“Well, whatever his reputation is, I accepted a job at his café,” I said, and, because I knew timing was everything, brought an asparagus spear to my mouth, biting the tip and patting Shadow underneath with my socked foot. Pam’s eyebrows nosedived, and Darren put his utensils next to his plate, trying hard not to slam them.
“I wanted to talk to you about it. I’m tho happy you’ve dethided to find yourthelf a job. How about you come work for me? I’ll offer a nithe paycheck, a daily ride, and of courth, you can take ath much time off ath you need.”
There was an apology in his smile, and his eyes clung to mine.
“I’m happy at Café Diem. Thanks, Darren.”
“Stop being so ungrateful,” Pam snipped from across the table. “Darren is offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I think you should take it.”
“You took it.” I grinned. “Didn’t make you too happy, did it?”
She stood up, throwing her napkin on her plate. Guess she was done with her tiny piece of chicken. “How dare you!”
“How dare I?” I asked, still seated, my pulse slow and calm. “How dare you? You conveniently forgot about my existence until Bane walked into the picture, and we both know why you’re interested in my life now.”
“Jethy!” It was Darren’s turn to stand up and slap the edge of the table. “Don’t talk to your mother like thith!”
For the sake of good, synchronized choreography, I stood up, too. “Grow some eyes, Dar. She is sleeping with the better half of Todos Santos, and not even hiding it.”
“I don’t care about her!” he snapped, his face red, his eyes bloodshot. “I care about you. Are you and Bane friendth, or more?”
“More,” I chirped. “So much more, Darren. You have no idea.”
This was directed at Pam, a clear back-off statement, but it was Darren who looked about ready to explode.
“You’re thleeping with him?”
“Sheesh!” I shook my head, laughing. “It’s none of your business who I sleep with. You’re not my real dad, remember?”
“In that case, you’re not my daughter!” Pam yelled from across the table. God, I wished it were the truth. Unfortunately, the resemblance between us prior to her plastic surgeries was uncanny.
I shrugged. “I would tell you to sue me, but I have nothing to my name other than a rich stepdaddy.”
“That’th not true. You will inherit everything I have, Jethy. You know I care about you. When I die, everything will go to you.”
Actually, I had not known that. Pam hadn’t known it, either, based on the way her eyes widened and searched for his, but he was still looking at me.
I pushed my chair back and rounded the table. “I know you’re protective of me, Dar, and I understand why, because my mom isn’t, but please know Bane is not the issue. He is the only person who really understands me.”
“He doethn’t underthtand you.” Darren gripped the back of his chair, his face reddening further. What the hell was up with him? Sometimes I wished he’d just man up. Stand his ground and say what he needed to say. It was sad, but if he were to divorce Pam and find a nice woman who wasn’t turned off by his submissive nature, I’d be really happy for him.
“Hmm, yes he does.”
“He’th…thweetheart, your mom thaid it right. He ith an ethcort. He shouldn’t be mething with you. He should be helping you.”
“You don’t know him,” I gritted out.
“Neither do you.”
I wasn’t proud of what I did next, but it needed to be done. I stormed out of the kitchen and went up to my room, where I slammed the door like a moody teenager and dove headfirst into a sea of fluffy pillows. It took me minutes to finally catch my breath and look up at the pin board wall. At all the backs of all the faceless people I’d taken pictures of.
I’m losing my mind trying to find out what happened. But I will. I will solve this riddle.
Then Roman sent me a text (or maybe it was a sext?) asking for an orange onesie-less picture, so I complied.
At some point, he stopped texting and just called me.
“I needed to hear your voice.”
“Why?”
“Because I had a feeling you were touching yourself, and I would pay good money to listen to that shit.”
“How romantic,” I said, a smile on my face. “You know, sex is not about money.”
“My little grasshopper. Everything is about money. Are you gonna touch yourself?”
“Are you gonna touch yourself?” I taunted.
He was silent for a moment. “I’m a dude, and I’m talking to my girlfriend in the middle of the night. I’ve been playing with my dick like it’s Nintendo for the past ten minutes now.”
