Chapter 16
16
REMI
“Mom,” I call out.
I swoop down for a throw pillow, tossing it onto the armchair as I pass through the living room, which is otherwise intact.
A groan leads me to the stairs. She’s sprawled out on her back like she started crawling up them and gave up. Her head’s lulled away from me when I crouch beside her.
“Let’s go.” I nudge her shoulder and then sigh, trying one more time. The chances of me getting her to her bedroom on my own are laughable if she’s dead weight. “Mom,” I say louder, shorter. “Rebecca.”
“What,” she grunts.
“I need you to get up.”
She slowly brings her face toward me and licks her lips. But they’re not just dry. The bottom one’s busted open. It matches the swelling and split skin on her brow bone.
“He hits you in the face now.”
Not a question. No shock. Just a fact.
As far back as I remember, all but two men she brought into our lives hit her. Roman being one, and the other an Army vet we crashed with for a few months. My dad didn’t either, but they weren’t together by the time I was born. She’d been a functional addict then—she’s even bragged about barely using while pregnant. She was functional when she met Daniel, too, working for an insurance company and buying us essentials before her fix. But like every other time, it didn’t last.
Just like him being careful not to hit her in the face didn’t last.
I help her up, and she clutches the banister. The redness on the inside of her elbow catches my eye, fueling my suspicions she’s spiraled past only pills.
We make it to the top before I’m hauling most of her weight into their room. She does what she couldn’t on the stairs and crawls into bed.
“I’m going to grab what I need to try and clean this up,” I tell her.
The light’s still off, and on my way to flip the switch, she says, “Remi?”
“Yeah, Mom?” I glance at the lump on the comforter.
“Get the fuck out.”
I huff a laugh, no more surprised than I was over her face. “Right.”
But I still toss a blanket at her and then shut the door behind me. Honestly, she saved me from stumbling onto her stash and going from knowing to seeing.
Ready to block out the world, I secure the pillows at the bottom of my bedroom door and lock it. A text came through while I was with Roman. I didn’t need to check to know the sender. I toss my pink skeleton on the dresser, smiling at the notification with Foster’s name.
Here. It’s the sky. Not that you deserve it.
I laugh and play the video of him panning across the Prague skyline from high up. He doesn’t say anything, but a soft bass beat plays in the background while he shows me a new perspective of the city, twinkling below and beyond. He must spin in a circle because the view’s interrupted by a dark rooftop. A few pieces of wicker furniture sit empty, and what looks like a bar that’s not being used.
The video ends before his rotation finishes. I wonder if it’s payback for cutting the end of mine.
When he asked to see me the other night, I couldn’t with my eye swelling. But I think I would have told him the same thing regardless. I need him to be my escape for a while longer, the place I can run.
Then he can be real.
I set the LED lights so my room glows red and then reply to him.
What do I deserve then?
I’m ready to shed my wings. The whole costume, really. But then my mouth kicks up, and I open my messages again.
Since I plan to leave Ashfield and never look back, I haven’t exactly prioritized meaningful relationships with anyone here. Which means I don’t have to scroll too far to find the ones with R even though our last texts were over two weeks ago. I send Roman a fairy emoji, and then I add a black heart. He answers with one and a jack-o’-lantern as I’m slipping off the wings.
Another text pops up as I take off my boots.
Foster
Where are you?
I toss my wings on the bed and snap a picture of them on my comforter with a corner of pillow. He calls a few seconds later, and I grab my earbuds off the nightstand. I answer with the camera low before I flip it around, showing him the flimsy wings again.
His camera stays unmoved, the view spiking my pulse. The top of his black shirt hangs open, the video focused on a defined tan chest underneath. Laces are undone below that, and part of a tattoo peeks through on one side.
“The world,” Foster tells me, his low voice coating my skin. “You deserve the fucking world, Remi.”
I smile and touch the edge of a wing. “Straight to the flirting, I see. Or was that meant to seduce me?”
The bass beat from his video is absent now, and he has far better lighting. “Nah, baby. It’s a truth. Flirting is saying I want to give you the world.”
