Selena

 

“How’ve you been?” Mom asks.

 

“Um …” I giggle, not sure where to start. How do I tell her what’s happened since I left this hospital the last time? So I won’t, I decide. There’s no reason to delve deeply into any of that. There’s no reason to unburden myself on her. “I’m sorry I missed our meetings.”

 

“That’s okay,” Mom says. “I actually have some news.” A small smile plays at her lips. It’s the first time in months I’ve seen her smile like that. She still looks deflated, and dying—she still looks like a woman with cancer—but the smile uplifts her. It makes her face, if only for a moment, young again.

 

“What is it?” I ask, excitement rising in my voice. “Mom?”

 

“The insurance came through!” Mom squeals, and then falls back into a coughing fit.

 

I sit with her, holding her hand, stroking it, and dabbing at her mouth with tissue. “When do you start treatment?” I ask.

 

“In the next couple of days.” She rolls her eyes, grinning mischievously. “That’s if I don’t die in the next couple of days!”

 

“Mom!” I snap. “Don’t say things like that.”

 

“Wouldn’t that be funny, though, dear? All this excitement and then …”

 

“I’ll kill you myself if you keep saying things like that,” I say. “I mean it.”

 

“What about you, dear?” Mom asks.

 

“What about me?”

 

“Don’t talk to me as if I don’t know my own daughter! You’ve been on a date, or found a man, or something. I can tell. You’re all giddy.”

 

“Giddy,” I repeat, wondering if it can be true.

 

“Yes, giddy!” Mom exclaims. “Did my speech light a fire in your belly? Did you go out there and search for a baby-daddy?”

 

“You’re like a kid today,” I tell her.

 

“I feel sixteen again,” Mom says, smiling. “But I don’t remember being this tired at sixteen.” She leans back. “I’ll have a nap now. And you’ll go and see your man. But Selena?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Life flares in her eyes for a moment. “He’s not like Clint, is he? He’s like not that awful man?”

 

“He’s nothing like Clint,” I tell her. “I was scared of that at first. I was worried that he’d turn violent, or mean. I didn’t want to share anything with him. But we’ve shared. We probably know each other better than we know anybody else. Except for you, I suppose.”

 

“You met this man a few days ago?” Mom says in wonder. “It sounds like you met him a few years ago. It really must be something special.”

 

“Something special.” I nod, smiling. “I guess that’s one way to put it. I’m thrilled about the insurance company, Mom. Really thrilled.”

 

“Let’s hope we can keep death back for a few more months.”

 

I sit with her until she falls asleep and then leave the hospital, thinking about how I felt the last time I left. I was full of rage and urgency, full of fear with my mind twisted. Now I feel almost peaceful, which is odd considering everything that’s happened. Fear pricks me; I know I’ll lose sleep over the next few weeks over this mad few days. But right now I’m able to savor the after-taste of survival. We made it.

 

“We made it!” I squeal as I drag Dante into my apartment. “Let me introduce you to my abode.”

 

“Abode,” Dante mutters. “I reckon my vocabulary is gonna triple being with you.”

 

“Do you want to take a shower?” I ask. “There’s a supermarket down the street and I can get you some new clothes.”

 

“All right. Sounds good.” He wonders over to the couch and picks up a book from the armrest. “Far From the Madding Crowd.” He flicks through it. “This is … complicated. How do you read this stuff?”

 

“Practice,” I say. “I tell you what. You teach me how to ride a motorbike and I’ll teach you how to read difficult nineteenth-century literature.”

 

He smiles. “All right then, ma’am. Sounds fair to me. I’m gonna take that shower.”

 

“Let me get you some fresh towels.”

 

I get the towels for him and then make a quick run to the store, buying some jeans, underwear, and T-shirts. When I return to the apartment, Dante is sitting on the couch with a towel tied around his waist, reading the fifth page of the book. “What happens to this Farmer Oak fella, then?”

 

“You’ll have to read it to find out,” I tell him. “I got you some clothes.”

 

He stands up, letting the towel fall from his waist. “Who said I need clothes?”

