Rowan

by Tilly Delane

  My bunch were super quiet tonight. Admittedly, I tried to avoid eye contact with Rowan, because I felt like everyone in the room would just look at us and know about us dry humping on the kitchen floor, so that didn’t make for a rousing atmosphere.

  But I wasn’t the only quiet one. They were all subdued.

  Simon hardly said a word all evening, looking like he was on the verge of tears half the time.

  Charlie wandered off as soon as he had shoveled the last forkful of food into his mouth, over to Elias’ crowd. He and Elias have some kind of comp going on around who’s gonna tap the ballerina in Elias’ house. It’d better be Charlie, because otherwise my last act here will be to fire Elias’ sorry ass. Don’t care anymore how good a nurse he is. I’m running out of patience with him.

  When Charlie left, Tristan looked so dejected that Rowan took pity on him and asked if he wanted to play backgammon after doing the dishes. And that’s what they did. I watched them for a while. There is something really sweet about how Rowan treats the kid in our house.

  But I confess, I was staring mostly at Rowan’s hands as they shifted counters. Wondering what, other than tangling in my hair and kneading my ass, they could do to me.

  Lying on my left: asking myself if Rowan saw my card.

  It would have been hard not to. I left it on his bed. But when he came down after his shower before dinner, he didn’t give any indication that he’d read what I’d written. Or maybe he had, but he didn’t understand what it meant? Not everyone is as detail obsessed as me.

  Answers on a postcard.

  Those were his words. So I answered on a postcard. A one liner.

  Between them, they’d have an accord.

  Maybe it doesn’t make sense to him, though.

  Maybe he’s forgotten he said that.

  Maybe he’s never watched Pirates of the Caribbean.

  Unlikely but possible.

  It’s my favorite movie of all time. I will never be sure if it’s my favorite because Elizabeth Swann was such an eye-opener for me, or because it was the last film I ever watched before my already shitty life turned to hell.

  I was eleven when it was released. My mother had split from her last meal ticket and was trying to get her shit together. For a change. My mother getting her shit together meant scrubbing up and finding someone who could buy her better drugs.

  Tom.

  Thomas Edison Carter. Yep. You got it. Named after the light bulb guy. One of the Rothman-types. But not slimy. At first.

  Tom was loaded. Dealt in real estate. Not billionaire loaded, but suddenly there was a nice apartment, food in the cupboard and clean, new clothes. My mother got out of bed, made breakfast and sent me off to school. A good school. Until then, my education had come mostly from science shows on TV and the library.

  Tom didn’t really live with us, but he’d come around every evening then be gone in the morning. Never left as much as a toothbrush behind. Not that I really noticed at the time.

  I was too happy to be out of the bedbug infested pit we’d stayed in for the previous eighteen months with Roger the Dodger. Roger was the cheapest pimp my mother ever had. Turned her from coke onto meth. Ignored me. Totally. Like an unwanted pet. It’s a miracle he didn’t encourage my mother to put a bowl on the floor to feed me from. But then, there wasn’t much food during that time to put in such a bowl.

  Tom was like a Disney prince come to save us.

  He would give me pocket money. Pocket money. It was a completely alien concept to me. And he’d see me. Said hello and goodbye. Smiled at me. Even championed my causes, like convincing my mother to let me go to the movies when Pirates came out, with Michael, who lived down the hall, and Michael’s mom. It was a PG-13 and I really didn’t look my age, let alone older.

  Michael was a little older than me and in special ed. Not so special he needed somebody with him all the time, just special enough to be shunned and taunted by the other kids in the building. That made two of us. Thankfully, most of it went straight over his head and he’d stayed the friendly, happy soul that he was. I wasn’t so lucky. Blessed are the stupid as they say.

  His mom was over the moon when I started hanging out with Michael. She wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed either, but they were really nice folk. Milk and cookies nice. Of all the people I met before I ended up with Elena and John, Michael and his mom are the only ones whose fate I sometimes wonder about.

