ELEVEN
Evan
It was stupid to be nervous.
I had been on planes countless times.
I had been to Brazil on at least three different occasions.
And I wasn't alone.
Luce had been sitting next to me, watching some cinematically dark, bloody vampire movie that was like the fifth in a series or something, so I had opted out of watching along. Besides, my mind was too all-over-the-place to be able to concentrate on a movie. And I had a feeling that Luce would ask me about it afterward, and wouldn't be happy if I came back with 'oh, it was very action packed' as an answer.
Things after the church had been... different than before the church.
There was no more flirtation, no hints at flirtation, and certainly no more touching.
In fact, after I showered, he was already sprawled out on his bed texting Barrett. So I brought my cell up and looked into flights. We ordered food to the room. Barrett put on one of his favorite action movies, a really interesting movie about, essentially, a heist and an off-duty cop who put a stop to it. While I liked it, I very much doubted that he was correct in calling it the greatest Christmas movie of all time.
Men.
But then, yeah, we booked the flight to Brazil the next morning... and just... went to sleep. In separate beds.
That left me tossing and turning a lot until, almost at sunrise, I finally drifted off.
We were more than halfway to our destination. From there, we had to take two buses. Then we would crash at the closest local town with a motel. After that, well, there would be some walking. Apparently, Gabriela Santos lived in a rural village in the middle of nowhere with a dirt road that turned to deep mud that no local car would attempt to drive down lest it get stuck.
Luce had taken all this information like a seasoned world traveler. Though, I had gotten a look at his passport stamps earlier, and all I had seen were Mexico, Canada, and, oddly, China.
Because the little flirtation thing between us had been gone all morning, I had felt weird asking. But as I watched him pull off his headphones, his movie rolling credits, in my nervousness, I couldn't help but blurt out, "Why China?"
"What?" he asked, looking taken aback.
"Your passport said Mexico, Canada, and China. Why China?"
He gave me a long look, so long that I wasn't sure he was going to answer. "When I first started my... business," he said carefully, giving me a pointed look, "I wasn't as skilled or careful as I am now. Things got hot. I decided to get lost for a while. Didn't last long."
"You missed your melting pot food," I guessed, making him smile.
"Something like that, yeah." He paused, looking down to where my fingers were thrumming against my thigh. "What's up, Evan?" he asked, putting his hand over mine.
And the action was so unexpected that my gaze went to the top of his hand, and stayed there for a long moment, having to physically force my fingers to stay flat, to not slide between his.
"I'm nervous," I admitted.
"Your mom is going to love to see you. I hope you speak Spanish."
"Portuguese," I corrected. "They speak Portuguese in Brazil. But it is a lot like Spanish. I should be able to carry on a conversation easily enough."
"Then what? She obviously wants to see you if she is still looking for you." He paused as I looked out the window. "Is this because Alejandro raised you?" he asked, and I felt my stomach twist painfully, making me almost wonder if I needed to reach for an airsickness bag. "Evan, you had no idea. She is not going to blame you, or look at you any differently. If anything, she might want you to reassure her that he never put his hands on you."
Ugh.
I hadn't even thought of that.
Of course, as a mother, and as a woman who had been brutally raped, she would worry about a similar fate happening to me. Hell, with the amount of trafficking in the world, maybe she even worried I had been sold into a child sex ring.
I couldn't imagine how much she had worried about me.
Meanwhile, I had been traipsing around her rainforests several times in my life. With her rapist.
What a fucked up situation.
"Look," Luce tried when I stayed silent, lost in my own swirling thoughts. "Worst case, if it sucks, if you are uncomfortable, it's just an hour. We can say when we get there that we have plans or some shit. You can tolerate anything for an hour, right?"
That was true.
"Right," I agreed.
And then I didn't have to force my fingers to stay straight anymore, because his curled inward and held mine.
Somehow, I felt instantly a lot better.
Which was crazy.
But true nonetheless.
