by Never, M.
I have no such luck. As I reach for the jelly, I feel him behind me. Right behind me, pressing his cold, sweaty body up against mine.
“Baz,” I warn anxiously.
“Mmmm?” he hums in my ear. I flinch as he places his hands on my hips. “You look much better this morning.”
“Thanks, but that doesn’t give you a reason to put your hands all over me, asshole.”
“Asshole? Ouch.” He clutches me tighter.
“Dipshit? Douchebag? Motherfucking cock sucker? Any of those less offensive?”
He laughs behind me. It’s a low, looney sound. Shit. “You know that was the first thing I noticed about you. Your filthy, foul, indecent fucking mouth.”
“I don’t recall saying anything filthy or foul to you the first time we met,” I contest.
“No, you didn’t,” he agrees, sliding his right hand to the front of my pelvis. His rigid hard-on pressing into the crack of my ass. Unbelievable, he’s fucking turned on. Dog. I’m feeling a tad better, been out of bed five minutes, and he thinks he’s going to get lucky? Never mind he tried to kill me and is now holding me against my will. His head is seriously in space. “I knew just by the way you licked those pretty red lips there was more to you than just an innocent-looking face.”
“Sure, you did,” I call bullshit.
“I did.” He slams me against him. “I knew I had to have you.” He sneaks his fingers into my panties.
“Baz!” I snatch his wrist, attempting to stop him.
“I had to see if your pussy was as sinfully red as your lips.” He circles his frigid fingertip around my clit, and I gasp.
“Baz!” I yank at his hand as I internally shiver. A burst of unexpected desire taking me by surprise. “Stop!” I fight him as he continues his slow, insistent assault. His arm like an iron extension of his body, rooted in place.
Baz moans headily into the crook of my neck as he traps me between his solid body and the immovable counter.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I struggle to breathe, still jerking at his hand.
“Making up for lost time?” He sinks a finger into my entrance and makes a rough, aroused sound when he finds me wet. Fucker. My head does not want this, but my damn, possessed body has other ideas.
My stomach flips, and it’s not because of the baby this time. It’s all fucking Baz.
He pushes me forward until my chest slams against the countertop and holds me down by the nape of my neck, fingering me incessantly.
“Baz!” I claw at the smooth, veiny granite, unable to sustain any traction. My thighs shake and core contracts as he strums his thumb over my clit until I see stars.
“Fuck, stop,” I force out, but even I can hear the perjury in my own voice. This may be wrong. So very fucking wrong, but neither of us can stop. Our attraction has a goddamn life of its own, which is how and why we ended up in this whole jacked-up situation in the first place.
“You sure that’s what you really want?” Baz taunts me, knowing full well how fucking torn I am. “You don’t feel like you want me to stop.” He pumps his hand harder, the wetness coating his fingers and my pussy like a spilt jar of warm honey. I bite my lip to suppress the words I want to say. No, yes, more, stop. Harder. Fuck me . . . now.
But I think words will just make this whole encounter messier than it’s already turning out to be.
I fail at stifling my coerced moans as the caress of an orgasm threatens my insides.
“Oh, god!” I stiffen right before Baz withdraws his fingers. My body rebels from the sudden disappearance, an ungodly ache paralyzing me from the waist down. No! That psycho bastard really is going to make me suffer.
Baz releases his hold on my neck. Drawing me up and spinning me around to face him. We’re both flushed and panting and starving for more. Baz rakes his deranged eyes over my scantily clad form. There’s a terrifying gleam in those green irises mixed with hysterical lust. I’m trapped under his glare. He is the only man besides Benny who could stop me dead in my tracks with just one look.
Although my mind barely recognizes the person standing before me, my body knows exactly who he is. And what wonders he’s capable of.
In his fanatical state, he skims his fingertips up the outside of my thighs, and once they disappear under the hem of my white cotton T-shirt, they attack, tearing the only pair of underwear I currently own clear off my hips. The sound of mesh and lace ripping is quick but loud, and Baz drops the disintegrated scrap of red material superciliously onto the floor. Making sure he lifts them high enough for me to see the damage.
