When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun…
Inside the house was everything I expected it would be. Sumptuous, extravagant, clean. A shame no one actually lived there.
Chad wanted to give me a tour, and while I was really, really, fascinated with the villa, I was more fascinated with him—and his dick—now that we were within four walls.
I suggested we take a shower. Together.
He just said okay. He wasn’t getting it. Wasn’t smelling the sex emanating from me.
Halfway down the hall to the guest bedroom, I lost out and launched myself at him.
Trained to detect sudden attacks, he expertly spun and caught me by the forearms, then drove me across the hall until my back was against the wall. Pinning me with his hips, he wordlessly dragged off my jacket and hauled my T-shirt over my head. My bra followed next.
Oh yeah. Now he was getting it.
Lips descending on mine, he claimed my mouth in that bossy, dominant manner of his. And as usual, woman to man, I submitted, offering up everything I had.
Between us, his hands cupped my breasts and kneaded, thumbs and forefingers simultaneously pinching my nipples. Primal, more ferocious, hungrier than he’d ever been for me, he was less than gentle.
Gripping the hem of his T-shirt, I yanked it up, and Chad paused for me to pull it over his head.
A clean, white gauze was taped over the stab wound on his shoulder. It took nothing away from his formidability, but instead it made him appear more deleterious, like a boss who could take a beat down.
And that drove me up the fucking wall with lust.
Chad held my face with both hands and reconnected our lips, while I nimbly undid his belt buckle and zipper.
No boxers again. This man seemed to have a vicious hatred for underpants.
I pushed his jeans down his hips, revealing his dragon’s tail, his well-defined V, and his stiff, hard cock that just popped out and up like a jack-in-the-box.
I palmed it, and the weighty thing pulsed in my hand, hot and venous, thick and intimidatingly huge. As I began stroking him, he thrust his hips forward, his cock sliding in and out of my tight fist.
“Ohnnh,” he groaned in my mouth.
Still stroking in synergy with his short hip thrusts, I used my free hand to pop the button on my jeans, but Chad’s hand intruded, slapping mine away and finishing the job.
Shoving my jeans down my thighs, he delved two fingers to my sopping wet core, while his mouth drifted down to my neck, kissing, licking, sucking.
Thumb circling the tip of my clitoris. Around. And around. And around.
“Ohsogoood,” I moaned out in sheer ecstasy.
He sank his teeth to the spot where my shoulder met my neck as he slipped a finger inside me, thumb still circling…circling…circling. So much sensation. So much.
As his finger pumped deliciously in and out of me, I found myself whispering to his neck, “I want you to take me from behind.”
Movements on pause, his body went rigid. “No.”
“Yes,” I whispered, driving my hips upward in a plea for him to continue working his fingers in those magic thrusts and circles unison.
But instead of resuming, he stopped altogether by removing his hand from between my thighs and taking a step back from me, shaking his head. “I’m not doing that, Jhay.”
I took a step forward to reseal the space between us. “It’s what I want.” I think.
“No,” he pronounced round and firm, adamant.
Why was I pushing this? I didn’t know. I didn’t know. All I did know was that I wanted him, Chad, to remake me. Eradicate all my horrible memories, and fill those gaps with himself. I wanted him to make sex from behind not something I feared, but something I welcomed, enjoyed immensely, looked forward to. And nobody could do that for me, but him. Blood.
Squeezing my fingers into a fist, I held his gaze and subtly snuck my fist up, then drove my knuckles downward to the gauze on his shoulder.
When he only grimaced at the pain, I hissed, “Fucking do it!”
He just looked at me like he wanted to pummel me into the wall, so I made to knuckle his wound again, but he caught my hand mid-air and roughly flung me around, ticked right off.
Grabbing my other hand, he locked both up above my head and pushed me face first against the wall. Leaving my hands above my head, he smoothly warned, “Don’t move a fucking muscle.”
