by Bijou Hunter
“Because I care about you. I want you to stay with me, but I’m not sure you’re ready to.”
“I can do whatever I want.”
“But should you do whatever you want?”
“Do you do whatever you want?”
“Fuck no.”
“What do you want to do that you don’t?”
“I don’t know,” he says, scratching his beard like a grumpy bear. “I get an urge to visit my family. Especially this time of the year. You know, I see people getting together with their relatives for Thanksgiving, and I get nostalgic for that kind of thing. Then I remember I’m not welcome at my parents’ house.”
“How come?”
“They think I’m a criminal.”
“You are a criminal,” I point out.
“Yeah, now, but they were thinking that way when I went to juvie.”
“Weren’t you a criminal then?”
“No. Well, I mean, the law thought I was, but I didn’t see it that way. I’d killed a shitty fucker. To a lot of people, I’d be a hero, but my family wrote me off as a bad seed.”
“Who did you kill?”
“I don’t want to talk about that tonight.”
“How come?”
“Because I’m happy and talking about that shit brings up a lot of fucked-up feelings.”
“You’re happy?” I say and crawl closer. “Because of me or because you’re living somewhere better?”
“Your place is nice, but I don’t need much more than a bed. What makes me a cheery fucker is what I’ve found with you.”
“What’s that?”
“A fucked-up woman who doesn’t ruin me,” he says, and his gaze refuses to let me go.
“So far.”
“You listened when I asked you not to take off your shirt. Later, when I ask you to get naked, I hope you’ll listen again.”
Grinning, I scoot closer. Blackjack watches me with a distrustful look in his eyes. I finally rest my head on his shoulder and study the tattoos on his arm.
“I prefer being naked. I spent years naked. Clothes look pretty, but they get in the way of moving around.”
“I want to kiss you. If I do, you’ll climb into my lap and make my dick too hard to answer the door.”
“I can answer it.”
“True,” he says and leans down, so his lips nearly meet mine. “I really don’t want you outside with the pizza man, though.”
“Then don’t kiss me. We can’t chance it.”
Blackjack smirks and leans down to nuzzle his lips against mine. I want so badly to climb on his lap and return to the hot moment from earlier. Rather than give into my sexual need, I remember the rules for when I’m with people I care about—keep my word, allow people boundaries, and don’t be greedy.
➸ Blackjack ★
The cold rain alleviates my arousal, leaving my dick painfully unsatisfied but able to survive the tightness of my jeans. I take the pizza from the guy at the front gate and hurry back to the townhome where Yarrow waits at the open door. Her flannel shirt remains partially unbuttoned, providing a glorious view of her pale skin plus the slight curves of her small breasts.
“You should take off your wet stuff,” Yarrow says once I’m inside.
“Stop trying to get me naked.”
“Clothes are boring.”
“For fuck’s sake, can we please eat without you making my dick cry,” I grumble, even though I can’t help grinning.
“Don’t forget I know how to suck cock,” she says while following me into the kitchen. “I won’t bite or anything.”
“Stop talking about sex.”
“Want to fuck my ass?” she casually asks before grabbing a slice of pizza and dropping it on her plate.
I don’t answer Yarrow who walks back to the living room with her food and a can of Mountain Dew. She gets comfortable in the corner of the couch and looks at the lava lamp. After mentally erasing the dirty images of what she could do with her mouth and ass, I sit on the other end of the couch.
“Want to watch TV?” I ask.
“No. It’s noise.”
“So, we eat in silence?”
“Okay.”
Yarrow isn’t fucking around about silence. She eats her slice of pizza, finishes her drink, and burps loud enough to impress even me. Not once does she speak to me. Or even look in my direction. Once she’s done, though, she crawls closer.
“I’ve been thinking,” she says, sighing heavily.
“About what?” I ask and rest my plate on the coffee table.
“Why do you look mad?”
“I haven’t had sex in a very long time, and you’re making it very hard for me to take my time with you.”
“You said hard.”
“No pussy talk.”
“Fine,” she says and settles her head against the couch. “I don’t think I should have a baby yet. They’re beautiful and soft, and I want one so much, but I’m not ready. Babies need someone good to have them. You can’t yell at them when you’re having a bad day or ignore them when you’re tired. They need a mama that isn’t afraid of closets and dark corners. They need someone who can handle stress because being a parent is stressful. I’m not good enough for that yet.”
“You’ve only been out of that room for a few years. Give yourself time to baby yourself before you rush into babying someone else.”
“I don’t want to be a bad mama,” Yarrow says as her blue eyes fill with tears. “I want my babies to be happy like Oz’s. I don’t want them to be scared of me. When Oz gets mad at his kids for being bad, they’re not scared he’ll hurt them. They just don’t want to lose TV time. They don’t flinch when he comes at them. They’re not afraid of him like they’d be of me.”
Yarrow’s fingers grip the couch fabric as tears pour down her cheeks. She sniffles but doesn’t sob. Even so, I wrap her in my arms.
“The way I see it, you’re rushing to do stuff when you really ought to be taking your time. In a way, you’re like a three-year-old still learning the world.”
