Breakaway: A New Adult Anthology

by Jay McLean

  Rory had pulled herself out of her environment—which had been real sketchy if that place where she'd jumped into my car was any indication—and set herself up at one of the best universities in the country. Unlike Hadley, who'd been given a fancy new car on her sixteenth birthday, Rory was more like me. Worse off than me, in fact. But she was on her way up and out. I could respect that.

  "How the hell can you afford MIT?"

  She shrugged, still avoiding looking directly at me. She seemed furtive. Was she lying about the MIT thing? "Scholarships. Loans. The usual."

  "Do you have a job lined up for after graduation?"

  Her features had settled into a "bored now" expression. "What is this, show and tell? I've answered your questions. Can we please return to clearing your ass of murder?"

  "I want to know why you came back. Why you're even interested in my ass."

  "I'm not interested in your ass." She stopped short. She met my eyes for a moment, and I could see her blush, which seemed to happen often.

  I wondered how much pinker that blush could get. I decided to find out. "You're not, huh? You sure about that?"

  The blush grew rosy and spread up to her hairline and down over her throat. But she didn't look away. After a moment, her engaging grin was back, and this time it had a more sensual quality. "Okay, maybe I am interested in your ass." Her brows rose in a dare. "How about you stand up and let me check it out?"

  Now that was more like it. It was the first come-on signal she'd given me, and I wasn't about to let it slip by. Still, if she hadn't been grinning up a storm and running those big eyes all over me, I don't think I'd have done what I did. But, what the fuck, I was in my own living room, in my own house. So I stood up, unbuckled my leather belt, ripped it out of its slots and whipped it down against the bare floor with a crack that made her jump.

  "Whoa," she said softly.

  "Shall I go on?"

  "I'm all eyes."

  I unzipped and pushed down my jeans. Rory was watching me, her eyes big and blue and round. She was staring hard enough to send all my blood rushing to my genitals. By the time I had shoved my underwear down my hips and stepped out of all that lower body clothing, my dick was rock hard.

  Rory swallowed, her face now bright red. Her smile didn't falter, though. She made a circular motion with her hand. "Impressive. But that's not your ass. Why don't you do a 360 so I can get the full effect?"

  I was through playing. "Get over here, Rory."

  She rose from the sofa, and my heart-rate doubled. She took a couple steps toward me, then stopped. The look in her eyes hardened. "I want to. Okay?" She was still blushing as she said, "I mean, I even wanted to last night."

  "Yeah?" I was surprised by this. She hadn't given any indication of sexual interest in me last night. So I hadn't been the only one tossing restlessly in bed?

  She nodded. "As soon as we got in here where the light was good and I could actually see you...I wanted to." She smiled as she added, "I expect you already know you're panty-dropping hot."

  Wow, now I was probably blushing a bit, too. No one had ever put it quite like that before. My brother Sean had had the perfect body—tall, honed, and handsome. Even though I'd never had any trouble getting laid—well, until recently—I'd always compared myself unfavorably to him.

  "Drop the panties, then."

  Maybe that was a dick response to her compliment, but when I get turned on, I'm not so good with the small talk.

  She squirmed, her face going soft, and I knew, I just knew we were going to be good together. She was aroused—I could feel it. Hot for me. Sweet and wet and slippery.

  But she didn't drop any items of clothing. "Can I ask you something first?"

  I was tempted to say no, or just shut the fuck up, Rory, but this was going well enough that I didn't want to blow it. So I nodded. What I really wanted to do was scoop her into my arms, carry her straight to my bed, toss her down, and bury myself inside her.

  "It's just that—" She hesitated. "When I ask you this thing, I'm afraid it's gonna kill the mood."

  My lust was boiling so hot that I didn't think anything could kill the mood. It was going to take more than her stupid questions to distract me from what I wanted here. But Ms. 204 IQ Girl turned out to be right again.

  "The forensic examination of your computer showed that you'd searched for information on strangling, suffocation, ligatures, and how long you can cut off someone's air before they die. You researched it a lot. Like what kind of rope to use and stuff."

