“Yes.” I nod, too ashamed to do anything else, too guilty. How would she react if she knew what I did last night? Is there any way to justify cheating? Is there any way I can ever tell her, my new friend, my only friend who seems to like me, what wrong I almost committed last night?
Last night will be another one of my many, many secrets. I can never tell her. I can never tell anyone. I can’t…I can’t go back to being lonely again. It’s too scary now.
“Hey, you okay?” Emma puts her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload on you like this. It’s way too early for that.”
“I’m fine. I’m just…I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” She stares at me with a critical eye now. “Why do you look like a raccoon? When did you get home last night? Where did you even go?”
I’m terrified, panicked, a statue of shame and guilt. I went and offered myself up to our married professor because I thought he was lonely like me and I thought extramarital sex would be just the thing to cheer him up.
Oh God, I can’t even say it in my head without wanting to kick myself.
“I-I just…went out. For a walk.”
“With all that makeup on?”
Oh yeah, the makeup. Along with grooming myself, I also attempted to put makeup on. It’s all ruined now.
“Um, yeah. I do that, sometimes.” I stand, unable to bear her shrewd eyes. “Do you wanna get coffee? Let’s get coffee.”
Emma knows I’m hiding something but doesn’t push, just leaves to get changed for our coffee run. Thank God. If I have my way, last night will be the only secret of mine for a long, long time to come.
________________
It’s night again. Emma is sleeping in the next room. She’s still mad at Dylan, even though I’ve tried to reason with her. Dylan was just being a caring boyfriend who wanted Emma to give her mom another chance. I called Dylan and he told me that it was simply a casually thrown idea that got out of hand. One of those arguments that escalate, unexpectedly. And now, even he doesn’t want to talk to her.
I’m trying to go to sleep but I can’t do it. I can’t fall asleep.
I’m staring at the ceiling, trying to stay put, and then my phone rings. A gasp catches in my throat and I have to shoot up to a sitting position to be able to breathe. It’s Thomas. It’s his office number.
I’m too shocked to pick up the call and the ringing stops. It’s visceral, the loss I feel at a mere missed call, but…he’s never called me before. I jump up from the bed, shed my pajamas, don a skirt and t-shirt, pile on my winter gear, and I’m out the door.
Like last night, I run and run and don’t stop until I’m at the Labyrinth. I climb up the steps and reach Thomas’ office door with an urgency I didn’t have last night. I turn the knob and it gives, exactly like yesterday, and I enter.
This time, Thomas is sitting on the chair, staring at the phone on his desk. He jerks his eyes up when I close the door. I’m panting, drawing in difficult breaths as his gaze tangles up with mine. It’s angry, furious, blazing, as if he’s on fire.
He takes in a sharp breath and stands, nostrils flaring. My heart is pounding. It doesn’t understand the role it needs to play. Should it be afraid or thrilled to be the subject of Thomas’ intensity? Can it be both?
“I told you not to come back here.” Though his voice isn’t angry like last night, the cutting edge is still there. It still manages to stutter my breath and douse me in shame.
“You called me,” I tell him, angry and aroused.
Thomas rounds the desk and advances on me. “So?”
“So why did you do that if you didn’t want me here?” Another step toward me and I press my spine to the door. “Well? Why did you call?” Before I can stop myself, I add, “A-And if we aren’t anything to each other, why did you…”
He stops in front of me. He is close, too close, and I’m caged between him and the door. All of this is déjà vu, repeated history. I can still hear his words. I can still hear him telling me we are nothing to each other. That’s what hurt me the most.
“Why did I what?”
I lift up my chin, even though I want to shrink into myself. “Why did you make me come? If you hate me so much, why did you do that?”
Thomas puts his palms on either side of my head and strains down on them, bringing his face extremely close to me. “You think I hate you?” A short laugh escapes him, resembling the bark of an animal. “I don’t hate you, Layla,” he grits out. It sounds exactly like he hates me.
