by Lucy Smoke
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.
“I don’t think—” Tax doesn’t wait for me to finish. Instead, he grabs my arm and drags me towards the elevator, growling as I stumble along behind him, my shorter legs attempting to keep up. When we get inside, he punches the button to take us to the lobby, nearly cracking the plastic casing over it in his anger. I jerk my arm away. I need to hurry this along.
We travel down to the lobby, me tapping my fingertips against my arm, him gritting his teeth and glaring at me like a betrayed, wild animal. The elevator dings and Tax grabs my arm, once again dragging me behind him. We leave the building, heading into the parking lot. He steers me exactly where I want to be. When we reach my car, he turns on me. Tax shoves me into the door of the car, and I flinch at his savage expression as he crushes himself against me, hovering so close that he blocks out the sun and the hospital building behind him.
“You don’t think you’re any of my business?” I open my mouth to say no, and he slams his lips over mine. His teeth crash into mine, painful and awkward. I jerk back, but Tax’s palm wraps around the back of my neck squeezing and holding me there. His darkness comes raging out of him, unhinged and ferocious – fighting against me.
The hardest part is that I don’t want to stop kissing him. Kissing him, even when he’s angry, makes me feel. I have to fight to struggle against him. He deepens the kiss, pushing his tongue between my lips. He doesn’t let up as I bite down on his lower lip. Hard. No, not Tax. He just pulls away and puts his thumb to the spot right in the center of his lip that is now stained and bleeding. The image he makes – bloody and fierce – tightens my insides. Raging storm-blue eyes flash with violence – it calls me to his depths, but I won’t go. He moves to grab me as I sidestep and shuffle along the car’s side, trying to escape.
My head – clouded with confusion – bumps the car as he leans me back again, pressing my body flush against the metal and glass. His hands are rough against my cold skin. His lips are solid as they return to mine. I taste blood. Tax groans as I shift to try and squeeze around him, unwittingly rubbing against his cock.
“None of my business, Lovely.” His laughter is hollow of any true amusement as he yanks my head back to run his tongue up the length of my neck. Sparks dance in his wake.
“Stop,” I grit. He pulls his head back and looks at me with an expression that I can’t decipher.
“No.”
“No?” Shock squirms through me as his hands, his fingers, explore the length of my stomach making my abdomen quiver. “So what then?” I choke. “Are you going to rape me?” I’ve never been raped before. I let Danny do everything he did. I never said no.
Tax stares at me in shock and pain, his savagery calming slightly at the blow I’ve just dealt him. I know it would never come to that. His pain is the same as mine, though our darkness stems from different emotions – pain and rage. He wouldn’t break me like that. The mere fact that I suggested he might has left his expression wide open – enraged and hurt. The anger takes over, stuffing the hurt back into a neat little box.
“Do you really think that you’d be unwilling, Lovely?” he asks.
“Don’t call me that,” I snap but it has less of a bite to it now as he runs his warm fingers down my leg and over the fabric of my pants, rubbing his fingers between my legs.
“How much do you want to bet if I put my hand down your panties right now, I’d find you soaking wet?” he asks.
“I hate you,” I snap, renewing my struggles. I push against his chest, slap his cheek, try and kick out with my legs. Tax, though, is a seasoned fighter. He subdues me with little effort, grabbing my chin and tilting me up to look at him.
The sun dims as the gray clouds hovering in my peripheral vision move closer together. The clouds open and rain begins to sprinkle us – lightly at first, then harder. Our faces turn upward. Rain bounces off of our chins and cheeks, reminding me of the waterfall night. It makes my resolve falter. Then he looks back at me, Tax opens the back door of the car and shoves me in.
It’s cramped, and I can’t breathe. He’s on top of me and I feel so safe, and I hate it. I hate it because it’s such a cruel feeling. Protection is fickle and so is he, though he may not know it. If he stays, he will come to despise my shadows and constant pain. I don’t want to see his eyes fog with disgust. I don’t want to see him sitting in a hospital bed like Trisha – cold and nearly broken.