I snickered, allowing the conversation to take a very sharp, unexpected turn. Most of the time I wasn’t really sure of what Roman was doing. I simply enjoyed tagging along for the ride. For a while, we just panted, taunted, and described what we were going to do to one another. My whole body was clenched before it loosened with a tsunami of an orgasm.
After that, Roman told me, “Good night, Snowflake.”
“Wait,” I choked on the word, feeling needy, too needy, but then again, he had called me his girlfriend, and my heart was about to burst every time I replayed his voice saying this word. “I can’t fall asleep. That’s why I jog at night. I always have nightmares.”
Another meaningful pause.
“Try. I promise I won’t hang up until I hear your gross snores.”
I fell asleep with my phone pressed against my ear.
When I woke up, the top of the touch screen was still green, and the call was still going.
“Good morning, SnortyPants.”
Neptune.
Dark. Cold. Blue. The ocean seemed morbid at six in the morning. I shuddered in my wetsuit, jogging in place without really feeling my toes. The sand was cold and tight, stretching like canvas beneath my feet, and I felt like I was ruining Roman’s art by being there. We were nearly done with our session. Beck, Edie, and Hale—whom Bane had re-introduced to me as “my real asshole, the source of all the shit in my life”—went on surfing while Roman stayed ashore with me, teaching me how to paddle with my stomach flat against it on the sand. I felt like an idiot. Like I was slowing him down. Then we moved to the water and he stayed by my side. Hale and Beck were laughing and coughing “pussy-whipped” every time we got near them, and Edie smiled at us, shaking her head. I felt bad hating on her for no reason. She was actually pretty cool. Not Gail-cool, but still good people. Not to mention the bump of her lower stomach was unmistakable. She spent her time sitting on her surfboard, letting the first rays of morning sun braid her yellow hair with fresh highlights.
She wasn’t after Roman.
She was after the ocean, nature, and everything it had to give.
After we were done, Roman invited me to take a shower at his place. It was the first time I’d set foot in his houseboat. Small, neat, basic. I knew Roman probably made enough to live in one of the candy-colored condos of the promenade, and I loved that he didn’t. I loved a lot of things about him.
What’s the antonym of hate?
Love. It is love, and maybe I should be the one to say it first.
“I can’t believe your place is so tidy.” I ran a hand over his coffee table, eager to leave a mark. His place was small and old-ish, almost like a sailor’s pad. He stood behind me, dumping his surfing gear by the door.
“Might’ve tidied up for you,” he said around a freshly-rolled joint.
“Might’ve?” I turned around, beaming at him.
“Please let me keep my balls for a little longer, Snowflake. See, I’m kind of attached to them. Also: literally.”
He’d made me laugh more in a few short weeks than I had in three years. I shrugged. “If you behave.”
Before I headed out to the promenade this morning, I’d packed a duffel bag with a change of clothes, knowing my shift started at 9:00 a.m., and I might not have time fo
r a shower. I pulled out burgundy corduroys and a cute tank top the color of my eyes. I’d ransacked my closet earlier this morning to find something that wasn’t emo black hoodies and pants loose enough to fit three clowns and a convertible. I walked over to where I presumed Roman’s shower was, swaying my hips and knowing that he was watching.
I wanted to have sex with him.
I wanted to have lots and lots of sex with him.
I wanted him to make me feel the way only he could. Like I was beautiful, lethal, and strong. Like the old Jesse.
“And where do you think you’re going?” He snaked his arm around my waist and pulled my ass into his erection. I was still wearing the wetsuit, and my nipples puckered in my red bikini under it. He buried his face in my neck, dragging his hot lips to kiss the tattoo on my nape.
“I’m going to take a shower. I don’t want to be late for work.”
“Gail can cover for you.”
“She’ll kill me. Morning shifts are busier than hell.”
“You say shift. I hear shaft.” He gave me a shove with his dick, and I skipped into his bathroom. I peeled off my wetsuit alone, knowing that he’d stayed behind. That yet again, he would deprive me of what I really wanted. Him. Inside me. Making me feel desired and whole again. I dumped the heavy wetsuit on the floor with a thud and stared into the dirty mirror. My eyes were defiant, lit. A monsoon of emotions swirled inside them.
