by Lucy Smoke
When I get her on the bed again, laying her down, almost at the same time her hands meet mine at the button of my jeans. I pull back, grinning. “You wanna undress me, Lovely?”
Her cheeks are flushed, eyes dilated. “I want you naked on top of me.”
My grin remains as I stand up fully instead of hunching over her. I put my hands on my sides. “Then why don’t you help me out a little, baby?”
She doesn’t even pause. Her fingers rip at the button on my jeans and she draws my zipper down carefully despite the fact that I can practically taste her need on my tongue. Her little hand grips my cock so good, I nearly come on the spot. “Shit,” I hiss through my teeth.
“Did you like it?” she asks, stroking me.
“Fuck yes,” I grunt as she leans over and licks the head. “Wait…you mean the lyrics?”
She pulls back, but my gaze zones in on the wet look of her lips. “Yeah.” The word escapes from her mouth like a secret.
“I did,” I tell her, and she descends again, opening those petal colored lips of hers and sucking me in deep. Closing my eyes and letting my hands find the back of her head, I relish in the feel of her warm mouth surrounding my cock. Love sucks me down at least halfway before she pauses. I give her the gentlest push on the back of her head – enough for her to know what I want, but not enough to force it on her.
Love pulls her head back slightly and then the next time she sucks me deep, she really sucks me deep. All the way. My Lovely keeps going until I can feel the back of her throat and god it’s fucking nirvana. I can almost see the fucking finish line. Her lips are wrapped around the base and I have to see. I have to open my eyes and see if—
“God, fuck!” She’s looking up at me. Twin orbs of jade green looking up at me as her lips stretch around my cock. She swallows, and I yank her off my cock as fast as I can and shove her back. She’s blinking by the time I kick away my jeans and crawl on top of her. Lifting one of her legs in the crook of my elbow – meeting the back of her knee – I settle between her thighs and push in again.
She gasps. “Fuck,” I repeat. Her nails score my back. “God-fucking-damn.” My cock bottoms out in her sweet pussy. “Shit.” She cries out when I reach down with my other palm and tweak her little clit. I push that button and then rub around in a clockwise motion. I love watching her writhe.
“Tax!” I close my eyes as she screams my name and I let myself fall. I let myself jump off the cliff with her and into the heaven that awaits us.
If I have to be lost, then at least I’m not alone.
22
Love
A phone is ringing. My phone.
My head feels heavy from sleep. I roll away from Tax and nearly off the side of my bed. The phone is still ringing. Reaching up, I feel around the bedside table and finally, my fingers hit the edge of the offensive device. Sometime in the night, Tax must have gotten up and retrieved it. I pull it back and flip it over, the bright screen assailing my eyes. I flinch and check the time first. 1:30am.
I would turn it back over and press ignore, but I see the name on the screen and my finger can’t hit the answer button fast enough.
“Trisha?” Sheets shift behind me as Tax sits up, rubbing a hand down his handsome face – over the dark shadow of his beard. He kisses my naked shoulder and wraps his arms around my middle as I listen to the sounds of heavy breathing on the other side of the line.
“Trish?” I try again.
More heavy breathing and then a short sob cuts off, icing the blood in my veins. The next words are a punch to my very soul. “He’s dead, Love.”
I stand up so abruptly that I inadvertently jerk away from Tax. The phone at my ear feels like it’s a bag of bricks, but by some unknown strength or maybe just pure will, I keep it pressed to my face.
“What happened?”
“I…I don’t even…Love…he’s not breathing.” I grab the closest thing, which just happens to be Tax’s discarded shirt. I pull it over my head, yanking my hand away long enough to get them into the sleeves before pressing the phone to my ear once more.
“Where are you?” I ask. “Are you at home?” I should have known something would happen. But I don’t have time to focus on that. Trish is falling apart. Her breaths are loud, and they echo throughout the room as I slam my phone on the desk and press speaker as I reach for a pair of my own jeans and jerk them up over my hips.
“The house,” she says, “I’m at the house.”
