The Evolution of Man

by Skye Warren

  I groan. “Not you, too. Sutton’s always on my case.”

  “It’s important, Harper.” He places it lightly on my head, and I stick out my tongue.

  “How am I supposed to be creative with this thing on? It’s like a jail for my head.”

  “It will keep your head in one piece.” He looks up at the wall, studying it. “Did you know they invented the hard hat around the time this was carved? Out in the Hoover Dam, you had these guys on planks of wood hanging on rope seven hundred feet off the ground.”

  I shiver, looking up. The wall is only thirty feet high.

  “They got tired of debris falling and hitting them in the head. Sometimes killing them. So they invented a way to steam canvas, to make it hard enough to protect them.”

  “You know what’s wild? How fragile human beings are, that we actually survived this long.”

  “My dad had it. Prostate cancer.”

  A fist around my heart. A squeeze. “I didn’t know that.”

  Or maybe I didn’t want to know that about him. Maybe I kept myself closed off to him, the way he kept himself closed off from me the night after the poker game. We’re both products of our childhoods, raised not to trust love, determined to buy it so we can see the price up front.

  He leans against the library circular, crossing one foot over the other. “He fought it, you know. Doing everything the doctors told him. It was brutal. It killed him faster than the cancer would have.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, and I am. I’m desperately sorry. No one should have to watch their parent die like this. I don’t know what kind of death would be better, though. I don’t understand death, so maybe I’m more naive than I realized.

  Or maybe death isn’t meant to be understood.

  “I don’t know… maybe I thought I could spare you that, cutting off the trust fund so it couldn’t pay for that experimental treatment. I was relieved when I heard she was going to stop treatment altogether.”

  My eyes close, pressing out a few tears. They’re ever present with me now. I only have to look at something she would have liked in a store, see a food she would have loved to eat before they start falling. I’m a wreck, and she’s more at peace than I’ve ever seen her.

  Christopher shakes his head slowly. “Then I saw you that night. You were so lost. I would have done anything to fix that. Found a doctor from across the world. Invented a cure myself.”

  I reach over the counter and touch the back of his hand. He clasps my hand, even covered with clay and dust. “Who was there for you?” I ask him. “When your father died?”

  He blinks, looking uncertain. It’s a strange expression on him. Foreign. “What do you mean?”

  “Who held your hand? Who let you cry?”

  A long silence. “My mother… she was already distant by the time it happened. I think it was almost a relief for her. A way to leave without the shame of getting a divorce.”

  I make a small sound, unable to help myself. Sympathy.

  “It’s a blur to me now. And after… after, I just focused on school. That was his thing. Focus on school and get a nice safe nine-to-five job with a retirement plan.”

  “He’d be proud of you,” I whisper.

  Christopher looks at me sideways, his expression severe. “I’m not sure about that. I’m the asshole boss of the guys he wanted me to be, but it doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters.”

  “Death isn’t a place in the clouds where people smile down on us. It’s pointless, Harper. You want to know why I work so hard to make money? Because it’s the only damn thing that’s real in this life. Something to hold on to because there damn sure isn’t anything at the end.”

  The next night when I arrive at the library there’s a very tall, very sturdy metal scaffold waiting for me beside the wall. It could have been anyone who left it here. Maybe the construction foreman wanted to check something at the top of the wall. Or maybe Sutton left it for me to use. But I have a suspicion that it’s Christopher.

  Does that mean he’s going to visit again tonight?

  There’s a joint in my pocket, but I don’t bother to light up. I’m already buzzed, my head floating, my body hot. Christopher Bardot is a potent drug for me; I can only handle him in small doses. Anticipation slides through my veins, and I feel high before he even comes.

  Something keeps me from climbing the scaffolding or getting a ladder from the equipment out back. Instead I work with the putty on the ground, keeping one eye trained on the door in case I have another late-night visitor.

  It gets to be so late that I doubt he’s coming, and then I have to face the hard lump of disappointment in my gut, the proof that I want the man I shouldn’t.

  As if the cute little dress I’m wearing tonight didn’t already prove that.