“I’m not a child, though.”
“I know.”
“I have grownup needs, but I can’t get what I want because my brain is too stupid to handle the responsibilities.”
“Not stupid.”
“I am stupid. I know less than Oz’s kids.”
“About certain things, probably. About others, you know more.”
“Like what?”
“You know how to make a man crazy with a look. You know the power of a smile. You know how to scare the shit out of a grown man. You know how to twirl a knife like a pro. Oh, and you know how to drive. Pretty sure they don’t.”
“I only got my license because we cheated on the written test. I couldn’t pass it otherwise,” she says, nearly pouting.
“You drive fine.”
“Just fine?”
“I’d rather be the one to drive, so, I’m sticking to fine.”
“I know how to read the stop signs. I can’t read a newspaper, but I can read basic stuff. Ginger puts the words on the TV, so I can see them when people are talking. That’s how I learned to spell some stuff.”
“Even if you didn’t know how to read, it wouldn’t matter that much. I mean Camo can’t spell for shit, and he graduated from high school. Glitch failed every math class in school and only got his diploma because he made up his easy math classes by taking easier summer school math classes. I’m horrible at remembering dates, and I got shitty grades on history tests. Everyone is dumb about some stuff, but they get through life fine.”
“That’s not the same as being a parent.”
“No, but Bay is pregnant. Oz will likely knock up Ginger soon. You’ll have plenty of babies to practice on. By the time you have one of your own, everything will be second nature.”
“Of my own? You mean, with you?” she asks and wipes the tears from her cheeks.
“I don’t know. How can I?”
“Do you want me to have a baby with someone else
?”
“No.”
“Then it has to be you,” she says as if I’m the dumb one. “That’s how you know.”
“Is it really that simple?”
“Why not? I don’t know why everyone makes everything so complicated. They get stressed out trying to control things that I don’t think are meant to be controlled. If they did what was easy and obvious, everyone would be happier.”
“Sometimes, the easiest choice leads to negative consequences.”
“Like what?”
Yarrow stares at me for nearly a minute before I talk myself into answering her.
“Like seeing a couple guys raping a woman. The obvious choice is to bash their fucking heads in and save the woman. Except everyone crushes you for doing the obvious thing.”
Shaking her head, Yarrow says, “The obvious thing would be not helping. A lack of action is easier than acting, and people tend to make the easier choice. Cayenne told me that.”
“Not helping would leave you guilt-ridden. How would that be easier?”
“People lie to themselves. They would say they couldn’t have helped, and eventually, they’d believe that. Lying is fun.”
“I don’t see it that way,” I grumble, having thought about this shit for nearly fifteen years.
“You don’t like lying?”
“Of course, I do. I just don’t see how anyone can find a woman being gang-raped and not act. Doesn’t that seem impossible to you?”
“No.”
“So, you wouldn’t help her?”
“Of course, I would, but I’m weird and like to hurt people.”
Shaking my head, I don’t know why what seems obvious to me doesn’t to everyone else.
“What happened to the woman you helped?”
“I don’t know,” I say and take her hand for comfort. “My parents wanted me to take a plea deal, so the woman never had to testify. There were three men that day. One died. Another was pretty fucked up and now lives in an assisted living facility. The third asshole only got a few hard thwacks before he ran. The cops caught him, and he took a deal too. I never knew anything about the woman. Not even her name. When I asked after getting out, people told me to leave it alone.”
“You worried about her.”
“Of course.”
“Did you resent her for you being in juvie?”
“No, I resented everyone else. I shouldn’t have been locked up for helping someone.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“Wow, you beat up those three men all by yourself,” she says, perfectly impressed.
“Yeah. It was my proudest fucking moment too. I’d been walking home from baseball practice, and I cut through a dozen backyards as usual. I found them on a back trail by a creek. The men saw me, but they didn’t stop. I wasn’t a small fourteen-year-old, but they weren’t afraid of me. When I yelled for them to stop, they laughed. The woman didn’t even see me through her tears. I don’t think she knew I was there at all until I started hitting the men with my bat and they screamed.”
Yarrow studies my face before caressing my jaw with both hands. “You were her hero.”
“I wish I knew what happened to her.”
“It’s probably better that you don’t.”
“At this point, yeah, it wouldn’t make sense to find her. She wouldn’t want to dig up all those bad feelings. Still, I really wanted to know after it happened and all those years in juvie.”
“You needed to know you made a difference.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.”
“You ended that one guy and made that other guy harmless. The third guy has a record now. You made that happen. If you hadn’t done anything, maybe they’d get away with it. Bad people get away with stuff all the time.”
Sliding down on the couch, I rest my head on the back and exhale softly. “I had a nice, easy life before that day. People said I should have run for help. I don’t know why that never occurred to me. I saw that woman on the muddy ground, naked and already used by the fuckers. I guess I could have gotten help, and my life would have stayed easy.”
“But you wanted to hurt them. Even though your family is normal and safe, you weren’t like that deep down. You reacted with rage because deep inside you have a taste for violence. I do too. I never knew that until the crew took me out of the room.”