Next thing I knew, he was stooped down and at my feet, undoing the laces of my boots. He took them off, my socks, my ankle holster and .25 Browning. Then he dragged my jeans and panties the rest of the way down, and off. When I tried to assist by lifting my leg, he stopped me with a stinging slap to my bare ass. The sound of palm against flesh echoing and bouncing off the hall walls.
I did as he warned and didn’t move another muscle.
Rid of all my clothing, he glided his hands up the back of my legs, and next I felt his tongue licking up my asscrack.
Hands moving up my inner thighs now, he braked at my sweet point and plunged two fingers inside me.
I moaned, forever loving everything about Chad touching me, kissing me, caressing me, fucking me…I just loved him.
While he worked his fingers in and out of my dripping wet core, he used his unoccupied hand to urge my legs further apart. When he was pleased with the spacing of my legs, he withdrew his fingers from inside me and stood up.
Circling one long, strong arm around my waist, he influenced me backward, and like Play-Doh I let him pull me, position me, make me however he wanted. He pressed a palm flat against the small of my back, encouraging it down, until my ass was sticking out.
Pleased with my position, he clasped my hips, and poked his head at my entrance. But there was a lengthy pause, like he was hesitating.
“Just do it, Ch—”
He drove in. Deep.
My instant reaction was tears. Emergent tears. As it always was when in this position. Tears burned like acidic vapor behind my eyes as the memories flooded in. I bit down hard on my lip until I tasted blood, squeezed my eyes shut, and reminded myself that the man behind me was Blood. Not him.
Almost instantaneously, the pricking behind my eyes subsided.
In and out, Chad flexed steadily, slowly, assuring. Yet my eyelids hugged each other, my toes curled under, my legs planted stiff, my brain in deep concentration, focusing so I’d know for sure it was Chad back there.
Chad. Chad. Chad. Not Mr. D.
Hot breath kissed my ear lobe as Chad dropped his mouth to my ear and whispered, “Push back, baby. Let your mind know you’re consenting. That I’m not just taking. You want this. You love this.”
Swallowing hard, I tried doing as he suggested. But I was still stiff as a ply board, with about as much fluidity as a blow-up doll.
“Avidly,” he breathed against my skin.
Opening my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath and began rocking back against him, meeting his thrusts. And with each thrust, my muscles relaxed, my toes uncurled, and the taunting feeling of fear got replaced with the titillating feeling of something…mind-blowing. Before I knew it, I was swept up and dissipating in pleasure, moaning out louder and louder with each incremented thrust.
“Now tell me,” he demanded, his voice a serrated, breathy thing.
“W-hat?” I asked, floating on a nirvana cloud with a crown of gold on my head.
“Tell me you love bending over for me, just as much as you love opening your legs for me.”
“Ohhhh. God.” This was vociferated, as I rocked back even harder against him and felt my orgasm riding in, whipping around a noose in the air, aiming to sling the damn thing around my neck and end me.
“Tell me!” Chad barked, his pumps increasing in pace, intensifying in depth.
“I love…Holyfuckingfuck…I love bending over for you.” The noose slung around my neck and tugged, tightening, squeezing, draining the pleasure out of me, blowing me wide open, decimating me, erasing me, bringing me back and letting me breathe for a teasing second, before tightening all over again with a bastardly laugh, prolonging my orgasm, going on and on like an endless white line on the freeway.
I was still in the throes of my attenuating orgasm when Chad roared out an expletive and pulled out of me. Hot bursts of semen fired out all over my ass as he emptied himself there, one hand gripping my waist either for support or so I didn’t “move a muscle” and ruin his big bang moment.
As soon as he let me go, my feet gave out and I slid down the wall onto the ground. Chad collapsed with me, chuckling lightly as he rolled over onto his back.
Once my breathing got back on track, I rolled over on top of him and kissed from where his cock lay half-erect on his lower abdomen, right up to his chest, up his neck, until I got to his lips, where I whispered against them, “Thank you. That was amazing.”
Down on vigor, Chad hooked his arm around my neck, kissed me soft and gentle, then whispered back, “I hate you.”
