My Darling Arrow

by A. Kent, Saffron

  At least in his office there was a thrum of emotion sitting just under his skin. Here, he is completely emotionless.

  There’s even a whistle around his neck. Along with that big watch strapped to his wrist, he looks so freaking unapproachable and authoritative.

  Mindful of a few lingering students around the field, I step closer to him. He barely shows any reaction to that but I don’t get deterred. “Aren’t we gonna, like, talk about things?”

  His jaw moves then. “Does it involve soccer?”

  “Well, no. But –”

  “Then, no. We aren’t going to talk about things.”

  The sun is setting, and the sky is all burnt orange, illuminating the golden strands of his hair. I rub my fingers together, remembering the velvety feel of them.

  That gives me the encouragement to go on. “So what, I’m supposed to run around the field until you tell me to stop?”

  He gives me an inscrutable look. “That’s the idea.”

  “And you’ll watch me.”

  “I’ll watch you, yes.” He taps his watch with his finger. “Now get moving. We’re losing daylight.”

  I cock my head to the side and give him a small smile. “Fine. If you want me to run for you, I’ll run for you. And if you want to watch, you can. But let me tell you something, Coach, I’m not afraid to make a show out of it.” Then I lower my voice to a whisper. “For you.”

  And that’s what I do. I give him a show.

  I pump my bare legs and run around the field. I smile at him every time our eyes meet. And he watches me and that smile with a ticking jaw and narrowed eyes.

  And when we’re done, I untie my hair and shake it out. Because he likes me messy.

  I even stretch out my muscles for a few minutes.

  Once that’s done, I bend down slowly to collect all my things. All in front of him, all part of a show.

  I have no idea where I learned these things but I’m not going to stop myself now.

  “Thanks for the lesson,” I tell him when I walk over to his still-immobile and watching form all sweaty and flushed. “I think we really worked on my knees and my posture, don’t you? Can’t wait until you work on me more.”

  Okay, so maybe that last line was a little cheesy.

  But whatever.

  I never said I’m the goddess of seduction. I’m only Salem, a girl with witchy eyes and a witchy name. Not a witchy heart though.

  I ride the high of that win – and I do think it’s a win because his veins were bursting out of his tanned skin and his jugular was perpetually taut by the end of our session – until I find a note in my locker the next day.

  That was quite a show you put on for me yesterday. I’ll admit that I underestimated you. You looked really determined as you ran around the field, bouncing your little legs and working hard for me like you were interviewing for a job position.

  As tempting a candidate as you are, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline the offer of you spreading those legs for me and volunteering up your swollen and tight and pouty pussy for my pleasure.

  At this time, I’m looking for someone more experienced. Someone who doesn’t come just by riding my thigh and me playing with her nipples. Someone with an actual résumé of fucking. So I don’t have to waste my time teaching her basic skills such as how to suck my big, fat cock or how to ride it.

  Someone with whom I can skip to the part where I fuck all my frustrations out.

  Good luck, next time.

  I almost crumple his note when I finish it. I almost dash upstairs to his office and slap him in the face for being such an asshole.

  Throughout the day, his words echo in my head and they’re still echoing when I’m at the library with Poe, Callie and Wyn working on my trig homework. Maybe that’s why I miss Arrow walking down the aisle. But my girls don’t miss him.

  In fact, Poe even calls him over. “Hey, Coach. Fancy seeing you here.”

  My head’s bent and I was about to write something down on my notebook – though I can’t remember what – when I feel him walking up to our table in the corner.

  As soon as he reaches the desk, Callie bursts forth, “Are you looking for something in particular? A book, perhaps.”

  I am going to kill her, Callie and Poe both.

  “Maybe we can help you look,” Wyn says, and I add her to my list.

  I thought they were my friends. I thought they cared about me.

  In all fairness, they don’t know anything. As in, they don’t know his secrets – the fake injury and the cheating; and mine – that I’m in love with him.