  It’s with those disheartened eyes that I look at the putty I’ve been working with, surprised to find it’s actually pretty good. It’s a more abstract piece than I usually make—geometric shapes unfolding, like an idea being peeled away. Or maybe skin flayed open, in a purely conceptual way. That would be an interesting addition to the wall, exposing what’s underneath. Not in a literal sense, because there’s only shadow and studs back there, but symbolically.

  What is behind the wall? I’m not sure I know the answer. Industry is on the surface. Muscles and iron and longing. What’s underneath must be darker. It always is. The opposite of industriousness… well, that’s being stationary. Being stuck. Maybe even failure.

  The opposite of longing is despair, the certainty that what you want will never come.

  “It’s not your usual style,” comes a low voice from behind me.

  Christopher steps through the archway, wearing black slacks and leather loafers, a stark contrast to the dusty disarray of the library. He’s unbuttoned the top of his white dress shirt, but it still looks crisp. His jacket straight. Every black hair on his head neatly in place.

  He looks around with a hard expression, as if the building’s being inspected by him and failing to impress. As if he still owns the place. That makes me frown. “How did you get in through there? The doors back there are locked.”

  “It’s possible I didn’t send all the keys to the commercial realtor,” he says, not sounding very remorseful. He also doesn’t offer to give me the secret key, and for some reason I don’t demand it. The library is about open knowledge, not locked doors, and Lord knows Christopher isn’t going to vandalize anything. I’m more likely to do that than anyone else.

  But I think the real reason is that I want him to come back.

  “Why are you here?” I ask softly.

  “To make sure you don’t fall and break your neck. It’s a habit of yours.”

  “Only when you’re around. And I don’t mean the library. Why are you here, in Tanglewood, developing the land I didn’t buy from you? You could have sold it.”

  He shrugs. “You know me. For money. For stepping on the backs of the common man.”

  For the first time since I met him, his words ring false, as if he spoke a lie. As if everything else he said to me has been true. “Be careful,” I whisper. “I might think you want to stay near me.”

  He takes a step closer, and I’m suddenly aware that my hands are caked with putty. The world of art shows is glamorous with wine and chandeliers, but the reality of creation is much more messy.

  And a little more dangerous.

  At one point I was so engrossed in my work, so vehement with a sculpting tool that the metal detached from the wood handle and plunged into my thumb. It bled into my dress for a while, and every time I worked the clay after that, smoothed it over and made it ridge, the newly formed scab would break again. There are dark striations in the finished product—not red blood now, but an ominous black.

  Christopher takes my hand and turns it over, pulling away the clay where it’s formed a protective barrier. He makes a tsk sound, probably because I’m careless. Because I have a death wish. Because I don’t wea
r a suit and move numbers around on paper all day. It makes me want to smack him, that sound; why can’t I be good enough for him? He isn’t your father, Avery said, but this sinking feeling in my stomach is exactly the same.

  Except Christopher does something I don’t expect, something I never would have imagined. He presses his open mouth against my thumb, his lips unexpectedly gentle, his tongue sweeping over the cut. There’s clay and blood and sweat, right there against his tongue. He must taste every dream I have, every failure I fear. He must taste me.

  His eyes close, lashes long and black against his cheek, and he moans. He moans as if I’m some sweet nectar he never imagined tasting. I’ve had this man’s cock in my mouth, and still this is the most unabashedly sensual experience of my life. He sucks gently, the suction of his mouth on my thumb somehow reaching straight to my clit, pulling me taut, making my legs press together.

  When he looks up at me again, his eyes are hooded. “You know I want you. You’ve always known I wanted you, and you got into so much trouble because you loved when I came after you.”

  My laugh feels a little shaky, like I’m walking a tightrope high above the ground, praying that I’ll keep my balance long enough to reach the other side. “I don’t get into trouble. Trouble gets into me. That would happen whether you were there to save me or not.”

  His lips quirk up. “But you do love it when I come after you.”

  “Is that why you’re here? Am I in trouble?”

