Burn Down the Night

by M. O'Keefe

  “It’s freezing in here,” he whispered. “Did you crank up the air-conditioning?”

  “It’s because you’re a chump and you got a sunburn,” I whispered into the dark of the room. I was making a study of the lamp on the small bedside table. The pink beaded fringe. Three beads on each little bit of string. One big, two small.

  He grunted in response.

  “And why do you smell like a cigar?” I asked, turning away from my lamp study.

  “Wedding gift.”

  That made me roll over. Or gave me the excuse to roll over. I didn’t know anymore. I rolled over and faced him. His bruises were dark, his eyes bright. That beard. That beard made me breathless.

  “Who gave you a cigar?”

  “The husbands of all the women that gave us food and booze today.” He was lying on his back, wincing at the rub of the blankets over his chest. Poor chump.

  “The smell bother you?” he asked, turning his head to look at me. His eyes were all liquid and wide in the dark, and I could tell he was taking in the pieces of me like I was taking in the pieces of him.

  “Don’t be nice,” I warned him.

  “Well, it’s not like I offered to go sleep on the love seat if it did.”

  “Good point.” Asshole, not a dick. The distinction was becoming clear to me.

  We were silent for a few moments, and I was about to roll back over, uncomfortable with the intimacy.

  “I called my brother.”

  “What? But you said—”

  “I know.” He seemed…lighter.

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing. I left a message.”

  Did he see how happy he was just from leaving a message? Could he imagine how happy he’d be if they actually talked?

  “What are you going to do after you get your sister back?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Survive. Figure shit out.”

  “Aren’t you tired of just surviving?”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  “Why don’t you go back to nursing school?”

  “What?” I jerked back.

  “You said you had to leave nursing school. You could go back.”

  “I could. Except I have no money.”

  “I can give you some,” he said.

  Chills rolled up and over my neck and skull. Such kindness. Such generosity from him, for a moment I was stunned.

  “What is with you?” I whispered.

  “I have money. You saved my life.”

  “You’re high.”

  That made him laugh. “Maybe,” he said. “I feel a little high.” Again, I was about to roll over, because I didn’t know how to handle this conversation. Just then he reached out and touched the end of my ponytail where it lay against my shoulder.

  Hair can’t feel, I know that. But still…the brush of his finger against my shirt moved the fabric just barely over my skin and I was so tuned up, so alive inside my body, I felt that touch everywhere. I felt him everywhere.

  And I wanted more.

  “I miss the blonde, it suited you.”

  “It wasn’t real.”

  “Is this color real?”

  “No.”

  “Your hair, your name—you don’t give anything away to anyone, do you?”

  Except you, I thought. He was thinking it, too. It was there in his smug grin.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered. “What about the bruises you’re going to leave me with?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe there’s something more in me than giving bruises.”

  I sucked in a breath. And another one, trying to find some solid ground. “I can’t…don’t be kind.” I said in a rush.

  “Is that what I’m doing? Being kind?” His fingers were stroking my collarbone now, just above the edge of the shirt I was wearing. A light fingertip brush that was unraveling me. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been kind before.”

  He wasn’t being who he was supposed to be. And he wasn’t asking me what he was supposed to ask, and his touch was making me crazy. Like I didn’t know who I was. So I got out of bed. “I am going to go sleep on the love seat.”

  “You scared?” It was a question and at the same time, it wasn’t.

  I pulled the sheet and blanket with me when I stood and when I looked over at him, his whole body was uncovered. The tattoos and the lean muscles were cast in silvery shadows. A line of dark hair started just under his belly button and ran down his flat stomach to his crotch. Where his cock, ruddy and thick, lay, half hard against his leg.

  As I watched, he reached down and cupped his cock in his hand, pulling it taut and then letting it go. He did it again. And then again. Fully hard now, it was huge, the tip of it reaching past his belly button.

  My mouth went dry. My pussy went wet.