Bane stepped behind me, our gazes meeting in the slightly cracked mirror. There was a hunter in there, and I wanted to pull him out. Wanted him to chase me. His wetsuit was pulled down to his V-cut, his tattoos glistening against his tan. His blond, wavy hair was a rumpled mess. He stared at my stomach.
“I hate it,” he said simply.
I swallowed. “Fuck you.”
“I also love it,” he added. “This scar gave you claws. Can’t fucking wait for you to use them on me.”
I turned around, smiling sweetly. I was done playing games. I wanted him, all of him, the parts he reserved only for me and the parts that were communal property. Bane stared at my puckered nipples, his green eyes gleaming like morning dew on fresh grass. It was time for a good dose of reality.
“I got pregnant. I wanted to keep the baby. Stupid, huh? But I did. It was like the silver lining of The Incident. I was going to have someone for my own. Someone who would be faithful and loyal to me. Someone who would love me, no matter what. We could take care of each other, and she or he would never take their father’s side, because they wouldn’t even know them. It felt almost like revenge, as sick as it may sound. They took something of mine—my will, my power, my innocence—so I took something of theirs. But Pam forced me to have an abortion. I didn’t want to, but I was weak. I was too weak to scrape myself off the bed, let alone fight her on this.”
He pushed my wet hair away from my face. Bane had pressed me to talk about it the other night. Now he got his wish, and oh, how ugly was the truth.
“The truth is, I wasn’t a virgin when Emery tried to take my virginity, Roman, but something happened before. Something I can’t remember. The Incident wasn’t the first time I’d been raped.”
Bane’s nostrils flared, and his eyes leveled with mine. They breathed fire, and I was afraid he was going to tear the whole bathroom apart. I kept talking, knowing I was going to lose momentum if I dared to take a breath. “After what happened in the alleyway, I was so confused that I panicked. I didn’t know what to say or think. Pam solved this issue by walking through every sentence that left my mouth. She said if I screwed it up, we’d be forced to leave and Darren would dump us on the streets. The boys’ parents were breathing down my neck. Pam and Darren thought it was an orgy gone wrong, and that I was ashamed to admit it. Hell, even I didn’t believe myself for a while. I thought—maybe I did cheat on Emery. It took me a lot of time to understand just how played I was, and by the time I figured it out, it was too late. Everyone had already moved on. Well, everyone other than me.”
His thumbs pressed my cheeks, and he pulled me into a hug. I wanted to curl into his strong body and live there.
“For the past two years, time did not move. Technically, it did, but not for me. Not really. That night in the alleyway still chases me like it was yesterday. And in walks you. At first, I didn’t want you in the picture. My grief was still so fresh and pristine—I didn’t want anyone tarnishing it with hope. But you didn’t just walk into my life, Roman. You stormed into it. You left me no choice but to heal. Now I want everything. I want the job and the friends and my sexuality back. If you don’t fuck me, someone else will, Bane,” I purposely used the name he didn’t want me using. “I need this. Need this to heal me. To break me and to put me back together. To kill me and resurrect me. This is not about sex. Not all of it, anyway.” I gulped in a breath. “It’s about me.”
Bane swallowed, but didn’t say anything.
I shook my head, dropping my gaze down to my toes. Then I turned around and charged for the door, ready to flee his boathouse, even naked. I was done asking, and begging, and bargaining. I was done seducing, and luring, and hoping. If he didn’t want me after this admission, we were done.
I didn’t even want him to be my friend. Like I could really be friends with Bane Goddamn Protsenko. Every word to leave his mouth was foreplay.
“Jesse,” he growled. I ignored him, yanking my duffel bag to get my clothes. Before I could unzip it and pluck them out, Bane slammed me against the wall of his kitchen. The thud of my back crashing against it pounded between my ears. I was ready to slap his stupidly gorgeous face when I felt his cock springing free from his wetsuit, hot and velvety against my opening. He wrapped my legs around his waist and crashed his fist to the wall above my head.