“So you like me?” I squeak.
My naïve question seems to have angered him more. His face is red, the vein on his neck bulging out. It’s scary.
“God, you make me so fucking mad.” He shakes his head. “Do you think this is a joke? Huh? Do you think we’re in high school? Do you think I’m going to kiss you and make out with you and take you to the movies or something? Is that what you think, Layla?”
“N-No.”
“Then what do you think is going on here?”
“I don’t…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You got a fucking tattoo for me. You came to me naked. You can’t seem to stop throwing yourself at me.” He mocks me, and my eyes water. “Are you telling me you have no clue what’s going on here?”
Tears spill and track down my cheeks. I hate him. I hate him so much. This is what he does to me—pulls me forward one second and then pushes me to the ground the next—but this time, I do the pushing. I put my hands on his chest and push him away with everything I am. He doesn’t budge.
The nerve on his jaw jumps and he cradles my wet cheeks. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?” He wipes my tears off with his thumbs. “Do you have any idea what I’m going to do to you? You don’t want this, Layla. You don’t want me to touch you.”
I curl my palms on his chest, fisting his shirt. Regret clouds his features, dulling the aggression in his eyes. “Why not?” I ask him through the tears.
“Because you’re going to regret it. You’re going to regret what happens if you don’t leave. You have to stop coming back.”
“But you called me.”
“You don’t get it, do you? I’m not a nice man, Layla,” he warns.
“I don’t believe that.” I fist his shirt tightly. “You’re just lonely, like me. Lonely and brokenhearted.” I let go of his shirt and caress his heated, chiseled jaw and cheeks. “You can touch me, Thomas. I won’t regret it, I promise.”
He shudders under my touch, as if coming apart. This is the most vulnerable I’ve seen him. But then he steels himself, goes rigid. I’m afraid he’ll push me back and send me away, but he hauls my body flush with his.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He breathes over my lips. “When you regret this—and I know you will—just remember that you asked for it.”
In the next second, he puts his mouth on me and I forget my every thought.
I stand naked in the middle of Thomas’ office, bare except for the pair of polka dot ankle-length socks on my feet.
The only source of light is the lamp sitting on the desk, illuminating my meager curves. There’s a shadow of me on the wall. I wonder what these walls have seen. Is it something new to them? A girl—a student—naked and horny in this room. Has this ever happened before? For a second, I can’t imagine any other girl feeling like this for her professor, as if I’m the only girl in the history of this college, in the history of this world, to ever feel this way.
I’m panting, opening and closing my fists at my sides, wracked with insecurities. Any second now, I expect Thomas to reject me, to send me home, but he stands there like a statue, staring at my body. His chest is heaving and his frame is tight, too tight, too brittle.
While kissing me, he tore my clothes away in a mad desperation. It was frenzied and urgent, and now they lie in a pile by the door. Here I am, displayed in front of his eyes, and I’m going crazy with the wait, with the embarrassment and arousal.
He wants me. So fucking much.
As if to prove it, he leans down and resumes kissing me. This time it’s even hungrier and more urgent, if that’s possible. I lean into his clothed body, my skin brushing over the warm fabric. It makes me wet and horny and so powerless that I’m exposed and he’s not.
It makes me feel like a slut. His slut. Horny and shameless.
For the next however many minutes, Thomas becomes my lifeline. He breathes air into me through his mouth, feeds me his lust with his lips. I’m slowly getting drunk on him. My blood is replaced by his essence, until all I feel is him.
He lifts me up, grinding our pelvises together, and my legs instantly go around his waist. His palms splay over my bare ass and I jerk in his arms. I’m so lost in his kisses that I don’t mind when the world tips on its axis, and I find myself lying on my back on the coarse grey carpet.
Thomas breaks the kiss and raises himself up, kneeling between my spread thighs. He’s so fucking sexy that I can’t help but inhale a sharp breath at his beauty.
