The Truth About Us

by Megan D. Martin

  I knew I took a big risk going over to his apartment that night. I ran the chance of running into Evie, of being caught, of hurting myself more than I already had. Yet so far I’d had no regrets. Not a single one. We hadn’t talked, not about anything of substance. Our text messages back and forth consisted of meeting times and locations where fucking would take place. There was no awkward interlude afterward, there didn’t need to be – we weren’t a couple or long lost lovers anymore. We were just two people feeding off our most basic animal instincts, using our bodies for pleasure and nothing more.

  “So tell me about the bright side of things.” Stacie smiled at me. “Is his name Owen? Did you finally seal the deal with him?”

  “Owen?” I repeated his name, glancing over at the counter where, hopefully, our drinks would appear soon. “No.” I had Owen at Steel Mechanics, Inc. He started work for me just a few days after the concert, but other than that, we hadn’t seen each other outside of the job. He still texted me – he’d been wanting to know what I was thinking, feeling after that night at the concert. I wished I had a decent answer for him, especially because he really seemed like a good guy. But I just didn’t have one. I couldn’t come right out and say, ‘Thanks for defending my honor, but less than two hours after you punched Tyler in the face, I was licking the blood off his wounds on the floor of his apartment.’ No, that didn’t sound like an appropriate response, no matter how true it was.

  “Why not? I thought he seemed really cool.”

  I shrugged. “He’s a good guy, but I just don’t know if he’s the right guy.”

  Stacie scoffed. “Are you kidding, girl? Who said anything about the right guy? Haven’t you heard that I’ve been saying? You need Mr. Right Now.”

  Well, little do you know…

  “You know what your Mr. Right is out there doing right now?”

  I blinked at her.

  “He’s out there fucking some chick, getting his rocks off on her tits or some shit, Rowan.”

  “Stacie!” I crinkled my nose at her and giggled.

  “I’m being for real, Rowan. You don’t need to be sitting around and waiting for some magical man to just show up and sweep you off your feet. You need to stay out there in the thick of it, and have fun! You deserve that fun, more than anyone I know.”

  “Stacie! Rowan!” A barista called, setting our drinks down on the counter.

  “I’ll grab them,” Stacie said.

  I watched her walk across the store to the counter while I considered her words. She would be so pissed at me if she knew the truth, which was why I hadn’t told her. It also made it more fun, more dirty, to keep this secret.

  “Here you go. I don’t know how you can drink that caramel crap, it’s too sweet for me.” She sat my drink down in front of me. “Are you going to take my advice and text Owen?” she asked after taking a long drink from her straw.

  The buzz of my phone in my pocket distracted me.

  Tyler: Meet me in ten behind the old Waltom Mill?

  I glanced up at Stacie, trying to mask the surprise on my face. I’d already seen Tyler this morning before work. He’d stopped at my apartment for a quickie.

  “Who is it?” She leaned forward, but I pushed my phone back in my pocket.

  “It’s Darren, at work. There’s some sort of problem. I need to go and figure it out.”

  Stacie stared at me and I didn’t miss the disbelief in her features.

  I shook my head. “I didn’t know my dad had so many responsibilities. I mean, I knew he worked hard to keep the business afloat, but I didn’t know just how much time and work it would be. I see why he brewed his own coffee.” I shook the cup in my hand. “He didn’t have time for coffee breaks at Starbucks.”

  A wave of understanding washed over Stacie’s face. “No worries, you go take care of it. Maybe tonight we could have a girl’s night in and watch a chick flick.”

  I nodded and waved on my way out. “That sounds amazing.”

  But not as amazing as where I was headed.

  ***

  A few minutes later I pulled in behind the old Waltom Mill, hardly making it down the sparse and overgrown driveway. It was on the outskirts of the city, where the rural, open fields began. The mill was a place Tyler and I used to come with friends in the middle of the night to scare ourselves. Since it had been abandoned for at least fifty years, the old building was dilapidated and filled with all sorts of varmints. I’d never stopped here in the middle of the day, with the sun shining bright overhead. I fiddled with my sunglasses as I stepped out of my car. Tyler hopped out of his at the same time.

  He didn’t say anything, just moved toward the back entrance. I followed. My pulse quickened in my veins. Excitement had thrummed through me from the moment I got his text. In fact, excitement had been riveted inside me since the moment I’d texted him after the concert. Sweet anticipation pressed at the inside of my skin. We’d been fucking a lot these last three weeks, but this was the first time we’d met up twice in one day.

  The inside of the mill smelled of mildew and sawdust, the ground covered in what appeared to be broken machines. The sun filtered in through cracks in the wooden exterior and large holes in the ceiling.

  “You wanted to get dirty this time, huh?” I cocked an eyebrow at him as I unbuttoned my shirt. His locked onto my movements.

  “It’s always dirty when it’s us.” He stepped toward me and replaced my fingers with his, unbuttoning faster. When he had them all loose, he unsnapped the front hook on my bra, freeing them under his gaze. He leaned in, taking one nipple into his mouth. He sucked hard, so hard I squealed at the mixture of pleasure and pain. “This morning wasn’t enough.”

