Downfall

by Jay Crownover

  “Tell me…” I remembered how lost and alone she looked that day. How afraid of everything she seemed. That young woman was nowhere to be found at the moment. The woman in my lap was confident, sure, and bold. I liked both of them. I was pulled toward the timid, single mother by a need to protect and shelter her. I was entranced by the subtle seductress, the Orley who knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to call the shots.

  The hand she wasn’t using to clutch the back of my neck dropped to my shoulder and slowly started to slide across my pecs. “I want to put my mouth on each and every single one of these tattoos. I want to know if your skin tastes different, better than boring, plain skin.”

  She paused in her gentle exploration when she reached the spot on my chest where my heart was racing behind my ribs. Her dark eyebrows lifted a fraction and her lips parted on a sigh. I reached up and caught her wrist, feeling her pulse race in time with mine under her velvety skin. “There are a lot of them and that’s a lot of territory to cover. That task might take a while.”

  Her eyes flashed at the challenge, blue bleeding into something bright and hot. The tip of her tongue shot out and slicked across the curve of her lower lip, leaving a shiny, wet trail I wanted to follow so badly I could taste it.

  “Guess I should get started as soon as possible, then.” Her voice was breathy and low. I liked the way it sounded. There was no fear, no hesitation.

  “Sounds like a plan.” I grinned at her and didn’t complain when she snatched the hat off my head and tossed it in the general direction of my coffee table.

  Once the bill was out of her way, Orley leaned fully into me, chest to chest, softness against unyielding hardness, and sealed her mouth over mine. There was no gratitude or apology in this kiss. No, it was all exploding heat and unabashed passion. It was wet and messy. Lips slid against lips and teeth clashed with unchecked eagerness. Breath mingled and was stolen, only to be given back as the kiss deepened.

  Her hand tugged at my short hair and her legs shifted with impatience where they straddled the outside of mine. Since I didn’t have a shirt on and her tank top was as thin as paper, I could clearly make out the way her nipples tightened and pressed into me. We both shivered when she moved and the peaks dragged across my skin. It was nice to know she was as out of her mind as I was. Sometimes I felt like I was chasing after her with no hope of catching her. She was running so fast, one eye always looking behind her, but not tonight. Tonight, the only thing she was looking at was me, and she was trying to get closer to me with every second that passed.

  My hands curled instinctively in the light fabric keeping her skin from touching mine. I wanted to hold on to her, to this moment, but I wanted to feel her skin against mine even more. I had to believe this thing between us wasn’t fleeting, that it was fate. Orley and Noble were put in my path for a reason. I wasn’t sure if it was to test me, or to show her there could be good in bad places, but whatever the reason, I wasn’t about to squander it. My mother hadn’t raised a fool.

  Her black tank top joined my hat in a discarded heap. I whispered her name when the soft swell of her breasts pushed against my chest. The tips felt like velvet points as they dragged across my skin.

  She pulled her mouth away from mine when my hands climbed up her sides, gliding over her ribs, tracing the outer curve of her breast, until my finger found her puckered nipple. It beaded even tighter under my touch and her eyes went out of focus. Her hips shifted on my lap, and suddenly all her warm and wet places were hovering directly over the hardness my nylon shorts were doing a shit job of containing. It was incredibly intimate and slightly overwhelming. I wasn’t new to the rise of desire and pulse of impatient want. But I had no clue how to handle the surge of possession and thrum of rightness that rushed through my blood in Orley’s presence. When I was with other girls, when I gave up any of my valuable time to fuck around, it was because I had an itch that needed to be scratched. With Orley, I felt like if I couldn’t get closer, if I didn’t get to have all of her, I would die. She felt vital and so much more important than anyone who had come before her.

  Her lips landed on the side of my neck, tongue darting out and licking along the outline of one of my many tattoos. She hummed lightly against my skin and my dick throbbed so hard it hurt. She must have felt my response because her hips rotated and pressed downward. The sensation had my eyes threatening to roll back in my head. I palmed each breast in my hands and tilted my head to the side to give her more access to my neck.

