“Quit running,” I say. Pepper’s eyes search mine and she nods. It’s an infinitesimal gesture, but I acknowledge it all the same because in this moment, and to this girl, that nod is one big giant fucking leap.
For a second we just breathe one another’s breath, and take in the magnitude of what we’ve just committed ourselves to: a whole world of pain for the both of us if this fails, and judgement from the residents of this backward town, from our friends, maybe even from our family. Definitely from our family.
Something sparks in Pepper’s gaze. She has that look about her, the one that usually leads to tipping cows, or stealing tractors and driving them into the creek. This little hellion could very well be the death of me. At the very least it’s certain she’s going to rip the heart right out of my chest and suck it dry, and for the first time in a long time, I don’t care. I’d let her bleed me dry if I thought that was what she really wanted, because as crazy as she is, I’m just as crazy about her.
I grasp the nape of her neck and push her down until her lips cover mine. She moans into my mouth when I grab her hips and slam them down upon my groin. She’s slick from arousal, and my come. She slides up the length of my cock and I groan into her mouth. I could get swept up in this very easily, but I’m determined to make this about the two of us, and not just a quick fuck in order to get off and get my mind off of …
I roll us so that she’s beneath me once more, and then I spread her legs wide and take in her perfect pussy. “Jesus Pepper, you’re so fucking perfect.”
She shakes her head and a derisive laugh escapes her mouth. She doesn’t believe me. That voice inside her head that tells her she isn’t good enough won’t allow her to believe that what I’m saying is true.
“Do you remember that day down by the lake when you came out in that tiny black bikini?”
“And you rejected me? Yeah, kinda hard to forget that day, Sam.”
“What you don’t know is how hard it was for me to see you like that. How I’d been harbouring fantasies about the girl exposing herself to me. You were so young, Pepper—it was wrong for me to feel like that, to look at you like that. But I did. I wanted you so bad that day, it took everything inside me not to fuck you right there in the water. I had to push you away. I would have gone to jail otherwise.”
“It would have been worth it.” She nips at my earlobe and I have a half a mind to agree with her.
“I’m not Elijah. I don’t think I would have survived jail, Little.”
“True. A pretty boy like you would be arse-raped every day and twice on Sundays.”
“Plus I’d much rather be able to touch you like this.” I slide my hand between us and push into her wet heat. She flinches. She’s tight and soaking wet, but I know I’ve hurt her.
“Did I hurt you that much?”
She nods.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Pepper.”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me, Sam, but I like pain.”
“Oh, I noticed,” I whisper, and twist my fingers inside her. She inhales and pushes up with her hips, grinding herself against my hand.
This time I take her slowly, for hours, keeping us both on the edge of orgasm, but not allowing either of us to trip over into ecstasy. When we’re done, Pepper slumps on top of me, her ear pressed against my beating heart while I run my fingers through her tangled pink locks.
She sniffs. Hot tears slide down her cheeks to pool on my chest. “I’m sorry about your dad, Sam.”
“Me too.” I rub the backs of my hands over my eyes. Dad would likely have kittens if he could see me right now. He’d tell me to suck it up, princess, and stop acting like a fuckin’ sheila. I wish he were alive to say that to me again, just once.
That thought has the opposite effect of what my dad would want, it opens the flood gates and my tears come thick and fast. Pepper props her head up on her hands. Her eyes are puffy and tears have made salt-stained tracks down her pale face. She glides her thumb over my cheek and I clasp her hand tightly. She wriggles forward and kisses the tip of my nose, and then my wet cheeks, before coming back to my lips. I kiss her back, but it’s not the wild, passionate devouring of one another’s mouths like before. It’s an apology. And I fear the meaning of it. I engulf her in my arms and roll us so that she’s pinned beneath me and together we cry; for my dad, for us, for the time we wasted, and hurt, and loved one another, and for all the years we tried to shove our feelings aside. We fall asleep wrapped in one another’s arms, and I allow myself to imagine that the past five years never happened, and that she never left me.
