by Jo Raven
“God fuck, do you ever shut up?” He’s wild-eyed, panting, looking confused as heck.
“Make me,” I whisper, smiling.
He groans as if my words have snapped the last thread of his self-control, but instead of snarling or hitting me—not that I really expected him to hit me, he never has, not even during his bullying days—he pushes and crushes me against the tree trunk. The folded clothes and his boots fall from my hands, heedlessly scattering on the ground among the weeds.
And then his mouth lands on mine, hard and demanding and angry, kissing the hell out of me.
I gasp in shock and he takes ruthlessly advantage to shove his tongue between my lips and lick the inside of my mouth, drawing broken moans from my throat. My arms find their way around his neck, holding on tight as he molds his long, hard body against mine, lighting up every nerve ending I own, smothering my misgivings. Answering some more questions without speaking a word.
He kisses me until we’re both panting for breath, his hard-on digging painfully into my stomach, my boobs aching where they’re mashed to his chest, my nipples tight. I look up into blue eyes that have gone dark with desire and pain, and my heart gives a single sharp thud.
“Ross...” I’m trying to gather my thoughts, the feel of his strength and arousal leaning into me scattering them. “I just... I wanted...”
“Stay the night, Lu.”
I nod, bite into my lower lip, hoping the sting will wake me from the daze his kiss has put me into.
“Let’s go to the house. It’s getting dark.”
I sigh when he draws away, his warmth leaving me, and collects his stuff from the ground. I walk beside him, and when he reaches for my hand, I slip my fingers into his, finally working out what I wanted to say as the house appears among the trees.
“Ross, I’ll keep pushing,” I warn him. “I won’t give up.”
“Fine. Guess I can’t stop you,” he mutters.
He could, if he wanted. He could push me off completely, send me away, revert to the thug he used to be, not teasing, not defending himself but hurting others to feel better.
But there’s something like relief in his eyes, because... what? I’ll make him open up to me? Spill all his secrets? Is it really so hard for him to tell me?
It seems it is. Lord knows what that bastard of a father of his instilled into him, what macho codes of manly honor. I swear to God, I’ll break through that faulty mold, smash right through it, and find the man within.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ross
As we make it back to the house, a dark feeling crushes my chest. I didn’t want to snap at her. Didn’t mean to push her away again.
I can’t believe she’s still here. That she’s not pissed off, yelling at me, walking away. Isn’t that the way it works? Anyone daring to come near me sooner or later gives up.
I tug her along, into the house, letting the screen swing closed behind us, then press her against the wall, to keep her from leaving.
Even if she isn’t showing any signs of wanting to.
This girl confuses the hell out of me. She refuses to react in the way I expect, the way I’m used to—from her, from everyone.
She smiles at me, gazing back at me steadily, those pretty eyes expectant. What does she want from me? How can I give her whatever it is? She should have pushed me away long ago, hell, she should have never showed up at the garage, should have let me fall.
Not so long ago, when I couldn’t get a reprieve from the dark, I’d take others down with me. Make them hurt, like I hurt. Their pain mirroring mine, mimicking mine. Taking mine away. Like my dad did with my mom, and with me, and with all his children.
But it didn’t work then, and it doesn’t fucking work now.
Why the hell doesn’t it ever work?
Why does her smile feel so damn right?
Trapping her with my arms, my hands flat on the paneled wall on either side of her head, I let my gaze roam over her, force the thoughts back inside their steel box in the back of my mind. Who cares? Who gives a flying fuck why she’s still here, why she makes me feel so weird, so good? The memory of her pussy around my cock is enough.
She’s here. I need her. I can’t remember why her seeing my scars is so important anymore, but I keep my T-shirt on anyway. I don’t need to undress.
The only clothes that have to go are the ones on her, hiding those full curves, that creamy skin, those hard nipples, that dark place between her legs.
Hauling her off the wall, I walk her backward to the sofa and shove her down on it. She lands on her back with an “oof” of surprise, and I’m already on her, undressing her, ripping seams and little buttons and not giving a damn.