“Love?” I don’t realize Tax is behind me until I feel his hands on my shoulders. I spin around, realizing he, too, has pulled on pants. I shake my head.
“Call 911,” I say, nodding to his own phone laying on the floor. I give him the address to Lawrence and Trisha’s rental house and snatch up the phone again before pressing the speaker off. It doesn’t make her heavy breaths – shallow, panicky and full of so much pain – any quieter.
“What do I do?” she asks, sounding hollow and empty. It cuts me deep. I vaguely hear Tax behind me, relaying the address information to a 911 operator and requesting an ambulance. It will be too late. I trust Trisha’s words. Lawrence is probably dead.
“Just wait there, honey,” I hear myself saying. Thankful that my voice sounds stronger than I feel, I start searching for my keys. “I’m coming. I’ll be right there.”
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she whispers. “I don’t know why I called. I just…I knew you would understand. Love…why do I feel so dirty?”
If she had sliced my wrists and then reached up through my veins to grab my heart and squeeze, I think it would have hurt less. It’s at least a full minute before I can reply. A full minute in which I’m shaking as I stand in the doorway of my bedroom with my keys in my hand. I don’t even remember finding them. They are just there, all of a sudden, in my hand.
When I can finally speak, I’m not even sure where the words come from. But I know them to be true.
“You feel dirty because a dirty person has hurt you,” I say. “Because they’ve taken something from you, but it’s okay, Trish. You can get it back. I’ll help you. I love you more than my own life. Please don’t do anything. I’m coming for you. I’m coming.”
Tax’s hand on my arm makes me jerk and I glance down at the dark screen of my phone. I know it’s dead. Of course, it is, I didn’t charge it. Tears fall from my eyes, sliding down my face, dripping onto my collarbones.
“I can’t drive,” I whisper. My knees are shaking. I can’t even unclench my fist from the keys. Tax reaches down and gently removes them.
He pulls his keys out of his pocket. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you, Lovely. Let’s go.”
Desire makes people do dangerous things. It makes teenage boys crawl up the sides of houses into the bedrooms of teenage girls. It makes women and men alike obsess, covet, and claim the souls and hearts of others as their own. Desire is like a flame – always burning, even if sometimes subdued. An ember ever lit, it scorches a path across the lives of everyone who falls into its claws. Desire is destructive. Desire and hate, though…I wonder how different those two are or if they are different at all.
I don’t know what made Lawrence do what he did, but I know – as Tax flies through the streets in a t-shirt that smells like motor oil and dirt that he pulled from the backseat of his Jeep – I know I was right. He’d been hurting Trish. And she’d been lying about it.
I find I care less about the fact that he’s dead – he must be…because she said he was, or maybe I want him to be – and more about the fact that she didn’t think she could tell me.
“She called you.” One of Tax’s wide hands wrap around my cold fingers as he steers with his other. “She trusts you, Lovely.” Had he read my thoughts?
I slowly pull my hands away to wipe at the dried tears on my cheeks. “Can you drive faster?” I ask, choking on the words.
His eyes – dark, like falling into the eye of the universe – meet mine. Tax puts both hands on the steering wheel and then we’re flyi
ng. He weaves in and out of the minimal early morning traffic, speeds through red lights, and cuts corners until we’re pulling up to the brick-fronted house that I had been at just days before, dropping Trish off from the hospital. The Jeep stops so suddenly, that it skids before stilling against the curb.
I’m already out and running towards the front door. I throw it open just as I hear the sirens and wonder how we made it before they did. Blood is splattered across the living room rug. It’s ruined beyond repair. There’s nothing that can be done. It’s on the walls. On the coffee table. A flash of white draws my attention and as Tax’s shadow in the doorway clouds my vision when he steps inside, I move towards it.
Trisha is huddled against the wall, the white fabric of her t-shirt ripped on the side. Her gray sweat shorts are soaked in blood. I can tell she’s been sitting in it for a while. Her phone is laying on its face right next to a bloody kitchen knife. The blood marks on the floor are streaked as they move around and run onto the wood flooring of the rest of the house, and into the kitchen.
