by Lexi Whitlow
I tell her about my father, how he died broke and broken, leaving our little family to fend for itself on a meager income. She goes quiet listening. It’s an old, sad story I’ve rarely told anyone.
According to the official record, he got drunk, drove his big rig head-on into a car and killed a toddler. He lost his reputation and his livelihood. After that it was a rapid descent into a swirl of self-destruction that ended, inevitably, with him on the road in an alcohol haze, his car wrapped around a concrete barricade, his skull crushed against the wind shield.
He left Mom, me, and Drake on our own. I was just thirteen years old.
“Damn, this is a dark turn,” I observe. “Not at all where I wanted to go.”
Bryn leans in a little, offering me a sympathetic smile. “It’s all part of who you are,” she says. “Not everything in life is unicorns and rainbows. It’s important to me to know all of you, not just the good parts.”
‘…the good parts.’
Which parts would those be?
I take a breath, holding it, counting to ten, thinking.
It’s now. Right now.
“I’ve tried hard all day not to kiss you,” I say. “But I don’t think I can hold out much longer.”
Bryn’s eyes narrow, her lip—those full pouty lips designed by some cruel deity to tease me—turns up.
“Why would you try not to kiss me?” she asks, one eyebrow lifting.
I reach forward, tentatively threading my fingers into hers. “Because once I really kiss you, and keep kissing you, it won’t end there. At least I hope not.”
Bryn blushes. She actually blushes. Outstanding.
“Come inside with me?” I ask, turning my palm up, offering my hand.
She slips her small hand into mine without hesitation, her pale eyes fixing on me.
“I’d like that,” she states. “Been wondering when you were going to get around to it.”
That’s enough talk for now.
I draw her with me into the living room, and then onto the couch. This time when our lips meet, I don’t measure or back down. I kiss her sweet lips, tasting her essence, drinking her in. My tongue and hers find a hungry, steady rhythm, then ramp it up as the heat between us builds.
Bryn’s hands are curious; exploratory. She traces my shoulders and chest, then my belly, as I cup a breast over her shirt, thumbing the peak of her nipple. She’s impatient too, working at the buttons down the front of my shirt, pushing it back, then sliding a hand under my t-shirt, her palm and fingertips finding skin.
I peel her t-shirt over her head. I want skin too. I want all of it; every pale, soft, sweet inch of her tight little body under my hand. I push her down into the cushions, kissing her bare skin, caressing every turn and arch above her waist with my tongue, making her giggle and moan all at once.
She pushes me off her just long enough to force my shirt off my shoulders, pulling my t-shirt over my head, then she turns her attention, with hooded eyes and determined intent, to my belt.
I can’t help but laugh as she fumbles, trying to release my hardened dick from its fabric prison.
“You want some help there?” I ask, grinning down at her impatience.
Bryn bites her lip, her brow knitted. She nods yes.
“Come on,” I insist, stepping off the couch, pulling her to her feet.
She’s surprised with the sudden change of attitude, eyes going wide.
Now’s the time to really surprise her.
In one fast, fluid motion I sweep her off her feet, hefting her, ass up and over my shoulder, one arm encircling her legs at the knee to keep her in place. She gasps, then lets out a small exclamation in protest.
She weighs nothing. She’s powerless against this. I love it.
“My bedroom? Yours? Or right here on the floor?” I ask, spinning her around, laying my free palm flat on the backs of her still cotton clad thighs, then very softly stroking up to her round ass.
I like giving a woman options.
Bryn laughs and kicks.
“Yours!” she giggles, feet flailing, having no effect on me.
“Okay.”
I haul her into my bedroom then dump her on the bed as she laughs. I crawl in over her, laughing with her, my hands reaching her hips. I roughly grip the stretchy waistband of her slacks, pulling them down to reveal pink lace panties and perfectly pale thighs.
I toss her slacks aside, then roll her, man-handling her, so I can access the clasp of her lace bra. I want her naked before me. I want to see what’s been hidden from me for so many years.