"I don't think we thought this out enough," Luce said, swatting at a swarm of gnats around his head.
"Why?" I asked, somewhat amused by his discomfort.
He might have been a vigilante, a stone-cold killer, but he was not the outdoorsy type. He was what I might call indoorsy. He was thin and had more muscles than I had been aware of under his hoodie, but it was clear that a long, hot, exhausting hike was not his thing.
"Because your feet hurt in those converse?" I suggested.
"Because... where the fuck are we going to stay overnight in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere?"
Okay.
He had a point.
"We will just have to walk back to the motel," I suggested, shrugging.
"You want to walk this in the dark?" he asked, waving at the wide open landscape. "I mean, what are the local predators?"
"Oh, nothing really. Caiman near the rivers and such. You might see some wolf occasionally. And, you know," I said, trying to fight back a smile. "Just some jaguar."
"Did you just say fucking jaguar?" He asked, stopping.
"I'd worry more about the puma, I think."
"Jesus Christ. Can we go back to fucking Jersey now?" he asked, shaking his head. "We had one, one coyote loose once and every animal control officer and cop was hunting that mother fucker down."
I laughed at that, used to the threat of wildlife. Though, even I could admit I was more afraid without my fath... Alejandro and his blow darts around.
"Look, this is farming land," I said as we kept moving. "The big cats would be around farms with animals that they could pick off. I haven't seen a farm with any animals for almost an hour. We'll be fine in the dark. Plus, it will be a little cooler, so we can move a little faster."
He nodded at that, but there was a definite grumble, like maybe he thought this pace was fast enough.
"Hey, didn't they say blue with red trim and roof?" Luce said, stopping, and pointing toward the side of a hill where, sure enough, a blue wooden building was half-hidden by said hill. There was a large garden out back and, even from a distance, I could make out a few chicken walking around.
In the US, they would call this small, squat, rectangular, typically one-room dwelling a 'shack,' or something equally low-brow. In most countries, however, this was how many of the people lived.
"Yeah," I agreed, stomach spinning. "That looks like the one they described."
"You ready?" Luce asked, moving back a step to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me as I reached up to self-consciously swipe a sweaty brow.
"Not really," I admitted truthfully. "But it's just an hour, right?" I asked, bringing up his words from the plane. "I can tolerate anything for an hour."
"Sure as fuck can," he agreed, elbowing me in the side a little in a 'let's get moving' kind of way.
So we did.
And fifteen minutes later, we were standing outside the door to my birth mother's home.
I could feel Luce's stare on my profile, but I couldn't seem to force myself to raise my hand to knock.
"Allow me," he said, taking the whole thing out of my hands by knocking twice on the old, shaky door.
There was some shuffling for maybe only five seconds before the door pulled open, and there she was.
I got an eyeful of what I would look like in about twenty years. Sister Maria was right; we were very similar looks-wise. We had the same skin, the same hair, the same eyes. I was taller, but we both seemed to carry our weight in our lower bodies. She was dressed in a simple blue dress with a white apron tied around her waist. Her hair was in a loose braid, with tendrils floating around her face. There were some wrinkles beside her lips and eyes, but she looked young still somehow.
I could have sworn I heard Luce mumble something about 'good genes,' and I had to agree.
There was only one part of her face that didn't match mine, an unevenness beside her right eye that might have pointed to a broken eye-socket at one time.
I think we all knew how that got broken.
"Oh minha filha!" she gasped, making a steeple of her fingers in front of her mouth. "Oh minha filha!" she said again, eyes filling as she reached for me, and yanked me against her chest.
Really, there was nothing to do but hold her back, this woman who had never given up, who had constantly written to ask for updates on my search, even when she herself was forced back to Brazil.
Before too long, she was sobbing into my neck, letting out a string of Portuguese so fast that I was struggling to make it out, if it even made any sense to begin with.
I caught bits and pieces about how she never thought she would see me again, how her heart hurt every day, how she never gave up the search.