“If you’re going to come, it’s going to be while my cock is buried in that sinful pussy,” he announces darkly, picking me up and planting me on the kitchen counter. The granite is cold against my bare ass, but I have a feeling that issue isn’t going to last long. Baz unbuckles his dirty jeans and quickly lowers them just enough to set said cock free.
My rationale does battle. We should not be doing this. I’m his prisoner. His captor. He’s forcing himself on me. I said no. I meant it. Sort of. And he’s insane. Like on a mental vacation that he doesn’t look like he’s returning from any time soon.
Baz grips my thighs and pulls me forward so my pussy is at the perfect angle during my internal tirade. I put my palms on his broad chest, protesting. We can’t do this.
He looks down and a quirky, defiant smile pulls at his lips. He imprisons my wrists with one large hand and pins them over my head against the wood cabinets. He isn’t taking no for an answer, and I’m not exactly voicing my objections.
He leans in, the head of his engorged cock brushing against my opening. “I missed your sounds. I missed knowing I was the one causing you to make them.” He breaches my entrance, and the wide, full, intoxicating feeling that is Baz wins out. All of this is wrong, yes, I know it. But I don’t care. Not now. Afterwards there will be plenty of time for regret. Right now, there’s plenty of time to come.
I drop my head and hiss out an “oh, fuck,” as he smoothly enters me, making sure I feel the sheer power of him. Of his body, of his girth. I feel it. All of it, just like the first time with him and every time after that.
“I want you to lose your shit all over my cock.” He thrusts commandingly, reaching that place so deep inside. The place only he has ever pioneered.
There’s no containing the loud, elicit sounds he brings forth as we fuck. As I writhe against him, beneath him, right along with him. Fighting fruitlessly against his strong, stone body. The cotton of my shirt becoming like sandpaper as it rubs against my stiff, straining, oversensitive nipples.
The stroke of my orgasm manifests into a full-blown molestation as it suddenly happens. As I do exactly what he ordered me to and lose my shit all over his cock like a rehabbed junkie injecting a hit of heroin for the very first time.
I don’t even recognize my own screams as he pumps through my climax, prodding so hard he lifts my ass right off the counter time and time again. He follows me down the rabbit hole several suspended seconds later. Sinking his teeth into my collarbone so savagely I swear he leaves a mark.
I’m a quivering mass by the time he’s finished with me. The regret intensifying as my mind slowly clears.
I knew it was coming. It was the underlying emotion through this whole thing. But my body needed him as much as it needed food. I was starving. We both were, regardless of the right or wrong.
A wave of anger washes over the regret, creating a riptide of fury. I don’t know where it comes from exactly, but it’s powerful. Soul-consuming.
I feel his come leak down the inside of one of my thighs when he pulls out, and I instantly react. I can’t even stop myself. It’s like I’m demonically influenced.
“Fucking bastard!” I slap him across the face, stunning us both. Tears well in my eyes. Tears! I never cry. But here I am, about to become as watery as the New York City sewer system.
I think I contracted his lunacy.
I thrust myself off the counter, desp
erate for an escape. I don’t understand these feelings. I don’t understand what’s happening to me. All I know is that I don’t want Baz to see me cry. I don’t want to be weak. He has this strange power over me. He makes me weak.
I run out of the kitchen, shielding the tears. I can’t stop them, even though I try. Angry, hurt, frustrated tears pour from the ducts.
I take refuge in the bedroom, locking the door behind me and hiding beneath the covers. I cry them all out. Every single one, a sick yet satisfying sensation churning in my stomach.
I cry like I haven’t cried in years, until the pillow is soaked and I’m completely exhausted.
Wrapping my arms around my abdomen, I find solace in the little life that’s growing there and fall fast asleep.
I WAKE UP to the sound of a click-click.
I flutter my eyes open to the dusky room and the silhouette of Baz sitting next to me on the edge of the bed.
He’s watching me sleep with a dead look in his eyes. So lost. So desolate, my defenses automatically go up.
“Baz?” I whisper, not moving a muscle. This version of Baz is like a feral animal, and one wrong move could provoke him to attack.
