Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  I come up closer beside him. “I looked for you, Landon. I did. But you were gone. You left the group home.”

  He struggles with a few more deep breaths. I can see the pain on his face. Seeing him like this makes my heart ache so hard, I can’t help it: I wrap my arms around him, even though I know I shouldn’t touch him. Landon puts his head down on my shoulder. Wraps a heavy arm around my back.

  I’m hugging Landon. His hand comes behind my head, holding me to him. I shut my eyes, and we just breathe.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, lifting his head.

  “No. Please.”

  “This…never happens anymore.” His shoulders raise a little as he says it.

  “I’m special,” I say as I squeeze him. “Worth the reaction.”

  He laughs. It sounds a little hollow, but it is a laugh.

  “For old times’ sake.” I rub his back. My eyes start leaking tears again.

  “Jesus, Evie…” His arms squeeze me so tightly I can barely breathe.

  When he loosens his grip, he takes a half step back and looks down at me. His hand strokes my hair back from my face. His eyes are asking. I can feel them asking. I nod, just a tiny motion of my chin, and Landon leans down…and his lips find mine.

  The kiss starts gentle, but it quickly deepens. I’m possessed, consumed by Landon’s mouth and hands. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him like I’ll die if I don’t. Maybe I will.

  Landon’s breaths and Landon’s body. I grab onto him, and I’m a girl again. There is nothing but the hard, warm muscle of his neck under my hand, his chest against my breasts, his hands in my hair, and his hot mouth, rougher with his stubble.

  Soon we’re grabbing at each other, too-much-for-the-sidewalk grabbing. I should let him go. Instead I take his hand and lead him up the porch steps. Fumble with the key. Alyssa, don’t be home. I push the door open and—thank you, God—the place is dark.

  As we step into the foyer, Landon’s mouth finds mine again. His hands in my hair are gentle, his lips brushing my forehead in a soft moment where I feel like he’s waiting for the okay from me.

  I trail my hand down his chest. “Landon…”

  I can feel him harden underneath my fingers. He groans as I rub him, then we’re moving toward the den.

  I’m dragged in Landon’s current, battered in his storm. His hands on my face, in my hair, on my blouse…

  When his fingers tremble on the last of my shirt’s buttons, his eyes come to mine, and then he rips the fabric. His hands are frantic, pushing my shoulders as he urges me onto the couch, holding my face as he presses me against the back of it and kisses me like there is no tomorrow.

  Landon kissing me. The taste of him, the feel of him, even the smell of him as I yank his shirt off and run my hungry fingers over his taut abs—it makes me frenzied. Landon jerks, and groans. My palms rove up to his pecs as he kisses my neck.

  “Evie…”

  His hot mouth roves down, scruff scraping my skin, and then he’s kissing me along my collarbone while one hand lifts my bra and frees my breasts.

  It’s stupid, reckless stupid, but I go for his pants. I reach into his boxer-briefs and grab onto him—hard, hot Landon, long and thick and standing straight up for me. He’s on his knees, his body pressing mine against the back of the couch, but when I start to stroke, he sags down on his heels and clasps his hands around my biceps. My palm cups his head, and he lets out a soft groan.

  “Evie…fuck.”

  I need that: to hear his voice, husky with lust. I need Landon hard and thick in my hands, heavy in my hands. His long cock twitching in my palm; his hands on my shoulders; his mouth on my breasts.

  He nips one, and I gasp, and I can feel him pulsing in my hands. I run my other hand around his balls, then cup them, teasing. He’s sucking my nipple, and I’m jacking him off.

  “I missed this…” The words slip out, and I can feel them echoed in his dick: it twitches, and his balls draw up as he starts breathing harder.

  “Fuck…” And then he pulls away from me, his face strained as he turns me around so I’m facing the couch’s spine. He wraps an arm around my chest to hold me up against him, and I feel his cock against my hip.

  “Are you sure?” he grits. I feel him stroking himself.

  “Oh yes…please!”

  His fingers find my slit and stroke down through my slickness. He parts me as he drags back up and skates around my clit.

