Quarantine and Cuffs

by Regina Wade

  I watch as she saunters over to my fridge. If she keeps strutting around my house like this, stretching out what I’ve got is not going to be a problem.

  Dahlia whisks open the refrigerator, no doubt intent on showing me all the things she can do with all the food I already have. I don’t think any episode of Chopped prepared her to work with a case of Natty Light, a bottle of yellow mustard, and one half of a drive-through burger, though.

  “Don’t look so glum, doll.” I go on before she can give me her thoughts on my bachelor fridge. “There’s nearly a whole pound of ground beef in the freezer, too. It’s not even six months old yet. How’s that for emergency preparedness?”

  The sigh she gives me in response is music to my ears.

  Maybe this quarantine won’t be so bad after all.

  3

  Dahlia

  She’s the best girl that I ever had. I fought the law and the law won. — The Clash, ‘I Fought the Law’

  Condensation drips off the mirror in Miles’ tiny bathroom. I took longer than I should have in the shower. The heat and water pressure are great in here. Better than I expected in a building this old, and definitely good enough to wash away the shame and mortification of having Miles overhear the conversation with my Dad once I finally got my phone charged up again.

  Most of the shame, anyway. I can still hear the anger and disappointment in my Dad’s voice when I let him know I was hunkering down with a strange cop for the quarantine.

  Miles had been sweet enough to pretend he hadn’t heard, despite sitting less than a foot away on the lumpy sofa. Just the thought of Officer Turner’s name is enough to make my cheeks burn bright in the steam around me. I’ve never seen anyone like him, outside of magazines and the kind of websites you make sure to clear out of your browser history.

  Not that I don’t always clear my history. You never know who’s watching.

  The man is tall in the way redwoods are tall. Massive, sturdy. Safe. I don’t know why I trust him, only that I do. His eyes are a soft, mossy green. Like spring outside the city. His chest is a barrel, stretching his uniform shirt tight across his huge pecs.

  I want to cover him in whipped cream and chocolate sauce and lick it off.

  My stomach rumbles loudly in the confines of the small space, reminding me that I haven’t eaten since before leaving my dorm room. The first time. Jeez, that feels like days ago now. I make quick work of drying off and throwing on the clothes Miles gave me to put on while my sweats dry.

  Because of course I left my clothes in the car on the side of the road. Hey, at least I didn’t tell Dad about that part, right?

  Or about the part where I accidentally got bleach on Miles’ uniform while attempting to disinfect it. He was a real pal about that, too.

  I’m still not entirely sure he isn’t considering driving me back out to the Shell station at the first available opportunity. If he does at least now I’ll have his clothes to remind me of him.

  The oversized tee-shirt I tug over my head smells like fabric softener and cedar chips and the same crisp scent of Miles’ cologne I remember from my first ride in a police cruiser. Feeling it this close to my skin makes me all warm and tingly inside.

  When I make my way back out to the kitchen, Miles is already stirring a pot. Two cold cans of beer sit on the small counter, next to a pile of napkins and two forks.

  “Hey doll. Hungry?”

  My fingers brush the short crop of wet hair back from my face. I’ve been happy with my pixie ever since I decided to chop all my hair off, and this is the first time in a while I find myself wishing for my old curtain of curls to hide behind.

  Something about Miles’ penetrating gaze and easy swagger makes me feel more seen than I ever have.

  “Ravenous,” I tell him.

  It’s true. I can’t remember ever being this hungry. Just watching him, looking too big for his own kitchen, is making me ache all over.

  “Is that—” I take a cautious sniff. “Flaming Hot Cheetos Ramen?”

  Miles whirls the pot around with a flourish.

  “Come on. Dig in. But no doomsday prepping at my table.”

  Hours later, I’ve learned a lot about Miles Turner. He’s from LA, he has a sister he’s worried about, he spent a summer working on a ranch in Texas, and his ego is as big as his biceps.

  “Truth or dare?” Miles tosses me another Natural Light.

