24. Hotaru
My keys ping off the bowl on my entryway table, skitter across the damn thing, and crash onto the floor. I don’t bother picking them up. If I do, I’ll throw them clean across the place.
Only my adoration for my car kept me from breaking every traffic law to get here. That and the little voice in my head that told me to believe Arlo. I’m beginning to think that voice is my delusions manifesting.
I drove toward Arlo and Hailey’s house twice until the small but rational part of me won out. Two bloody times. No way did I want to see them in the midst of a three-way unless I was the guest.
Still, that little voice pipes up.
Arlo has never lied to you. Why would he start now?
Their hands were on my motherfucking thighs one second, and then they were out the door the next.
He wouldn’t let me go with them.
Why the fuck not?
Even if Hard was there in his professional capacity, why couldn’t I see him tattoo either of them? I’m good enough to fuck and watch them fuck, but a tattoo is too intimate for me to be there?
I’m spinning.
“What am I supposed to think?” I pull the black ribbon from my hair and blow my fingers through it.
I shuck my suit coat and strangle it between my hands as I make my way toward my bedroom.
The moment I turn, I freeze.
“Took you long enough.” Arlo sits on my couch. His elbows are on his knees, and his phone is between his hands. He types out a message, then lays the phone on top of his coat placed neatly beside him.
Every scrap of the fort we built and our shared passion is long gone. Everything is back to the way it was. Everything except me.
Arlo has a key to my place. Why wouldn’t he? But he’s never used it to surprise me.
The anger I’d managed for the last hour and a half reaches steam, searing through my veins. I toss my hair tie and coat onto the back of the couch and round it to face him.
“Why are you here?” My voice is quiet. Too quiet.
“I’ve tried to give you time, but we need to talk.”
“Talk?” Is he for real? I want to sling him through windows for dicking me around. Besides…
“Where’s Hailey?” I snap.
If we’re talking, shouldn’t she be involved?
He stands. “She’s with Hard.”
This asshole may as well have punched me in the face. I’ve never been particularly possessive over someone. I couldn’t be possessive with Arlo. He’s never truly been mine.
It makes no sense that I’m feeling a certain kind of way about Hailey. She’s not mine either. But in the dim room at Crave, she felt like mine.
“Wow!” I laugh with zero fucking humor. “You really are turning her out, aren’t you?”
One second I’m upright, losing my shit. The next, the room is tilting, and my back meets the floor with a thud.
Did he just hit me? I wouldn’t blame him if he did. I don’t feel the sting of my jaw or the pounding in my head, though. Then it hits me like a bullet.
He rolled me.
“Oh, fuck that.” I hook the leg he has wrapped around mine with my ankle and prepare to escape.
“I plan to,” he growls above me.
I can’t see his face. He has me in a fucking pretzel. Me, the guy who used to wrestle and be pretty damn good at it.
His hips flex, and he rubs the hard girth of his cock on my thigh.
Like an animal, I roar and launch my counterattack.
The fucker is ready. He uses my anger against me, barring my every attempt to roll him off me.
And there are many.
Our muscles bunch. We grunt and grab. I curse. He chuckles.
“I swear to fucking god,” I bellow between heaved breaths.
“You will be, swearing to fucking god.” Arlo’s hand comes around my throat. He levers over me, pinning his weight to my windpipe. “And that fucking god will be me.”
My head swims, and it’s only partially the constriction of my windpipe. Mostly, it’s the excess blood flow to my dick.
His legs pin my arms to the floor. His weight barely keeps my torso still. At this angle, my legs are pretty useless. They’re noodles from fighting for the top and losing over and over again.
Arlo jerks my tie. Slowly, he works it off my neck.
Sweat beads on his forehead. It soaks his hair and drips onto my face. His white shirt is worthy of a wet T-shirt contest. I’m sure mine’s no better. I can barely fucking breathe between exertion and his hand, which is giving my dick a run for its money, and it’s nowhere near it.
“Get the fuck off me.” I plant my feet and drive my hips up.
It just presses his knees into my forearms more, sealing off what little circulation they had.
“I’ll get off in you.” He jerks my tie free.
“Arlo,” I snarl.
“That’s right.” He puts his face close to mine. The seriousness in his gaze makes me useless. “Be sure and say my name real loud. I want your neighbors to know who you belong to.”
