she breathed.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she affirmed, and I smiled as she rolled the condom down my length.
I shuddered. It felt so damn good already. Her hands on me, the rubber slick and smooth against my flesh. She made rolling on a rubber a damn sensual thing, but I craved the sensuality that was watching her lower herself onto my waiting cock. I craved the silken pleasure of my hands on her warm flesh, guiding her up and down over the top of me, my cock driving deep into her wet heat.
I lay back with anticipation as she lowered herself onto my cock, her hands behind her head, holding her thick dark hair off of her neck in an artful pile as she rolled her hips and took us both on a natural, pleasure filled high.
“That’s it, Orchid. Oh, so good…” I encouraged her softly, my eyes closing as I gave myself over completely to just feeling her body wrapped around mine, weighing me down, a comfortable weight, one I was glad to have in my life.
“Stoker,” she gasped and I smiled up at her, watching her take her pleasure above me.
Such a beautiful sight.
25
Serenity…
I felt like I was on some invisible edge, but not the kind that would send me into the shining fall of orgasm. That was some ways off yet. No, this edge that I rode was made up purely of my own mind playing devilish tricks on me. It was whispers in the dark that made frightened children hide beneath their blankets – though these whispers were of some very adult fears.
He’s lying, he’s going to take you back home and he’s going to make every excuse not to see you again. He can’t love you. You can’t even love yourself… this is over before it even got started.
He felt so good inside me, and all I felt was raw. I was emotionally blasted open, the fragments of my heart still raining down from the violent re-visitation of my worst trauma. I would do anything to erase it, even for just a little while. I was desperate to feel something, anything, other than the angry throbbing hurt of losing my first love and my utter guilt at my inability to stop loving him, even after what he’d done.
I wanted to feel something, anything, other than the fear that, just as I had dared to fall in love again, Stoker might leave me. That fear stung like cold fire against nerves I didn’t even know I possessed.
“That’s it, Orchid. Oh, so good…” He moaned and his eyes fluttered shut. I couldn’t help but smile, my eyes roving his face, his shoulders and chest, memorizing this moment, the sight of him in silent supplication below me, his hands urging me to roll my hips the way that I knew we both liked. The way that touched that spot deep inside me and urged me high enough to reach the stars.
I wasn’t ready to come yet, though. I wanted to make this last. I wanted it to last forever. I never wanted to go back to the girl I was. I wanted so badly to escape the suffocation of my life before Stoker, but I didn’t want to suffocate him in turn. I was so twisted and torn, and I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to think about it – I shouldn’t be thinking about it. Not now, not while I was so emotional, but it was just about impossible to think about anything else.
His hands drifted up my body, cupped my breasts, squeezed my nipples between forefinger and thumb, pulling on them gently, stimulating me further. I dropped my long thick locks and put my hands to his chest and rolled my hips like we both liked. My body felt lit, sparks of light and sexual energy surging, kindled low in my belly, just below my womb and swirling up through me, reaching for the sky.
/> I rolled my hips again, and my emotions rolled with the motion, roiling and swirling in a somersault, as though they were a drop of ink dripped into a glass of water, slowly dispersing, coloring my insides, becoming less concentrated the more the fire built inside me, seeping out of my pores, slicking my body with sweat, the air cooling my skin, the hurt evaporating with every slow arduous roll, with every deepening thrust of his body into mine.
It was as if the higher I went, the more I came down. Stoker’s touch, his love grounded me, giving me a safe place to stay, encouraging me to stay.
His eyes said ‘Trust me’, his hands told me, ‘I’m here’, and his soft gasp as I loved him begged me not to go anywhere, begged me to stay with him, and lent me the strength and determination to do just that. To stay, to fight, to take a stand, and to believe that my life could get better, that the past could be let go.
“God, Orchid, you feel so good. The things you fucking do to me…” he whispered, and I glowed from the praise. I felt invincible in these moments, impervious, like the love we created between us acted as a shield, and the hurt, the constant sorrowful ache, subsided within me and fell quiescent.