  I catch it easily without getting up. From my position, lying on my back on the living room carpet, I can see out the window, just over the rooftops around us. Yellow moonlight fills the spaces in between the buildings.

  “Dare,” I reply much more confidently than I feel.

  I can’t remember the last time I had two beers in a single night, much less four. Hey, if ever an occasion calls for getting buzzed, I figure the beginning of the end of the world is it, right?

  “I dare you to eat the rest of your dinner.”

  Miles gestures to the half-empty pot sitting between us. The steam has mostly stopped rising from the unnaturally red noodles inside.

  “It’s not that bad,” I roll my eyes at him.

  It is, and we both know it.

  Miles is on the floor, too. His back is up against the couch, a thin white tee and pair of basketball shorts clinging to him in a way that makes me want to crawl over and curl up in his lap.

  “Truth, then.” I laugh after poking at the cold spicy noodles for a second.

  Miles laughs too, and I’m struck with how the sound rumbles through me. There’s a pause while he considers me from across the small space. Something shifts behind the mossy green of his eyes, like a light turning on, getting brighter.

  “How’d you lose your virginity?” Miles takes a long drink from his beer without unlocking his gaze from mine.

  Of all the Truth or Dare questions in all the quarantines in all the plagues in all the world. I had to walk into this one.

  Is this how spontaneous combustion happens?

  I feel the heat from the blush climb not just to my face, but up my neck and across my chest, too. The beer buzzes around my head in lazy circles.

  “Oh shit.” Miles laughs, but there’s something thick and heavy in Miles’ voice. “Looks like I’m in for one hell of a story.”

  “No.” I blurt it out quickly before I lose my nerve. “There is no story. Like, none, ya know?”

  Miles is quiet for so long I wonder if maybe he didn’t hear. Or worse, that he doesn’t know what I mean and I’m going to have to actually say it all out loud.

  “You’re a virgin.”

  His voice is so tight, so strained, that I snap my head up. There’s no more softness in his eyes now. Just a hunger that has nothing to do with dinner. Between my thighs, my pussy throbs, slick and wet in response.

  Fueled by need and emboldened by beer, I swing my legs under me and crawl towards him. It doesn’t take long before I’m straddling his outstretched legs.

  “Dahlia.” His voice is liquid sex. Part warning, part invitation.

  The obvious evidence of his hard cock in his shorts only spurs me on more.

  I don’t know who kisses who. I may have simply stumbled into him. All I know is one minute, I’m looking into his face, etching the memory there forever. The next Miles’ lips are on mine. It’s crushing, powerful. Not the weak, sloppy kisses of the boys from school. Not even the perfunctory, well-disciplined pecks from that one time I dated a professor for a week and a half.

  No, this is passionate and intense. Heated and primal and intense in every sense of the word. Miles’ hands are on me, moving across my body, working onto my hips until just the feel of his mouth on mine is enough to have me whimpering in need.

  It’s Miles who finally tears us apart. It has to be. I would have gladly drowned there forever.

  “We need to get you to bed, doll.” There’s something wild and barely restrained in his voice.

  “Will you come with me?” I ask.

  It takes him too long to re
ply.

  “Not tonight.”

  4

  Miles

  I bet there’s rich folks eating in a fancy dining car. They’re probably drinking coffee and smoking big cigars. — Johnny Cash, ‘Folsom Prison Blues’

  My hand reaches out in the dark. I drag my phone off the nightstand and swipe the alarm off, all without opening my eyes.

  The pale light of an early New York morning is already invading the living room. My bedroom had blackout curtains because I’m not the kind of person who can stay asleep once it’s light out.

  Unfortunately for me, my bedroom is occupied.

  You should have taken her up on her offer to share.

  I shake my head, disregarding the thought. I would never take advantage of anyone like that. No matter how much I suspected she’d be alright with it. No matter how much I wanted it.

  I swing my legs off the bed, sitting up. That’s all it takes for my body to fully wake up, and the presence of my hard cock registers. I’m no stranger to morning wood, but this is an intense, almost angry erection. Despite jerking off three times over the course of the night, it’s still ready to go at the mere thought of Dahlia’s luscious curves.

