Truly

by Carmel Rhodes

  A bonfire rages on and music spills through the warm night air. There are about twenty kids in total, all around our age. A few guys toss a football back and forth, but mostly, people are laying in the grass, laughing and drinking.

  Becca grabs my hand, halting our forward progress. Noah turns around and glares at me. “Let’s go, Truly.”

  I hold up my hand. “I’m here, against my will, the least you can do is give me a fucking minute to talk to my friend.”

  “Fuck this,” he grunts, then turns to Amber. “Point me towards the alcohol.”

  She grins a little too eagerly and says, “Right this way.” Adding more alcohol will surely make this night worse, but honestly, I’d rather be here than trapped in a room with him.

  “I’m worried,” Becca tells me once we’re alone.

  “I told you, I’m fine.”

  “Not just about that. This is just all moving really quickly. I thought them being here would help you get over Devin. Noah is notoriously anti-relationship. He says he’s too focused on basketball to have a serious girlfriend and I just thought a fun, no strings attached kind of thing would do you some good.”

  “And now?”

  “Noah has attached major strings.”

  My eyes trail to Noah. He’s looking at me, his gaze dark, like he wants to devour me. I mull over Becca’s words. It’s impossible, right? There’s no way he could be in love with me. Noah loves basketball and himself—in that order. Me, on the other hand, I get attached. I’m just not sure if my growing feelings are real or if I’m suffering from some sort of Stockholm Syndrome.

  “What if we just get drunk and avoid this whole conversation altogether?” I toss out.

  She sizes me up before relenting. “Okay, but if he touches you like that again, I’m busting his kneecaps.”

  I giggle. “I love you, deep.”

  “Deep, deep.”

  I’m drunk...again.

  This time, I’m lying in the grass by the river listening to two boys we just met discuss football stats. Noah has thankfully kept his distance, from both me and Amber, who isn’t as bad as I originally thought. She’s actually pretty sweet when she’s not flirting with my almost boyfriend. She probably lost interest when he showed his psycho side. I’m pretty sure I’m the only dummy who thinks it’s hot...in a totally toxic and fucked up sort of way.

  “Brady is the best quarterback to ever play the fucking game,” the lanky boy with the piercing blue eyes argues.

  “So, we’re just going to pretend like Peyton Manning doesn’t exist?” Juan, whose name I remember because he’s the only other brown person here tonight, retorts.

  “They’re both good,” Amber cuts in. Her boobs bounce a little as she speaks, and now that I don’t want to rip her hair out, I can admit she does have a killer rack.

  The guys chuckle. “Hey, Georgia Girl,” Juan says kicking the toe of my flip flop. “What do you think?”

  I lift up on my elbows, looking to Becca for a little help. She throws up her hands in an I have no fucking clue shrug, then chugs the rest of her beer.

  “Definitely the one who didn’t cheat on his pregnant wife with a supermodel,” I say. It earns me a groan from the guys and fist bumps from the girls.

  Juan comes to sit next to me. “I mean, your reasoning is a little questionable, but since you agree with me, I’ll allow it.” He lifts his plastic cup to cheers. I tap it with mine then drain what’s left. “How long have you and Noah been together?”

  “He isn’t my boyfriend.” My eyes trail over to where Noah and Ethan are passing the football around with a few other guys. The fire dances, casting him in an orange glow, as he goes long. He jumps and catches the ball with one hand. I wonder how different my high school experience would have been had I been with Noah from the beginning. Would I have gone to games? Been popular? It all seems surreal now, considering everything.

  Becca and Amber snort in unison, but I ignore them and refocus my attention on Juan. “That isn’t what he says.”

  Morbid curiosity getting the best of me. I ask, “And what does he say?”

  Juan laughs a little before answering. “He said, and I quote, the one with the purple hair belongs to me.” My mouth drops open and I’m not even sure how to respond to that.

  The football comes whizzing through the air and hits Juan’s cup, spilling the contents in his lap. “MINE,” Noah yells, sneering in our direction.

  Juan laughs. “He’s got it bad, Georgia Girl.” Instead of getting angry at Noah for being a dick, he simply peels his shirt off and stands. “Guess it’s time to swim.” He jogs to the edge of the river. A few people follow behind him.

