Four Letter Word

by J. Daniels

  “You tell me why you’re trying to get yourself arrested and I’ll move, but not until you tell me, Legs. And you’re not getting past me so don’t even waste your energy.”

  Tori shook her head.

  “You need to just go and pretend you didn’t see me.”

  “Yeah.” Jamie studied her for a minute, looking her over like he was admiring a piece of art, then continued, saying the tiniest bit quieter, “That’s not fuckin’ happening.”

  My right boob vibrated and sent a shiver up my spine. I ignored it and watched Tori roll up on her toes to get into Jamie’s face.

  He didn’t move back. I didn’t think he minded her getting that close to him.

  “Fine,” she grated out. “You want to know? I’ll tell you. That sweet ride belongs to my ex who became my ex when I ran into him and his perfect little family at the mall a few weeks ago, including his drop-dead gorgeous wife and their super-cute daughter who couldn’t have been more than two, this perfect little family not being something I was aware of but became not only aware of but acquainted with when he decided it was best to introduce me to them as an old friend from high school.”

  Jamie leaned back, blinking.

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “You serious? He did that to you?”

  “Do I look like I’m serious?” Tori asked rhetorically. “Now if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate you moving out of my way so I can finish destroying something precious of his since he went about destroying everything precious of mine.”

  I moved then and stepped up beside Tori, taking her hand and wrapping it up in my own.

  “So we can finish destroying it,” I corrected her, looking at Jamie.

  Tori gave my hand a squeeze.

  Jamie looked only at Tori, not even flinching when Shay stepped up and took Tori’s other hand.

  “I’d like to say that even though I am not participating in the destruction of that vehicle, I am with her one hundred percent.”

  “Thanks, babe,” Tori replied to Kali, keeping her eyes on the man standing in her way.

  Jamie kept on looking at Tori, but he was doing it differently now than when he first yanked her away. His eyes were soft. Tender.

  He understood.

  Then he did something that shocked the hell out of me and everyone else standing there.

  He spun around and moved beside the vehicle, pulled out a pocket knife, flicked the blade open, and jammed it straight into the back passenger tire.

  I jumped and whispered, “Oh, my God.”

  “Holy shit,” Tori breathed.

  Shay started giggling and Kali gasped.

  We all watched Jamie yank his knife out and heard the sweet hiss of air being released into the night.

  He didn’t look at us. He repeated the gesture and popped the remaining three tires, doing it quickly, then slid his knife away and came to stand in front of Tori, bent to get his face close to hers again, and whispered, “Get out of here.”

  Tori tightened her grip.

  “Let’s go!” Shay yelled, tugging on Tori, who then tugged on me.

  Then we ran, leaving Jamie and his knife skills, quiet Exhibit A, and the mystery man at the Jeep behind us.

  And we all did it laughing.

  * * *

  My entire body was still trembling with energy when we finally got home after tracking down our Uber idiot.

  Shay was dropped off first, then Kali. Tori announced she wanted to take a shower the minute we walked in the door to strip the gunk out of her hair, so she left me in the kitchen, where I went about making my mug of hot chocolate while reading the missed texts from Brian, which were all versions of him asking if I had called Uber yet or if I was still drinking. Seriously, his concern for my whereabouts couldn’t have been any cuter. Then carefully carrying that mug up the stairs while my ear was pressed to the phone, listening to it ring.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Brian about my night.

  “What’s up, babe?” he greeted me, all smooth and warm sounding.

  I wanted to slide inside his voice and live there. He made my skin tingle.

  “Trouble, oh, my God, you are not going to believe what happened tonight! I was Wild to, like, the thousandth degree!”

  I kicked the door closed and carried my mug over to the bed, sat on the edge and toed off my heels, then scooted back and took a sip of my drink.

  “Yeah? What did you do? Steal a car?”

  “No. I beat the crap out of one!”

  He was soundless while I chewed up a marshmallow.

  Obviously shocked and wanting to hear more information, I obliged his silent request and elaborated, bulldozing through my recount of the evening and not stopping to pause for questions, only for a sip of my beverage when needed because my mouth was dry.

  Brian quietly listened. I was sure he was silent because he was anxious for more, this was such a good story, so I continued on, not wanting to make him wait.

  “Then, and oh my God, this is the craziest thing ever, Brian, these two guys showed up to stop us and pulled us away from the car. The one guy who is a total loser because he always hits on Tori and calls her Legs, he hears why Tori is attacking this car and pulls out a knife and slashes the tires! It was so badass! Then he tells us to scram so we did. I nearly fell into a bush ’cause of my heels but I didn’t care. It was the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me!”

  More silence. A lot of it, which was odd now that I was done recounting the events and I was sure he’d have questions or comments.

  I worried we got disconnected.

  “Hello? Brian?” I called into the phone.

  “What kind of car was it?” he finally asked, his voice a lot quieter than it normally was when we talked.

  “Uh…oh, a red Corvette. Apparently it costs a mint.”

  “A red Corvette,” he repeated.

  “Mm-hm. Yep.”

  “You were trying to bust out the windows of a red Corvette and two guys stopped you, one slashed the tires, and you were all in eighties gear.”