  “You don’t want kindness but you want this, right?” he asked, his voice low and quiet. He jacked himself for me again. Twisting his hand at the tip, like it was a little flourish he’d perfected. “Joan?”

  “Yes. I…I want that.”

  “You want me to show you what I like?” he asked. “What gets me off when I’m all by myself? Or do you want to run scared and sleep in the other room?”

  Some distant alarm was ringing in my head, like a fire drill pulled by Miss Ramona.

  But I wasn’t listening to Miss Ramona anymore. She’d screwed me up enough.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  His laughter was dark and twisty and it worked a compelling kind of magic over me. “You gotta say the words, Joan.”

  “I want you to show me what you like,” I said. Because I wasn’t scared of these words. These words, for all their power, had no hold over me. I could talk filth all day long. It was the other shit that wrecked me.

  On the bed, spread out like a buffet of riches, Max shifted, putting an arm behind his head, revealing that tattoo. And for a moment I got lost in it, wondering what kind of tree grew from a bed of bones. What could survive with that kind of food?

  But then he curled his fist around his cock. And my mind banished all dark thoughts. I was here and I was now. And I was painfully alive.

  He gripped his cock so hard, the tip turned dark and a small drop of milky pre-cum leaked from the tip. He used the palm of his hand to spread the come over the head and when that wasn’t enough he licked his hand.

  “I’m thinking of your mouth,” he said, his eyes dark and hooded and secretive in the shadows. But they were on me and I could feel his gaze on my body, like my shirt and my pants weren’t there.

  “I’m thinking of you on your knees in front of me. You have your blonde hair back and you’re so fucking hot and so fucking hungry for my cock.”

  It was not hard to imagine.

  “You lick me,” he said. “Bottom to tip, your hand on my balls, nice and firm like you know what you’re doing.”

  Oh, he had no idea. And I could show him. I could crawl up the bed between his legs and I could swat his hands away, replace them with my own. Suck the tip of that monster into my mouth and down my throat. All the way down. Until my nose was pressed to the hair of his groin and it hurt and I couldn’t breathe.

  Yeah.

  I put a knee on the bed and he lifted his head. “No,” he said. All firm and hard and I could barely breathe for wanting him so badly. “Watch, remember? No touching.”

  His lip curled in what looked like fondness and affection and I had to look away to get my bearings. To find my familiar self in the moment.

  “Watch,” he said, pulling my focus back to him. He spread his legs, muscular and dusted with hair. His chest, just over his ribs, was still mottled with bruises. He looked fierce. He looked damaged.

  He looked exactly like what I wanted.

  “Show me,” I breathed. He nodded, his bottom lip caught between his teeth in what had to be the sexiest expression. Like he hurt just a little, or he wanted to. Like he was holding on to himself using all possible means. I clenched my hands into fists
so I wouldn’t touch him. So I wouldn’t slip my hand down the front of these yoga pants and give myself a little relief.

  His hand moved faster, squeezing harder, and every few strokes he gathered more come from the tip and spread it down over his dick until I heard the wet slick of his hand against his cock. Once he was good and wet he moved faster, twisting his hand at the top, squeezing until the head was purple.

  “You like it hard,” I said.

  “It’s how I imagine fucking you,” he said.

  “Tell me,” I breathed.

  “I imagine bending you over this bed. I imagine your ass in my hands and my dick in your cunt. I imagine pressing as high and as hard into you as you can take. I imagine you asking me to stop, but when I ask you if you’re sure you say you want more. I imagine being inside you so deep you can feel me in the back of your throat. You can taste me on your tongue.”

  I had to take a step back until I was up against the wall, because my knees were weak. My pussy was on fire. On fire.

  “Every time I push into you, you say my name. You say Max and more and please. I fuck you until you’re screaming.” His hand was a blur on his dick but I was barely watching. Our eyes were locked, I couldn’t look away. I was a fly in his web and he was coming for me—I knew it. But I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I didn’t want to do anything to stop it.

