Craving Redemption

  “Westerns are American history brought to life. Those fuckers were badasses, Callie,” he told me with a smirk. “Plus, John Wayne’s the fuckin' shit.”

  I shook my head at his smirk and continued emptying the cart, “I’ll take your word for it as long as you don’t make me watch them.”

  “Fuck that. You’re sitting through every single one…”

  “I’ll just read or something,” I told him distractedly as I watched the numbers on the register move higher and higher while biting the inside of my cheek.

  I wasn’t prepared for him to move in behind me and settle his hand low on my belly.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re gonna watch them, Callie,” he whispered in my ear, pushing his hips lightly against my ass.

  “Oh yeah?” I replied, trying to sound dismissive but ending up breathy like Marilyn Monroe.

  He didn’t answer back right away because he was busy swiping his credit card and gathering his receipt from the clerk, so I moved slightly away from him, thinking the conversation was over. I was surprised when, instead of grabbing our bags, he moved to me and slid a hand into my hair at the base of my neck, tilting up my face for a quick peck on the lips.

  “Yeah, baby. You’ve got a hickey the size of Texas on your neck that tells me you’re not gonna be tellin’ me no.”

  He chuckled once and let me go, slapping me on the ass before picking up our purchases and walking toward the exit.

  I should’ve been annoyed but I wasn’t. His words had flipped a trigger, and my mind grasped on to one simple fact.

  Almost every minute I was conscious, my mind was consumed with grief and guilt. It was burying me slowly in a depression that I had no idea how to deal with. It just kept beating at me, never letting a smile cross my face or a feeling of gratefulness sink in before I felt like shit for enjoying anything when my parents were dead.

  But when Asa was touching me, I wasn’t thinking about anything else. Not one single thing.

  It was a heady feeling—knowing I’d found my oblivion.

  Chapter 23

  Callie

  Once I realized that Asa was expecting to share the house when he could, it was easier for me to pick out the things I thought we’d need, like an electric slow cooker. Sure, a slow cooker wasn’t a huge purchase—or even really important in the greater scheme of things—but my mom had taught me how to use one. I had a ton of recipes that I knew were really good, and I wanted to make them for Asa. So for the first time, without his prodding, I’d bought something. A freaking electric slow cooker.

  I had no idea where Asa was getting the money for our huge shopping spree, but he seemed to be unconcerned with the grand totals as we made our way through different stores.

  I thought the big TV he wanted would be our largest expense, but it was nothing compared to the cost of all the small things we had to buy. It was daunting, trying to remember everything we needed. At one point, I had to try to remember a pad of paper and a pen just so I could write a list of all the other things we’d forgotten as we made our way through store after store.

  We drove the moving truck around town as we picked up our supplies, and we must have looked like idiots putting seven bags of groceries into the empty cargo area. Asa refused to return the truck until we’d found the bed and couch we wanted. And by we, I mean him. The couch and bed he wanted. If it had been up to me, we would’ve bought the least expensive ones we could find, no matter what they looked or felt like. However, Asa was adamant that we get furniture that were both comfortable and appealing, so he eventually stopped asking my opinion after I told him a lime-green couch with bright orange flowers looked nice. In my opinion, the nicest thing about the couch had been the bright red clearance tag hanging off its arm.

  By the second week in the new apartment, we’d completely settled in. I hadn’t been sure about, well, anything to do with Asa, but the longer we spent time together, the more comfortable I became with him. It didn’t help my anxiousness, however, when we set up the new furniture, or the thoughts racing through my mind the entire time I got ready for bed.

  We hadn’t discussed what the sleeping arrangement would be.

  Since the day we’d left San Diego, Asa hadn’t done anything beyond stealing a kiss or two and leaving the massive hickey on my neck—even though we’d been sleeping together on the floor every night. It was cozy and comforting sleeping wrapped in Asa’s arms, and the thought of waking up after a nightmare alone didn’t appeal to me—but sleeping in the bed seemed so much more intimate than camping out on the floor. It was a situation that I had no idea how to handle, but once again, I didn’t actually have to handle anything. Asa just stepped in with little fanfare and made the decision for me by stripping down to his boxers and climbing into my bed before I’d finished brushing my teeth.