“And if you were seducing me?” I shouldn’t ask, but I do, all fluttery even before he answers.
“I tell you that every goddamn second since I heard your voice, you’ve been becoming mine.”
Yeah, it’s starting to feel like Foster West is going to be very real when I let him be.
The guy isn’t even fighting fairly at this point. He’s using hard pecs, tattoos, a sexy voice, and even better words as weapons. All I have for defense is pretending that not seeing his face would make me miss it all less if he disappeared.
“I’d also have the camera aimed at my chest when you answer,” he adds. “Now what was your Halloween costume, so I know what winged creature I can expect to be hot for in the future.”
“A slutty fairy.”
He groans, and I laugh, sitting beside the rest of my costume.
“I’m even more devastated you didn’t let me see it all.” His camera shifts to expose the base of his throat, then it looks like he stands up. The view flips as he moves down a hallway.
“Where are you taking me?”
“My bed.” He walks into a dark room and switches on a lamp, bathing a white comforter in the soft light.
“Here I’ve been settling for your balcony view,” I say.
“Mmm. Is that what you want? Because I had something else in mind.” He rounds the bed, the camera staying on a dark, shaggy rug. “Can I show you, Remi?”
He hits my name low and gravelly and in a way that has me saying, “Yes,” without a thought.
I have no idea what I’m expecting, but my mouth curves up when he lifts his phone a little to a thick black belt on the rug with what looks like a fake sword and red bandana. Then he keeps going up, and my heart stutters. The feet of a free-standing mirror appear, fitted black jeans reflecting with the bed behind him.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
“I’m showing you my costume.” His black shirt is loosely tucked, and those open laces dip below his sternum. He has his elbows bent, both hands holding his phone. It blocks most of the exposed part of his chest, but I’ll take the flexed forearms and broad shoulders as a trade. He stops there with almost all of him on the screen.
“You’re a pirate.” I’m breathing faster, more focused on the parts of him than the costume.
“A sexy pirate,” he corrects.
The image starts creeping higher again until his Adam’s apple comes into view. The tiniest bit of a sharp jaw appears at the top of the screen. My fingers tighten on my phone as he pauses.
“And unlike you, I’m going to use the mirror the right way.”
It’s my only warning before he flicks the rest of the way up, and even with a mask over his eyes and almost half his face concealed, I don’t stand a fucking chance against him. Dark hair unruly in the way it falls. He has unfair lashes framing light eyes that cut through the screen.
“I’m not really breaking the no-face rule if you can’t see all of mine, am I?”
“I guess you’re not.”
Foster smirks with plush lips, causing my entire body to react.
And the fever of him consumes me.
I can’t even blame the trick flask and shots of lemon vodka when I stand up. My skin has a beat beneath it as I walk to the other side of my bed, his view of the cream carpet under my feet. I stop by the edge of the mattress in front of the full-length mirror leaning against the wall a few feet away. A sliver of reflection hovers at the top of the shot.
Foster’s throat bobs with a swallow. “What are you doing, Remi?” His voice remains a velvety rasp, enough grit in there to feel it.
“I’m using the mirror the right way.”
I slowly tilt my phone, his jaw tightening the higher I go until I reach the face paint mask.
The silence from him doesn’t make me self-conscious this time. Not when he licks his lips and the heat in his gaze sears through his reflection and phone screen.
“Shit,” he breathes after another second.
“Does the slutty fairy outfit do it for you like the school uniform?” I cock my head, and he glances up into his mirror, like he’s staring right at me.
“Screw the clothes. It’s you that does it for me.” His attention lowers to me again. “But you are beyond fuckable in that dress.”
My nipples pebble at the roughness surrounding his words, and I look at my own reflection. The red glow in my room absorbs into the black of my dress while bouncing off my skin, twisting highlights through the waves in my hair that fall over my shoulders.
“You said you’re supposed to be a slutty fairy,” he drawls, my attention returning to him. “Both parts of my sexy pirate are right here for your viewing pleasure. So far, I’ve only gotten hot fairy from you.” He steps closer to the mirror, cool eyes dragging me under. “Tell me, baby, have you been slutty?”
