His eyes turned colder.
“Well? Are you going to say something, Eric? You said I could ask you anything. Did you just say that to—” The look. That look. It was unnerving. It…scared me.
He abruptly removed his T-shirt and walked into me with such haste, I almost fell over. He grabbed my ponytail and jerked my head back so fast, I gasped. He clasped his other hand across my throat. Moving in, he sucked my lip, lightly biting it, and walked me to the exterior wall of the house. He abruptly turned me around and brought my hands behind my back. He wrapped the T-shirt around my wrist and knotted it to bind my wrists tightly together.
“Eric—“
“Keep talking, and I’ll gag you with your panties.” He opened the sliding glass doors. “Walk!”
I slid my feet across the floor, walking across the threshold. I was left powerless. The feeling left a tingle at my sex that elicited moisture that spread to the crux of my thighs, making my panties cling to me. When I reached the dining room table, he grabbed me by the crown, and bent me over it. He roughly pulled up my skirt and tore my panties from my body, allowing them to fall down between my feet. I heard his zipper and felt his erection flop against the bare skin of my round behind. He slid the head up and down my slit, teasing me. He harshly grabbed my cheeks and pulled them open.
Something warm and wet slid down the crease and stopped just short of the pucker. I felt his fingers dally with it, moistening the open.
“Have you ever been fucked here before, Nikki?”
“No,” my response quavered with reluctance.
“Tonight, you are.” I felt his finger probe inside, forcing me to clench down. I was met with a neat, hard smack on my behind. It stung. It surprised me. It made me quiver with want. He did it again, harder. So hard, the pain reverberated up my spine. Relenting, I tried to relax. His finger successfully slid inside, and another slid into my moistness while another rotated around my clit.
I cursed as he rocked his fingers in a motion that left me spellbound. He took it away before I could really feel it and abruptly pushed the head of his hardness into the virgin spot. I winced and cried out. “Push down on me, baby,” he ordered without any of the gentleness he normally reserved for me.
I did as told, and he pushed harder, furthering his reach as he reached up and clutched the back of my head. I whimpered my pain through clenched teeth. He rocked shallowly inside my tight hole. Another glob of saliva slid down the middle of my stretched open cheeks.
The pain threw me. I wanted it. I craved it. It felt like cutting. It felt better than cutting. He pushed in further, and I howled. “Hard parts done. I’m all the way in, baby.” He started to ride me as he clutched the back of my head, holding me down with one hand as the other reached around between my thighs to finger my soft, moist clit.
I tossed my head so my forehead met the table. The pleasure began to level the pain, but I wanted to be left in confusion. The confusion was getting me there…in a different way. He began to stroke in hard fast slams. His naked groin, slapping against my behind made a loud sound that echoed off the walls. His pain inducing thrusts threw my mind back into confusion. My body quaked and ached as I felt on the verge of a different kind of orgasm.
He rode me harder and deeper, thrusting inside me so hard the table began to burn against my hips. He slapped my behind in rapid succession on either of cheeks as he began to sensuously groan. I jerked with every movement, clamping down against his girth. The gesture threw me fully into pain. His pelvis slammed into me, forcing my backside into a permanent soreness.
My body pulsed with an erratic heat, bringing my nervous system to a strong set of convulsions.
“Goddamn, Nikki. I’m gonna come.” His thrusts became vicious and untempered. The strong force began to burn me from the inside out. His hands desperately strummed at my clit, moving my senses in a disorganized way.
I quivered as my orgasm took hold. I cried into the table as it peaked and exploded from within.
“Awe, Nikki,” he throatily moaned as he withdrew. The head of his erection throbbed in between the crease of my behind as it ejected hot warmth across the small of my back and onto my skirt. He sank against me for a moment, before disappearing in the kitchen. He wiped me clean with paper towel and removed the T-shirt from my hands. I slowly slid up, feeling exquisitely sore. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he lifted my thighs to rest on either side of his waist. His kisses were impassioned as he took me upstairs to my bedroom.