“Ross...”
“I want you.”
“Okay, but...”
“Now.”
There’s thunder in my ears, my blood rushing way too fast. Somewhere in my mind I keep waiting for her to push me off her, to slap me, hit me, knee me in the crotch. It doesn’t happen and when her hands trail up to my face, I glance up and find her eyes half-closed and that damn faint smile on her lips that drives me to distraction.
“Yes,” she whispers, and it takes me a moment to understand she’s answering my demand, treating it like a question.
Because I’d never force her... Fuck, no, I wouldn’t. What the fuck’s wrong with me? But by then her hands have fallen away and she’s helping me undo the clasp of her bra, and the need is back, full force, overriding all other thought.
I have a moment of confusion until I realize her undies are wet from the stream because she used them as an impromptu swimsuit, and fuck, wet undies are even harder to take off than dry ones.
Finally, finally, the bra comes off, spilling her round tits, and the damn panties are off, torn on one side, and I fling them away, not caring where they land, burying my face between her legs to smell her, taste her. She yelps, then moans when I spread her open and lick at her, again and again, tasting her.
Candies and cream and aroused girl.
It gets my dick so hard I can’t fucking stand it and have to push down on it before I come on the spot. I lash at her tight little clit with my tongue and she squirms, trying to close her thighs, moaning brokenly. I lick lower, stab my tongue into her pussy and she pants, her legs trembling, her scent of arousal growing stronger.
Lifting my head, I grin at her, lick at my lips, and the flush on her cheeks turns a darker shade. She opens her mouth to say something and I pounce, crushing our lips together. She wraps her legs around my hips and it breaks the last of my crumbling control.
Grabbing my cock, I push into her.
Jesus, damn. I groan, helpless to stop the sound from tearing my throat up, the pleasure of just sinking into her blowing my fucking mind to smithereens. She’s so soft, so tight, so damn hot. Bending over her, I roll my hips, sinking deeper, and she arches up, her hands on my biceps, her mouth open and eyes wide.
“Okay?” I make myself ask, distantly recognizing that foreplay was a joke, and that she deserves someone taking their time to get her ready, give her an orgasm or two before the actual fucking happened.
But she only moans and rocks her hips and whispers, “More.”
This girl... She’s spoiling me for any other, and I refuse to look more closely at why. Couldn’t if my goddamn life depended on it when I’m buried in her body, in her tight pussy, and it’s not deep enough.
Never enough, with her.
Doing a little push-up over her, I thrust in and out, starting a rhythm, the pressure coiling in my gut, tighter and tighter, my control fraying more with every movement. Looking down at her pink cheeks, the closing eyes, that soft mouth, I get that feeling again, the one that sends me floundering into unknown territory, and I falter.
Bowing my head, closing my eyes, I try to sink back into my body, into the physical sensations, running away from the tangle of emotions I can’t quite grasp. I buck my hips and rock faster, pounding into her, biting back groans at th
e tight heat, the pleasure. Escaping, closing my mind to it all. Hiding inside her, letting the pleasure wash me away, erase me, forget it all, put it away for now.
I don’t wanna think about who I am, what to do, what I did wrong and how I should fix it. How to keep this girl who brings out these strange feelings in me. Whose smile turns the world so bright.
Heat is building in the small of my back, spreading through to my hips, shooting into my dick and balls. Yeah, this is more like it, this pure explosion of the senses, erasing everything else—everything but the girl underneath me. She burns like the sun, her soft cries and moans sending flares of fire through my veins. The need to come is frying my synapses, but first... yeah, she comes first.
Always.
It wasn’t like that before, hell, never. I’m an asshole, I never really cared about other chicks, and goddammit, I’m back in that confused spot again. I grab one of her legs, lift it higher, fuck her harder to get it out of my system. Whatever it is.