I wake because Pepper is crawling out from under the tangle of my arms and legs. She’s sweating, her hair plastered down her back, but I don’t care. I pull her back into me and wrap her in my arms again.
“Don’t leave me, Little,” I murmur into her neck.
“I’m roasting. I need a drink, Sam. And I need to open a god damn window. How do you sleep in this apartment?”
I know she’s referring to the vast arched windows that surround the bed. The late afternoon sun streams in through frosted glass. I lift my head, squinting against the brightness and fumble on the dresser for the AC remote. I snatch it up and crank it to full power. Then I grab an unopened water bottle from beneath the bed, crack it open and take a sip before I hand it to her.
“I need Nurofen. I think I’m a little bruised.”
“Bedside drawer,” I mutter. She fishes around in the drawer for a moment before popping two capsules in her hand and swallowing them down with the water. I wrap my arms around her waist and drag her back to me. She yelps and kicks, but it’s half-arsed, so I know she’s not really fazed.
“What if I have to pee?”
“I’m okay with golden showers.”
“You’re disgusting.” She laughs quietly. “And horny apparently.”
She’s referring to my massive cock jutting against her arse. I grind it into her, but I’m too emotionally spent to do much more than hold her.
“Sam, you need to call Aunt Ana,”
Opening my eyes, I sigh. She’s right. Only … “You need to quit calling my sister your aunt. It makes me sound like your creeper uncle, and that’s one incestuous relationship this town certainly isn’t ready for.”
“She’s hurting too. She needs you.” Pepper rolls over to face me, tucking herself in against my front as she strokes my face.
“I know,” I whisper, taking her hand and laying kisses over her knuckles. “I just need to stay here a little longer. If I leave, if I go downstairs, or I go to the house, there will be questions I’m not ready for. I adore my sister, but she’s a control freak. She will have the funeral planned right down to the very last fucking dish we’re serving at the wake, and I’m not ready to deal with the fact that he’s gone just yet.”
“Okay, we’ll stay. But you’ll have to face it soon, Sam.” She trails her fingertips over my brow, down my cheek and around my jaw. I close my eyes, and feel myself drifting off again.
“Don’t leave, Little.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here, Sammy. I’m right where I’ve always been.”
Only when I wake again, she’s gone. The bedroom is dark, but the streetlight illuminates enough of my surrounds to know that Pepper’s no longer beside me. The clock on the table tells me in big neon green numbers that it’s midnight. I rub at my eyes. They’re sore, puffy. I feel as if I’ve been hit by a goddamned freight train. There’s a dim light coming from the main living area of the loft—the stove light maybe? I don’t have any lamps, and I sure as shit don’t have candles to burn.
“You really think this is a good idea?” Jake whispers. Jake? What the fuck is he doing here in the middle of the night?
“Yeah, I think it’s a good idea.”
“You two are fucking pathetic. The dude’s dad just died and you think serving your pussy up on a god damned platter is going to help?”
“Not that we owe you, or anyone else in this fucked-u
p, backwards inbred town any explanation, but I care about him. I always have.”
“That doesn’t mean you should be with someone, just because you care about them. I care about the fucking polar bears and the ice caps melting at a rapidly catastrophic rate, but I’m not gonna move to Antarctica so I can roll around in the fucking snow with them.”
“Do you have a point? Or do you just like to hear yourself talk?”
“A little of both, actually. My point is this: you fucking destroyed him when you left last time. He won’t survive you leaving again, and that’s exactly what you plan to do, isn’t it?”
“Jesus Jake, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you were in love with Sam. What are your intentions for my bro, wench woman?” she mocks, in a pretty good impersonation of him.
“Hey, I fucking love that dude. You have no idea what you left behind, and you have no idea of the lengths I would go to for him. If you hurt him again, hot, badarse bitch or not, I’ll destroy you.”
