by Jo Raven
Oh God, we’re really doing this. I’ve never felt this way before—like this is important, so important I want to weep and take it slow and memorize every second of it.
But his mouth descends on mine again, demanding and hard, then sweet and soft as his fingers pump faster, dragging me over the edge in a blinding, earth-shattering orgasm.
And before I recover from that, he pulls his fingers out in an agonizing slow slide over my clit and belly and pulls on the condom. I don’t even look down to see if he put it right—something I always check with any boy I have fun with, and I wish Shane didn’t wear one, wish I could feel him inside me without protection.
Then he pulls me up a little. Pushes his cock into me.
Wow. Holy shit.
The head breaches me, slowly stretches me and I dig my nails into his shoulders, gasping. I knew he’s big, but feeling him inside me is a completely different thing.
“Cass,” he says on a grunt, and I lick my lips. He slides deeper and his eyes widen. “Damn.”
I have no breath to speak. It’s crazy, how he fills me up, how good he feels. How close we are, locked together. Inch by inch he sinks into me until I’m sitting in his lap, his cock burning inside me, his hands gripping my hips.
We stay like that for a long moment, panting, holding onto each other.
Then he flips me onto my back, rolling on top of me—still buried inside me, flexing his hips in a move that has me moaning out loud.
“Oh my God.” I bend my knees, lift them, and he hooks them over his shoulders—black stockings, ankle-high boots and all. My skirt is bunched up around my waist, my lacy green panties pulled to the side. His long hair pools over my breasts, and I wish I were naked, so I could feel the rough silk on my nipples.
Gasping, he rocks his hips, driving deep into me, and bends over me to place a hand on either side of my head. A groan rumbles through his chest, and it’s so sexy I can’t stop myself from clutching at his arms.
His eyes darken, narrow. His hips slam into me, again and again, pushing me across the mattress. He lifts one hand off the bed and grips my neck, his thumb pressing into my throat, cutting off the flow of air.
I arch against him, the pressure mounting, clawing at my insides. Nobody ever touched me like this. Rough. Not afraid to break me. Chasing pleasure as darkness spills between us, sweet sticky desire.
His thumb eases up, allowing me a breath, presses again against my windpipe, just enough to tease—then his hand falls away and his mouth is on mine, swallowing my cries. He bites lightly on my lower lip, sucking it into his mouth, and I’m on overload.
His hand unhooks mine from his arm and presses it back against the mattress as he rocks into me faster—and then slower.
Then faster again. Driving me out of my mind with need.
Musk and spicy sweat and a faint whiff of pine from his hair. Solid muscles rippling under smooth skin. That powerful chest rising and falling.
I won’t last much longer. My core tightens around the girth of his cock, my legs tense over his shoulders.
Oh my God. It’s starting, deep inside me, an orgasm that will break me apart. Just this. Just his cock in me, sliding in and out—still fully dressed, and him not touching any other part of me.
Crazy.
He lowers his head, and his hair curtains his face, slipping over my neck like cool water. His square jaw clenches, teeth gritting. His chest muscles press into my chest, shifting, his cock swells more. His whole body flexes against mine, inside mine, fucking me so deep and hard I have no choice, no way to stop it.
No way to hold back. The pressure in my core mounts and mounts, higher and higher, then snaps, hurtling me into pleasure that crackles like fireworks up my spine and through every limb.
Another cry is torn from me, a long wail, as I lose complete control over my body, shaking and writhing on the bed.
“Shane,” I gasp, arching up to meet his thrusts as I clench and ripple around his dick—still long and thick and hard buried in my pussy. “Oh crap, I—”
Another wave hits me, stealing my breath. My head falls back, my eyes closing, as pleasure tears through me like a tornado, shattering me.
What the hell just happened? When I fuck a guy—when I let a guy fuck me—I’m the one in control. I take what I want, find my pleasure, get up and leave, telling myself that the vague feeling of unease is due to the fact I’ve used a guy, not the other way round. That the fact I don’t care for them, and they don’t care for me as our bodies twist and tangle together isn’t an issue.