Finally, what seemed like a lifetime later, she pulled back, reaching for her apron to wipe her face, then looking at me for a long minute. Her hands rose, cupping my face. "English, yes?" she asked.
"Mostly," I agreed. "Though I can understand most of what you're saying."
"I can speak the English," she said, giving me a smile. "And who is this?" she asked, giving me a look that, while I was raised motherless, I could completely interpret as a maternal excitement to meet her daughter's boyfriend.
"Oh, sorry. This is my friend, Luce," I offered, touching his arm. "Luce, this is Gabriela," I said, feeling awkward. "My mother."
"Luce! Nice to meet you. I'm glad Evangeline has such nice friends," she said the word heavily, like she knew it was more than that, though there was no way she could, "to bring her all the way down to Brazil."
"He was the one to actually find you and sort of... bring me here," I offered, wanting to give credit where credit was due.
"So, I have you to thank!" she said, turning her hugs onto him. And Luce, well, he looked hilariously uncomfortable with the contact. His eyes were huge; his hands were awkwardly patting her back; his body was stiff as a board. "Come in, come in. You must be starving. I didn't see cars. We had rains last night," she explained. "The mud, impassable."
Yeah, they weren't kidding about the cars not being able to handle the mud on the dirt roads. We saw three of them stuck with mud that literally would have come halfway up my calf if we hadn't been walking on the grass.
"Thank you," I said as we moved inside to find pretty much what I had expected. It was a one-room space with only the bathroom separate. There was a bed pushed against the wall beside the side window, nothing hanging to cover it, letting the light shine in to, I imagined, wake her at sunrise so she could get to work on the garden out back.
I always envied the lifestyle of the small village gardeners. It was an homage to our ancestors to wake up with the sun, tend your land, eat what you grew or killed, spend time with your family and community, then go to bed. Shower, rinse, repeat.
What a simple life.
Only maybe three feet from the end of the bed was a small straight kitchen with a stove, sink, lower cabinets, and shelves of dishwear above, pretty pieces in bright colors, likely made locally, which gave me the urge to make sure we hit a local town square so I could pick up a few pieces to remember this trip by.
To the opposite side of the room, there was a dining table, worn lovingly with time, and I inwardly wondered how many generations of my ancestors had sat there and broken bread together, how many stories were shared, laughs had.
I felt a deep pang inside at the idea of never having experienced that. It also struck me that I had never actually been given any history from my fath... from Alejandro. Why that had never struck me as odd before was completely beyond me. How had it never crossed my mind to ask about my grandparents? My cousins? Especially on holidays. He had, after all, told me that relatives raised me. Relatives I would never meet.
God, I had been so so blind.
Granted, for all intents and purposes, I didn't know any better, but still. While he had exposed me to so much, so many cultures, so many different pockets of the world, it had also left me very insulated and ignorant of what was a more normal relationship to have with your family.
You would think in this golden age of technology, that would no longer be an excuse, but when you spent a lot of time in areas with little or no cell reception, and even when you had it, you had no friends to connect with on social media, well, you learned to do without things like that.
"Thirsty?" she asked, going to the fridge before we even answered, reaching inside, and pulling out a pitcher of not-quite-clear liquid that I knew to be coconut water, something I drank almost exclusively the last time I was in Brazil. It had done amazing things to my skin.
"Yes, please," I said, moving with Luce over to the table she gestured to.
"Food?" she asked, filling three glasses with liquid.
"No thanks," I answered, then shot Luce a guilty look.
"It's too fucking hot for food," he whispered back at me.
She came back over, passing out the drinks which we both took long, almost embarrassing swigs of thanks to the fact that we each finished our water less than halfway into the trek.
It only took all of five minutes before it happened.
We got the part about Sister Maria out, and then she asked what led us there.
I could have lied.
It would have made life easier.
But I didn't want to.
She was the only actual relative I was aware of having. I felt I owed her honesty at least.
