by Meg Jackson
The fisheye effect of the peephole made Cristov’s blonde head seem enormous. Even through the distortion she could see the way his mouth screwed up into a grimace. Unlocking the door, she was wary of opening it all the way. Something about his stance made her feel distinctly uncomfortable.
“Cris?” she asked, hoping that if she spoke softly, he would calm down. It didn’t work. Pushing the door open so hard that she stumbled backwards with it, he entered in a rush of cold air and heated anger, turning on his heel and grabbing her by the wrist.
Surprised, she let the door slam shut and found herself yanked in close to his body; he leaned down and covered her mouth with his. His lips were cold, a cloud of autumn air lingering around his clothes, but she still felt the masculine heat of his body radiating into hers.
For a moment, she let herself lapse into the kiss; she loved it when he took her this way, suddenly and violently and urgently. But she still knew something was wrong, and forced herself away from him, one hand on his chest, pushing away.
“Jesus,” she murmured as he looked down at her, his green eyes shaking in place. “What’s wrong, baby?”
The word, so simple yet so full of belonging, seemed to calm him down immediately. He pulled her towards him and buried his nose in the scent of her freshly-washed hair.
“Nothing, now,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
If Ricky felt anything different about the way he held her, she didn’t tell him. If she felt his urgency when he released her, when he spun her around and pushed her against the table, bending her over and ripping at her tiny pajama shorts, she didn’t protest. She let him drop to his knees behind her, let his lips come to the back of her knee, let his tongue drag upward along her thigh, spiraling inwards slowly until he was at her glistening slit, his tongue slipping in and gently probing. She let her head fall against the cool wood of the table as he tasted her, slowly, agonizingly slowly.
“Cristov,” she breathed, eyes closed, hands scrambling for something to hold while he brought all the heat in her body to a central point. “Fuck, baby…”
“Keep saying my name,” he growled, his hands on her thighs digging in, his tongue moving upward to flick across her swollen clit. She gasped, pleasure flooding her senses. When he pulled away, she could only mumble a protest; he slapped her, once, hard, on her ass, making her thighs tremble.
“Say my name,” he growled, hovering underneath her, his hot breath driving her wild. She croaked out his name. He licked her. She said it again, he closed his lips around her clit and suckled inward.
“Cristov…fuck, baby, fuck, Cristov, Cris…” she said his name again and again, each time rewarded with a flick of his tongue, a draw of his lips, a circle of delight around her tender bud. As he went faster, she spoke faster, his name slurring together as she whispered it against the wood of the table.
He grabbed her hips and slid her backwards, then forwards, keeping his tongue still against her clit. And when he released her, she kept going, saying his name again and again, Cristov, Cristov, baby, baby. She knew what he wanted. He wanted her to fuck herself against his tongue, to take her pleasure from him like a cat in heat. He wrapped his arms around her thighs, holding her hips and helping her slide faster, back and forth, desperately grinding herself against him. Heat built in her stomach; she shook, standing on her toes, grabbing at nothing, desperate for release.
“Oh, god, baby, please,” she begged, knowing he could give her relief in an instant, that he was holding back to torture her. He wanted to hear her beg. “Please, Cristov, god, please, please, please…”
He growled against her, held her tight, and closed his lips around her, gently grazed her with his teeth. Everything stopped. And then shattered. Ricky closed her thighs around his head, tight, not caring, only feeling the rush of pleasure as it wound through her body, tightening like a vise, her clit a conduit of pure electric bliss. As Cristov held his tongue against her, she squirmed and cried out, the pleasure turning to pain, overstimulated and raw. He moved away, licking backwards towards her slit, as though he wanted to drink every sweet drop of her pleasure.
He didn’t release her hips, not even as he rose behind her. With one hand he held her down, releasing his throbbing cock with the other. He didn’t want to wait, couldn’t. She was dripping wet and ready for him, and he plunged into her even before her pussy had stopped contracting, feeling himself driven home to her warm center. He moaned, leaning over her, pressing her against the table, her feet nearly lifting off the floor as he filled her up and pushed even deeper.