She comes with a cry, clenching like a vise around my cock, and I choke back a howl as my orgasm slams into me, melting my mind, finally snuffing out the weird-ass thoughts and feelings, plunging me into white light.
***
I’m wandering a dark place, with the sound of water trickling, branches of trees closing overhead like a roof. It’s like a temple, I think, a weird-ass gothic church, and when I glance up, I swear I see black skulls lined up in arches, grinning down at me.
I walk faster, but somehow my strides are too slow, as if my feet are dragging in molasses. Plus, I’m smaller, just a kid and as I emerge from the cover of the trees, I know where I am.
The shed.
I stop, my blood going ice cold. Dad is there, larger than life, a giant of a man, swinging an ax. It glints in milky moonlight, leaving a trail of red on the air, red petals.
Red blood drops.
I crouch down, try to hide. Other things glint in the night, strewn on the black earth. A silver swan. A pair of green stone earrings. A pair of green eyes.
The eyes blink at me.
I blink back. Of all the treasures, that’s the greatest, and as I lean forward to see them better, I realize it’s a girl—whole, naked, lying curled on the ground. Her eyes are open, looking right at me, into me, and a smile plays on her lips. She’s beautiful. Innocent. Perfect. Green grass starts to grow around her pale form, swaying in a breeze I can’t feel. I reach for her but can’t touch her, no matter how I strain. Out of reach. Too far away.
She blinks and her gaze is kind and warm and bright—but then the ax hits the ground, shaking it. A roar rises in the air, cracks open into chasms, and I can’t keep to my feet. I fall on my back, staring up at the swirling stars.
Voices close in on me, snarling, sneering faces gathering over me. “Why don’t you give up, Ross? What the hell are you waiting for? Aren’t you tired of being so damn lonely?”
And the ax is in my hand.
I come awake with a gasp, scrambling up to a sitting position, the ax still shining in my mind. I actually have to look down at my hand, clench and unclench my fingers, before I realize I’m not holding anything, let alone the instrument that Dad used to kill...
To kill Mom.
Fuck. Why was I... why the hell was I holding...?
We’ve fallen asleep on the sofa, its smell musty, mingling with the scent of sex, and when I turn, I almost fall off in my hurry. I grab the door, opening, faintly hearing behind me Luna calling my name, and then I’m out, in the dark, barely making it to the porch rail before I bend over it and lose my dinner.
Or whatever it was I last ate.
What the fuck’s wrong with my head, what’s up with these goddamn dreams, huh? I never killed anyone. That was Dad. I’m not... I’m not...
“Ross? You all right?” She rubs her hands up and down her arms, and I want to touch her, but my breaths are unsteady, same as my legs. “Bad dreams?”
“I’m okay,” I say automatically.
“You can tell me about them. It might help you calm down, get back to sleep.”
I don’t wanna calm down. I stumble away from her, go down the steps. I remember the girl curled on the green grass, her eyes the same shade. Kind. Her eyes were kind—just like they are now—and I can’t take it.
“You must fight it,” she says after me, and damn if she doesn’t follow me.
“I can’t,” I tell her, my voice hoarse and raw.
“You can. For me.”
I don’t even know what we’re talking about, I only know she’s asking too much from a loser like me. The dream has really fucking thrown me off. As I walk and stagger in the dark, toward the stream, I still can’t decide what was real and what not: the trees, the sky, the earth... the girl. They’re the same as in my dream, confusing me.
I only need some time, some fresh air to clear my mind. I think she’s fallen behind, let me go—so I start when she appears beside me and takes my hand, matching my steps, her smaller fingers wrapped tight around mine.
We stop when the stream appears, as black and studded with stars as the sky it reflects, a river of molten glass, a mirror of my dreams.
My breath goes out in a rush. “Fuck, I don’t wanna...”
“You don’t want what?”
“Don’t want to become like him.”
“Who?”
I swallow hard. “Dad.”
“Then don’t. Choose a different path.”
She makes it sound so easy. “All the paths seem to lead back here.”
