by Lola Darling
I stop thinking again, because his hands catch mine once more, draw my arms up and over my head, his fingers pressing gently into my skin, hot as brands. His mouth dips to my ear, and his breath scalds my skin. “I’m going to make you wish you could scream, Harper Reed.”
I wriggle in anticipation, my whole body stretched out beneath him, and then something colder encircles my wrists, and I hear the sharp snap of . . .
Oh god. Was he really serious? I give a light, experimental tug, just to be sure.
Yep. Handcuffs.
“What are—” I start to ask, but as quick as I speak, his hand slaps my bare thigh, just below the hem of my dress, hard enough to sting.
“I said be quiet.” There’s such an undertone of command in that simple sentence that I can’t help but shiver all over. He’s in complete control now. He can take what he wants from me, do whatever he wants to me, in a way I’ve never let anyone take control of me before.
And it’s making me hot as hell.
I try squirming again, testing the bonds, and am interrupted once more by the sensation of my dress being drawn up my body. He doesn’t stop at the waist like I expect—he pulls it all the way up to my hands, leaves it tangled around my wrists, still locked in their restraints, and then comes back for the bra.
In no time at all, I lie naked on the floor of his office, more exposed than I’ve ever felt in my life. Hot, excited warmth pools between my legs, and I cross them out of sheer habit.
Something light and feathery, even softer than the blanket we’re lying on, brushes my thigh. At first it just tickles, but as he drags it slowly over my skin, that sensation erupts into something else. A burning, desperate need.
“Ohhhh, stop,” I hiss.
The feather lifts from my skin, and his hot hands cup my breasts instead. “Do you really want me to stop?” he murmurs.
I bite my lip as my nipples harden under his grasp, and gasp faintly as he flicks one of them, and rolls the other between his finger and thumb. When I can think straight enough to move, I shake my head hard.
“Well then.” The hands leave my chest, and in a moment the feather is back, tracing over my thighs. “Open your legs.”
I swallow hard and uncross my legs, spreading them before him. He’s slow, methodic. Torturous. He brushes me from one ankle all the way up to the top of my thigh and right across my clit, which makes me bite my tongue to keep from groaning aloud, and then slowly down my other leg, all the way to my ankle.
He repeats the motion with his fingers now, hotter and harder a sensation, but just as painfully stimulating: the feel of his skin against mine, and being completely unable to do anything about it, unable to pull him closer the way I want—no, need.
I’m waiting on tenterhooks for the sound of his belt buckle unclasping, his jeans hitting the floor. I’m so focused on that, so concentrated on when he’ll finally thrust into me and fuck me to a climax, that I am not at all prepared when his mouth presses to my ankle. This time I do gasp, only lightly, but it makes him pull away and slap the inside of my thigh, just enough to make me jump.
“No sound.”
I swear the bastard is enjoying this far too much. I grit my teeth to keep my mouth shut, but it’s hard when he’s licking higher, higher, at my thigh, now the top of it, alternately sucking at my skin and lapping at me as he moves. Just when I think I won’t be able to stand it anymore, that I’ll have to beg him to take me already, his tongue slides deep into my pussy, curling against me, sending sparks of bright red flaring behind my closed eyelids.
My body arcs up into him, and my hands curl involuntarily around the fabric of my dress, my nails digging into my palms through it. I can’t make a sound to let him know how I feel, so I let my body do the talking for me.
His tongue delves deeper into me, tasting every inch of me, and my legs quiver beneath him, my stomach trembling where he rests a hand to brace himself against me. I’m close to finishing, my hips bucking of their own accord now, my breath sharp and fast, my mouth clamped shut to keep any accidental moans from slipping out.
And then he pulls away, and my whole body screams in agony for release.
“So not fair,” I hiss through clenched teeth, and I expect him to slap me again for that.
Instead, he grips my knees, pulls them far apart, and we both gasp as he shoves his cock into me.
