Burned

He chuckles and shakes his head at me. “Lee, you’ve always known me. You’re the only one who ever really has.”

I shake my head right back at him and scoff. “It’s been a long time, Collin. I might have known everything about you back then, but it’s all a mystery to me now. I know your mom was a manager of Hills Department Store, your favorite Nintendo game was Super Mario Brothers, you listened to ‘Closer’ by Nine Inch Nails on repeat in your piece of shit Ford Escort and you always ordered mint chocolate chip ice cream when we went to the Dairy Twist. We’re thirty-three years old and the things I knew about you are still written in the diary I kept when I was fifteen, but they really don’t do much for me at this point in time. We’ve spent almost two decades apart and I have no idea who you are now.”

Collin leans forward, resting his forehead against mine.

“My mom is retired from Hills and is happy to stay home and annoy my father on a daily basis, I prefer Grand Theft Auto over Super Mario Brothers because the graphics kick ass, I still order mint chocolate chip every time I go to the Dairy Twist, I still watch Full Metal Jacket at least once a month, I root for the Seattle Seahawks now because the Cowboys turned into a bunch of showboating ass**les, I drive a red Chevy Tahoe for work and a black Ford F-250 for personal use, and D.J. is still my best friend, even though he was the one who convinced me to break up with you in a note. In thirty-three years of living, Lee, that’s the only f**king thing I’ve ever regret.”

He pulls his face back and looks down at me. “I’m an open book, Lee. If you want to know something, all you have to do is ask. I know this is fast and everything about it is f**king insane, but everything about it also feels right. I have thought about you every single day for seventeen years. I don’t know where this thing is going with us and I know you’ve got some personal shit you’re working through, but I’m not going anywhere. I will never lie to you, Lee. If you trust anything that I’ve said, please, just trust that.”

He stands here staring at me, pleading with me to trust him and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I trusted him fully from the minute he said hello at Slammers.

“I just have one more question,” I tell him softly, my arms sliding around his waist and pulling him closer.

“I told you, I’m an open book. Ask me anything.”

Standing up on my toes, I brush my lips against his and speak softly against his mouth. “You didn’t say anything about Nine Inch Nails. I never told you this, but I got a little turned on every time you played that CD. I still get hot when I hear it.”

He smirks down at me, dropping his hands from my face and moving them to my hips. Pushing lightly, he walks us backwards until the backs of my legs bump into the huge speaker on the floor right behind me.

I grab onto his forearms as he eases me down until my ass is planted on top of the speaker, my skirt inching up as I sit, displaying the tops of my lace thigh highs.

“Fuck me, are you wearing garters?” he asks with a growl in his voice.

I answer him by leaning back on my hands and spreading my legs, forcing the material of my skirt to ride a little higher and the black garters hooked to the lace against my thighs to peek out beneath it.

I watch his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallows thickly while he stares down at my legs.

“Don’t move,” he tells me as he starts to back away.

I look at him questioningly and he stops moving. “Do you trust me?”

Nodding my head at him, I stay completely still as he turns away and walks over to the corner of the room. The room is dark but for a few small track lights in the ceiling, so he’s almost swallowed by the shadows and I can barely make out what he’s doing in the corner. When I hear the door close followed by the sound of the lock being turned, I decide I don’t care what he’s doing. The fact that he’s locked the door means he doesn’t want any interruptions and that can only be a good thing.

I hear a few clicks in the quiet room and a few seconds later, the silence is filled by the low sound of music coming from the speaker right beneath me.

He walks back towards me, coming out of the shadows until he’s standing right in front of me with a black remote control in his hand.

Without a word, he sets the remote down on top of the speaker next to me.

“Strip.”

The one word from his mouth is spoken softly, but with conviction and I have no choice but to comply.

Without getting up from the speaker, I slide the zipper on the side of my skirt down, lifting my hips just enough to push it past my thighs until it drops to my feet and I kick it aside. I maintain eye contact as I move my hands to the hem of my shirt and slowly slide it up my body and over my head, tossing it so it lands right on top of my discarded skirt.

I look at him questioningly and watch wordlessly as he pulls his own shirt off of his body and drops it by his feet. My throat closes up and my mouth waters when I take in that deep vee by his tapered hips and the tight muscles of his abs and chest. He lowers his body to the ground until he’s on his knees in front of me, sliding one hand up the smooth, silky material of my thigh high until his palm is clutching my hip.

“Spread your legs,” he orders quietly.

I do as he asks, spreading my legs until he can inch his large body between my thighs, the bare skin of his stomach pressing against the black lace of the thong covering my sex that’s already wet with need for him. Leaning back on my hands again, I push my lace-covered br**sts out, silently willing him to put his mouth on them.