“To the river?”
“To the past.”
She’s quiet. Then she lifts my hand and brushes her lips over my knuckles. I almost jerk my hand away, not expecting that, and she shoots me a sideways look and a smile.
I tug my hand away and she tugs it back. “I was wrong,” she says quietly.
“About what?”
“Actions are good, but words are also important when spoken from the heart.”
“That so?” But I leave my hand in hers, fighting something I can’t name. Words are important...and they get stuck in my throat. What if I told her about the dreams, about my time in jail, about the voices in my memory, in my head, tugging me the other way. The same damn voices that spoke to me that day on the garage roof.
“You’re not a quitter, Ross,” and I swear she can see inside my mind, read my thoughts, or else why the hell would she be saying this?
“How would you know?”
“I know you.”
“Lu—”
“I know you, Ross Jones. At least... I’m starting to. And that much I do know. You’re a fighter. So fight.”
Her words sink into me like sparks of a bright flame, warming me on their way down to my fucking soul, down to the hole in my chest where my heart should be, burning me.
Branding me. Pushing me to understand. Maybe I do.
In the night, under the stars, I don’t need to ask what I’ll be fighting for. It doesn’t matter. It all has to do with her, the strength of her hand in mine, the lingering feel of her lips on my knuckles. I’ll fight for her. I’ll fight for life.
And one day, maybe, I’ll even fight for me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Luna
The mosquitos are the ones that finally convince us to head back. Picking our way in the dark, using the puddles of fading moonlight like stepping stones, we return to the house.
It’s a testament to how shaken Ross is from the nightmares that woke him up at this ungodly hour that when I say “finally home!” as we climb on the porch, he doesn’t correct me to say it’s not his home, only his dad’s house. We stumble together inside and this time we walk into his bedroom and fall on his bed and musty sheets.
Ew.
But I’m too wrung-out to care, especially when he rolls on his back and pulls me against him, growling softly when I hesitate, not satisfied until I’ve rested my head on his shoulder and thrown a leg over his, hopelessly tangled up together.
“Yea
h,” he breathes, and I can hear a faint smile in his voice. He likes this, I think with a sort of faint wonder, tinged with exhaustion.
I like it, too. “Ross...”
“Sorry,” he whispers. “For... for earlier.”
“You need to work on your anger management.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What if we had a code word we can use in such cases...”
“Code word.” He says the words like he’s never heard them before in his life.
“Yeah, code word. Safe word. Whatever. For when you get like that. If you seem to get angry and nasty for no reason, I will say, I don’t know... pineapple. And then you’ll know you’re doing it, and try to stop.”
A silence greets my words, and when I replay them in my mind, I frown. At least I didn’t call him an asshole, I guess.
“Pineapple,” he whispers, and I swear he sounds like he’s about to laugh or choke.
“You don’t like it?” I stick my tongue out to him, and his breath goes out in a little snort. “What’s your favorite fruit?”
“Uh...dunno. Oranges? I’m not big on fruit.”
“What do you like to eat, then?”
A shrug of his broad shoulders that I can feel. “Burgers. Pizza. Waffles. Pancakes.”
“Or right... how about that, then?”
“Burger?”
“Pancakes. As a code.”
“You seriously suggesting that?”
“Yup. What have you got to lose, huh? Except get more pissed at me.” A shiver courses through me at the thought, and in response, his hold on me tightens.
“I’d never hurt you, Lu.”
“Not physically,” I mutter, and bite my lip, but it’s too late.
Words keep slipping out of my big mouth today. I blame the tiredness.
“Fuck,” he breathes.
“Look—”
“I won’t hurt you, Luna. I swear. And if I do... then you can call me every name under the sun. You can yell “pancakes”, too, if you want. You’re right, I have nothing left to lose. Not if the other option is driving you away.”
That’s... sweet, I think, as my brain, in the process of shutting down for sleep, puzzles over this statement, teasing the meaning out. He doesn’t want to lose... me.