  “Yes,” I stressed, confused as to why he was recounting the events for me when I lived them. “God, it was such a rush!”

  “Unfuckingbelievable,” he mumbled.

  “Right? I’ve never done anything like that before in my life.” I laughed. “We totally could’ve gotten arrested. Jamie definitely could’ve gotten arrested. I hope he wasn’t caught.”

  I sat my mug on the nightstand and fell back on a pillow, legs reaching. I rubbed my heels against the comforter.

  “Was I wild, Brian?” I asked when his silence was killing me.

  “What?”

  “Was I wild? If you’d seen me tonight, would you have thought I was wild?”

  “Why are you asking me that?”

  I attempted to twirl a lock of my hair but the hairspray prevented it. I pulled at the bottom of my tutu instead, twisting my fingers in the tulle.

  “There was this other guy there and I saw him watching us, and I wondered if he saw me and thought I was wild going after that car like I did.”

  Brian was quiet for moment, then answered, “I’m sure he did.”

  I smiled at that.

  “I missed you tonight,” I told him, feeling a little bold from the alcohol and the rush of adrenaline still scratching in my blood. “Thought about you the whole time I was with my girls.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep. You think about me the whole time you were with your boys?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you did, but I don’t know if you thought about me the way I thought about you.”

  “And how’s that?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or serious. His voice wasn’t giving anything away. There were no familiar tones to it. Nothing I’d normally take comfort in knowing that voice and loving that I knew it.

  It was different but I didn’t care. I wasn’t being cautious. I didn’t feel the need to be.

  This was Brian. I knew him.
>
  I knew him.

  “I thought about what your bottom lip might taste like,” I confessed, pulse racing and stomach clenched.

  He inhaled in my ear. It was sharp like the cracking of a whip.

  “Yeah?” he asked, but I heard him beg.

  Yeah. Keep going.

  “And I thought about what your skin would feel like under my hands and against my thighs. Um, you know…if you were between them.”

  He didn’t say anything. He was breathing, just breathing, slow and heavy in my ear. It was simple, an essential action he had to do to stay alive. It had absolutely nothing to do with me or this conversation.

  Still, it was the hottest noise I’d ever heard in my life.

  I became bolder. Something was happening to me. Attacking Wes’s car was a rush, but this felt like someone had cut me open and filled me with a thousand heartbeats. My bones vibrated excitement. I was breathless. It was like I was being chased.

  And I wanted to be caught.

  “I thought about your fingers,” I continued. “What they would feel like. If they would pull and grip and if you would want to keep them in my hair or move. If you liked to kiss or if you liked to bite. The sounds you make when you’re close. God…Trouble, I thought about everything. Honestly, I’ve thought about it a lot.”

  I dipped my hand between my legs, under hot pink tulle and over black satin. I wasn’t being cautious about this either.

  I was burning up.

  “Brian,” I moaned, moving with eyes closed so I could imagine I wasn’t the one moving. “Did you think about me that way?” I asked anxiously. “Do you?”

  “Fuck,” he hissed. “Wild, what are you doing?”

  “What do you want me to be doing?”

  I hadn’t done this in months. I couldn’t remember the last time I was touched or I touched myself. My fingers felt foreign, but surefire. Aware. This was just like I remembered.

  But it was so much better with the sounds and the voice in my ear.

  A self-induced orgasm was a chocolate brownie.

  A self-induced orgasm persuaded by Brian was a chocolate brownie covered in ice cream and sprinkles and whipped cream, heated so it was all gooey and sloppy.

  I made a noise in my throat and spread my legs wider. The tulle scratched the back of my hand.

  “Come on, Brian,” I coaxed through a quiet laugh. “You don’t want me to stop, do you?”

  “Fuck no.” I heard the soft rustling of clothes. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “You.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Everything.”

  “Touching you?”

  I nodded and licked my lips. I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.

  He knew.

  “Kissing you?”

  “Yes,” I moaned.

  “Where?”

  “Right here.”

  I dragged my finger over my clit and shuddered.

  “Your pussy?” he asked. “Is that where I should kiss you, Wild? With your thighs against my ears so tight I can’t hear you scream?”

  “God, yes.”

  I wiggled against the onslaught of my fingers.

  “Would you kiss me there?”

  “I would,” he answered raggedly. “You’d have problems stopping me.”

  “I…I wouldn’t stop you. I’d never stop you.”

  “What about my dick?” he suggested, and just the mention of that word had me arching my back and panting. “Filling you. Fucking you. Have you thought about that?”

  “Have you?” I asked, grinding my palm against my clit and pressing my fingers against the barrier of my tights, picturing just that.

  His dick. Filling me. Fucking me.

  “You wanna know what I’ve thought about?”

  “Please,” I begged.

  The pressure was building. The muscles in my legs and arms and belly tensing and twitching and tightening.

  I wanted to explode.

  Brian made a noise then, deep and tortured in my ear, and I knew, I knew he was getting off, too.

  “I’ve wondered how sweet you’d really be on my tongue and how wild you’d get around my cock,” he said, low and smooth and wicked. “Your ass and the color of your cunt.”

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered.