“How can you be like this…with me?” My words are strained and thin. I’m scared, excited, and nervous. The organ in my chest pings off my ribs, my spine, my stomach in a whirlwind of what the fuckness.
“In my dream, this is how we’ve always been. Because of Hailey, because I’m facing my demons, I’m making it our reality. Fucking finally.”
He grabs my thumb, and I know what’s coming. There isn’t a damn thing I can do about it unless I want to dislocate my thumb. I don’t. I’m also losing the will to escape his hold.
For better or worse, in sickness and health, I am Arlo’s.
Always have been. Always will be.
With a few well-placed hands and a little pressure, Arlo lifts enough to flip me onto my belly. And then he’s on me again, lower this time. His thighs bracket my ass.
My smarting thumb is wrenched up my back and he makes quick work of tying my wrists one on top of the other. I fight against the bonds. There is no give in the silk, putting strain on my shoulders.
Before I have a semblance of a bearing, I’m flipped over again.
“Do I need my safe word?” I ask with an insolent smirk.
“No.” He sits on my thighs and glowers down at me.
Disappointment suffocates me more than his hand did around my throat.
“So?” I pant. “You’re going to psycho lengths to have this talk, then?”
“No.”
He stands, grabs my torso, sits me up, then drags me across the floor toward the far side of the living room to the balcony door.
“You going to toss me over?” I laugh.
“I’m going to show you and your neighbors what ownership looks like.”
My laughter dies a quick death. Like it got tossed over the side of the building.
When he opens the large pane of glass, the winter cold slices through the warm interior. Soon, I’m on the balcony near the stone dining table. He shoves me back, and I fall to the floor.
“If you tell me who you belong to, I might let you come.”
His hands go to my belt as he sits on my thighs again. He unfastens it quickly, unzips me, and jerks my pants and underwear down in one swift pull.
My swollen dick bobs out between us, revealing how I feel about this whole endeavor.
“On second thought, you might need your safe word.” He slaps my dick and I hiss. He does it again. My eyes water. He tugs on my balls too hard and I groan.
“Because I might not let you come.” He slides a cock ring over my tip and rolls it down my dick.
“Arlo.” I’ve never used a cock ring or a safe word before. I’ve never had to. My nerves shoot through the clouds.
“No talking from you. Unless you want to safe out.” Arlo jerks me to my feet until we’re nose to nose. “Only sounds and my name on your lips.”
His mouth rubs against mine.
Dumbly, I lurch for more contact.
He pulls away. “You have to fuck me for that. Remember?” His glower is back. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
“Whenever?” I hike a brow.
“Any time after today.” He turns me to face the table. “You won’t be able to do much after I’m done with you.”
My heart pistons like it’s trying to go somewhere, and my dick leaks.
He steps in behind me, pressing his front to my back. Heat pours off him. One by one, he unfastens the buttons of my shirt and strips it off my torso. He loops the excess around my arms and then shoves me forward.
The frigid stone damn near burns my skin. I hiss but manage to silence the string of curses on the tip of my tongue.
My sensitivity to this touch makes me remember in a blast of clarity who I’m being manhandled by and what this means.
I jerk my head around and look at Arlo. He’s slipping a small container of lube from his pocket. Several drops sprinkle my ass and slide between my cheeks. He takes his time massaging my low back, ass, and thighs.
“Don’t look so shocked.” He slides a finger down my crack. “This was inevitable.”
He breaches my tight hole with a fingertip, and I groan.
I’d hoped and dreamed this would happen, never really believing it would.
“I despise your doubt in me.” His covered chest leans into my back. “Even though I put it there,” he adds, stoking my back with his mouth, peppering me with kisses.
His weight is crushing. It feels like I’m caught between heaven and hell. Hot and cold. Alone and together.
“By the time we’re finished, you’ll believe me.” My ass hums as he adds another finger and begins stretching me.
My whimper forms a puff of smoke.
“You’ll know you’re mine.” He adds another finger and nuzzles my face. “You’ll know there’s only one other person I’ll ever share you with.” His hand reaches around and strokes my dick with his slick hand. “And when you fuck me with this monster cock of yours, you’ll know that I am yours.”
The sound that leaves me is animalistic.
“You’ll know there’s only one other person you’ll share me with.” His fingers begin to stroke in and out, reaching deep, and toying with that pleasure spot in my ass.
I lick my lips and pant. A dog in heat.