  I sigh, taking myself in my hands. Nothing else to do. I learned at a young age that once I get this hard, there’s only one way back to normal. The feeling of Dahlia’s lips on mine fills my thoughts as I work my hands up and down the length of my cock. Even after three recent orgasms, I can feel my heavy balls tightening, ready to release in mere moments.

  The thought of her pillowy lips stretching around the head of my cock makes me jerk even harder, quickly approaching the point of no return. I swear under my breath, working myself into a frenzied pace. Right as I feel myself tumbling headlong over the cliff of my climax, I hear a rustle.

  I freeze, but all that does is briefly delay the inevitable.

  Dahlia walks into the room, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “Miles, are you up ye— oh, fuck.” The sound of her voice, the sight of her only wearing one of my tee-shirts — even if it is baggy on her and swinging well past her hips — her wide eyes staring at my throbbing cock. It’s all too much.

  I come buckets, the slight delay only serving to make the detonation stronger than usual. Dahlia seems mesmerized, or horrified — I can’t read her well in the dim light. Either way, she doesn’t take her eyes off me as jet after jet of my thick cum jets straight up into the air and then splashes back down onto my abs.

  I stripped before sleeping on the sofa. I’d reasoned that so long as I woke up first and dressed before her, it would be fine. I’ve slept naked for close to a decade.

  I’m suddenly glad for it, because Dahlia’s eyes sweep over me, cataloging every inch. As my eyes adjust to the low light, I can make out her face. Flushed. Admiring. Turned on. The way she’s gnawing on her bottom lip makes my still throbbing cock twitch and begin to stiffen again.

  At least I don’t have to wash my shirt.

  The thought makes me snort out a laugh. That breaks the tension, Dahlia’s eyes slamming up into mine, widening even further, this time in horrified embarrassment.

  “Wow. Oh. Oh, god. I’m sorry. Uh. I’ll just go drown myself in your bathroom. Excuse me.”

  She flees before I can say anything.

  Not the way I’d planned on starting the first day of the apocalypse.

  The image of her eyes on my cum-stained stomach flits across my eyelids. There’d been hunger on her face.

  “Yeah, this isolation won’t be so bad after all.” I murmur to myself. I survey the damage — fuck, I look like a Jackson Pollack painting — and then shrug. No sense in cleaning up when I need a shower anyway.

  Dahlia doesn’t take long. She clears her throat before entering the living room this time. Her blush has faded, but it begins to seep back in almost immediately.

  “Sorry. You, uh. Surprised me. Can you put something on, though? Or, uh, towel off?”

  I shrug. “I’m just going to hop in the shower anyway.”

  Her eyes stay on mine the whole time I’m watching her face, but I tilt my head up to the ceiling as I stand up and stretch. It’s a little bit unfair, I know, but then again, this is my house. Plus, no one is making her look.

  Her chin is still perpendicular to the floor when I meet her eyes again, but her cheeks are burning bright red again. She seems to realize my teasing won’t stop until she pushes back because she steps into the living room as if it’s completely normal.

  “Alright, well. Don’t waste too much hot water. You never know when it’ll be shut off. What do you want for breakfast?”

  You in the shower with me, up against the wall, with your wet pussy sliding down on me.

  “Surprise me,” I say with a cocky grin as I walk by her. I take care not to even so much as breathe on her, but she still scurries past like I’m a venomous snake.

  Thoughts of Dahlia opening the door and joining me in the shower fill my mind and inspire my fifth jerk-off of the last twenty-four hours.

  If I keep this up, I’ll die of dehydration before the plague gets me.

  Despite my need for relief, I keep the shower short. Dahlia isn’t wrong about the hot water, but I also am wary of leaving her alone and unsupervised for too long. Given everything I’ve seen so far, it wouldn’t surprise me if she managed to start a fire boiling water.

  The thought shouldn’t make me smile, but it does. I normally find that sort of klutziness irritating, but with Dahlia, it’s just cute.