  All they know is that I blush really hard when he comes around and disappear in bars when I see him standing in a corner. And sometimes I stare off into the distance for long periods of time.

  I still have my head down so I only have a view of his gray sneakers but I can imagine his expression, since that’s my thing now, when he says drily, “That’s a very kind offer. I never knew how helpful schoolgirls could be. But I think I can manage.”

  I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your offer of spreading your legs for me…

  Jerk. Asshole.

  Poe leans forward then. “Okay, real talk. I have no interest in soccer whatsoever. But I like you.”

  “And what’d I do to deserve that?” he drawls.

  “You helped our friend out last week,” Callie replies. “With those evil girls.”

  “Yeah, I don’t care about violence,” Wyn goes. “Because why make war when you can make art? But we really appreciated that. So thanks.”

  Oh yeah, they heard about that. They were all in the dorm when it happened and they were really impressed when I told them about it.

  He doesn’t say anything but I can feel him jerking his chin at them in all his arrogant glory and it makes me squirm in my seat. I’m about to look up and put an end to this charade when Poe goes again. “Well, since you’re so helpful, maybe you can help our girl out once again.”

  What?

  “Yeah. She sucks at math. And Miller’s starting to notice. Maybe you can talk to Miller about it?” Callie chirps sweetly.

  “Oh, and can you also teach her a little bit of trig, if you have the time?” Poe asks in her typical troublemaker voice.

  Wyn throws out a soft chuckle. “I second that.”

  I abandon all pretense of staring at the notebook then and look up. Only to find that his eyes are already on me.

  Dark blue and hot.

  But I ignore him for now and look at the girls. “I do not suck at trig.”

  Callie reaches forward and squeezes my hand in sympathy. “You so do.”

  “No,” I lie. “I like trig.”

  It’s Poe’s turn to squeeze my shoulder. “No, you don’t. Because nobody likes trig.”

  “You know –”

  “Is Miller giving you trouble?” he cuts me off then.

  Finally, I have to look at him and when I do I have to crumple the corner of my notebook because his eyes have gone completely black and he’s staring at me intimately.

  I glare at him. “No. She’s not.”

  He doesn’t like that, as evidenced by his sharp exhale. “I thought I told you to come to me if there was a problem.”

  God, he makes me so angry with his highhanded ways. Like he owns me or something. Like he wants to slay all my dragons and make all my problems go away.

  I tamp down the flutters it causes in my belly and how I want to clench my thighs at his dominating tone. “And I told you that I can handle myself.”

  Arrow goes silent as he stares down at me, all tall and authoritative, the globes of his biceps and shoulders bunched up and on display in his gym t-shirt.

  “Is that your trig homework?” He jerks his chin up.

  I bring the notebook closer to me as if hiding it from his view. “Yeah.”

  “I can teach you,” he offers.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The
y’re right. You do suck at trig.”

  And oh my God, I lose my shit.

  I completely lose it.

  I shut my notebook with a loud snap, so loud that even I flinch. “Thanks for the offer. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline. I don’t need your help.” I even stand up under his fiery eyes. “I don’t need you to teach me anything. I can learn everything by myself. In fact, I’m going to get started tonight. Learning things, I mean. The basic trigonometry skills. And by the time I’m done, I’m going to be so good at it that you’ll cry and curse at your fate that you ever offered to teach me anything.”

  Ignoring him and the tightly coiled and dark form of my sun, I turn to my girls who’re all looking at me with a mixture of amusement and awe. “I’m leaving. And you guys need to follow me so I can make a dramatic exit.”

  Which I do.

  I make a dramatic exit and my girls, like the sisters I never had, follow me.

  Hours later at midnight, they follow me to the bar too where I plan on getting educated, meaning I plan on finding a random guy and fucking him and getting rid of my stupid virginity.

  I know it’s an overly emotional reaction and I need to stop and think, which has all been said by my friends, but I’m too angry.