  I felt my hands grow clammy as I took in his broad shoulders and inked skin against my pale blue sheets. Since the hickey incident at IKEA and the subsequent light bulb that went off in my head, I’d been trying to get the courage to start, at the very least, a heavy make out session. Many nights, I was falling asleep with a splitting headache from controlling my emotions all day. I was a mess. It wasn’t helping my nightmares because every time my headaches were at their worst, I was waking up in a cold sweat halfway through the night.

  “You coming to bed, Calliope?” he called from the bed, breaking me out of my thoughts but never looking away from the phone in his hands.

  I drug my feet across the ugly-as-shit brown shag carpet as I made my way to the bed while I tried to psych myself up. We were just sleeping like we had for the past eight days, right? It was nothing to get all bent out of shape about. Just me and Asa, camping out… but this time with a pillow top mattress and five hundred thread count sheets.

  Fuck.

  I wasn’t a virgin, and I wasn’t worried about that aspect of our relationship. I also wasn’t freaked out because we were sleeping together—we’d been doing that for over a week. It was the mixture of sleeping together in an actual bed, surrounded by household goods that we’d bought together, and the knowledge that we’d never have to be careful or sneaky about what we were doing. For the first time, I was completely without guidance or rules—and for some reason that made me anxious. Beyond anxious.

  “We’re not having sex,” I blurted out as soon as I’d climbed into what I guessed was now “my side” of the bed. Fuck, it was getting weirder by the minute!

  “Uh, did I ask for sex?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

  “No. I mean, well, you seem like you want to and everything, but, no, not tonight. You haven’t said anything tonight,” I was babbling, trying to get my point across, and I was doing what my dad would call a “piss poor” job.

  He scooted down in bed and set his phone on the floor, mumbling about how we needed bedside tables, before rolling back toward me and gesturing with his hand.

  “Come here, Sugar.”

  “Why don’t I just stay here?” I asked, my spine straight as a ruler against the headboard.

  “Calliope, it wasn’t a question,” he rumbled back, his voice coming out deeper than it had before.

  With a huff that I made sure he heard, I hopped out of bed and shut off the light, then crawled in next to him. As soon as I was within reach, he rolled me to my side and spooned his body against the back of mine.

  “We’re not having sex anytime soon, Callie,” he told me gently, and then squeezed his arm around me as I tried to bolt.

  “Baby, I’ve got blue balls like you would not believe.” He moved his hips against my ass, grinding for a second until I could feel him, and I held my breath as I waited for what he’d say next, hoping he would keep moving. “You’ve had a ton of shit happen in very little time, Calliope. We’re not gonna add fuckin’ each other’s brains out to that long list of shit.”

  He couldn’t see me as I opened my mouth to argue, but he must have felt my head move, because he cut me off before I could say a word.


  “Let me finish. I want you like hell on fire—I see you bending over to put shit in cupboards and my dick gets so hard I can’t fuckin’ think straight. But, baby, I don’t wanna fuck you up worse than you’ve already been fucked. Shit is crazy for you right now, and you’re sixteen years old. Sixteen. I’ve known sixteen-year-olds that live with their man and they’re happy as hell with that life—but those girls came from shit lives that they were trying to get away from and they were more grown up than most middle-aged men. That’s not you. Less than two weeks ago you were fuckin’ grounded for staying out past your curfew. You had parents that loved you and coddled you.”

  By the time he finished speaking, I was pissed. I rolled over and got in his face to bitch at him for making me seem like an immature brat—but I hadn’t counted on the smell of his minty and smoke flavored breath or how close our faces would become. Instead of pitching a fit like I’d intended, I found myself diving toward his mouth as if to prove him wrong.