I couldn’t sleep. I felt jittery and clammy again. I rolled over to observe Eric, but he wasn’t sleeping either. I slipped down, resting my head on his firm torso. I fingered the peaks and valleys of the muscles in his chest while vacuous thoughts and insecurities consumed me.
He propped an arm behind his head, watching me. “It doesn’t bring about the greatest of feelings to talk about it. I don’t dwell on it. I don’t…think about it. I’m not going to talk about it.”
“You can’t pretend that it doesn’t affect you,” I whispered. “Sometimes you can’t help it. You don’t deal with it. You do deal with it. It worms its way in there somehow. Sometimes you don’t even know that it does.” I fell solemn as I thought about my demons and my transgressions.
He sat up, forcing me to sit up with him. Grabbing my thighs, he pulled me to sit across his lap with my legs swung off to the side. I tried not to grimace, but the motion made me remember the pain. Removing the sheet from my naked legs, he fingered the jagged scars on my thighs. “Some of these are very old. Did you start this up when you were a kid?”
Usually uncomfortable with anyone touching me there, his touch served as a welcome calming agent. “When I hit puberty, it started to feel different. It started to feel…” My eyes drifted off into space.
He nodded, because there was no need to say anything; he knew. He dropped his head, finding my hands and warmly slipped his fingers between the spaces of my hand. As he closed his hand tightly, he erected the sensation I’d grown to need; the feeling that pulled me out of my foreboding state. “What really happened to your father, Nikki?”
And just that quickly, the feeling was gone. I slipped out of bed, taking the sheet with me as I wrapped it around my body. Although he saw me naked in very intimate pieces, I couldn’t yet find the comfort in being completely nude. I never could. The scars were my escape, but they were also my shame.
“Damn, think I might turn the heat on. It just became frigid in here.”
“You don’t talk about some things.”
He sighed and slipped out of bed, standing confidently naked in front of me. “I don’t talk about a lot of things.”
I lost all train of thought as I grazed over his naked form. His defined upper half, his elongated torso, his long muscular legs—
“Why that picture, Nik?”
Alerted, I gave him the full extent of my eye contact.
“Mel brought it to the dinner last night. Said you wanted it.”
“Where is it?”
He walked over to my walk-in closet and pulled out the framed photograph. I couldn’t help but smile at it. Melonie did a great job with the frame and the mat. I gently sat down on the floor, grimacing as I fingered the glass. “I thought I didn’t understand people, but I was wrong. I just…didn’t want to think about other people’s thoughts and feelings. They still confuse me sometimes, but…I feel like I understand you the most. Not completely, though. You still leave me mystified at times. But, when I saw this…it’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?” He crouched down, eyeing me with question.
“I doubt you when you say you love me.”
“I know you do,” he sighed.
“It’s because of this picture. Because, the man in this picture has something in his eyes that the one in front of me doesn’t. If this man looked me in the eye and told me that he loved me, I would believe him. Because I can see everything in those eyes. Tragedy. Pain. Longing. Everything the live-action version keeps hidden awa
y from me. I used to not care. I used to be selfish. You did something to me, Eric. I just…wish you would help me to feel good about what you make me feel—what I feel for you. You can do that by letting me in.”
He stood strong and seemed lost for a moment as he contemplated the ceiling. “I get that you want me to open up…but I don’t see the point of doing that right now.”
Disappointed, more than I could show, I stood strong and walked over to the window that faced his house. A familiar Ashton Martin was parked in the driveway.
Eric slipped behind me, pressing his nude form against me. He slipped down, giving me a kiss on the crux of my neck that made me close my eyes. He unexpectedly stopped his seduction. From his reflection in the window, tension reappeared in his face and was downright crushing.
“Stay in the house. I have to take care of something.” He methodically moved around the bedroom and replaced his clothes.