“That’s enough,” I say, tugging the sheet around my waist because my jeans are more than likely still lying on the living room floor where I left them, and come ’round the silk screen partition.
When I see Pepper, hair mussed from sleep and sex, and wearing nothing but one of my faded old T-shirts that dwarfs her completely, my cock twitches. I wrap my arms around her shoulders and pull her into me, so she can feel exactly what she does to me.
“We really need to make a rule about you answering the door in more clothing, Little,” I growl in her ear.
“So this is really fucking happening?” Jake asks, shaking his head.
“Yeah, it’s really fucking happening,” I say, and I ignore the way Pepper stiffens in my arms.
Jake lets out a disheartened laugh. “You two are a fucking train wreck. You need to sort out what the fuck you’re doing here before you tell anyone about this and tear your family apart when it doesn’t work out. And let me tell you, this little tryst between you is gonna go the same fucking way it’s always gone.” He points to me. “You’re gonna end up losing your head and your fucking heart again.” He points to Pepper. “And you’re gonna run, because it’s what you do. This shit between you didn’t work five years ago, and it isn’t gonna work now. Sometimes two people just aren’t meant to be together. And if I thought it was just mindless fucking, I’d say ‘have at it. Go for fucking gold’, but it’s not possible for the two of you to fuck and leave your feelings out of this.”
“Are you done?” I say, straightening and glowering down at my best friend.
He throws his hands up. “Yeah I’m done.”
“Then get the fuck out,” I say. Pepper turns in my arms to search my face, but I don’t look at her. My eyes are fixed on Jake, and the warning glare he’s sending my way.
He shakes his head. “Don’t fucking shoot the messenger, dude. You know as well as I do that this is gonna blow up in your faces. It’s just a matter of time.” Jake stalks toward the door and yanks it open. “And call your goddamned sister. She lost her dad, too.”
That statement hits me like an anvil to the chest. I know I need to call Ana. Losing Dad is just as hard on her, probably harder, but I can’t bring myself to go there yet, because if I see my sister fall apart again, I’ll fall apart, too. And I have no fucking idea how to put that shit back together.
Pepper grabs my chin in her tiny hand and draws my attention down to her fucking gorgeous face. “You should go easy on him. He’s worried about you.”
“Are you worried about me?”
“I’m worried that we need to talk about what our expectations are.”
“No talking,” I say and draw her fingers into my mouth, sucking and nipping at her soft flesh. I hedge her backwards toward the island bench. “I want to bend you over my kitchen counter and fuck you senseless, the way I’ve wanted to since the day you barged in here wielding all your shit and demanding a bed. And then I want to lay you down on my rug and eat my dinner off your back.”
“That’s awfully unsanitary of you, Sam,” Pepper teases, but she’s not fooling anyone because her eyes are glazed with desire. “Are you sure you can handle the mess? I’m afraid I’ve never been a very good table.”
“Pepper, if it’s one thing life with you has taught me, is that it’s always messy.”
She laughs, and then startles when her back hits the bench. I lift her up and seat her on the wooden countertop. I edge into the hollow of her legs and pull the shirt over her head, then I cover one pink, upturned nipple with my mouth, sucking hard enough for her to cry out with pleasure. I gently push her shoulders until she’s lying across my kitchen counter, and pull a knife from the block. I take hold of the side of her underwear and slice through the lace like a hot knife through butter. I repeat the action on the other side and Pepper bolts upright. Her mouth attacks mine with a hot kiss. When she finally pulls away she whispers, “They were very expensive French knickers.”
“Then I’ll buy you a new pair and ruin those too.”
“Promise?”
“So long as you lay back down, I’ll do many things you will want me to do again.”
She lies down and closes her eyes. The sigh that escapes her mouth makes my dick twitch, begging to be touched. I slide the knife back in the block and walk over to the freezer, producing a tray of ice, the kind that gives you long, cylindrical ice cubes for water bottles. I tip them out into the sink, then I pick up a perfectly formed solid shaft and bring it to her heated flesh. Pepper’s breath catches. Her body twists away from the ice as I run it down her torso. Water pools in her belly button. She squirms, and reaches out to draw my hands away from her, but I grasp her hips and hold her down.