 

I look at his body, at the sculpted muscles, the immense power. My heartbeat gets faster and my pussy aches. It aches with the urgency of withheld desire. I suspect that if things hadn’t gone haywire we would’ve spent these last few days doing nothing but making love. I watch as his cock gets hard. I’m not even doing anything sexy, just staring at him, and his massive cock gets rock-hard for me. I step forward and place my hand on my chest, closing my eyes and savoring the feeling.

 

“You’re like wood,” I say. I push down on him. “There’s no give at all.”

 

“Open your eyes,” Dante says in a commanding tone.

 

I do as he says.

 

He leans forward, bringing his hand to my crotch, and then presses down so hard on my clit it’s like the fire from the clubhouse is contained within his fingertips. He rubs me slowly at first, and then gets faster and faster, his eyes locked on my face with every movement. “I’ve wanted this so damn bad,” he says. “You have no idea.”

 

I reach down and grab his cock, bulging against my palm. “Oh, I do. Believe me. I do.”

 

I jerk him up and down, loving the way his breathing gets faster and then turns into a growl, loving the way he stares at me with his hard eyes. I stroke him slowly, and then quicker, until both of us are rubbing each other with all our strength. He rubs me so hard, I feel like my pussy is going to explode. Energy gathers, touching every part of my insides, and then presses against the walls of my pussy. I bite down on his shoulder, moaning into it, which makes him rub even faster.

 

“Come for me,” he whispers, his breath warm on my neck. “Come for me, Selena. Come for me so I can fuck you and put a baby in your belly.” That drives me craziest of all. He senses it in my body, in the way I pause for a moment, in the way my body seizes up. “Come for me and I’ll put a baby in you,” he growls, nibbling my ear. “Come for me now.”

 

The gathered energy spreads outward, shooting through my body like jagged spears of pleasure. I collapse against him, my body going limp except for my crotch which is as tight as it’s ever been. The orgasm attacks me, making my lips hot and my hole tingle, making my toes curl and my fingers dig into his skin. I feel the come dripping down my leg, over his hand, squirting and showing no sign of stopping. Time compresses and I hover in this moment for what feels like a long time, and then it passes and I’m left panting and gasping for air.

 

“I fucking need you,” Dante says. “I need you bad.”

 

“I need you,” I respond, heart beating so hard I can hear it in my ears. “I need you just as badly, baby. Oh, fuck.”

 

He grabs me by the shoulders and shoves me into the couch. Not aggressively, but not softly, either. He shoves me and then leans over me, his muscular body trapping me in a way I find so sweet, so enticing. I wriggle out of my pants and he yanks my shirt over my head, and then unclips my bra in one fluid motion. He leans down and takes my breasts in his mouth, first one and then the other, hardening the nipples. They become super-sensitive as he plays with them, tingly and hot, buzzing with sensation. “You’re perfect,” he says, that same growl in his voice. “You’re just fuckin’ perfect.”

 

“You’re perfect,” I counter.

 

He laughs gruffly, and then grabs his cock and guides it to my pussy. Even though I know he’ll fit, I still have a moment of panic when his cock presses against my pussy, the head widening the hole, pushing firmly into me and opening me up. I bite down as pain leads the way inside of me, but soon the pain fades away and white-hot pleasure takes its place. His cock completely fills me: fills me to bursting. It fills me so that my whole world becomes him. I can’t think of anything else with that cock inside of me.

 

His eyes are locked on mine, and mine on his. We’re communicating with our bodies, but with our faces, too. It’s not just pleasure which flows between us. Love flows, too. Love and dedication and a promise. We promise that we’ll always be together and never let each other go. We promise to always offer this pleasure. We promise all this and more but then we can’t promise anything but the moment. He slides his cock into me, hard, slamming into my sweet spot and blotting thought from my mind.

 

I twist my hips in rhythm with his cock, grinding down on him as he drives up into me. I grab his face in my hands and kiss him, our lips and teeth mashing together clumsily as we writhe as one. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him close to me, holding him so that we’re chest to chest, so that we’re almost one person. I sit down on him repeatedly. He drives into me repeatedly. Our pleasure rises as one. My moaning and his grunting and growling are a song, and no song is so welcome or needed or brimming with pleasure.