  I licked into his mouth and was instantly wrapped in his arms and rolled so I was on top of him. I thought he was only rolling me off the arm that had become trapped underneath me, so he could use both arms to push me away, but the minute I was on top of him I moved my knees up his sides until I was straddling and grinding into his hips.

  I felt the moment he gave up the fight.

  It was the same moment that I gained the euphoric feeling of oblivion from everything else.

  He growled down my throat as his hands began to move over the curves of my body. One hand slipped inside the t-shirt I was wearing to wrap around my breast and the other slid to the bottom of the shorts I wore to bed. My hands were braced above his shoulders, holding my weight, and I groaned, my elbows almost buckling when his fingers found my nipple and pinched it lightly.

  I was a frenzy of movement the more turned on I got, and I arched my hips even harder into his, trying to get the friction I needed—then he made a sound in his throat like I’d punched him. His hands slid out of my shirt, causing me to whimper and push even harder, but he suddenly grabbed my hips and practically shoved me back, ripping his face from mine.

  “Jesus Christ, Callie! You’re gonna push my balls into my throat!” he winced, gasping for air.

  I’d had sex in that position before, and I thought I knew what I was doing, so his words were like a splash of ice water to my face.

  I sat back hard on my heels in shock before shame swamped me and all I wanted to do was get as far away from him as I could. I thought it was dark enough in the bedroom that I had a little protection—but he must have seen the look of horror on my face, because before I could make my legs move to scramble off him, he sat up straight and wrapped his arms around my back.

  “Where you going?” he rasped, trying to get a good look at my face as I tucked my chin into my chest. I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t. Because unfortunately, I was feeling so embarrassed that I could feel a lump forming in my throat.

  “Hey, look at me. Where’d you go, baby?” he asked quietly, trying to force my face up with a careful hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled pitifully to his chest, wishing I was anywhere but there.

  “Sorry for what? What am I missing here?”

  “For, you know, attacking you. Pushing your, uh… into your throat,” I told him, cringing.

  He barked out a laugh, startling me enough to have me raising my head.

  “Baby, you wanna attack me, you feel free,” he told me with a wide smile. “Nothin’ you did was wrong. You obviously needed somethin’ and you were tryin’ to get it. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”

  “Okay, well, okay,” I replied stupidly, “I’m gonna just go to bed now.”

  “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me, Callie,” he replied incredulously. “Get over here and kiss me.”

  I leaned forward to get it over with, as I didn’t see him letting me go if I didn’t, but the peck on the mouth I had planned turned into something else when the minute I got close, he bit my bottom lip and pulled me toward him.

  “You needed somethin’ and you weren’t getting it, Callie,” he told me against my mouth, the words separated with little bites. “I’ll give it to you.”

  His hands quickly stripped my t-shirt up and over my head before I could process his words, and my hands flew to his hair as he arched my back and pulled one of my nipples into his mouth. My head fell back and my hips twitched, but I was too worried about moving wrong to let them rock the way I wanted to. If I was doing it wrong before, I wasn’t going to magically know how to do it right then. So, against everything my body was yelling at me to do, I stayed still.

  His mouth pulled away from my breast with a small popping noise, and he looked at me in confusion before his face cleared. His hands moved to my hips and started rocking them. I concentrated on the movement until I was sure I could replicate it, but it wasn’t doing anything except getting me wetter than I already was. I felt swollen and needy, but I wasn’t going to say anything. Everything he was doing felt good, and by far surpassed anything I’d gotten out of past encounters.

  He watched my face intently as he let go of one of my hips and ran his hand along my body to my breast. When he pinched my nipple again, my hips jerked down into his, and he nodded slightly and let go of my other hip.

  “Keep moving, Sugar,” he ordered, sliding his hand down my belly and into the front of my shorts. When his thumb hit my clit, I jerked again and he gave a small shake of his head.