The last word drips with sin. Not at all the same out of his mouth as when it was spat as an insult earlier but pumped full of desire. Foster wants it, encourages it.
I slowly shake my head. “Not yet.”
Foster runs his thumb over his bottom lip. “Lucky for you, I’m here to help then.” He grabs a handful of the back of his shirt and tugs it off. His reflection stabilizes, assaulting me with smooth skin, ridges of muscles, and a curation of black ink.
Then he waits, his eyes locked on me without a word. He showed me his, and now it’s my turn. Not that I think he’d care if I didn’t. If I laughed or rolled my eyes, he’d probably smirk and show me the city from his balcony.
It’s why I sweep my fingertips over my collarbone, wanting to show him mine. I catch a tightening in his jaw when I dip lower and trace the corset top of my dress. By the time I reach for the zipper at the side, the hungry look he’s giving me smolders, and I don’t even have the full effect with half of his face under the mask. But it’s more than enough to have me grasping the tiny metal pull.
“Like this, Foster?”
I drag the zipper down, pulse racing. I’m not entirely sure if it’s from what I’m doing or the way he’s watching me while I do it.
“You’re a natural, Remi.” He winds through my veins, taking over. The material goes slack, ready to fall after I slip the thin straps off my shoulders, but the hand gripping my phone braces the front, holding it to my chest.
“Let me see,” he says.
I move my hand, dropping the rest. Cool air coasts over my bare breasts and exposed skin, and Foster curses as I wiggle the dress off my hips. It hits the floor at my feet, leaving me in black panties. Other than those and what hides behind the swirly mask and under the arm warmers, I let him see all of me. I expect him to mention the last one, but he seems distracted.
“Another fucking bad idea,” he mutters.
“Agreed.” But I move the phone and angle it toward the mirror so he has an unobstructed view.
Foster flicks open the button on his jeans, causing a stutter in my already pounding heart. “I couldn’t possibly have a worse one.” He unzips but then stops, a tease of dark fabric visible underneath. “Say no, and we stop right now, Remi.”
“I know,” I say, not a doubt in my mind. “Now tell me what happens after I say yes.”
His mouth hooks up at my wording. “You’re going to make yourself come for me while I get off, wishing like hell my cock could be buried in your cunt.”
My core clenches, a blush spreading over more than my face-paint-covered cheeks.
I nod but receive a lazy shake of his head.
“Nah, I need an answer from those pouty lips, baby.”
“These lips?” I ask before biting my bottom one.
My fingers trail over the curve of my breast and nipple and then drift lower until they skim the top of my panties. I run them all the way across, teasing just below the hem and drawing out the delicious tension. It becomes a living thing between us, a vibration tingling against my skin and him appearing closer and closer to losing control.
Heady and addicting.
“Remi…” he warns.
“Yes. I want you to watch me come for you, Foster.”
He groans and sinks his hand into his open jeans, gripping his dick over his boxer briefs. “Lose the fucking panties,” he demands. “You’re going to spread your sweet thighs for me in front of the mirror.”
I draw the fabric down on one side before moving to the other. Foster nearly growls at the first glimpse of skin beneath, and then my panties are on the floor, and he’s pushing his jeans down.
Snatching the last pillow off my bed, I drop it on the floor. Nerves free-for-all inside me, but I ease myself down, eyes set on the erection straining beneath his boxers. I already feel wetness on my thighs as I fold my legs in front of me. And I earn another head shake from Foster.
“Let me see.”
Leaning against the side of my bed, I draw my knees up, centered in the mirror. Then I slowly part my thighs, skimming a hand up the inside of one as I go, every breath infused with anticipation.
“Fuck.” Foster keeps his eyes trained on the phone. “Just like that, Remi.”
My mouth dries even more when he shoves down his briefs, clit throbbing at the sight of his bare cock. He kicks them away with his jeans and palms his thick shaft.