“You’ll be happy to share me with her, as happy as I am to share her with you.” He presses hard and strokes fast. “As happy as we’ll be to share together.”
Familiar pressure gathers in my spine. It travels speed-of-light style to my balls, and…
And…
“Fuck!” I rock my hips, seeking that perfect ending I was promised, to find nothing but my dick swinging back and forth and my ass trying its damnedest to eat Arlo’s hand whole.
“Something wrong?” Arlo kisses my earlobe and then grabs my dick.
He holds me tight and strokes me good. Long and hard.
“Arlo.” I nod, trying to convey my pleasure without words.
“I can’t wait to feel you inside me, stretching me wide, filling me up.” His words rumble over my ear.
“Yes, yes, Arlo!” I’m leaning over the railing of my orgasm, ready to swan dive.
But nothing happens.
Tears prick my eyes. I buck and jerk, fucking his hand for all I’m worth. Still, I’m left irritated and wanting. Before long, I’m sobbing and begging, caught in this loop of ecstasy and edging.
“You know how this stops.” He releases my dick and straightens. His hand clamps onto my nape and his fingers ram in and out of my body.
“Arlo.” I sniff.
There’s no relent. His strokes are long and deep.
That good feeling comes again and again. Each time it peels a part of me back. Over and over, I’m pulled apart and ripped wide fucking open.
“I’m yours!” I scream and sob. “I’m yours, Arlo!”
His hands and body leave me, sobbing and exposed, and then my hands are free. The next moment, I’m being lifted and slung over his shoulder with little more than a grunt.
He stalks through the condo to my bedroom and lays me in the center of the bed.
I watch dazed and a little out of my body as he slowly strips.
I’ve seen a lot of men through the years. Not in any relational sense, but in the physical one. None have ever held a candle to Arlo. He is the epitome of masculine beauty. All sharp edges and muscled slabs.
He crawls up the bed and pulls my pants from my ankles and my socks from my feet. Somewhere along the way, I lost my shoes and shirt.
We’re both here, naked and panting.
“Tell me?” For the first time, it’s a plea instead of a demand.
“I’m yours.”
He lubes his dick and then yanks me until my legs are wide and my ass is nestled atop his thighs.
Inch by maddening inch, he works the cock ring up my dick until I’m finally free. Then he levers back and notches his head at my entrance.
This man, scarred and scared, has been the master of me for as long as I can remember, but here, now, commanding and whole, he owns me in a way I never thought possible. My entire body is alert, ready, and willing to melt itself to his will.
My body is his. My mind is his. My heart has never been my own. It’s always been his.
“Do you want to be mine?” There's sorrow in his eyes. Like he knows what being his has cost me.
I lever up, grab the hair at his nape, and pull him down with me. We’re chest to chest, mouth to mouth, dick to dick.
“Always and forever, Arlo.” I kiss his forehead and his cheeks and graze his lips. “Always. Forever. Yours.”
He shoves inside my body in one strong thrust.
My lungs forget how to function. I’m stretched and full. I’m floating and grounded. I’m screaming and silent. My emotions feel too big for my body.
His lips and teeth assault my cheeks and chin for so long I lose all sense of time. Then like the snap of my fingers, I need him to break me.
“Please, fuck me,” I beg.
Arlo sits back. He grips my jaw in one hand and my hip in the other.
His hips retreat and snap forward so hard I’d fly off the damn bed if not for his hold. He grips me tight and fucks me good, filling me near to bursting.
I’m panting, and shaking, and begging my orgasm to wait.
I want this experience to last forever.
“Oh fuck, Arlo.” The feeling builds like it did all those other times, and then stacks bricks on top of that, and higher still. My whole body vibrates and I scream my orgasm so loud, I know anyone in a three-floor range hears it. “I’m yours, Arlo!”
His hips piston while I stain my chest with cum. He growls and grabs me tight.
“Mine, Hota. You’re mine.” His dick grows impossibly bigger inside me. It pulses and pumps hot cum into my ass, and still, he thrusts.
“Yes. Yes.” I shoot so high, I reach the outer atmosphere and float there almost disembodied in bliss for a long time.
He leans forward, presses his lips to mine in a simple brush that can barely be considered a kiss, then collapses on top of me. He steals what little air I have in my lungs before he nips my ear. “Don’t ever fucking forget it.”