by JA Huss
“She didn’t tell me much. Except that it was all your fault. Whatever ‘it’ is.”
“Our fault? Fuck her. She’s the one who stuck her nose into things and… she got people arrested, Tara. Things went sideways because of that girl. And the only reason my mother still likes her is because—”
But I stop myself. Just in time.
“Is because why?”
“Never mind. I don’t really care what Rosalie is up to. But whatever she told you about me, it’s only half the story.”
“She didn’t even know who you were until three days ago. And I literally just found out an hour before we showed up here on your street that she knew you. But she didn’t need to know who you were to understand what you were up to all this time, Lonnie. Lies. Because that’s what people do when they only date on the internet.” She pauses, like she’s considering something. Then she lets out a huff. “Are you even single?” Her hand comes up to her temple and she sighs. Like this new consideration is the last straw and that headache she’s been trying to stave off is now a full-on throb.
“Yes. I’m single. Well, no. I’m not.”
“Oh, fuck this. I can’t.”
She turns to leave but I grab her arm. “Tara. I’m with you. I’m not single because I’m with you.” When she looks at me, I get very sad. Because she looks very sad. And I’m the reason. “I told you on the phone the last time we talked. I invited you down here. I showed you the real me. I told you, Tara. I wanted more. So I get that you don’t trust me, but I came clean first. Before you discovered the lies. And that has to count for something.”
She says nothing.
“Doesn’t it?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - TARA
His words hang in the air between us. And it hits me then. We are both butt-ass naked. I’m standing in a house that I didn’t even know existed less than an hour ago. With a man who has been lying about who he is for two years. With a past trying its best to catch up with me.
And I do not feel shy or ashamed of this nakedness. I do not even feel uncomfortable.
“OK, listen, Alonzo.”
“You can still call me Lonnie, Tare. I’m still him. Just because I’m not wearing a button-down shirt and glasses doesn’t mean I’m not still the same guy.”
“I know. I get it, OK? Because you were right. I was lying to you. To everyone. Even Belinda. Err… Rosalie. Whoever. God, how did three people with so much to hide end up exposing themselves to each other by accident?”
He smiles at me. But offers up no answers.
And how could he? He has no idea why I’m here. If Diablo hadn’t shown up in Fort Collins I’d still be there. Lonnie and I might still be together, or not, since he did start revealing his lies before that knock on the door and my sudden escape via the fire escape with Vann. But the main take-home point here is… I caused this. Not Lonnie. It was me and my dirty secrets in my crazy past that brought us to this moment.
“I’m on the run, Alonzo.”
“Lonnie. Call me Lonnie. Alonzo sounds weird. Please, don’t give up on what we made. Not yet, Tara.”
“I’m not giving up, OK? I’m just trying to live in the real world for once. My name isn’t even Tara. It’s Phoebe. Phoebe Covington. I’m in the witness protection program, just like Belinda.”
Alonzo’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh.”
“Yeah. So you were right. The only reason you didn’t find my lie is because the FBI gave me a real fake background. They matched my new name with my fingerprints and my face, they gave me a freaking master’s degree in library science, for fuck’s sake. My lie is as real as they come. So before we get clean”—I nod my head towards his cool shower—“I’d like to come clean.”
Alonzo stares at me for a moment. And even though I didn’t feel the heat of his stare on my naked body a few seconds ago, I feel it now.
I want to put clothes on. I want to cover myself. I want to hide.
He turns to the shower and twists the handle. Water falls down from the ceiling and steam begins to billow up and press against the glass walls. He takes a step inside the shower, then extends his hand, palm up. Inviting me in with him.
I take it and go inside with him. The steam is better than clothes as far as covers go. And when he sits down on the marble bench and I join him, straddling his legs and settling in his lap, our faces just inches apart, I realize my whole body is achy with the stress of a three-day escape road trip and this feels pretty damn good as far as small, finer things go.
“Tara?”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to know one thing, OK?”
“OK.”
“I’m on your side.”
I open my mouth to say something back. Something like… You know, ya better figure out what that side is before you commit to it. But before those words can escape, he places a finger on my lips.
“Just listen. Love is weird, ya know? Because if you look for it, it’s always slipping around a corner just a block away. And you run and chase after it, but you can’t ever catch up. But if you leave it alone, let it do its thing, then…it comes back. That’s the thing about love, ya know? It comes back when it’s true.”
I think about that for a few moments, letting all his pretty words float around in my head. “You know, you’re pretty poetic for a fisherman.”
“Please. Fishermen were the original poets. All that time on the sea does things to you. Gives you time to think about shit you’d normally never have time to bother with. But here’s my point. I wasn’t looking for love when we hooked up online. I was looking for a distraction. And as far those go, you’re pretty fucking spectacular. And you were just that for a pretty long time. Just a fun, sexy little distraction. But I forgot about love and looking for it. So it came back when I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t need to know your past to know your story. OK? I can read between the lines as well as anyone. But before you say anything else, let me say this again. I’m on your side. No matter what. And I come with a whole bunch of powerful people at my back. My brother Tony, my dad. My best friend Quint. And fuck it, if shit ever goes off the rails, I can make one phone call and get a whole band of Boston brothers on my side. So whatever you did or didn’t do in the past, whatever it is you’re running from”—he reaches up and cups my face with his hands—“I got you. I just need you to know that. I got you.”
