by K. B. Nelson
“You won’t let me inside your head.”
“Will you let me inside yours?” I question, but he shakes his head because I’m changing the goalposts of the conversation. “Don’t shake your head at me. Honesty is a two way street, right? Your words.”
“I heard everything.”
Yeah, I’m going to choose to ignore him. We’re deep diving into a war of attrition now. “Why were you talking to Eve the night before she killed herself?”
“You got involved, didn’t you? With Tyra and Brick?” He questions me, but he already knows the answer. “You say you’ve changed—“
“I said I came back here to find out if I’ve changed.”
“Well, I guess we both know the answer to that, huh?”
“I’m not the only one playing games, Jensen.” I step toward him with conviction, ready to rip the truth from his tongue. “Tell me about Eve. Did you have something to do with her death?”
“That’s rich, coming from you,” he snaps, armed with a venomous bite.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know everything. I know what you did to her, and why.” He drops down onto the arm of the chair. “When this all began, I wanted nothing more to avenge what you did to her. You were playing a game with me, but you didn’t know I was playing a game right back at you.”
“You are unbelievable.”
“Have you lost your damned mind?” He jumps back to his feet, and begins to pace. “Why is it that you have a free license to hurt whoever the hell you want, and yet get to play the victim card when someone fights back?”
“How long did you know?”
“Since the beginning.” He sighs and calms down in an instant. “I was targeting you long before you targeted me. In the back of my head, I wondered why you were so attracted to me, but then, I started to fall in love with you. That’s when Brick came to me, again, and told me what you were doing.”
“Why were you so hell bent on avenging the woman who cheated on you?” At this point, I’m too frazzled to piece together the complete puzzle. I’m back at square one, trying to alleviate my guilt through the use of diversionary tactics.
“Here’s the thing.” He wags a finger in the air. “She never cheated on me.”
I scoff and roll my eyes. “Ignoring the evidence, I could see how you could think that.”
“Please shut up and listen to me,” he says with a face painted of contempt.
“Shut up?”
“You’re acting like a brat.” He pauses, and exhales. The air between us reeks of an oncoming revelation. “I wasn’t dating Eve.”
“You cannot be serious. What’s the point in lying now?”
“I was dating her mother.”
What. The. Fuck.
“And she didn’t cheat with your football star boyfriend,” he continues. “That was nothing more than a rumor.”
“No…” I shake my head and step back. “I don’t believe it.”
“Why? Because it eases your guilt? Because if she cheated with your boyfriend, then maybe she deserved to die? Does it really ease your conscience?”
“You’re wrong.” He’s right. Knowing what Eve had done to me was the one thing holding me together. If it was all a lie from the beginning, I have nothing left to stand on. No more excuses. No more use in trying to pretend I’m not the same bitch I used to be. “You’re so wrong.”
“Why don’t you ask your best friend?”
“He’s not my friend,” I say through gritted teeth, but there’s no weight in my words. How can I expect him to believe me if I don’t even believe myself?
“Go ahead. Ask him.” He dials a number quickly on his phone and throws it to me. I catch it and hang up, not equipped to deal with the mountain of bullshit right now. “If you’re stuck here trying to figure out the pieces of this fucked up puzzle, look to Brick because he has all the answers.” His lips tighten into an aggravated pout. “This all goes back to him, and at some point he’s going to pay for all the pain he has caused.”
“I don’t get a free pass in this, either.”
“Despite what he said to you in the cemetery, he can’t change. He loves nobody but himself. He’s incapable of it.” He places a palm on each of my shoulders. “It’s different with you,” he assures me. “You’re none of those things. You have proven by your love and devotion to me, that you’re nothing like him.”
He’s wrong, but he can’t see the truth because of his love for me.
If I thought I couldn’t feel any worse, I was terribly wrong. It was bad enough when we took a wrecking ball to Eve’s life because she had fucked me over. Now, to know she was innocent in the matte—
I lean over and vomit on the carpet. He scoops me up by the belly, trying to comfort me, but I push him away. “There’s something I have to do.”
I’m going to kill Brick.
25
Brick
It’s only when I’m in the safety of privacy I can show signs of weakness. Here, in my kitchen and away from Tyra, my entire spirit drifts to the depths of the floor. I wish I could find the switch to turn the floodgates back off again. It’d be easier to revert back into the monster.
Jekyll and Hyde was nothing more than a world-renowned story when I was a child. Back then I knew it had to be fiction, because such atrocities could never actually exist. I know different now. I can feel it inside of me, clawing to escape.
Per Apple’s request, I have let her go. And when I look into Tyra’s eyes, for moments at a time, I’m able to forget what Apple meant to me—not only as my partner in crime, and my constant opponent. No¸ she was more than that. She was my best friend, because even monsters need someone to comfort them and to confide in.
I’m left all on my own, and I’m numb on the oft occasions when I’m not thinking about losing Apple and destroying others. It’s a constant struggle between the heightened emotions of guilt and loss.