  “Oh God,” I gasp. He slides a finger inside, and I groan and sink down on it. I feel his length against my backside as he shoves another finger into my pussy.

  His thumb circles my clit, and I whimper. His fingers thrust, gentle but deep. My legs shake. “Oh God, Landon!”

  I shimmy up against him, trying to work my hips so I can find the head of him and get it where I want it.

  “Rub yourself…against me,” I pant.

  I feel his cock nudge between my thighs. He rubs himself between them, and I reach between my legs to touch him. My fingers stroke his head, and Landon groans. I feel a slick spot on his head, and my clit throbs so hard I gasp again.

  “Please!”

  “Please what?” His fingers find my nipple, twisting.

  “I need you!”

  “For what?” His voice is dark and rough.

  “Please…give it to me!” Tears spring to my eyes as he teases my clit.

  “Give you what,” he rasps, “and where?”

  “You know what.”

  “Say it, Evie.”

  “I want you…” He kisses my shoulder, nipping hard, until I’m panting.

  “Where do you want me, Evelyn?” His thumb glides over my clit, and I moan.

  “Please…in my pussy.”

  Landon grabs my hips. He pulls me back against him, his cock still squeezed between my thighs, and then he slides his fingers out of me and I can feel his thick head roll against my pussy from behind. His cock glides between my lips as he presses a finger on my clit. A shiver wracks me, makes me arch my back and push myself toward him and whimper, “Oh, please…”

  “Please what?”

  “I want you…” My voice is shaky. Hoarse.

  I moan as Landon rolls his head between my swollen lips. I scoot myself back, and he presses his head into me, barely enough to penetrate. I cry out as I try to rock back on him, needing more.

  I can feel him breathing heavy, too. I scoot back, desperate to take all of him. He grabs my hip and squeezes.

  “Landon, please…”

  “Be sure,” he warns.

  “I’m sure!”

  I hear a rip: the condom wrapper. He shifts his hips, and I can feel him spread it down his long, thick shaft. I’m throbbing for him, wetter than I’ve ever been. My cunt feels swollen, my clit hot. When Landon spreads me open with his fingers, I groan. His hand goes around his cock. I feel him tease me with one final stroke through my wet lips, and then he fits himself against my core and shoves inside.

  I groan, and buck against him. “Oh!”

  His body goes still—briefly. Then he’s moving, slow and steady, harder, deeper, filling me so thoroughly, I can’t help screaming as he pumps in and out, and I slump over the couch.

  “Ahh…” I bite my lip as Landon wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me to him. I can hear him grunt, can feel his body, damp and shaking, even as he picks the pace up, fucking me so rough and hard I’m seeing stars. Just a few thrusts, and he groans sharply.

  His hand comes to my clit then, and he teases me with gentle strokes as he pumps deep and hard, making me cry out. Landon’s hips move faster. On my clit, his finger circles. Then I squeeze my eyes shut, brace my body for it—

  I come as I feel his cock expand and thump inside me. Landon gives a low grunt. Then our panting fills the room. His body bows around mine: his chest pressed against my back, his arms coming around me tightly.

  “God…” I feel his face against my hair before he hugs me, then shifts on his knees and pulls out.

 
“Ohh.” I feel so empty now. I turn to face him with my wet eyes. Landon’s eyes are slightly wide, but when he gets a look at me, I see relief on his face.

  “Ev…” He hugs me to him. I can feel his lips on my head. “God, Evie.”

  His chin nuzzles my hair, and I can feel his chest pump as he inhales deeply…exhales slowly. For a moment, I feel blissful with his body pressed against mine. And then he’s up.

  He disappears in the direction of the kitchen, coming back with a warm, wet towel I recognize from my hand towel collection. His eyes assess me as he kneels beside the couch where I’ve curled up. He gently moves me onto my back, draping the hot cloth over my pussy. From his spot beside me, on his knees, he peers down at me.

  “I’m okay.” I smile. His mouth twitches, a half-smile he’s not quite sure about, and it’s so much like old times, it makes my heart squeeze.

