by Abby Gale
"Elijah," she breathes out, and I want to hear my name louder from her lips. I want to grab her and place her on the desk, so I can do my best to summon the loudest moans from her lips. My dick twitches in my jeans and my hands fall to her waist, pulling her closer to me. She gasps when my hardness pokes her in her belly, and I groan. Her hands slowly find their place on my chest, and I want those small hands wrapped around my cock more than I want my next breath.
“Eva,” I gruff, pressing her gorgeous body against mine. It feels too good to stop, but I have to stop. I know it. If I don’t take a step back, I’ll come in my pants without even doing anything. Having her body flushed against mine is all I need to lose my mind.
“What are we doing?” she whispers and I want to kiss her.
I swallow. “I don’t know,” I whisper.
Our lips are so close. It would be so easy to kiss her right now, but what happens after that? I was such a dick to her all week, and now I'm ready to eat her alive. What will she feel when we've done what I have in mind? Used. That's how she'll feel because I didn't even give her a reason to believe that I'm good, that I won't hurt her.
That's what stops me even though all I want to do is to kiss her like there's no tomorrow. But instead, I take a small step back and push a strand of dark hair behind her ear, smiling down at her.
“I’ll see you at home, Evangeline,” I murmur.
She nods, a small smile teases her lips like she can’t dare make it a full-blown smile.
But even a small smile makes her eyes shine and her skin glow.
God, this girl is making me feel all the things I've never felt before. When she finally leaves the classroom, I pull my hair. My need for her is like never-ending hunger.
I look back and forth between the stories I need to read on my desk and to the door where she's just left. Sighing, I sit on my chair behind my desk. I should do some writing and then read these stories, because I know if I go back home right now, I’m afraid I’ll do things I shouldn’t.
Here, I'm forced to have some distance at least.
After some good hours writing, I shut my laptop and start reading the stories. I put hers under all of the others, but hers is the one I'm the most excited and curious about. I read the stories fast, just like the way a kid reads through the newspaper. I don't bother to point out the grammatical errors in them, I'm lucky I actually have some ideas on what they're about. But when I reach Evangeline's paper, I hold my breath with anticipation.
Leaning back in my chair, I give all my attention to her words.
Once upon a time, far, far away, there was a kingdom. A queen who always smiled, a king whose lap carried his kids. A princess who was happy to live with her beautiful family, and the little prince who expressed his thoughts with one worded sentences.
They had everything they could possibly need and there was no problem in their kingdom. The family’s days were full of love and laughter. And their happiness seemed bulletproof, like nothing could touch them.
But every story has a villain, and in this one, the villain was their beloved daughter. She was cursed by the wicked witch named Life. A curse no one knew about until it was too late.
On one of the many happy days, the king decided to take his family to the river. Their kingdom was surrounded with water, so swimming was a requirement to the royal family. They didn't take any of the maids with them. They wanted it to be just them, a simple family on that beautiful day.
The king was just a father then. No duties for the kingdom were in his mind. He started to teach his daughter how to swim while the queen played with the little prince. Time passed and the family got hungry, but they couldn't find the picnic basket they brought with them. So, the king and the queen, as the responsible parents they were, decided to hunt something to feed their kids. They headed into the depth of the woods, leaving the prince and the princess behind.
The Princess was just seven years old, even though she liked to act older than her age. She played with the little prince, teaching him new words to add his three-year-old vocabulary. But when a colorful butterfly got the princess' attention, she decided it would make her brother happy. She decided she needed to catch it for the little prince.
The butterfly flew faster and further than the princess’ legs could carry her. But the princess was stubborn. She tried harder to catch the butterfly. Finally, she caught it and brought it back to where she left the little prince. Her smile was big. Until she realized little prince was nowhere to be seen.
She screamed and cried. Searched everywhere she could think of. And when she reached the river, she saw the little prince, laying on the water. Face down. Not moving.
The butterfly flew away with her scream of horror.
And she knew she was cursed at that moment.
She cried.
And cried.
She cried until the king and queen came back.
But when they did, the look they gave her told her everything she should've known.
She was cursed.
She was cursed to be lonely.
And that day, the wicked witch Life had won.
The spell had never broken ever since.
There's a lump in my throat. My hands are shaky as I force them into fists.
This girl.
Damn this girl.
I read and re-read her story. Trying to understand what part of it is real what part is fiction.
I don't know if she had a brother. In the week I stayed there, I saw no one else but her and the employees around the house. I don't know if this story was her telling me her pain metaphorically or if she was telling me a story so painful.
After sitting in the dark for so long, I get up and head for the house. It's already close to midnight, and I feel that urge to hug Evangeline again. I need to hug her. Not out of pity because it's the last thing I feel. It's just this indescribable proximity I feel toward her that makes me want to see her, touch her.
