by Eden Butler
I hustled to my dresser, grabbing a pair of clingy sleep shorts and my favorite, worn t-shirt. It was black, had a frayed hem and pink letters that read Boss Ass Woman. Another mantra that had gotten me through the stickiest of awkward situations. I’d need it if I was going to work up the nerve to kick Ransom out of my apartment.
He didn’t try to sneak a peek, just stood legs apart as always, hands resting in his pockets as he popped his neck once. My fingers shook and I gave up on my bra when the hook would not fasten, rushing to slip on my tee and shorts. Still, I didn’t move from my dresser, stupidly thinking that the small distance between me and where Ransom stood next to that tiny sofa would keep me safe from him. Or him from me.
“Okay, so you wanna explain why you’re here? I thought we’d said everything that needed saying downstairs.”
“No.” Head turned, Ransom looked at me again, and a small, barely there grin pushed up one corner of his mouth as he saw the logo on my shirt. “Not hardly.”
“I can’t go back to your folks’ place.” The thread from my loosened hem scratched against my bare leg and I fisted it, nervous when Ransom stepped away from the sofa. “I mean, I miss them, but there are too many reminders and I…” I felt stupid, like a mumbling idiot with nothing remotely sensible to say. Ransom hadn’t looked away from my face. I kept on stammering. “Sarah, the girl from the diner, she’s good. Help…helped raise her four brothers. Koa will like…”
“Over a year?” he asked moving so close to me that the fabric from his bunched up sleeve brushed against my waist. “You were the girl with the asshole father.” I flicked my eyes to his, a little annoyed that he’d finally figured that out, embarrassed that he’d remembered. “You should have reminded me, Aly.”
A small wave of heat ran up my neck, almost suffocating in its intensity. I couldn’t tell if the irritation I felt was at myself for managing to only move my gaze to his mouth, or at Ransom for stepping so close, for using what he now remembered to intimidate me.
“It…it doesn’t really matter,” I said, deciding to direct my annoyance at him. Chin tilting up, I raised an eyebrow, ready to challenge him with one gesture, but failed miserably when Ransom lifted his hand to my face.
“It matters to me.” I tried like hell not to close my eyes, but Ransom’s thumb was large and he moved it against my mouth, the pressure a tiny enticement, a challenge to take that thumb between my lips. He didn’t let me step back like I wanted, followed me as soon as I moved and kept his hand on my face. “You should have told me.”
“I couldn’t.”
Ransom’s gaze lowered, trained on the small shake of my chin, then he moved his head, squinting at me like he was trying to figure me out. “You scared of me?”
There are moments—the moments that define us, that settle our paths with just a word or a look. This was one of those moments. I could have backed away, asked Ransom to stop touching me. I could have pretended that every look he’d ever given me, every taste of his tongue on mine hadn’t been something I’d dreamt of, something I’d craved.
But I wasn’t a coward. Intimidated by him, sure. Completely overwhelmed by the sight and smell of him so close to me, yes, but I wasn’t a coward who’d shy away from what I wanted. Not anymore. I stopped looking at his mouth, at his cheeks. I stopped avoiding his eyes and answered his question.
“No. I’m scared of what you do to me.”
I wasn’t surprised when he came even closer, stepping between my legs as he backed me into the dresser. “What do I do to you, sweetheart?”
“I…I…” Clearing my throat, I shook my head, reminding myself I wouldn’t hide anymore. “I’m scared of what you do to my body.”
That low groan, the way he bit his lip as though just the thought of my body’s reaction to him was the single most erotic moment of his life was haunting, had the shake that had only been in my fingers rushing up into my arms.
His expression was a little desperate, but wary and it fascinated me to see that constant cool of his fracturing just a little. Ransom’s top teeth dug into his bottom lip as he suddenly lifted me onto the dresser and then pulled me to its edge. “No one has done this to me in a long time,” he said, using his free hand to snake around my lower back and push me toward the fierce bulge of his hard dick. “No one but you.”
