by Brown, Tara
"You love this car don’t you?"
I nod, "I do. It's so nice and clean and quiet."
"Do you want it?"
I turn my head sharply, "What? No!" Disgust has crossed my face, I can't fight it. "Why does everyone think that just cause I grew up an orphan, they have to give everything to me? Like…am I so pathetic?"
His face turns red, "I'm sorry. I never meant to offend you. At all."
I close my eyes and mutter, "Sorry."
I've been having outbursts like that one a lot. I hate it but it seems natural. It's almost like it's the girl I might have been, had I not been taken, is slowly finding her way inside of me and taking control.
His hands rest on mine, "I don’t place the same value on money." He says softly. I open my eyes and nod, "I know. I'm sorry. I just think you should have a car, freedom. Not a driver. It's weird."
"I know it's weird."
"Has he offered to buy you a car or does he only want you under his thumb with his driver?"
I give him a harsh stare, "No. He doesn’t want me learning in the city."
He looks hurt, "Why does he get to give you money and not me? I love you. I want to be with you, completely. I want you. Baggage and all. But I don’t want some other guy's girl."
I frown and swallow hard. I don’t know what to say. I grab my bag and open the car door, "I'm sorry." I climb out, but he's out of the car in shot. He walks around and pins me to the car. His lips crash on mine. His tongue is searching, savagely. His hands rake my back and butt. I moan into his mouth.
He opens the car door wide again and shoves me in. I'm panting as he closes the door and walks around. He starts the car and puts it into drive.
"I'm tired of your running away. We are finishing this goddamned conversation before I explode and kill someone." He's angry. Vicious. I've never been more attracted to him.
He pulls into underground parking. We have sat in the awkward silence for the entire drive.
He parks and gets out. He flings open my door and drags me out of the car. He's not speaking. I don’t know what to think but I like the determination in his eyes.
He presses the elevator button with savagery, like I do, like he too is scared of whatever is behind us. The second we're inside and the door is closed, I jump him. I wrap my arms around him and kiss him like I'm trying to kill him. When we get to his floor, he carries me to the door to the penthouse. He fumbles with the key. I laugh into his mouth as he curses.
He flings open the door, slamming it into the wall. He grabs the door and slams it shut. He drops me to my feet and looks at me.
I'm breathing heavily. He pulls his sweater off. His muscles are pronounced and trembling. I reach out and run my fingers down the front of him. There is a small amount of hair on his chest.
The silence isn’t awkward anymore. It's full of sexual tension. He grabs my hand and places it over his beating heart and holds it there. It's like he's giving it to me maybe. I pull off my shirt and do the same with his hand over my sports bra. I want it to be him in my heart. My gesture might not mean the same to him but it means a lot to me.
He pulls me in, pressing our chests together. He bends and kisses my neck. His body is exploding with heat. He pulls me to the bedroom I was always running from. He shoves me back on the bed and reaches down for my yoga pants, pulling them off.
I grimace at my granny panties. They're comfier for boxing. He smiles when he sees them. He undoes his pants and pulls them off as I pull my sports bra over my head, with the usual amount of difficulty. It isn’t sexy. It's horrible and almost dislocates my shoulder every time.
He bends and licks up my calf. I shudder and lie back. He's rubbing up my legs softly, kneading and massaging and licking and kissing. I start to get lost in it. Lightly, his fingers brush my soft cotton underwear.
I gasp.
The anticipation and delicate touches are worse than anything I've ever experienced. He drags his fingers up and down my underwear. I'm slowly spreading my legs, begging him to just touch me, just let me out of my misery.
His finger loops into the middle of the underwear and brushes up and down my lips. He doesn't talk but I hear a packet. A condom. I'm grateful he's in control enough to make a smart choice.
He kisses the sides of my thigh, softly. I'm clutching the blankets. He drags my underwear down with his looped finger. I help him and kick them off. He slides up my thighs again. He's trying to kill me I think.
Before I know what to expect, warmth drags up and down my slit. I cry out, before I can stop myself. The warmth of his mouth crashes onto me. He sucks my clit, making me jerk and grab at the bed.