But where Shane is concerned, I control nothing. Where he’s concerned, I feel too much. I’m with him, right here, body and soul.
As I come down, gathering my pieces from the corners of the universe, he slows his movements. His head is still bent, his face hidden. The powerful muscles in his chest bunch and release, his abs rippling.
It takes me longer than it should to realize something’s off.
“Shane.” He doesn’t react. His breath is coming out in shallow, uneven huffs. “Shane. Look at me.”
At first I think he can’t hear me, but he looks up, his gaze faraway.
For a moment I stare back at him, overwhelmed, my brain still reeling from all the pleasure. It’s so weird—that he’s still deep in my core, hard and hot, but his mind isn’t all there.
“Shane. The pendant.” I push against the hand holding mine down, and he releases it. He pulls his dick out of me in the same movement, arching back, and I gasp as it drags along my sensitized inner walls. “I gave you a pendant. Feel it.”
He’s kneeling on the bed, blinking at me without really seeing me, a hand raised as if to stop me from coming any closer.
God… I sit up, curling my legs under me. “Shane. Let me—”
But his hand clenches and unclenches, and he reaches up to his neck, finds my pendant. His fingers curl around it, clench tightly, and his lashes lower. He’s muttering something, repeating one word.
My name.
Holy crap, I really have no control over myself when it comes to him. Tears slip from my eyes, running down my cheeks, hot. “I’m here. I’m right here, with you.”
This time, when he lifts his gaze, he sees me, his brows lifting, his eyes widening a little. Letting go of the pendant, he opens his arms, and I launch myself at him, wrapping myself around him.
“I’m sorry. It’s okay. It’ll be okay. We’re okay.”
But it’s not me saying those things as I sniffle against his bare shoulder, my face buried in his soft hair.
It’s him.
Chapter Thirteen
Shane
She’s in my arms, and the world is coming back into focus—the real world, the present time. My bedroom, my girl who smells of vanilla and is made of cream and golden toffee.
Cassie.
“Cass,” I murmur, and she clutches me harder. Something wet trickles down my shoulder, down my arm, and I frown, tug her away from me. “Cass?”
With the back of her hand, she wipes her eyes. They’re red and shiny. “Sorry.”
“Why? I’m the fuck-up.”
“Never.” She sniffles. “You fought it. Now, and before, and every time. Sorry for this.” She gestures at her face, the tears sliding again from her eyes. “You’re stronger than I am. In your place…” She sighs. “In your place I wouldn’t have made it.”
My head pounds. “Is this because of Angel?”
“I failed him. I’m so scared I’ll fail you, too.”
“Dammit, Cass.” I cup her face, wipe her tears with my thumbs. “You were a kid when your brother died. There was nothing you could do, and like you told me: you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. But I do. I do want it.” I hold her gaze, steady, as steady as I can be after a flashback. “Show me.”
“Shane…”
“This.” I release her face, grab the pendant. “This.” I snap at the rubber band around my wrist. “I’ll fight. I’ll work hard. I don’t wanna live lik
e this, in nightmares. In panic. I want…” I chew on the inside of my cheek, trying to stop the words, but there’s no fucking way. “You. I want you, Cass.”
I want to be with you. Don’t wanna lose you. I keep scaring you, and if I don’t get better, you’ll leave. Show me what to do. Please.
Pathetic—how much I need her. How scared I am of losing her. Even more than I am of the flashbacks.
Bullshit, I think. That’s bullshit, Shane. You’re terrified of the flashbacks and the nightmares.
Yeah, but not having her will end me. She’s part of why I wanna fight. Being with her makes my days brighter, the nights less dark.
She is my anchor. I thought of her back at the construction site when the memory closed around me—I thought of her scent, her kiss, her taste. Her warmth, her kindness, her presence by my side even through my worst.