  I’m too upset and I’m too hurt.

  It hurts, okay?

  It hurts.

  It hurts that he’ll fuck anyone, any random girl that he finds at a bar, but me. It hurts that after all these years he finally sees me but still, I won’t hold his attention. He still doesn’t find me attractive enough to fuck me.

  I’m not asking him to love me, am I?

  I’m only asking him to use me, use my body, and he won’t even do that. And I’m too hurt and too much in love with him so I’ve lost my mind over it.

  That’s why I walk to the dance floor to find someone. Someone who’ll take my virginity and make me perfect for the guy I love.

  I don’t know why I want to cry though. I don’t know why I feel like throwing up.

  The song that’s playing is my favorite of all – “Born to Die” by Lana Del Rey – and my body is already writhing to it. I’m already twisting my hips, moving them in the shape of a figure eight, the way I did when I was chasing my orgasm on his thigh.

  I throw my hands up and dance to the slow rhythm of the song, to the lyrics. I dance when my eyes cry pretty tears that flow down my cheeks. I dance when I want my legs to give up and make me fall.

  At some point, a guy comes to dance next to me and my tears flow harder. He can’t see them though. It’s dark and he’s drunk.

  He’s perfect.

  He won’t even know that I’m a virgin, completely unfit for the love of my life.

  I’m about to ask him to take me somewhere equally dark, where he won’t be able to see my tears, and fuck me, when I feel someone at my back.

  Someone tall and strong and familiar.

  Someone whose chest is moving, punching my back in a haphazard rhythm. I can even hear his breaths in my ears, noisy and loud, agitated.

  He’s so warm that he flows like liquid heat in my veins.

  My Arrow.

  I close my eyes in relief and Lana’s voice explodes around me.

  He grabs my waist, his fingers digging into my flesh.

  A wave of heat grips me and I sigh.

  I’ve been feeling cold and shivery, but he makes it all go away when he pulls me into his body. His hard, hard body and oh my God, I feel it.

  I feel his erection at the small of my back and I can’t help but arch up against it, rub up against the heat radiating from it.

  He growls in my ear, his lips rubbing over my delicate shell, his hips shifting, pushing back. “Turn the fuck around.”

  I hiccup and do as he says.

  His features are shadowed by the rim of his baseball cap but I see the movement of his jaw when he notices my tears. He wipes them with his rough thumbs, his digits lingering around the area of my parted lips.

  “You’re coming with me,” he tells me.

  “Where are you taking me?” I whisper.

  “Where you belong.”

  My heart shrivels. “I’m not going back to St. Mary’s.”

  His eyes flash. “No, you’re not. Because you belong with me.”

  His motel room is gray and dull.

  That’s the first thing I notice when I step in.

  It’s also very clean and made up. Generic. With a desk under the window, a slim-backed chair, a chest with drawers by its side. Tons of weights stacked up in one corner. A door that probably leads to the bathroom.

  And a bed.

  I’m not looking at the bed yet for some strange reason. But from what I can gather from the corners of my eyes, it has crisp white sheets with a dark gray blanket on the foot.

  I walk in, my feet muffled on the gray carpet.

  Unlike my heartbeats.

  My heartbeats are loud. So very loud and I bet he can hear them.

  My Arrow.

  Who’s just stepped in after me and closed the door with a click.

  I feel that tiny click in my bare thighs.

  Well, I’m wearing a plaid skirt tonight that I borrowed from Poe. Up until he showed up at the bar, I was feeling cold even in his jacket.

  But not anymore.

  My thighs don’t feel cold at all. Not even when I was riding behind him and we were speeding down the highway, wind whipping against my flesh.

  In fact, they were hot.

  Like they are now.

  When I reach the opposite wall, I turn around and lean against it.

  Arrow is doing the same. He’s leaning against the door, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes on me.

  I press my thighs together. “There’s a lot of gray in this room.”