I grinned and kissed him back, wanting to get the last one in. Then I dropped kisses back down his body and sat back on my heels to undo the laces of his boots. Pulling his boots off and socks, I tossed them down the hallway, which was completely littered with all-black garments. His jeans joined the All-Black Litter Crew a minute later.
Leaving him as bare and unhidden as I was, I stood up and dipped my right hand between my thighs, inserting two fingers inside myself. Looking down into his smoldering eyes, I withdrew those two fingers, brought them to my mouth and licked them, then sucked them off. When that little move gave me the reaction I desired—Chad’s cock hardening, growing, stretching further up his abdomen, wanting inside me again—I gave him a wicked half-smile then spun and hip-swayed down to the guest bedroom. “Meet me under the shower head, bad boy.”
We fucked while we showered.
We fucked after we showered, got all hot and sweaty, then had to shower again. Where we also fucked.
Lying in bed now, wrapped loosely around each other, weak-limbed, we were red-flagged for fucking too much. Placed on suspension. Penis and vagina blocked and frozen until further notice.
I trailed my fingers through and through the ridges of his rock-hard abs, thinking about the suspicious empty birdcage inked on his left pectoral. Walking my fingers up to his chest, I tapped my index to the pectoral tattoo. “When did you get this?”
When a full minute eased by with no reply, I raised my head to check if he’d fallen asleep. But those black eyes were wide open, staring at me.
I tapped his tat again, non-verbally re-asking the question.
“Six years ago,” he said, voice still and quiet.
“What does it mean?” I kind of had an idea what it meant, but wanted to hear the words out loud. To feel special. “Why is the cage empty?”
Flinging his arm over his eyes, he made an annoyed sound in his throat. “Really, Jhay? Are you really this egoistic?”
Taken aback, I braced up on my forearms. “Egoistic?”
Angling his arm from over his eyes, he arched a challenging brow at me. “Lie to me and say you don’t already know what this tat means, Jhay. Lie to me.”
Okay. I guess I was an attention-seeking, biggity little brat with Chad sometimes. Only with him, though. Because I wanted to be the center of his attention at all times. I wanted to know I meant a lot to him. I wanted him to feed me some Prince Charming line like “the sun rises and sets with you”. And after almost strangling me to death, I think I deserved that much from him, dammit.
So I tipped my chin up and said, “Yes. I do know. But I want you to tell me. I want to hear.” I mock-pouted. “Pwetty pwease?”
As though he couldn’t help it, he cracked a smile, then cupped my face and raised his head a little to give me a quick kiss. “The cage is my heart. The missing bird is you, Tweety Byrd. The cage door being open is a sign of hope. Hope that you’d forgive me and fly back home one day. To where you truly belong. Inside my heart.”
The confirmation sounded even better coming from his mouth, and I kicked my feet out next to his like an excitable all-pink teenager. This made Chad laugh and shake his head. “And now that I’ve flown back home, what’re you going to do?”
“What do you think? Lock you inside the cage and melt the fucking key.” His palm glided down the curvature of my back, paused on my ass, then squeezed. “You’re stuck with me, Jhay. It’s me, or no one.”
See, most blind-by-love women would find that sweet and completely miss the threat in that statement. But “me, or no one” was a dangerously obsessive love and ownership proclamation. Especially when spoken from the mouth of a cold-blooded murderer.
Even though I was cross-eyed blind with love for this man, I didn’t miss the meaning behind that “it’s me, or no one” threat. It was a simpler term for “till death do us part”. And not in the marriage kind of way, either. The ones exchanged in wedding vows had no weight; “death” in that sense was a mere scrawl of a signature to a divorce paper. “Death”, in an unconventional relationship with a girlfriend-murdering criminal, was death.
The thing with me, though, was that I felt his words were fair enough. How? Because my sentiments were exact. For him, it was me, or no one. He was stuck with me. We were both a detonating threat to each other. Both hardcore danger. Two horns wrestling atop the Devil’s head.
