by Lena Bourne
“That little shit is lying,” Colt says. “I paid for a whole week.”
“You thought I’d stay here with you for a week?” I ask, and it’s possibly not the most on-point thing to ask about, but it touched me.
“I hoped,” he says, his voice kinda trailing off into the vast distance separating us. “But you’re free to go wherever you want.”
What the hell is up with this guy? When we’re together, or talking like we are now, our connection is palpable, so doubtlessly real it might as well be a physical thing I can touch. But when he’s gone, all that is just a dream, less than a dream, a wisp of smoke I’m not even sure I saw.
“But if you stay and wait for me, I’ll make it worth your time,” he says, chuckling again. It’s a quieter, defeated sort of chuckle though.
I’ve said yes to so many things that turned bad in my life. Things that almost cost me my life.
What would I be saying yes to now?
Something you’ve never had. A tiny, faint voice that speaks from near my heart is saying.
“I’ll wait,” I whisper.
“Yeah?” he says. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
Is he trying to say I made a bad choice? His voice is excited like a kid’s though, so that can’t be it.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“All right, good, cool,” he says, smiling so wide, I can hear it. “So, whatcha wearing?”
I laugh this time, a tinkling, sweet sound that surprises me because I’ve never heard it come out of my mouth before.
“You sure you want to know?” I ask teasingly. “Being so far away and unable to come here?”
“Yeah, I really want to know,” he says hoarsely.
“Nothing at all,” I reply, and it’s not even a lie.
“Wow,” he exhales more than says. “What I’d do to you if I was there.”
“What? Tell me,” I say with one foot already in that dream-like reality only he can transport me to. So why not let him? It’s better than any reality I can remember living.
“I’d kiss you first, of course, because your lips are sweeter than cherries,” he says, making my lips actually tingle.
“Then I’d kiss your neck, right where you like it, on the spot right over your heartbeat. You moan like a kitten when I do that.” I don’t think any guy I’ve been with has ever been this attentive to what I like. Sure, some of them made me feel very good, but there’s always been a disconnect, never the kind of connection I feel with this guy even now, through the phone. If this isn’t real, then I don’t want real. I want this.
“And your hands? What are they doing?” I ask breathlessly.
“Touching you perfect, milky skin,” he says like my question was the dumbest.
“Your neck tastes good, but your nipples are better. Are they hard now?” he asks breathlessly.
I pinch the right one, moaning as I sigh out a, “Yes.”
“And your pussy, is it wet?” he asks.
I shiver as bring my fingers across my clit. “For you, always.”
He chuckles in a very satisfied way. “Then I’d glide my hand down your belly and rub your pussy to make it even wetter. I’d slide my finger in while rubbing your clit in slow circles until your moaning and writhing told me you were ready for more.”
“I’m ready for more,” I sigh, as I rub myself in tune with his words.
“Then I’d slide my cock in, slowly, making you feel every inch,” he says.
“Yes, please,” I say, doing it with my fingers, and it’s almost the same as the real thing.
“I’d take you slow at first, playing with your nipples and kiss you deep while sliding my cock in and out of your soft, wet pussy.”
I sigh and moan as I stroke myself, with my eyes closed and my mind focused only on what he’s saying I can feel him inside me, feel his weight on me and his mouth in mine, his fingers playing with my nipples.
“You like that, don’t you?” he asks.
“Yes, but I wish you were really here,” I say.
“Now that you’re good and ready, I’d start thrusting into you faster and deeper, as deep as you go, just as you like it.” He’s breathing hard now too, hoarsely, his jagged breaths matching mine as I bring myself closer and closer to an orgasm his words and his voice are building up inside me.
“You’re close now, I can hear it,” he says. “So I keep thrusting into you just like that, deep and fast until you fall over the edge, moaning and writhing and trying to get away even as you beg me not to stop.”
I remember that more clearly than I felt it when it happened on that magical, dreamy night of pleasure we spent together.
“I’m coming,” I whisper as I do, his words and the image they painted all around me in the room, not just coming through the receiver into my ear. It’s like a soft blanket of pleasure covering me, inside and out as an orgasm washes over me—it’s not as strong as the ones he gives me, but it’s the next best thing and I’ll take it.
His breaths are jagged and fast as I come to enough to hear them again.
“Did you come too?” I ask.
“You betcha,” he says. “That was great. You were great.”
My brain is all fuzzy and I smile for a good couple of seconds before I realize he can’t see me.
“You’re great,” I say, and hear his chuckle trickle into me like the sweetest nectar.
I’m sleepy and warm and cozier than I’ve been in a long time. But I don’t want to sleep. I want to keep talking to him.
“So, when are you coming over to do all those things for real?” I ask.
He sighs, his breath once again under control. “As soon as I can.”
There’s a hard finality in his voice but regret too.
“What’s keeping you?” I ask.
“I can’t talk about it,” he says with the same hard edge, but then sighs. “And you’d rather not know.”
I know not to push him. I know he’d tell me if he could. It’s an instinctual kind of knowing, not something I can explain with logic.
“So what can you tell me?” I ask teasingly.