“You like that, you dirty girl?” he grunts. “You like my cock in your wet, hot pussy?”
He doesn’t wait for a reply. He holds me like that, legs splayed, and thrusts so hard my hips buck up off the floor. Every time he pulls away I want to scream for more, and every time he slams back into me I have to fight back my groans.
I clench around him, the only thing I can do from my prone position. He hisses, and then he fucks me in earnest. Every thrust splits me open, plunders my body as he claims every inch of me.
It’s not long before we both quake against each other, him suppressing a soft grunt under his breath, and me unable to help the low moan that escapes my lips as we finish as one, the climax rocketing through my entire body, sparks flying along my nerve endings.
When he pulls out and slides my dress back down over me, then reaches up to untie the blindfold and free my hands, neither of us speaks. We stare at one another, savoring the sensations we’re both feeling right now, the sense of total completeness.
When I’m free, I sit up, and he draws me into his arms, eyes still fixed onto mine. I sink into his kiss, melt into his embrace, lose myself entirely, for one long, endless minute, that’s somehow over far too soon. Because after a moment, someone knocks at the door.
#
“My house at seven,” is all Jack has time to hiss in my ear before I finish fastening my thick winter coat around me. We’d scattered enough papers across his desk to make an excuse for our delay in answering the knock. (The carpet he just fucked me on, a cozy shag rug that looks like something out of a ski lodge with a warm fire, we stuffed under a bookshelf in the corner.)
Then I’m smiling blandly at the male student who steps into the room, praying that the perfume I spritzed, panicking, would cover up enough of the heady scent of sex that hung in the air.
Jack waves the student in with a “How’s it, Keith?”, ignoring me altogether as I shut the door behind me. But I don’t mind. My heart pounds the whole way back to my dorm, replaying every second of what we just did.
I’m still buoyed up by the memories when I reach Jack’s house that evening. I don’t bother to knock, just step right inside and head for the kitchen, all thoughts of my classwork and the other stuff I’ve been dealing with throughout the day driven from my mind. I want a repeat of this afternoon. I want him to touch me again, fuck me again. I want to feel his skin against mine, and his lips on mine, like the cure for everything that could possibly ail me.
That is, until I cross the threshold into the kitchen, and find Jack staring at the wall, almost catatonic.
It takes him almost a minute to wake up, to realize that I’m there, and who I am. Finally, his eyes focus on me, and I guess what’s coming even before he says it.
“My father just died.”
Jack
They say cancer is like that. Slow at first, then suddenly deteriorating in leaps and bounds at the end. The doctors gave him two months since they detected it on Saturday, but he barely lasted four days.
I don’t know how long I zone out after getting the phone call from Kat. All I can think about is the last time I saw him, the anger in his eyes as he told me I’ve been doing everything wrong, that my entire life is a waste. I don’t believe him; I never have, never will. But Kat was right. Now that’s the last memory I’ll ever have of him: Knowing exactly how much I disappointed him, right up until the end.
Next thing I notice in the real world is Harper shaking my shoulder, her worried face the first thing I’m able to truly focus on in what feels like hours. Maybe it has been, I’m not sure.
“My father just died,” I tel
l her, and it sounds so mundane. Like something somebody else would say or a line from a movie. That’s not really happening to me, is it? And if it is, should I care as much as I do? I never visited home if I could help it, ran down here to Oxford the first chance I could get to escape him—mostly him, because let’s face it, Mum wouldn’t think half the things she does if not for his influence.
Maybe that’s what I always hated about their emphasis on marriage, kids, settling down into a practical job and a practical, quiet life—they seemed too close. Like they lost their individual personalities when they started to date, and now I can’t tell where Dad ends and Mum starts. It’s scary, to trust someone that much. How does Mum know that Dad was the right person to let inside her life like that?
And what’s going to happen to her now that he’s gone?
