by J. C. Allen
Within minutes, we had the place wiped out of the Cavaros. I stood, kicked one of the Cavaros, and spat on them.
“Fuck with us again and see what happens, dipshits,” I said.
And then I heard a woman’s scream.
It came from the hallway we had just left. I looked to see the others hadn’t heard it; they were too far away. I knew walking away from the group at this point was a dangerous move, but given how much damage we had done, I found it unlikely that any further trouble was brewing.
I hurried to the sound of the scream, which continued. I found the door, kicked it open, and saw a single Cavaro standing over a tall, blue-haired woman. He turned just in time to see me pull the trigger, ending his pathetic, criminal existence.
“Are you OK?” I said to the woman, helping her out.
“Yeah,” she said through tears. “You’re Zeke.”
I looked at her in surprise. I didn’t want to sound crass, not after having saved someone’s life, but this didn’t look like a woman I had slept with. Most of the club girls had natural hair, and a blue-haired woman—albeit a very attractive one—definitely wasn’t someone I thought I would have slept with.
“You know me?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m Jenna. Allison’s roommate.”
Oh.
Oh, please don’t have said bad things about me.
“What happened?” I asked. “How did you wind up here?”
She shook her head, as if she blamed herself for it.
“Last night, Allison said you and her broke up. She said she was happy about it, but my other friend Marissa and I both knew she liked you. She was just… she has a way of being moody and doubling down on things at times.”
Tell me about it.
“But we decided to indulge her and felt that the best thing that could happen was if we went out. So the three of us came here. Allison left early, though, which wasn’t a surprise. She wasn’t really in the mood to party and so she left. Marissa and I started flirting with these guys—the ones who kidnapped us—and asked us if Allison was with one of the Kinsmen. I guess that was something they wanted to know? Maybe they thought they could use us to hurt you guys. In any case, though, we tried to leave. Marissa left a little earlier than me, but before I could leave, I got knocked out and woke up here.”
“Do you need to go to a hospital? Did they… you know.”
“No, I’m pretty sure not,” Jenna said. “Thankfully. But I did admit that Allison was seeing you. I’m sorry, I hope—”
“It’s why we’re here,” I said. “And, in a way, might even be a good thing. I don’t think we would have come here if not for them attacking us after you told them.”
“Oh my God…”
I lifted Jenna up from the ground. She was still sobbing a bit, but she’d managed to better get control of herself. Her sobs were more like sporadic sniffles, and her eyes, though red, weren’t really shedding tears anymore.
“Where’s Allison by the way?”
I smiled.
“She’s safe,” I said. “Let’s go visit her, huh?”
22
Allison
I couldn’t ever remember being in the hospital before today.
But, then again, I supposed that being in Minnesota had given me a lot of “firsts” that I was not prepared for at all.
I didn’t even know where to start when it came to rattling off the firsts. First time road trip. First time casual hookup. First time turning a casual hookup into something more. First time going to the hospital. First time getting attacked.
Honestly, the whole thing was just one giant blur. It had started out with me just starting to wake up before I felt something extremely hot and hard hit my leg in the morning. Thanks to some quick thinking from Zeke, I’d gotten pulled away and had something wrapped around my leg, but he quickly ran off. I tried to tell him that I heard something from outside the window about the group going back to The Red Floor—the very place we all had gone last night—but he had hurried away by the time that I had gotten that out.
Moments later, some prospects or something like that from the club came by and took me to the hospital, thankfully in one of their vans. I had nothing against riding a bike, but I felt like if I was going to ride one, I wanted to make sure I was doing so with Zeke. It was strange to say, but given how I would never ride one without also having my arms wrapped around the driver, it felt like I would be cheating in a way if I rode the bike with anyone else.
And now, here I was. No broken bones. No nerve damage. Some bleeding, obviously, but all things considered, I’d avoided the worst of the damage. I was mostly just bored, sitting there in the hospital room.
Until the nurse came by and advised I had three very happy and very relieved visitors.
I advised her to send them in, and moments later, Jenna and Marissa bounded into the room, bursting into tears as they hugged me. Over their shoulders, I saw Zeke standing by the door, his arms crossed, a smug yet satisfied expression across his face.
“What happened to you two?!?” I asked in surprise.
“Zeke told us what happened to you,” Jenna said. “You missed out on quite a night.”
Both of them explained what happened from there, with Marissa managing to escape the worst of it but still waking up in a panic when she saw neither of us were home. Jenna explained what happened to her and how close she came to getting raped or killed before Zeke saved the day.
I looked at Zeke with awe. The entire time had known him felt like a giant continuous sexual encounter, and it was one that I had always been happy to continue. Even now, the sex was something that I absolutely wanted to continue—for how good he made me feel, he wasn’t about to go anywhere else.