  My mind wandered back there, to when I answered the door completely naked at six-thirty this morning. He’d moved quickly, losing his pants, his erection stiff and ready for me. We’d fucked on my couch with me sitting on his lap, his face buried between my breasts. There’d been no kissing, no playing around – just fucking until we both cried out in pleasure a few minutes later.

  He pulled my other nipple into his mouth, clamping his teeth down on the sensitive flesh. I cried out again, pressing my hips forward. Through my black pencil skirt I could feel his erection, stiff and ready for me.

  “Fuck.” He moaned against my nipple.

  “Yeah, that’s what I wanna do too.” I rubbed my hips against him, knowing my panties had to be completely soaked.

  Tyler pushed up my skirt, letting out a growl when he saw the black lace of my thong. “Turn around,” he demanded.

  I liked it like this, him demanding and me complying. I turned around and put my hands against the wall. I heard the tear of the condom package behind me, my hips pressed backward in anticipation, ready for him to fill me. He obliged quickly, pressing into me hard and fast. There was no slow languor of a lover, no tender caresses. Fast, hard, and dirty. That’s what we were each time we’d come together recently. We were a mess of desperation to reach the next orgasm. Needy for more pleasure, to ring every single drop out of the other until there was nothing left.

  Even when we’d been a couple it hadn’t been like this. Tyler was a giver and so was I. We’d always spent a lot of time in foreplay, teasing and tantalizing one another until we just couldn’t stand it anymore. I didn’t know fast and dirty could be just as good – maybe even better, without all the complications of feelings, what-ifs, and one days. The simplicity of this made it that much better.

  Tyler pumped into me quickly, my hands pressed against the old wood, splinters digging into my palms as I sought to hold my grip, but I didn’t care. It made it that much more intense.

  “You feel so fucking good.” His words were harsh, deep, gravelly behind me, his big hands clamped hard on my hips. The harder he fucked me, the more my hands hurt and the closer I got to my orgasm.

  “I’m gonna come…” The words slipped out of my mouth as the pressure built in my pussy, the pleasure and pain overwhelming everything until it hit me a
ll once, erupting inside me like a long dormant volcano.

  “Fuck.” Tyler followed me into bliss a few seconds later, his movements jerky and off tempo as he exploded inside me. He slowed once he was finished, but he didn’t completely stop moving, as he if he wanted the bliss to last longer. I was in the same boat. Nothing else existed in those few moments of utter perfection.

  “Hey, what are you kids doing in here?” The voice of a stranger shoved us out of our reverie. Across the mill in the doorway of the front entrance stood an older man with a cane. He wore an old trucker hat and frowned in our direction.

  “Shit.” Tyler jerked out of me and yanked his pants up.

  “This is private property!” He shouted as we hurriedly moved, adjusting our clothes while making a beeline for the back door.

  We burst through the door while the man yelled more things after us. I didn’t wait around to hear what else he had to say. By the time we reached our cars we were both smiling. I caught Tyler’s gaze as I slid into the driver’s seat of mine. A panicked smile covered his face. I was immediately reminded of being a teenager and making out with my high school boyfriend behind the house late one night while Dad was sleeping. The kisses weren’t great and neither was the guy, but the excitement of it, the fear of getting caught had been exhilarating. Dad never caught us, not like this.

  I was an adult now – Tyler and I both were – but this teenage feeling of being dirty, of getting caught, of running from trouble, it was a high like I’d never really experienced. As I sped away from the Waltom Mill, kicking up dust. I laughed, letting my mouth spread wide, the sound emanating loudly from it. It was the first time I could remember laughing in a long time. It felt good.

  Rowan held my hand as I unlocked our apartment door. Tonight had been one for the books – literally. Rowan had shown up at work right at five, completely surprising me, to convince me to leave early so we could have a date night. I’d been trying to get some time for just the two of us for months now. She never seemed interested, especially last week, when I’d come home to find her crying. But today she wore a blue dress with floral prints on it – probably my most favorite dress she owned.

  We’d gone to dinner at my favorite restaurant. She hadn’t been completely present – not in the way she used to be – but she seemed happier, in a better mood. I drank in every single moment of it. I hoped this was the start of a turn-around in our relationship. I had spoken to everyone I could think of for advice, including Vic and her dad, George. Vic had said, predictably, that I should just dump her and move on with my life – not helpful. George had insisted that she was just having a mood, something her mom had done. He seemed confident she would snap out of it. I’d hoped that was true, though her mom wasn’t around anymore, which made me even more nervous.

  George had insinuated that the two were similar when I spoke with him about the proposal, but at the time, I couldn’t believe it. Now, since things had really started to fall apart, I wasn’t so sure. Tonight, however, proved that things could get better, that she could be happy. My Rowan was in there, down beneath that strange sad mask she wore. I just had to find her and pull her back.

  I expected we would take to the couch and watch TV, but Rowan clasped my hand hard and pulled me toward our bedroom.

  “I want you to make love to me, Tyler.” She watched me now, meeting my gaze fully, unwaveringly, in a way she hadn’t in months. She pushed at the straps of her dress until they slipped off her shoulders, the material fluttering to the ground, leaving only her strapless bra and panties.