So I told her.
"Ele te machucou?" she asked, voice completely shattered. "Ele te machucou?"
Did he hurt you?
"No," I said, voice firm, reaching across the table to place my hand on top of hers which was worrying a rag that had been on the table. "No, not at all. Never once. He never let anyone else hurt me either," I added. "He just... I don't know if maybe his plan had been to hurt me or let others. That's possible. But he never did. I guess I brought out the very small human side of him. Because he wasn't good, Gabriela," I said, watching as she winced slightly at that, but I wasn't at the point where I could call her Mom yet. "The things he did to you, he did that to many other women across several continents. I... I had no idea. He never..." I said, shaking my head, feeling the tears sting at my eyes again.
"He never let her get wind of the evil shit he was doing," Luce supplied. "It wasn't until after he died that, well, I told her."
"And you know because?"
I took a deep breath then rushed on before he could answer. I wanted to be truthful. But, y'know, without getting thrown out of her house.
"Luce is someone who... finds bad people, and gets them off the street."
"I'm not a cop, Evan," he said behind me, making me want to elbow him to shut up, but my mother was watching too closely.
"You are a... what is the word... a vigilante."
I didn't have to look to see the smirk Luce had on. "Exactly."
"I know he was like a father to her," she said, ignoring me completely, "but I hope he suffered."
"He took the chickenshit road and downed some cyanide," Luce countered, sounding so casual about the whole thing, reminding me how much darkness he had seen. Hell, it was etched on his skin.
"Good riddance," she said, shaking her head. Then she reached for me, rubbing my hand. "I'm sorry, Evangeline. I know he was..."
"Don't," I implored, shaking my head. "Don't apologize. It was all his fault any of this happened."
"Okay. Okay," she said, shaking her head. "Let's not talk any more of him. Let's talk of you."
So then we did.
For almost three hours.
I had never met someone who wanted to know every teeny, minuscule detail of my life from my first date to what languages I spoke to my faith, my dreams, my life in Navesink Bank.
And during all of this, I was acutely aware of Luce behind me, hearing every word, knowing about Emanuel who had taken me to a local faire, bought me a flower crown, and kissed me for the first time when I was fifteen, and he also learned that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life now that I was done traveling.
He knew almost everything about me.
"It's getting dark," Gabriela said much later, looking out the window. "You should be getting back before the wolves come out."
"Told you," Luce growled at me, making me laugh.
"Will you visit again? Can you stay for another day or two?"
I looked over my shoulder at Luce, knowing it wasn't just me who had to make that decision.
"We can stay as long as you want, Ev. It's not like my job is missing me."
"Okay?" she asked, sounding hopeful.
"Okay," I agreed, smiling. "We can meet? In town? Tomorrow?"
"Perfect," I agreed, smiling. "I wanted to check out the town."
"Okay. Here," she said, standing suddenly, and grabbing a bat she kept behind her door. "You take this," she said, thrusting it at Luce. "And you protect my girl."
Luce looked at me, eyes warm with... something I couldn't explain. "I will bring her back to you safe and sound, I promise."
With that, I was hugged like I was going off to war.
Then so was Luce.
Which was, again, hilarious.
And we were off into the night.
"You alright?" he asked fifteen tense minutes later, both of us a little out of breath because we heard a howling that made us simultaneously start to run-walk.
"That was... heavy," I admitted, looking for the lights of the motel, still a while off, but visible.
"So if Emanuel was your first kiss..." he trailed off, sounding amused.
"I was nineteen," I supplied, shrugging. "And he was from Spain. It was on his boat," I added, shaking my head at my young naivety. I thought, like most young women did, that it meant something. And while the whole experience was lovely, leaps and bounds better than most women's stories, it didn't go beyond that night. I had been a sullen, unhappy girl all through Italy and then Cambodia before I finally shook it off.
"Nice."
He didn't offer any information about his first time and, quite frankly, I had a feeling that that was completely off-limits.