He calmed me. He grounded and centered me, and I only wished that I did something for him in turn, but I could never be certain.
I bent and kissed him, his hands going to my ass, holding me tight as he thrust his hips up and took over for a while, letting me rest but leaving me breathless.
“Don’t stop!” I begged when he paused. He sat up abruptly and I yelped in surprise, but he wasn’t done with me. Not yet. No, he was just getting started. He rolled me onto my back, my thigh bone feeling like it would surely break for just a split second, when he turned me. His arm an iron cable across my lower back, he laid me into the softness of the bed, his hands going to the outsides of my knees, hauling them up, encouraging me to wrap my legs around his lean hips.
His fingers found the spaces between mine, curling over the backs of my hands as he played his lips softly against mine. He pressed his palms against mine, my hands into the bed and rolled his hips, carefully withdrawing and surging forward, and I fell.
I fell far, far away, down, down, and further down, dropping from the starlit sky clutching the ethereal stardust that was Stoker to my breast. Stoker, who stroked his long, lean body against mine, into mine. Stoker, who made me hope so dangerously that my life could, would, change and for the better.
“I love you, Serenity,” he whispered in my ear and a new, fresh set of tears sprang to my eyes, but there was no pain where they came from. When I was like this, when we were like this, there was no pain. There was no bad here…
A short time later, after we were both sated and when my tears had dried, we lay quietly in each other’s arms, drowsing under the light of the moon pouring through the bedroom’s window.
He had turned out the light, and come back to bed and I was almost lulled to sleep completely by the comfortable silence when unexpectedly, he asked me, “Why do you always ask me to put on a condom before we have sex?”
I paused and thought about it. I mean, really thought about it. I hadn’t realized I did.
“Do I?” I asked finally, frowning, not wanting to believe it, worried I had been doing something off-putting.
“Every time,” he affirmed, hugging me close, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
“I didn’t realize I was doing that,” I said, honestly.
“Why do you think you do?” he asked, and it deserved an answer. He deserved everything just for staying with me.
“Control, maybe?” I hazarded a guess.
“Interesting conclusion,” he said, and sniffed, clearing his throat. “Why’d you land on that one?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, but I think, at least instinctively, I did. “Maybe because I don’t feel like I really have much. Or, I really haven’t had much. I mean… I don’t know!” I laughed nervously.
“No, that’s good,” he said. “If you’re uncomfortable and don’t want to confront the reason why, that means you’re on to something.”
“You think so?”
“I do.” He nodded, I could feel it in the way he shifted beneath me.
“Do I really ask every time?” I asked again.
“You do.”
“Does it bother you?”
“Sometimes. I mean, only insofar as it doesn’t feel like you trust me.”
I sat up sharply and looked down at him, my eyes boring into his.
“I do trust you,” I told him. “Implicitly.”
He brought up his hand to caress the side of my face and smiled, brushing his thumb lightly over my lips.
“I, maybe, needed to hear that,” he whispered, with a slight smile that bespoke a vulnerability of his own.
“I trust you,” I told him again. “Please, don’t ever think that I don’t.”
“No offense meant, baby. No disrespect. I can’t really expect you to share how you feel, what you think, with me if I don’t open up first.”
I shook my head, “I trust you,” I repeated. “I love you… I guess I’m just scared. Sharing my feelings… what I think? I guess it’s never really gone over well in the past, and it’s just my natural default to keep it to myself.”
His eyes left mine and roved over my face as if he were memorizing every bit of it. Like he’d stepped into the Louvre and was gazing upon a piece crafted by one of the masters. The defenses that had started to go up around my heart at his probing questions softened and backed down with that look.
“You can tell me anything, Orchid. I promise to not judge. I promise to listen as best I can. To help you however I can.”
“That means a lot,” I whispered.