  “No,” he murmurs against my palm, pressing a burning kiss against my lifeline. “I thought we would try something new this time. I’m not here to save you or protect you. I’m not here to catch you when you fall. So I’d recommend not climbing anything.”

  That makes me laugh, though it’s more an exhalation of disbelief. He has always been the white knight to my damsel in distress. It’s been a gift as much as a curse, a way to keep himself near me without ever being vulnerable. “What would you even do with me if you weren’t catching me?”

  “I have some ideas,” he says in a voice like black gravel, rough and sliding. He steps close enough that I can feel his body heat against me, that I can smell the musk of a day’s work in the office, the grit and determination of him made real.

  My voice comes out a whisper. “I don’t know what to do with myself if I’m not falling.”

  Two fingers under my chin. He gazes down at me with fierce possession. “Catch me instead.”

  There are only two seconds in which I might reclaim my sanity. Two seconds when I might remember that he’s dynamite and I’m flame. I use them to lean closer, savoring the brush of his breath against my lips. Every nerve ending in my body lights up in anticipation. His hand slides to the back of my neck, and I surrender to the certain explosion, letting my head fall back, my eyes close. His teeth sink into my bottom lip. Starbursts flare behind my eyelids.

  I’ve been with Christopher a million times in my imagination. If I had a dollar for every time he pressed his lean body over mine… I’d be rich with it, swimming in money.

  The times with Sutton should have been the real thing.

  They should have been reality, but this, this feels brand-new.

  He doesn’t kiss me; that would be too easy for a man like this. He’s made of sharp edges, and he uses them to leave a mark. He bites at my mouth like someone long starved, made violent with it. Strong fingers grasp my hair. The groan he makes sinks into me—a barbed-wire sound. I’m pinned from all sides by him, panting in his hold, whimpering so he knows I don’t want him to let go.

  It only seems to inflame him; he walks forward, forcing me back against the scaffolding, cold metal bars crossing my back. It’s too much, too much, and I take a swipe at his lips with my teeth.

  Only then does he gentle. It’s like he was waiting for me to fight back, like that’s what he needed all along. Maybe that’s what he meant when he said save me; maybe I have to hurt him to do it.

  I pull at his white dress shirt, his jacket, but he’s made too solid to move. The only way to reach him is through my mouth, and I nip at him wherever I can reach—his lips, his chin, the angle of his jaw. He sucks in a breath, but it doesn’t sound like pain. It sounds like someone who’s felt something too good, and he backs up that impression by pushing his hips against me. There’s an outline there, unmistakable. Hot and hard against my belly. Sutton is large, but Christopher is made of steel—not just in his cock, but his abs, his arms. Everywhere I can reach, he’s forged with fire.

  Except for his throat. There the skin is tender, almost velvet, with a late-night bristle that burns my cheek. I slip my tongue out to taste him; he’s elemental earth. He vibrates at the slickness, tilting his head back so I can reach better. I move down, down, down in defiance, pressing my lips to the hollow at the base, feeling his heartbeat move through him.

  “Please,” he says, and he sounds so lost. He sounds like I feel most of the time. I never imagined that Christopher Bardot would bare the most vulnerable part of his body.

  Never imagined that he would beg.

  This is someone always in command, the smartest man in the room, the most determined. And when he cedes control to me, power rushes through my veins. I can do anything if this man needs me.

  Anything except decide what to do next. Despite the wildness of our threesome in the Den, despite Sutton’s creativity, I’m not really that experienced when it comes to sex. I don’t really know what normal sex looks like, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what Christopher would want anyway.

  He solves the problem by pulling away long enough to yank off his jacket. He lays it down over the dusty floor, ruining the expensive fabric. “For your knees,” he says, and I remember the salt-sweet taste of his cock in my mouth. I drop down, too eager, but then he’s beside me. Under me.

  And I realize that none of Sutton’s creativity prepared me for this—for Christopher lying flat on the bits of rubble, only half-shielded by his jacket. For my knees on either side of his head, padded by his jacket, the pale peach cotton of my dress spread out over him. It’s only shock that has me reeling back, only shock that has me gasping, “No. Wait. Don’t.”