"Thank God," I groaned thirty minutes later when we finally walked into the motel room.
It was nothing like the one in Texas. There was no funky, modern color scheme or fancy bathroom accessories. The walls were a mustardy yellow. The floors were tile. The beds were only fulls. The bathroom had a stall shower, vanity, sink, and toilet. All of it was the kind contractors get in bulk, cheap and nothing to write home about.
But it was clean.
And it was near where we needed to be.
And it wasn't the "Free Love" motel we passed on the way in that Luce had raised a brow at.
"It's for prostitutes and Johns," I supplied, explaining why I was walking right past it. "There is a huge economy in Brazil, but flesh will always be a bestselling cash crop here."
That was a sad reality of the country, of many countries.
But Brazil, unfortunately, was second only to Thailand in the epidemic of child and teen sex trafficking. I had seen them myself on the streets, fifteen and sixteen-year-old girls dressed in a way that made my twelve-year-old self uncomfortable. When I had angled my head up to question my father, he had given me a grimace. "Income inequality in a country always affects women and children the worst," he had explained. "Sometimes, the mom is out working the streets, leaving her kids at home, and they get snatched and sold into sex rings. They never get out. Women have bodies that are marketable. And in a bad economy, they sell the only goods they have to keep food in their stomachs."
Maybe that should have been a warning sign too. Maybe a topic so heartbreaking told so clinically should have made me give pause. But I was hardly more than a child, and then time long buried that conversation until I had reason to think of it again.
And while, as someone who had traveled a lot and had literally broken bread with prostitutes in countries where it was a legal, safe, and less frowned-upon profession, I saw nothing wrong with a woman who sold her body. That was her choice to make.
Children, however, had no choice.
It made me sick that there were people who profited on their misery.
"Alright, go ahead," Luce said, tossing a towel that hit me in the chest because I was too lost in my own head to pay attention. "I'll go after."
Really, as tired as I was, there was no way I was going to bed as sticky and disgusting as I felt. That was one thing I had apparently forgotten about the endless traveling I used to do with my fath... with Alejandro. You were always sweaty, sticky, just shy of dirty, and always hyper aware of that fact.
So I nearly ran into the shower, keeping the water somewhere between warm and cool, shivering slightly, my nipples hardening as I scrubbed soap over my skin and into my hair, almost moaning at the feeling of cleanliness.
I was so lost in that good feeling, that I almost didn't hear the quiet tapping sound at the door. It almost seemed... hesitant.
I rinsed my hair, shut off the water, and reached for a towel just to hold in front of me. "Yeah?"
The door opened slowly.
And there was Luce.
With that deep look in his eyes that I couldn't read.
But they were focused on me.
And the next thing I knew, he was kicking out of his shoes, then reaching for the hem of his shirt, lifting the dark material slowly. There was no denying the surge of surprise and desire that coursed through me, realizing what was happening. My heart leaped into overdrive, and a heavy pressure settled in my lower stomach.
He tossed the shirt to the floor, something I knew took effort for him, took a show of trust that he likely had never demonstrated before, baring those scars he was so protective of.
His head cocked to the side as his hands moved to the waistband of his pants. As he popped the button, a fast, furious, fluttering sensation started between my thighs. Anticipation. Need.
The pants hit the floor, leaving him in a pair of black boxer briefs that did nothing to hide his straining cock.
The fluttering became something entirely different then, something stronger, something borderline painful.
Then his hands reached for the elastic waistband of his underwear, pulling it down.
And I swear I almost came right then and there.
His cock was straining, larger than you would guess from his deceptively thin body.
Forget breathing. My chest felt constricted even as I forced my eyes to move upward to his face, even as his eyes warmed slightly, maybe feeling relief that I hadn't shrunk away. But the reality was, the last thing on my mind right then were his scars.
Seeming to sense the acceptance, he moved forward across the small space, pulling open the stall door, and stepping inside, making me press back against the wall to make room for him.