  Still kneeling on the floor beside me, he shifts nearer to my head and shoulders. Then he wraps an arm around me, holding me close, my face against his shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” I ask him quietly.

  He nods as his lips brush my hair. “Thank you.”

  His words are softly rumbled. With his heavy arm around me and my face against his shoulder, it feels so much like old times, I want to cry—or scream.

  Before I can do either, Landon stands.

  Dear God, he’s beautiful. In the dim light coming from the kitchen, his hard body looks just like a statue: heavy, rounded shoulders; chiseled chest; and long, muscular legs. I can’t help the way my gaze dips down to his most gorgeous part.

  He smirks. I smile. Before I can say something silly, he turns and scoops his shirt up off the coffee table. As I watch him pull it over his head, my stomach clenches.

  “Are you going?”

  He nods, bending for his boxer-briefs, thrown halfway across the rug. “Yeah.”

  I blink at his bare ass as he pulls the underwear on. Then he turns around to me, grabs a blanket we tossed on the floor, and spreads it over me. “You should get some sleep,” he says, before he turns to put his pants and shoes on.

  I can’t move or speak, can only watch him as he buttons up and turns into a surgeon right before my eyes.

  He’s not my foster brother anymore. He’s not my secret lover. I don’t know who he is now.

  Landon comes and stands beside me for a moment, his hand smoothing down the back of my hair.

  “Rest,” he says. And then, without another look at me, he goes.

  Five

  Evie

  I lie there on the couch a while before I get up, lock the front door, and climb up to my loft bedroom.

  It isn’t true I didn’t get his letters.

  I read every one of them. Not in real time. I couldn’t. My parents hid Landon’s letters while we worked out what to do. While they discussed what I wanted and how it meshed with what they would allow. But I read them later. After it was too late, after everything was ruined.

  I reach into the back of my desk’s top drawer and pull out the envelopes I kept. I take them to my bed, turn on my nightstand lamp, and take the first one from its time-worn envelope.

  1-10-07

  Damn it, Evie. What to say?

  I feel like I’m dead without you.

  How did I live this way for sixteen years…without seeing your face and talking to you. Holding you. It’s so hard to sleep without you. But I’m trying.

  The people in charge of this group home are religious, but in a weird, aggressive way. Most of the other kids here just got out of juvie. I probably would have gone there too, given what happened, but your parents didn’t rat me out. They told DHS they changed their minds about me, but not why.

  Fuck. I wish this never happened. I still can’t believe it. I never got to kiss you bye or tell you face to face I love you more than anyone has ever loved anyone. I love you more than that, Evie. I hope you know.

  I don’t know what to do now. I think about you every hour, every minute, every second. The only break I get from that is sleep, and I’m pretty low on that. I don’t even want to. I just want to get to you. I want to walk to you, even though I think it’s about ten miles. I would do anything to see you, Evie.

  I miss seeing your hair band on your wrist. I miss the way you always smack the visor mirror shut after you put that lip gloss on. I miss the way you would tell me to shut up, the way you always pushed the newspaper down when I was at the table just so you could tease me to my face about reading the newspaper.

  Evie. I don’t know how to live without you. It’s the worst kind of irony, because if I ever hope to see you again, I have to do it. I know that. Please don’t worry. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I will. I’ll find a way to see you. I’m going to try to call you sometime soon, on your cell phone.

  I hope you’re okay, Evie.

  All my love, forever,

  Landon

  I bite my lips and set that one aside. Tears are making my eyes blurry, but I won’t let them fall.

  1-29-07

  Oh, Ev. They changed your number. I waited so long to find a time to call, and now the number doesn’t work.

  It’s hard to swallow.

  I hope that you’re okay, Evie. I have this thought of skipping school one day and taking one of the buses to you. Maybe after school, at soccer. I know I’d get in trouble, but I have to see your face…

  I think about you night and day. This place is not a good one. There are twelve of us, and they only let us do our laundry twice a month. They feed us strange foods, the same things almost all the time, and we can’t bathe alone, because they say there’s not enough hot water. This other guy and I always shower together, and we both fucking hate it. I still have all the clothes from your house. I wish I had something of yours with me. How is it possible that I have nothing of you?