  “Let’s go swimming, Tru,” Becca says.

  “Drunk swimming in a river at night? Sounds like a sure way to die. I’ll pass, thank you.”

  “Doc would be so proud.” She giggles and shimmies out of her cover up, then runs down to the water’s edge.

  I lay back unto the grass and stare up into the starry sky.

  Noah looms over me. “Can we make up now?”

  “Nope.”

  He drops down, forcing my hands over my head and straddles me. “I wasn’t flirting with her. You said you were bored. I found us something to do, something you’re actually having fun doing. You should be thanking me, not being pissy.”

  “I’m not being pissy,” I sneer.

  He drops lower, rubbing his nose against mine. “Can we make up?”

  I suck in a breath. “No.”

  “What about now?” His mouth latches onto my neck and he sucks and bites me so hard, I know he’ll leave a mark. He holds onto my wrists with one hand while the other slides down my body between us. He fingers the strings holding my bikini bottoms together before slipping two fingers underneath the fabric and rubs my clit with steady pressure.

  “Noah.” I moan, trying to hold onto my fight. But it’s like my body doesn’t get the memo that we’re mad at him. He keeps rubbing me. The fact that our friends are down by the lake doesn’t seem to matter to him. “Stop.” I squeeze my legs closed, trapping his hand between them. I will not let him fuck me into submission. Not this time. “You can’t use sex to get out of every argument.”

  “I don’t use sex to get out of every argument.”

  “Get off me.”

  “No.” His forehead rests against mine. “You don’t get to run from me, Little One.”

  My heart sinks. He still doesn’t get it and I fear if I keep giving in, he never will.

  Sleep evades me. I toss, lifting the cover to my chin, desperate to get comfortable, but I’m too frustrated to settle in. I watch Noah, his chest expands and contracts, sleep taking him deeper and deeper under its spell. It’s bullshit that he can just lay there peacefully, while my insides are tied up in knots.

  We spent the rest of the night engaging in a cold war of sorts. He’d touch me, kiss me, tease me, all in attempt to use my body against me, but I refused to fold. I can’t keep giving in. I can’t keep forgiving. Even if that means I’ll spend every night for the next week and a half with an ache between my legs.

  A part of me waited for the boy, who typically takes more from my body than I’m comfortable giving, to drag me back to the car by my hair and demand that I fuck him. I waited, for the boy with the whiskey eyes and depraved soul to wrap his hand around my throat so that I wouldn’t make too much noise as he impaled me with his cock. I waited for the boy who bullied me for the last two years to degrade me, to use me, to break me.

  I waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  But he never appeared.

  Maybe I’m the deviant?

  Rolling quietly from the bed, I tiptoe to the bathroom. The person in the mirror looks like me. The long purple braids hang from her head like a veil. A cloak, empowering a once powerless girl. Her eyes—my eyes—are dilated with lust. Her lips, swollen from biting and sucking on them all night. I’d gone from the virginal princess, pretending to be a bad g
irl, to this… this person who takes pleasure in being used…being fucked hard and without mercy. This girl in the mirror with the emptiness between her legs and the war in her heart.

  I loved Devin—at least I thought I did. But Noah…he’s my greatest vice. Toxic, dangerous, and yet I’m so completely addicted, I’d willingly drown in his possession.

  The faucet squeaks to life. Water rushes from the spout in a gush. The steady flow doing its part to calm the raging emotions coursing through me. I tug my shirt over my head and kick my shorts down my legs. My bra and panties join the pile of clothes on the floor and I step into the small shower as I twist my braids into a bun on the top of my head. The hot spray hits my sensitive flesh and I exhale for what feels like the first time since we left the lake.

  The lake, where Noah had his hands on me, and in me, playing my body, riling me up and then leaving me bereft.

  I don’t need him.

