by Chloe Walsh
"Stop fighting it," she coaxed breathlessly, cradling my face in the crook of her neck while she continued to work me over. "Just give in."
Another pained growl escaped me and I did exactly that. Tongue trailing over her collarbone, I suckled on her neck, hands moving to palm her bare breasts. Her breath hitched and the rhythm she was using to pull on my dick changed; moving faster, harder, more frantic, and I couldn’t fucking take another second of it.
Hooking an arm around her waist, I pulled her onto my lap. A small cry escaped her, reminding me of her injured knee, and I quickly rolled her onto her back beneath me. My lips found hers immediately, hungry and bruising, and I kissed her with everything I had in me, while I clumsily pushed my jeans and boxers down my hips, freeing my aching dick.
Resting my weight on one arm, I hovered over Romi and reached a hand between her legs, swallowing up her cries when I found her clit. My instincts took over then, memory guiding my fingers deep inside her tight channel to find that sweet spot that always made her scream.
Desperate to get her off before I blew my load, I crooked two fingers inside her slick pussy, gently massaging and stroking her tight channel just like I used to, while quickly circling and pressuring her clit with my thumb.
"Sketch!" Romi cried out, clenching around my fingers as her body jerked and shivered beneath me. "God…yeah, that’s it." Tangling one hand in my hair, she dragged my face back down to hers, lips crushing against mine, while she reached her free hand between our bodies to grab my dick.
"Ro, you gotta stop touching me or I'm gonna come," I mumbled against her lips, cheeks flushed, hips bucking clumsily into her addictive fucking touch. "I haven't done this in a while and I'm, uh, I'm, ah –"
"It's okay," she moaned, rocking her hips against me, as she tightened her fist around my dick and pulled harder. "I want you to."
"Fuck." Bowing my head, I drew in several ragged breaths, trying to garner some self-control and stop myself from spilling onto her stomach.
"Kiss me," she cried out, dragging my lips back to hers, as her breathing hitched and her pussy clenched and spasmed. "Don't stop kissing me." Groaning against her lips, I did as she asked and plunged my tongue into her mouth, my whole body jolting with tremors as Romi came apart beneath me, coming hard around my fingers, fingernails clawing and tearing at my back and neck. "I want this, Sketch," she begged, and it was too much. It was too fucking much. "I want you inside me."
Clenching my eyes shut, I groaned against her lips, every muscle in my body coiled tight, as my orgasm ripped through me. I came harder and longer and more intense than I ever had in my life, spilling my seed all over her stomach.
Trembling, I pulled back to rest on my knees, breathing hard and fast, as a wave of vulnerability and humiliation washed over me. Dropping my head, I placed my hands on my thighs and tried to find the composure I needed to handle my feelings. Handle her.
Romi's breathing was just as erratic as mine as she slowly pulled herself into a sitting position, legs still spread open to accompany the fact that I was kneeling between them. "Are you okay?"
I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t fucking breathe. So, instead, I did the only thing I could; I grabbed a towel and cleaned her stomach.
"Sketch, it's okay." Her hand covered mine, holding me still. "Look at me."
I couldn’t do that either. Not right now. I felt too exposed. Rising to my feet, I moved for my discarded shirt.
"Say something," she whispered, still sitting on the bathroom floor.
Giving her my back, I yanked my shirt back on as quickly as possible, completely fucking reeling. "I'm sorry," I finally replied when words found me. It was all I had.
"Don’t be," she countered, voice thick with emotion. "Because I'm not."
"Romi, that shouldn't have happened," I replied, running a hand through my hair before turning back to face her. "I shouldn't have touched you."
"I kissed you," she reminded me, eyes locked on mine. "And I wanted you to touch me."
"Yeah." Shaking my head in defeat, I closed the space between us and helped her back onto the toilet seat. "I had Presley pick you up something to wear at the store – and there's some other shit in there, too." I grabbed the shopping bags by the door and placed them next to her before moving for the door. "I should go."
"Sketch –"
"I can't… I can't deal with this," I admitted, chest tightening to the point of pain. "Not right now."