Glancing down, feeling the pulse of what I wanted so close, so warm, I swallowed, my throat making a small noise as my gaze jumped back to his eyes, realization a brutal truth that I equally loved and hated. “Ransom, that can’t be…”
“It is, baby,” he said, twisting my heart with one word. “I’ve tried before, trust me. I haven’t…Aly, my head is so fucked up, but you, what you do to me…” Ransom kissed my neck as though he couldn’t admit how exactly he’d survived everything that had happened to him. He rested his forehead against my shoulder and wrapped my leg around his waist, holding it in place. “What you do to my body, to the noise in my head, it makes me feel again. I can’t not feel what you do to me.”
I didn’t know what to make of the look he gave me. I only knew that I craved that look like an addict, wanting just that fierce gaze to eat up my features, devour me.
“I didn’t want to feel, not ever again.” Ransom’s hand against my face was warm and I leaned into that touch, wanting more.
“And now?” I asked, half expecting him to walk away, still.
I liked the way he moved his gaze over my face, like he needed to examine every feature, like what he saw didn’t seem real. “Now I can’t stop myself. I don’t want to.”
Maybe I’d expected trumpets and choirs and for the sky to erupt in bright, blazing lights from fireworks. That’s what I saw in my head. The reality was better. I had watched him, wanted him, maybe even loved him for so long that I was almost frightened of what would happen next. Still, that didn’t stop me from leaning into his mouth when he kissed me. That didn’t slow me down when Ransom picked me up, his hands on my back under my shirt, mine tossed in his hair as our tongues brushed together.
“God, you taste good. You taste too damn good, baby.” He took me down onto the bed and we were frenzied with every grope and grab, every lick and taste—a thousand daydreams came to life, a thousand wishes I’d made, right there under my lips, squeezing against my thighs. I had wanted him to fill me up, dreamt of what it might feel to have his wide, wondrous body on top of mine. But this was better, so much better than anything my boring imagination could have ever invented.
Real-life Ransom was better than a dream. He was fantasy made real and right then with the sweet hint of coffee and peppermint on his breath, warming my neck, hardening my nipples, he was all mine.
I relinquished control, my hands gripping the headboard when he cupped my ass, lifting my hips to rake his teeth, his tongue along my ribs. What could I do? He made me drunk with sensation, with the hope that I was not dreaming, so I didn’t stop Ransom or his eager mouth when he reached my side, when he left kiss after kiss along my hip as he pulled down my shorts. He moved his tongue, his fingers along my stomach, his lips and mouth following like he didn’t want the sensation to stop, none of it. My grip on the metal headboard tightened and shook when Ransom’s tongue dipped into the crevice where my leg and torso met.
“I could eat every inch of this skin,” he said, looking up at me with that ravenous glint in his eyes again. “Every single…” Ransom growled against my hip when he flicked his tongue over my clit, “inch.”
He was everywhere then—inside my head, filling it with sensation, with need; on my stomach with his free hand sliding up to cup my breast and his mouth licking around my hips, then back down, teasing my clit again and again until I could not take it. I needed to touch him.
It was only meant to be a graze of my fingers against that beautiful face. Something sweet, something that would keep me tethered to that bed, to him so that my heart would not burst from my chest. But that single touch, Ransom deflected, a quick grip of his fingers to brush away my to
uch and when I tried again, moving one hand from his hair to rake my fingers over his neck, his back, he took hold of my wrist, working some considerable skill to keep his mouth and tongue moving and my hand away from him.
He’d never let me touch me. Even when we danced, Ransom led, I followed and I wondered where that came from, why he didn’t want to be touched. When he glanced at me again, loosening his hold on my wrist as he watched me, as though testing my reaction to see if I’d try to touch him again, the same distant flash came back into his eyes, the one I’d seen there that night in the studio when he’d first kissed me. It was her. I knew that. He didn’t want me to touch him because someone else held him back. Maybe he was scared what my touch would do to him. I didn’t know, but I wouldn’t let this go, let him do to me whatever he would and leave me no choices. If I was his that night, he was mine and I’d take everything he had, even if he only offered the smallest bit of himself.