I've read somewhere its pain that brings people closer. I've never thought it would be true, but as she opens up to me, I just want to know more and more, like I can drink her pain, like I can set her free. There's intimacy and bravery in the way she trusts me with her pain. That is something that makes me feel important, a someone, almost like a hero. With every sliver of her life, she reveals to me, I feel there's another set of connections shaping between us. Like neurons in our brains, with every piece I see of the puzzle that she really is, another set of complications and an intense pathway is created. A pathway to bring us together. Feeding the electricity between us, that's been there since the first moment we laid eyes on each other.
When I stand in front of the guest house after coming home, I turn to look at the only light on in the big house. It must be her.
Grabbing my phone, I find her number which I recorded the first day I stayed here.
*Goodnight, Evangeline*
I send the text and wait. Three dots appear a few seconds later, and I wait like a sixteen-year-old boy with a crush.
*Goodnight, Elijah x*
She sends back.
Elijah. Not Mr. Richards. And I get a kiss.
That puts a big smile on my face. And I go to bed with that smile still in place.
13
Eva
I wake up before my alarm goes off today. It's still kind of dark outside, but I feel well rested and… I don't know what's the other thing I'm feeling. It's bubbly, like a glass of sweet champagne. After the story time yesterday, I assumed I'd be in a bad mood, but I'm glad it's not the case. Maybe sharing that story with someone took the weight off of my shoulders. Without questioning the reason any longer, I get out of my bed.
Opening the window of my room, I let the cool spring breeze hit me with the fresh morning air. That's when I see him doing laps in the pool like a professional swimmer. I sit on the cushion next to my window and watch him as he makes love with water. With every strong hit his arm makes on the pool's surface, the water surrenders to his wil
l. He looks like a shark from where I watch him; dangerous but graceful in his moves.
When he stops at the end of the pool again, he pulls himself up instead of doing another lap. The water reaches for him like it can't get enough of his body. But he steps out of the pool and stands on the marble floor like a god. I gasp when I see his body out of the clothes, only in a pair of swimming shorts. He looks more built than I thought he was. His muscles bulging even from a distance. Black ink covers both his arms. The black shorts he's wearing hugs his legs and sticks to his crotch with the wetness of material. Biting my lip, I watch as he grabs a towel and dries his skin like a porn special to me.
He towels off his hair and not even my dad's high standard barber would do the messy look better. When he turns to go inside the guesthouse, I see there's a big eagle on his back with its wings open. God, he looks dangerously delicious. I stand from where I'm sitting to close the window. But just when I think he'll step inside, he looks over his shoulder directly to my window. I can imagine the fire in his eyes like he's staring right into my soul. And I see the smirk on his face. I can almost swear he winks at me before he closes the door and disappears from my sight.
I have a desperate urge to run into the guesthouse and join him in the shower I'm sure he'll be heading into, but instead I walk toward my own bathroom.
As the water falls over me, I caress my body with leisure. Let myself imagine it's him that touches me with the hunger I feel deep in my bones. It's him who pushes his fingers through the folds of my pussy. It's his body making me pant with pleasure.
When I finally get out, my body is flush and glowing with satisfaction. After putting on my school uniform, I walk out of my room to the corridor and stop not taking my usual route in the house. Today I don't feel the need to visit the rooms to prove my loneliness to myself once more. This morning, I don't feel alone.
"Miss Faye, your guest, asks if you'd like to join him for breakfast," the maid tells me.
I look at her. She's one of the three maids in the house. She seems to be around my age. Her red hair is tight in a low bun, she's wearing the standard maid uniform with a pencil skirt and a white shirt.
“What's your name?” I blurt out.
She seems surprised by the question. I can't blame her. I just smile at her reaction.
“Jessica.”
“Nice to meet you, Jessica. You can call me Eva,” I say, causing her shock to grow. “And is he in the dining room?”
She schools her expression quickly. “No, he's in the guesthouse Miss, I mean Eva.”
I nod and walk away with a smile on my face. My parents can’t forbid me to be friends with them while they don't bother to be home. I don't know why I live with that fucking rule for so fucking long even though I know it’s stupid and let them punish me for something I can't be held responsible for.
Shaking my head, I head for the guest house. Elijah is sitting on the porch with his laptop open in front of him. His torso is bare except the ink that covers it like a canvas. As I can't take my eyes away from him, I think being close to him is a bad idea. But just like a drug, instead of putting distance I walk faster to get close to him.
14
Elijah
I'm an asshole. A masochist one probably.
Seriously, I have to be. No other reason makes sense for me to put both of us in this position. But I couldn't help it. I couldn't help but want to see her look at me the way she watched me from that window. I felt her arousal as intense as my own, I felt her need just as hungry as mine.