  So for a while it all looked good. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t going to last. Those periods in my life never did. But Tom was different from the others. Nice. Solid. I allowed myself hope. Little did I know he completely controlled Mom’s substances. Little did I know the deal my mother and he had going involved me.

  It was at that point in my spiraling thoughts while tossing and turning that I got out of bed, put my airpods in, stuck on John Mayall and wandered over to the window to stare at the stars.

  I spent most of my life trying not to think about Tom. I haven’t blocked any of it out and I have spoken to people about it and all that, but it’s a ticket to nowhere. Ironic though it sounds, considering I work in a profession surrounded by therapists, I don’t really believe talking helps all that much.

  What has happened has happened, and the best you can do is to keep collecting up all your pieces each time you move on and try not to drop too many along the way.

  I was lucky in a way because I’d already started masturbating and getting myself off most nights, long before Tom ever laid his hands on me. So I knew sex had the potential to be a nice thing before he got a chance to completely ruin it for me.

  I can still come quite easily. As long as I treat the man as nothing but a human dildo.

  My breathing stops there. Because suddenly it dawns on me that this is the real reason I can’t sleep. Because for some unfathomable reason, the man next door is already more than a human dildo to me.

  And because, technically, he’s not next door.

  He’s standing right behind me.

  Rowan

  I watch her for a long while as she stares out of the window before I slip into the room fully and approach her from behind.

  She’s wearing a long, white cotton tee with the sleeves cut off that just about covers her butt, and I can clearly see the tension in her shoulders and in the stance of her naked legs.

  This is not the woman who wrote me a postcard quoting Pirates of the Caribbean to say we’re on.

  This is not a woman waiting for her clandestine lover with a wet, aching pussy.

  It’s not even the practically minded nurse having second thoughts about laying her career on the line for a good pounding.

  This is a girl in pain, fighting her demons.

  I fully expect her to turn around any moment and send me back on my merry way, but she doesn’t. With every step towards her, my heartbeat quickens and pumps electricity through my body.

  This is a new thing. A her thing.

  Normally when I’m turned on, I feel my pulse in my balls, radiating down from the femoral artery. With her, I feel it fucking everywhere. As if each of my cells had its own little power station. And each step I take closer without being rejected fires those stations more.

  It is only when I am close enough for my breath to fan across the top of her head that I see she’s wearing airpods and suddenly my body simmers down a notch. I don’t want to startle her.

  So I stop moving and just stand there for a moment. I wait, letting the air between us mingle and mix, heat up and start humming.

  Until I’m right back where I started and my body is vibrating like a leaf in an earthquake.

  She steps back, a millimetre, into our space.

  It’s then I know I have her.

  Raven

  He isn’t doing a thing.

  He just stands there.

  Heat radiates off him in a way that tells me he is stark naked. The realization makes my insides clench. Once. Hard.

  He’s come both vulnerable and prepared. I
’m in awe.

  He smells of lemongrass beneath the musk that is pure man, a combination that will forever be Rowan to me now, no matter how short-lived this may be, or how long I live.

  The air between us starts humming. My nipples tighten against the fabric of my sleep shirt and that dull pressure in my belly starts that says I need. My breath starts coming quicker and my pussy swells and coats up, moisture dripping down and pooling behind the seam.

  So far so normal.

  Other than my heartbeat. My heart rate is so high I think I’m going to have a coronary. This is new. It’s a Rowan thing.

  Of course, my pulse always quickens in anticipation of fucking a guy. It’s a necessity. I can explain it medically to anyone who cares to listen. But this is different. This is beyond my blood supply rearranging itself in my body to support impending sexual activity.

  It’s sublime.

  And fucking scary as all hell.

  So where I’d normally turn around, take my guy and ride him hard until we’re both sated, I stay dead still and try to just fucking breathe. And then, when I’m finally on top of my breathing, I shuffle back just a tiny, tiny bit. Imperceptible. But not to him.

  Oh no, not to him.