However, if ever a man should whisper the words, “it’s me, or no one”, don’t sigh and think it’s sweet. It’s not. It’s not sweet. It’s bitter as gall. Painful as a piercing bullet to the heart. Fuck around and you’ll end up like Liz. Mark my words.
Run.
Love does not threaten. Love does not test, try or compete. Love does not challenge, claim or dominate. Love does not strangle. Love does not suffocate, debilitate or erase. Love does not kill. Love does not end.
Love goes on. Love flows.
Love simply loves.
Love just is.
At least, that’s what Isabel, my mother, said.
“That’s okay,” I whispered, laying my head down to his chest again. “I want to be stuck with you.”
With a kiss to the top of my head, his arms tightened around me. “Hate you so much, Jhay.”
“Love you, too, Blood.”
Isabel hadn’t spared me this one truth, though…
Love, in its purest form, is madness.
Piercing sunlight unapologetically poked my eyelids open. Chad was missing.
I flipped onto my side and espied him out on the balcony, leaning over the railing, a burgundy towel slung around his lower half, cellphone pressed to his ear, rapt in his conversation.
Slipping from between the sheets and out of bed, I trudged to the bathroom to freshen up. Fifteen minutes later I popped out with clean, moisturized skin, fresh breath, and a revived face, then realized neither of us had clothes in the room. We would either have to borrow clothes from the other famous couple occupying the house, or redress in our dirty habiliments from the day before. The latter sounded more likely.
I glanced out to the balcony and Chad was still on the phone, now with two fingers pressed to his forehead as though the conversation was a headache-inducing one. So I dragged the top sheet off the bed, wrapped it around me ancient Egyptian-style, and went in search of our clothes we’d negligently left out in the hall the night before, hoping the other two—Roman Prince and Rock Princess—weren’t yet awake.
Drifting noiselessly from the room, I tiptoed down the hall, finding not a single item of our clothes. We’d left our stuff littering the hall: of course a more civilized person would have picked them up.
I decided to just suck it up and go seek clothing for me and my man, borrowed or dirty. Didn’t matter. We were both still targets, still walking dead, so at this point it wasn’t really relevant whose clothes we were wearing.
As I neared the end of the hall, I heard discord, voices raising higher, and higher. The two were quarreling. Oh great, marital problems.
“…just not ready, JK. Not at this point in my career when—”
“Your career,” JK’s voice said, sounding more like a sneer. “Do you realize you use your career as excuse for everything? I have a ‘career’, too, Sassy, and I’m still playin’ my part as your husband. Play your fuckin’ part as my wife and do what you promised me you’d do in your vows!”
“It’s just bad timing, yeah?” Saskia returned, her voice now pacific and forbearing. “I’ll run it by Lion and—”
“ARE YOU FUCKIN’ KIDDING ME?!!” JK roared, and even I jumped at the reverberating explosion. “My wife needs to ask her manager’s permission on whether or not she should carry my motherfuckin’ baby?!”
“I don’t—”
There was a loud crash of something, followed by a jumble of other noises like a few things got tossed and kicked over. Then silence. Then a contrite “JK, wait!” Then the echoing bang of the front door.
I figured JK had stormed out, but waited a few minutes before resuming my journey down the hall. Saskia was standing still in the center of the massive kitchen, staring blankly at a completely ruined blender shattered all over the kitchen counter, pinkish smoothie running and dripping over the edges of the island. Four bar stools on the other side of the island were topsy-turvy.
I probably should be asking her if she was alright, offer her some help or something, but, yeah, I wasn’t that kind of human being.
“Excuse me, were you the one who picked our litter up from the hall?”
Saskia’s head jerked up at the sound of my voice, as if she’d been on another planet, only then becoming aware of my presence. “Oh, um, no. JK did.” As though she hadn’t just been a participant of a heart-imploding marital war, with a cool expression, she walked away from the debris, from the helter-skelter scene created by her Megatron of a husband, and rounded the island, heading into the open living area, towards an ivory couch that had a few pieces of clothes folded in a low stack.
