Born to Ride

by Kasey Millstead

  She shakes her head. “I can’t accept this.”

  “Yeah, you can.”

  “No, Elijah, it was your sister’s. It’s all you have left of her. I can’t take that away from you.”

  I ignore all this. It suits her, and I’d rather see someone as perfect as her wearing it than know it was collecting dirt and dust under my bike. Lil would want that, too. Lil would have loved Ana. She would have idolised her, the same way Sammy idolises me. Hell, one look at Ana and Lil would have asked if she could swap siblings. “You know what they mean?”

  She shakes her head, no.

  “Love, freedom.” I stick my hand out in front of her and turn my palm up, then I trace my finger around a tiny shape beside the reaper, hidden amongst the rest of my tattoo sleeve. It’s Lil’s swallow. Ana’s swallow, now, I guess. Maybe that tattoo was always intended for her and I just didn’t know it. “Loyalty. A swallow represents the loyalty of a person always returning to them. I’ll always return to you, Ana. There’s never been anyone else for me.”

  Ana stares up at me, all doe eyes and sad smiles, but there’s something else in her expression, too, and it’s as clear as the day is fucking hot. She wants me. Right here, in this moment, Ana Belle wants to fuck my brains out. It doesn’t change anything, though. She still won’t allow herself to give into it and I won’t push it upon her because she’s not ready yet, and when I do finally get that woman beneath me I won’t ever be giving her up. Not even if she begs me to.

  I pull her in and place a soft kiss to her lips. I hadn’t meant to linger there, but her mouth is so god damned inviting and she doesn’t push me off, so I take the opportunity to draw out the moment I’ve stolen. I don’t force my tongue down her throat, it never even leaves my mouth, but there’s heat all the same because our eyes are open and neither one of us is walking away.

  “Ewww, dude,” I hear Sammy whine behind us. He runs back to the dining room complaining, “Dad! Anath’s thucking on Elijath’s face again!”

  I place once last kiss against her lips and then I saunter away, feeling satisfied. I’m probably about to be murdered by Ana’s father in the next few minutes, but I don’t care. Every second was worth it.

  I’m halfway to the dining room when Ana says, “Elijah?”

  “Yeah babe?”

  “I love it,” she whispers and gives me a megawatt smile.

  Best fucking Christmas ever.

  Ana

  “Hurry up, bitches, or we’re starting this lame-o movie without you,” Holly yells from the lounge room. Elijah and I are in the kitchen; apparently we’re the designated snack providers for our impromptu cinema night. I swear, sometimes being the only person that can cook in a household of constantly hungry boys and cranky pregnant women kinda sucks arse.

  “Yeah, and don’t forget the beer.”

  “Popcorn and beer? That’s disgusting!” I hear her say, and Jackson rattles off a list of reasons as to why ‘that shit is the fucking bomb’. “My baby is crying right now inside of me, you know that, don’t you? You’re making him cry with your disgusting eating habits and then he’s going to throw a tanty and start kicking my vagina and then I’ll want to throw up all over you, so could you please, just for once, shut up? And where the heck is my chocolate milk? I had like, half a glass left.”

  I finish dusting the popcorn with icing sugar while Elijah fishes out two beers for himself and Jack. “You want one?”

  “No thanks, could you grab me a Stoli though?”

  “Uh-oh. You better tell me now if you’re planning on getting so shitfaced you have to be carried to your room.” He waggles his brows at me. “I’ll go easy on the beer so I don’t drop you.”

  “Very funny.”

  I grab the bowl of popcorn and head for the lounge. I’m halfway there when Holly yells, “Can you bring the chocolate milk, pretty please?”

  I swing back and run smack bang into Elijah, who clearly wasn’t watching where he was going because I’m pretty sure his eyes were firmly fixed on my bum.

  “Shit. Sorry.” He rights the bowl of popcorn before it falls from my hands, but not before several pieces fall and find a new home in my cleavage, which of course turns him into a drooling boob of a man—pun intended. “You’ve got popcorn ... uh.”

