Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Warren
One more day. One more day. One more day.
That’s all I keep thinking as I push my food around the gold-rimmed china Mother brought out for this dinner.
I’ve been staying at her house for the entire break. Not that I really had a choice, she wouldn’t allow me to just come visit every day, even though I only live five minutes away. She says she misses me too much, but I’m not sure if it’s really that or she doesn’t like the optics.
Either way, I’m stuck.
The highlight of my time here was Eli.
It was kismet for him to text me at that exact moment. I was having some bad thoughts. Very bad. The kind of stuff being here brings out in me. Dark things.
It was starting to consume me. Being surrounded by their ideas, their rhetoric, their bigoted views they disguise as “conservative” and “traditional.”
I was looking for anything to dissipate the feelings that had started to overtake me—a notebook, a rubber band. Something worse. I needed to exorcise what they stuffed into me.
And then my phone lit up and it all just calmed. He took me to another place. Somewhere where I didn’t have to think of anything other than my physical self and what felt good .
“Come for me, Warren. Fuck, Warren…”
I shiver right there at the dining room table. There was something about him calling me by my name. I can’t recall him doing it that often. It lit a match within me, almost instantly making me explode all over my fist.
“Warren! Boy, where are you?!”
Grandaddy’s craggy voice slices through my more pleasant thoughts, bringing me back to my reality. Somewhere I don’t want to be.
I take in his discontented face, pulled down in a scowl while he stabs at his food hard enough to shake the wisps of gray hair on his head. His burgundy blazer highlights how red his face has turned, waiting for my reply, becoming more angry.
“Sorry.”
Mother smiles and rolls her eyes, trying to soften how irritated he is. “Oh, it’s that law school.” She picks up the crystal wine glass and takes a measured sip. “He’s always tired from all that work. Aren’t you, sugar?”
I nod while Grandaddy shakes his head and grumbles some more. “The world is too soft now-a-days. I was tired too, but I still showed up, respected my elders, paid attention.” He ends his statement with more complaining under his breath.
I mutter another apology while dragging my gaze to SJ across the table from me. She’s glaring at Grandaddy. Hard. That look on her face that tells me she’s going to do something to get herself in hot water soon.
I’d kick her if I could, but the formal dining table, where we have all of our family dinners, complete with stuffy blazers and dresses and fine china, is huge. So I clear my throat, making her flick her eyes over to me. I give her a subtle shake of my head, telling her to put her hackles down, while I go back to eating.
Her eyes briefly narrow at me before she does the same, still sporting that glare.
Grandaddy lets out a phlegmy cough before putting me back in his scope of attention. “I was asking you about that Thompson girl. She’s pretty and her family’s oil company is more than profitable. She’s a good choice. I know she’s only sixteen, but if we get in their good graces now, she’ll be yours by the time she turns eighteen.”
“Oh,” my mother chimes in, smiling and nodding. “Abigail Thompson. Yes… so sweet.”
Intense nausea washes over me, almost causing me to drop my fork, but that would be too obvious of a reaction. So I let it stew inside me, shoving another forkful of food in my mouth, swallowing the gag that tries to make an appearance.
Once I choke it down, I smile at my plate and nod my head. “Okay. That sounds good.”
A harsh bang on the table makes me jump, the china and crystal rattling as I meet Grandaddy’s angry eyes. “This is serious, boy. Our opportunity to really grow our legacy. You get married, have a few kids, then take over the Senate. Maybe even shoot for the presidency. Your mother is doing great work, but she is still a woman and can only do so much. Imagine where we’d be if I had a son? We’d be unstoppable right now. We have to take advantage.”
Mother’s smile falters for just a moment—blink and you’d miss it—but then it’s back in place and stretched even harder than before, making a vein in her forehead throb.
Mother and SJ have never really gotten along. Always butting heads for as long as I’ve remembered. But despite that, SJ’s glare is pointed back at him while she clutches her knife in a dangerously tight grip, looking like she wants to fling it across the table into his face.
I look over at Dad for a moment, who happily eats through all of this, completely unaware, like a toddler who is just happy he got mac and cheese for dinner.
Returning my eyes to Grandaddy, I try to look as sincere as possible while nodding my head. “Of course. I know this is important. It sounds like a good plan.”