“Why? Is something—“
“Nikki. Stay in the fucking house. I mean it this time. Are we clear?”
I sheepishly nodded as I felt the strength of his command.
As I watched him march to the house, Maisha began to frantically bark. I tried to stay, and not let my other nature get the best of me. But when I heard the erratic screaming and destruction from inside the house, I couldn’t be still for much longer. I threw on Eric’s T-shirt, which was way too big for me, and ventured outside.
Once I was out the door, I was met with Mrs. Hobbins standing on the street with a furrowed brow and her dog in her arms. She was in a house coat with pink sponge rollers hidden underneath her floral bonnet. “I’m calling the cops! I’ve had just about enough of that family.”
I ignored her and moved inside Eric’s house.
Estelle screamed, “No, Eric. Please. You’re hurting him. You’re going to kill him. Stop.” She sported a new series of bruises on her arms and a recovering black-eye.
Eric strongly tossed Preston around the living room. Preston was defenseless, never fighting Eric back. Eric drew back a punch and landed it squarely on Preston’s nose. It began to pulsate with blood.
“Eric, stop,” I said, but I was too quiet.
“You fucking owe me. I lent her to you, and you can’t do right by me?”
“Stop.” Estelle moved to try to separate them. Eric seemed unfazed. “I’m pregnant stop.”
He immediately let Preston go, allowing him to slip weakly to the ground. Estelle enveloped Preston in her arms as she shook with tears.
Eric growled, “You don’t get pregnant by the man I gave you to. It’s against our rules.”
My heart sank in my chest. It felt so heavy, I could barely breathe.
“I-I fell in love. We fell in love. He wants to marry me, and I want it, too. We were going to tell you, but—”
“This isn’t fucking happening. No. How the hell do you plan to marry him when he can’t keep his fucking hands off you in the way he should? Did you forget you’re still mine? Your actions are mine to decide.”
I didn’t want to believe it before. I wanted to believe it was just a one-off. I wanted to believe it was just a really close relationship with odd features. Denial can transform one into becoming dangerously stupid. “W-what?”
Everyone in the room turned to look at me, but my eyes were trained to Eric. He looked a mixed of pissed off and apologetic. “What the hell, Nik? Why can’t you fucking listen? I told you to stay in the house,” he rasped.
“Estelle is your g-girlfriend?” I sputtered.
Estelle stood, trying to help Preston to stand. “We are a lot more than that. Something someone like you wouldn’t understand.” Estelle shook her head at Eric and sighed. “This is why I fell out of love with you. This is why I no longer want to be yours Eric. You don’t treat people well. You use them. You didn’t take care of me like you promised. You ruined my life. No more. I’m having Preston’s baby, whether you think you can let it happen or not. I want nothing to do with you, your lies, or your scandals. I’m done paying you back for what you did for me. I’m done letting you make me pay. You’re a natural disaster that consumes and destroys everything and everyone he touches.” She stepped over to me. “As for what we really are, clueless one—“
“Estelle, don’t you dare fucking address her,” Eric snarled. “She doesn’t concern you.”
Estelle glared back at him in defiance.
“You want me to let you go, you fucking whore? Fine. Doesn’t matter how many times I hear this bullshit after you run off with a man you think you love. No more. I’m done. Leave. You and that waste of fucking space can leave my house tonight. You’re released from your debt. You no longer owe me. You’re no longer mine. So fucking help me, if you open your mouth to anyone about me, there won’t be a word for what I will do to the both of you. Do you get me?”
“I-I won’t say a thing to anyone about you,” she said while quaking with tears. “I know what you’ll do to protect yourself. Very fucking well.” As she passed me, her eyes turned to concern.
Eric met Preston with a clean punch to his throat. Preston gargled as he clutched his throat. “What the fuck did I just say?” Eric barked.
“You win. You win. Just don’t hurt him anymore. Please,” Estelle begged.