“What do you want to know?”
“Where are you from?”
“Originally, Nebraska,” he says. “But I live in California now.”
“Nebraska? I’ve never been there,” I say.
He chuckles. “Why would you want to go?”
“I always thought the name sounded so dreamlike, like a place from some fantasy world where life was easy and slow and simple.”
“It’s mostly just boring,” he says and chuckles. “Though I suppose it can be pretty, with all that sky and nothing but wide open roads.”
“I’d like to visit,” I say. “Will you take me?”
“We can go anywhere you like,” he says, and I sure as hell like hearing that. “Just as soon as I’m done with this thing, I gotta do.”
I like hearing that less, but I’ll take it. I’ll take anything that transports to this dreamy state of endless possibility that his voice and his promises, and his touch even more so, take me to. And keep me in.
“I’m gonna have to let you go now,” he whispers. “Sleep well.”
I want to argue, I want to keep him on the line, but he hangs up before I even come up with the words.
I feared the sleepy perfectness he took me to would fade once his voice was gone, but it’s not so. It’s still all around me as I drift off into a real dream, which I bet won’t be better than the dreamy reality only the two of us share.
13
Brenda
The receptionist kid admitted he lied about the room not being paid for and I put enough fear in him over that to get five more meals out of him for free, but I think even his sorry ass is gonna start rebelling against that arrangement soon.
It’s been four days since I’ve seen Colt.
We speak on the phone every day and my head is full of images of what he’d like to do with me. Images so clear they bring soft, tingling sensa
tions to all the spots I wish he were here to touch and caress. The pleasure they give when I help them along is very real too. As I know it is for him too. I know it from his jagged breathing and hoarse groans when I paint images in his head with my words describing what I’d like to do to him. I was at it at first, but I’m a damn near pro by now.
In the beginning, I thought the phone sex was pointless. What kind of purpose does talking about sex serve? A tiny bit of instant gratification that’s still miles away from the real thing.
But then something magical happened. At right about the third time we spoke, I started feeling wanted in the way I’ve never felt wanted before. And I’ve been feeling like that ever since.
Like I’m floating on a soft, fluffy cloud that’s actually his need and want and desire for me and only me. If he just wanted to get his dick wet, he’d be doing that with someone closer to him. Someone he doesn’t need to work so hard for.
My anticipation of the day, or night that we’ll be together again is so great and so thick, it’s exploding out of me all the time. I hardly think about anything else, just how much I need him, how much I want him to come here and make all those words we spoke into each other's ears reality.
A schoolgirl crush, that’s what this is. I think. I never got the chance to have one of those.
I just hope it’s not all only in my mind and as flimsy and insubstantial as the soft white clouds I’m floating on.
Colt
Cross has been sending guys out to try and gather info on what’s happening for the past four days. I am not one of them.
“He’s only sending those he knows can handle themselves,” Blaze informs me smugly as we’re smoking near the space where we park our bikes. He was sent out this afternoon, and I waited here for him to get back like a damn little kid. Then I had to wait some more while he went to make his report to Cross.
All that’s left of today’s sun is a bright yellow swipe across the horizon, and it’s growing colder by the second. Cicadas are making a goddam racket and I have no idea how enough of them can live in the sparse, dried-up bushes around here to make this much noise.
“I know I fucked up, you don’t have to keep reminding me,” I snap at him. “And for your information, I’d do exactly the same thing all over again.”
It’s not even a lie. Even just talking on the phone with Brenda—sometimes five times a day—feels more real than anything I’ve ever shared with a woman. Not that I’m not fucking aching to do all those things we just talk about to her for real.
It’s not just the sex talk either. I can tell her things, things even Blaze doesn’t know about me. And she was just telling me about her mom and her stepdad last night. I got the feeling she never told anyone that story yet, which includes me, since we were rudely interrupted by Blaze coming back from another VIP mission Cross sent me on. She didn’t take it up again today, saying it’s best left in the past, anyway. Everything I told her was best left in the past too, but I didn’t say that. Didn’t want to make her feel bad. I can’t even remember the last time I cared enough about a woman to care about how my words made her feel.
“So can you tell me anything about what’s happening?” I ask, not expecting a good answer, or even an answer of any kind, since he’s been very hush-hush about it. “Or when we’ll finally be free again?”
I’m not the only one wondering this. Most of the brothers who are locked in here day after day and told nothing are starting to ask it too. Not too loudly though, since no one really believes Cross isn’t looking out for all of us with his order to stay put.
Predictably, Blaze is just looking at me and shaking his head instead of answering. He shrugs and I shrug and then we go back to smoking in silence.
“You might use this downtime to reflect on things,” Blaze suggests with a smirk. “You’ve made a bunch of mistakes lately.”
“Hey, Colt!” Ace shouts, sticking his head out the main door of the bunker. “Come. Cross wants a word.”
I basically snap to attention and turn to start walking.
Blaze flashes me a worried look, the mocking smirk on his face replaced by what can only be described as a pained expression.
“Good luck,” he whispers to my back, making me wonder if I’ll need it, which is something I don’t need.