  I fish the pieces from my bra and pop them in my mouth, then I push him back a step before heading over to the refrigerator. “Geez, Elijah, it’s like you’ve never seen boobs before.”

  “I never seen boobs as perfect as that.” He points to my chest with his stubbie and then takes a long pull while openly ogling my breasts.

  I shake my head and retrieve Holly’s milk from the fridge. I almost make it out of the kitchen before she yells, “Bring a glass too, Jackson drank from mine and I think he has cooties.”

  “You ever feel like we’re running a hotel here?”

  I let out a sigh. “With those two? Ha! More like we’re running a daycare.”

  “You know that’s actually a pretty apt description.”

  “Oh, like you can talk, Mr I-Go-Gaga-for-Boobies.”

  He shrugs. “They’re nice boobies.”

  I roll my eyes and follow him into the lounge room. Holly and Jack are hunkering down on the couch. Despite sitting at opposite sides from one another, their legs stretch out in the middle of the couch, leaving no room for anyone else. Elijah plonks himself down on the recliner and I shoot all three of them dirty looks.

  “Where the heck do I sit?”

  “Jackson, get up,” Holly commands.

  “I’m not getting up, you get up,” Jack says, and shoves her foot with his.

  “I’m pregnant! Besides, Ana’s a woman. You’re supposed to give up your seat to women and the elderly; it’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”

  “Gentlemanly? Since when do you care about gentlemen?”

  “It’s fine, I’ll just sit on the floor.”

  “Sit with me,” Elijah ventures.

  “I’m not sitting with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re ... big, you hardly fit on that thing as it is.”

  “Fuck, you two are worse than a couple of tweeniebopper virgins trying to figure out where the condom goes. Just sit on him already and be done with it.”

  “Jackson!” I chide.

  At the same time Holly pouts at him and says, “Hey, that’s my line.”

  I’m thinking I might just forget this whole movie night thing and go to bed, but Elijah’s looking all too sure of his ability to ruffle my feathers so I smile snidely and say in my most seductive voice, “Where do you want me?”

  The cunning in his gaze is immediately replaced by desire, and I bite down hard on my lip. I shouldn’t be flirting with him. It’s cruel and wretched, and yet I can’t seem to make myself stop. I don’t want to stop. From the looks of it, Elijah doesn’t want me to stop either, because the challenge is back in his eyes, the one that says he doesn’t think I’ll do it.

  “Right here,” he says and—surprise, surprise—he pats his lap.

  It’s just sitting on his lap for goodness sake, it’s not like I haven’t done it before, I think, and then that evil voice in my head helpfully supplies, Only the last time we were completely without clothes and trying to get as close to one another as possible.

  Ignoring that judgemental bitch in my head, I casually stroll over and lower myself onto his lap. I’m only resting half my weight on him and the rest is on my knees and feet as I push them against the floorboards in an effort to ground me. Elijah’s not happy with this arrangement, though. He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me into the hollow created by his open legs. Before I can get my wits about me enough to move away, he pulls the lever for the footrest and I’m flung back against him in a reclining position.

  The first thing I notice is his hard body pressing against my back. The heat and delicious all-male scent of him blurs my senses, forcing me to momentarily lose my mind and fall prey to how good it feels to be in h
is arms again.

  The second thing I notice is that he’s rock hard ... everywhere. I try shifting away but he presses his large hand to my abdomen to secure me against him. I squirm in my seat, my breath becomes laboured and my knickers are soaking wet.

  Elijah tilts his head so that his lips are pressed against my lobe. “Unless you want me to blow my load, baby girl, stop squirming and watch the movie,” his words are low and hushed, but the authority in his tone causes goose bumps to break out all over my skin. They also cause a streaking bolt of alarm to shoot through me. Until now, I wasn’t aware the movie had started, but Paris Hilton’s plastic-fantastic face is plastered all over the screen and her friends have just made a gruesome discovery in the woods.

  I glance around. The lights are off, Holly’s eyes are growing heavy just a few minutes in, the popcorn’s been demolished and Jackson’s madly typing away on his phone.