He licks and sucks slowly. I feel one of his huge fingers touch me. He pushes it in slowly, just dipping it in a couple times. It's enough. It's all I need. He sucks my clit and I orgasm. He feels me tighten and pumps his fingers in and out of me.
I'm in a frenzy. He slides his fingers out and I feel him moving around. I shiver when I feel the warmth of his mouth hovering over my nipple. He rubs his erection up and down my slit.
As he delicately pushes himself inside of me, his mouth crashes onto my nipple. He sucks and pushes and I'm lost. It's slow and intense. Everything he does is like he's paying homage to my body. Worshipping at the temple that is me. His hands caress my arms, his kisses land on my neck and chest. When his mouth meets my face I'm hungry for his kisses. His strokes inside of me are still slow and methodical. He makes complete strokes, fully in and out. I'm moving against him, trying to make the pace quicken. Deep down, I know it's that I want him to take me. Fuck me. I want him wild and out of control. I want to feel the freedom I get from the loss of everything.
But he isn’t. He's in control.
I'm opening my legs, wrapping them around him, but he maintains his control. I don’t look at him. I can't. He's seeing me exposed. He's seeing the need I am exposing myself to.
His body is fully sliding against mine. His hands are gripping me, holding me. It's sweet and soft.
"Fuck me." I whisper. It's desperate. I have a need.
"I am." He says softly.
I open my eyes, "Hard."
He sits up and lifts my legs in the air and pounds me.
"Like this? You want this? Goddamn. You feel so good." I like it when he talks.
His body slamming into mine is ecstasy. I get lost in the thrusts and the pressure. He bends forward, pushing my legs almost to my head. His thrusts are slapping his body against mine. I orgasm a second time forcing his orgasm. He cries out into my legs and finishes. He unravels my legs and collapses onto me. I grunt with the exhale as he does.
"Am I squishing you?" He asks.
I lick my lips, "In a good way."
"Holy shit, Sarah." He's breathing in my hair.
I laugh, "Yeah."
"I think I almost had a heart attack."
I laugh again. He pulls out and climbs off of me. "I'm not even kidding. That was maniacal and I feel like I used you."
I grin at him, "I used you back. Don’t worry."
He shakes his head, "You're different than I ever imagined you would be. In every way." He tosses the condom in the garbage and pulls on his boxers and collapses next to me, bouncing on the bed slightly. "From the girl I met in the gym, to the girl who had the attack at Chicken Lou's, to the girl who threw up in my garbage can, to this. You have come so far. That therapy really worked."
I shiver and crawl under the blankets. "I don’t want to talk about it."
He blushes, "Sorry. You're just surprising me. In a good way." He traces his fingers up and down my arm. "What should we do now birthday girl? God you're so beautiful."
I shrug. Mostly out of discomfort. Why is he talking and touching so much.
He makes a face, like he's inspired and stands up, "Be right back."
He leaves the bedroom. I wrap the blankets tightly around me and fight the feelings away. I have no one to talk to. I have to swallow the feelings and forget them. I tell myself they're ju
st leftovers.
He comes back in after a minute and crawls into the blankets with me.
"You know I was thinking, why don’t we go somewhere this week?"
I frown, "What?"
"Well, I have a job going on in Los Angeles. I need to go there this weekend. You could come with me."
I look at him and hate myself, "No. I need to train and I have school."
He kisses my cheek, "Okay. I won't push it. It took almost the whole damned year to get you to here. We can take it slowly." I press my face into his cheek.
He strokes my hair out of my face, "How's the whole semester looking?"
I grimace, "Bad. I think I'm failing creative writing. Not good for a journalism wanna be."
He laughs, "How the hell do you fail creative writing?"
I move my head to look at him with daggers in my eyes, "It's harder than you think smarty pants. The prof hates me. She wants us to rewrite everything a minimum of fifty times. Which I think is insane. It's poetry. It's the fruit of the moment. You know?"
His eyes sparkle and look greener than I've ever seen them, "I do not."
