by Hart, Eve R.
I found myself drawn to the dark corner, my feet blindly shuffling forward into the shadows as she backed up against the side of the building.
The world around me was black, but as soft, tiny fingers touched my face, I felt the warmth of the sun.
“Ingram,” I breathed out as my nose brushed against a soft cheek.
That smell, I knew that smell. Pure and sweet. Flowers and sugar.
“I missed you while I was gone,” she said and I closed my eyes.
I knew I was toasted. I was drunk. And trying too hard to run from the things in my head. But I stood there, frozen in place, wishing that all of this was real even when I knew it wasn’t.
“I missed you, too. So fucking much,” I let myself admit to the empty night air.
“Malcolm,” she whispered and damn if I didn’t love my name coming from her lips even if I knew it wasn’t real. “I have dreamt of this day. I want you so badly. Please. Please, kiss me.”
She called to me in the darkness. Her lips were right there for the taking, I felt them against my own.
I felt everything as if it was real. Her hand on my face. Her breaths against my skin. Her lips brushing over mine.
I was so tired of fighting.
So tired of holding back the thoughts that kept me awake at night.
“Please,” she said and her breath tickled the side of my cheek. I imagined how silly I must have looked, puckering my lips at thin air.
In my mind, her lips were soft and wet as I met them in a sweet kiss.
A muffled moan hit my ears and I wasn’t sure if it came from me.
Fuck, everything in this moment was perfect.
I didn’t care that I was drunk off my ass and wishing for something that would never come to be.
Right here, in this moment, I imagined Ingram was mine.
And it was pure fucking Heaven.
“You’re not real,” I said as I broke away. My head shook but I refused to open my eyes.
“I am,” she said breathlessly. “I am right here.”
“Ingram…”
“Touch me, Malcolm. Feel that I am here.”
My fingers drifted down her face, then following the curve of her jaw, I traced a line down her neck.
Her hand was on mine, guiding me down further, her wordless sign telling me not to stop. The fabric of her dress was silky against my fingers. I followed the swell of her breast until my thumb grazed over her peaked nipple. A sweet moan floated into my ears as I rolled the hard nub between my fingers.
“Don’t stop,” her voice told me.
And because I was sad, pathetic, and three sheets to the wind, I pulled her lips back to mine as I let my hand drift further.
Inching the hem of her dress up, I slipped my hand inside. Her thigh was creamy as I glided up it.
Perfect.
“So fucking perfect,” I breathed out against her lips.
“Touch me, Malcolm.”
My thumb grazed over her panties only to find that they were soaked with need.
The devil was there, hanging just over my shoulder. He taunted me with his whispers in my ear, telling me to take.
Take.
Take.
Take.
I did not deserve to touch her. But I was convinced that this wasn’t real.
So I did. I touched. I took.
As I slid her panties to the side, I found that she was dripping for me. My fingers easily slid through her folds. Her body shuddered against me as my thumb lightly flicked over her swollen clit. I did it again and again, listening to her little pants become louder in the air around me.
My finger slipped into her pussy and I felt her clench around me instantly. She was so hot and tight.
“Don’t stop,” she told me again. “I want to feel what it’s like.”
I didn’t exactly know what she was trying to say at the moment but I was too far gone to ask. I wanted to give her this. I wanted to give her everything.
The heel of my palm worked her clit as I slowly slid another finger inside of her. Then her hips were working, rocking against me, with me.
Tiny nails bit into my biceps.
“Kiss me, Malcolm.”
My free hand threaded through her hair as I hungrily took her mouth. Our tongues tangled. Our lips melded. Our breaths became one.
Her body shook as I swallowed down the long moan that ripped from her throat. Her cream ran down my fingers as I slowed my pace and eased her back down.
“I never knew it could be like that,” her voice whispered and in my mind, I could hear the smile there. “Thank you, Malcolm.”
My eyes snapped open. The shock was clear on my face as I looked down into beautiful hazel eyes.
Reality slammed into me hard.
What had I done?
It wasn’t my alcohol soaked brain playing tricks on me.
No, Ingram was real. Right in front of me.
And I had just…
“Mal-Mouse?”
I looked back into her eyes to see the happy daze of her orgasm being chased away by uncertainty.
“I-I shouldn’t have touched you,” I said and turned on my heels to flee.
“Wait,” she said, her short legs working fast to catch up with me.
I climbed the stairs, taking them two at a time. I had to get to my room, needed to lock myself away.
“Please, Mouse, wait,” she called out and I could hear the tears breaking in her voice.
My feet froze but I couldn’t turn around to face her.
“Why are you here?” I asked, my voice sounding as if I had swallowed gravel.
Ingram should have been at home. She should have been safe and tucked into her bed.
“It’s my birthday. Chris and Ky are watching Chry for the night because the girls wanted to take me out to celebrate,” she said and I heard her shuffle a little closer to me. “We were up at the bar…”
I shook my head not believing the words that were coming out of her mouth. I realized why she seemed a little different and why her tongue had tasted like sweet fruit.