  “And you feel so good on my dick. So wet and so hot. And when you come…” He stopped for a second, breathing hard, his face flushing. His chest under those tattoos flushing. If I touched him now, he’d be so hot. Sweat would drip from our bodies.

  “Yeah,” he breathed, his eyes closed. And I could tell he was getting close. So close and I don’t know why I moved. Why I did it. But I pushed off the wall and crawled up the bed between his legs.

  “What—”

  I didn’t give him a chance to argue or push me away or make some kind of bossy command. I slipped my lips over the head of his dick and he groaned, low in his gut like he approved on a visceral level.

  “Jesus, fuck, yes.”

  He was so hard against my lips and I took him deeper, tasting the salt of his come and his sweat against my tongue. He put his hand on my head, pushing me deeper like he knew that was what I liked, and I did. I liked it so much.

  His cock buried in my throat, his hands tangled in my hair, he started to come. Arching up into my face.

  “Yeah, oh fuck. Take it. Take it all,” he groaned and shook and pushed and retreated only to push back in deeper and I took it all. His hot salty come spurting down my throat.

  When he was done I slid off him, and he jerked and twitched at the movement. I imagined him so sensitive to me that my touch hurt and I wanted to explore that. I wanted to push that hurt into pleasure and back again.

  But instead I sat back and wiped my burning, stretched lips. The inside of my bottom lip was raw from where I’d tucked my teeth.

  He would like my teeth, I thought. Next time—

  I jumped up off the bed, or I tried to. He grabbed my hand, wincing as he sat up.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m…” going to go finger myself raw in the other room. “I’ll sleep on the love seat.”

  “Why?” he asked. He was all undone from the orgasm. He was bleary-eyed, his dark hair had flopped over his forehead, and his mouth was slack and sweet in that dark beard and I wanted to press my lips to his.

  We’ve never kissed.

  All this shit between us and we never once kissed.

  He leaned in like he was having the same thought and I pulled back. Some latent misguided effort to protect myself. To preserve what I could of me.

  “Okay,” he whispered, his breath all over my face. “No kissing. But let me…” His hand touched my tummy through my shirt and I felt every muscle contract. My stomach, my legs, my back—everything tightened.

  I sucked in a breath and didn’t let it out.

  “Baby, let me touch you,” he whispered. I said nothing. I didn’t nod or flinch or even breathe.

  If I opened my lips I would say no. I would say don’t. Because that was what I was good at doing. Denying what I wanted. Making myself unhappy.

  So I bit my lips shut, keeping myself silent.

  And he took it as permission and I let him.

  His fingertips slid under my shirt, my skin painfully alive to his touch. I turned my head away because somehow closing my eyes wasn’t enough.

  Those rough fingertips slipped under the elastic waist of my yoga pants, over my tummy, and I shook at the feeling.

  “I can feel how hot you are from here,” he breathed. “How wet.”

  “Don’t—” I said, hard and fast but then stopped.

  “You want me to stop?” he asked.

  I shook my head, still not looking at him. “I want you to not talk.”

  “So you can pretend it’s someone else?” he asked, laughter and something darker all over his words. Something a little hurt maybe or a little angry.

  I looked at him, my eyes meeting the dark blaze of his. “Just…get me off,” I said.

  “Your wish,” he muttered and that finger was not so gentle now. His touch didn’t make me tremble, it made me shake. I wanted to grab his shoulder with my hand but I didn’t. I was there, up on my knees, his hand in my pants, and I tried to be as alone as possible.

  I wasn’t pretending he was someone else. I was pretending I was alone.

  His finger was an intrusion—thick and gorgeous between my legs. Hot and hard. Calloused and rough. I gasped, my head falling back on a suddenly weak neck.

  He burrowed under the cheap rayon of my thong and found my slit. He gave me no preamble. No foreplay; he just kept going until he found my clit. I jumped. Gasped. Weaved on my knees.