“Ricky,” he growled against her neck, where her hair lay damp and soaked with sweat. “I want this. I want you. Every day. Just like this. Every part of you, mine. All mine.”
She groaned out something that could have been an agreement; it was enough. Cristov pulled back and slammed himself back in, watching her body shake. He fucked her in long, hard strokes that shook the table underneath them. He grabbed her hair and pulled, only just enough to raise her head from the surface, so he could watch her mouth open and contort with pleasure.
When her thighs started to tremble again, when her hands grasped at nothing, clawing at the varnish, he sped up, wanting to come with her. His body slammed up against hers, her voice releasing meaningless cries of pleasure, her body reddening and tensing beneath him.
“Fuck,” she managed to say. “Fuck, yes, Cristov, yeah, fuck…”
“Goddammit,” he growled, unable to hold back as his name escaped her mouth, slamming into her one more time before he burst into her warmth. The shock of his orgasm triggered her own, and her pussy massaged each spurt of cum from his cock, accepting it deep inside her as she bucked and pressed her hips against his.
He wanted to come inside her forever, to fill her up until she couldn’t hold anymore of him, to cover her in his seed like an animal marking its territory. But finally he was finished, and staggered away from her, grabbing at her hips at the last moment so that she came with him, both of them stumbling and Ricky laughing, delirious with pleasure.
After, when they lay entwined on the couch, listening to Blood on the Tracks, Cristov hummed into her chest, vibrating through her whole body. “Shelter from the Storm” was almost over when Cristov lifted his head to meet her eyes.
“This song is you,” he said, reaching up to hold her tighter. “This song is me and you.”
Ricky listened to the lyrics.
“Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line,
beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine,
if I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born…
Come in, she said, I'll give ya
shelter from the storm”
She smiled.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
18
The happy hum of glasses clinking and local laughter, a background noise as comforting as the ocean to a lighthouse keeper, made Ricky’s fingertips warm even before she entered Sammy’s. A slight shake erased the last of the autumn night’s chill and she crossed the floorboards to the bar, where Tricia laughed at something Junior was saying as he poured a beer from the tap. From the rosy look on her cheeks and the cold air that still lingered around her, she hadn’t been waiting for Ricky long.
“Hey girl,” Ricky said, easing her way up onto the stool beside her friend. “Nice sweater. Get it from an L.L. Bean catalogue?”
Tricia rolled her eyes as Ricky played with the turtleneck top of the green wool sweater.
“It’s cold out, Rick,” she said. “I’m warm-blooded.”
“Warm-blooded my ass,” Ricky said. “Remember that time you dragged me skiing?”
“Dragged you off the mountain, and you better be damn grateful I did. I could have left you up there hugging that tree,” Tricia retorted. “Where’s Sister Sledge?”
“Finishing off some government stuff,” Ricky said before putting in her order with Junior. “She’ll be here later.”
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“Damn,” Tricia said. “I don’t know how long I can stay. And it’s been so long since we’ve had a girl’s night with all three of us!”
“I know,” Ricky said, clucking her tongue and trading her credit card for the beer Junior slid towards her. “Keep it open. It’s been a while since we all had men at the same time, hasn’t it?”
Tricia scoffed.
“You’ve never had a man for more than two weeks,” she said. “And let’s not talk about how I’m stuck with Kim’s sloppy seconds.”
“Oh, come on,” Ricky said. “She and Paul never got together. Ever.”
Tricia and Paul Tiding had started dating not long after Kim and Kennick’s relationship became common knowledge. Paul who worked for one of the town’s council-members, had nursed a crush on Kim since high school but always been spurned.
“I know,” Tricia said with a sigh, looking into her beer. “Sometimes I wonder, though, if I’m just his consolation prize.”
“Jesus, Trish,” Ricky said with an exaggerated eye roll. “I haven’t even had a drink yet and you’re already going in for the deep stuff? Let me at least get a shot in me first…”
“Make it two,” Tricia said. “I have off tomorrow.”