He grumbles some more but gives a short nod while Mother claps her hands together. “Great. I’ll have David set it up,” she sings enthusiastically.
The rest of dinner is painful, Grandaddy doing most of the talking while the rest of us nod and add a word of encouragement every so often.
It ends abruptly when SJ really does throw her knife, but only at the ceiling. Mother squeals about the house being from the nineteenth century while Grandaddy roars that she’s too troubled for any man to control.
I look over at her after we both exit the room, having been dismissed and sent away. “Why do you do those things?”
She scoffs. “Did you honestly want to keep sitting there? Them talking about finding you a young girl so you can fucking impregnate her and be president one day?” She does a dramatic full body shiver.
“Of course not. But now you’re in trouble again.”
Shrugging, she turns, going down the hallway toward her room. “They can’t break me anymore than they already have. I’m gonna turn in. Night, Warren.”
I shake my head, breathing out a little laugh while she slams her door so it reverberates through the house.
“Sarah-Jean!” Mother bellows from downstairs.
SJ doesn’t answer her and the house falls into silence. Some people find the quiet lonely. Maybe even unsettling, somewhere where you’re forced to be with your own thoughts. And while I definitely understand the toxicity of all the things that swirl around in my brain… in this house, I prefer that to anything uttered out of someone’s mouth.
Walking the rest of the way to my room, I gently shut the door behind me and throw myself face up on the bed, thinking about poor, unsuspecting Abigail Thompson that is unfortunately in the sights of my family.
I wish there was more I could do for her, but when Mother and Grandaddy want something, especially from me, they get it.
I know how it sounds, but they do actually love me. Even with their thirst to embolden the dynasty Grandaddy started, I believe they have my best interest at heart. I think.
Especially Mother. She’s seen me at my worst. At my lowest point where I was unworthy of love and forgiveness. She sheltered me. So of course she loves me.
I should be thankful.
And I am.
Stop. Stop. Don’t think about it.
A sickening feeling slams into my gut, causing me to roll over and rub my fists into my eyes, digging them in until colors explode in my brain. Anything to make that feeling go away. The guilt.
I don’t like thinking about that time. It’s too much. A disgusting wound I continually cover with little band-aids like it will do something. I push it down as much as I can as often as I can, but it always seems to linger.
I jump when SJ bursts into the room, whipping my body around to look at her. She smiles manically at me, slightly out of breath with mirth sparkling in her eyes. “There’s a boy in the courtyard with a ladder.”
My brow furrows. “What?”
She continues, not really acknowledging my question, but assessing me as she walks toward the window. “Listen, he’s hot. Like really hot, but he’s not mine. So…” She takes a quick peek out of the window before abruptly turning back to me and crossing her arms. “Are we about to be robbed? Or do you need to tell me something?”
I glare at her insinuation and the haughty look on her face, but still get up to see what she’s talking about.
Squinting my eyes through the night, I can see the dark figure, perched on the ladder in one of the magnolia trees in the courtyard. How he even did that, I’m not sure. The Baker home is in the center of Astorville, right where everyone can see us, and surrounded by a six foot iron gate. So he had to have dragged that ladder from wherever he got it, tossed it over the gate, and then climbed over himself.
I know it’s Eli. After watching him for so long, I could pick him out of a lineup even if I lost my sight. I know him.
I strain my eyes to see what he’s doing. He’s got something in his arms but I can’t quite see.
Is he…?
I turn to my sister, holding her by the shoulders. “Can you cover for me?”
She gasps, her mouth dropping open while she holds a hand to her heart. “Warren.” She straightens her back, bringing her hand up to her forehead to salute me. “It would be my honor. I have been waiting for this moment.”
I smile at her, then quickly exit the room, running quietly downstairs until I get to the lowest level of the house, where the old kitchen and servant quarters are housed.
We hardly go down here anymore. There’s not much to do with the space, all the history takes up too much of the area. The Historic Society of Astorville would never let you renovate it past a certain point. Not that my mother would dare. Or that Grandaddy would ever let her.
There’s a side door that leads out to the courtyard, which I unlock and tiptoe out of, making my way toward Eli. His back is turned to me while he continues his task.