“Trish?” Even though I whisper her name, she jerks when she hears my voice.
Her hands go to her arms and they rub up and down as if – despite the warmth of the house – she’s freezing. “Love?” Red streaks line her arms now and I realize her hands are covered in blood. Tax moves quietly past us into the kitchen. I don’t stop him.
“I’m here, honey. The ambulance is on the way,” I say gently.
She shakes her head. “It’s too late.”
Though I’m feeling a bit callous, I refrain from saying that they aren’t going to be here for him. I don’t care about him. I don’t even want to see his damn body. Let him rot in this God forsaken house.
Red and Blue lights flood the front windows and spill into the living room, making the entire house and the situation feel surreal. When I sit next to Trisha, and her head falls on my shoulder, hot tears spilling over my borrowed shirt, I want to refuse myself even that much comfort. I shouldn’t be the one here with Trisha. I didn’t protect her. Tax returns just as two blue uniformed officers stop at the wide-open door. He nods them toward the kitchen before stooping to lift Trisha into his arms. She careens wildly, almost falling out of his grip.
“Don’t!” I urge her. “Don’t fight him, honey. It’s okay. You can trust him. It’s okay.”
“I can’t – I can’t! Please! Love!”
“He’s not going to hurt you,” I say quickly, grabbing her hand as I follow behind them.
Tax’s eyes are hard as he carries her outside. Two EMTs park and get out just as he steps into the yard. Tax carries Trish towards the back – she’s gripping his shirt tightly, eyes on me. The EMTs give her a blanket and check her over – even her arm.
The older EMT, a man that looks to be in his late forties with salt and pepper hair, heads inside as the younger of the two – a woman with a strawberry-blonde pony-tail and full cheeks stays with Trisha.
Another squad car pulls up behind the ambulance and two more officers get out. “Love,” Tax calls me over. I look away from Trisha. “Stay with your sister,” he says, “I’ll talk to them.”
I couldn’t pull myself from my sister’s grip even if I wanted to. “You know they’re going to want to question her anyway,” I say as quietly as I can.
His eyes move from me to her and they soften. He leans down and presses a quick kiss to my lips. “Let her be with her sister for a little longer,” he says against my mouth. “She needs you.”
As Tax walks away, I feel Trish’s hand – cold and streaked with dried blood – in my own. She needs me? I look down at her. Why would she need anyone who let this happen to her?
I breathe in the tension of the room as I crack open my eyes. My limbs feel heavy, like my bones are made of lead. I open my mouth and feel the cold air travel down to my lungs filling me with ice. Emotion feels like it’s crawling out – a boogeyman out of the imagined closet of skeletons in my mind to consume me once and for all. I hate it. I hate this. What have I done? What have I let happen?
“Love?” I look up, my leaden muscles protesting at the movement.
“Trish?”
Her face is pale and drawn. Her complexion is usually darker than mine – her love of the sun – but right now she could pass for a ghost. Her skin looks sallow, almost translucent, and there are deep bruises under her eyes. The cuts on her arms look shallow, but painful all the same. I don’t remember if there was any broken glass back at the house, but there must have been to cause those wounds. At least, that’s what they look like.
I stand up, and after a moment of being on my feet, I regain control of my body completely.
“Love,” she repeats, her face blanching.
I reach for her and her arms, even the one weighed down by the IV tube stretches for me. I crawl onto the bed and wrap myself around her as she sobs into my chest. Her tears soak the shirt that I still haven’t changed out of, though it’s been hours and she’s been in an out of consciousness for most of them. I could have left. I could have gone home to change and come back. Tax had called the guys and my car is waiting for me outside now.