  Fuck. Was nothing private around her? How the hell had she found out what I'd researched online?

  "Why was that, Griff? Why d'you look that stuff up? I don't think you murdered Hadley, but...are you into that erotic asphyxiation shit? 'Cause that's way beyond my limits, you know?"

  My anger rose up the same way it had with the killers-get-me-off chick. Goddamn it. Had she really checked out every dark alley the cops had ever wandered down? She'd been at it for less than 24 hours, and she knew every bizarre secret of my soul?

  "What makes you think I give a shit about your limits?" I strode over to her. She was shorter than me and had to tilt her neck to meet my gaze. I grabbed hold of her and slid my hands up her bare arms. The feel of her silky skin was intoxicating. "I've told you before—I'm not a nice guy. Don't think for a moment that because you can stoke me up, I'll treat you well, because I won't. I use women. Use them hard."

  She didn't flinch. Her mobile mouth twisted in a smile that was warier than usual. "That might be okay if I knew you better. Could even be hot. But if you're not a limit respecter, then we're going to have to forget the whole thing."

  She tried to pull away from me, but I held on tight. I knew she wanted me. I could feel it, smell it. But she was going to refuse out of caution. She wasn't quite as much of a crazy bitch as she seemed at times.

  I didn't have a problem with that. Or with her fucking limits, whatever they were. I liked to control sex, but I could negotiate. I'm not a complete dick.

  No, the problem I had was with the way she'd invaded by life. Ignored my limits. Pushed me to the brink of—I wasn't sure what. Twenty-four hours ago I hadn't even known her. She'd come upon me like a whirlwind, and my emotions had been tossed all over the damn place.

  It struck me that I could get rid of her. Stop this invasion of my privacy. Stop these constant questions. Stop her forcing me to relive the worst days of my life.

  I knew how to do it. How to send her screaming from my place. Oh yes, Hadley had taught me well.

  I put my hands around her throat. She began trembling beneath my fingers, but her eyes did not look away from mine. "What if I am into that breath play stuff?" I let her think about it for a couple seconds. "Hadley was. She loved it. Being deprived of oxygen, she used to say, brings on an amazing high." I tightened my grip, squeezing carefully. Not too hard. Just enough to make her worry that I might be serious about this. "She used to have mind-blowing orgasms."

  "Don't," she whispered. Her hands came up to grab my hands, but she could barely get her fingers around my stronger, thicker wrists. She certainly couldn't pull them away.

  "Hadley was a risk-taker. She liked living on the edge." I squeezed a bit harder. "How about you, Rory? Do you like to slip out on that edge, too?"

  The tip of her chin rose, and her intelligent eyes appraised, considered. There was a long silence, then she smiled at me. Her fingers stopped clawing at me. The girl had a habit of grinning or even laughing at the oddest moments. "You're trying to scare me off, aren't you?"

  I switched to one hand only on her throat and let the other drop to her ass. I jerked her against me, letting her feel my erection stabbing into her belly. As for her neck, it was so small, so slim. I could have throttled her with one hand, if I'd been the throttling type.

  I gave her my nastiest look. Hadley used to tell me I was good at looking cruel.

  "Okay, the scaring off thing is working," Rory said, no longer quite so cocky. "Please stop it,
Griff."

  It was something about her voice—quick and breathy. A pleading quality to it that I wouldn't have imagined coming from this tough hacker chick. But even scared, as she now was, she didn't panic. She didn't struggle, and she didn't lose her pride. She didn't act as if some psycho monster had her in his grip. She was still addressing me as a human being, the way she had from the start. Even with my fingers closed around her throat, she didn't believe I was a killer.

  I loosened my grip but I didn't release her. I shook her a little. "I don't get you. I don't fucking understand you, Rory."

  She reached up and stroked my cheek with the tip of her fingers. It was lovely, but it just confused me more. Who was she? What was she doing in my life?

  Other things had begun to intrude—the feel of her skin, her scent, her breasts through the thin top she had on. Damn, but I wanted to be inside her. I hadn't felt this much sheer, crazy lust for a woman since I couldn't remember when.