His hand rose, resting over the one that I had in the center of my chest, holding the towel in place. My eyes on his, seeing a desire there so thick that I felt completely enveloped in it, my hand slipped away, letting him hold the towel for a long moment before he pulled it down and dropped it to the side.
I don't know what I was expecting next.
But he reached out and a cascade of cool water hit me, making me let out a strangled yipping noise in surprise, making his lips curve up.
"Come here," he said, moving backward under the spray, putting his hands on my hips to pull me with him.
The cold water moved across my suddenly heavy breasts, making a shiver course through me.
But then his hands on my hips pulled, making my pelvis meet his, making his cock press into my belly, and, yeah, that shiver had nothing to do with the cold.
"Don't worry," he said, leaning down to run his lips up my neck. "Once I'm done here, I'm gonna take care of you," he said, like a promise, like a vow. That was how serious his tone was as he reached past me for the soap.
"Can I?" I asked, surprising myself, I think, more than him.
His smile went a little wicked even as his eyes got heavier, but as my hand rose to touch the edge of the scar on his chest, his entire body stiffened. "It doesn't matter," I said, pressing closer to him. "Whatever this is," I went on, brushing the soap across the whole thing, "it doesn't matter right now, okay?"
There was a long moment where he was staring at me, his eyes blank, lost somewhere. Lost, I was sure, in the moment when those scars got carved into his flesh.
But then he came back, slowly at first, like he was thawing.
"Between us," he said, ducking his head a bit to keep intense eye-contact, "it never matters, okay?"
I could understand the need for that, guessing that whatever put them there was horrific, was something dark and ugly that he didn't want to put between what was growing with us.
"Okay," I agreed, nodding, doing another swipe across his chest that didn't make him stiffen so hard.
By the time I was scrubbing his back, noticing for the first time lash marks across the backs of his thighs, swallowing hard, trying to show no signs of my shock, even though he was facing away from me, his entire body - cock aside- had relaxed.
"Think I'm clean now, doll," he rumbled as my hands moved over his ass.
"I'm just being extra sure," I said, pressing my breasts into his back, enjoying the little rumbling growly noise he let out at my hardened nipples pressing into his skin. "You know," I teased, hands moving across his belly and down, "I think I maybe missed a spot..." I added as my fingers teased down the deep V of his Adonis belt.
The soap dropped, forgotten, as my hand closed around his cock.
I barely got to stroke him once before he whipped around. His wide-palmed hands closed around my wrists, dragging my arms up, then slamming them back against the shower wall over my head as his lips crashed down on mine.
Everything else simply fell away.
All there was was his tongue in my mouth, his teeth in my lip, his cock against my belly, his hard chest against my breasts.
His lips ripped from mine, making a pained whimper escape me before I felt his lips work their way down the column of my neck. He released my wrists and my hands raked down his back, making him hiss as his teeth nipped into the skin right below my ear.
"Luce... please," I groaned, leg raising to his side, wrapping half around his back, practically climbing him in my need for more.
"What? You don't like being tortured?" he asked against my ear, nipping into the lobe. "I've been thinking about this shit for over a week."
I dropped my hips, feeling his cock brush against my clit, making a whimper escape me.
"I've been thinking of you inside me for over a week," I admitted, making his head raise, his smirk wicked.
"Well, that's too fucking long." His hands went down my back to sink into my ass, yanking me up by it, forcing my legs around him as he stepped out of the stall, stopping for only a second to dry his feet because falling and breaking something would have made the moment a helluva lot less sexy.
The next thing I knew, as I was busy trying to torture his neck as he tortured mine, I was free falling backward before I bounced on the bed, making me let out a loud laugh for a moment before he moved to the foot of the bed, reaching down to touch my ankle.
It was chaste, but it sent off an electric current up my calf, thigh, then between.
"Nice fucking view," he rumbled, voice low as his knees pressed into the edge of the mattress. His hands moved up my calves to grab my knees, sinking in, and spreading my thighs wide on the outside of his hips.