I laugh and shove him, "A poem is based on the emotions you have at that moment. If you rewrite them then you're taking away the raw emotion you were having and replace it with something that’s not authentic to that moment."
His eyes widen, "Well, well. Look who is deeper than a puddle."
I open my mouth in offense, "Hurtful."
He rolls his eyes, "You never let me in."
A buzzer interrupts my pout. He jumps up, dragging on his pants and running from the room.
I sit up and wait. He comes back after a couple minutes with two trays. He places them down. They are silver trays with steaming pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs and fruit and coffee in to go cups. I smile. On one plate the pancakes have "Happy Birthday Sarah" written on them. I sit back on the bed and pull the covers up to cover myself. He places the tray down, "I figured since you didn’t want to go to breakfast, we could just have it here."
I smile at him, "Thank you. You're so sweet."
He grins and climbs on the bed to eat his, "I don’t feel sweet after earlier." I roll my eyes. He gets my hint that I don’t want to discuss it…ever.
"Can we do dinner tonight though?"
I shake my head, "I can't. I have to go meet my real parents tonight. It was my goal for my twentieth birthday. I need this."
He looks worried, "Who's going with you?"
I eat my bite and fight the fact my appetite is going quickly, "Shell. I just want her there."
He nods but I can see the look in his eyes. "She's like my security blanket from childhood, you know?"
"How did you two meet?"
I shove the memory down and shake my head. I push away the food and give myself a minute.
"You okay?"
I take a breath, "Just a sec." Sometimes memories make me feel dirty.
I lower my heart rate with breaths and being grateful.
I open my eyes and look at the breakfast again. "We were at the pool. The orphans were allowed to go swimming. These means girls from the town bullied me. They were making fun of me for my haircut and my old faded bathing suit. So I ran away and hid in a corner. I had a thing for corners."
I could cry from the shame that's still there, but I don’t. I just talk quietly, "Shell just came up and sat beside me. She was so pretty. Her bathing suit was new, bright green with black polka dots. She looked like a dark-haired Barbie. She asked me random questions and didn’t care that I didn’t want to answer them. She forced me to be her friend. Then this girl came over and was making fun of me, calling me a lesbian. I sat there, calm and quiet. I wouldn’t cry for anyone. Shell stood up and punched her in the face. The girl ran off crying and told the nuns that I hit her."
"Oh my god."
I nod once, "They came to get mad at me and make me go back to the bus. But Shell went and got her mom who went all crazy Italian on the nuns. She said, if her daughter said she hit the little bitches, then she did it and not me. Then she yelled that they deserved it for calling me a lesbian. The nuns were pissed. The other girls got thrown out of the pool. She was the first person who ever stood up for me." But my brain points out the lie in the statement. "Besides Eli."
He grabs my hands, "I'm sorry I made you remember that."
I shake my head, "No. It's not a bad memory. It's good. I need to focus on the good part of it. A girl, who was popular and well liked, picked me. She has always picked me."
He tries to make himself smile but he can't. "It was all so hard wasn’t it? Every minute?"
I look at him, "No. Nothing is ever all bad. I had amazing moments."
He looks confused, "Between the bullying and beatings and mean nuns and hand washing and OCD and anxiety?"
I see myself in his eyes for a second and feel a little bit sorry for myself, but my brain shuts it down fast. "I could have died like Emalyn."
He nods once and pushes his breakfast away, "That’s very true."
Chapter Twenty-Four
I cross the grounds holding her hand.
You slept with him?"
I nod, "I feel horrible. Like a slut. I actually thought about Eli, which is so gross."
She nudges me, "He's not the kind of guy you forget easily. Dirty talking, bum spanking, panty stealing, bad boys are hard to come by."
I laugh, it's nervous. Seeing the SUV is making me nervous."
"Did you blow the crazies off?"
I shake my head, "I think they're worse. I feel sick and gross and I miss Eli, but I'm terrified he's going to know I did it."
She snorts, "Girl, please. That man probably already knows. I swear he has you GPS'd."
