24
Lola
Daire’s bedroom is roughly the size of my entire apartment. It’s dark and masculine and built for function. Everything is gray and black, and there isn’t a single piece of extraneous décor. He’s in the bathroom showering, and I’m in his California King bed wondering how many others have come before me. And then I wonder why I care.
Daire and I had a moment at the cemetery. A moment that was real. But I can’t paint it as anything other than what it is. This is not the beginning of forever. This is not the start of my fairytale. This is Daire and Lola, the classic version. The one where we could only ever have an unhappy ending because that’s how classics go. We don’t buck the trend. We don’t make waves. We get drunk and say mean things to each other, and we grieve. This is nothing new.
It makes no difference how comfortable I feel right now. No matter what Daire said today, I can’t let myself forget it. He says things that he doesn’t mean because that’s what addicts do. They pull you back in just to cut you in pieces all over again. I’ve been down that road before with Ryan, and I can’t go down it again.
As if on cue, my phone signals the reminder of the other man in my life. He’s sent me a message. Actually, three of them.
ThatGuy:
Anything fun happening this weekend?
ThatGuy:
You wouldn’t believe what I’m doing right now.
ThatGuy:
Okay, do I need to send out a search party? Might be somewhat tricky, given that I only know your username, but I’m starting to imagine a bunch of worst case scenarios in my head. Maybe it’s my imagination running wild, or maybe it’s just easier to accept than the fact that you haven’t messaged me back. Sooo… everything okay?
I sigh and stare at the bathroom door guiltily before tapping out a reply.
LolaB:
Sorry. Nothing wrong just had some stuff to deal with last night and today. Sad to report it was not fun stuff, but just life stuff. How was your weekend?
The shower turns off, and I stuff the phone under my pillow like I’ve just been caught cheating. It beeps twice, but I’m too chicken to answer it before the bathroom door opens up and Daire emerges. He quirks a brow in my direction, and his eyes move to my pillow like he can see right through it.
“LB.” His voice is steely. I swallow and look up at him, certain I’ve been caught somehow. This is going to be the thing that blows everything up again and sets us back to square one where we are at each other throats. But instead, he cocks his head sideways and crosses his arms. And I know exactly what comes next because his eyes are dark, and his soul is hungry.
“Open your legs and lay back,” he orders.
I do what he says. But for a minute, he doesn’t move. He stays there, his eyes tracing the lines of my body. I feel small in this big bed, and I know I look small to him too. Daire isn’t just a force of nature. He’s a force of lean muscle and power. Large hands and strong legs and an ass that looks like it was chiseled out of marble. He keeps himself in good form because he wouldn’t want anyone to perceive him as weak. But the thing is, he doesn’t let me see him.
Even now, he’s wearing loose black sweatpants and a white tee shirt. When we have sex, he takes his cock out and nothing more. He doesn’t let me explore his body. He’s always in control, and for good reason. He doesn’t want me to see his leg. Even in the pool, when we were naked, he made sure that it was dark. He is the master of his surroundings, and that includes me.
“What’s on your mind?” He’s toying with my hair now, and it relaxes me to the point that my eyes drift shut.
“My thoughts are my own,” I murmur.
“Not when you’re with me they aren’t.”
I open my eyes and look up at him. “You think you own them too?”
He grunts in response. And I miss his softness, so I give him some of my own. “It’s weird how relaxed I feel with you when you’re like this. When you take control, my mind goes quiet, and everything else disappears.”
His eyes never leave mine. I want him to say something, but he doesn’t. He rubs his thumb over my lips and makes an unintelligible sound before turning me so that my head is hanging off the bed. “I want to fuck that pretty mouth.”
This is Daire’s version of romance, and I can’t deny that it makes me wet for him. So, when he tugs on his pants and fetches his cock, I wait eagerly for him. He makes pigtails of my hair and uses them as handles to feed me his fat dick. I have the best view in the house to watch the agonizing pleasure transform his face every time I take him deep, or even better when I lick the crown, and he jumps.