“Pauly doesn’t mind you coming home sloshed?” Ricky said with a conspiratorial nudge.
“Paul doesn’t…Paul doesn’t have to know, now does he?” Tricia said, seeming to choose her words carefully but covering it with a smile. Ricky ignored the nag of confusion and ordered them two pickleback shots, which they took with admirable aplomb.
Two beers later and the conversation had drifted around in an easy, lazy circle. The recurring joke of the night had become “…when Kim gets here”, the third of their lifelong trio having yet to arrive.
“So you and Paul are good, though?” Ricky asked, wanting to hear Tricia answer in the affirmative. Tricia had always been wildly selective about men; she’d only had three serious boyfriends before Paul. Still, that beat Ricky’s record by two.
“Yeah,” Tricia said, smiling demurely. “I like him a lot. He can be a…he can be a bit odd at times, I think. He gets really petty sometimes, but most of the time he’s sweet.”
“Petty?” Ricky asked, curious. She barely knew the guy, but he’d always seemed boringly polite.
“I don’t know,” Tricia said quickly. “He’s very self-conscious, I think.”
“Oh,” Ricky said, a wicked smile crossing her face. “Does he have a good reason to be self-conscious? Maybe he’s got a Derringer instead of a Colt?”
Tricia blanched and took a generous swallow of her beer.
“No, no,” she said. “Nothing like that. Trust me he’s…he’s packing enough heat to fry an egg. Would I be with him if he wasn’t?”
Ricky laughed. Tricia was notorious for being a size queen, as she called it.
“But what about you?” Tricia asked, steering the conversation towards a topic that Ricky had hoped to avoid. “How’s things going with the brother? Dude, I think it’s so weird that you and Kim are dating the same family. It’s like some old riddle. ‘Two sisters married two brothers’ or something. It’s cute though. Keeping it all in the family.”
Ricky rolled her eyes.
“Kim’s doomed for the altar, not me,” she said. “I mean, Cristov’s great. You know how he is. Keeps me laughing, at least. And he’s broken the record for longest relationship, which is saying something.”
Ricky’s lips pursed as she considered Tricia’s question. How were things, really? They were great. Fantastic. Out-of-this-world sex and no issues. No hang-ups or letdowns.
“But…?” Tricia probed, seeming to read Ricky’s mind.
“I just…sometimes I think, like, so what? You know, he’s great. He makes me laugh. He makes me smile. He’s great in the sack. So what?”
“You don’t think you could feel…you know…more for him?” Tricia asked, studying her friend with eyes that saw past Ricky’s walls. They’d been friends too long for them to keep anything from each other.
“I think I could,” Ricky finally mumbled, mood souring as Tricia’s interrogation and the truth-serum of alcohol worked their way past her cheerful façade. “But even then…so what? So, I get stuck in love and hitched and pop out a bunch of babies or whatever? I don’t want…”
Her sentence trailed off into the ether but Tricia nodded.
“You don’t want the party to end? Think if you get all loved up and tied down you won’t have as much fun?”
“I guess so,” Ricky said, biting her lip. Was that it? It felt kind of true, but…there was something else, wasn’t there? A feeling like maybe she didn’t deserve Cristov’s love. It had been almost two weeks since he’d barged through her door, only to melt in her arms and dedicate “Shelter From the Storm” to her. Something had changed that night. He’d trusted her with something precious. Something she didn’t trust herself with.
Tricia’s eyes were pitying, and it made Ricky want to storm from the bar, her mood swinging quickly. Forcing herself to calm down, she caught the tail end of Tricia’s sentence, her thoughts preoccupying her for the first half.
“…You never let the good ones stay, Rick. You keep putting things inside your heart that don’t belong there. I want to see you happy, and I really think he makes you happy. Maybe you should just try to let that happen before you close the gates this time.”