I smile but nothing takes away from the nerves and sickness inside of me, "And I feel bad for Sebastian. He was giving me his whole heart and I left there not wanting it. I am so fucked up. They' aren't going to want me, Shell. I'm such a mess." I say it as we get to the SUV.
"They will love you. Trust me. It's impossible to not love you." She nudges me again.
Stuart opens the door. "You okay, Sarah?"
I shake my head.
"We'll be there for you the entire time." His voice is steady. He doesn’t even steal a glance at Shell. He is there for me. He always was.
Shell pushes me inside the SUV. I sit inside and try not to feel like vomiting.
I don’t know how I feel about the fact Eli had them fly here. He will be part of the whole thing. He is the whole thing. He's organized it all and made it happen.
Stuart speaks in the rearview, "They're staying at the Hotel Commonwealth. It's nice. They have the suite, so we can sit in private and meet them."
I start to panic. My head fills with a million different bad things. "What if they don’t like me? What if I'm not the way they imagined?" Shell pulls a paper bag from her purse and holds it out.
"You're not in the orphanage tardo. These people gave birth to you. They're yours, your parents. They'll love you no matter. Mine love me through all the bullshit."
My hands shake when I take the paper bag. I'm shaking so hard I can't get the edges open. She takes it and opens it, "Calm. Deep breaths." I grip the bag, tearing it. I start to cry.
She pulls a second bag out, it makes me laugh, but it's a sobbing laugh. She holds the bag up to my face. I dig my hand into my pocket and grip the gingerbread hand sani. My body is clenching and aching. I'm huffing the bag but I can't get calm.
Stuart pulls up to a red awning outside a beautiful building. My hands are shaking. The SUV door opens. His hand is there. I'm instantly grateful for him. I close my eyes and take it. He pulls me into him and instantly everything is better. His touch takes away all the sharp edges and makes them soft and safe.
"Eli! Leave her alone!" Shell is shouting and scrambling after us but I'm gripping to him.
"Don’t be strong and brave for them. Be you. They expect nothing." He whispers into my ear, wrapping his body around mine. No amou
nt of hate or disgust I harbor for him, can steal the fact he is my savior. Always was.
He brings me to a fancy white door. I see the woman's washroom sign as we walk through and he locks it. He sits me on the counter and brushes my hair away. His icy-blue eyes are hard and focused.
"They don’t have any expectations. They never even had hope until I confirmed who you were. Be you. You're sweet. We both know that." He isn’t soothing. He's an asshole. But I believe him.
I nod and sniffle, "I'm scared."
He leans in and kisses my forehead, "I am too. But you have me, even if you don’t want me. I'm here. I'll always be here." He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and puts it up to my face. I shy away, horrified, "Is that clean?"
He laughs, "Yes. Fresh from the laundry. Just let me wipe your eyes." He wipes my eyes softly, "When this is over, you and I need to have a very serious conversation. I don’t want to take away from the specialness of what you're about to do, so we'll just put that on the back burner. Just focus on this moment now. It's hard. I know that. You're amazing and they are lovely people. Trust me."
I flinch when he says it, but I nod. "I do." And I do. There is no one I trust like I do him. Sister or no, I trust him with my safety. Sometimes I still think it's Stockholm.
He puts a hand out. I take it and let him lead me. I'm gripping my sani and him. It's more than I have ever needed.
Shell is in the reception area of the hotel. Stuart is close to her.
She looks at Eli but speaks to me, "You okay, Sarah?"
I nod and squeeze him. He bends into me and whispers, "You ready to do this?"
I grip him and my sani tight. "Yup."
Shell smiles sweetly, "They're going to love you. Like we do."
Tears threaten my eyes again, "You're already more than any orphan could ask for." My words tremble out of me. Eli holds me and pulls me closer to him. I numb myself to him and all of it. I take a breath and nod, "Let's go." He leads me to the elevators. I blush when we step inside. I stand too close and need too much. I can't stop it.
The elevator stops with silence. No ding. No bell. Eli clenches my hand as Shell leans in and kisses me.