  My fingers trail down my sternum. Dipping into my belly button briefly before teasing the top of my mound, grazing the short thatch of hair there before moving lower still, pressing into my swollen clit. The pads of my index and middle finger work slowly, drawing circles into the aching bundle, as I imagine Noah’s calloused hands on me. He’d take his time, so I do too, moving in a rough but steady motion. My free hand finds my heavy breast and lifts it before pinching my nipple. It’s not as hard as when Noah does it, but pleasure zaps down my spine nonetheless.

  My center pulses, greedy for attention. I slip my fingers inside, all the way down to the second knuckle. My head falls back as I pump in and out, doing my best to mimic the way Noah did it in the lake, massaging myself from the inside.

  Steam swirls in the air around me, swallowing my small moans, as I drive myself closer and closer to the edge. Two teeth sink into my bottom lip as water beats down on my body. I’m close. So close to the precipice. I pull my nipple harder, thrust my fingers faster, chasing down the high my body has yearned for all night long.

  My eyelids flutter closed, my back arches, and just as I am about to reach the promised land, a strong arm encircles my waist, halting my movements. Startled, I open my mouth to cry out, but Noah wraps his hand around my mouth, stepping into the small shower with me.

  I eye him wildly, wondering where the hell he came from. I wonder how I must look to him, with my finger shoved in my pussy, lust drunk, and wanting.

  “Did I give you permission to touch this pussy?” He growls in my ear. He slides my fingers from my core, and brings them to his lips, lapping up my arousal.

  My heart races in my chest. If I don’t come soon, I’ll die. “Leave,” I demand fighting back the surge of emotion raging through my body.

  “If you wanted to come, why didn’t you wake me up?” He turns us, so my back is against the tile. The water drips down his chest, and I do my best not to focus on how hot he is.

  “What I want is a fucking apology,” I whisper hiss. “What I want is for you to acknowledge the fact that you hurt me, for once.” The words come out in a rush, and I don’t know if I’m angry about tonight or if this has been building since the treehouse; either way, I’m not backing down.

  Without another word, he settles on his knees before me. “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” he says, and again, I don’t know if we are talking about tonight or the treehouse.

  I accept his apology either way. “Thank you,” I tell him, running my fingers through his hair.

  “You don’t get to keep this from me. This belongs to me,” he says, lifting my left leg over his shoulder. “Mine to lick. Mine to kiss. Mine to finger. Mine to fuck.” He drops a kiss on my inner thigh before looking up at me with wild eyes. “Mine.”

  “Then act like it,” I say, my backbone is finally making an appearance. “You want free rein over my body? Deserve me. You want to own me? Earn me. You don’t get to parade other girls in my face and then feign innocence. You want to keep doing fucked up shit to me? You want to keep using me as an outlet for your rage, then prove that I can trust you to lead me down that dark path. If you want me, if you want to possess me, then I get to possess you too.”

  “That sounds an awful lot like a relationship,” he says nuzzling into my center.

  “Is that a deal breaker for you?”

  “Quite the opposite. I just want to make sure you know what you’re signing up for.”

  “A monster,” I whisper.

  “A monster,” he repeats, licking his way from the base of my pussy to my clit.

  Is that really what I want? Noah, Newton’s golden boy with the whiskey eyes. The boy who trapped me in a treehouse against my will and took from my body. The boy who barged his way into my life without asking.

  He once asked me what I did for me? Maybe it’s this. This boy who I should run from. This boy who I shouldn’t want. But I do, God help me I do. I meet his gaze through the cloud of steam and reply in kind. “My monster.”

  Water beads in his eyelashes as he grins up at me. That’s all the warning I get before he devours me. His face between my legs, his velvet tongue lapping at my center in long, measured strokes. He licks every part of me. Sucks every inch. My skin feels alive. My entire being wakes up. My body has been wound so tightly I feel as though I might explode.

  It doesn’t take long for the orgasm to barrel through my body. I shudder as Noah sucks my clit into his mouth. My knees go weak, but he keeps up his assault. Wrenching every last drop of pleasure from me.

  When I finally come down, he slowly lowers my leg and stands. Water drips down the hard planes of his body. His eyes are hooded with lust. His mouth glistens from my pussy. He leans into me, his rock-hard erection jabbing into my stomach. His lips hover inches above mine as he growls. “Mine.”