“Fuck, Lola, you were made for this.”
He is flawed beyond measure, but I love every broken piece of him. I live for the dirty and filthy things that explode from of his mouth when he has his way with me. And I wonder if he knows just how much he really owns me.
He stops abruptly and scrapes a hand through his hair. His body is rigid, and something is off.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m tired,” he says. “But I want to fuck you.”
I roll onto my side and prop my head on my hand as I examine him. His pants are hanging off his hips, and his cock is saluting me, still wet with my saliva. But his eyes are bloodshot and red and I know he’s exhausted and for some reason, this seems to be the dilemma that he can’t quite figure out how to handle.
I pat the space on the bed beside me, trying to coax him closer. “It’s okay. Just come here.”
Whatever’s going on here isn’t really about the sex. Something else has made those dark eyes turbulent. And I can’t help but wonder if this is the part in the story where Daire turns on me again and rips me apart to protect himself. That’s my fear, and it might be unfounded, but to me, it feels real enough.
Before I can be sure of anything, he drags himself into bed and leans back on the pillow. And that’s when I notice the spasms in his leg. He wouldn’t want me to acknowledge it, but it’s my fault. I ran tonight, and he gave chase.
“Why don’t you climb on top and ride me,” he suggests.
“Okay.” I touch his face. “But we need to take off your pants.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He glares at me, and if it were any other day, I might be intimidated by it. But I’ve had enough shit today, and I’m tired, and I want to smash through this ridiculous barrier. I tug on his pant leg, and he strikes out with his hand, gripping me around the arm.
“I said no.”
“And I don’t care. Quit being a child, Daire. I don’t care what your leg looks like. I want to touch you. I want to feel you.”
His eyes soften, and it’s the first time in years that I’ve seen him so vulnerable. He doesn’t want to do it, but he really wants to get laid. He’s in the unfortunate position of being unable to fuck me himself, and for a change, he’s at my mercy.
I nurture the side of him that I need right now, coaxing out the gentle part of him I know still exists. I touch him all over. I jack him off slowly and kiss his throat. I whisper in his ear how much I want him. And eventually, he caves.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He slides off his sweatpants, and it isn’t pretty.
Tears spring to my eyes when I see the monstrosity for the first time. It is dimpled and caved and to be frank, it looks like a Frankenstein horror. Part of the muscle is missing, and there are discolorations of the skin where he’s been patched back together.
Logically, I knew it was bad. He has never been the same since the accident. There was a period of time when he couldn’t walk at all. They wanted to take his leg, and he wouldn’t let them. He was confined to a wheelchair for a year before he walked on his own again. But somewhere along the way in my bitterness and confusion, I decided he wasn’t that bad off. The judge went easy on him because of his sad state, and he ended up serving less than a year for his crimes. He’d killed two people when he crashed that boat.
I’ve been so angry for so long that I never really considered how much pain he has suffered too. And when I reach out to touch him, I cry for real.
“Lola,” Daire chastises. “Stop it.”
His cock has deflated, and this is the worst way I could have handled this, but I wasn’t prepared.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Determined to make him feel like a man again, I take off my panties and straddle him. My hips are stretched wide over his body, and it feels like the one and only time I rode a horse. I tell him so, and some of the tension dissipates with the rumble of his laughter.
“Lean forward,” he says. “I want to play with your tits.”
I do what he asks, and after several moments of dedicated worship to my boobs, he’s hard all over again. He grips my hip and squeezes his cock inside of me on a sigh.
“Mmm,” he murmurs. “Ride me, baby.”
I don’t actually have to ride him because Daire drives my hips with his hands. All I can do is hang on and try not to black out. It feels amazing. It feels like twelve years of pent-up pressure is about to explode inside of me. When it does, I think I do blackout for at least a second.
“Fuckkkkkk.” Daire unloads himself with one last violent thrust, impaling me on his cock.
I collapse on his chest, and Daire pulls up the sheets. There isn’t another word between us.