With an insidious smile, Eric grabbed Preston’s head roughly. “And you, my friend—” He leaned into his ear, whispering things to him that only he and Preston could hear. Preston nodded profusely as he clutched his neck, straining for air.
Estelle and Preston made a very quiet and quick exit.
Eric and I stared at each other for too many moments of silence. I didn’t know the first thing to say, or how to approach it. I know my fingers itched. I know my thighs ached for the touch of the sharp edge I‘d abandoned. I didn’t want to deal with this. I didn’t want to involve myself in it at all. It all served as a reminder to why I didn’t engage with very many people. You become invested, and they break your heart. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t…
The walls felt like they were closing in. I couldn’t breathe. My hands were clammy and my throat went dry. The pain in my chest was excruciating. Blinding white spots flared in my vision. There was a crushing weight on my chest. I couldn’t….breathe.
Eric put his arms around me and sat me down. I felt him pull me forward as he knelt down in front of me. “Nik, look at me. Look at me and match my breathing pattern.” He grabbed my hands to his chest, pressing them against his ribcage as he took in deep inhalations and exhalations.
“I-I c-can’t,” I said through wheezes. As I panted, I felt drawn to pass out. I felt like I was going to vomit. I felt like I was having a heart attack.
“My twisted angel, look at me,” he said mechanically. “Look into my eyes and breathe. You’re okay. You’re fine. It’s all in your head. Now take control of your body.” He pressed my hands harder, clutching my wrists with a painful crushing force.
The pain felt like a knife slicing me thin and separating me into small parts. I tried to match his breaths. Mine began to waver. I struggled to fight for control, but I couldn’t stop panting. As I got lost in his softening light brown eyes, I began to remember something less painful. Something real between him and me. Something that everyone continuously attempted to take away.
I sucked in a breath and let it out slow. It wavered, but became easier as I took in more air. He grabbed my head and kissed my forehead. “Good girl.” He stood and disappeared inside the kitchen. He came back and offered me a glass of ice water. He brought the glass to my lips, calling me to drink. “Slowly….slower….good.”
I grabbed the glass and tipped it back from my lips.
“Better?” he asked as he rested his palm against the side of my head.
Dazed in his eyes, I couldn’t nod. I couldn’t make him feel better about lying to me. It was too late to walk away. I was trapped inside emotions that wouldn’t let me. Because, despite it all, Eric made me fall in love with him. He was the only thing I had left in the w
orld.
The sound of police sirens broke us both out of our gaze. Without moving from our positions, we glanced at the door.
“I’ll handle this,” he swallowed. I watched him stride toward the front door. Finding my bearings, I stood tall. “How can I help you officers?” Eric asked through a cheerful tone.
The man and woman in staunch navy blue uniforms eyed Eric with an unfriendly evenness. The woman glanced over at me speculatively. “This is Officer George, and I’m Officer Bryant. We received a call about disturbance at this residence. Do you mind if we have a look around?”
“Got a warrant?”
“We’ve got probable cause.” George pushed forward and stepped inside. He and Bryant had their eyes fixed on me after surveying the disaster in the living room.
“Is anyone else in the house, sir?” asked George.
Eric looked palpably tense. “No, just my girlfriend and I.”
“Ma’am is everything all right?” Bryant asked.
I nodded and gave the officers a fake smile. “Everything is just fine. I guess our bedroom antics disturbed the neighbors. We’ll be quiet next time.”
Bryant looked over my body. She stared the longest at the scars on the inside of my forearms. Aimlessly, I tucked my arms behind my back to hide them. As George walked intrusively around the house, Bryant kept her eyes on me. “Why don’t you come to the squad car and talk to me for a bit?”
“No need,” I assured her. “As I told you before, everything is fine.”
She shook her head with a disapproving smirk. “Let’s go, George,” she barked at him.
Eric saw them out, closing the door behind him. He plodded towards me while he contemplated me through a stillness. “It’s not what you think it is.”
The Sordid Promise Page 17