"Is this because we –"
"No, it's because being near you hurts," I strangled out, backing away from her and moving for the door. "When I'm around you, I get hurt, Romi, and I can't handle any more pain."
And then I got the hell out of there before my heart hemorrhaged all over the bathroom floor.
Chapter Seventeen
Romi
My emotions were in turmoil. I couldn't explain why I kissed Sketch any more than I could explain why I begged him to be inside me. The only justification I had was the same rationalization I used for lying to him for ten months. I loved him. It made me reckless with my heart and even more reckless with my body, but there it was. And knowing the truth? Knowing that Sketch didn’t leave me by choice? That, for some sick and twisted reason, my father forced his hand? Well, that changed everything. For me, at least.
Emotionally drained from a life that seemed to be falling down around me, I grabbed my bags and climbed to my feet, surprised that my body could balance itself after the knockout blow it had taken when Sketch ran out on me. My heart sure as hell felt like it had been KO'd. Much steadier on my feet now that I was once again wearing my boot, I set the shopping bags on top of the vanity surrounding the sink and looking inside, finding everything I could possibly need, including my favorite brand of tampons. I didn’t need them, but he'd remembered. Two years had passed and he still remembered the fucking tampons I used.
Tears stung my eyes and I clutched the edge of the vanity with a death grip, clenching my eyes shut as I forced myself to swallow down a tsunami of pain and regret. It was too much. Too raw.
Reluctantly, I dropped the towel wrapped around my body and took a long, hard look in the mirror, barely recognizing the girl staring back at me. I was a lot thinner since Chris's death, and falling from the treehouse left my skin littered with bruises. My face looked gaunt, cheeks sunken, my eyes and lips too big for my small, heart-shaped face. No wonder he ran out of here, I thought dejectedly, you look like a ghost.
My gaze flicked to the purplish mark on my neck and I reached up to touch it. He marked me. A shiver of pleasure rolled through me and I quickly looked away, focusing on getting cleaned up. My hair, still damp and knotted, cascaded down my back in damp curls. Running my fingers through the knots, I used my newly acquired hairbrush to comb it out. Then I reached for the toothbrush and ran it under the cold tap before squeezing a dollop of toothpaste on the brush and shoving it into my mouth. I scrubbed my teeth with a viciousness that caused my gums to bleed. I didn’t care. I just needed to wash it all away somehow. Erase my mistakes. Erase the past two years.
I kept thinking about what might have happened if I'd broken Sketch down two years ago and forced him to confess.
Everything, Romi.
Everything would be different.
Shaking my head, I pushed the thought away and focused on small mundane tasks like rinsing my toothbrush, screwing the cap back on the paste, splashing water on my face, turning off the faucet, drying my face, cleaning my stomach, folding the towel.
All simple mindless tasks.
Those, I could manage.
Dressing in a chunky, oversized, off the shoulder pink sweater from one of the bags, I hobbled back to the toilet to put on clean panties and a pair of plain, black leggings. It involved getting the damn boot off and back on again, but I couldn’t deny that I felt a million times better once I was dressed. My hair was a wet mess, piled on top of my head with a hair-tie, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t trying to win any beauty contests here.
Wh
en I finally emerged from the bathroom, Sketch was sitting on the edge of the bed. The moment his blue eyes landed on me, my poor heart jackknifed in my chest, causing my breathing to pick up at an alarming rate. "Hey."
"Hey," I replied, closing the bathroom door behind me and hobbling into the room.
"So, the douchebag left another note," Sketch told me, waving another piece of paper around. "It says we're to meet him at some diner downtown when we're done having a come-to-Jesus moment between each other's legs in the bathroom."
I flushed bright pink. "He heard us?"
"It's Presley," he deadpanned. "He probably had his damn ear pressed to the door." Sketch ran a hand through his dark hair before asking, "How come you never told me he was gay?"
My brows shot up in surprise. "He told you?"
He nodded. "I don’t care or anything. Gay or straight, the guy confuses the hell out of me. I just…" He scratched his chest and shrugged. "I feel dumb for not realizing."