I stand there for a moment. Just watching him. Mostly because, I’m not sure I understand what I’m seeing. Or why he’s doing it. He holds a bundle of Spanish moss under one arm, using his other to take out a small handful and drape it across the branches. After each placement, he stops, leaning back slightly to assess where to put some next, taking care in his task like it’s a work of art.
My eyes jump to the other two magnolia trees in our courtyard, seeing them already dripping with the beautiful plant.
An intense gratitude fills my veins. Something I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before. Not to this caliber, anyway. It feels overwhelming, like the emotion will burst out of me in ways I’m not prepared for.
I tap him on the leg, which causes him to violently jump, shaking the ladder and almost falling.
When our eyes meet, he breathes a sigh of relief. “Shit, sailor. You scared me.”
“Get down. Come on.” I don’t leave room for argument, just hold out my hand and wait for him to take it.
He looks at it for only a moment before following my directions, placing the moss that’s left over on the ground. “Yeah. Okay.” There’s a sense of hesitation in his voice, like he thinks he’s done something wrong.
Dragging him behind me, I go back inside the house, quietly closing the side door and finding the old pantry, shoving him and closing us both inside.
I look at him. There’s an old lightbulb above us that is probably from the eighties, it casts a warm orange glow over his features. His hair falls down over his forehead, leading my sight down to his dark eyes, burning at me. He’s wearing no eyeliner tonight and the longer I stare with him, the more I realize I might like this even better than when he wears it.
Or worse, that maybe I like how he looks at any point in time. Wearing anything. Nothing. Maybe it doesn’t matter.
Shit.
I move abruptly, grabbing onto his face with both hands, making him gasp in surprise. My eyes ping-pong between his.
I open my mouth a few times, trying to form any words, but I’m at a loss trying to find any.
I clear my throat one last time before speaking. “You-you… what were you doing?”
He studies my face, his brow scrunched in uncertainty. “Putting the moss shit back in the trees. Did I misread this? It was bad, right? I thought?—”
I shake my head. “No. I… why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you do it?”
Our faces move a few millimeters closer with each word whispered out of our mouths.
“I thought you’d like it,” he rasps.
“I do.”
We breathe each other’s air for a few moments.
My eyes dart down to his lips. I want to kiss him. Desperately. To give all my gratitude with my mouth. I know what he said, that he doesn’t kiss anyone, but I get this soul crushing feeling that maybe he needs it.
My face moves even closer. His eyes widen, but he doesn’t move, so I give the slightest brush of my lips over his. It’s so small. Hesitant and timid. But the reaction in my body is loud. It electrocutes me, freeing something.
He jerks his head back and out of my grasp, staring at me, trying to figure something out.
“I’m sorry,” I meekly offer.
He still doesn’t speak, just grabs me and attacks my neck. Pushing into me, he bites and licks all over my skin.
“ Mmmf , shit,” I hiss as I hit the stone wall behind me.
He momentarily lifts his mouth from me. “I want to try something new. Will you let me?”
I arch my back off the wall as he goes back to my neck and quickly undoes my pants. “You can have whatever you want.”
He rumbles a laugh into my skin, making it buzz. “Don’t make those promises, sailor.”
I grab his face again, pulling him away from my neck so he can look into my eyes. “I mean it. Take from me. Everything. Leave me empty afterwards. I don’t care as long as it’s you.”
He’s silent, his dark eyes processing my words. “Okay,” he says, slowly nodding his head while he pushes his hands in my pants, bending down to drag them to my ankles.
Standing back up, he commands, “Get on the floor.”
It’s concerning how quickly I follow his orders, never thinking about whether I should or not.
I fall to my knees, wincing when they hit the hard, uneven cobblestone.
“All the way. On your hands and knees.”
I obey, dropping my hands to the floor and shuffling forward a bit, feeling the grainy dust from the old floors moving with me.
“Put your face on the floor.”
I look back at him for a moment, slightly pausing. He doesn’t even notice me looking. He’s enraptured, staring at my ass, his brown irises barely visible while his hand leisurely rubs over the erection in his pants.
When he shifts his eyes to me and sees the hesitation on my face, he lowers on his haunches behind me. Running his hand down my spine, he pets me like a cat. I don’t want to like it, but my body reacts on its own accord, my back arching, sending my ass higher in the air for him as he runs his hand down my back again, this time going all the way down to my crack, ghosting over my hole and making me shiver.