“Quit wriggling. I’m thirsty,” I say and dip my tongue into the hollow of her belly button, lapping at the melted ice. She holds her breath and her body shudders with pleasure. I trail my tongue down to her tattoos and lick at the nest of roses where her pubic hair should be, but I don’t go further. Instead, I discard the ice and glide my tongue in rough sweeping arcs up to her breasts where I suck her nipples.
I scoop up another piece of ice and trace it over her tattoos, lapping at the water left behind, kissing and nipping my way across her stomach.
“Oh god. Sam, I need you to fuck me.”
“No, you want me to fuck you, Little. We haven’t got to need yet, but we will,” I promise, as I trace the ice across her piercing and her clit. She gasps, and squirms beneath me. I slide lower, circling her wet opening, and then I slowly and very carefully ease the rod of ice inside her cunt.
Pepper cries out, shaking her head, twisting her body away from my hands and pushing closer to them all at the same time. I use my other hand to gently tug at her piercing, causing her to moan. The ice has melted, and I snatch up another from the sink and run it up the inside of her thighs, across her mound and over her clit before slipping this one inside too.
“When I’m done here, you’ll wonder why you ever ran from me, Little.”
“We’ll … see,” she pants, but she knows as well as I do that she’s already wondering why she spent all those years missing out on this. I close my mouth over her clit and suck hard, forcing her face to twist in agony and then pleasure. She rakes her hand through my hair and pulls tight, bucking her hips beneath my mouth as her orgasm rocks through her and she screams my name. I keep laving at her flesh when her writhing is done, and she wrenches away from me. Or, she tries to. I splay my hand over her abdomen, holding her down, and then I ease two fingers inside her, making a ‘come hither’ motion against the velvet walls of her pussy. She comes the second I cover her clit with my mouth.
I don’t care how long it takes, I will convince her that in my arms, and in my bed, is where she belongs. I have to, because Jake wasn’t wrong. I won’t survive her leaving a second time.
“SAM,” PEPPER whispers in my ear. Her body is warm and flush with mine on the futon. She sets something cold and metallic in my hand, wrapping her fingers around min
e and closing my fist. “It’s time.”
I squeeze the keys in my hand, relishing the way the sharp edges dig into my calloused palm. “I don’t want to.”
“I know. Which is exactly why you should.”
“I can’t see her fall apart again.”
“You have to. You have to hold her, and let her cry and fall apart, and you have to deal with this. Bob’s gone, and you can’t sit around in this apartment, burying your feelings inside me with your cock. You need to be with your family.”
“You’re my family.”
She grins and looks down at me from under thick black lashes. “No, I’m your …”
“Girlfriend,” I finish with a pointed look, because the way she wrinkled her nose just then eats away at me. “Come with me.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. I’m not sure anyone else is ready to see this firsthand. Jack’s gonna lose his shit. He’ll probably punch you; he’s punched every guy who has ever so much as given me a second glance. You don’t want to know what he does to the ones he knows I’ve slept with. When he finally met Stieg, he—”
“Stop talking, or I’m going to punch someone,” I interrupt.
“You know, I think I kinda like your irrational jealous streak.”
“I need you with me today.”
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re sporting a black eye later.”
“I’m pretty sure I could take Jack. He’s kind of old now.” I sigh, and tuck her into the crook of my shoulder. “I don’t wanna hide this anymore. We spent six years hiding from the people we love. I want you, Pepper; I’ve never wanted anyone else. And I want them to know about it.”
She shrugs, but I can see she’s not super on board with telling the family. “It’s your funeral.”
“No, it’s my dad’s, actually.”
Pepper closes her eyes. When she opens them again, they’re glassy and a furrow forms between her brows, I know she’s trying not to cry.
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