  “Do I taste different?” Even though she was the one who stood out in this dark and dreary place, she was a breath of fresh air when I’d learned long ago to blend in.

  Her head lifted but moved so her lips were near my ear. “Better. You taste better.” Her tongue traced the shell of my ear and her lips lightly tugged on the lobe, which made me grunt in response.

  I put my hands on her narrow waist and pulled until she was hovering on her knees while perched over me. It was my turn to get a taste. I wanted to know how all the different parts of her felt on my tongue. I wanted to savor all her different flavors and find out if she liked it when I used my teeth, or if she was all about the precise flick of my tongue on her most sensitive places.

  While she toyed around with my ear and dragged her fingers across my scalp, I sucked one of her nipples into my mouth and assaulted the erect bud with my tongue and teeth. I heard her gasp and felt her nails bite into my skin with more force. Her head dropped backward and the end of her ponytail tickled the inside of my thighs. It tickled, but also made my balls ache, and I wanted to feel the silky strands brushing against my cock. I wanted to know how her mouth felt wrapped around the hard length, and how deep I could go before her pretty eyes glazed over and started to water. I wanted to push her, to tempt and to tease. I wanted to play with her, to lay every sexual trick I knew down on her and show her I was as serious as a heart attack. I was far more wrapped up in Orley than I had ever been with anyone else, and I didn’t even know her last name.

  I released the nipple I was torturing with a wet pop and moved to the other. They were a pretty color of raspberry, flushed and begging for attention. She had a hot pink flush crawling up her neck and staining her cheeks. She looked a little wild and a lot wanton. She looked like she belonged exactly where she was, a heartbeat away from riding my dick until we were both breathless and lost to oblivion.

  I carefully worked just the tips of my fingers under the elastic waistband of her low-riding black pants. I wasn’t sure how far she wanted to go, how much of herself she was ready to give. I hadn’t moved this slow or with this much careful deliberation since I was a teenager trying to convince the first girl I ever had a crush on to give it up to me one night while her parents were out of town. I wanted to be respectful of Orley’s boundaries that I might not be able to see through the fog of lust clouding my vision. She didn’t make a sound or protest when my palms dipped below the fabric and skimmed beneath her bellybutton. Her abs contracted and quivered. Her legs trembled against the outside of mine. I heard my name, part question, part plea from somewhere above my head, but she didn’t pull back or tell me to stop, so I kept up the glacial pace across her skin in search of her heat and softness.

  I used the edge of my teeth on her pert nipple to distract her as the tips of my fingers hit unbelievably soft skin and the proof of her desire. She was slippery and delicate as glass under my questing touch. But once again she proved there was more to her than my misguided first impressions. As I spread her slick folds and went in search of the hot, fluttering opening to her body, one hand tightened in my hair and the other reached out to clasp my jaw. Her fingers bit into my skin as she pulled me off the nipple I was devouring and looked directly into my eyes.

  “Solo.” Her eyes practically burned into mine. “I’m not going to break. I had a baby. There is no way anything you do down there is going to hurt me or scare me. If you’re going to touch me, I want to feel it. I want to remember it.” She dropped her head and ga
ve me a hard, quick kiss. “Touch me.”

  Who was I to argue with any of that?

  I spread my fingers to open her up and went in. She let out a strangled moan and set her lips back on mine. I fucked her writhing body with my fingers, while she fucked my mouth with her clever, quick tongue. I loved the way she convulsed and pulsed around my moving digits. I liked how her body swayed closer. I loved that she got wetter and wetter. I nearly lost it when she practically purred the minute I stroked a soaked finger across her excited little clit.