"You're not dumb, Sketch." I made my way over to the bed and sat down beside him. "And I didn’t tell you because you weren't speaking to me when I found out."
"So, he didn’t tell you when –"
"We were a couple?" I offered with a small shake of my head. "No, and if he had told me back then, you would've known. You know I could never keep secrets from you. I told you everything." Grimacing, I added, "Even what tampons I used."
"Yeah." He let out a small, humorless laugh. "And I was your little bitch boy, running around town, stockpiling everything you needed for shark week."
"God, life was so much easier back then," I said wistfully. "I miss back then, Sketch."
There was a long stretch of silence before Sketch spoke. "When I was five and my parents first started taking me to church on Sundays with them and Chris, I remember sitting in the row behind your family. Every Sunday, you sat right in front of me. And when nobody was looking, you would sneak a hand back and poke me in the knee, do you remember that?"
"Yeah." My heart ached. "I remember."
He nodded. "I remember listening to the Pastor drone on and on about God and Jesus, and Chris would take it all in and answer all of Mama's questions afterwards, but I could never concentrate on what I was supposed to be learning at church because I was convinced there was an angel poking me in the knee."
My breath caught in my throat. "Sketch –"
"Don’t –" He held a hand up. "Just let me get this out, okay?"
Swallowing deeply, I nodded. "Yeah."
"I told Chris about it one day after church," he said, arm brushing against mine as he spoke. "About the angel in the row in front of us. He laughed at me and said that's not an angel, Sketch, that's just Romi." He smiled sadly. "And then I told him that I knew it was Romi, but that I still thought I was right. Later that night, when I said my bedtime prayers, I asked God for one thing. I said: Dear God, I'll do everything right, I'll go to church every Sunday, I'll respect my daddy, I'll honor my mama, I'll protect my brother, just never take the angel away from me."
Tears trickled down my cheeks as I listened.
"And it worked. God heard my prayer," he continued. "So, every night for the next eleven years, I said those exact words to God and I kept my promise. I did everything I said I would, even when it was close to impossible. Even on my birthday, you were my one wish, the one thing I wanted in the whole world, because the truth is, you were the only part of my life that ever made sense." He paused before sighing heavily. "And then one day, on a shitty Monday afternoon in October of sophomore year, you were taken away from me." He stiffened. "It didn’t matter how well I treated you. It didn’t matter how much I loved you. How much I adored you. How I never even looked at any other girls. It didn’t matter how much of my pride I had to sacrifice to keep my promise to God. None of it mattered because a man with more power than I could ever have, decided that I wasn't good enough for his daughter."
"I'm so sorry about my father," I said, voice cracking. "I didn’t know he did that to you."
"And then, two months after that shitty day, I walked into school and saw my brother with his arm wrapped around the angel I had asked God for. The same brother who not only had our father's attention, but our mother's love. The same brother who meant more to me than words can explain." Exhaling a pained breath, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "After that, I never prayed again, and I haven't stepped foot in a church since."
Shaking my head, I clenched my eyes shut before blinking away my tears and reaching for his hand. "I don’t know what to say."
Surprisingly, he didn’t shake me off. Instead, he stared down at my small hand on top of his large one. "It's okay. I've done more than enough wrong to you in the past year. I'm not looking for another apology, and I didn’t tell you any of that to hurt you or make you feel bad."
"Then why did you tell me?"
He turned to look at me, giving me access to the pain in his heart through the windows of his eyes. "Because I need you to know that I'm not over it."
"Over me?"
"You, what happened, Chris, your dad," he admitted with a sigh. "It's still raw for me, you know? I'm still bleeding, Ro." His brows furrowed and he looked away before saying, "I think I know what you want from me, but I don’t know if I can give it to you."
"I just want my best friend back," I lied, feeling my heart crack in my chest.
"If you want friendship then what was that in the bathroom?" he asked, blue eyes scorching me.
"A blip?" I offered lamely, pulse racing violently.
Fire burned in his eyes. "And you want to be friends with me?" he changed the subject by asking, nostrils flaring. "After everything I put you through?"