When he lifts my shirt over my head, I don’t resist like I thought I would, like I threatened to. He’s right. I’m not unwilling. When Tax pushes my jeans down until only one of the legs is hanging on, I don’t say no again. I don’t want him to stop touching me. Goosebumps skitter across my skin as he presses against me and licks a path down to my breasts. He pushes the t-shirt I borrowed from him up to reveal them. He takes my nipples in his mouth and I gasp.
Every fingertip on my skin. Every breath we share. Every heartbeat that echoes in the backseat of my car as it rains against the windows makes me feel like I’m breaking into a thousand pieces.
23
Tax
I almost died once. Air rushed past my face and all I could see were the people beneath me, so small they looked like tiny, little ants crawling along the sidewalk below. I stood on the edge of a great big building in the middle of the city, thinking that if I just took that last step then everything would stop. I used to live by the motto that nothing lasts forever. The good always goes away, but so does the bad. I had come to the conclusion that the only way the bad could go away this time was if I just ended it myself.
The wind was slashing at me, and my jacket couldn’t keep the chill from making me shiver as my dirty sneakers collided with the edge of the rooftop. It was a long way down. I looked up to the sky, and the clouds were dark, like they are now, resembling the turmoil of my soul. Inside, I felt shaken and lost. I stared down at the people on the street. I told myself that someone would look up. They would care about me, even though they didn’t know me. They would have tried to rush up to pull me back from the edge. But no one noticed. They just kept walking, with their eyes looking straight forward.
As I watched them from my perch, they ignored the swirling disease that consumed me. I knew that I could have tried to open my mouth and call out for help. But I wasn’t in control anymore. If I had stopped what I was doing and called out, the wind would have swallowed my pleas. Balanced between life and death, I remained invisible to the people that could save me. I knew I would stay that way until the very moment I took that final and fatal step.
The emotions I recognized in myself back then, before I decided against taking that step, is reflected back in Love’s eyes as I push her into the car. The light, the hope I may have seen before is growing dim – dying – with each passing moment. It utterly devastates me to see her this way.
I cover her lips with my own and reach for her clothes. I shove up my shirt – loving that she’s wearing something of mine, like I can always be on her skin no matter where she goes. Love doesn’t fight me; some part of her that wants me to save her. To stop her from taking that step. She won’t take it. She’s too strong for that.
“Love,” I whisper against her lips.
Blood has dried on the sensitive skin of my lips and I slowly lick until my mouth is wet again. She moans softly when I touch her. Her hair is spread out over the car seat and I reach up pulling it out of its confines, jerked roughly until it’s freed from her ponytail. What the fuck is she thinking? I run my fingers through the silkiness of the strands. She smells like her sea breeze shampoo. I nuzzle into her neck and her lips part on a gasp as my fingers run over her skin. Then I push down against her, my hand on her neck and I force her to look into my eyes.
“You’re not fucking leaving,” I growl out. My pulse hammers in my veins. My skin is slick with sweat as I
reach over my back and pull my shirt over my head. I let it drop to the bottom of the back seat. “You’ll stay even if I have to tie you down.”
Love leans forward and brushes a kiss against my pectoral before looking up at me with her green eyes and then she bites down. It’s a quick sting that sends electricity coursing through my veins.
“You can’t make me do anything, Tax.” Her voice is cold, but her bite is like being licked by fire. The sensation shoots straight to my cock. When she licks the bite mark, I snarl against my own need.
Cradling her head, bringing her mouth back to mine, I feel like we’re moving at an inexorably slow pace, but I know that in reality we are rushing through time at the speed of light. I shove her back. I can’t stand it anymore. I kiss her, biting down on her bottom lip. Working my way downward, I get to her nipples and bite down on them as well, relishing in her squirms as she tries to both get away from me and draw nearer. I want her to understand that I don’t give a fuck. The world is a shit place. But in everything, through the darkness, I can find her. I’ll always find her.