I’m trying to wrap my head around these new realizations, when she takes my hand, lifts it, places a kiss in my palm. A shiver courses down my arm, reminding my kinda shell-shocked body that it was in the middle of having sex—at long fucking last—and hasn’t had release yet. My semi-hard dick, still sheathed in the condom, is swelling again, and a sweet ache is spreading through my groin and thighs.
The need to come.
“Remember this band,” she says. “Snap it against yours skin if you feel a flashback about to start, or a panic attack. It works most of the time. And the pendant. Like you just did, clutch it in your hand, focus on what’s real.”
You. You’re fucking real. Never wanted anyone so much, never craved anyone’s presence so hard.
Stay.
“Always try to ground yourself in the now,” she puts my hand on her warm cheek, and I harden more. At this stage, anything she does turns me on. “Feel your clothes, your surroundings, tell yourself you’re safe. And when you feel it coming anyway, call me. Like you did today. I’ll come.”
“You’ll come,” I repeat, and fuck, the word makes me cock twitch.
My hard-on is throbbing, caught between our bodies. I gasp when she shifts, straddling me, steadying herself with her hands on my shoulders. I was close to coming before my mind sidetracked me—and now it’s touch and go, my dick hot and aching and pulsing like a heart.
Mind-control. Deep breaths.
But my mind is still out of whack, and my body wants.
“Want you.” I grab her face in my hands. “Fucking need you.”
“So what are you waiting for?” She rocks against me, grinding against my dick, and I’m gonna lose it, come all over her. “Want to feel you come inside me.”
Fuck, the things she says.
Then she puts her hand on my cock and my vision goes white.
She lifts up on her knees, pulls her green, soaked panties to the side and guides me back inside her. Back home. I sink into her, my breath catching on a moan.
“Hold on to me,” she says, taking my hands and placing them on her waist. “Let me.”
I probably should tell her I’m about to shoot my load whether she moves or not, the pressure in my balls off the charts, but then she does move, and she has me moaning like a porno star.
She lifts her hips, drops back on my cock, twists just a little, bears back down, her inner muscles fluttering around me, sucking me in, and… oh shit.
My balls tighten painfully, and my dick jerks. I hold on tightly to her waist, groaning, trying to say her name and failing as heat pounds at the base of my cock, scorching my balls, shooting up. My stomach clenches so hard I almost double over, and then I’m coming in wrenching spasms, each one shaking me like a quake.
Holy fucking shit. What was that?
Still shaking, my dick still pulsing, I press my face into her fabric-covered tits. They’re soft. And I’m spent. I don’t wanna move again, ever.
Her hands come to rest on my head, a warm weight. She feels so good.
God, I don’t ever want her to let go.
***
I wake up at some undefined pre-dawn hour, nightmare fragments clinging to my lashes as I stumble out of bed. With a glance at Cassie’s faint form as she rolls over to claim the warm spot I left behind, I stumble to the bathroom. After taking a leak and splashing cold water on my face, I head into the dark living room.
The weight on my chest is still there.
Standing at the window, the streetlights illuminating the avenue below, I snap the rubber band against the skin of my wrist. The light sting feels good, so I do it again.
This is real. This.
I reach up for the pendant, close my fingers around it, feel its edges.
Why did someone throw a matchbox with cinnamon gum in it at me? Why does the thought of returning to the construction site frighten me?
What if Cassie is right? What if a therapist could help me?
With a sigh, I grab my drawing pad and sit cross-legged on the sofa. I click the lamp on the side table on and bend over the paper.
Maybe I should talk to Seth about what happened today. Even if only to hear him tell me I’m being paranoid. That the gum is obviously a fucking coincidence. Christoph and Marco are still in prison. They aren’t coming out any time soon.
I know. I checked. Asked. Made sure.
But knowing isn’t enough. It never was. Doubts crowd my mind. What if they managed to get out? What if they escaped? Or bribed a judge? They had the whole prison staff at their command.
Shit.
Yeah, I’ll call Seth. If I hear Seth say it, tell me they’re still behind bars… then maybe I’ll believe it.