Swallowing, he takes me in, starting from the dark hair spread out around my face and neck. He travels down, his eyes caught at the base of my throat. My pulse pounds so I feel it beating against my skin. Then he goes lower, to the valley of my small breasts. I feel a tiny piece of my heart beating at the tips of my nipples.
By the time he reaches my vibrating stomach, he is drenched in sweat and shaking. The vein on the side of his neck stands taut, as if in arousal, just like his cock, which juts out in his pants. I bite my lip at the pain it must be causing him.
“I-I want to see you,” I whisper, watching a thick drop of sweat roll off the side of his forehead. “Please.”
I can’t imagine not seeing him when he fucks me for the first time. He understands the gravity of my need and unbuttons the top three buttons of his shirt. He fists the back of the white, slightly wrinkled fabric and yanks it right off, throwing it away.
“That’s so fucking sexy,” I moan and roll my hips on the floor. A slut—yeah, that’s what I am for him, writhing and naked.
The side of his lips tips up in an arrogant smirk, but it does nothing to banish the intensity of his expression. Unlike him, I’m impatient, and I take him in, in a hurried fashion. The tight planes of his pectorals covered by just the right amount of hair. The grooves of his ribs giving way to his smooth, hard abdomen. That trail of thick hair leading to the huge bump barely contained by his blue jeans.
I gasp as I realize the significance of his attire: blue jeans and white shirt, just like the song I love so much.
“What?” he asks, his arms on either side of my hips, his palms splayed open on the carpet. I watch the dance of the muscles on his shoulders and arms. They are strung so tight right now.
“Nothing. You just…remind me of a song I love.”
“Yeah? What song is that?”
“‘Blue Jeans,’” I say. “Uh, it’s by Lana Del Rey. It’s…It’s about how she can’t look away when he walks into a room, about how much he makes her burn.”
Thomas crawls on top of me, his strong arms walking from my hips to either side of my head. He lowers himself as if preparing to do a pushup, and the tendons on his neck stand out in stark relief.
“I know what’s it about,” he whispers over my mouth, his entire body whispering over mine, not touching but looming like a shadow.
I rub my naked thighs over his bare sides, making him shudder. His head dips as his eyes close at my touch, telling me he likes it. I like it too. His skin is smooth and so fucking hot to the touch. I knew it would be. I knew it. He is my fire-breather.
“Are you going to fuck me now?” Need has made my voice both husky and small.
His face remains bowed; only his gaze moves up to me. “Yeah.”
With that, he pushes up and stands over me, divesting himself of his jeans and underwear.
And then he is naked, like me, his cock thrusting out of his body, so big and long and oh God, I’m going to hyperventilate from how much I want it inside me and how much it’s going to stretch my little hole out when it does get inside me.
What if it stretches your hole so much that it hurts?
I hear his words from the other day and decide I don’t care. I want him.
I want to study his cock more, study him more, his taut thighs, the runner’s calves, analyze all the ways the light is hitting his sleek, cut body—but he isn’t in the mood to model for me. He crashes down on his knees, much like last night when I showed him my tattoo.
His desperation leaches into his movements as he fumbles for his discarded jeans, and fishes out a condom from his back pocket.
My mouth dries out as he sits on his haunches and rolls the condom over his hard, jutting shaft, and then he covers me with his body.
I halt all movements, breathing evenly to absorb the sensation of his bare muscles rubbing against mine. It feels so good. His skin on my skin. His cock tucked between us, pressing against my belly button.
But I want more. I need it.
I arch under him, making his cock throb between us, and he clenches his teeth. He grabs a chunk of my hair in his fists and stares down at me. There’s anger and satisfaction in his eyes. “You can’t stay still, can you? You can’t stop tempting me for one fucking second.”
“No, I can’t,” I admit. “I don’t know how.”
“You’re always hungry, Layla. Always starving.” He rocks into me, drags his weighty arousal against my stomach, and blows a breath into the nape of my neck. “Why’s that? Huh? Why are you such a cock-hungry girl?”