Yarrow cuddles closer and speaks in a whisper. “I rarely hurt anyone who came into the room. I was passive. Asleep even when I was awake, but then they yanked me out, and I was scared. I didn’t cry and hide. I didn’t run either. I attacked. That’s me. It’s who I am when pushed. You’re the same. You got pushed when you saw that woman suffering. It awoke something inside you that might have stayed hidden for a long time, but it was always there.”
“I do like fucking up assholes,” I say, grinning.
“If you never saw that woman and those assholes, you would have been bored in your safe life. You just never would have known why.”
“You’re right.”
“I know.”
Smirking at her certainty, I take her other hand. “I’m glad I helped that woman, and I’m glad the crew yanked you out of that room. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
Yarrow gives me a smile that both warms my heart and engorges my dick. This sexy minx is definitely planning to cause trouble for me tonight, and no way am I strong enough to do the right thing.
Chapter Ten
Life Lesson #10: you owe no one nothing
➸ Yarrow ☆
Blackjack missing his family makes me sad for him. He should get what he wants, and what he wants is for his mommy and daddy to love him like they used to. Seems like a simple thing, but people can’t help making life more complicated.
I’m not good at being like people, so I choose to make what I want clear with Blackjack. After using the bathroom, I strip out of my flannel PJs. I can’t see my body in the small mirror over the sink. I glance down at my small breasts and feel my vagina where a neatly trimmed patch of pubic hair remains. I remember Clove saying how waxed pussies were for porn stars and insecure twats, but that didn’t mean the lawn shouldn’t be mowed time and again.
Knowing I want Blackjack to visit my yard, I cleaned it up last night after my shower. Now it’s time to show off my handiwork.
I leave the small downstairs bathroom and sit on the couch near the lava lamp.
Blackjack immediately frowns. “Where are your clothes?”
“I don’t know,” I say since his question is stupid.
“Fair enough.”
I glance at him and find him yanking his shirt over his head. Realizing I can finally check out the tattoos on his chest, I crawl over to him.
“I want to see,” I say, dodging his lips so I can explore his ink. “Will you get a tattoo of my name?”
“Sure.”
His rough fingers slide down my spine, and I shiver at his warmth compared to the cold of the room.
The skull and bones on Blackjack’s ribcage can’t compete with how amazing his hands feel on my bare flesh. Crawling onto his lap, I caress his face and soak in the need I find in his gaze.
“It made no sense to me why Ginger wanted to mess around with Oz. She seemed stupid and weak, and I got scared because Ginger was always strong and smart. Now I understand why she wanted to be close to him,” I say and grind my hips against his. “With the right person, being weak and stupid feels right. All the heat between my legs makes my brain forget to think.”
Blackjack holds my face possessively. “You make me feel so fucking weak and stupid that I don’t know if I’ll ever recover.”
His words sound unhappy, but the glow in his smoky-brown eyes reveals a different emotion. More than horny, Blackjack is unguarded, vulnerable, maybe even afraid.
I wish my current fearlessness could transfer to him. I don’t want to be in charge of our bodies when I can simply relax and enjoy the amazing sensations. Selfishness makes me happy, bu
t I can’t be that person right now. Not with Blackjack when he’s so close to giving us both what we crave.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I cuddle his face against my chest. His beard tempted me, and I’ve wanted so badly to know how it’d feel against my nipples. His lips try to latch on when I graze my tits against his cheeks. I want to feel the hairs rough against my hard nipples. Blackjack, though, grips my arms and forces me still so he can taste me.
We struggle for the next few minutes—both wanting to take control. I ache to explore his body, and he wants to do the same with mine. I want to taste him, but he wants to taste me more. He nips at my nipples before I push him off and reach down to tease his.
“I haven’t fucked a woman in years,” he moans while pinning me to the couch long enough to kiss at my stomach. “I still know we’re doing this shit wrong.”
“Let me go,” I sigh and wiggle free.
I reach for the condoms we bought at Wal-Mart. Except there’s only twelve in the package. We’ll need to go back to the store soon.
“I know how to do it,” I say and yank a condom free from the box. “I watched a video on the internet.”
Blackjack opens his mouth as if to speak. I graze my nipples with the condom, craving the rough scratching sensation. His mouth remains open longer, but he doesn’t speak. Instead, his lips cover one of my nipples and suck rhythmically until it’s long and red. Flicking it with his tongue, Blackjack tightens his teeth on the tip before looking to me for approval.
“I need to fuck,” I groan, climbing off the couch and kneeling between his legs.
I wrap my fingers around his stiff flesh with one hand while the nails on my other hand scratch at his inner thigh. Blackjack inhales sharply, torn between pain and arousal. Does he fear I’ll hurt him? Maybe he should. My heart is beating so fast, and I feel out of breath even before I run my tongue hungrily over the head of his cock. I can barely contain my desire, and my fingers shake when I open the condom.
“I can—”
“No,” I snap, wanting him to leave me alone to enjoy this moment.
My lips suck at the hot, veined skin along his shaft as I roll the condom lower. Blackjack exhales into a groan when I reach his balls.