So many thoughts are swirling through my head in this moment, but they are soft and hazy thoughts. Like steam surrounding us. So I take a deep breath and fill myself up with his hazy promise, and on the exhale I begin to talk.
“I was in LA, OK? That’s where I’m from. And I wasn’t a librarian or even into books back then. I was a private investigator. And I stumbled into this crazy smuggling ring, Alonzo. People. They were smuggling people into the US. Women and kids. Oh, God. It makes me so sick to think about that night at Long Beach Harbor. I saw more than I should and this guy—Diablo is his name—he caught me snooping and came after me. So I ran. Right to the fucking FBI and they said they’d keep me safe if I testified against him. And I did. But… he got off, OK? He didn’t go to prison like they promised. This whole thing is so much bigger than I thought. He’s free. And somehow he found out where I was and he came for me that day we were on the phone. When I said someone was at my door, it was him. And then Vann, he had already figured out my secret. So…”
I spill out the rest of the story, filling in details about the trip down here. And how Belinda surprised us when we finally made it into the Keys. And what happened at her family motel.
Alonzo is quiet through all of it, his hands on my hips, sometimes gripping me tighter when I reveal certain things. When I’m done he’s still silent.
“So listen,” I say. “If you decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth after all that, I’ll understand. But I need you to know what you’re getting into when you say ‘I’m on your side.’”
Alonzo removes both hands from my hips. One of them comes up to his brow and h
e sighs as he massages his temple.
“I know,” I whisper. “I know this is bad. But you need to understand what you’re getting involved with if you think we have a future together.”
Alonzo just looks off to the side of the shower, staring into nothingness.
“Say something.”
He redirects his attention to me. “Now that comment you made about my Spanish name makes some sense. But, for the record, my name is actually Portuguese. So… Diablo, huh?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “I know. The devil himself. He’s a scary guy, Lonnie. Covered in tattoos. Like you, only not mermaids. Demons. Gorgeously ugly, scary demons. So when I had that reaction to your tattoos, it wasn’t you I was reacting to. It was him.” I look down at his chest, his shoulders and arms. Covered in beautiful women with long, flowing hair and the tough-looking sailor men who search for them on rough seas. “I like yours. I do. I think they’re pretty. Almost… romantic.”
He stands up, taking me with him. Then he sets me back down on the bench and walks over to the shelf built into the tiled wall, squirts some shampoo into his palm, and beckons me with one finger.
“Come here, Tare. We spilled enough secrets for one day. Let’s just get clean now. What do you say?” Then he dips his head under the water and begins to shampoo his hair.
I let out a long, relieved breath. Because I’m totally OK with tabling this discussion for another time. And when I step under the hot water and let it rush over me, I already feel cleaner.
Now he knows. Now it’s his decision. I did my part by telling the truth.
When my hair is thoroughly wet I step out of the water and before I even know what’s happening, he’s massaging shampoo into my hair too. He turns me around and begins to work the soft, coconut-scented lather into the long ends that fall down my back.
I’m so tired in this moment. So freaking exhausted after everything that’s happened—not only over the past three days, but the whole two years that came before. I brace my hands against the glass wall of the shower and lean into it, letting things go as it holds me up.
Lonnie presses his chest up to my back. His cock hard against the side of my ass. And his hand slips around to my front and begin to fondle my breasts.
Even if he’s only doing this to get one more fuck out of me before he dumps my ass and sends me packing, I don’t care.
I think I love him too.
I fell for Lonnie Derringer a long time ago. And even though I don’t know his full story yet, and I have no idea what he is so desperate to hide that he felt the need to lie to me, what I do know is this:
I just fell for Alonzo Dumas today.
I want to be on his side too.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - ALONZO
I want to fuck her again.
I want to be inside her. Now. Later. Tomorrow. Forever.
I heard her story. And I get it. She’s dangerous. To me, to my family, to everything we’ve been doing. It could all come crashing down because this one girl found a way to slide right past all my barriers and snuggle up inside my heart.
And I just can’t find a way to care about it at the moment.
Not with my hands squeezing her soft, round breasts. Not with my chest pressed up against her back and my cock throbbing as it presses against her ass.
I take both of her wrists and slap her hands up against the glass.
“Ohhh.”
“Stay like that,” I command her. “And do not move. Because I’m going to fuck you from behind, Tara Tanner. And make you forget about that life you left back in LA. I’m going to fuck the past right out of you. I’m going to fuck you so hard the only thing you’ll have left is our future.”
She turns her head to the side a little, just enough so I can catch her grin. “Then stop talking, Lonnie. And just fucking do it.”
I close my eyes, trying to keep the excitement building inside me to some kind of sustainable level. The last time was too quick. This time I want to fuck her into exhaustion.