My pencil scratches along the rough drawing paper without conscious thought. Black lines, black smudges, deep crosshatching, almost tearing into the paper, punching a hole through it. Shapes emerging, like in my dreams, crawling out of the shadows, hands reaching for me, fingers outstretched.
I reach up with my other hand, grab the pendant. I’ll be all right.
I sketch the faces, the eyes white and the mouths open, fanged like those of snakes, their tongues forked. Demons. Bloodthirsty ghosts.
No, that’s not real. They’re fucking asshole humans.
This is real. Me, sitting on my couch, pressing the tip of my pencil to the paper, trying to draw out the poison with each stroke, each line. Drawing myself as if in a mirror. A still figure, caught in a web.
But something’s changed. I’m drawing fast, like always, my hand doing its own thing, my mind jumping from thought to thought, from image to image—when I realize the central figure isn’t central anymore.
The web is broken.
At the center of the image, something else is imprisoned: a star. And I… I’m standing at one side, looking on.
I touch again the star pendant resting at the hollow of my throat as I stare at what I’ve drawn—so similar to what I usually create, and yet so fundamentally different.
Okay. Think, Shane. Focus, dammit.
That’s not exactly what I dreamed of. Then again, it rarely is. What comes on paper is the impression, the condensed meaning, the feel of the nightmare.
So what the fuck does this mean?
***
“You going in to work?” Cassie is sitting in my tiny kitchen, sipping coffee. She’s wearing her black stockings, her pale green panties and bra, and a thick cotton button-down shirt thrown over her shoulders.
I don’t even remember owning that shirt. Weird. It’s not like I own many things. Did Ev, Micah’s girl, give it to me last Christmas?
Frowning, I stir sugar into my coffee. Why can’t I remember? Weird how my memory has holes not only from my time in prison but from later, too.
I remember sharing a tiny room with Seth for a while, then living on the streets. Bits and pieces, flashes of nightmare and faces peering down at me.
Then Zane and Rafe taking us to Damage Control, explaining they’d help us get a place to live and train as tat artists. I remember meeting the other guys—Asher and Tyler and Dylan.
I remember when Micah and Jesse and later Ocean were added
to the group. Drinks and shooting pool in the evenings sometimes, cleaning up the shop in the mornings, finding the job at the construction site.
Blurry, grainy memories like old photographs.
Did I have flashbacks last year? Nightmares, sure. Panic attacks? Sometimes. But flashbacks?
I rub at my forehead.
“Hey.” Cassie is giving me a quizzical look. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” She asked me a question, didn’t she? What was it? … Work. “I should go get ready.”
“What time shall I pick you up?”
I stare at her.
“To go to the wedding.” She rolls her eyes a little. “Forgot already? Men.”
It’s funny, and my lips tug upward in a faint smile. “Around five?”
“Sure thing. And wear something nice.”
Nice. No idea if I have something that fits the description. I mean, I could wear what I wore to Asher’s wedding—dark jeans and T-shirt.
Dammit, I want to look good. For her. I want to see her eyes widen in appreciation, dilate with desire.
Fuck…
Still can’t believe she wants me along. Hell, that she’s here, half-naked at my table, her eyes twinkling and her skin glowing in the gray morning light, her curves, her mouth, the memory of her underneath me, riding my dick in my lap—all making me hard.
“Just come right up,” I say, turning away, giving my dick a consoling squeeze, “when you’re here. Let me know if I’m up to par.”
“I could. If I had the key.”
From a hook on the wall, I take down the extra key to my apartment and toss it to her. She barely catches it, the shirt falling from her shoulders.
A grin spreads on my face as one of her bra straps falls off her shoulder, baring her breast. Damn, I’m so hard my dick’s drilling a hole through my sweats.
In two strides, I’m right in front of her, bending over her, crushing my mouth to hers. I steady myself with one hand on the back of her chair, while the other trails over her nipple, teasing it.
She gasps against my lips, and I thrust my tongue between them, tasting her. Oh yeah, this is so good. So real. She is fire and earth and water, pulling me in, keeping me sane.