  “You keep moving the way I showed you,” he growled, circling my clit over and over with his thumb. “It feels so good. You’re so fuckin’ wet; I can feel it through your shorts.” He paused in his dirty talk for a moment, watching my body move against him, before capturing his train of thought again. “You’re not gonna be able to get off from this angle,” he explained roughly, “so you were pushin’ and pushin’ and it was just getting you more frustrated. And with our clothes on, you were fighting a losing battle.”

  His breath hitched as I rode him, his fingers tightening on my breast before he continued.

  “You need me right here,” he rasped, pushing his thumb harder against my clit. “This right here is going to push you over that ledge.”

  He dipped his thumb farther down and when he pulled it back up, my entire body clenched. It was winding tighter and tighter as he whispered to me, and when he sucked my nipple hard into his mouth and pushed down hard with his thumb, I came with a high pitched moan.

  He held his thumb where I needed it as I rode out my orgasm, but as soon as I finished, both hands went straight to my hips to move me faster over the length of him. He latched onto the inside of my left breast as his breathing grew more and more ragged, sucking hard as he came and groaning into my skin until finally stopping the movement of my hips.

  “Holy fuck, Callie,” he mumbled, as he fell backward on the bed, taking me with him. “Shit, when I get you naked you’re gonna fuckin’ kill me.”

  I lay there on top of him, blissed out and relaxed, until he made me get up so we could clean up and use the restroom.

  More than an hour passed before my mind grew dark again.

  Chapter 24

  Grease

  Our second week in Sac started with a bang, and shit didn’t settle down after that. Callie was hot on my dick—pushing for us to have sex—and after the night we set up the bed, I was having a hard time telling her no. Fuck, that was an understatement. I had a feeling I was grinding my back teeth down to nubs with the strain of holding back. The idea that I was the one telling her no was fucking ridiculous, but I was trying to do the right thing. I didn’t want her freaking out afterward—it’s not like she had anywhere to go if she lost her shit.

  We were fooling around—that didn’t stop. We weren’t doing anything beyond what most kids her age were doing— hands and all that shit. But holy hell, I wanted her. I’d made the mistake of cleaning off my fingers with my mouth after one of our rounds, and goddamn if my mouth didn’t water n
ow every time I got anywhere near her. It was a joke. I was being a fucking pussy and I knew it. She didn’t have any reservations about fucking, and thank god she wasn’t a virgin, but there was something…off. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.

  She was almost desperate for it—my touch. And as much as I wanted to strut around like I had balls made of gold, I knew her craving for it was too extreme.

  We took her in that week to sign her up for school, and I swear to Christ, the secretaries in that piece of shit high school kept looking at her belly. The fact that some tattooed guy brought her in to get her shit taken care of confused the hell out of them. I guess the conclusion they came to was that I’d knocked her up. It was so far from the truth is was fucking funny, and she elbowed me about fifteen times as I rubbed on her belly. The secretaries could suck my dick. They’d better not give her any shit when I wasn’t there.

  We set it up so she could start school the following week, and that afternoon we picked her up a little car that I’d bought from one of the brothers. The Aces Sacramento Chapter was pretty small, but it had some good guys in it. Several of them were close to my age, and I’d partied with them quite a bit whenever I was in town, but I was fucking dreading introducing Callie to any of them. I’d claimed her, and I knew they wouldn’t touch her, but fuck if I wasn’t jealous of any time they’d get to spend with her—especially after I headed back to Eugene. I didn’t want them even looking at her. I knew where they’d been. Shit, I’d seen where they’d been. I didn’t want Callie anywhere near that shit.

  The clock was ticking down on my time with Callie, and it was wearing on me more and more each day. I got her the car so she’d have a way to get around when I wasn’t there—I was worried that she’d hole herself up in the apartment if she didn’t have a way around. It didn’t seem to matter, though. She didn’t want to go anywhere without me.

  Every time I asked her to run to the store or pick us up some dinner, she’d come up with some excuse so she didn’t have to do it—she wasn’t feeling well, she’d just gotten comfortable on the couch, she wanted to cook something herself. It was never fucking ending, and by the end of the week, her neediness was getting on my last fucking nerve.