  He pushed down hard on my clit and I cried out, lifting my hips in to the touch. Wanting more. Needing more.

  And he gave it to me. He pushed my yoga pants down around my thighs and put his whole hand into my orange thong. Fingers pushed inside me, one, then two, and a third.

  “Oh God,” I cried out and finally grabbed onto his shoulder. He swore and I remembered—somehow—that he had a sunburn.

  “Sorry—”

  “No,” he said and grabbed my hand, putting it back on his shoulder. “You touch me.”

  We were a strange circuit. His hand in my pussy, my fingernails on his sunburn.

  “I’m going to make you come,” he said. “Me. Max. You can go hide out in the other room, but only after I’ve made you come.”

  “Don’t—”

  But his thumb slipped over my clit and I was too far gone. The orgasm was right on top of me. An avalanche of pleasure I couldn’t stop or push back. I shoved him away, his fingers abandoning my clit, and I came anyway. I collapsed forward on the bed on my hands and knees, my yoga pants pushed down my legs, my thong askew.

  I came and I came and I couldn’t stop it.

  Finally, I caught my breath. Came back into my body. Was able to feel my face. I sat back on my heels and readjusted my thong so it wasn’t cutting into my pussy and wished I could just teleport into the other room.

  “You gonna look at me?”

  “No.” But I shook back my hair and made eye contact, as awkward as it was. I even managed to smirk. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, in some quiet, strange way I didn’t like.

  I got up off the bed and pulled up my pants. It was so quiet between us, the sound of my clothes over my skin was like thunder.

  “I’ll go in the other room.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said.

  “No, it’s fine.” I was talking to him like we’d been trying to walk through the same door at the same time.

  I walked across the room, my body pulsing, still sending out random electrical shocks.

  “Joan,” he said when my hand was on the doorknob.

  “What?”

  I heard him take a deep breath, slowly let it out. Whatever he’d
been about to say, he’d swallowed back down.

  “Listen,” I whispered, staring at a bright square of carpet in the hallway cast by the kitchen light. And not at him. Definitely not at him. “Don’t trust me. Don’t care about me. Don’t…even like me. And I will do the exact same for you. So when we walk away from each other…” It won’t hurt.

  I didn’t say it. In case I was wrong. In case it was only me that cared. That trusted. That liked.

  His silence gave me nothing and I left before I could say any more.

  I curled up on the love seat with the extra pillow and the blanket from Fern’s condo, and I knew one thing was completely clear.

  Sooner, rather than later—I had to leave.

  And it was going to hurt anyway.

  Chapter 19

  Max

  Joan was going to leave.

  Sooner, rather than later.

  I couldn’t sleep, thinking about her sneaking out. Taking my phone and her garbage bag of fake IDs and trying to find her sister alone.

  It should be easy not to care. It’s what I was good at. Every single thing in my life that mattered, I shoved away with both hands so I didn’t have to think about them, much less give a shit. My mom and dad. Any woman who would treat me right.

  Dylan.

  I was so good at it that in the end, all I had left around me were a bunch of men who would rather see me dead than alive. So, honestly, a stripper with intimacy issues who had lied to me, nearly killed me, and I hadn’t even fucked…she shouldn’t matter.

  But somehow there I was, staring up at the popcorn ceiling, listening to the faint roar of the waves on the sand, my ears tuned to every shift of her body on that love seat.

  Because she mattered.

  Because she made me want to be kind.

  She made me want to be different. Better.

  The smart thing to do would be to leave first. She was asleep, I wasn’t. I knew where the car keys were. I could just go. Forget about this mess.

  I had options. Jacksonville. Arizona. I could even go to my brother’s mountain for a little while. Soak up some of that man’s good life. With the money I’d put aside, I wasn’t desperate for work.

  I could make up a new plan for the Skulls. Leave a legacy that wasn’t soaked in blood.