  “Oh my God.” Her words slipped out and landed on my lips. “Do that again.” Her demand was sexy as hell and so was the desperation behind it. When I grinned, she sank her teeth into the curve of my lower lip. I repeated the motion and felt the heat surrounding me pulse as her entire body quivered. If she wanted me to touch her, then I would. I would leave my fingerprints all over her private places, and she would be feeling me all through tomorrow.

  I turned my hand forward, curling my fingers just a bit, looking, seeking that hot button inside of her that was bound to make her forget her own name and instead scream out mine. I used my thumb to repeatedly circle her clit, watching her without blinking as she rode my hand and lost herself in the onslaught of sensation.

  When she was right on the brink of flying apart, her teeth sank into her lower lip and her eyes slammed closed. She was beautiful in her surrender. Probably the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She soaked my hand and my dick twitched with anticipation. I wanted her warmth and her wetness surrounding every inch of the flesh begging to be freed.

  Her chest was rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath. It took a long minute before she could pry her eyes back open. When she finally lifted her long lashes, she watched in silence as I brought my shiny, slippery fingers to my mouth and licked them clean. She opened her mouth on a silent gasp and was reaching for the waistband of my shorts with shaky fingers when a sleepy little voice from the back of the apartment suddenly made us both freeze.

  “I need to potty. Where’s my mommy? I want my mommy.” Noble sounded sleepy and confused, but I could hear her moving around in my room.

  Orley moved like lightning, shoving off of me and scrambling back into her shirt as she called out, “I’m here, sweetheart.” She cleared her throat and gave me an apologetic look while mouthing ‘I’m sorry.’

  I groaned and cast a dirty look at my painfully erect cock. The situation was not ideal, but it was understandable. Her kid was always going to come first and there was nothing that should ever change that.

  “Are you ready to put on your pjs and to go to sleep in your own bed?” Orley came back into the room carrying the beautiful little girl. Noble rubbed a fist against her eyes and yawned. “Tell Solo thank you for taking you to do so many fun things today.”

  Noble yawned again and flashed me that smile I couldn’t get enough of. “Thank you. You’re really fun and your bed is comfy.” At least, I think that’s what she was trying to say. I was still figuring out three-year-old speak.

  I shifted so I could use my hands to cover the tent in my lap. I was looking at Orley, not her daughter, when I muttered, “Anytime.”

  Orley dropped a kiss onto the black curls. “I owe you one.”

  I hoped to God she wasn’t talking about another thank you dinner because my dick would never forgive me. I winked at her as she walked past me to the door.

  “You do, and I can’t wait to collect.” And maybe, just maybe, I’d know her last name by then.

  Orley

  I slept like the dead.

  Boneless. Weightless. Without nightmares or the constant buzz of worry and stress that kept my mind restless and my body tense. I slept so hard and so deep, I was disoriented when I woke the next morning. I’d almost managed to forget where I was and why I was here. There was no arguing Solo was working with some pretty powerful sexual skills. He was light years ahead of me in terms of experience and intimacy. He was so confident and sure of himself. I envied his comfort in his own skin. My skin had never felt like it fit just right. However, in the last couple of weeks, it stopped feeling like it was too tight all the time. There was room to move inside of it, space to figure out how to wear it with the same self-assuredness everyone in this city seemed to have.

  Reluctantly crawling out of bed, I checked on Noble. She was still sleeping and we had some time before I had to get her up and ready for her day at Erica’s, so I let her be and decided to try and make a real breakfast for once. We usually rushed out the door after a bowl of cereal or a piece of fruit in hand. Luckily, Erica always asked if my kid needed to eat in the morning. She was a godsend, and I cringed when I realized that during all my time spent in my affluent neighborhood behind iron gates, I’d never met anyone as kind or as genuine as her. The people behind those gates always claimed they were for protection, to keep the bad people out. Now that I’d lived on the other side of them for a little while, I was starting to realize that wasn’t the case at all. The gates were there to keep the bad people inside, hidden so the rest of the world couldn’t see the terrible things they were doing. They used those gates to keep their secrets safe. The people who could spot liars, cheats, and criminals from a mile away were kept at bay. Believe it or not, I was finally starting to feel like it was much safer on the other side of the fence. At least on this side, no one tried to cover up the fact they were out to hurt you. It was far easier to protect yourself from a threat you knew was coming.