  I must be losing it.

  I wrap the towel tightly around my waist and make my way into the kitchen. There’s a surprisingly good smell wafting through the place.

  “What smells so yummy?” I ask by way of greeting.

  “Oh, I just made breakfast tacos. That meat you had defrosted. Mostly.” Dahlia turns her head to smile at me over her shoulder but remains frozen in place, her eyes darting all over my naked torso.

  I lean against the doorframe, giving her my best smug grin.

  “Good thing I can’t ever get enough taco in my mouth.”

  Her eyes, already wide, grow even bigger as she catches my innuendo. Flirting is another thing I never really engage in, but winding Dahlia up, seeing her blush? It’s addictive.

  “D-do you mind, uh, putting a shirt on?” She twists her head back around and begins working at the stove, stirring the meat.

  It takes me three strides to be standing right at her elbow, my mouth near her ear.

  “We’re going to be together for a while, doll. Might as well get used to seeing a bit of skin.” I pick a piece of paper up off of the table, something from her bag that I’d seen her consult yesterday.

  “What’s this?” I don’t bother trying to hide my curiosity.

  Dahlia’s incredibly flustered, entirely unsurprising given the night we had last night. It occurs to me that she might never have been this close to a half-naked man before, and against all odds I feel my cock stir again beneath my towel.

  “It’s my spreadsheet. Well, as close as I could manage. It’s hard to get everything symmetrical when you draw the grids by hand. I’m still working on it, but I’ve got today all sorted out!” She sounds so pleased with herself, so happy to be useful. It chips away at my heart a little, a flash of compassion quelling my lust momentarily.

  Not just a sexy doll, but a sweet one.

  “Hmm, let me see.” I snatch the page out of her hand, leaning back against the counter.

  Her breathing stops as I lean in close enough to feel the tickle of her short pixie cut against my lips.

  “We did things your way yesterday. Today, you’re going to do what I say,” I toss the paper onto the table. “There’s something we need to do before anything else.”

  The tension is as thick as my cock. Dahlia turns to lock eyes with me, and I almost drown in the oceans of her gorgeous baby blues. Her tongue flicks out to wet her lips, impossibly pink, and I have to stifle a groan at the sight.

  “W
hat’s that?” She whispers.

  “Get high.” I grin as shock washes over her face. “As high as we can possibly get.”

  “I, uh, I’m not sure…” She trails off as I chuckle at her obvious discomfort.

  “Not drugs. Cop, remember? We’re going up to the roof.” I grab a taco and finish off half of it in one big bite. “Mmm. Good. Bring these up, will you?”

  Anger washes over her face, and then she’s slapping my shoulder with her spatula, pointing at the door.

  “Out! Go put a shirt on. You might be a cop but you’re such an ass, Miles.” There’s no hint of trepidation or nerves in her voice now. No awkwardness over last night. Good. Knowing I can break her out of her shell by winding her up is going to come in handy.

  “I think you mean that I have such an ass.” I toss the words over my shoulder as I walk away, pulling my towel off as I do, making sure she can see my backside in all its glory.

  “Get! Out!”

  5

  Dahlia

  I take it all back. Miles Turner is the most infuriating, egocentric jerk I’ve ever met in my entire life, cop or no.

  He’s also the sexiest, funniest, most charming guy I’ve ever even heard about. There’s something different about actually being alone in an apartment with a guy who looks like he could bench press me with one hand. It’s not at all like what you read about or see in a movie.

  “Hey, doll. Look over there, two rows down, third from the left.” Miles points in the general vicinity, and I obligingly swing the binoculars over.

  “Oh! Oh. Uh. They seem to be holding up well.” I stammer out as I catch a glimpse of a couple making out.

  “Should we say hello?” Miles asks. His voice taunts and teases. Ever since we woke up, Miles has been going at me non-stop.

  If only he’d gone at you all night non-stop.

  I ignore my utterly traitorous body and roll my eyes at the cocky cop beside me.