  My first words to him ever since we left the bar.

  He tips his chin, his stubbled, rough jaw catching the overhead light. “I like gray.”

  His first words to me after he said that I belonged with him.

  Biting my lip at the memory, I tell him, “Gray’s super dull.”

  “Unlike sunshine yellow.”

  I look at his hair then. It’s all messed up, strands falling over his arched brows.

  And I regret being so far away from him. Where I can’t smooth them away.

  I don’t know why I chose this spot to stand against when all I want – all I’ve ever wanted – is to be close to him.

  As it is, I dig my nails into my sweaty palms and shift on my feet, feeling the scrape of the wall on the backs of my thighs. “How’d you know I was at the bar?”

  “You wanted to learn things, yeah?” When I hesitantly nod, he murmurs, “It wasn’t hard to figure out where you’d go for that.”

  I clench my thighs again, getting sort of restless. “I thought you didn’t wanna waste your time on teaching me.”

  “I don’t,” he clips. “But I don’t want other guys teaching you either.”

  My breaths escalate.

  It’s such a guy thing to say – I don’t want you but I don’t want anyone else to have you either.

  And maybe because I’m such a girl, it starts up a quickening in my lower stomach. “Why not?”

  Something about what I said makes him move away from the door and I shiver in his jacket.

  His footsteps should be muffled like mine were but they aren’t. They’re loud and thudding. They pulse and vibrate.

  I feel all of that, the sound of his approach and the blazing look in his eyes, in between my legs. He pauses right before me and my lips part at how big he looks right now, big and tall and warm and I curl my toes in my soccer cleats, the old ones. Not the ones he bought me. I’m keeping those safe under my bed.

  “Because you’re my friend,” he replies in a rough tone, his eyes flickering down to my heaving chest before moving back up to my face.

  I don’t know which word he has emphasize
d more, my or friend. Which word sends a shock of current running down my spine, and I don’t even have the time for such nonsense because he leans over and puts a hand on the wall, just above my head, and whispers, “And only I get to teach things to you.”

  I swallow. “I’m –”

  “What’s this one called?”

  He doesn’t have to explain his question to me. I already know what he’s referring to. He’s looking at my painted lips.

  “C-cherry Picker,” I whisper.

  I actually went rogue on my usual color choice – dark and different shades of coral – and went with something super red, Wyn’s favorite.

  Arrow brings his free hand up and traces the bottom of my lip with his thumb. “Cherry Picker.”

  “I thought it suited the miserable occasion.”

  His thumb digs into the center of my lip and he forces my mouth to part, narrowing his eyes. “Were you going to let him pick your cherry?”

  I rake my nails up and down the wall as my pussy flutters at his possessive gesture. “I… I thought about it.”

  He almost mashes my lower lip with my teeth. “You did, huh.”

  “I mean, I –”

  “You thought about letting him tear through that little piece of flesh between your legs.” His hand moves down from my lips and he wraps his fingers around my throat. “You thought about bleeding on his cock. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  An intense spasm rolls through my channel at the graphic image he paints – my blood on his cock – and his possessive hold on me. “Arrow, please.”

  “Please what?” he whispers, his hand a hot brand on my throat. “Please don’t say things like that, Arrow? Or please don’t lose your shit thinking about that virgin pussy being violated by that drunk motherfucker? Or maybe…” He squeezes my throat and I’m almost off the ground, teetering on my tiptoes. “Or maybe don’t lock me up in this motel room, Arrow, and go hunting for him. Don’t think about beating the living shit out of that dumb fuck. Is that what you’re pleading for, Salem? Don’t kill him. The cherry picker you chose for yourself.”

  He can’t beat him up, can he?

  I mean, that’s what he got suspended for, beating someone up.

  Oh God, he can’t do that and I can’t let him.

  But still, my whole body is buzzing with his violent reaction. My whole body is ablaze with his possessiveness, his raw domination over me.