Salvage

by Tiffany Aleman

  “Not more than you,” she whispers, and I have to turn my head away from her touch. I can’t let her see the pain reflecting back in my eyes. I can’t tell her everything I went through. It’s not fair to her. Her life was just as fucked up as mine, just in a different way. Karmen carries her own pain. I can’t let her carry mine, too.

  “My life, my pain isn’t something I talk about, but I want to with you,” I admit, turning my attention back to her. “But I can’t right now.”

  Karmen’s eyes turn sad, and she gives me a barely there nod. “I understand.”

  I lift our joined hands and kiss each of her knuckles. I cup her face in my hands. My lips find hers for only a few seconds. “Just know when I do want to talk, you’ll be the one I run to.”

  I bring her in for another kiss. Karmen lifts up on her knees, her hands latch onto my wrists. My mouth slants over hers, my tongue sweeping out for a taste. She opens, granting me access. As we get lost in the passion of our kiss, I think back to a time when there were just innocent touches, lingering looks and whispered words of adoration between the two of us. Those memories have now come to fruition and I’ll be damned if I ever let this go.

  “I thought we were supposed to be talking,” she mumbles against my lips, her hands sliding down my arms, up my biceps, and winding around my neck.

  “Later,” I reply.

  My hands leave her face only to end up on her waist. I pull her closer to me. Karmen swings one leg over my lap and straddles me.

  “Later, huh?” She pulls back an inch and looks down at me.

  I shrug and a coy smile takes over my face. “That’s if I can find a way to keep my hands off of you.”

  Karmen arches an eyebrow at my answer and laughs softly. “You’re lucky you’re so damn sexy… you know that, right?”

  With one hand still on her waist, the other goes to the back of her neck. Before my lips reclaim hers I murmur “Is that all you see me as? A hot body?”

  I don’t give her a chance to spar against my answer because my mouth crashes upon hers in a hard kiss. Karmen pulls me closer to her, her arms wrapping around my neck. My hands clench a hold of her hips before they slide up her ribs, around to her back, and up into her hair. I grip onto the silky, soft strands and tug, not enough to hurt her but enough to let her know I’m the one in control of this situation. The move causes her to grind against me. I never thought my cock could be so hard.

  “God, I want you,” I groan against her swollen lips.

  She latches onto my bottom lip and bites down in the most erotic way, and it sends me thrusting against her. Her naked pussy, slick and wet, glides back and forth against my cock. I’m not in her—yet. “Do that again and I can’t be held responsible for what happens,” I growl out my warning.

  Karmen pulls back just a fraction, her lids heavy with desire. Her eyes flicker between my eyes and my mouth. She looks up at me, our gazes locked. Slowly, she leans in, her tongue sweeps against my bottom lip before she sucks it into her mouth and gently bites down.

  My grip in her hair tightens. I pull and her head falls back, her neck exposed to me. I place open-mouthed kisses up and down the column. I listen to her breaths falter. With one hand, I reach down and grab a hold of the base of my dick. I slide the tip back and forth against her slit, teasing her. Her moans of pleasure fill the silence of the room. My heart feels like it’s about to beat out of my chest. The harder she pants, the rise and fall of her chest grows. I can tell she’s almost there, and that’s when I make my move. With no warning at all, I thrust up, filling her in one fluid motion. Her walls tighten around my dick in an unrelenting grasp. The sensation makes me gasp. My hands find her hips, and I forcefully hold her still, my eyes rolling in the back of my head.

  “Fuck, Karmen. Don’t move. I swear to God I’ll blow,” I groan in pleasure.

  And like the minx she is, she rotates her hips, and it takes every ounce of willpower I have to stop from exploding.

  “You don’t really want me to stop do you?” Karmen asks against my ear, her voice husky and seductive at the same time. She twists her hips again as she places a kiss at the hollow behind my ear and I moan, loud. “No. I didn’t think so.” And I can hear the smirk in her voice.

  She kisses down my throat, the pads of her fingers skim across my nipples. The move only makes me grow harder. With a gentle push, I lie back and let her have her wicked way with me. As she begins to ride my dick, I let the pleasure roll over me. My breaths come in heavy pants, matching the woman above me. I trail my fingers up her calves, thighs, and stomach before I cup her voluptuous breasts in my hands. Between my thumbs and forefingers, I roll her hardened nipples between my fingers.

  “Fuck, baby. You feel so damn good. So damn wet.” My voice is breathless as I lick my lips.

  I thrust up as she slams down on me. We become a frenzy of hands, kisses, and touches. I’m lost to her. I’m lost in the sounds she makes as my hands squeeze her ass. I’m lost in the way she fights the urge to close her eyes as she stares down at me, committing my pleasure to her memory. I’m lost in the way her pleas for more mix with my growls of adoration. I’m lost to the way her sweat slickened skin slides against my own, the way her fingers grip my hair, the way her nails scratch down my back.