  I’m hyper aware of Elijah behind me, around me. It’s intoxicating and frightening, all at once. I also don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on—which, given that all my past sexual experiences, bar one, had included this man, is really saying something. Elijah knows exactly how to seduce me and he’s certainly not pulling any punches. One hand is grasping the back of my neck with only the barest hint of pressure, just the way I like it. The other is splayed against my lower abdomen, his pinkie and ring fingers resting against my pubic bone and causing pleasure to arc between the gentle press of his hand and my core.

  I hear him inhale and then whisper, “You smell so fucking edible, baby girl. I’m gonna die if I don’t get to taste that sweet pussy of yours soon.”

  My breath leaves me in a rush that sounds an awful lot like a whimper. I hate that I can’t control myself around him, that even as I sit here I’ve been turned into a whimpering ball of need and longing and he knows it. He knows just how to slink past all my defences and twist the knife deeper into my heart. It’s the night outside the Sugartown Hotel all over again, only this time I’m the only one he’s screwing over. And he’s enjoying every second of it.

  “Would you like that? My mouth on your beautiful cunt? Licking and sucking until you come, screaming my name?”

  Before I can think about the ramifications of what I’m doing I rock back into him and nod my head. I shouldn’t have done that, I think. I shouldn’t be leading him on when this can go nowhere. This man ripped my heart out a few short months ago. He broke me completely, he pissed on everything we had by keeping his dirty little secrets and tore whatever we had left apart by fucking another woman in front of me.

  “Do you still love me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lies, lies, lies.

  All of it.

  If anything, our time apart has made me love him more, but I can’t give myself over to him again. I let him take my heart once, but I won’t let him take what’s left of me.

  “Jesus, babe, you’re wound so tight,” he murmurs against my neck and slides his hand inside my skirt. “Fuck me! And so wet, too. I’m gonna take care of this, baby girl, and then you and I are going to talk about this shit between us. Cause I’m not going another day without possessing you completely.”

  A quiet moan escapes my mouth as he teasingly strokes his fingers around my clit, careful not to actually touch it. I want to scream my frustration at him to stop playing games and make me come already but I don’t, because the anticipation of being touched is just as good as the sensations produced when his hands actually connect with my flesh.

  When they finally do make contact it’s the sweetest kind of torture. It’s been months since I’ve been touched like this, touched by him. His fingers feel like they’re burning me as one slides inside, knuckle deep, while his thumb grazes back and forth across my clit. The pressure of his erection digs into my arse and I rock back into it until Elijah’s hips are moving with mine. His fingers maintain their steady assault as we rock into one another, both chasing the release that the other is so willing to provide.

  Elijah shifts his hand so that his palm is cupping my clit and his fingers are now touching the front wall of my vagina. He wiggles them back and forth and I practically come apart in his hands. I can feel my orgasm building, but all my previous experiences with the big ‘O’ have never felt like this. His fingers aren’t gentle as they push back and forth, but I couldn’t care less. I’m not thinking about the room around me or the fact that I shouldn’t be using him like this. In fact, I’m so far gone I’m not thinking anything at all, apart from the fact that I never want this to stop.

  I rock my hips back and forth in time with his fingers and hear him groan in my ear, “So fucking sweet, baby. I want you coming all over my hand.” And no less than a second after he says this, I do. I come hard and fast, and it’s more intense than any orgasm I’ve ever felt before. It’s wetter, too. So wet that my knickers and Elijah’s hand are drenched. He doesn’t seem to notice though, because he’s busy losing himself in his own release. His free hand slides up my side and squeezes my breast, as his own orgasm rocks through him.

  For a second I just lay back against him, exhaling loudly, breathing the same air as one another and luxuriating in the feel of his arms and the saccharine sent of sex on the air. And then he eases his fingers out of me and I get a sense of just how wet we are.

  I am beyond mortified. He just gave me the best orgasm of my life and I returned the favour by peeing on him. The mortification amps up a notch when I turn and see him licking his fingers clean of me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I blurt.