But the actions of the past twelve hours or so had proved that while he may have been cocky, young, and foolish, he had a big heart, a protective sense of duty, and a fearlessness that allowed him to fight anything and everything that opposed what he most wanted. Seeing this side of him made me look at him in a very different light. No longer was Zeke just a “Sex God.” He was just a great man, period.
A moment like this was the kind of moment that made me not just want to be with him for the rest of my time in Minnesota, but to do everything in my power to keep myself in Minnesota. If nothing else, I think Marissa would have appreciated the company of having someone else in the area. Jenna would survive; artists had a tendency to have that freedom.
But that was the beautiful thing here. It wasn’t just “if nothing else.” There was a whole lot more “something else.”
“Marissa, Jenna,” I said. “Do you mind if I—”
“Oh, no, not at all,” Marissa said with a giggle. “Come on, Jenna, let’s let them have some fun.”
“I mean—”
But they were laughing as they already were walking out the door. Zeke shut it gently behind them, smirking as he strolled over to the bed. I swore, from the look on his face, he seemed like he was going to try and sleep with me right there in the hospital bed.
Would it really be that different or that crazy? We’d already made love in a gas station restroom and his club’s spare bedroom. I didn’t think we could do any better.
But it was something of a feign, because he came over to me and squeezed me tight in a nice hug. I was not surprised at all that I found myself falling into his embrace and accepting it; this was not the hug of someone who just was trying to get me hot and bothered for some sex. This was the hug of someone who really cared about me.
“Sorry I had to come here,” I said. “Really, it was just a scratch.”
Zeke chuckled as he let me back down gently to the bed, planting a firm kiss on my lips.
“Better safe than sorry, my goddess,” he said.
“Oh, God, you’re going to roll with that now?”
“Hey, why not? If I’m your Sex God, the god needs his goddess, right?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Did you get them? The guys
who did this?”
Zeke nodded, though the smirk vanished.
“We had to go in and take care of business, which is always a tough, dangerous thing to do,” he said. “Turns out they had taken over The Red Floor.”
“I was there last night, I—”
“It’s OK, I know,” Zeke said, gently pressing me down on the shoulder. “Jenna told me everything. You don’t have to feel bad.”
He cleared his throat, holding his hand up to his mouth.
“But Allison, look, I’ve been hiding how I’m really feeling about you. I’ve been trying to hesitate and play it cool by saying we’ll see what happens, but I want to be with you, damnit. I’m ready to retire the Sex God moniker, well, not quite, but you get what I’m getting at.”
We both laughed at that. Never change, Zeke. Never, ever change.
“I know you have to figure out if you can stay here or not, but right now, on my end, there’s nothing I’d rather have happen than to be with you. And by be with you, I don’t just mean in bed. I mean really be with you, Allison. I want to hold your hand in the club, take you to my family’s dinner, call you my girlfriend. And I know that you have to figure out things on your end too, but—”
“Zeke,” I said, taking his hand in mine.
The truth was, even as recently as last night, while I’d been open to being exclusive with him, I wasn’t necessarily open to us being an item. Maybe that was just pedantic, but I didn’t like the idea of committing to something when I couldn’t guarantee I’d be able to follow through on it.
But this morning had really showed me the protective, loyal side of Zeke that I’d hoped to see if we were to become something serious. When my leg got hit, Zeke didn’t freak out. He didn’t crack inappropriate jokes. He just showed that he cared. He took immediate action, made sure I was safe, and then went and saw the problem.
There was a reason, I suppose, that men of sexual desire could be called boy toys but not man toys. A boy was someone you could fuck silly and have a great time with, but not go much deeper. A man was someone you could do everything with and reveal all parts of yourself.
And, as this morning had proved, I had found my man.
“I have figured things out,” I said. “I want to be with you too. I haven’t heard back from the one job I applied to in the area, but they should be getting back to me any moment. And, honestly, even if they don’t, I’m a photographer. I could open my own studio. I have the internet at my hands; it’s going to let me do whatever I want wherever I want. So you know what? Instead of saying, ‘let’s figure things out and then see if we can be together,’ I’m going to say ‘let’s get together and then figure things out.’”
I had seen Zeke give many smiles in my time with him. I had seen the smile of confidence bordering on arrogance; I had seen the smile of bemusement; I had seen the smile meant to hide some internal frustration and disappointment.
But until that moment, I had never seen a smile that was quite so grateful as the one before.
“I think we can do just that,” he said.
He leaned in to kiss me. I may have been in a hospital bed, but there was one thing that I could say for sure.
I had never felt better in my life.
23
Zeke
I imagined that I would have proposed us being boyfriend-girlfriend eventually, but I was really glad that Allison did it.
I had all but settled in my head that I was going to make the offer, but even when I watched her with Jenna and Marissa, I wasn’t sure what would happen. She was, after all, only here for the summer, and while I wasn’t exactly clear on her work other than that she loved photography, our small area in Minnesota wasn’t exactly San Francisco in terms of having a shitload of high-paying jobs. Sometimes, I swore Simon worked construction just because it was the only thing in the area.