So I start slow. I fist my cock, giving it a squeeze, and then press it between her ass cheeks. “I seem to recall a certain recent conversation where you wanted me to fuck you in the ass after the pussy sex. So guess what? It’s your lucky day.”
I pause, giving her a chance to object or rearrange the fantasy. But she just giggles.
I take that as a yes and use one hand to spread her cheeks open while the other guides the head of my dick to her tight pucker.
She stiffens slightly when I press forward, hissing through her teeth as she sucks in a deep breath and holds it. But everything is wet right now. Her. Me. The whole fucking room. And even once I get past the first muscle, she relaxes and I slide in a little deeper.
“Ohhh, God. Oh, fuck, Lonnie. Yes.”
“Oh, yeah, sunshine. You’re about to get the full length of my fat cock in your ass.”
I thrust forward and she gasps. Her back arches in surprise, her hand reaching back to grip my thigh muscles with her fingernails.
“Want me to stop?”
“Keep going. And do not ask me that again. If I wanted you to stop, Alonzo, believe me, you’d know it. I want to you take me here and now just the way you did in the fantasies. No second-guessing. No pulling punches. Just… fuck me.”
I lean into her neck, still pushing myself inside her, and I nip her earlobe. She lifts her shoulders up in surprise and I feel her whole body shudder.
This just excites me more. One hand wraps around her throat while the other one grips her hair, pulling it hard enough to make her head fall backward until I can see her eyes. She smiles at me. But then I squeeze her throat. Just a little. Just enough to let her know she’s mine. She swallows hard and I feel the wave of that apprehension against my flat palm.
I let go of her hair and slide my hand over the tight, bunched-up tip of her breast. Then over her ribs. Then down the middle of her stomach. And finally, I slip my fingers between her legs. “This is what you wanted in the fantasy, right, sunshine? My finger playing with your clit while I fucked you from behind.”
“Yes.” It comes out throaty and low. Like she’s growling at me. Like she’s some kind of she-wolf and that yes was really a threat.
I ram my hips forward and she gasps. But I move my hand up to her mouth, covering it with my palm. She takes this new development like a champ and begins breathing hard through her nose. And that just excites me more.
I thrust again. And again. And each time she squeals into the palm of my hand.
But now I’m fully inside her and her ass muscles have relaxed. We are no longer two people. Just one. Just us. And my fucking finds its natural rhythm. She pushes her ass back when I press forward. And the slow, steady pattern we fell into becomes more desperate and heated. Our movements more exaggerated. Until I’m about to lose control.
I bend her forward and she takes a few steps back so she can press her head against the glass between her hands, which have slipped down to accommodate our new position, but are still flat against the glass.
I grab her ass cheeks with both hands and begin gripping her hard as my hips punish her from behind and my cock slides in and out of her ass like it’s her pussy.
I look down, watching myself fuck her, then lean to the side so I can see her tits bouncing with each forward thrust. The sound of skin slapping fills the room.
A good, hard fuck. That’s what that sound is. And I’m gripping the skin around her hipbones so hard, I know I’m leaving bruises.
But like she said, if she wanted me to stop, I’d know.
So I fuck her harder. Faster. I’m desperate to hold back and spill at the same time. This drives me crazy. It’s a feeling I both crave and hate. I want it, I want it to end. I want to fuck her forever, I want to blow my load in her mouth.
I want all of it.
And it’s just not possible. You can only come one way each time. So I have to choose.
But first… her. She comes first. Always.
I push her flat aga
inst the glass again, pressing her breasts into it. Her face turns to the side and she’s panting hard. But I’m not done yet. My hand reaches down between her legs and two fingers slip up inside her.
I continue pumping her from behind and I can feel my own cock sliding against my fingers.
She moans and throws her head back, her breathing ragged and coming out in short bursts of desperation.
“Come.” I say it once and only once.
And she obeys. Like the perfect little fantasy fuck, she comes. Her muscles contract around my cock and my fingers at the same time. And I almost give in and lose it.
But I have to wait. Just a few more seconds until she’s done. So to take my mind off how much she turns me on, I bite her shoulder.
She gushes. All over my fingers.
But I don’t give her any time to think. My hand is already reaching for the soap. My dick is already sliding out of her ass.
I grab her hair, flip her around, push her to her knees, and put the soap in her hands.
“You’ve got two seconds to wash me, sunshine. And then I’m gonna stick my cock down your throat and make you choke on my come.”
She smiles at me, rubs the soap along my shaft twice, throws it down, and then crawls under the stream of water falling from the ceiling. Leading me by the dick.
“Oh, you little fucking slut.”
She giggles, rinses off my cock, and then dives down on it. Covering my whole shaft with her mouth. Her tongue flattening against my shaft as the tip of my head hits the back of her throat.
And yeah.
I’m done.
She wins.
I come.
She swallows. Over, and over again.
And I never want to pull my dick out of her mouth. My dick wants to live in there. Forever. I want her to suck me until I die of pleasure.
But eventually the pulsing sensation eases. My cock begins to soften slightly and she withdraws. I bend down and fall on my knees, ignoring the pain when I hit the hard floor of the shower. I lean forward, take her face in both my hands, and I kiss her.