"Luce," I demanded as he just kept looking down at me, eyes downcast.
"Never done a fucking thing in my life to deserve this," he said, tone heavy, as his hands drifted up my belly, stroking across the sensitive undersides of my breasts. "But I'm gonna show you just how fucking appreciative I am."
Then he was down on the mattress.
And I could barely pull in a breath before I felt his tongue slide up my slick cleft and circle around my seemingly throbbing clit.
My hand slapped down on the back of his neck, holding him to me, but there was no need; he didn't need to be held there. He had no plans to stop, to bring me to the brink, then take it away.
He was devouring me, working my clit in circles as his fingers slid between and slipped slowly inside me, working with small, gentle strokes.
My hand slid upward, curling into his wet hair as my hips started moving against him, wanting more, needing more, needing him.
"Luce, please," I whimpered, reaching for his shoulders, trying to pull him upward.
His tongue left my clit as he angled his head up, but his fingers kept their thrusting. "How can I show you how much I appreciate you if I don't make you scream before I get to feel your tight pussy take me in?"
Then he tipped his head back down.
But his tongue didn't move out.
No.
His lips closed around my clit and sucked hard just as his fingers curled and stroked over my G-spot.
That was it.
That was all it took.
The orgasm ripped through me, making my thighs shake as the waves crashed, as I screamed. His name.
"Fuck," he growled as he released my clit and kissed up my belly, his scruff scraping at the overly-sensitive skin deliciously.
It didn't matter that he had just given me a powerful orgasm. It didn't matter that it was more than I had had in far too long.
It wasn't enough.
It wasn't anywhere near enough.
Nothing would be enough until I felt him slide inside me, until I felt him move within me, until we both shattered together.
As if sensing this, he took his time.
His tongue traced under my breast, making a shiver move through me a second before his lips closed around my nipple, and sucked hard. He moved across my chest to suck the other hardened point in, then nipped so viciously that I saw stars as an unexpected surge of desire shot between my thighs.
Frustrated, I whipped upward, slamming a hand into his shoulder, sending him flying onto his back with a grunt.
"Like to play rough, huh?" he asked, smiling up at me as I moved to straddle him.
"Two can play that torture game," I informed him as I lowered my face down toward him, making sure my breasts teased into his chest.
I kissed, licked, sucked down his neck, his chest, his stomach.
"Evan..." his voice warned as I nipped into his inner thigh.
I smiled as I turned suddenly, sucking his cock deep before he could even anticipate the motion, making his hips jerk upward as his hand slammed down on the back of my neck.
"Fuck, doll," he growled, moving to grab my hair to curl it in his fist so he could watch as I started to work him. Slowly.
He liked torture; I could torture.
"Jesus Christ," he growled as my fingers teased over his balls. "Okay, okay," he chuckled. "I get it, Ev," he said, yanking hard enough on my hair to make me lose his cock completely. "You want my cock," he added, looking devilish as he curled to the side of the bed, shuffling around in his bag, and coming back with a condom. "That's the point you're trying to make, right?" he asked as he reached for my wrist, grabbing, and sending me falling down on the bed.
I rolled to my side facing him as he rolled to his, pulling up the condom to nip at the edge and rip it. "That's definitely the point I've been trying to make," I agreed, sliding my leg up over his hip as he protected us.
"Well, I can't deny such a request, huh?" he asked, hand sliding up my thigh, curving around until it settled on my ass.
"No, you wouldn't do that," I agreed as he rolled me onto my back, moving over me, sealing his lips into mine.
His cock pressed hard into my slit, making my legs raise up, wrapping around his lower back, inviting him in as he nipped my lower lip.
"Luce, please," I groaned, hips grinding up into his, nails digging into his back.