“I could only save yours and Chad’s boots, and Chad’s trousers. Everything else got burned. So you’ll have to wear something of—”
“Burned?”
She fumbled needlessly with the folded garments, and I figured, despite her brave face, she was still on edge from the argument. “Yeah. JK was the one who took them up from the hallway…and threw them in the fireplace.”
“That asshole,” I muttered under my breath. I was close enough for her to hear me, but I didn’t give a damn how she took it. Her husband was a piece of shit asshole.
Pretending she didn’t hear, even though I was positive she did, she took up a skinny black jeans from the pile. “You’re taller than me, but I’m sure we wear the same size, yeah? And don’t worry, these are brand new. Never been worn.”
I bet they were. She was her. The famous kind who wore clothes once then tossed them aside, until she decided to make space in her closet for new stuff and donate those “old” ones to charity.
The jeans were definitely my size, so I took them and tossed them over my arm. Next she handed me a black, long-sleeved T-shirt and a lace underwear set with an eight hundred-dollar price tag still on. Also black.
“Based upon what you were wearing last night, your style seemed very much like mine,” she explained when she caught me eying the all-black garments piled in the crook of my arm. “I love black.”
Evidently.
When I just shrugged, she passed me Chad’s black jeans, washed and neatly folded, and a black wife-beater. “JK’s a little more built than Chad. Chad’s taller and lean, and I wasn’t sure how JK’s shirts would fit him, so I thought this singlet would be a safer choice, yeah?”
She was a lot friendlier than last night. The night before she’d been flat-out glaring at me, and now she seemed like she was trying to atone for that unwarranted hostility.
“Thanks,” I muttered, taking the wife-beater then bending down to pick up our boots. Chad’s were well and good, but the laces on one of mine were burned off at the ends.
As I made to leave, Saskia said, “He’s a good man.”
“What?” I asked, because that statement was laughable. She couldn’t possibly be talking about Chadrick Niiveux being a good man.
“I don’t know how bad the things are that he does—he or JK won’t tell me—but relationship-wise, he’s perfection,” she asserted. “He’s monogamous. If it’s you, it’s you. And he’ll treat you like no other woman exists in the world but you. Don’t hurt him.”
Oh, that explained it. She knew the fake Chad. The pretend-to-be-a-normal guy Chad. But I knew the real Chad. The one who’ll wrap his fingers around your throat and squeeze the air out of your lungs just minutes after confessing he’s falling in love with you. The one who whispered threateningly sweet things like “It’s me, or no one”.
She knew Chad. She didn’t know Chadrick. Half-Russian Kah-had-reek. Heir to the Devil’s pitchfork.
This woman with her easy life, her increasing wealth and fame, and her husband who loved her so much it seemed he was going mad, did not know the real Chad.
I did.
“Do you love him?” I questioned.
She took umbrage at this, her shoulders squaring in defense, pussy-cat gray eyes narrowing. “I love my husband.”
“Well, if you truly love your husband, be a good wife, carry his child, and keep your nose out of my and Chad’s business. It’s safer for you.”
I turned and walked off before she could shoot a rejoinder.
Why did I say all that? I had no idea. I guess I was just jealous about the whole “he’ll treat you like no other woman exists in the world but you”. Right. She should know. Why did she get the queen treatment and I got the rough, abusive treatment?
Maybe because she’s never tried to kill him or abuse him before? my snarky mind suggested.
Clutching the apparels while trying to keep the sheet around me intact, I re-entered the bedroom and found Chad still on the balcony. No longer on his phone, though. Just gazing out at the rolling green hills.
“Pssst,” I hissed, dumping the garments on the bed.
Chad turned around, saw me, and padded into the room, all wind-tousled hair, rippling abs, sexy V, and artistic tattoos on glowing olive skin.
“JK burned our clothes,” I told him, “so we have to wear theirs.”
Chad nodded once like he couldn’t care less, took up his jeans from the pile and started getting dressed. “All the shouting, marital problems?”