And it’s not just them. Everyone I’ve ever hurt dances along the contours of my mind, screaming and taunting with glee that the Wicked Witch of the West is dead—figuratively, that’s me. Dying a slow, brutal death from the inside. Aside from the extremities of comparing myself to all the women characters of Oz, I’m at a crossroads where I’m no longer able to discern my identity from the witch or Dorothy. Who am I? I’m no longer in control of my image, and it’s a difficult reality to face head on.
“Brick?” Tyra calls from the bedroom, waiting for her glass of water.
I grab an empty glass from the cupboard and fill it to the three quarters mark with water. I give myself a moment more to shake off the worry and subsequently, lift an emotional mask over my face.
When I pace back into the bedroom, I’m a different man. I’m full of life, energy, and smiles. I can’t let her see me the way I was before.
I hand off the glass of water to Tyra as she sits up in bed, and against the floor-to-ceiling windows. Below us, the people of this modern city continue on with their mid-afternoon lives. I climb into bed beside Tyra, and rest my head against the window. “Could you love me someday? Like, not today, but in the future?”
“Yeah,” she says with a nod. “I think so.”
I shake my head, momentarily letting the façade fade away. “You’re so dumb.”
“This guilt trip you’re on has to stop,” she says softly, and I realize she may know more than I thought. “I’m not in love with you right now, but I can feel the gears turning in my heart.” She shrugs, and smiles, melting away my worries in an instant. “I think falling in love with you is inevitable.”
“How did you see the good in me, when I didn’t even know it was there?”
“You weren’t looking hard enough.”
“Can we avoid turning this into a shit-ball of cheesy clichés?” I drop my head against her shoulder, now comfortable enough to show vulnerability.
“I’m a lawyer in training.” She chuckles. “Clichés are my livelihood.”
“What s
hould I be when I grow up?”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m in the marketing program, but my parents are refusing to pay for my last semester unless I complete therapy to their satisfaction.”
“Therapy’s a wonderful thing.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’ve been on the other side of the couch.”
“What the hell for?”
“Let’s save that for another day.”
“What if there’s not another day?” I sit up and pull away from her. “What if this all ends today?”
“Why would you say that?”
“There’s a lot on my mind.” I sigh. “Everything’s a jumbled mess.”
“Will a kiss help ease the confusion?”
A grin hitches from one ear to the next—a dose of genuine excitement amongst the chaos. “Wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot.”
She tilts my face toward hers and plants a short kiss against my lips. “How’s that for taking your mind off everything?”
“It’s a great start.” I lean back in, connecting my lip to hers. My tongue darts against her, and soon, I’m pushing onto the bed as I climb on top of her. Her soft lips are the closest I’ll ever get to heaven, and I take advantage of the temporary respite from my own personal hell.
I fight to breathe against the passion, but would rather pass out than to pull away from her touch. She scoots her body up into a sitting position and pushes her hand against my chest.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—“
Her fragile fingers march to the top button of her light blue blouse. I swallow a lump in my throat as she pops it open. “What are you doing?”
“No talking.” She raises a finger to my lips. “Just watch.”
“I don’t think we should do this.”
“I said no talking.” She rolls out of bed as she continues to undo each button until her toned abdomen and bra-covered breasts are on display, with her shirt blowing gently. The shirt drapes around her shoulders and drops down her arms until it’s left in a pile on the floor. “You think you’re the only one feeling some kind of way?”
I almost swallow my tongue when she reaches behind her back to unhook her black bra. “You think you’re the only one terrified of being vulnerable?” She slides the straps of her bra down her arms, and pauses. She waits for me to look her in the eyes before she throws the bra to the floor.
I refrain from gazing at her tits. A part of me is hoping she’ll put all her clothes back on, but the other part of me wants to take a mental photograph and never delete it. She unhooks the button of her jeans and soon, she’s standing in nothing but her underwear.
“I’m not the innocent girl you think I am,” she continues as she climbs onto the bed, with her knees digging into the firm mattress. There’s a short moment where she’s kneeling in front of me, but I’m too enamored by her piercing blue eyes to care about anything else. “If it’s going to get your mind off whatever the hell it’s worried about, then touch me.”
”I can’t,” I stutter. “I shouldn’t.”
Her hands fall to mine and she guides them to her tits. She holds the back of my palms as she traces my hand along the curves of her perky breasts.
:”I can’t,” I stumble over my words. “I shouldn’t.”
“It’s what I want Brick,” she coos. “If you’re not going to do it for yourself, then do it for me.”
I shake my head once more, but I know I’m about to give in. I want to touch every part of her body, and feel the way her flesh comes alive under my fingers. She leans back onto the bed, and into a laying position. With her head tilted sideways on the bed, she beckons me to do everything I’ve been dreaming about for months.
Innocence is etched into the fabric of her gentle face, but her legs tell a different story as they sway and spread slightly. Able to hold myself back no longer, instinct kicks in and I drop onto my knees as I take position between her legs.
“But no talking,” she reminds me, and I’m content to play by her rules.
I flick my tongue against her nipple, relishing the way it makes her moan. With a gentle nibble, I tug at one nipple and then the next. My hand falls to her black panties and I begin to caress her through the thin cotton. Her eyes flicker, and her fingers run along the top of my head.