 

His cock is like a persistent lover returning again and again to my sweet spot, wooing it until it is slick-wet and hotter than hot, until it is bursting with pleasure and waiting for the chance to unleash the euphoria. I am barely conscious of anything else apart from that spot of pleasure, that perfect aching spot of potential. I know the orgasm is coming, but I want to withhold it until the moment of his climax. I want us to ride the pleasure together. I want us to reach, reach, reach—

 

But then I can’t hold it back anymore. The pleasure is too immense, too powerful. The orgasm unleashes like a tidal wave, throwing me around, taking me for a ride. I feel like I’m thrown bodily all over the place, and then I settle into the repeated surges of pleasure, grinding my hips down on him, bringing his cock deeper and deeper inside of me so that I can take every ounce of ecstasy. I kiss his face, his neck, his chest. I kiss whichever part of him my lips find. I don’t think. I just ride and kiss and moan.

 

Then I hear his grunting, pleasure-filled, and I know he’s trying to hold back his moment of release.

 

I whisper in his ear, “Come in me, baby. Please, come in me. Please, please, please.”

 

It’s too much for him to handle. He leans back, looking into my face. I’ve never seen him look like this: completely consumed, unable to think. In this moment, he truly is a beast.

 

“Come in me!” I scream, bucking on his cock as another wave of the orgasm attacks me. “Come in me! Come in me!”

 

He pushes into me one last time and then lets out a wolf-like howl, arching his back and roaring at the ceiling. I grip his neck in my hands and lean up, kissing him over and over as he spills inside of me. It’s the most intimate moment of my life, both of us completely letting go, neither of us even slightly embarrassed. When it’s done, he collapses onto me, breathing softly into my face. I kiss him on the eyebrow.

 

“Hey there,” I say.

 

“Howdy,” he says, and then rolls from me and sits on the couch. “I knew you made me into an animal, but goddamn. Howling?” He laughs, lifting his arm. “Get in here, will you?”

 

I go to him, resting my head on his chest. “Maybe that was it,” I say.

 

“The baby?”

 

I nod.

 

“Yeah, maybe. What shall we call him?”

 

“Him? Oh, you silly man. I know she’s going to be a girl.”

 

“You know that, do you? And how’s that?”

 

“I have a feeling in my bones.”

 

“A feeling in your bones?” He jabs me in the ribs. “You have a feeling here.” He tickles me, brutally and mercilessly.

 

I leap up and dance across the room away from him, batting his hand away and telling him to quit it. Finally he does, retreating to the couch. I join him. “Is it safe?” I ask.

 

He grins up at me. “It’s safe now, Selena,” he says. “At least, it’s as safe as it’s ever gonna be with a man like me.”

 

“You mean a big scary biker man?” I tease, kissing him on the cheek. His come is still spilling out of me and yet I want more. “You mean a big tough violent psychopath?”

 

“Hey,” he says, turning on me with cold eyes. A tiny glint flickers in them. “Is that really how you want to talk to a big tough violent psychopath?”

 

He pounces on me then, and we spend the rest of the night writhing and moaning and growling and panting, stopping only so that he can go down the street and get some Chinese takeout. We fall asleep in bed surrounded by takeout containers with the smell of sex mixing with the smell of chow mien.

 

I wake with fear gripping me as it did countless times with Clint, but it’s fear from the past and not fear for the future. It’s the sort of fear which doesn’t succumb to logic, the flashback fear I’ve dealt with ever since the beatings started. I hear men outside my room, talking about killing me, and hear the gunshot and see Dante grasping his bleeding leg. I smell the scent of death. I feel the barrel of a gun pressed against the back of my head.

 

Then Dante rolls over. “Something’s wrong,” he says without having to be told. He holds me, whispering, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe. You’re protected.”

 

His words are like magic. The fear doesn’t vanish—fear rarely does—but he pushes it back. I hold him tighter. “I’m glad,” I say.