Once she’s bare, I spare not an inch of her body, kissing, lapping her skin, gently biting, then finally—once she’s blissfully distracted, her hips rocking against me—I slip a finger in through the parting of flesh between her legs, feeling hot liquid flow, coating my hand.
She’s dripping wet.
She moans in response to my touch, back arching, legs spreading spontaneously.
My cock is so hard inside my jeans I’m afraid I might burst the zipper, but I want to taste her first, just a small taste, before I take her the way we both want.
“Oh, God…” Bryn moans, her fingers threading tight in my hair, my lips finding her sweetest, warmest places. I suck gently at her clit, fucking her slowly with two fingers, feeling and tasting every fold and muscle of her walls. She’s tight against my fingers, meeting my thrusts with her hips. I know she’s going to feel incredible…
“Oh… fuck… Logan… don’t… stop…”
Who’s stopping? I keep every twitch exactly the same until I feel her body bow, tightening, hearing her breathing cease as she builds.
When her orgasm breaks, it comes in a slow, liquid drizzle. Her voice high, mewling like a kitten, her hips rocking in synchronicity with my hand, my lips, my probing tongue.
I don’t quite let her finish before hauling myself over her. I want to see the fleeting traces of that orgasm on her face.
I’ve dreamed of this moment a thousand times in my sleep. Day-dreamed it ten-thousand more. I’ve had her every way my sorry brain can conjure in its darkest spaces. But I’ve never been here, with her, in her heat, her liquid sex dripping into my palm. My imagination is lacking.
This is real, and it’s better than anything I ever hoped for.
“I want you inside me,” Bryn urges, again fumbling with the button at my jeans.
I reach down, doing the job for her, then shove my jeans back off my hips, freeing myself, circling a fist around my girth, stroking my stiff cock to length.
“You want this? I ask, pressing the tip between her legs, letting her juices superheat me.
“Inside,” she repeats, begging, her hands sliding to my hips, urging me in.
Her face is flush, sweat beading on her brow, her legs spread wide around my hips.
I sit up, retrieving a condom from my ass pocket, tearing the packet with my teeth while she watches with curiosity and unconcealed lust.
I want to do her bareback, but that’s not happening tonight. I roll the thing up over the length of my cock, feeling the deadening grip of cool latex enfold me. It’s tight and uncomfortable, but better than not being here at all.
“You come here,” I growl, seizing Bryn’s hips in my hands. I pull her down to me, then press her knees up, spreading her wide open. I move in hard and fast, breaching tense muscles, feeling the instant ecstasy of her heat surround me like a crashing tropical heatwave.
She lets a little gasp escape as I pull back, then slide in deeper, swift, pinning her beneath me. I have her hips driven into the bed with every spiking thrust.
Her pussy is tight, gripping me like a fist while her hips rise in time to meet mine.
Bryn starts to whine as if she’s about to come again, but I know if she does, that’ll be it for me, and I want this to last.
I pull out, then roll her over, lifting her bare ass up to meet my rock-hard dick. Before she’s even steady on her elbows, I shove in again, going deep, then drawing back. S
he cries out – not in protest, but in unexpected pleasure – her fists gripping the sheets beneath her.
This is what I’ve wanted… to possess her… to take her rough… to show her…
I take my time, one hand roping a fisted knot of her hair, pulling her head back, one hand at her hip, my fingers gripping tender flesh, keeping her just where I want her to be.
Without warning I feel her muscles tighten against me, throbbing. Bryn’s back rounds, her posture pressing in deeper to meet me.
“Oh, Jesus…” she whines, short breaths catching. “Oh… oh… harder… fuck me.”
I can do that.
I pound in, going as deep as I can, pulling her ass close so that the space between the base of my dick and her hungry cunt is barely even there. I thrust in hard and slow, my balls slapping her clit with every deliberate blow, feeling her tension build.
She comes like an earthquake, breaking in tremors, her body wracked with the weight of it, collapsing, short of breath, heaving air into seared lungs. She’s spent.