  Rowan

  It’s all the invitation I need.

  She is mine now.

  Slowly, I lift my left hand, gather her hair in a ponytail and gently wrap it around my fist.

  A shudder goes through her.

  I blow on her neck and in the light of the moon, I watch goose bumps erupt on her skin. For a second, I wonder if I should take the airpods out of her ears. It’s killing me that I don’t know what she is listening to, that she can’t hear what she’s doing to my breathing.

  But I decide against it. If she wants them out, she is free to take them out. I suspect she won’t.

  Then I stop thinking, and do.

  She trembles when my lips find her neck and I give her a long lick across before I land on the side, just below her jugular and nip her. Hard enough to sting, soft enough not to be an arsehole. She whimpers and my rock-hard dick trembles in the air between us, the tip brushing over the tee covering up her butt.

  My knees go a bit soft and I have to bend down and lean my forehead against her shoulder for a moment to gather my wits. I had a plan. I was going to go long and slow and draw it out all night, but I don’t think I can.

  I need to come. She needs to come. This has been brewing since the moment we first looked at each other and it needs release.

  I want to be inside her so bad.

  Inside her, not inside a plastic wrapper that’s inside her, but her.

  With the last shred of decency I possess, I remind myself that that is not an option, that that needs discussions and preparations we don’t have the time for just now.

  Then I go to work best I can under the circumstances.

  Raven

  He’s done it again, the hair tethering thing.

  I don’t even think he realizes it, but it does something to me. Something I don’t have words for. It makes me feel weirdly safe. When it really, really shouldn’t.

  It makes me feel safe and cared for and grounded and anchors me in the present. I can’t escape into flights of fancy, have to stay here, in this reality.

  And in this reality, I want him inside me so, so bad. Him. Rowan The Python Hadlow-Fuller-O’Brien. Completely. Naked. Bare. I know I’m safe. I know I’m clean. But is he?

  So no. Not today. This much rationality I still cling to despite all my instincts screaming at me to fuck it, and be fucked. But again, for no sane reason, I trust him. He wouldn’t just plow into me bare without my consent. Whatever he’s up to, I’ll be protected.

  I whimper when he nips my jugular. He’s both so gentle and so fucking feral at the same time. I’ve never known anyone like him. Or maybe I did, and they never had a chance to show it.

  As if he knows that I’m thinking of other people, he takes his forehead off my shoulder where he was resting it for a moment, and nips me again, a bit harder this time. The pain brings me back to the here and now.

  I can feel him grunt against my skin before his mouth wanders back to the center of my neck in open-mouthed kisses that drive me nuts. Then his teeth find the neckline of my tee and clamp down on the fabric. His free hand comes up, his fingers pinch the fabric and with his teeth and his hand, he tears apart the back of my shirt, all the way down.

  A thrill goes through me like I’ve never known before.

  When he’s finished ripping the cotton apart, he tugs the remnants of the garment over my right shoulder then helps the rest of the fabric fall free from my left side. He takes a sharp breath, sharp enough so I can feel the air being sucked in by him, and stands back for a moment.

  I know what he’s looking at.

  He won’t be able to see much in this light, but it still feels like he’s taking in my raven one feather at a time. It’s a big piece, not quite as big as his, but it covers the whole of my back. A raven landing in a storm, her wings cloaking around her body, the claws spilling over onto my right butt cheek.

  He skims two fingers over it, growling his appreciation and not once faltering when he hits the bumps in the road, the scar tissue beneath. And there are many, many bumps. When he’s finished with his exploration, he suddenly slings his arm around my front. He holds me to him, brushing against my tits as he does, the hairs on his arm teasing my nipples, seeking as much skin contact as possible and nestling his enormous erection against my spine.

  I’m completely naked, standing back to front of a naked beast under the light of the moon.

  I’m at his mercy.

  And John Mayall is still singing the Blues.

  Time for John to take a break.

  Rowan

  I don’t think she knows it, but when I press every inch of skin possible against her, she emits a low growl. It is the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.