“Fucking dammit, Jesse!”
“Leave me alone, then,” I yelled in his face. “Just let me leave.”
“Never,” he snarled, biting my neck. Hard. “And ever.” He dragged his nose down to my shoulder, sucking a sensitive spot on the curve of my collarbone. “And fucking ever.” He thrust into me, nailing me to the wall and filling me to the hilt. A moan escaped between my lips. He was big, and long…and bare.
“You want to be fucked?” he spat out the words, his face so intense I shivered under his touch. “Just remember, Snowflake—you fucking begged for it.”
He pounded into me, each stroke harder and deeper and more punishing. My body felt like a dormant nest of fireflies lighting up together in batches. I felt their lights flicking, their wings zapping over every inch of my flesh. I felt every inch of him inside me, the titanium hoop of his piercing scraping my walls, and it still wasn’t enough.
I was desperate. I was feral.
I clawed at his face, tears streaming down my cheeks and onto my neck, and he licked them, laughing as he fucked me harder, not giving much damn about who or what I was, just like he’d said he would. Taking me the way I wanted to be taken. Not gently, nor apologetically. Like an equal. Like a captured soldier, in a war where pleasantries and fake condolences weren’t necessary.
“Harder,” he taunted. “I’m denting your ass from the inside. Least you can do is leave a pretty little mark on me.” Roman laughed, smashing his lips to mine with a kiss that made it clear that he owned my body—every inch of it—and all the things inside it. Every thought and heartbeat. Every painful breath. His.
I raked my fingernails down his back, returning the violence when his tongue went to war with mine. Heat pooled in my lower stomach, his cock stretching me out and swelling inside me, twitching, circling, pounding.
“That’s my fighter.” He chuckled, adjusting our position by hoisting me upward by my ass with his rough fingers with one hand while twisting my nipple with the other. I squeaked, watching as he lowered his beautiful face to suck the pain away, so hard yet so delicate, and even though there was nothing I wanted more than to run my hand through his strings of golden mane, I held myself back.
This time, the trembling started from my fingertips, working its way
up and heating my body like a blanket. I was coming, but this time it felt different. Like an epiphany. I reached for his ass to squeeze as I shuddered between him and the wall, but he swatted my hands away, pushing me off and splaying his fingers over my neck, pinning me to the wall.
“I’m not your goddamn girlfriend, Jesse. You don’t get to squeeze my ass unless it’s to hold back a choke from my cock pounding into your mouth. We clear about that?”
I didn’t know what it was about his dirty brazen words that completely unraveled the old Jesse, but she was back, and she was clasping his cock in her sex in a vise, like a fist, laughing into his face with wild abandon.
“Jesus,” came from somewhere in the back of my throat as I came around his shaft, shaking violently. He only pumped harder, and my back was burning from the friction against the wall.
“Coming,” he said, just one word, and I nodded, thinking he was going to finish inside me, but he pulled out slowly instead, his swift movement radiating self-control, and angled his tip so that he came all over my clit. White spurts of cum grazed the delicate flesh of my sex, and he swirled the cum with his cock, rubbing it into my already sensitive yet neglected clit. The second orgasm burst out of me like fireworks. I sifted through his hair and brought him closer for a greedy kiss, biting his lower lip and tugging way too hard.
“Roman.” Again. One word. Not a request, not a plea, and not a statement. Rather, a spell I was falling deeper and deeper under, not bothering to go back up for a quick breath.
He pulled away from me, narrowing his eyes and tugging his wetsuit back up, his cock still half-erect between us.
He turned around, leaving me to slide down to my ass against his wall, sagging with post-climax bliss. He walked over to his coffee table, retrieved a blunt, and lit it casually, like we hadn’t just done what we had. Like we hadn’t broken any rules, or promises, or even—potentially—my heart.
“What’s the antonym of hate?” I blurted, drunk on pleasure.
He collapsed to his couch, cupping the joint with his thumb and forefinger and sucking hard. “Jesse.”