There’s no way I’m done yet.
I roll her on her back again, this time taking the more traditional position, my posture straight while Bryn wraps arms and legs around me. I go slow, feeling her, watching her closed eyes flutter, her face tense, fingers gripping the outside of my shoulders.
I get close and slow down, backing off, not wanting it to end.
Bryn opens her eyes, a placid expression peering up at me—eviscerating me. Her face is the face of that teenaged nymph who kissed me, bit my lip, and then laughed.
I shove harder, feeling her heat and wet. Gazing into her eyes, eyes that see me clearly, perhaps for the first time ever.
I sense every fold and wrinkle inside her, feeling the slick heat between us. I’m suddenly aware of the rough drag of her clit against the shaft of my dick, and feeling her muscles tighten every time I draw back.
She’s vulnerable to me; the girl who deferred to Daddy because her mother didn’t much like her. She’s that kid who had to please everybody, make better grades, be popular. She finally found out there was no way to please everyone.
She feels so good…
Her muscles tremble again, a faint, nearly imperceptible shudder builds until her ankles are locked around my hips, squeezing, pulling me deeper. I’m buried inside her.
“Oh… God… Logan…” she whines, her fingers dig into my back.
I wait for her, holding back against the crushing impulse to push hard and fast.
The feel, the look of her beneath me, her eyes locked on mine, the memories; they all coalesce in one escalating experience. My body responds, balls drawing up tight, then with a seizure, releasing in time with her.
Bryn and I cum in almost perfect synchrony, eye-to-eye, hips welded together, bodies trembling, gasping.
My mind goes numb. I hear myself call out her name, but it’s a voice from some other dimension. Time stops. My heart ceases to beat. All I know is Bryn, sealed to me, imprinted on my soul. Tears form in the corners of my eyes. I don’t fight them.
I haven’t possessed her. Rather, she’s always owned me. I’m nothing of consequence without her. Without this.
How did I not see this?
I understand now. She’s all there ever was, all there ever will be. Everything in-between was just waiting, marking time, merely existing.
Now there’s this… bliss.
Chapter 13
Bryn
Our bodies heave together in a tangle, laughing, crying, like a reflex; as natural together as breathing, sharing the same oxygen. We fit.
What was that?
It was essential perfection. No one has ever…
Logan slips on trembling muscles, collapsing against me. Then he rolls to his side, hauling air into seized lungs, freeing me from his grasp.
My brain reels, trying to process what just happened. At first playful, then rough, almost brutish, then measured and calculating, and then… then we connected. Tender yet visceral, one-on-one, communicating…
Who is he? What did we just do?
Should I gather my clothes and skulk away, or bow at his feet in graceful thanks?
“Jesus,” Logan breathes beside me. “Jesus Christ.”
He’s still short of breath, drawing in air, his body slumped flaccid on the sheets, sweat glistening on his skin, eyes glassy.
I lay my palm against his belly, drawing his attention. “You okay?” I ask.
His expression remains glazed, but content.
“I’m good,” Logan says, encircling me with strong arms, pulling me close under his shoulder. “Damn. I expected to fuck. Not have a fucking epiphany,” he laughs under his heaving breath.
“What does that mean?” I ask, circling against him, my hand flattening against his muscled abdomen, feeling the heat rising from him.
“God, Bryn,” Logan half whispers. “I’ve wanted you since high school—before. Before I even understood what it meant.” He sighs. “When your car broke down and I fixed it, it all came back, and I was so pissed. Ashamed with myself, my world. Then—the money came. And I wondered… I didn’t let myself entirely believe I could win you over, but… look at us. Look at this.”
“Look at what?”
I feel my blood pressure spike and every hair stand on end. There’s something about his words that are boring down into every single insecurity I have. And I hate it. I take a deep breath, waiting for his next words.