  And suddenly I want her to hear me, too.

  I want to whisper in her ear how fucking hot she is, how tiny her body feels compared to mine, how much I love her round thighs and her bubble butt and the swell of her belly, a real woman’s, not trained away and made flat to look like a man’s.

  I want her to hear how much I plan to worship her tits, plenty big on her, yet perfectly sized to sit whole in my hands.

  And as if she can hear my thoughts, she reaches up and one by one takes the airpods out of her ears. For a moment, I hear the faint echo of an unmistakable blues guitar and a smile tugs on my lips as she carefully lops them onto the carpet, to land by the skirting board. She’s got taste, this woman, that’s a cert.

  “John Mayall, huh?” I whisper into her ear and gently bite down on the now accessible right lobe.

  She whimpers in answer then slings her arm backwards to reach up around my neck, arching her back and pushing those tits out like ripe fruit. I straighten up to look over her head at them. She’s so small compared to me, she barely makes the height to furl her hand around my neck.

  She’s on tip toes when she looks at me over her shoulder, drawing my gaze away from her tits and to her face, and our eyes finally meet in the dark room.

  My heart stands still for a moment at the desire I see there. It’s almost unbearable. I’ve been with more women than I care to remember. Some good, some bad, none ugly, but I’ve never felt like I do in this moment.

  Like that person belongs to me. Mine. Completely.

  It’s so overwhelming I want to run. All the way back to the ugliness I came here from. To the fights and the blood and the gore and the broken, debauched people of the life I made.

  But then her tongue darts out of her mouth, wetting her lips and all thought leaves me again. I still hold her hair wrapped in my hand and I pull up a little, so she has to stretch a bit more, until her legs start trembling with the effort to hold her up. For a moment, I bask in her helplessness.

  But I’m a killer, not an arsehole, so I bend my knees a little, giving her
taut body some slack. Then I let my hand travel down her belly until I find the apex of her thighs. I slip my flat palm in between and cup her mound. It hurts my battered hand a little, but it’s a good hurt. It reminds me who I am.

  She trembles when I lift her up.

  Raven

  I’m not a pixie size woman, I’m five four and I weigh one-hundred and forty pounds, but he cradles my pussy and lifts me up as if that’s nothing.

  He slides me up until his cock is nestled firmly against my butt. Then he bends us both forward, so it slips right between my cheeks, sitting long and hard all the way along my cleft before he brings us upright again. He presses my body against his and I can feel the ridge of him against my butthole as my ass cheeks take his dick in a tight grip.

  “I love your butt,” he rumbles, and I feel my juice drip through my slit, into his palm.

  His thumb caresses the soft hair on my mound in gentle, sweeping motions, infuriatingly far away from my clit.

  I wonder what he makes of my bush. I only ever shave a little around the back but nothing ever around the front. I like that I have hair there, that I am a woman, not a girl. I don’t want to be anywhere near a guy who needs a clean-shaven pussy to come. Call it a hang-up. And, again, like with the pain he dished out earlier to bring me back to the room, it is as if he knows exactly what it is I need. That I need verification, to know we’re on the same page.

  “Soft,” he growls in my ear. “So fucking silky. I knew it. I had you down as a fur girl. I love that you’re a fur girl. So fucking sexy.”

  I whimper at his words. Nobody has ever spoken to me like that. He tugs my hair to bend my head back more. His dark eyes glimmer in the moonlight as he looks into mine. And for a moment, we’re just suspended in this absurd pose, drowning in each other’s gaze, while my feet dangle in the air, like a fish on a hook.

  He smiles before he leans in and ghosts his mouth over mine, gently, just a hot breeze fanning over them. He holds his lips there, barely touching mine, and I can feel him grin just before he crooks his middle finger and slices through the seam of my pussy until it finds my hole. I jolt up as another surge of liquid lust seeps through me. I make a noise I barely recognize when he just plays around the rim a bit instead of inserting it where I need it.