Her tears make my mouth dry and my eyes ache to cry with her, but I remain with her, holding her. Silent. My eyes remain dry. For now. After a while, Trisha cries herself silent. She cries until the fabric on my shoulder and chest stick to my skin. I don’t move. I don’t speak. I don’t know what I would say if I could. How did we become so fucked up? It isn’t fair. It’s not fair that normal people get to go their entire lives without this shadow constantly on their backs like it clings to mine. It’s not fucking fair. I can feel the weight of my phone in my pocket. Feel the reminder of Anne’s cruel words. Danny’s texts are still there. And I’m a whore. There. I said it. I’m a fucking whore. I whored myself out for a place to live, and I let Danny do what he wanted with me. I’ve fucked so many people, I don’t remember half of them. The consequence of my actions is this. The inability to have anything good. I can’t have Trish. And I certainly can’t have Tax.
When I’m sure Trisha has fallen asleep, I climb off the bed and exit the room, slowly and quietly. I shut the door behind me.
“Love?” I turn around at the rough and tired voice. Tax is there, staring at me. He’s in the same clothes from the night before as well. “How is Trisha?”
“She’s asleep,” I say. Tax looks at me oddly when my words come out cold and emotionless. When I move to walk past him, his hand reaches for my arm. I sidestep him, avoiding the contact. Not because I don’t want him to touch me – I want it more than air. But I don’t deserve it. Yeah, he has pain and darkness, there’s no denying what I see in his gaze. But what’s festering inside of me is darker, grotesque. Maybe Danny is right. Maybe I should go back to where I belong. Maybe I should go back to being the girl I was before. Yes, that sounds better. That sounds safer. Just go back to being who I really am – fake, lifeless, and useless. I can’t be this girl that Tax made me anymore. I don’t want to be. It hurts too fucking much. I need to shove her down deep and lock her away somewhere where no one can ever find her or free her. I’ll kill her if I have to.
“Where are you going?” he demands, taking that same hand and shoving it in his pocket.
“For a walk,” I reply. “I just need to get away from here.” He continues to look at me as though I’ve sprouted an extra head. I stab my nails into my palms to keep them where they are. I shouldn’t touch him, shouldn’t reach out to him.
“Love—”
“I can’t,” I interrupt him. I can’t hear him say it. Whatever words that are about to spill out of his mouth. I know that they are going to make me feel better. They are going to be the lifeline to pull me back from this endless abyss I’m about to dive, head-first, into. I don’t want his comfort or his words. I don’t want him to save me. No one saves the whore. “I don’t want you to be here,” I snap. He blinks at me like I’ve slapped him.
“Love, we—” he begins again.
“�
��were nothing,” I finish, and his irritation rises. “We were fun. This is family, though, and I don’t need you. I don’t need you here, scaring my sister, and trying to take care of people who are none of your business.”
“None of my business?” he growls. Tax takes a step forward, his eyes darkening, mouth thinning. The edges of his full lips turn down and his jaw locks. Intense blue eyes stare at me. “None of my fucking business?” Another step forward. I move back. His voice is cold, and I feel like the ice forming between us is more of a wall than a bridge. Something too high to be climbed, too thick to be broken again.
“Yes.” For a moment, there’s a flicker in his eyes. I think he sees the little girl inside my head screaming for him to save her. She’s circling in her prison, crying, and begging for him to hear her. I shove her back down into her little hovel. She’s filthy and ragged and she doesn’t deserve to be set free. We deserve to be locked deep. Maybe I’ll call Danny today, and let him have her again. That would make her shut up. Hearing my thoughts, she whimpers in pain. I scowl at Tax.
“You. Are. None. Of. My. Business?” Furious rage boils underneath his surface. How can I push him over the edge? Get him to turn around and leave me? God, I don’t want to hurt him. But this has to end. It has to end somewhere.
“Do you need me to write it down for you?” I ask coolly. “I want you to leave.”
No! She has a voice now, the girl inside my head. Her wants and desires coming to the forefront, but I can’t let her out. Don’t make him leave! She pleads. PLEASE! We need him! I ignore her desperation. Why so desperate now? I wonder. We loved it in the fucking dark. It was filthy and depraved. We could have left sooner, but we didn’t. We wanted to be in the dark – so that’s where we’ll fucking go again.
I lift my brow at Tax’s unmoving figure.
“I think we need to talk first,” he practically snarls at me. There is something feral in him and it gives me pause, but only for a brief second.