  It hurts, Evie. I don’t want to seem like a pussy, but I hate how much it hurts. I’ve never felt like this before. Not even with the hospital stuff. I think I understand now why people use drugs. I need something to numb my brain. Don’t worry, though. I’m still okay. I try to dream of you when I can sleep.

  It’s been almost a month now, Evie. I’m coming to you soon.

  In college, one of my favorite classes was beginners’ astrophysics. I liked learning the different theories about reality and the universe, even if there was a lot of math. Tears fall now, as I blink down at his words. The words my Landon wrote for me.

  In another universe, he took a bus that day. Maybe it was a day when I was home, after I’d withdrawn from the semester for “mono” and before I got sent off to Aunt Raina’s up in Massachusetts. Landon knocked on my door, and I answered in pajamas and a robe.

  He held his arms out, and I fell into them. Then I told him everything.

  2-10-07

  Are you getting my letters? Ev, I almost hope you’re not. I don’t want to worry you.

  I tried to come see you the other day. The man here, Kevin, wife of Marge, a truck driver and waste of air asshole, caught me and he kicked me. I think one of my ribs is broken, but it’s okay. Those things heal. I read about it in the library and got four rolls of tape from a supply closet at school. With it taped, it’s easier to breathe.

  I really hate this fucking place. The other day, one of the other guys puked. No one will change his bed sheets or let him do the laundry. The people here are fucked up. I don’t know that much about the human brain, but I can tell there’s something wrong with them. If I wasn’t focused on you, I can see how someone could get pretty down and out here. Winter doesn’t help. I hate the constantly gray sky. I hate winter. Did I ever tell you that? I’d love to move to fucking Florida. Key West, maybe.

  Ev, I miss you in my bed. I miss the softness of your lips, the heat of your mouth. I miss my name in your voice.

  Please, Evie. I want to see you. I’m so scared you’ll forget me. Please say that you haven’t.

  Landon

  I don’t go back often—really, eve
r—but for a few moments, here in the cradle of my bedroom, I let myself be her again. The devastated girl. The girl who broke her parents’ heart, who wrecked herself, who failed to reach the boy she loved. The girl who went to the Harvard health services center two weeks after starting freshman year and fell apart so thoroughly that she got escorted to the mental health clinic. The girl who didn’t kiss a single boy in undergrad. Who went on research trips on holidays and interned in the summers. The girl who didn’t have a close friend again until med school, who banned wine until a year ago because drinking made her “too crazy.” Who became Catholic for a full two years just for Confession. I was that girl. I was her. For Landon.

  2-24-07

  I miss you Evie. I miss you more than anything. I love you. I want to cry but I think it’s because I’m so so tired. I’m going to try to sleep tonight. I’m going to try to come see you again. I hope you’re okay. I hope you’re not getting my letters because if you are and you don’t reply I think that would be worse. Please don’t forget me, Evie. I need you to remember and I think I even need you to hurt the way I hurt so much for you. Please hurt for me, and I will fix you. Don’t really, though. Just feel good. Maybe you should think of other things. I hope you’re not hurting for me. I’m sorry that I even said that. Please sleep and eat for me and enjoy living and please take care of yourself. Please take the best care of yourself. I’m sorry I’m so tired, not making sense.

  I love you.

  I found these letters in the bottom of a dry cleaners bag on Dad’s side of the closet, late at night, the night before I flew to Boston.

  It was early March.

  My parents had told me they’d support me in my choice, on one condition. Before I told Landon, I had to spend at least eight weeks with Aunt Raina. Take some time to myself. Add an extra level of surety to my plan.

  I’d spend some time with Raina—a Harvard-educated psychiatrist and my mother’s lifelong best friend—and then, if I still wanted to, I could come home and reach out to Landon. In the meantime, they’d told me, they were keeping watch on him, and he was okay. They had told him that they wanted us to take a break. If he respected their wishes, and he still wanted to, he could see me again in a few months.