by Kat Ransom
She interrupts my rambling and takes my hand in hers, “What is it? You can tell me anything, you know that.”
Oh, if only I knew that.
Those are just lovely words you hear in movies and read in books. In the real world, you do not get to say anything and be accepted for it. In the real world, there are consequences.
“Did you… do something?” She asks when I’ve been silent too long.
“No, sorry. I just... this is one thing I did not do, for a change.”
“If you didn’t do it, then I can’t be mad.”
I hope she remembers those words in the future.
“There’s no good way to say this. You know how my mom always said she hated me and resented me, didn’t want me?”
“Yes, and it’s her loss that she walked out of your life,” Emily tries to console me and look in my eyes, but I’m fixated on a bluebird on the wallpaper because staring at that ugly fucking thing is still better than what I might see if I look in Em’s eyes when I tell her this.
“It’s because Stan raped her. I’m the byproduct. That’s why she hates me, could never look at me. That’s why she left. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with it, Em, but the shame… I was afraid people could look at me and see the evil embedded in my genes, they could tell I was broken and came from violence. I was afraid if I ever had a son, he’d be a rapist, too. Just, so much fucking shame. It consumed me.”
On the plane, I had imagined I would feel the weight lifted off my shoulders when I finally released the words, but it’s the opposite. Because that’s just more silly shit that you hear about in movies.
Instead, I feel like the words are crushing down on me like a million pounds of shame trying to smash me through the earth’s crust. I’m not an idiot, I know I didn’t do the crime, and technically I shouldn’t feel ashamed.
But shame is not reasonable, logical, or kind. It is nagging and relentless, and it destroys you from the inside out. It is ever-present. It makes you listen to it, it makes you believe.
I need her to know I didn’t leave her because I wanted to. It sure as hell wasn’t anything she did. It was because I was filled with shame, and I allowed that to be exploited. It was my mistake and one I’ll live with forever, but never let happen again.
The room is so silent I can hear one of the dozen gilded antique clocks ticking as its pendulum swings.
“I’m not going to tell you I’m sorry, because I’m not sorry you’re here or that you exist, and you’re not looking for pity,” she says softly, her thumb rubbing small circles over my palm.
I dare a glance at her out of the corner of my eye, and she’s not crying or running away screaming.
“I wish you would have told me, of course,” she continues, “but only so I could have told you sooner that it would never change how I feel about you. This doesn’t define you, Cole.”
“I mean, it pretty much does, though. It’s the foundation of my very existence.”
“That’s just not true. Stan is a god-awful piece of shit, and I would never minimize your feelings, but I also won’t sit here and let you believe this somehow makes you defective or damaged.”
“I tried to get Kristy to press charges, looked up the statute of limitations. I offered to pay for an attorney or go with her to the police. She just laughed at me.”
Emily moves off the bed and kneels before me, making me look at her. “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes, see what I see.”
“I could say the same, gorgeous girl.”
She curves her lips up and nods, “You’re right. I’ll do a better job of believing you if you’ll try to believe me. Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?”
“I don’t know, do I?” I grin at her, try to lighten the mood a little because I’ve had years to process this. I've had years of mental coaching, and years to make peace with the facts, as much possible. My only remaining fear was that Emily would look at me differently.
But she isn’t looking at me differently, because that’s the kind of girl Emily is. She’ll criticize and beat the hell out of herself, but never anyone else.
“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. You have no idea the resiliency and strength you have inside. You’re kind and generous, you’re funny and sweet. I know that you’d protect me with your life. You’re the first person I’d pick in any emergency situation, take with on a deserted island. You love unconditionally. You’ve worked your ass off to get to where you are.”
“You’re getting carried away,” I haul her up off the ancient rug—god only knows what its seen in its time—and she straddles my lap.
“I know the bad stuff is easier to believe, but you are a good man, Cole.”
God, when she looks me in the eyes like this, she makes me want to believe it. She makes me want to be that.
“You know, when we were teenagers, I used to feel guilty.” Her hands run through my hair. I can’t fathom what she ever had to feel guilty about.
“I would whine and complain about my parents, my problems, and all the while I knew you were dealing with bigger issues, real problems.”
“Your problems were just as real.”
“And that’s exactly what you would do. Be selfless.” Emily leans in and kisses me, her soft lips finally shoving those weights off my chest.
“Do you really not feel any different about me?”
“If I were allowed to tell you that I love you, I would tell you it only makes me love you more.”
“You’re not allowed yet, though. I still have several years of wooing to make up for, and this rancid hotel set me back at least two months.”
Sliding my hands up her legs, barely clad in thin little black leggings, I cup her ass and pull her over my thighs.
“Can I show you instead?” She waggles her eyebrows at me and then pulls her shirt off over her head.
Like I’m going to say no to that.
Sometimes words aren’t needed, sometimes you can speak louder with your mouth closed. Now is one of those times, so I answer Em by dropping my mouth to the valley of her breasts and sweeping kisses along the soft curves.
She tastes like honey and resurrection and all the things that make life worth living.
“Know what else I see when I look at you?”