  "I don't fucking understand me, either." Going up on her tiptoes, she tilted back her head and kissed my mouth.

  It was gentle and sweet—a tender gesture when I'd done nothing to earn such a thing.

  I had just threatened her in the crudest way, and she could still be tender with me?

  It made me feel ashamed.

  And I didn't know how to deal with that at all. Nor with all the sloppy emotions that were swamping and confusing me. So I did what I always do—I covered it all with anger. I pushed her away.

  "You know what? You don't know dick about me. So take your smartass questions and your kisses and your—your limits, and get the fuck out of my place."

  Grabbing my pants, I stalked into my bedroom and slammed the door.

  Chapter Eight

  Well, of course, Rory didn't leave. I thought about heaving her out and nailing the door and windows shut, but it started pouring again, and I couldn't do it. How anybody in town could think me a murderer when I can't even throw a stray out into the rain, I cannot fathom.

  I didn't know how to handle my feelings for this girl. They were all over the place. She wasn't anything like I was used to, female-wise. I'd never covered myself with glory where women were concerned. Maybe because in high school I'd been tall and, according to one chick, "Black Irish handsome," and on winning football and soccer teams, I'd never had trouble getting hooked up. Or maybe because when Sean had left for his tours of duty, he'd given me his Harley.

  Girls came around, and I accepted what they offered. But I didn't make nice with any of them, and for some weird reason, this seemed to intrigue them.

  Hadley used to claim I was spoiled rotten because I could get what I wanted with women without having to earn it. She claimed I thought of nothing but getting my dick into some girl, and that once I was finished, I had no compunction about walking away. Never even glancing over my shoulder to see what kind of mess I'd left behind.

  She thought it was amusing, though, because she treated sex in much the same way. She didn't get all emotionally involved. "I get hungry, I eat. I get thirsty, I drink. I get horny, I fuck." That was Hadley's view of what she called her appetites. Ironically, it had been our laughter about how casual we both felt about sex that had brought us closer.

  According to Hadley, I was also a selfish insensitive clod, sex-wise. I was rough. I cared more about my own satisfaction than my partner's. I never had much to say when I was doing it, and what I did say was sexist and vulgar. I liked to control my partners, and I especially liked it when they were just a little awed and intimidated by me. Not that Hadley ever was.

  "If I'm such an asshole lover, why do you keep showing up in my bedroom?" I'd asked.

  "I like your anger. Your edge. I like that you know what you want and take it. I like the way you'll suddenly do something crude or unexpected. It freaking turns me on. Besides," she'd laughed, "with me you're getting better about the selfish asshole thing. You've learned what kind of shit I'll give you if you don't make me come."

  It was true that she'd taught me a lot about sex, including some stuff I didn't really want to know about, like her asphyxiation fetish. What I'd done out there—grabbing Rory by the throat and deliberately scaring her—was something I'd probably never have tried before Hadley. She'd brought out the dark in me, and I'd learned to like it. It wasn't that I wanted to hurt or frighten women. I didn't get the same intense kick from cruelty that Hadley did. But I did like the power, the control that comes with sex that's a little rough, a little kinky.

  With Rory, though, I didn't feel that rough was the way to go. I mean, I wouldn't mind putting her on her knees doggie style and ramming my dick up her probably-virgin ass. But ever since I'd met her, I'd been having these weird protective feelings. I wanted to ram her, all right, in every hole, but I also wanted her to love it. To squirm and cry out and weep with pussy juices until she came, screaming and clenching my cock with her vagina muscles until I found my own release.

  I think it was partly because Rory was the first girl I'd ever spent any time with who came from an even worse background than me. Hadley had been rich, and the high school girls I'd met at Meadows Regional High had mostly come from the upscale side of the tracks as well. In fact, it was freaky how often I attracted those types. They were slumming. At least, that's the way I tended to see it. Hadley used to laugh at me and say I was seeing inequalities that didn't exist. I could do anything, be anything. I just had to get over myself.