Harper’s arms close around me and I grip her tightly, fiercely. So tight I’m sure it hurts, yet she doesn’t complain, only draws me in closer, sitting on my lap so she can wrap her whole body around me, which is good, because suddenly I realize how much I need her right now.
I don’t know how long we sit like that, just listening to each other breathe, feeling one another’s heartbeats through our chests. Maybe if getting close to someone, if trusting someone, feels like this . . . maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Except then I think about losing her, the way Mum just lost Dad, and it knocks the wind out of me. I pull back just far enough to look her dead in the eye, those soft, baby blue eyes, so beautiful, so clear and honest and full of emotion right now, emotion for me, because of me.
“Harper,” I say. “I would like to date you. But I need you to promise me something.”
She blinks, once. I can tell she’s startled by this. We haven’t talked about anything like this yet. About a future, or a plan for where this thing we have is going. Part of me is afraid she’ll say no, that she isn’t thinking along the same lines that I am.
A bigger part is afraid she’ll say yes.
Her teeth edge around her lip, a flash of white against her peach pink lips. “What?” she asks, and I adore her for that—for not just saying Anything, the way some people would, when they don’t really mean it at all.
I smile for the first time since Kat called earlier today. “Promise me that if we wind up together, you’ll let me die first.”
She smacks my chest with the back of her hand, bursting out a startled laugh that’s somewhere between amused, relieved, and annoyed. “What a morbid thing to say. Neither of us is going to die, Jack.”
“Someday,” I point out. “So I just need to know that I’ll go first.” I tighten my arms around her waist. “Because I can’t live without you.”
She lets that ring in the air between us a moment, her eyes wider and fuller than ever. When she leans in to kiss me, it’s gentle, not so much a kiss as a promise we’re making to each other. “You won’t ever have to,” she murmurs, finally, when we break apart.
I kiss her again, once, twice, a dozen times, until she’s laughing and squirming on my lap, which is causing other yearnings to stir in my gut, the animal tendencies she brings out in me. But I suppress them, because there’s still one more thing I need to ask her. As much as it scares me, I can tell I have to ask.
“Will you come to the funeral with me?” I grimace, hating how the words sound. Terrified at the idea of her meeting my family—no, not that. I want her to meet them. But I’m afraid they’ll push her away like they do to me. I’m afraid she’ll take one look at them and think, No way I want to date a guy with parents like this.
But Harper only kisses my cheek and brushes my hair back from my forehead. “Of course, Jack. Whatever you need.”
“That’s a pretty long list,” I warn her.
She squirms in my lap again, as though sensing what’s on the top of that list. “I think I’m up to the challenge.”
I run my hands through her hair, savoring the way it feels in between my fingers. I do that again and again, until I notice her staring at me, wide-eyed and worried. Of course she’s worried. After what I just told her is happening, now I’m . . . How do you even act normal after something like that?
“This feels strange,” I admit. The news must not have sunk in yet. This must be what denial feels like. Not thinking about anything but the beautiful girl in my arms. Not wondering what’s going on at home, with the rest of my family in the wake of what’s happened.
But Harper’s hands are already undoing the zip on my jeans. “Then let me take your mind off of it.”
She slides off my lap to kneel between my legs, and, well, no hot-blooded man could stop her at this point. I let my head fall back as she frees me from the confines of my boxers, her hands hot and soft, so fucking soft, as they cup my shaft, one of her knuckles kneading at the spot underneath, making me suck in a quick gasp of air.
Then her lips envelope me, suck me deep into her mouth, and I’m gone, completely lost to Harper Reed.
Harper
I curl in the passenger seat of Jack’s car and watch the scenery fly past the window while he narrates anything of interest we’re passing. So far it hasn’t been much. A few crumbling towers on distant hills, the history of which he recites for me in great detail. And a whole lot of roundabouts, which reminds me of the time my parents took me to Boston on a vacation and I thought I was about to die every time we had to drive through town.