  “I’m not. That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever experienced.”

  “I just peed on you.” Elijah guffaws and I glance around, wondering where our roommates got to, though I don’t really blame them for leaving. “Why is that funny? Where did Holly and Jack go?”

  He gives me the smug smile, like he’s over the freaking moon hearing me admit I was so distracted with him that I didn’t notice our flatmates leaving. “They left about the time you started moaning. And that wasn’t pee.” He laughs again. “Fuck, baby, that was some of the hottest shit I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ve ever been this hot for a woman after watching her come.”

  I’m completely confused and I’m probably staring at him like he’s some fetishist freak who enjoys golden showers because he smiles like I’m a goddamn piglet that’s so bloody endearing you can’t help but want to pinch and coo to it. “That was your G spot, Ana. Oh, the things you have to learn about your body. Lucky for you, I’m a very hands-on teacher.”

  I haven’t the foggiest idea of how to respond to that, so I push the lever on the side of the couch and the chair comes lurching upright. My heart is racing, and now that the afterglow is wearing off I realise what a colossal mistake I’ve just made. This could obliterate all the progress we’ve made toward being regular flatmates. To my piece of mind. To the fact that we’ve both tried our hardest to be civil and adult about living together and pretending like we’re fine when our hearts are breaking. And, with ten minutes of touching, we’ve managed to destroy any hope we had at a normal friendship.

  After the rape I stopped thinking about my wants and desires. I forgot that I was a young woman who needed to be loved, to be touched, just as I had been before. I focused on my family and my friends and began lovingly taping band-aids over their problems because they seemed so much bigger than mine when the reality was that my bandages had come undone, ripping and tearing off my skin, and I hadn’t even noticed.

  And now? Now, I noticed. I just had no idea had put them in place again.

  I unseat myself from his lap and head for the bathroom.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  “I have to take a shower.”

  “I thought we were going to talk about this?”

  “No. You said we were going to talk, I don’t remember agreeing to anything.”

  “Like you didn’t agree to coming just now?”

  “Fuck you.”

&nb
sp; “What the fuck, Ana? Why are you fighting this so god damned hard?” he shouts and I spin around, stung by the harshness in his voice. “I can see how much you want me. I can feel it. Fuck me! I can’t stand in the same room as you without feeling the longing seeping out of your pores, and you’re still refusing to acknowledge the fact that you’re still in love with me.” The surprise I feel at that last confession must be written all over my face because Elijah comes closer, until he’s staring right down into my eyes and says, “Yeah, you can drop the fucking act, baby girl. I know how you feel about me, the question is, why don’t you?”

  “You need to stop pushing this. Stop pushing me!” I shout. “Yes, I still love you, but you tore my heart out, Elijah! You left me broken in a million fucking pieces! You don’t get to be the one to put me back together.”

  I storm into the bathroom. Slamming the door behind me, I quickly undress and slip underneath the hot spray. I’m too numb to cry and, despite seeing myself shake like a leaf, I don’t feel a thing, not the sting and burn of the water against my flesh and not the fresh wound gaping in my chest.

  I let it go too far. I let him in again, I think, as I lean my head against the tile. My chest hurts, my head hurts. I feel like I’m made up of millions of tiny exposed nerves, all trembling and clamouring at once with the aftershock of being prodded by sharp implements. I feel raw. There’s no other way to describe it. How many times can we do this to each other before we realise we’re completely broken with no chance of ever being put back together?

  I don’t know how long I stand there, letting the water soak me to the bone, but sometime before it turns cold I hear the shower door open behind me. I whirl around and find Elijah there in the cubical with me, the spray soaking his clothes.

  “Get out!”

  “No.”

  “Fine then, I’ll get out.”

  “No. You won’t,” he says as he pushes me back against the tile. “You’re not making this decision for us.”

  “Jesus Christ, Elijah, how many times do I have to push you away before you get a fucking clue? How many more times can you stomach hearing that I don’t want you, that there is no more us?”