But when I had heard her confess how she really felt and that she wanted it, I’d never felt happier in my life.
I felt even happier that she was released just a couple of hours later, with the notice to just be careful about not taking the bandages off for a couple of days. I thought with bemusement that that might make sex a little tricky, but I wasn’t minding at all.
“Shall we go back to my place?” I said. “Celebrate the occasion?”
Allison arched her eyebrows.
“I’ll do you one better, Zeke,” she said. “Let’s go back to my place. I’ll text the girls to give us some space.”
I, in turn, arched a single eyebrow.
“I think that’s a deal.”
Seconds later, I had run ahead of her, grabbed my motorcycle, and roared toward the hospital entrance, where Allison got on, having changed into clothes that wouldn’t cause her ass to be visible to the world. And I had to say, having her on the back of my bike felt much better than last time, less like I had to cherish it or fear that it might be one of the last times.
I had left things so weird last time, so off—but now I had been honest. While that was pretty scary for me, after everything that had transpired, I was ready to take that leap and take that risk. Whatever happened, happened—and now, that wasn’t a deflective statement meant to give me space against the possibility of heartbreak.
It was a statement of confidence that we could handle whatever came our way, no matter what obstacles, challenges, or problems arose.
“My roommates are now officially not home,” she said as we got off the bike.
I had figured as much since she had suggested her place and some time had passed since we left the hospital., but hearing her confirm it was intensely exciting for me.
“Good, I can still make you scream.”
I came up behind her and kissed her ear. She giggle and shut the door behind her. I may have wanted more than just sex from her, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t want to have some incredibly pleasurable moments together.
I surveyed the space in one fast look, trying to figure out the best spots that we could have sex. It was like now that the thought was there, it had to be quashed.
“Don’t judge us, we’ve had a very stressful past four years.”
I looked at the things strewn across the kitchen and living room. I could definitely tell three girls lived there, but I wasn’t about to judge, not with the way my bachelor pad had once been.
The place was, not surprisingly, pretty quiet. It was a nice kind of quiet, though; it was the kind of quiet that told us we could take our time, two lions circling the area in peace until we decided to get it on and get it on hard.
And then, something caught my eye in a half open door. I peered inside, examining the area… until I saw a familiar tattoo pattern.
I walked in, picked up the picture next to the computer, and realized that it was me.
She took photos of me. She has them printed. Wow…
I looked good, and then I saw more photos in the holder of the printer. The way she captured me like more than a person, like my body was art, was incredible. She was talented, yet acted like she wasn’t. I was sure that while I looked good, she had a way of making everyone else she took photos of look equally good.
“Oh no—”
Her soft voice startled me. I turned on my heel and grinned at her, finding her mortified expression endearing. I thought of letting her hang a bit but decided that was just a hair too mean.
“I like them.”
“Really?” she said as she stepped inside cautiously.
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, I knew you took photos, but I didn’t know you could do them like this.”
“It takes a bit of editing.”
She leaned on the table next to me and crossed her arms. I went over to her and stood in front of her, holding up one that was a glorified nude.
“Yeah, you had to turn me from a homeless man into a star,” I said with a playful eye roll. “No, you did this. Take credit, Allison. It’s damn good. And I am not just saying that because it is me in the image.”
She grinned a bit and looked up at me.
“It is a good photo,” she said, taking it in her hands before turning to me. “The real thing is better though.”
Sex God is back in action, baby.
And he’s only making an appearance for one woman.
She wrapped herself up around me and kissed me, her tongue sliding with mine immediately. I growled against her and dragged her against my cock, feeling the heat of her pussy against me. Her fingers laced into my hair before she dragged them down and shed my jacket from me. Her fingers continued down farther to fist my cock over my jeans, rubbing me out of my damn mind.
“Fuck, get undressed baby, I’m fucking you right here.”
I pulled back and kicked off my boots and socks so I could get my jeans down. She did the same thing, and I only had the minimum amount of patience needed to pull my cock from my briefs and slip her panties to the side.
“Oh god Zeke, yes—” she cried out when my cock slammed inside her.
She was so wet already, I had to wait a few seconds before I really went into her. I kissed her deeply and slid my fingers over her clit, right around to under where her G-spot was. I knew I could make her tremble, and I was going to do just that.
“You’re so fucking tight. You always feel too damned good.”
She dragged my shirt off the same time I pushed her top down to free her breasts. I kissed her and moved down to circle her nipple with my tongue, still working her clit and kissing her, leaving marks on her neck. The desk started to rattle.
Her body went lax as she laid back against it, exposing her more to me. It didn’t take long for her to come for the first time. I used both hands to hold her thighs open and keep going hard into her as I climbed closer to my own release. I wanted to freeze the moment, but the tightness in my body takes over, stemming deep in my pelvis and my cock wrapped in her sweet pussy.