His eyes flashed as he raised up to look down at me. "Sounds fucking good when you beg for my cock, doll," he growled as the head of his cock finally pressed where I needed him most, creating a pressure that made me let out a whimper of desperation. "Know what will sound even better?" he asked as his hips pressed forward, as his cock slid inside me, making me let out a loud moan. "Yeah, that," he agreed, cock twitching as he settled deep.
"Oh my God."
True, it had been a while, but I was sure in that moment that nothing had ever felt anywhere near as good before.
"Only gonna get better, doll," he said, voice low, as his hips shifted back, then pressed deep again.
And then it did.
His eyes were on mine as he slowly, gently, almost, dare I say it, lovingly thrust within me, driving me up slowly, almost excruciatingly, seeming to take his joy in leisurely building an almost painful amount of pleasure in me before allowing it to finally crest.
"Okay, baby, okay," he crooned as my whimpers became actual cries, the need so strong it was a painful pressure that felt like there would be no end to. "You want to come for me?" he asked, shifting slightly so his hand could slide between us, pressing into my swollen clit. "Yeah?" he asked. I nodded as my entire body stiffened, as he pushed me into that nothingness. "Come, Evan," he demanded as his cock pressed forward, as his finger did another swipe.
My cry got caught, strangled in my throat as the first waves slammed through my system, seeming to start at the base of my spine, and explode outward. But then I did find my voice again, and there was only one thing to say.
His name.
"Luce," I cried out on the last waves as he buried deep and hissed my name into my neck as he came with me.
He stayed buried deep as we both struggled to find our breaths, as my body shook gently in aftershocks, as our hearts slowed.
"Worth the wait," he said as he pressed upward, looking down at me with eyes that seemed heavy, as they often did, but this time with something that wasn't scary or dark. It was something else, something I couldn't quite place, but something that seemed good, something that made a warmth spread through my belly.
"Yeah, it was," I agreed, hand going behind his neck to pull him back down, kissing him long until his lips were smiling against mine, making me let him up. "What?" I asked, smiling back.
"Tell you what... ask me that again tomorrow, okay?" he said oddly as he pulled against my hold to stand.
"Why?"
"Got my reasons. Ask me tomorrow," he demanded again, giving me a lazy grin as he moved toward the bathroom.
Intrigued, I forced my lazy limbs to move, climbing off the bed that we had soaked with our shower-wet bodies.
"Here, Ev," Luce said as he came back out, holding a fluffy towel. "Your hair is still dripping," he explained as I took it and started drying. "Hungry?" he asked, fishing out a new pair of boxer briefs, and slipping them on.
"I could eat," I agreed as he slipped into jeans and a tee.
"I'll drop into that place down the street again," he said, tying on some shoes. "That stew last night was pretty banging," he added, and I had to agree. "Gotta keep your strength up," he went on, closing in on me, reaching behind me to run a finger down my spine. "Because there's going to be a fuckuva lot of that from now on," he said with a wink as he gestured toward the bed.
"Promise?" I asked with a smirk that he returned.
"Fucking vow," he agreed, lips crushing to mine for a long moment before he moved toward the door. "I'll be back in twenty."
With that, he was gone, leaving me to change into a pair of lightweight shorts and one of Luce's tees.
"You forgot your key you idi..." I started as I opened the door following a few short knocks.
The smile fell from my face though as soon as I had the door open.
Because it wasn't Luce who had been knocking.
And my stomach dropped painfully, something in me screaming that things had just taken a sharp turn downward.
The man's smile was slow, slick, evil.
"Been waiting years to send a message to your old man," he growled as I moved backward, trying to find the bat we had walked home with. "Now, what better way than taking his perfect, protected little angel?" he asked as my hand closed around the long, hard, cold handle of the bat, my heart thrumming so hard that I couldn't seem to even think past the pounding, not even enough to do the smart thing and scream.
My arm raised, but before I could even swing the back, it was ripped from my hand, raised, and just as I remembered to scream, as my mouth opened, as the first sounds came out, the bat descended and all I saw was blackness.