“You’ve been drinking?” I asked but it was more of a statement than anything.
I should have wished her happy birthday instead of focusing on the fact that she’d had a few drinks.
“Yes, But I only had two. They were looking out for me, I knew I’d be safe.”
As much as I wanted to say something I knew I had no right to. I’d had my first beer at sixteen and that didn’t even have anything to do with the club and all that my mom tried to shield me from.
“They walked me back to one of the rooms in the back,” she went on when I didn’t say anything. “I was to sleep there. But I couldn’t sleep. I wanted…”
“What, Ingram. What did you want?”
I shouldn’t have been asking these things. And as much as I wanted to stay in the dark, wanted to be blind, I already knew the answers.
“You,” she whispered.
My head shook as images of her flashed in my mind.
A seventeen-year-old girl, her belly swollen and her eyes wide like she was scared of the world around her. A girl desperate to reconnect with her brother. A girl that had been through hell but had somehow clawed her way out.
But a girl, nonetheless.
With a deep breath, I found the strength to lie to the one person I swore I’d never lie to. Tears stung my eyes as I began to speak, spitting the things I knew she’d need to hear to make her run.
“Ingram.” My fists clenched at my side. “You think you want me but you don’t. You don’t even know me. It’s just some stupid little girl crush that you’ve held on for far too long. Look around, Ingram. I never made you any promises. I didn’t hold out for you and you aren’t even the type of chick I’d want by my side.”
Her gasp was sharp and it felt like it cut through my ears.
“No, I suppose you are right,” she said after a long moment and I heard her backing away. “You are not the man I had hoped you were.”
&nb
sp; I turned just in time to see her rush towards the stairs.
Time stopped all around me.
Flashbacks of the night she’d been taken flooded my brain.
The chase. The man dragging her by her arm.
The fear on her face.
It all played out like a damn movie in my head.
I heard the shot fire from my gun. I saw the bullet hit its intended target. I saw the man’s head whip forward as the blood sprayed from the hole in the back of his head.
Then I saw her. Sweet, terrified Ingram. She ripped her arm away from the man’s loosening hold and her foot slipped on the stair. Her arms flailing as she tried to reach out for anything. But she wasn’t able to catch herself. And as her body twisted to face me, I saw the pure fear in her eyes right before she went tumbling down.
My heart beat hard like it was trying to rip out of my chest. It beat like that back then and it was beating like that now.
“No,” I breathed out, terror gripping my throat so tightly.
She spun to face me again, her hair whipping around and hiding her face from me for a split second too long.
Confusion overtook her features as I reached out and pulled her into my body.
A long, relieved breath forced itself out of my lungs as I wrapped my arms around her and crushed her to my chest.
It didn’t matter that she wasn’t in danger at that moment or that she hadn’t even begun to fall. I just had to keep her safe.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ingram
His words hurt. The tears welled up and spilled out of my eyes with each word he spoke. But despite my cracking heart, I could not hate him.
I had been in the wrong here and I saw it. I came to him with false courage. I should have walked away when I figured out that he was in a state much worse than I was in. But sadly, I was so desperate for his touch that I even begged for it. I pushed on and let my mind see only what I wanted to see.
Even as I stood there crying like the little girl he clearly thought I was, I couldn’t regret what had happened.
His touch was everything.
I never knew something like that could be so intimate. So sweet. So tender.
I never knew that I could take pleasure like that. He had given it to me and asked for nothing in return.
I willed myself to turn and walk away from him. He didn’t want me. I was a joke to him.
But then his whispered no sounded so broken and scared that I didn’t hesitate to turn and face him again. Briefly, I saw the flash of panic in his eyes but I didn’t understand why it was there. Before I could question it, he pulled me into his body and held onto me like he was scared I’d float away.
As I stood there and felt his body trembling for a reason I did not know, I felt something go through me.
I’d been messed with my entire life. I’d been told things that were wrong and untrue. I’d been made to do things that I felt were not right, but yet was told that it was the way.
The longer I stood there, the angrier I became.
I almost felt like I didn’t even know the man that had his arms around me. He wasn’t even the one that had held my hand when I was scared and clueless. He wasn’t the one that wrote to me while I was away.
This person— Mouse, he had become unrecognizable to me.
I saw that he was right. His words might have hurt but they were true. I was a woman holding onto little girl dreams.
Lies or no lies, I wasn’t going to be a doormat any longer.
My hands came up and rested on his chest. I was only half aware of what I was doing. Then with all my might, I pushed against him. His eyes looked pained as my body ripped out of his arms.
“No,” I said and did not even recognize my own voice.
It felt good to say that word. It felt good to mean it and stand up for myself.
“No,” I said again because I needed to hear it. I needed him to hear it. I needed to feel that I had a voice.
He stood there, his jaw slightly slacked open as he stared down at me.
“You are right,” I told him, my back straight and my head held high. “I care deeply for a man, but that man is not standing before me now. He was only a stupid girl’s dream.”