My third attempt was slower, but obvious. Squinting, not focused on how Ransom pulled away from my body, how he only stared at me as I moved my fingers in his hair and down his temple, I met that hard gaze of his, accepting the challenge.
One small brush, my thumb over his cheek and Ransom went still, immediately reaching for my wrist again. “Don’t,” he said, grabbing my fingers before he kissed them. “Let…let me make you feel good.”
It was his line. I’d heard it from some of the girls at the studio, the ones who were at CPU, had heard the rumors of the team’s parties and the girls who’d returned from Ransom’s room smiling and sated.
He damn well wasn’t going to use that line on me. Maybe he saw the irritation in my expression, maybe he knew I wouldn’t let him treat me like the other girls he’d serviced, whatever Ransom caught in my eyes, in that small frown on my face, had him trying to keep me on that bed. He tugged on my hips, gaze locked onto mine and he lowered again, his intention clear.
“Stop,” I told him, sliding from underneath him, avoiding his reach when he grabbed after me.
“Aly, please.”
“No,” I said, covering my bare chest with my arms. I wanted back on that bed, back underneath him, but I’d have Ransom my way. I’d have my dream. “Not like that.”
“What…”
“I don’t share, Ransom.” When he shook his head and that frown made his mouth look stiff and defensive, I leaned against the mattress on my knee, coming close to him. “You want in my bed, it’s the two of us and no one else.”
I got closer then, adding my left leg to the right on the mattress in front of him. He was still dressed and sweat beaded along his forehead. When I reached up to wipe his face dry, he again caught my hand. “What do you…want do you want?”
Pushing him wouldn’t work. I’d been around Ransom enough to know no one bullied him into anything he didn’t want. But I also knew that he wanted me. If he hadn’t lied about me turning him on when no one else could, then I’d use the leverage I had—my body, my limited moves—to touch him.
He reminded me of a cop, testing to see if a jumpy suspect was going to reach for his gun—Ransom held his hands flat on his thighs and tilted his head, watching me as I scooted closer. But I didn’t touch his face, just moved my fingernails over his knuckles.
“You want me, Ransom?” He didn’t say anything, but I still caught the answer in the way his gaze moved down my body, in how he licked his lips. I stretched my fingers, letting my thumb slip inside the sleeve of his shirt as I leaned in, placing one kiss under his ear. “You remember what it felt like, that first night at Summerland’s?” Ransom closed his eyes, groaned once when I took his ear between my teeth. “I came just rubbing against you, wishing…wishing I could touch you everywhere, with my fingers, my tongue…” another growl and Ransom didn’t stop my hand as I moved it underneath his hoodie and raked my nails over his stomach, “my mouth.”
“Aly…God…what, shit what do you want me to do?” His large palm was flat against my ass and Ransom used his fingers to curl into my skin like he needed to hold onto me. “I need to touch you. Please…”
“Because you want me?”
He groaned again, sinking his mouth onto my neck, his fingers in my hair. “Yes…I want you. Don’t fucking tease me.”
“Never,” I said, pulling away from him. He reached out once, a little desperate and didn’t fight me when I tugged up his hoodie. It was the small loosening of his tension, the slacked way his arms fell to his side that I used to shift control. Ransom went down easy enough, laying against the mattress as I straddled him.
He was so beautiful. So long, so wide that he took up most of my mattress. His dark skin against my white sheets, his large hands skimming over my legs, it was striking, all of it, and I wanted to kiss him, I wanted to keep kissing him until we were both weak from the effort. But I needed him to feel me, all of me.
I lowered over him slowly, locked my gaze on to his, ignoring how his hands trembled as he rested them on my hips. “I want you too,” I said, kissing his stomach, pushing up his t-shirt as I rubbed my lips against each dip of his muscles. “I’ve wanted you for a long, long time.”
“Aly,” he warned, his fingers digging into my thighs.
“You haven’t felt this, have you?” An open-mouthed kiss over his chest, a flick of my tongue on his nipple and his breathing quickened. “Only this, right?” I asked, stretching on top of him so that my center rubbed against his dick. Ransom squeezed his eyes tight and blinked quickly when I kissed him, when I rubbed my fingers over his forehead and across his cheek.