"I think I can try to forgive you if you can try to forgive me," I replied honestly.
"Yeah." He was quiet for a long time before saying, "I guess we can give it shot."
"Really?" I smiled. "We can be friends?"
"Yeah, we can be friends." Sketch turned back to stare at the bathroom door, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "Hey, Ro?"
"Yeah, Sketch?"
"I'm still in love with you, so what happened in the bathroom can't happen again," he said, standing up. "You can't play with me like that, okay? You can't kiss me."
My heart stopped dead in my chest before kick-starting at a thunderous rate. "Wh-what did you say to me?"
"You heard me," he replied, expression guarded, as he moved for the bathroom. "I need to take a shower and get cleaned up before we meet Pres."
Chapter Eighteen
Romi
My mind was in a tailspin the entire way from the motel to the diner. Sketch said he was still in love with me. He said it and he didn’t take it back. Even now, as I sat beside him at a window booth in this really creepy 1950's style diner, I couldn’t concentrate on a single word that was coming out of Presley's mouth. All I could do was replay those words over and over in my head until I practically turned cross-eyed.
My arm was touching his and, unlike every other time we had accidently touched since our breakup, he wasn't recoiling from me. No, he seemed quite content to sit next to me and steal fries off my plate, all while shoveling down his own meal, in between cussing out Pres. It felt too good to be true and that terrified me because I honestly couldn’t take another blow.
"Looking a little flushed there, Romi," Presley announced, dragging my attention off Sketch's beautiful display of arm-porn. Both of his arms were inked to the elbow in a combination of intricate loops and swivels, with his left arm inked all the way to his wrist. I had no idea what any of it meant, he'd gotten it done after we broke up, but it was sexy. Undeniably freaking hot. "In fact, you're looking a little flushed yourself, Sketch."
"I'm fine," I replied, feeling the heat crawl up my neck.
Sketch didn’t bother answering; too busy perfecting his role of a human vacuum.
"Really? That's all I'm gonna get?" Presley arched a brow. "You're fine?"
"What else do you want?"
I mumbled, taking a sip from my soda.
"Uh, how 'bout ya'll tell me what you were doing in that bathroom for damn near an hour?" Wagging his brows, he added, "I've heard the very audible dialogue, but I'd sure love the narrative."
"How 'bout you shut your mouth and stop listening behind closed doors?" Sketch growled between bites of his burger.
"How 'bout you put those lips around some real meat for a change?" Pres shot back with a wink.
Snorting, Sketch flipped him the bird before biting into his burger with relish. "Mmm-mmm."
"Don’t know what you're missing," Presley chuckled.
"Right back atcha," Sketch shot back with a smirk.
"Are ya'll flirting?" I laughed, looking between both boys.
"Are ya'll back together?" Pres countered, grinning mischievously at me.
"Nope," Sketch replied, licking some ketchup off my thumb. "And nope."
"Don't listen to him, he's playing footsie under the table with me as we speak," Presley chuckled.
"Nah, that's my dick," Sketch countered. "Sorry about that. Needs a booth of its own."
"So, that's what really happened to Romi?" Presley shot back. "You piledrived her out of the tree with your damn dick!"
"Yes," Sketch deadpanned, rolling his eyes. "Yes, Quinton, that is exactly what happened."
When Presley excused himself to use the bathroom after a few more minutes of bantered conversation, I swung my gaze to Sketch. "Are we going to talk about it?" I asked nervously, picking at a fry on my plate. "What we did... what you said afterwards." I wanted to talk about it. I needed to. Spending another tense night without clearing the air was going to kill me. Throw our make-0ut session in the bathroom into the mix and I was close to combusting. He was clearly trying to be cordial, but he still had a fifty-foot wall erected around himself. I knew I deserved his wariness, but I longed to smash the stupid damn wall blocking me out.
"Don’t see why we need to," he replied, running a hand through his hair. "You've always known how I feel about you." He snatched a couple of fries from my plate. "Never made a secret of it –" He paused to chew and swallow before adding, "Ain't no surprise in what I said."