  I dug pancake mix out of the cabinet, pulled bacon and eggs out of the fridge, and got to work. Noble woke up when she smelled the bacon cooking, so I got her out of bed and let her try to draw shapes with the pancake batter in the skillet. I was giggling over a very misshapen heart when she looked up at me and asked all wide eyed and innocent if we could have breakfast with Solo. Refusing was automatic, defensive, and rushed. But I bit off the no on the tip of my tongue and slowly nodded at my kid. It seemed like my roughly charming neighbor had also worked his way into my daughter’s affections.

  I made sure the kitchen wouldn’t catch on fire and took Noble’s hand so we could walk the short distance to Solo’s apartment. I let her knock, the sound not terribly loud considering her tiny fist. It took so long for him to come to the door, we were getting ready to turn around and head back to our own place when he finally pulled it open.

  It didn’t look like he’d had the same peaceful slumber I’d enjoyed. There were dark circles under his eyes, he looked pale under his naturally tanned complexion, and his dark eyes were even more fathomless than normal. He had on the same athletic shorts as he did the night before, but today he’d added a tight, black t-shirt. He still made casual clothes look just as good as an expensive suit from any designer brand.

  I put a hand on Noble’s curls and offered a lopsided smile. “Did we wake you up?”

  He dragged a tattooed hand down his face and blinked his eyes a couple times. I noticed they were bloodshot and tired.

  “No… Yes… I must have dozed off.” He shook his head and forced a weak grin when he caught sight of Noble looking up at him with huge, curious eyes. “It was a long night. I got a call not long after you guys left that my mom was having a bad episode. I drove out to spend some time with her. Didn’t get back until a couple hours ago.”

  “Oh.” I flinched at having woken him up from his obviously much-needed nap. “I’m so sorry we bothered you. I had a couple extra minutes this morning so we cooked breakfast. Noble wanted to see if you would like to join us. I should’ve just texted so I didn’t wake you up.” I felt terrible. He was always going out of his way to help us out, and it seemed like all we did was steal the precious few moments he had to himself.

  He shook his head again as he let out a jaw-popping yawn. “You don’t ever bother me. Give me a few minutes to wake up, promise me a gallon of coffee, and I’ll be right over.” He reached out and bopped Noble on the end of her nose, which had her wrinkle it in response. “I never turn down a meal made by a p
retty girl.”

  Noble giggled in response and obediently followed along when I guided her back to our apartment. I put coffee on and settled her in her regular spot with her misshapen pancakes in front of her. I dropped a kiss on the top of her head and was walking back to the kitchen to make my own plate when she asked quietly, “What’s wrong with Solo’s mommy?”

  That was a hard question to answer for someone so young. It didn’t feel right trying to explain the kind of violence Solo and his mother had faced to a child. I didn’t want to scare her, but I didn’t want her to have a rosy view of the world forever, either. She needed to know how horrible humans could be to one another, but she didn’t need to know today just how horrible they could truly be.

  “If he wants us to know, he’ll tell us, okay? Don’t ask him about it. That’s not polite.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw her pout and stab her pancake with a little more force than necessary. She was worried about the big, tattooed man next door. It was cute, but also a little bit concerning. I didn’t want Noble to get overly attached to Solo. Yes, we were finally settling into this new life, in this new place. But I didn’t know if or when we might have to run again. I couldn’t afford to let her think of this place as home and these people as family when we might have to leave it all behind in the blink of an eye.

  There was a rap on the door so I poured a mug of coffee and went to let in the man who rocked my world a few hours ago so he could eat heart-shaped pancakes.