We were stomach to stomach, our mouths almost touching and as I continued to touch him, that distant glint in his eyes began to fade. “I want to touch you everywhere.” Again he closed his eyes when I smoothed my thumb over his face but this time his eyelids did not squeeze tight and his breathing had slowed. “Will you let me do that for you?”
He had a large Adam’s apple that bobbed when he swallowed and the only answer I got was a small dip of his chin giving me all the permission I needed. And for the first time since I’d known him, Ransom followed.
“Sit up,” I said, eager to get that shirt off him, happy when he obeyed, when he fell back again against the pillow, just as I wanted. But he wasn’t being docile; his reaction to how I touched him—those low, delicious grunts, the possessive grips on my hair, my hips, had me doubling my efforts, tasting his skin, licking and kissing across that beautiful chest, across the tattoo on his left pec. I knew who the angel there was, but didn’t think about it. Tonight Emily couldn’t have him.
“Aly, ah, what are you doing to me?” he said when I continued to kiss down his stomach, nuzzling my nose against his hips, pulling that tight skin near his navel between my teeth. “God, oh…” Those low moans were like music, a desperate song I wanted to hear over and over again. And so it was his voice and the rhythm of his sighs, the touch of his tightening fingers in my hair that urged me forward.
I didn’t think his breath could quicken that much, that I could take his tight hold in my hair, but I did, loving how my mouth, my teeth and tongue seemed to work some kind of spell on him, but when I loosened the button of his jeans and freed that beautiful, long dick from his boxers, Ransom made a noise deeper than any of the others and his heaving breaths stilled, like he waited, anxious, desperate to see what I’d do next.
“God…oh God, Aly…I need…I need…”
“What do you need, Ransom? Tell me,” I said, holding just the tip in my mouth before I released him.
“I need you to touch me.” He moved my head up and when I looked at his eyes there was nothing holding him back. We were alone. “I need you to never stop touching me.”
And I didn’t, not for two straight minutes. Ransom was long and thick and glided perfectly between my lips, the tip of him hitting each ridge on the roof of my mouth, that beefy vein underneath pulsing against my tongue. I didn’t break away from him once, not when Ransom’s groan became a growl again, not when his hips came off my mattress, no
t when he came, flooded my mouth so hard that I thought his shout would rattle the windows of my tiny apartment.
Ransom was eighteen. Young. Virile. One orgasm did not keep him sated for long. I had barely laid next to him, smiling as he rolled against me, loving how tightly he held onto me, how his cheek on my stomach felt warm, his slowing breaths fanning against my hip. It was just a moment, a handful of minutes, then Ransom’s breath evened out and he kissed my bare skin.
“Aly…Aly…” he said rolling over me. He took my waist between his large hands, holding me underneath him as my name left his lips like a prayer against my skin.
I could touch him now, my hands over his back, my fingers against his forehead, pulling his face closer. “Don’t stop,” I said, when he moved his hand under my thighs to settle between my legs. “Keep going, please.”
I wondered what was written on my face, if that thrill of anticipation, of hope was as plain to him as the craving that surely was in mine. Whatever he saw, Ransom hesitated and for a second I was scared he’d back away.
“Ransom…” I started, keeping my fingers against his face. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to keep from touching him.
“You sure about this? You want all of me?”
“Oh, sugar, every inch you’ve got.”
The quick smile left Ransom’s face, though he still nodded, like he needed me to know he understood. I held my breath, not sure I’d remember to exhale as he lifted his hand and let one fingertip smooth over my bottom lip. “You, Aly…shit, you could tempt a saint just with a blink of those big eyes.”
A small sigh and my breathing settled. “No,” I said, moving a half smile onto my mouth. “Saints don’t like sinners and I’ve got a full tally of sins.” It was true. I couldn’t count the times I’d wished that Emily had never existed just to keep that constant frown from Ransom’s face. I didn’t think there were prayers loud enough to absolve me.