  Even so I’m not expecting him to actually stop, to push my skirt away long enough to ask in hard, explicit terms, “You don’t want me to lick your cunt?”

  My hips react in a visceral way to the word cunt; they rock forward as if asking for his tongue, needing it. Sutton pressed me up against a wall and held me there. Christopher ordered me onto Sutton’s cock and fucked my mouth. There’s a certain amount of helplessness I can pretend in those situations—I didn’t know his mouth would make me orgasm. I couldn’t predict his lap would have a stiff cock pointing up.

  And even if those kinds of nonexcuses only work in my head, I didn’t realize how much I was relying on them before now. Before now when I have to place my body over Christopher’s face and lower my sex to his mouth. There’s too much action involved, too much knowledge.

  I can’t, I can’t, at least until he says, “I’ve been dreaming about this. Since that night I held you naked in the cabin. I knew I shouldn’t think about you that way. I had just pulled you out of the goddamn water, but it was all I wanted. I dreamed about you waking up and kneeling down on top of me. I dreamed about how you would taste—salty from the bay, sweet from your sex. I’d lick you and lick you until you were dripping down my face, until I was slippery with you, and then you’d come, riding me hard enough I’d barely be able to breathe, and I’d reach down and grip my cock. That’s all it would take. I’d just hold myself and come while you moaned my name above me.”

  “I want that too,” I breathe. None of my imaginary sex dreams prepared me for this, but every nerve ending has come awake. There’s an ache between my legs, and I’m afraid he’s ruined me. Something in me cracked when I heard him speak just now, and the only way I’ll ever be assuaged will be with a mouth under my spread legs while I rock my hips just how I want it.

  Only, I would have though
t I’d have more power on top like this. His hands grasp my ass, somehow covering almost all of it, even though there should really be too much. He holds enough to mold my movements, to rock me to his beat instead of mine. It’s too fast at first, and I gasp above him. I don’t even have any balance, and I’m forced to hold on to the bars of the scaffolding that shoots up around us. The old rusty wheels complain at the pressure, but they hold still, locked into place.

  He licks me through the cotton, but it does nothing to disguise the feel of him. It only seems to make it sharper, the wet fabric pressing into my folds, into my clit. All I can do is hold on as he searches for something that makes me squirm.

  And then he bites me, teeth only slightly blunted through the cotton, right on my clit, and I scream a little, making birds fly up from somewhere in the library where they shouldn’t be. His hands pull me toward him again and again, there’s no escaping the sun-blinding pleasure, and then I’m coming, a mess of slick arousal sounding slippery against his lips.

  Christopher doesn’t reach down to grasp his cock, even though I moan his name. Instead he flips me over so I’m on the ground looking up at the crack in the wall. A zipper. A tear. And then he’s above me, inside me, my legs spread so wide I’m almost bent in half. His face looks carved into sharp angles, his eyes hard black stone. Everything about this is too much. “I should be high for this,” I gasp, and I expect him to tell me that I shouldn’t be, not ever, it isn’t safe, isn’t legal.

  “Later,” is all he manages to say, and it rings through my body like a bell. Keeping time, that bell. A promise that I’ll hear it again, and I arch my body up in gratitude.

  His cock pushes deeper, and I have to squirm away from the fullness.

  He seems to think I’m hurting, because he murmurs, “I’m sorry.” One hand curves beneath my neck, the other beneath the small of my back. He’s holding me up away from the ground even as he fucks me into it, shielding me even as he tears me apart.

  I’m not expecting to come again, but then he shifts his hips. He hits some new angle, and my hands fly up above my head. It’s like I’m falling, even though I’m already at the bottom. My hand finds one pole of the scaffold, and I hold on tight. Pleasure rises inside me, sharp and sudden. Christopher quickens in three hard thrusts, and then he’s holding me so tight I can’t breathe, my climax taking me just as swiftly. I’m held suspended in the air by his embrace, floating beneath the shaky scaffold and the broken wall. It’s as if the whole building shudders when we come. There’s dust in my eyes. Dust, dust. That’s why they burn.