I moan at his dirty words. God, he’s such a poet, speaking filthy poetry to me.
“I don’t know. I just want it so much. I want your cock.” I mimic his action and fist his hair in a hard grip, my voice begging. “Put it in me, please. My pussy is so hungry for it.”
I don’t really know where it came from, but Thomas makes me so wild. He feels so right above me that wrong words taste like sugar in my mouth.
Thomas’ control snaps and he rears back, forcing me to let go of him. His body arches, the muscles slanting taut, and I see every tight, hard curve of his chest and abdomen. He fists his cock and positions it in front of my entrance. “Then I’ll fucking feed it to her.”
He forces his way in with a long grunt. My back bows off the floor and I hunker down on his cock with a pained scream, my nails digging into the rough carpet.
“Fuuuuckk…” He draws the curse out and drops his forehead over mine, almost falling over me.
I’m whimpering with his invasion. It’s painful, so fucking painful. I feel the brilliance of it in every corner of my body. My legs are shaking as a cold sweat grips me in its clutches. I don’t even remember it hurting this bad when Caleb took my virginity. Why is it hurting so much now?
“Have you been lying to me, Layla?” Thomas is angry, clenching and unclenching his jaw, grinding his teeth. “Have you been lying about your virginity all this time?”
I shake my head furiously, rolling our sweaty foreheads against each other. “N-No. No, I wouldn’t do that.” I scrunch my eyes in pain and somehow manage to speak. “This isn’t my first time. It’s the…second.”
My hips jerk from side to side and my toes flex inside my socks, trying to find a comfortable position, but the pressure isn’t easing. Thomas digs his palm into my hip and halts my movements. “Stop moving. You’re going to make it worse.”
“But it hurts,” I whine, biting my lip.
“I know.” He grinds his forehead into mine and closes his eyes on a grunt. His chest undulates with a long breath, meant to gather himself. “I can’t do this. We—”
My limbs move before he can finish and twine around his body. It’s not the first time I think of myself as a toxic, wild plant that never knows when to quit growing. His cock slide
s in deeper due to my movements, but I don’t care about the pain. I don’t fucking care about anything as long as he is inside me.
“No. We can. I can take it.”
“Let me go, Layla.” I shake my head and a pulse starts on his jaw. “Don’t make me pull your arms off. I don’t want to hurt you. Just…let go.”
“No.” I cling to him tighter, until I’m almost hanging on to him. “You don’t understand. I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember my first time except that it was dark and I was drunk and I couldn’t even see him. I don’t remember the pain. I don’t remember if there was any blood. It’s like…” I search for the right words, praying they won’t fail me. “It’s like I made love to a ghost. It might as well have been a dream or a nightmare, but this is real. This is so fucking real, Thomas. You are real. I want the pain. I want the discomfort. I want all of it.”
I tighten my hold around him, feeling the muscled planes of his body shifting. It feels like I’m holding on to an impending earthquake, seismic waves bobbing beneath my grip.
“I want this to hurt because I want this to be my first time,” I say, looking him in the eye.
His cock throbs inside my tightness and I feel the brush of his shuddered breath over my heavy tits. I feel him coming to a decision.
“Put your hands on my back.” His voice is hoarse. “Dig your nails in when it hurts. I’m going to go slow, but I can’t…” His nostrils flare. “I can’t promise that there won’t be any pain.”
“Okay.” I nod, doing as he says, sliding my arms down and uncrossing my ankles so he has room to move.
Closing my eyes, I prepare myself for his thrust. I’m ready for the fire but it never comes. Instead, I feel a flick, a pleasurable flick, over my clit. Gasping, I whip my eyes open and look at him. He is braced on one elbow, his other arm hidden between where our bodies are joined. Another flick of his thumb and I’m biting my lip to keep my lusty moans in check.
Thomas doesn’t smile but something loosens in his harsh face. I stare at him in awe. His fingers are, indeed, magic.
The Unrequited Page 17