This is a bad idea. Big trouble. But I can't silence my imagination or control my dick when I think about her. And dammit if I'm not thinking about her non-stop since she crashed into my life with one step inside that classroom. And like that's not enough she looks different today. She doesn't wear a button-down that gives me the beautiful view I want to frame forever in my mind. Instead, she's wearing a black t-shirt that hugs her tits and somehow making the whole look even sexier than cleavage. But it's not the change of her clothes that makes my cock hard in my jeans. It's her. The way she stands. The way her eyes look brighter. Her cheeks are rosy, her skin is glowing, and her steps are bubbly. Like the air around her changed entirely since yesterday.
Fuck if I don't like that.
I like this sight of her.
I like it a lot.
I want to think I have a play in the change in her.
She’s like a flower. With a little attention, she blooms to perfection.
And I'm already thinking about how she'd look if I made her come over and over again. Satisfaction would look good on her. Fuck, everything would look good on her.
My mouth. My cum. My body...
Dammit, Elijah.
“Good morning,” she finally breaks the silence that's probably been awkward with me checking her out and imagining her naked.
“Good morning, Evangeline.” God, even her name feels seductive whenever I say it. Like every letter licks my tongue in a passionate kiss.
She smiles, almost a shy smile before nodding toward my laptop. “Are you writing?”
“Yes,” I answer, scrolling up to the first chapter in case she gets a peek. Because what I've been writing since I met her isn't something I want her to read right now. If she reads those words aloud, the things I wrote all the while picturing her, I don't think I'll control myself before doing something stupid. Like lifting her into my arms and fucking her against the wall of her parent’s guest house.
“I'd love to read it, but I guess you don't want me to.”
She's sweet when she's nervous.
“Not before I finish it. No,” I answer.
Like I've just given her some kind of hope, she smiles brightly and sits on the chair opposite mine.
I want to ask her about the bedtime story she wrote, but I don't have the heart to open a sad topic while she looks so lively today.
“You're up early,” she says.
“You were, too,” I fire back, remembering the pressure of her gaze as she checked me out this morning.
She goes red. Swallows and moves her eyes away from me.
I chuckle, but decide to offer her mercy, "I asked for breakfast for two, and your cook sent out breakfast for twenty."
She giggles. “She always does that.”
“Let’s have breakfast quickly, so you won’t be late to school,” I say and suppress my smile when her eyes do another take over my body.
We start our breakfasts and busy ourselves with the food without talking. The silence isn't uncomfortable and opposite to girls at her age, she doesn't try to fill it with words. But like we have no control over the attraction between us, our eyes meet far too many times to be appropriate. The look we exchange then, and there is like some kind of foreplay.
She must sense the buzzing electricity in the air, she breaks the silence. “Do you have siblings?”
"Yes, three girls," I answer, smiling with the mention of them. "All younger than me. Eighteen, twelve, and a five-year-old."
“Are you close with them?”
“Yes. We can’t see each other as often as I want to with all the distance, but we Skype every week. The oldest will come to Seattle this year I hope. She applied to WSU, so she can stay with me instead of some dorms.”
She smiles. “I’m sensing some protective big brother vibes.”
“Of course I’m protective. My older brother would’ve been much worse. She’s just eighteen.”
“You have a brother?”
I swallow. “I had. We lost him in Afghanistan.”
Her smile drops. “I’m sorry.”
I reach for her hand and squeeze it with a smile.
She softly smiles and changes the topic. “I’m eighteen too, you know.”
I snort. “And that makes me a hypocrite.”
She frowns. “Why?”
Fuck. Did I say that out loud?
I rub my neck to find an answer. Because any answer would be better than ‘because when I look a
t you, all I'm seeing is a woman I want in my bed.'
"Because… when I look at you, I see a woman, not a little girl. So that makes me a hypocrite."
She gives me one of those looks that makes me imagine things I shouldn't. I fist my hands, so I don't rip her school uniform.
She stands up after checking her phone. “I better leave for school.”
I was planning on staying home and write all day until it’s time for the class, but in a sudden change of heart, I stand up with her. “I’ll drive you,” I say. “Since we both go there,” I add quickly.
She shrugs, and I head for the bedroom to put on another t-shirt.
The headmaster keeps giving me a disapproving look whenever he sees me with a t-shirt instead of a button down, but fuck him.
The ride to school is silent. I realize she's not really much of a talker, but I can see the wheels in her mind turning every second of the day. She'd be a good writer, she has a way with words, her emotions bottled up to use, and she keeps observing like she’s collecting inspiration from anything and everything. I feel the need to read things she writes. Not just assignments. Something more personal, less filtered. Maybe a journal. She sure looks like a journal type even though I didn't think that the first time I saw her. Now that I know she has a storm inside her, I know she would be pouring those emotions to the paper.
She gets out of the car when I park in the lot. I see the way she lifts her chin up. Her demeanor suddenly changes from calm and observing to defensive and mysterious. I look around to see what caused the change. And I know the crowd watching us, watching her. I can almost hear the whispers.
Is that what she always deals with?