“Do you ever just wish it would end, Stevie?”
“Wish what would end, Baz?” I ask cautiously.
“All of it. All the noise and commotion and clutter? Wish it would just drain right out of your head?”
I eye him carefully in the dim light, maintaining my fetal position.
“No,” I reply softly. “Sometimes life is hard, but I never wish it would end.”
“It’s so painful sometimes. All the emotions, and the anxiety, and the pain. I’m so tired of hurting the people I love. Being a burden.” A tear drips off his cheek. Jesus, it destroys my fucking soul seeing him so beat down. “And I’m so exhausted.”
He does look like absolute shit. Those bags under his eyes tell me he hasn’t slept in days. Maybe a week.
“Lie down and go to sleep.” I pat the mattress, hoping to coax him down next to me. Hoping it will calm him.
“I don’t want to sleep.” Baz becomes agitated.
“Then what do you want?” I quickly question.
“I want it to end.” He grabs my wrist and yanks me toward him. “I want you to end it.” He slaps a gun into my hand and presses the barrel flush to his forehead. “Finish what you were sent to do. I could never do it, but you can.” Our hands shake as he guides my finger into the loop of the trigger.
I shake my head no as my skin touches the warm, curved metal. “Make it quiet, Stevie. Make it quiet in my head.” His voice is a broken, hoarse whisper. He closes his eyes and tears fall in fast streams down his face.
“Baz.” His name tumbles off my trembling lips. This man. This huge, strong, beautiful, enigmatic man. He has so many layers it would take me years to pull them all away. But this, right now, thousands of those layers are now translucent.
“Baz, please look at me,” I implore, my hands going numb from fighting against his unwavering hold. My finger dangerously close to pulling the trigger. To taking his life. “Baz, please.” My throat is swollen with trepidation.
After a millennium, he finally lifts his lids, and the hollow, haunting, heart-shattering look in his eyes hits me square in the chest like an exploding bullet.
“Stevie, please,” he echoes, pressing the barrel of the gun even harder into his forehead, convincing me he’s tattooing an indentation of the revolver’s mouth into his skin.
“Baz, no,” I argue sternly. “You have so much to live for.” I use the only leverage I believe I have. “You have a child on the way. And he needs to know how wonderful his father is.”
Baz’s eyes tremble. “How do you know it’s a boy?” he asks, and a little seed of hope blooms.
“Just a feeling.” Baz’s gaze drops to my stomach for a fraction of a second. “Let go of the gun.”
“Just pull the trigger, Stevie. I’m no good. Not to anyone. Especially a child.”
“That’s not true. I know there’s more to you than this. The person trapped inside is the reason I couldn’t pull the trigger then . . . and the reason I can’t pull it now. Please, Baz, just let go,” I continue to ramble desperately. “You never gave me a chance. Never allowed yourself to trust me. Let me prove it to you now. Let me prove to you I wasn’t lying. I was going to tell you everything. I wanted to protect you. I want to protect both of you.”
“I’m a burden, Stevie.”
“And I have a boatload of baggage. We’ve all got shit to deal with. But I’m strong enough. I’m strong enough for both of us. For all three of us.” If I can survive my past and all the fucked-up shit that’s happened to me, I can survive this.
My words seem to penetrate Baz’s resolve. His grip gets looser, but only fractionally.
Encouraging him with slight head nods and soft words, he slowly releases his hold on my hands and the gun.
When his grasp tires, I lower the Smith and Wesson into my lap then pry it away from him. Flooded with relief, I click the safety and place it behind my back. Baz visibly shakes before me, trapping his head in his hands. He looks traumatized. I have no idea what to do as he begins to rock and mutter unintelligible words.
Then it dawns on me. “Baz, when was the last time you took your medication?” I vividly recall the pill bottles in his medicine cabinet and how he religiously got out of bed at the same time every morning to take them. “I suffer from ADHD and depression.”
“I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe a month.”
Shit, that long? No wonder he’s going off the deep end.
“Do you have any here?” I inquire hopefully.