She tries to keep herself from moving when I line my cock up with her entrance. Right there. My cock at her fucking core and she looks away as if she doesn’t want to see. I grab her chin with one hand as I use the other to palm my cock and push through the tight confines of her muscles, tensing. She groans low in her throat, her fingernails raking paths down my back. Love’s eyes glare back at me. I get about halfway in before I can’t stand it anymore and I slam home.
“Tax!” It’s cruel, I know. She looks up at me when I move my hand from her chin to her throat and I press back inside until I’m balls deep in that sweet pussy of hers.
“You.” I pull out. “Are.” I power forward. “My.” She gasps when I repeat the motion. “Fucking.” I squeeze around the sides of her throat, keeping her windpipe open – cutting off the circulation. “Business.”
I fuck her hard. I fuck her like I’m going to fucking lose her. I feel like I am losing her. Why the fuck do I feel like I’m losing her? She needs to come back. She’s mine. How can she even think to fucking leave me? So, I fuck her for that too. I fuck her for making me love her. I fuck her for making me hate her. I fuck her for all of the pain and the darkness. I fuck her for me. I fuck her for her.
Her eyes close and her face squeezes tight. I want so much more for her.
When it’s over, when our bodies are sated, though our souls still need work, she leans up and shoves me away. My cock falls out of her pussy and I stay in the backseat of her car, listening as she stumbles into the rain and redresses outside – despite the fact that anyone could come by at any moment, and despite the fat droplets soaking her clothes and hair as rain pours down. I put an arm over my head and fight to keep the tears at bay. How can one fucking woman destroy me so wholly?
She stands to the side and waits for me to crawl out of the backseat. I try to catch her arm as I pull up my pants and straighten my shirt over my chest, she gets into the driver’s side and nearly runs me over when she backs out and drives away. She may not have hit my body, but she sure as fuck hit my heart. Ran the damn thing over and backed up over it for good fucking measure.
I’m drunk, too drunk to drive so I stumble out of the bar and onto the sidewalk, nearly tripping on my own two damn feet. Shit. Fuck. God-fucking-damn. What a fucking mess. My phone buzzes in my pocket as I look around the parking lot for my Jeep. At least I can crawl in the backseat and sleep for a while. Then I remember – my Jeep is with Blake. Fuck. I’ll have to walk.
My phone buzzes again and I curse as I fish it out of my pocket. “What?” I snap.
“Got another fight for you tomorrow evening, you down?” the familiar voice of Screech – the fight manager – informs me.
“Yeah,” is all I say before hanging up. He’ll get the fucking message and if he doesn’t and I show up without an opponent, I’ll take my anger out on him – the money hungry worm that he is.
I weave back and forth across the uneven ground, sore and achy. Music. I need music. I always listen to music when I walk, it makes me feel less alone and I need to feel less alone right now – Love surely isn’t gonna fucking do it – less like I just lost something I’m not sure I ever even had.
I fumble for my pocket again. Headphones. I always carry headphones with me. I finally manage to get the tangled little fuckers out of my pocket, plugged in, and in my ears. I don’t have any music uploaded to my cellphone, so I play an internet radio app as I start walking. I stumble again and catch myself on a car parked by the curb. I groan as I shift my foot against the car to push away. The car makes an ear-splitting noise and I tumble backward, landing hard on the ground. My ass feels numb and my skull feels like a jackhammer is going nuts on my gray matter.
It’s just too difficult to get up. The car alarm is still going off. I ignore it, lying back, and letting the music drown it out. But the music takes on an edge. The songs change and each one reminds me of Love – fucking Love. Fuck love. I yank the headphones out only to realize that the car alarm isn’t screaming at me anymore.
"Spare a dollar, man?" I start at the sound of a gruff voice.
Craning my neck, I see it's nothing more than a pencil thin, elderly man with a shock of white scruff for a beard across his chin and the sides of his cheeks. I fish around in my pocket for a few bucks, stumbling as I make my way over to him. I slap the bills in his hands.
"'Scuse me, man, but ya just gave me like fifty bucks." He tries to hand two of the twenties back, only keeping the ten.