“Yep,” I confirmed. “She’s pregnant. He’s ready for it. She’s not.”
“Hmm” was all he gave out.
Chad had on his clothes before me and sat down at the edge of the bed to tug on his boots, and I rushed on my pieces in a slapdash manner just so I could sit down next to him and tug my boots on, too.
“Did you have feelings for her?”
A pause, then, “Yes.”
“Strong?”
His movements, as he tied his laces, got unnecessarily aggressive. “Yes.”
I moved from my right boot to my left. “What happened?”
Done with his boots, Chad stood up from the bed, and I could feel him staring down at me. “She wasn’t mine.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of all this. Knowing it hadn’t just been Liz. He’d had “strong feelings” for another woman also.
What I’d like to know is, when the fuck did he have time to love, miss, or mourn me? How could he claim he always loved me when he was busy loving other women? Was I a dolt to be believing his bullshit? Maybe.
But what did it even matter, huh? If he fessed up and told me he hadn’t always loved me, would I care? No. I wouldn’t. Because even if he hadn’t always loved me, I always loved him. For my whole life. Even when I hated him, I loved him.
If I should be honest with myself, my enthusiasm for Chad’s assignment had not been because I so desperately wanted revenge, but because I so desperately wanted to see him again. Even if it was just to kiss him right before I blew his brains to kingdom come.
I had never hated him.
Was just disappointed.
When I was finished with my boots, I straightened up on the bed and found him standing there, hovering, watching me.
Moving in front of me, he stooped down and placed his hands on my kneecaps. “Don’t ever doubt that it has always been you, Jhay. I loved Liz, but nowhere near how obscenely in love I am with you. You have always been inimitable in my thoughts. Memories of you were indelible. But a part of me…a part of me had to let you go, while another part still hoped. Hope at least that your hate for me hadn’t erased me completely from your memories. Stupidly hoped that one day the good memories would outshine the bad, and you’d come find me, because searched as I did, I couldn’t find you. So I got the tattoo. A year after, I found it wasn’t enough. I kept missing you. Missing you. Kept searching and couldn’t find you. So I went again and got the lyrics on my side. You never asked me about the lyrics because you don’t even realize they’re for you. You don’t know, Jhay. You don’t know how important you are to me.”
He looked down at his hands on my knees, took a minute, then looked back up at me. “I was falling for Saskia, it’s true, but I could’ve never shown her my real face. You know me. You know the real me. You knew me before I became me. I never have to hide from you. You see my ugly, my monster, my sins, my wounds, and you still love me. You fear me, but you don’t run. You’re sending yourself to doom with me.” A loaded sigh. “We were eight years apart, Jhay. What could we have done? It was impossible. It would’ve been labeled statutory rape, wrong, disadvantage, manipulation, abuse… Now we can call it….” He trailed off, as if to say “whatever we want”.
“Love.” I touched the side of his face. “We’re still eight years apart, but now we can call it love.”
He leaned into my touch. “I fell for them, but for you I fucking face-planted. You’re matchless. I know you don’t believe my words because you’re trained not to trust,” he said softly, “but know that I do my best to never, ever lie to you. About anything. You’re the only one I can be myself with. And I enjoy that freedom. I won’t ruin it with lies.”
“Only half-truths?”
He shook his head. “I might keep things from you to protect you…”
There was nothing more to say, because due to our past, the betrayals, treachery and duplicity, not just from him, but also from my mother, I might never reach a point where I’d believe his words, or anyone else’s, not even my own, so I curtailed the conversation with a simple “Okay.”
Realizing that nothing he said would ever convince me, Chad stood up, took my hands and pulled me from the bed, accepting defeat and moving on. “Feel any different about your brother being alive now? Ready to apologize?”
Not really, but I nodded. “Guess so.”
He slung his arm around me. “Let’s hope Hell’s out of vacancy and Satan doesn’t call us home today.”
“He better not,”—I uncharacteristically gyrated my hips—”because, dude, I’m wearing eight hundred-dollar panties today.”