My teeth pinch at the top of her panties and I drag them down her leg with my mouth.
This is the point of no return, but it doesn’t feel the way I had imagined it. In my wildest dreams, I took her rough and wild. These fantasies predate the change in me. However, I never imagined something so intimate could feel, well, intimate. Passion is counted with many different units of measurement.
When I was with Apple, there was passion there, but it was always bubbling to the surface through savagery and something sinister. We hate-fucked each other until we weren’t sure which way was up, and which way was down. With Tyra, I’m bursting at the seams with emotion—joy and spontaneity. There are no clouds hanging over me, and absolution in this moment, seems inevitable.
I wrap my mouth around my finger, lubing it with spit. My finger drags against her opening, and I raise my body so I can kiss her while I spread her open. She’s tight and warm, ready and waiting for me to show her a world on the other side of the rainbow.
I study her face as I press my finger against her, and then slowly inside of her. Her eyes roll to the back of her head, and she smacks her tongue against dry lips.
My heart jumps in place at the sight, slowly gearing up for an incredible race. I kiss her once. I kiss her twice. I slip my tongue past her lips and explore her mouth, and it tastes sweeter than any pussy every could—and this is coming from a man who once listed loves to easy pussy on a serving application at some local seafood joint.
With slow, steady strokes of my finger, I pull her inside out until her chest begins to heave. Her legs shift inward, pushing against my hand. I love seeing her this way.
Open and vulnerable. Trusting and patient. She thinks she’s rewarding me, but in reality, she’s saving me. This isn’t something she’s done often, and it’s a sobering contrast to the scene in the cemetery where I had demanded an answer from Apple—could anyone ever love me?
Tyra gave me the answer Apple couldn’t.
Her back arches, pushing her deeper into my kiss as she explodes in an arousing display of ecstasy. Her pussy clenches around my finger, pulsing and aching as she rides through the crux of an orgasm.
And as her chest heaves, fighting to take control of her breathing as she comes down from an impossible high, I continue to play with her down below.
I chew against her lip softly before pulling away and lowering myself to her vulnerable flesh. I flash my tongue along her tender and sensitive opening, riding the waves of pleasure her aftershock brings. Her toes curl into the sheets, and her hands dig firm into my short hair.
And I think to myself, damn she tastes amazing. Sweet, pure, and a little something more.
She cradles her hand around my head, stealing my attention with a dreamy smile. “Your turn.”
“What do you mean?” It’s weird talking to her when my head is parked against her pussy, so I slide up her body and hover above her.
She swallows a lump in her throat and caresses my cheek. Her hands are smooth, but firm—stronger than they appear. “Fuck me until the world fades away.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Something tells me otherwise.” She shifts her knee to grind against my crotch. It’s only then I realize I’m sporting a rock-hard erection, fighting to escape the tight denim.
“There’s no going back if we do this.”
“That’s the point.”
“Are you sure?”
Her fingers dance along the denim, and she sports a wicked grin as she pops the button on my jeans. “No talking,” she reminds me, and I’m off to the races.
As I push my jeans and my boxers to my knees, she rolls over, shuffles through my nightstand, a
nd grabs a condom. I tear it open with my teeth as soon as she hands it to me, and roll it masterfully down my throbbing cock. I’ve been to this rodeo a thousand times by now, and though it’s different with her, I’ve been celibate longer than I’ve ever been before.
I’m horny as fuck, and I’m not about to make love. I’m about to fuck. She said it best herself, to fuck her until the world faded away. She knew exactly what she was in for.
I push my cock against her, and she gasps. I hold myself steady on one hand, and guide myself into her slowly with the other. One inch after the other, I’m patient at first as she adjusts to my width.
“Shit…” she groans in equal mix of pain and pleasure, so I hold myself still and wait for her to be ready.
“No talking,” I say sarcastically. My arm shakes as I resist slamming all the way into her. Finally, she gives me the go ahead to continue on with a nod of her head. I sink all the way into her and pause there. I shift my knees, nudging her legs wider. “Are you ready?”
“More than you know.”
I retract my hips until my cock is almost pulled free, and then drive right back on in. I work a steady pace, slowly building with momentum and strength. Each stroke is deeper, harder, faster.
Her palm trails up my muscular back and underneath my tee shirt. She holds onto me, promising with tiny touches that she’s enjoying the ride as much as I am. I curl my arm around her neck and pull her against my head, close enough so she can feel my heart as it threatens to beat straight out of my chest.
My cock throbs with every rock, and already I can feel an orgasm building. I have a reputation in bed—one that goes all night long, and I’d hate to tarnish that well-earned reputation. But then I remember, she doesn’t care about my reputation. Not one fucking bit.
I let go of it all, feeling free for the first time in my life. Second later, I’m coming deep inside of her, collapsing when I’m finished onto her body with my face buried in the space between her perfect tits.
She combs her fingers through my hair as I come down from a euphoric high, and I’ve never felt as wanted as I do now. I could lie here all day without saying another word. Her warm breaths against my ear are enough to send me back over the edge, but not of another orgasm, but of the rainbow.