“I did win you over, didn’t I? With the trip and my style—”
“Your style of what?” I pull away and look at him quizzically. Is he saying that the money is why I’m here with him, in bed? If Logan the mechanic had asked me to go on a road trip with him to New York, I probably would have done it. He just hadn’t ever asked.
“Back in high school, you told me to come talk to you when I was in the NFL. Now I’ve done better than that—”
He laughs. In this moment, I hate that laugh.
I think of my father, freaking out about my talking to Logan. About his insistence that I never speak to the Chandler family again. Logan doesn’t know that side of the story, and now it’s becoming clear that he thinks I’m the same damn little girl that I was in high school.
“Is that what you think, Logan?”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that—” He tries to catch my hand, but I don’t let him.
“You ought to think about what you’re going to say next, very carefully.”
He gives me a look of confusion, but my anxiety is spinning nearly out of control. Being with Logan—wanting him so desperately—it’s put my entire body on edge, my mind along with it. I want to control the sharpness in my voice, but I can’t. Instead, I bite my lip and sit up, looking at him.
“What I mean is that—when I got the winning ticket, I had this whole shift in my life and you—I just get it now.” He’s rambling. “I see things clearly. I get it. You and me. It makes sense.”
“You get what?” I ask, sitting up. “That I’m only here because of the money?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I barely hear the words. “Fuck that,” I spit, pulling away. “Fuck you for thinking it.”
“Bryn,” he protests as I gather my clothes. “Bryn, I didn’t mean—”
“No!” I insist. “If that’s what you think of me, then that’s that. Screw you and your money. Your roses and sweet words. I don’t need any of it. I don’t need your Legal Aid grant either. Screw that too. You can keep your money.”
“Bryn, please…”
Now he’s begging. And I’m outraged.
“You think I’m some long-anticipated piece of ass you can order up like dinner?” I ask him. “Son, you need to check your expectations. I am not a tick mark in your catalogue of recent acquisitions. We screwed, but that’s the beginning and end of it. You didn’t win anything.”
“Bryn, that’s not—”
“Shut up!” I snap. “Just shut up. We’re done here.”
Nobody has ever made me feel so cheap, so easily acquired. No one ever made me feel used.
No one until Logan Chandler.
I leave him as quickly as I can, a stunned expression seized on his face, at a loss for words he’s better off not speaking.
I’m an idiot for thinking there was anything more to him than the dumb jock I knew in high school. He’s just as arrogant now as he was then. Now he’s just an arrogant, dumb, jock with enough money to think he matters. He’s wrong.
Chapter 14
Logan
Bryn slams the door on her way out, rattling the furniture, spinning my brain.
What did I say? What set her off?
I collapse back onto the pillows, trying to recall words spoken in the swimming aftermath of the most earth-shattering sex I’ve ever experienced.
‘I’ve wanted you since high school...’
She knows that. She’s always known it.
‘…I was so pissed. Ashamed with myself...’
How can she find fault with that, after all we talked about tonight?
‘…then the money came… I didn’t let myself believe I could win you over, but…’
Like she was a prize. Part of the lotto package. And then I kept saying the word over and over again.
Money. Fucking money. Money, money, money.
The one thing I’d always wanted after I got kicked out of college and needed to take care of Mom and Drake.
I guess my brother was right—it is a curse.
Or it can be, anyhow.
The money.
I cringe, thinking how that must have sounded to her. I said it all wrong. That’s not what I meant. I need to fix this. I need to explain.
I shove the sheets back, putting my feet down. Then I see the only thing that could rattle me worse than what just transpired between Bryn and me.
When we finished, I slipped the condom off, dropping it to the floor where it lies now. The thing is—it’s shredded. The condom broke.
Fuck… fuck… fuck.
I close my eyes on the scene. I’ll deal with that later. I need to talk to Bryn about what she thinks I meant, versus my actual intent.
I pull on discarded clothes, then go knock on her door. She won’t answer. I hear her inside on the phone. Despite muffled tones and dropped words, I believe she’s talking to the airline, changing flight arrangements.