The way she’s biting my earlobe and sucking on my neck, she could say I have three eyes and four arms, and I’d still take it as gospel.
“The man who’s going to fuck you into next week?” I say around a perfect, rosy nipple I’ve just liberated from its lacy prison.
“I see the sexiest man on the planet, the one every other guy in my life has failed to live up to. The one who ruins all my panties because I am constantly soaked for him.”
My fingers dig into her deeper when her breath tickles my ear, and then she scrapes her teeth against my jaw.
“Do you know how badly I want you? All the time? How much I need to feel you inside of me? How much I love it when you take control, throw me down, and fuck me hard?”
Her throaty voice, the way she’s grinding against me, sends every ounce of blood in my body straight to my dick. Unsnapping her bra, I fling it aside and start to pull her leggings down her hips when she stands up and puts a hand on my chest.
“Get naked, Ballentine,” she orders as she starts peeling her leggings down.
Fuck, I can see how wet she is when she loops her thumbs into her panties and slides them off. Her bare lips are glistening with it.
“Bring that beautiful pussy over here,” I tap my chin, lift the hem of my shirt over my shoulders, and toss it aside.
Emily gives me a look that’s oddly challenging, but equally seductive and devious. She turns and sits on my lap with her back to me. My hands instinctively cup her tits, run up and down the gentle curves of her hips, as she grinds her ass against my cock.
“God, you’re beautiful,” I kiss up and down her spine.
Wars were fought over women with just a fra
ction of what Emily has.
She moves her hair off one shoulder and tilts her head back to me, “You make me feel beautiful.”
Cupping her chin and bringing it to me, I drive my tongue into her mouth and slide my other hand down her body and between her thighs, her wetness coating my fingers. “You’re dripping, baby.”
“All for you,” she turns around and pushes me down onto the mattress, then climbs over me, her hard nipples dragging against my abs and chest as she moves seductively back and forth down my body.
Every synapse in my brain is pleading with me to flip Emily over and drive into her. But watching her filled with confidence, licking up and down my torso, peppering hot kisses on my cock through my jeans, is intoxicating.
Unbuttoning and unzipping me, Emily tugs my jeans, and I raise my hips so she can pull them off. My cock springs free, and I stroke myself a few times, up and down, while Emily stands before me watching, eyes blazing, and her chest expanding with deep breaths.
“Let me feel how tight you are,” I eye her and motion for her to sink that gorgeous wetness down onto me.
She shakes her head, “Come and take it.”
Ah, cat and mouse time again. But this is different.
I know what she’s doing to me and why she’s doing it right now. By the way that she’s staring back at me, daring me, she’s caught on that I’ve caught on.
I raise an eyebrow.
“You want this, Cole, you’re going to have to take it. You’re going to have to believe me when I tell you I want you.”
It’s not that I don’t believe her. I just needed to be sure, leave no margin for error.
Emily’s my outlier, my exception. She’s not another one night stand with a mutual agenda, practically drawn into a contract that made it crystal clear. After I learned how I came into this world, what evil lies in my genes, I needed the extra green-light from her.
I did want things to be perfect, I wasn’t lying when I told her that—but the thought of hurting her, in any way, is unbearable. Better safe than sorry, it was easy to let her set the pace, take what she needed.
“I’m gonna come by myself if you don’t hurry up,” she taunts, fingers circling over her clit.
“Don’t you dare,” I growl.
“You have baggage, I have baggage. You are not the big bad wolf. I’m telling you I want you, and I don’t ever want to be treated like a fragile little princess ever again. Make me hurt for you, Cole.”
If Emily wants to throw down the gauntlet, we’ll throw down the motherfucking gauntlet.
Rising from the bed, I prowl to her and take her chin in my hand. I stare down at her chocolate eyes, feel the heat swirling between our naked bodies.
“I won’t settle for pieces of you, Cole.”
“You want all of me?” I move her hand to my dick, hard enough to drive nails through walls, and she wraps her hand around the base.
Her eyes narrow, she squeezes me harder, “Every. Inch.”
There is no denying the lustful haze in her eyes, the pulse I can see move across her chest and through her veins.
“Then bend over and hold on, baby,” I spin her around and push her down over an antique dressing table with gold mirror in the corner. She waits patiently, slowly dipping her fingers in and out of herself, panting, while I find a condom in my wallet and slip it over myself.
She grips the sides of the table as I run my hands down her back, along her perfect, smooth ass that’s arched up for me, “I need you, hurry.”
“Spread your legs.”
Like a good girl, she does exactly that. She breathes out soft moans and whimpers when I run my hand through her wetness, spread it all over her pussy and up to her ass.
She lifts her head and watches me in the mirror with swollen lips and lust filling her eyes. Her tongue moves along her bottom lip before she pulls it into her mouth. I hold her hips, line up my cock, and drive into her in one swift thrust.
She lets out a cry and grips the dresser tighter as it slams into the wall over and over.
“You like to be fucked hard, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she pants, “more.”