“I’ve got you, Warren,” he coos at me.
My stomach does an insane flip while my body fucking sings hearing my name on his tongue. Every nerve, every cell, lights up, alive and waiting for whatever command comes next, ready to give it all to him.
I spread my legs as much as I can with my pants still around my ankles and lower my face, bringing my hands up to rest my cheek on.
“Fuck. You look so pretty like this.” I feel a tentative touch against my hole, making me hiss and jump forward, my belt buckle clanking against the stone.
“Shh. Relax. I’m not gonna hurt this pussy. I’m gonna take care of it. Promise.”
My dick jumps and I hate that. I try to keep my voice even and strong, but it comes out breathy. “It’s not—It’s not a pussy.”
I hear a small chuckle behind me, before I feel his finger lightly circle around my hole, making me jump again, but less so this time. “You don’t like when I call it a pretty pussy, sailor?”
I try to say no, but all I can focus on is how much my dick leaks every time he utters that fucking word, painting the dirty floor with my pre-cum.
He goes on, “Because I really wanted to lick this pretty pussy. But, if you don’t want that…”
A loud whimper comes out of me while I involuntarily arch more, presenting myself to him.
“You want that?”
“Yes,” I moan entirely too earnestly.
“Ask me.”
I swallow all the saliva in my mouth. “Can you lick me?”
He tsks behind me, and even though I can’t see it, I know he’s smirking and shaking his head. “Try again. Ask nicely and be specific . Lick what?”
I let out a breath. I feel humiliated and exhilarated. I don’t know how those two emotions can happen simultaneously, but I’ll wait until after to analyze that, when I can feel all the shame I deserve.
“Please lick my pussy, Eli.”
Without warning, his warm tongue descends on my most sensitive areas, swiping all the way from my taint up through my crack.
“Oh my god,” I mumble, turning my head into my hands, trying to cover my face because I don’t know what to do with these sensations.
No one has been back there before. No one.
His hands run up the back of my thighs, grabbing onto my ass cheeks, massaging before gently pulling them apart.
“You taste so fucking good. It’s gonna be hard to give this up when I have to,” he rumbles, his mouth right over my hole so I can feel his hot breath against it when he speaks.
I can’t say anything back, because his tongue returns and fries any brain cells I possess.
He does long, leisurely licks on my hole, groaning with each pass. I squirm and moan the entire time, dying from the stimulation while my dick adds more of my mess to the floor.
“Touch your dick, sailor.”
I immediately wrap my hand around it, trembling with the instant relief it provides.
“Stroke it,” he commands right before feathering his tongue over my hole.
A high-pitched mewl flies out of my mouth, while I start stroking, feeling his saliva dripping down my crack and onto my balls, making everything wet and warm.
He continues working me with his tongue while the tension in my body quickly starts to reach a fever-pitch.
And then he shoves his tongue inside me, and all I see is white while my dick abruptly hurtles into orgasm, shooting my cum all over the floor.
I writhe below him, letting out choked, animalistic sounds I don’t even recognize while the stone cuts into my knees. But I can’t seem to care right now while his tongue is so deep in my ass, making me feel a pleasure that no one has ever given me. It’s bright and blinding. It could probably fucking kill me if I let it.
As I begin to come down, still shivering, I hear him sit up behind me and lower his zipper, before the sound of skin slapping fills the room.
“I’m gonna come on your pretty pussy. Okay, Warren?” he growls at me.
I’m completely boneless, but I nod my head, hoping he can see it.
His voice is strained as he continues talking, “ Fffuck . I’m gonna paint you in my cum. Yessss . All my cum. All mine .”
I try to ignore the feelings that swirl in my belly when he says mine, and even though I’ve just come and can barely keep myself up, I still find myself moaning when the first warm, wet splash hits me.
He sprays me, his release hitting my hole, my ass cheeks, my upper back, all while I tremble.
His hand comes to rest on my ass while he catches his breath.
“Fuck,” he murmurs into the quiet. “You’re magical.”
I purse my lips. The fog is starting to lift and while I don’t regret what just happened—for once—I’m definitely not magical. Not at all. But he doesn’t know that yet. And maybe he never will.
But I do. Inside. And I think that’s the most important person to know.