“You mean everything,” he whispered back and I dropped my forehead carefully to his, wrapped in the comfort and security of this moment.
“I’ve never talked about Kyle. To anyone. Not even Linny,” I whispered.
“You loved him,” Stoker said matter-of-factly. “His death hurt you, deeply. I can’t imagine what you went through, seeing him die like that.”
I dropped my eyes to his chin, not wanting to look him in the eyes when I made my confession.
“I still love him, at least, a part of me does. I still loved him despite what he did. I know he’s a monster, so loving him even after he killed all of those people, for me… what does that make me?”
He tipped my chin and my eyes flicked to his. “A better fucking person than the rest of the human stain on this fucking planet, babe. To love unconditionally like that is a rare feat. It makes you strong, not weak. It makes you an unbelievably amazing woman.”
“I guess.” I swallowed hard, my throat growing thick with emotion. “I guess I’m afraid to love like that again.”
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “I get that. I really do, and I’m here to tell you, you ain’t gotta love me like that. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give, Little Orchid. I’m here for whatever you need, and I’m all good with whatever you’re able to give me. Moment by moment, minute by minute, mile by mile.”
I nodded carefully, my eyes leaking, and he smiled at me, pressing my head back to his chest. I sighed out, a shuddering breath, and closed my eyes, listening to his even breathing. Then he started to sing, low and softly, and it was a soothing sound, bittersweet like dark chocolate, a song I’d never heard before, but it didn’t matter. I lay quiet in his arms and just listened as he smoothly sang me to sleep.
The next morning, I faced the day with trepidation. My hands trembled as I buttoned my swimsuit’s cover up and Stoker watched me from the edge of the bed.
“C’mere,” he said, low and gentle. I went to him and he unbuttoned what I just buttoned and said with a faint smile, “You missed a button, you were all crooked.”
“Oh,” I stammered out a nervous laugh.
“Talk to me, baby. I’m right here, and I can’t help with whatever it is if I’m not in on what you’ve got going on in there.”
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br /> “Oh, you know.” I feigned lightness. “Just epically humiliated about losing my shit and about to go out there and face everybody. No getting around it, but it’s only like – the worst.”
I swallowed hard and he swept my face with his gaze and probed at the smarting wound gently with, “Remind you of high school?”
I let out a shaky breath and said, “How did you guess?”
“I hate to admit it, but I was one of those fucking shits. Picked on other kids to make myself feel better. More powerful. Was just hiding my own pain and passing it on from my old man. He was kind of a dick. We get along okay, now. Mostly because we got states between us.” He sighed.
I shook my head. “I can’t believe you were ever as bad as some of the bullies in my school,” I murmured.
“I don’t know,” he said ruefully. “I was a pretty fuckin’ miserable shit. I know that now.”
“And therein lies the difference,” I murmured. “You changed. You wanted to change. I still run into one of my tormentors from time to time and they’re still just as cruel, just as shitty as they were back then. Maybe even worse since…” I trailed off. I had only just wrestled it back into its vault, and I couldn’t be sure I had the door secured all the way. At least not yet.
“Let me tell you something, Little Orchid,” he drawled finally. I cocked my head and considered him as he continued, “Most of the people out there? They had it rough comin’ up. One way or the other. Some of ‘em, not so much, but they ended up going through some serious shit. Everybody we got outside that door is some kind of broken from something. Each and every one of them have lived through something or other embarrassing. Every one of ‘em have either shown their ass at one time or another or had a meltdown like yours.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I asked with another nervous giggle. I wiped my sweating palms off on my cover-up against my thighs.
“It is,” he said solemnly. “Maybe I’m just going about it the wrong way. The point is, they ain’t got any room to talk where you’re concerned and if any of them do, I’ll either dredge something out into the light of day to embarrass the shit out of them or barring that…” He raised his bruised and scraped fist and pumped it a couple of times lightly.