  “How tight you are and how wet you’d get just from my fingers. Your tits…touching them. Tasting them. If you liked to watch or if you’d keep your face buried in my neck while I fucked you.”

  “Brian,” I groaned, fingers sliding faster. “K-keep going.”

  “I’ve thought about fucking you for hours, Wild. Only stopping so I could eat you or to watch you suck me off, then fucking you again and again…and again. Every way. Everywhere I could take you, I would.” He panted in my ear. “You need to know, Syd…”

  “What? Tell me. Please, I’m so close.”

  “Fuck.”

  He hesitated for a moment, allowing me to focus on all of his other sounds, and God, I wanted him to keep going and tell me, tell me everything, but I didn’t want to miss the noise his hand made moving over his cock or his eager breaths, growing more and more desperate by the second.

  “I get so hard just from hearing your voice,” he admitted. “I think about you all the time. More than I should. If I ever got the whole thing…”

  “Oh, God. Oh, shit…Oh, oh,” I gasped. “Brian…Brian.”

  Blood rushed in my ears as I came hard and heavy limbed, toes curling and eyes rolling and so wet I could feel it against the tips of my fingers through my panties and tights.

  It was exquisite.

  I felt weightless and warm on the fall down, maybe a little drunker than I was at the start of this conversation, and my eyes shot open when I heard Brian moan my name and “Fuck, fuck, fuck” over the quiet slapping of skin.

  He was coming.

  I bit my lip.

  God, I would’ve given my right arm to see that. I bet he looked beautiful, because he was.

  I knew he was. In my blood, I knew it.

  We were both silent for a moment, then I had to ask. I had to know.

  “What would happen if you got the whole thing?”

  He exhaled brokenly.

  He wasn’t going to give me that last little piece. The moment had passed. I could feel it, could sense him pulling back and allowing uncertainty to creep in and settle, tainting what we had just shared.

  I wasn’t going to allow that to happen. But he spoke before I could.

  “I should go,” he suggested.

  “Brian, wait. Don’t.” I sat up and tucked my knees close to my belly. “I wanted that to happen, okay? I’ve wanted it for a while now. Maybe since the beginning.”

  “Syd…”

  I didn’t let him finish. I had to get this out before I couldn’t get it out.

  “I think about you all the time, too,” I rushed. “More than I probably should because we’ve never actually met, but that’s the only reason why I shouldn’t think about you this much. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve never laid eyes on you, but I don’t care because I like thinking about you and I love talking to you, and what we just did together.” I closed my eyes and softened my voice. “I really really liked that, too. It wasn’t a mistake, and…and I won’t let you think it was. I won’t.”

  I stared at my knees and waited. I fought the urge to crawl under my bed and hide until winter.

  “Your husband is a fucking moron,” he growled seconds later.

  I sat up straighter and pressed my fingers to my lips. I felt them curl.

  Oh…wow.

  He just totally said that. Brian’s never said anything about Marcus before. He’s only listened to me bash him or retell our history, commenting to let me know he was with me and listening, but that was it. That’s all he’d ever given me.

  Until now, when he just totally said that.

  I was grinning so big I was afraid my lips were going to stretch out and never fall back looking right ag
ain.

  Too bad I totally didn’t care if that happened or not.

  This felt great!

  “Gotta let you go, babe,” Brian said.

  My grin turned into a pout, and I quietly pleaded, “Not yet.”

  “Not gonna sit here and talk to you with jizz on my stomach.”

  “Oh.”

  I blushed and slid back down the bed, covering half of my face with my hand.

  “Yeah, oh,” he repeated with a hint of humor. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

  I was suddenly grinning again.

  We would talk tomorrow, and maybe do more of that.

  I couldn’t wait.

  “Okay, Brian.”

  “Later, Wild.”

  “Later.”

  I disconnected the call and fell asleep in full eighties gear without stripping the gunk out of my hair or anything. I didn’t care.

  I’d have Brian again tomorrow.

  Chapter Nine

  BRIAN

  Things were different with Sydney now. Different in a way I knew we’d never go back to what we had before she came both soft and savage in my ear.

  Three times now I’d stroked my dick to her sounds while confessing my own desires. I didn’t give a shit, and I told her. Straight up. She knew what I was thinking about, and it drove her fucking wild, spurring her own indecent thoughts and the courage to share them with me, thoughts that were getting filthier and filthier with each passing day.

  She shared them. All of them. She didn’t give a shit either.

  “Brian,” she whispered, her breaths growing quicker and heavier. “I’m so little down there. Do you think you could fit?”

  And, “What does your dick look like? Describe it to me.”

  And, “I want to taste it after you’ve fucked me.”

  “God, Brian…Brian.”

  “Please. Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  And, “Fuck…oh, fuck!”

  Not participating in our phone sex wasn’t an option, not unless I suddenly became deaf. I’d die from lack of blood flow to my brain if I sat there and ignored my throbbing cock. And truth be told, I was experiencing the best orgasms of my life with Sydney moaning in my ear.

  Give that up now? Fuck that.

  I didn’t want to go back to what we had before. I wanted both, her sweet laugh and the way her voice hitched when she came. Our random conversations and unguarded desires.