  We hadn’t had sex in a long time, at least not intimate sex. The few times we had, it was with her facing away with me, acting almost uninterested in the process – though not completely, at least not for the few moments of the orgasm she tried to hide from me.

  “Make love?” My voice was like gravel, deep, rumbling in my chest.

  She nodded, looking almost uncertain for a moment.

  “That’s all I’ve wanted to do for so long.” I pressed my body against hers, cupping her face. I kissed her, and she kissed me back. Her lips and tongue fervent, desperate, as if she had wanted this all along too. She gave into me, pliant and soft, the Rowan I knew. The Rowan I loved.

  Soon we were both naked on the bed, my fingers rubbing the wet pad of her clit until she was panting, practically begging for more. I was so fucking hard I was about to explode against her hip.

  I leaned away and reached for my nightstand.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  I frowned and turned back to her. “I was just going to grab a condom.”

  “I don’t want you to.” Her eyes peered up at me, pleading almost.

  “But –”

  “I want to feel you, for real, all of you. Skin to skin. Please.” Her words were desperate, and I couldn’t help the effect they had on me. My cock hardened even more, a feat I thought impossible. To be inside her, no barriers, no walls, just Rowan and me.

  “You’re sure?” But I was already climbing on top of her when I spoke the words.

  “Yes.”

  I slid into her slowly, watching her eyes as pleasure filled them. I wondered if they mirrored mine, if she could tell how much I loved her, how badly I wanted her like this forever.

  Time passed as we moved together, our bodies writhing, me desperately trying not to lose it before she came. Luckily I made it, with her pussy clenching around my cock, desperately trying to milk it for every last drop. I moved to pull out quickly, but her hand on my waist stopped me.

  “Finish inside me.” Her words were a demand. Under normal circumstances I would have said no. We were already risking it without a condom, but as it was, I was on the edge of explosive pleasure, and the love of my life was all but begging me to ride the waves of that pleasure inside her. Before I could make any sort of decision, my cock twitched, bliss shooting up my back and through my balls, deep inside her pussy.

  It was a kind of decadence like I’d never felt in my life. I’d never had sex with anyone without a condom, much less cum inside them. When it was over, I stayed inside her. I didn’t want to pull out. I didn’t want this moment to end, ever. Instead I leaned down and kissed her with all the passion and love I had in my heart, body, and soul. I hoped she could feel it. She kissed me back with as much fervor, her arms snaking around my neck.

  If I could have, I would have stayed there, like that, our bodies intertwined with no barriers, for all of eternity.

  I blew out a quick breath as I locked up the shop behind me. It’d been a long, busy day, so busy I hadn’t even had time to take a lunch break, something I’d grown accustomed to sharing with Rowan. We didn’t ever do much eating at these lunch meetings. It shouldn’t have mattered, though. I’d been with her this morning in her apartment. It had become almost a ritual for us. When this all started a little over a month ago, we’d been meeting up sporadically and not every day, but things had changed now. Every morning before work I stopped by her apartment and almost every day for lunch we would find some secluded spot.

  One would think that such consistency would take the fun and excitement out of this forbidden physical relationship we had struck up – but it hadn’t. Even now, I was ready to see her, to be inside her again.

  “Tyler?” I turned around slowly at the sound of Evie’s voice. She stood just behind me, wearing her workout clothes.

  “Hey.” I struggled to give her a half smile. I’d been avoiding her. It wasn’t intentional at first, but as the days went on, and the more sex I had with Rowan, the more I avoided Evie’s calls and texts. She hadn’t slept over since before the concert. I hadn’t been inside her since this thing with Rowan started.

  “I needed to see you.” She moved forward, standing just a few feet away from me. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

  “I haven’t.” Busted.

  “Really, Tyler? I’m not an idiot. We went from spending every day together to barely seeing each other for weeks.”

  I shrugged
and moved toward my car. I didn’t want to deal with this, with her, right now. I just wanted to text Rowan and fuck her brains out. That’s all.

  “Are you kidding me? You’re just going to shrug like that’s not the truth?”

  “I’ve just been busy, Evie. That’s all.” I glanced at her when I reached my car. She had followed closely behind, her hands on her hips.

  “Too busy to see me.” When she said me her hands fluttered up and down her body like she was a trophy on display.

  “I’m sorry.” I unlocked my car.

  “Really? Cause you don’t sound very sorry.” She pressed her hand against mine when I attempted to open the driver’s side door. “Do you know how many guys would kill to call me theirs?”

  I glanced up, meeting her determined, light blue gaze. I could remember the first time I saw her. I’d been at the dentist to get a cleaning. She was the administrative assistant at the front desk, with her blonde hair and tan skin. I had been intrigued when she flirted with me, winking once she checked me in. I hadn’t been with anyone since Rowan, my heart still a bloody pulp in my chest. There had been something about Evie that was comforting, perhaps it was her transparency. Rowan had always been a riddle I was desperate to solve, but Evie, even on that first day – I could see right through her. She was simple, uncomplicated. She was high-maintenance and bitchy, but I knew those things from the moment I laid eyes on her. No surprises there. I needed that – I wanted that. Something simple.