I wave him away. "Keep it," I snap. "It's only fucking money. Just don't go spending it on needles or no shit, you get me?" He nods and then as I continue stumbling across the parking lot, falling into yet another car, he stops me. "You know I seen you 'round here before," he calls out.
"Yeah?" Where are my damn keys? Fuck. I need my...wait. Where's my fucking Jeep? Oh, yeah. Blake.
"Somethin' bugging you? I ain't never seen you drunk before." I slump down on the sidewalk, copping a squat right there on the wet concrete. I know when I get up, I'll have a big ol' stain right across my ass like some water monster used it as a slapstick or whatever. Feels like Love used me as a punching bag earlier so why not a slapstick too?
"I've been drunk before," I say absently as the man ambles closer, tucking the money I gave him into his dirty jeans. He sits next to me.
"Yeah, but people don't get the type of drunk you are right now if there ain't nothin' wrong."
"What can I say, man?" I lean back and look at the cloudy sky. "It just isn't my fucking night."
“Got yourself a woman problem?" When I remain silent, he scoffs. "'Course it is. It's always a woman."
"Oh yeah?" I can't really tilt my head the way I am now, so I just let the damn thing roll on my shoulders until my chin is tilted down and I can barely make out the old man's face in my peripheral vision – as blurry as that shit is. "You got yourself some girl problems, too, old man?"
He shakes his head. "I've had my fair share. Enough to know when to recognize it."
I sigh, rolling my head back to my original position. "I don't have fucking woman problems," I say. Love isn't just a woman. "At least, not anymore."
"That, therein', my man, is as much a woman problem as any," he says.
Boisterous noise sounds as the front door of the bar slams open, and a couple makes their way out. The female is obviously intoxicated as she's being carted by her boyfriend, or husband, or whoever the hell he is; the man practically lifts her stumbling form into his arms and carries her the rest of the way to their vehicle.
I wait for the car to make its way out of the bar parking lot before I speak again. "Alright, then, if you're so knowledgeable—" I pause, repeating the word three times before I feel like I've gotten it right. "If you're so knowledgeable about girls – women – then yeah, I got a girl. Or rather, I had a girl."
About where we're sitting, with our backs facing the wall of the neighboring building, there's a
tiny little awning that manages to catch most of the rain as it begins to pour. It doesn't catch everything, and a loud splash of water hits in front of me, arcing up to hit the bottoms of my already soaked jeans. I don't flinch or move away, but my gaze is drawn in by the water. I picture it frozen over, a mirror of ice and in that mirror, I can see Love's face. The way her cheeks round out when she smiles. Or the way they wane when she cries. The way her lips purse when she's thinking, or when she curls a finger around a strand of hair and tugs it back behind her ear.
"She leave you?" the man asks.
I shake my head, and then nod.
"Well," he says, "which is it?"
I don't even fucking know.
Fucking women like Love are hard to read. Why are women always so hard to understand? Ally says they aren't, not really. All you have to do is be direct and listen to them. Well, Love isn't good with the talking bullshit, so how the fuck am I supposed to listen? I'm starting to feel like I understand her less than the woman that gave birth to me – and that's fucking saying something since I still don't understand the fucking cunt that shoved me out – kicking and screaming – into this God forsaken world.
I huff out a breath, the air fogging up in front of my face. Funny, I didn't even notice when it started getting cold. But I guess summer really is over. Fall is here and soon winter will be in season. Cold. These bitches are always cold. Love.
And my Mom. She was the coldest.
7 years old
“Mommy?” Mommy’s tired again. I can see her face as she lounges on the couch.
“What?” she grumbles, her speech sounding weird.
“Mommy, are we going to church today? It’s Sunday.”
“Tax, go play, Mommy’s tired,” she slurs, turning away.
“But—”
“Tax!” she yells. “Just leave Mommy alone.”
I’m quiet then. I play on the floor, watching her, making sure she doesn’t need to throw up again. Mommy’s sick, she’s always sick like this.