I reach the top of my thigh, legs open and reflection showing him everything between them.
“The immoral things I’d do to touch you right now. To feel how wet you are and spread that tight pussy around my cock.” Foster gives himself a hard stroke, and I shiver, fingertips creeping inward. His lids droop, hand gliding up and down. “Touch yourself before I lose my mind.”
I drag my fingers through my slick core, all the way up to my clit. The contact alone makes me whimper, but knowing he’s chasing the movement with his starving gaze has me dizzy.
“Fuck, Foster,” I breathe, not even sure he hears but needing to say his name as I rub my clit. I’m a little rougher than I would be on my own—how I think he’d touch me. How I want him to be with me.
“Christ, you might be the ultimate beautiful thing.” He licks his bottom lip, muscles flexing while he strokes himself. “Look at you, soaked and on display, desperate to be fucked.”
I moan, my head falling back and eyes clamping shut.
“Eyes on me,” he commands, and mine flutter open, connecting with the screen. “Keep them right fucking here. They’re mine. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck yourself for me, baby. Hard and deep like I’d fuck you right now.”
I swear, the voice and words are enough. The visual of him fucking his hand almost makes it too much.
My fingers drift lower, to my dripping entrance. I push two inside, and I immediately clench around them when Foster groans, the sound pure lust.
“More,” he says. “Show me how your cunt will look stretched around me.”
I withdraw, adding a third before driving back in. It fills me, but he’d still fill me more. My hips lift to grind against my palm while I thrust, obsessed with the way Foster’s watching. He jerks his dick faster, and I match his pace.
“God, I want it to be you inside me,” I admit.
I want him touching me. His hands and lips and tongue.
His eyes flick up to the mirror from under his mask—the sensation of him staring straight into mine a lash of pleasure all on its own. “You have no goddamn idea.” Then he looks down to see me about to break into pieces on my bedroom floor, fingers pumping hard and deep like he told me. “You gonna come for me?”
I dig my teeth into my bottom lip, barely capable of nodding. The pleasure is twisting along the edges, so close but a breath out of reach. Part of me wants it to stay there and leave me at the precipice so I can stay lost in my favorite escape. In him.
“Foster.” And then because it feels so fucking right, I repeat it twice more.
He all but growls, “ Come , Remi.”
I bite back a cry as the climax slams into me, like he jerked it by the leash. My legs shake, heavy-lidded gaze staying on him through the quiet moans.
“Fuck, I need that on my cock,” he says while my pussy continues to pulse around my fingers. He tips his head back, and his abs tighten. “Shit. Fuck .”
He works his fist up and down his shaft faster until he groans, cum shooting out as he finds his release. Muscles rippling, lips parted, his hard chest heaving.
Foster said I was a beautiful thing, but he’s a work of art. Watching him is its own brand of pleasure.
We’re both panting when he gives one last slow stroke. I can still feel my orgasm lazily sinking into my bones. No one in the actual flesh has made me come so hard. Left me so utterly wrecked.
And he never even touched me.
I slide my fingers out and drop onto the plush carpet beside me. Foster must fall backward onto his bed because my view goes from his incredible body to the ceiling. Fair, since I’m giving him the floor and a dresser.
“Eyes,” he says before flipping his camera around.
His appear on my phone, still through the mask. Up close, I can finally tell the color’s an icy pale blue, darker around the edge. They fit the rest of him—unfair in how they captivate me.
I smile and bring the pillow with me onto my own bed. I flop down and switch modes on my phone, showing him the same. With the red light and sharp shadows, the bruising is lost in the silver and teal and black that swirls around my eyes.
He sighs, his gaze flitting over the screen, like he’s studying me. Memorizing.
It feels almost more intimate, looking at only his eyes and the sea of black surrounding them.
“You were wrong,” I tell him, lying naked aside from the arm warmers. “This was a worse idea.”
“Hmm, was it now?” I can hear the smirk.
I nod, study, memorize. “Nothing like this is ever happening again.”
Foster chuckles—staring right at me. “Whatever you say, my beautiful liar.”