  “Yours,” I agree.

  He crushes his lips to mine. Kissing me with so much possession I half expect him to fuck me right there, but to my surprise, he breaks the kiss, turns off the water, and steps from the shower. I follow him in a daze. Gaping as he wraps a towel around his waist, and then wraps me in one. “What about you?” I ask as he drops a small kiss on my nose.

  “I need to fuck you in the bed.”

  My eyes widen. “But Becca and Ethan are right there.”

  He shoots me a look full of mischief. “Then you’d better be quiet,” he says, then saunters into the dark room.

  I steel my breath, hating the thought of having sex with my friend asleep in the next bed over, but also hating the thought of not being able to feel Noah’s hardness between my thighs. I suck in one more breath, flip the light switch, and tiptoe into the room.

  Becca and Ethan are sleeping soundly in their bed. Noah sits on the edge of ours, his shadowy outline leaning forward, elbows perched on his knees. I can feel his eyes on me, as I cross to him. It’s too dark to see him in any real detail, but somehow, this way makes it better. He is a dark prince, waiting for his princess.

  As I near, he yanks me the rest of the way, positioning me between his legs. Wordless, he lifts his hands, prying mine away from the towel. I inhale deeply, one last glance to make sure our friends are still asleep then move my hands. Giving him silent permission to take the lead.

  Noah stands, and his own towel that had been precariously wrapped around his waist falls to the ground. He drops his head to the crook of my neck as he loosens my towel, and it joins his on the ground. His body covers mine so even if they did wake up, he’d be the only thing they see. The seemingly small physical act makes my heart flutter. I wrap my arms around his neck, molding myself to him as he guides us to the bed. I slip under the covers and he’s right behind me, pulling my back to his chest and tosses the cover over our heads.

  His mouth is hot on my ear, his erection, hard and hot, is pressed against my ass. “Are you gonna let me in, Tru?”

  I nod, squirming back against him. Adjusting. I lift one leg slightly, opening for him. He positions the head at my entrance and presses into my wetness. He goes slow, savoring each inch until he bottoms out inside of me
. He wraps me in his arms, as he thrusts in and out of me in measured strokes. “God, you feel so good,” he whispers into my ear. “Your pussy is perfect.”

  One hand palms my breast while the other plays with my clit. Though we aren’t facing each other, this position is surprisingly intimate. Between the dirty words he whispers in my ear, and his fingers plucking my body like strings on an instrument, it isn’t long before I’m biting on my bottom lip, desperate to stifle a moan.

  He comes deep inside me, and even when we both come down, he makes no move to slip out. Our sweaty bodies stay connected, and as my breathing levels out, the last thing I hear before I fall asleep is Noah’s gruff voice.

  “Now that I have you, I’ll never let you go.”

  “Last night was crazy,” Becca says twisting the cap from her water bottle and bringing it to her lips. We got on the road early since the Murder Motel didn’t offer continental breakfast and drove the forty minutes to the campsite where we’ll reluctantly spend the night sleeping under the stars.

  “Don’t remind me.” I drop my head back on the plastic lawn chair Noah and Ethan picked up on their camping supply shopping spree and groan. Crazy is an understatement. Noah has a way of bringing out the most extreme emotions in me. From hate to fear to obsession to longing. He is whiskey in a wine glass, fire and spice hiding in a pretty polished package.

  “But you guys seemed awfully cozy this morning, though.” She grins and wiggles her eyebrows at me. Becca was the first person to wake up, which literally never happens, and Becca being Becca didn’t let the fact that Noah and I were naked under the covers go unmentioned.

  “Can you just pretend like you didn’t see anything?” It’s wishful thinking at best. Becca never forgets a thing.

  “Nope.” Becca shakes her head. “To think that just a few weeks ago you hated Noah with a passion, and now you’re wearing his hoodie and his hickeys.” I lift the hood of the hoodie in a vain attempt to cover the mark Noah gave me last night and sink further into the chair. Becca’s expression morphs into the nurturing one she sometimes dons when she’s about to mother me. “Don’t be embarrassed. Despite all the crazy, I still think Noah’s a much better Tedesco.”