I was sure I had everything squared away with Cross. Sure, he kinda had me on some sort of probation, but now, as I make my way into the bunker on legs that feel like they’re made of stone, I’m not so sure I was right about that. Maybe he just didn’t have the time to deal with me and my transgressions until now.
“What’s this about?” I ask Ace once I catch up with him.
He gives me a sideways glance but keeps walking towards Cross’ office.
“I’ll let Cross tell you,” he says, and now I really don’t feel good.
But there’s nothing for it. There’s a time when the music must be faced and for me, it’s right now.
The door to Cross’ office is open and as I follow Ace inside, I see both Cross and Hawk, who is sitting on the edge of Cross’ desk look at me piercingly. I try not to swallow hard, but by now my paranoia about this summons has reached fever pitch and I think I know what men facing a firing squad feels like.
“What did you tell him, Ace?” Hawk asks. “He looks like he’s seen a ghost.”
That’s a kind way of putting it, since I’m sure I look like I just shat my pants.
“Nothing at all,” Ace says and leans on the wall by the open door, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’ll get right to the point,” Cross says. “We’re having trouble finding out what the fuck’s going on with the Sinners. And since I’d rather not stay cooped up here longer than we need to, I want to go at it a different way. Is that woman you saved from them still around?”
He looks at me, waiting for an answer, but the question was from so far out of left field even my thoughts aren’t forming into words. I don’t know what would actually come out of my mouth if I tried to speak. And the most prominent image in my mind is Brenda’s milky soft skin bathed in sunlight on an unmade motel bed. That’s how I left her the last time we spoke.
“It’s not a hard question,” Cross says.
“Yeah. Yeah, she’s still around,” I manage to say.
“Do you think she might know things about the Sinners? Inside things?” he asks. “Ace says she spent most of her time around them and that she was friendly with one of the President’s sons.”
I shrug. “She might. I know she hated them all.”
She’s told me a lot about how they treated her like garbage. But that was mostly the other women. The men ignored her, for the most part.
“Would she be willing to help us?” Cross asks. “Or at least answer some questions.”
“I can ask her,” I say, wishing I could give him a definitive yes on the subject.
“Go ask her,” Cross says. “Tell her I want to speak to her tomorrow morning. I’ll call with instructions.”
To me, that sounds like he wants to talk to her whether she agrees to or not, but thankfully I catch myself before pointing this out.
“I’ll get her to help us, don’t worry,” I say, turning slightly to leave right away before remembering I better wait to be dismissed.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Cross says. “You can go now.”
I think I detected a hint of a smirk in his voice as he said it, but that could just be my own reaction to this order.
Cross’ request is my wildest dream come true. I get to see her, I get to spend the night with her and make all the words we exchanged reality. What happens next is tomorrow’s problem.
14
Brenda
I went for a walk today to let the maid do her thing in the morning, and the sheets smell so wonderfully fresh now. The whole room does. She must’ve used some fancy detergent, because the smell of bleach is barely perceptible.
I burrowed into bed after taking a shower in the evening, usi
ng the new tiny bottles of shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner the maid also supplied. They smell of coconut with hardly any soap scent to go with it. Fresh and light. Like summertime.
Colt calling and telling me he’s coming over was just the perfect cherry on top of all those nice things.
But I didn’t fully believe he’d actually show up until he was in my arms in the open doorway of the motel room, his arms holding me tight and his lips pressed against mine. I had worried that it’d be awkward seeing him after all we’ve talked about on the phone, all the secrets we shared. But falling into his arms and offering my lips for him to kiss was as natural as taking a swim on a hot summer day. Fitting and perfect and the only thing that could happen.
We don’t stop kissing as he leads me backward towards the bed, and only then for only long enough to take off our clothes, which in my case is only a tank top and panties, while for him it’s a bit more involved. But even so, it takes barely a second for him to discard his t-shirt, boots, and jeans.
One of the things I missed during our phone conversations was the sight and feel of his hard, muscled body. I get my fill of it as I help him strip. I realized I missed this. But I also missed his smell, and the familiar scent of wind and road dust, mixed with the special musk that’s all him hits me like the best surprise once we’re both finally naked and ready to make a reality of all the words we shared.
His kisses cover every inch of me his lips can reach as he lays over me on the bed, his warm, hard body better than any blanket, more comfortable than any bed I’ve ever lain in.
Bubbles of pleasure erupt in me and pop with each kiss he lands on my neck, and chest and breasts, and nipples. I sigh as he lifts off me, taking away the comfort of his hard body, but the next second I’m moaning in pleasure again as his kisses find my belly, and then my clit, taking my air as the pops of pleasure turn to crackling explosions, each hotter, more dire, closer to the final. His tongue can do things to me no one else can. Speaking words or kissing, licking, biting, sucking my clit he pulls me to heights of bliss I’d be afraid to jump off if I didn’t know the landing would be an even bigger ecstasy. So I let go, I leap, the orgasm crackling through me like a string of explosions going off one after the other, drowning me in a pleasure that I need more than air.