  I squeeze my eyes shut tight as I release punishing thrusts, her groans only encourage me further before that spine tingling sensation creeps up my back, my toes begin to curl and my balls draw up tight. Again, I’m lost. I explode, and if her screams are any indication she’s fallen over the edge with me.

  My arms wrap around her waist, and I pull her into me. I bury my face in the crook of her neck as she falls forward onto my chest. “That…was,” I gasp for breath.

  She shakes her head as she returns my embrace. “I…have…no…”

  “Words? I don’t either…babe,” I chuckle.

  Karmen pulls back and stares down at me. “Isn’t it funny how life works?” she asks, breathless with a satisfied smirk on her face.

  I know what she means. How we ended up here. Right here with her, like this, is the last thing I would have expected fate to throw at me. It’s a constant battle to not beat myself up over the past Karmen and I share. What’s going on between us isn’t some re-connection of lovers’ lost and found again. Of course I’ve always wanted her, especially back in high school, but even then I knew I didn’t deserve her. We were just two people who at the time never stood a chance. I could have pursued her and told everyone else to fuck off, but it wouldn’t have changed anything. My family still would have looked at her as the piece of trash from across the railroad tracks. My friends would have treated her worse than they did.

  “I think we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.” My fingers comb through her hair, my eyes meeting her gaze.

  She nods absentmindedly as my words sink in. “Do you believe in fate?”

  “I didn’t use to.”

  “But you do now?”

  “I guess so.” I shrug. “For everything we’ve gone through, our past, my football career, the death of your parents. Somehow we still wound up here, in this same town, our lives intertwining. I don’t see any other explanation for it except for fate.”

  Karmen leans forward on my chest, propping her chin on my pec. She looks up at me. “This is the last place I thought I’d ever be,” she says quietly.

  “Why?”

  “I had this big plan that after I graduated college. I was going to move to Los Angeles, live in a cheap studio apartment that I could barely afford, live off Ramen noodles, and work as a waitress just to save up what money I could to open a recording studio.”

  “A recording studio huh?”

  “Music has always been an outlet for me. No matter what’s been going on in my life, I’ve always been able to find my way just by listening to music. Many times, someone else’s lyrics have talked me off the ledge. It’s like I could feel their pain through their words, and it reminded me that maybe my life wasn’t all that
bad.”

  Her words startle me and even though I know what she’s hinting at, I still feel the need to ask.

  “You wanted to kill yourself?” Just saying the words guts me, because if she says yes I’ll know I had a hand in her coming to terms with that decision.

  “There were times when I used to feel that way.”

  “Because of me and Drew? Because of what happened at school.”

  Karmen heaves a deep sigh and looks away from me. She’s quiet for so long. When I think she’s not going to answer, she does. “Yes. But there was also everything that I had to go through at home too. There were a lot of times that I wondered if I’d even be missed. I know I had Tammy. I knew if I ever hurt myself like that, she’d be crushed. I couldn’t do that to her. But I also felt so alone. The loneliness was suffocating and at that time, taking my own life seemed like the right thing to do, even if it was a selfish idea.”

  The anguish in her broken voice breaks me. A single tear slips past its barrier and it pisses me off. I have no right to cry. I’m one of the many reasons she was forced to feel the way she did. I was a coward. Instead of doing the right thing, instead of defending a defenseless girl, I chose to protect my own ass by sitting back and doing nothing.

  “For what it’s worth.” I swallow past the lump in my throat but it’s still hard to speak, hard to envision her gone from this world, and another tear slips free. “I’m so glad you didn’t…” I can’t fathom uttering the words kill yourself, take your own life.

  Karmen looks at me, reaches out, and with her thumb she wipes at my tears trailing over my cheeks.

  “Me too.”

  I pull her into me. My arms bind around her, and I bury my face in her hair at the crook of her neck. I breathe in her sweet, soothing scent, and it calms the self-loathing eating away at me. Had I known then what kind of internal hell she was going through, life would have turned out differently for the both of us. Maybe she would have worn more smiles instead of frowns. Maybe the thoughts of taking her own life would have never crossed her mind. Maybe she would have lived her dream and found what she was looking for in life.

  “Are you sure I look okay?” I look down at myself for the millionth time.

  I’m nervous and I have no idea why. It’s not like I haven’t hung out with Drew and Chelsea before. But this is the first time I’m actually meeting them as Bradyen’s girlfriend and not just his roommate or friend.

  “Here hold this.” I pass the bowl of pasta salad to Brayden. I smooth down the pleats again. It’s more to wipe my clammy hands on something rather than to smooth away non-existent wrinkles.

  “Babe, you look hot. Trust me.” Easy for him to say. He stands there, casual, relaxed in his khaki cargo shorts and a navy blue t-shirt that fits him in all the right places, smirking at me in that adorable way of his. It makes me scowl. My dress is simple yet classy. It’s a pale yellow, sleeveless number that I’ve paired with a thin white belt just below my bust and a pair of white sling back open toe sandals with a low heel.

  Brayden grabs my hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Why are you so nervous?”

  I heave a deep sigh. “Because I’m meeting them as your girlfriend.”