“It’s so loud in my head, Stevie. I need it to stop.” He ignores my question, pulling at his ears until they’re red.
I don’t know if I should touch him. Or comfort him, or what. I just know, if it was any other situation, with anyone else, I would have pulled that trigger.
I jump out of bed and grab the gun, prepared to go on a hunt. He must have something that can calm him down. I take a stab in the dark and enter the bedroom at the end of the hall, surmising this is where he sleeps. If and when he sleeps.
The bed is made neater than a pin, and the room looks almost deserted. But I check the medicine cabinet anyway. There’s only aspirin and antacids. Damn. I place the gun on the vanity top, and my heart literally cracks in my chest. He chose a revolver to end his life. A firearm that’s loud and messy. Not a neat automatic with a silencer. The kind of piece I was going to use. He wanted to make a statement with his death. Blow his fucking brains out in the literal sense. Tragic. Tragic that someone as warm and wonderful as the Baz I first met could become the man in the other room. A husk of a human being begging for the end.
Out of sheer curiosity, or maybe conditioning, I check the chamber. Nestled snugly with eight bullets, I find it fully loaded.
It was no bluff.
At a loss, I drop my head and notice doorknobs on the vanity. I don’t know what makes me look, but I do. I open the right side and discover a leather toiletry bag with a light coating of dust.
I grab the bag and rip it open, its contents normal. Toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant, and a little plastic bag with a handwritten note and two orange pill bottles prescribed to the name Benjamin Sabatino. I flip the bag over and read the instructions. The two different pills are to be taken together and at the same time every day. Do not deviate is written in bold caps. I nearly destroy the Ziploc bag as I fumble with the pill bottles, shaking one of each into my hand. Then I bolt back into my bedroom, leaving the gun behind.
I find Baz lying on the bed in the fetal position. He looks so lost and helpless, like a scared little boy with way too much facial hair.
“Baz, take these.” I open my palm, but he bats my hand away, sending the pills flying. Fuck. Well, this isn’t going to be easy, is it?
I pick the small pills up off the carpet and try again, keeping my fist closed until I know he’s ready to
swallow them. It’s a fight. He doesn’t want them. So, after several frustrating minutes, I take matters into my own hands. Forcing him onto his back, I pop the pills into my own mouth, squeeze his cheeks, and then French kiss him, using my tongue to guide them into the back of his throat and hold them there until he swallows. He coughs and sputters, but it gets the job done.
I don’t know how long it’s going to take the drugs to work, or if they’re even going to work at all, so I just sit with Baz on the bed as he melts down, shaking and whimpering and pleading for it all to end.
“Baz, what else can I do?” I brush some sweaty hair from his forehead, a pink bullseye fading from his skin.
“Sleep,” he murmurs, tormented. “I just need to sleep.”
I think that’s an impossible task as his eyes are as wide and electric as a coke addicts.
“Do you have sleeping pills anywhere?” Can you even mix sleeping pills with the medication I just gave him? I wouldn’t know. Desperate to help any way I can, I decide to try the only thing that comes to mind. Come being the operative word.
I shush Baz as I unbutton his fly and lower his zipper. He watches me perplexed but morbidly fascinated as I pull down his jeans and free his cock. It grows slightly when I rub it with my bare hands.
“Mmm.” Baz screws his eyes shut like he’s in pain and bangs his head against the pillow. I ignore his crazy and work him with my palms until he’s mostly erect.
Then I put my mouth on him, and the sound he emits is one of agonizing pleasure. I really hope this works. It has to fucking work. I stretch my jaw and swallow as much of his mammoth cock as I can. I couldn’t deep throat him even in Colorado; my mouth is just too damn small. I tried like hell though, the same way I’m doing now. Bobbing my head insistently, taking in as much of him as I can each time, I suck on his hard, thick length until he’s groaning. When he begins to thrust his hips, I pull back, slowing the speeding orgasm. He doesn’t like this, expressing his objections by fisting my hair and hissing profanities. His reaction doesn’t intimidate me. I just keep doing the same thing over and over. Building him up to a climax and then demolishing the sensation at its foundation.