Who invented this idea, of cars all driving in circles at high speeds, everyone trying to exit at different points? Seems like a terrible way to organize a roadway. Not to mention, British roads are narrow and wrong-sided as it is. Every time we turn onto a new street, I flinch in terror, afraid we’re going up the wrong side of the highway.
Luckily we haven’t made any turns in a while, so I can relax for a stretch. I shift in my seat, trying to get comfortable. I’m still pleasantly sore from this morning, waking up to Jack behind me, in the spooning position we fell asleep in, only this time with his early morning excitement in evidence. The way he slid into me from behind, both of us curled on our sides, angled him to stroke my G-spot every time.
I shiver, and he catches my eye with a grin. “How are you feeling?” he asks.
Sometimes I hate how perceptive he is. “Sore,” I admit.
“Good.” His smile widens.
“That’s very mean, you know,” I tell him. “Taking enjoyment in other people’s sore spots.”
“Is it wrong to enjoy the fact that you can still feel me inside of you, hours later?” He flashes a wink before his eyes turn back to the road.
Lucky, because I can feel my face flushing. Though, to be honest, I enjoy it too. This physical reminder of how we connect.
Then my eyes catch something outside the window, and I can’t help gaping for real. “What the heck is that?”
An enormous bronze statue appears alongside the road, like a mythic Roman god, only with wings for arms, spread wide and flashing in the Saturday afternoon sun.
“The Angel of the North,” he says, as if that’s self-explanatory.
“Um, the what?”
“It’s a sculpture. Finished a couple decades ago. It’s supposed to represent the coal miners who worked in this area, and our transition from the industrial city that Newcastle used to be, into the bastion for the arts it is now—or it’s trying to be now, I should say.” He glances sideways at the towering statue, which reminds me of something you’d see in pictures of ancient Egypt, like a sphinx or a goddess overseeing her property. “Personally, it just reminds me how badly this city needs a new hobby. I think we used something like enough steel for sixteen buses in that statue?”
I laugh and press my cheek to the cool car window to get a better look at the angel’s blank, expressionless face. “I don’t know, I kind of like it. It’s hopeful, right? When old businesses or jobs or industries or whatever fade, there’s always something new to take its place.” I dare a sideways glance at Jack. “I’d think you of all people would appreciate
that they made art from it, instead of just some other practical thing like extra buses.”
“Yeah, well, you’ve never experienced public transit in this area,” he replies with a smirk. But underneath that, there’s something else, I think. A twist to his lips and a reluctance to meet my eye.
He does like the statue. He does like this city, his hometown. He just needed to get away, for personal reasons, so he’s trying to find excuses why he could never come back.
I understand that all too well. I love Lancaster—I love the Renaissance Festival we hold every summer, which I used to work for in high school, where we’d all dress up and fake terrible British accents and sell mugs to out of town tourists. I love the Corn Ball we hold ever fall, the bonfires and the Halloween haunted houses that I’m missing right about now, October in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.
But I can’t go back. Not when I’ve come this far.
I press my palm to the glass and watch it sweat beneath my body heat. “Do you visit often?” I ask. I’m not sure why. I can already guess at the answer. Maybe I just want to hear him open up and admit it.
“Not lately,” is all he says at first. The Angel of the North fades from view behind us, and more and more buildings pop up alongside us—townhouses, red-roofed buildings that were clearly all built at the same time to look just the same. In between them I glimpse church steeples and some other monument high up on a hill in the distance, or maybe just a ruin, it’s hard to tell from here.
Just when I think he’s forgotten my question altogether, he clears his throat softly. “It’s hard to be reminded of what you left behind, sometimes. Even though you’re happy somewhere new and you know you’d be unhappy if you returned. Change is hard. Leaving is hard.”
I slide a hand over his where he’s gripping the clutch, and tighten my grip just enough so he feels it. “Trust me, I know the feeling.”