Gripping her hips and pulling her into me, her body quakes and her movements become jerky, but she doesn’t relent. She gives as good as she takes, rising up on her toes to try and meet each thrust.
I don’t know what’s a better view, watching my cock slide into her tight, hot pussy and come out glistening with her wetness, or the look in her eyes as she watches me in the mirror and pants, whimpers, utters muddled sounds.
“Oh god, don’t stop,” she puts a hand up against the mirror her head is slamming into.
“God’s not here, gorgeous girl.”
Bending over her frame, I kiss along her spine and taste her salty skin. Moving a hand between us to her ass, I run my thumb between her cheeks and circle it around her tight, puckered hole. Pushing just past the surface, I rotate my thumb inside her and watch her closely in the mirror.
Her face twists in pleasure and her tight walls clench down on my cock. “Oh my god, that feels so good,” she presses her ass further back into my hand. I rotate my hips and grind my cock deep inside her, hitting that spot I know makes her scream.
As hard as I can push into her, she pushes back. She’s squeezing and strangling me, swallowing me up and begging for more. My thighs burn as we slam into one another over and over and groans arise from deep inside my diaphragm.
“Keep going, Cole.”
Leaning over her, I take her earlobe between my teeth, run my tongue around the soft skin, “Did you give this ass to anyone else?”
“No,” she whimpers, “oh, Jesus, don’t stop, I’m so close.”
I know she is, I can feel every tremor and spasm as she clenches down on my dick.
“Come for me, then I’m going to fuck this tight, virgin ass,” I stand back up and give it to Emily as hard as she’s begging me to give it to her. The table may have survived the last ice age, but its days are numbered as it slams into the plaster, and the spindly, decorative legs start loosening and slanting.
“You want that?” I push my thumb in further and watch her muscles contract, sweat roll off her back.
“Yes, yes, please,” she begs.
“Then, fucking, come, for me,” I thrust my pelvis into her with everything I have. Emily brings the house down with an ear-piercing scream, her palms slapping the wall, then fists gripping the table, desperate for an anchor as she flies through her orgasm.
Her walls milking me, I let her ride out every spasm and quiver as she screams my name, then slowly pull out.
“Keep that ass up,” I tell her, give her a stinging smack on one gorgeous ass-cheek, and grab a bottle off the bureau. Had I been more prepared, I would have brought lube, but this will work nicely too.
“Get back over here and make good on your threats,” she wiggles her ass and taunts me.
“Such an impatient dirty girl,” I slap her other ass cheek, and she moans in satisfaction.
The liquid hits her skin as I drizzle it down her crack and spread it around. “Olive oil?” She watches me in the mirror.
“Extra virgin,” I grin down at her.
I line myself up and wrap an arm around her waist, work her clit, and kiss her neck until I feel her relax enough to push the head of my dick inside that tight ring.
She gasps and holds onto the table, her body melding with it.
“Relax, baby.”
She unclenches, and I push slowly, so slowly. Her body gives in underneath me, her muscles softening in surrender.
“Holy shit, more,” she pushes back, but I press a hand to her lower back to keep her still. Olive oil or not, I’m not a small guy, and I’m not going to let her impale herself. Emily likes pain, but the good kind. I’ll give her all of that, the kind that makes her scream for me, but no real hurt.
Gently, I move back and forth against her, a little more each time, and her moans pick up.
“Jesus
fuck, Em, you feel so good.” There’s so much pressure in my balls I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up with her clamping down on me and making those soft, desperate whimpers.
Her hips are writhing and jerking as I fill her up and keep circling her clit with my fingers. “More,” she begs.
Sinking all the way in, throwing my held to the ceiling and groaning, I slide in and out, deeper and deeper until my balls are up against her skin. Her head is pushed up against the mirror, exquisite pleasure written on her face.
“Just like that, yes, oh, Cole, I’m gonna come.”
Her tight channel tries to strangle my cock. A gush of cream hits my fingers between her folds when another orgasm builds in her.
“Come with me, gorgeous girl.”
Sweat trickles between us and mixes with the oil until we’re sliding skin on skin. Every muscle in her body goes taut and shakes like there’s an electric rod between us. She cries out for me, amidst every four-letter word and deity name her brain can muster.
Driving the table damn near through the wall, heat and boiling tension rocket down my spine, through my balls, and I’m coming in hot ropes inside her.
“Fuck,” I roar, and I expect the mirror to shatter from the cries Emily lets loose with me.
She goes limp, the table taking her full body weight and half of mine as I lay my torso over her back. And then the fucking thing does give out, two of its legs caving in and sending the table, and us to the floor.
“I hope that was a reproduction,” Emily laughs, “or you just bought yourself a very expensive, busted antique table.”
Twenty
Five Years & Many Days Ago - London
Cole
“You have to stop calling her. Leave her alone.”
My blood boils, my fists clench. I want to send this phone through the drywall. “You don’t get it, I will never leave her alone. Give it up.”
“You listen to me. If you love her, you will stay away from her. She is miserable! She’s lost all kinds of weight, she can’t even eat without throwing up. She has bags under her eyes and cries herself to sleep every night!”