  And maybe she'd been right. As far as I could tell, Rory didn't feel sorry for herself. She didn't fret about where she'd come from, and she wasn't ashamed that her friend LaVerle was a sex worker. She'd proved that she could rise above her background. It gave me a ragged hope that maybe I could, too.

  * * *

  I'd been stewing in my bedroom for about twenty minutes when I heard a gentle knock on my door. It opened before I said anything. I guess I'd forgotten to lock it.

  She was standing on the threshold, wearing an oversized sweatshirt that came down almost to her knees. Her feet were bare, as usual. So were her legs from just above the knees down. I tried not to stare at her legs, or the rest of her, for that matter.

  "I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry. That wasn't a good moment to keep pestering you about your girlfriend."

  In truth, I knew her question had been reasonable. It had showed she cared about herself in a way that I'd often feared that Hadley hadn't. Hadley's risk-taking behavior had probably gotten her killed.

  Even so, I lounged on the bed and glared at Rory. I didn't say a word. I was still angry. I wasn't gonna kill her during sex, and I was tired of people assuming that I might.

  She was standing there fiddling with the sweatshirt, pulling at it on one side as if it was itching. But I think she was just nervous. When she wasn't actually handling a computer, she tended to get antsy.

  She looked cute as hell, though, and I wanted to fuck her so bad my balls hurt.

  I knew I should apologize, too. But I really didn't feel like it. Saying I was sorry wasn't something I was good at.

  Undaunted, she went on, "I was being thickheaded. I mean, if you're gonna strangle someone, you don't need to Google it first. Every idiot knows if you cut off someone's air long enough, they die. You must have researched it because you didn't want to kill her by accident."

  I sighed. Rory wasn't a puppy; she was a fierce mastiff who'd catch hold of something and tear it to shreds to get every last juicy bite. "She was into a lot of weird sexual shit."

  She hesitated a couple seconds before asking, "So you were just trying to get her off?"

  "Yeah, but that breath play stuff is too dangerous. I knew she was going to try it with somebody else, so I was trying to reassure myself that she wouldn't get herself killed."

  She looked surprised. "Hadley was cheating on you?"

  I wasn't eager to discuss this, but I needed to clear the air. I wasn't into all the twisted, edgy stuff Hadley had wanted to experiment with, but some of it I'd liked. Some of it had been super ho
t. Some of it I wouldn't mind doing again, if I ever had a partner again who trusted me enough.

  Rory seemed to trust me, God only knew why.

  My body had gone into erotic alert mode as soon as she'd crossed the threshold. Things had progressed to the point that I got erections every time I looked at her. The girl was sleeping in my apartment. She was hot and she was willing, if that panty-dropping remark had been accurate. Not to mention the kiss. If calming her worries about how much of a sexual freak I was was all it would take to get her under me, legs spread wide while I slid my aching cock into her pussy, then calm her I would.

  "She was seeing other people, yeah. We weren't exclusive. It's not like we were planning a life together."

  She considered this. "On the day she disappeared the two of you had a fight in a restaurant that several people witnessed. Was it about this other guy she was seeing? The breath play guy?"

  "It wasn't a guy. It was a woman."

  "Whoa."

  "Shocked?"

  She made a "Who, me?" noise, then said, "So you thought this chick might be doing something unsafe with Hadley?"

  I nodded. "The other woman was into the hard stuff. The risky stuff. Not just breath play but all sorts of other edge play."

  She frowned.

  "C'mon, you're tight with sex workers. You've never heard of edge play?"

  "Enlighten me."

  "The chick was a leather dominatrix who liked stuff like cutting, heavy whipping, suspension, electric shock and other sorts of sadomasochism. Torture scenarios. One of her things was to make Hadley bleed from a lot of small, shallow cuts while she strangled her slowly with a rope. Assuming you don't kill your partner in the process, this supposedly induces a wicked orgasm."

  Rory actually whitened, which had never happened before as far as I could remember. Usually she blushed. "That does sound pretty far out on the edge."

  "Hadley was fearless. She wanted to try everything, no matter how dangerous. A real adrenaline junky."