“Maybe,” Ricky mumbled, eager to change the topic of conversation. That proved easier said than done when a familiar face appeared in the doorway of the bar, a blast of cold air accompanying it.
Ricky had only met Mina once, when she’d gone to visit the tattoo shop and seen the younger girl leaving after dropping off Cristov’s car keys. A harried introduction and then she was gone. But her green eyes, those trademark Volanis emeralds, were unmistakable.
Slighter than her brothers but with the same strong features, the youngest of the siblings could easily pass for 21, but Ricky knew she wasn’t. She wasn’t about to rat her out, though. Ricky had spent enough of her pre-legal nights in Sammy’s. She was surprised, though, when the girl made a beeline towards the bar where Ricky and Tricia sat.
“Hey,” the girl said, hopping onto the empty stool beside Ricky and turning to her. “Cristov said you were out with your friends, so I thought I might find you here.”
If Ricky was surprised before, she was dumbfounded at the directness with which Mina addressed her.
“Uh…okay? Cool,” she said, exchanging a befuddled glance with Tricia. “Can I help you with something?”
“Can I talk to you?” Mina said. “Just a quick chat.”
For a girl who was 18, 19 at the most, Mina had the breezy confidence of a woman twice her age. Ricky’s eyebrows arched as she studied the girl for any hint of what the conversation might be about.
“I guess so,” she finally said. “What’s up?”
Mina glanced over Ricky’s shoulder at Tricia, then back to Ricky. With a nod of her head, she gestured towards the door. Ricky gave Tricia one more hell-if-I-know-what’s-going-on look before following Mina out into the chilly November night.
19
Mina wondered if Ricky would take her seriously. Gaje, non-gypsies, usually went one of two ways when it came to the powers of the drabarni, or psychic. Some tuned in every night to see John Edwards poke his head through the veil (though his legitimacy was a subject of some debate between real drabarnis). Others rolled their eyes and considered such beliefs a return to the dark ages.
After Cristov’s outburst in the trailer, Mina had paid a visit to her cousin Tula, the kumpania’s resident drabarni. Tula inherited her abilities from Mina’s own late grandmother. Tula didn’t mince words, and when Mina had asked her if she saw anything about Cristov or Ricky, she was quick to get to work. What she’d eventually come up with wasn’t the most lucid or clear vision, but it was what Mina needed. Now she just needed to get Ricky to listen.
Their breath came out in small puff
s as they stood outside the bar, clinging close to the wall as though it could provide some warmth. Ricky was more than a little confused, and Mina didn’t want to waste time with formalities.
“You need to be careful with Cristov,” Mina said. Ricky’s face scrunched, annoyance in her eyes.
“Cristov? Mina, do you know your brother? He’s not going to hurt me,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, even if he wanted to…”
“That’s not what I meant,” Mina said. “I mean, you need to be careful with how you treat him.”
“Oh,” Ricky said, and now she nodded. “I get it. Yeah, I know, he really wants this…thing…to move, uh, faster. But you know, he does understand…”
“Cristov’s going to dump you,” Mina said, cutting Ricky off mid-sentence. Ricky’s face fell, then she almost seemed to smile, her eyes glancing away quickly and back to Mina.
“Did he tell you that?” Ricky asked. If he had, Ricky thought, he must have said it in anger, before the other night. Mina shook her head.
“He didn’t,” Mina admitted. “I have it from a better source. Tula, our cousin, saw it in a vision. He’s going to break up with you. I don’t know why, and I don’t know when, but if she saw it, it’ll happen. And then she said bad things would happen. She didn’t have details, but they weren’t pretty. If you’d seen her face when she told me, you’d know how bad they’ll be. Probably because Cristov with a broken heart is a Cristov who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. He’s very impulsive, my brother.”
“I’m going to go ahead and stop you right there, Mina,” Ricky said, and Mina realized which side of the belief spectrum Ricky fell on. “I respect you and your people and all, but I don’t believe in visions and stuff. So…I mean, you’re wasting your breath.”