  “And?”

  “And,” I drawl out. “They’re your friends, Brayden. What if they don’t think I’m good enough for you? It was different when I was just your friend and roommate.”

  He laughs. “First off, you and I, we’re still friends. Secondly, they like you and even if they didn’t, who I choose to be with isn’t their business. Lastly, you act like I would be with someone who isn’t good enough for me,” he jokes through a smile.

  My lips screw up as I hit him on the arm. “Conceited much?” I laugh.

  He shakes his head. “Confident, there’s a difference, babe,” he says, pulling me into him, his lips claiming mine.

  “You know nothing good ever comes from kissing you,” I mumble against his lips.

  “You’re right, only great things come from me kissing you.” He chuckles and I laugh.

  His arrogance knows no bounds yet I still feel myself falling for him. It’s times like this when he's playful that I realize how much I missed out on with Levi. We had a great relationship, but we didn’t have this fun, easy vibe the way Brayden and I do. Five years is a long time to be alone, but being here with Brayden like this out in the open, carefree and happy makes those years seem like nothing in comparison to never knowing this feeling.

  “Okay, you two can stop now.” Drew’s voice interrupts our moment. I smile against Brayden’s lips before turning to look at Drew.

  His eyebrow is arched as he looks between Brayden and me. A grin tugs at the corners of my lips.

  Opening the door wider, he makes a sweeping motion with his hand. “Well come on in.”

  I take the bowl from Brayden’s hands. His palm finds its way to my lower back as he ushers me into Drew and Chelsea’s house.

  This past Wednesday, Drew called and invited us over to their house for a barbecue on Saturday. My eyes grew wide when I heard him over the speaker on Brayden’s phone. Immediately I made a slicing motion across my neck trying to tell Brayden no. I wasn’t sure if we were at that stage to introduce ourselves as a real couple to the rest of the world yet. But no, my prick boyfriend smiled a devilish smile that lit up his whole face as he said ‘Yeah man, we’ll be there. You should see Karmen she’s jumping up and down with a huge smile on her face. Yeah, I have you on speaker.’ Then Drew proceeded to say ‘hi,’ and it wasn’t like I couldn’t say anything. He knew I was standing there, and apparently I was jumping for joy.

  “Chelsea’s in the kitchen,” Drew says as we follow after him.

  The blonde hardwood floors are a nice contrast against the slate gray painted walls. Pictures hang on the walls of the foyer as we make our way towards the kitchen. Off to my left is a living room with a black leather couch and love seat with tufted cushions and a chaise lounge, all three pieces set in a U shape. Entering the kitchen, I’m instantly jealous. It’s all stainless steel appliances, brown granite countertops with speckles of black to lighten the brown, and the cabinets are rustic white with a matching island in the middle that really pulls the whole kitchen together.

  “You have a beautiful home,” I offer.

  “Thanks,” Chelsea replies from the sink with a smile, where she stands washing dishes.

  “You need help with anything?” I ask.

  She shakes her head and looks back at me over her shoulder. “Nope, I’m washing these up real quick, and then we can head out back with the guys.” She turns her eyes on Drew and asks, “Did you start the grill up yet?”

  Drew rolls his eyes. “Yes, dear,” he sighs. A smile follows right after.

  He looks at Brayden, grinning. “She thinks I can’t do anything.”

  “Because you can’t.” Chelsea laughs. “At least not without me reminding you at least a hundred times.”

  “Have you ever stopped to think that maybe I just like to hear your voice?”

  “Uh-huh. Yeah, that’s what it is.”

  I laugh at their banter because no matter who Drew used to be and how he used to treat me, he really does adore his wife.

  “Anyway.” Drew claps Brayden on the shoulder. “Let’s go be men. We’ll drink beer and man the grill and leave these ladies to do what they do best.”

  “And what’s that?” I ask, tilting my head to the side.

  “Yeah, Drew? What is it that we women do best?” Chelsea asks. She leans back against the counter, a dishrag draped over her shoulder, her arms crossed over her chest, and an eyebrow arched.

  “You know…make awesome…food to keep us men nice and healthy.” He pats his stomach.

  We all laugh in unison, even Brayden. “Nice save, man,” Brayden says, slapping him in the stomach.

  Brayden places a tender kiss on my temple and whispers he’s only going to have a couple of beers before following Drew out into the backyard. My eyes follow after the
m, and I can’t help but smile. His words are a reassurance to my worries that I have for him. Since I mentioned to him how I felt like he may have a drinking problem, he’s gone out of his way to show me that he doesn’t. I haven’t seen him drunk, and besides a couple of beers here and there, it really does seem like he’s done a complete one-eighty. There are times when I want to ask, why does he even need to have a beer at all, but I bite my tongue. I only want to pick battles that are worthy of picking, and seeing as how he’s made large strides to keep his drinking in check, I’ll let it go for now.

  “Took you two long enough.”

  My head snaps back in Chelsea’s direction. She’s smiling like the cat who ate the canary.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I play coy.