I backed away, taking one last, long look at him. I needed to remember this man. I had to carve this image into my brain so that anytime I felt myself making excuses, I could recall this moment. I wouldn’t let him treat me like this.
I turned without another word.
And as I walked down the stairs, I shed that insecure, sheltered, docile girl.
I would bend to no one.
I would have a voice.
I would stand proud in my choices and decisions.
I took comfort in the room that Laurel showed me was mine for the night. I locked the door knowing that no one could get to me here. Then I slept like I’d been waiting to do so my entire life.
The next morning I woke feeling a bit more sluggish than I was used to. I honestly could have rolled over and gone back to sleep for another few hours but I was ready to run from the compound and get back home.
Mouse’s words and actions replayed in my mind as I went into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I might have felt a little hazy but I remembered the entire night quite clearly. He bruised my heart. He did. And I could feel the sadness gripping me tightly. I remembered pushing him away and for the first time, really standing up for myself. I found a broken kind of pride in that. I hated that it was Mouse that I’d had to stand up like that to. But I refused to let him do that to me. One minute he was spouting words about how I didn’t know what I was feeling and that I was just holding on to a girlish dream, and the next, he looked terrified and was crushing me into his chest.
Oh, how crazy the night had been.
A birthday I wouldn’t forget, that was for sure.
I still couldn’t believe that I was twenty now.
Then the images of him touching me flooded my head. I could almost hear my own voice as I practically begged him to keep going. Well, there was no practically about it. I had been shameless and couldn’t even think of anything else at that moment because the more he touched me, the more I felt alive. How could one man make me feel so good and cherished one minute and then tell me it didn’t mean anything the next? I didn’t understand what was going on in his head and I suspected that I wouldn’t unless he told me.
There were many talks with Dr. Walsher about what had happened to me. Many, many talks. Though I hated reliving it, I was smart enough to understand that I couldn’t move forward with my life unless I got it all out and worked through the mess in my head.
I didn’t know what was happening to me when Timothy took me to his bed. All I knew was that it was an honor to be chosen. I was a girl and it made me feel like I was special for some reason. That feeling didn’t last long. Each time he took me to bed, the more the special feeling slipped away. I didn’t know that it was wrong at the time because I’d grown up being taught that it was the right way. That it was what I was supposed to do.
Dr. Walsher helped me to see that what I felt in my heart was really the right thing. I knew that what was happening to me was wrong but it wasn’t like I could do anything about it. I thought it was me, that maybe I wasn’t truly worthy of what I’d been chosen for. The fear that I’d be cast aside if anyone found out the mistake was the reason I kept my mouth shut and held on.
While I knew I would never forget how it made me feel, I’d learned that I could move on from it.
I had a right to not want a man’s touch. As a human, a person, it was okay for me to stand up and say no. She also taught me that it was okay to say yes too. It was okay to have feelings and wants and desires.
I’d never said yes before.
I’d never really held such crazy driven desires before.
But I did last night.
I wanted my Malcolm to touch me. I wanted him to show me what it was like to feel good and not be ashamed. I truste
d him not to hurt me or take me without any care. The thing was, I’d been right. He might have acted a little off, I guessed that was from the smell of alcohol on his breath, but he seemed like he was desperate to touch me just as much as I craved him to.
I knew I wasn’t alone in my feelings.
Then it was like he became scared.
He lied to me. I knew he had.
Sure I was sheltered and still pretty clueless about a lot of things, but not that. When he looked at me, it was like he was opening up his soul to mine. There was something between us and I knew it would take time to grow and blossom into something that would be.
That was until he lied to me. That moment it became clear that he’d cut the life from our spark. He stopped breathing air into us and I had no idea why. So he had been right. I had feelings for a man that wasn’t real, at least not anymore.
No matter how much he wished he could take those words back, I wasn’t going to roll over and let him. That was, if he did want to take them back. The crushing embrace he held me in made me think that he might.
As I drove back home, I told myself I was going to do my best to let it go. I mean, in the way that I would try my hardest to not let the tension and hurt show. Mouse was Chris and Ky’s friend. He was part of this extended family that had pulled me into their fold. I wasn’t close to all of them, and I figured that Mouse would just become like one of them.
“Did you have a good night?” Chris asked once I walked into the house.
I smiled and told him that I had. Then he made me breakfast and I told him all about my time with the girls.
I wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened with Mouse. While I knew Chris would listen and give the best advice, I felt a little strange talking about it with him. Plus, the feelings that I’d had when Mouse touched me were things he didn’t need to hear about. On top of that, how was I going to explain that I’d never had anything like that before? I knew Chris wasn’t dumb, he more than likely knew all about what had happened to me and how I ended up pregnant at seventeen. That said, I didn’t exactly want to talk about it and explain how and why Mouse’s wanted touch meant so much to me.
The more I thought about it, the more I saw that putting distance between myself and Mouse was for the best. The thought alone hurt me and I hoped that I would be strong enough to keep it up. I knew I deserved more than the way he had treated me. And if he really cared about me then he wouldn’t have lied to me just to hurt me.
