Chapter 6
Marlow
That. Was. Incredible.
My boyfriend is an impenetrable wall.
A superhero the likes of which I’ve never drawn. Until now.
I’m sitting in a coffee shop a couple blocks from the arena, pencil in hand, sketching madly in my unlined pad.
As soon as the game ended, I ran out the side door, needing to get everything I saw on paper.
Eric standing at least seven feet tall in his hockey skates.
His knack for tossing aside his opponents to reach the puck, his strength effortless and godlike.
The way he came to my rescue with enough vigor to empty the bleachers.
Superhero shit. Plain and simple.
I can barely sit still in my seat, my pencil creating panel after panel of scenes, complete with my perceived inner dialogue for Eric.
Grunts and grrrs. I probably should be sneaking back into my bedroom window right now, but I can’t stop sketching.
My lateness could really come back to bite me, too, because Jessie and Suzie are also out tonight.
I saw them at the hockey game, albeit in a different section.
That being said, my stepmother makes me abide by a very different set of rules than my stepsisters.
They’re allowed to come and go as they please to school functions and church, as long as their homework is completed.
I’ve been instructed to stay in my attic room and keep my influence away from Jessie and Suzie.
Ever since my stepmother unearthed my illustrations and saw the risqué contents, I have been unredeemable in her eyes.
Sure, I don’t help my cause by refusing to stop putting my imagination on paper, but then again, my father doesn’t help my cause, either.
He allows his new wife to run everything.
Leaving me out in the cold.
But I’m not out in the cold right now. I’m getting warmer, actually, because I’ve arrived at the part of the illustration series where Colossal, also known as Eric, meets with his romantic interest after the game, and—
My phone vibrates on the table, making my yip, the end of my pencil snapping.
“Oh no,” I murmur, setting down the implement. I say a prayer that my stepmother or father aren’t texting me, before looking at the screen.
My prayers are answered, because it’s not one of them.
It’s Eric.
My thighs immediately squeak together on the seat.
Eric: Hey, Fairy Tale. Did you…leave?
Marlow: Well yes. The game was over, right?
E: I was hoping I’d see you afterward.
M: Oh!
E: But I understand if you just wanted to get home. Is that where you are? I would have driven you.
M: I’m at the coffee shop down the street, actually. Lola’s.
E: I’ll be there in thirty seconds.
I set down the phone with forty million butterflies in my tummy.
I have this crazy urge to watch Eric walk down the street and I don’t deny myself, hopping up from the table and running out the front door of Lola’s, the sky lit up with stars and moonlight.
And there’s Eric in a hoodie, hands hidden in the pockets of his sweatpants.
His feet are shoved into a pair of black slides that I could probably use to go sledding.
Obeying the urge that prods me, I hit the sidewalk in a jog and I run to him.
His head lifts when I get closer, relief spreading across his features over whatever he sees on my face, his arms opening to snatch me up off the ground with zero effort.
I wrap my thighs around his waist and nuzzle my face in his neck, loving how easily he holds me there, so I can just let my feet dangle.
“Damn, Marlow.” His arms close around me tight. “I thought I’d scared you off.”
I lift my head, giving him an inquisitive look. “Why?”
“I broke the glass, yelled at that fucker who was bothering you.” He shakes his head. “Everyone ran, like I was Godzilla about to stomp out the whole town.”
“I didn’t run,” I whisper, kissing his chin. “Sometimes the hero needs to step in and remind everyone they’re being held to a higher standard. The one you set. That’s all you were doing.” I scrub my knuckles against his stubble. “And letting everyone know I’m yours. I like that part most of all.”
“Same. But I still can’t believe it’s true.” He runs his hands up the outsides of my thighs, twisting his fists in the sides of my skirt, tugging my lower body closer. “Aw, baby. You looked like a sweet little cupcake sitting there in the bleachers.”
“I am sweet,” I breathe, laying my mouth on top of his. “Wanna see?”
“Yes,” he says, already hoarse.
We stumble sideways in our haste to taste each other, my mouth opening for him, accepting his tongue with a moan while he enjoys a good, rough knead of my bottom, on top of my panties.
I hold his face in my hands in a slant, lick, slant, kind of kiss, excitement rumbling upward from the tips of my toes, tingling in my calves, knees, thighs, until it throbs in my core, like a hot, rhythmic pump.
“You were so incredible tonight that I had to draw you,” I whisper, climbing his big body higher, clinging more securely with all the strength of my inner thighs, wanting to feel all of him.
Everywhere. “You’re starring in my newest drawings. Do you want to come see?”
He settles his forehead against mine and simply holds me in the muted nighttime of the street, swaying right to left. “I want to see anything you want to show me.”
I press my nose into his neck, inhaling him, then I shimmy my way to the ground, intertwine our fingers and tug him into the coffee shop.
Every head in the place turns on a swivel to witness the glory of Eric Von Hagen, though he seems self-conscious about all the attention.
Well, I’m going to cure that insecurity in no time.
Eric lets me guide him down into the seat I vacated before he arrived, then I take my spot in his lap, smiling over his lusty grunt when my bottom presses to his groin that grows significantly and rapidly with us sitting in this position, though I keep my hips still. For now.
“Is that supposed to be me?” Eric says, sounding astonished as he peers over the top of my head down at my sketchbook, which is still wide open on the table. “You’re so talented, Marlow. These could be published, but, uh…that guy is all sinewy and confident and badass.”
I tilt my head back to kiss the underside of his chin. “That’s what I see when I look at you. That’s not how you feel?”
After a pause, he shakes his head. “Not usually, no. I’m a freak of nature.”
“A miracle of nature. Exactly like a superhero.”
After studying me long and hard, he trails his fingers up and down the line of my throat, as if he wants to memorize the feeling of me swallowing, and I’m glad I picked a table that is tucked into a shadowy nook where none of the other customers can see us.
“I’m starting to wonder if I have a superpower that I’m not aware of, because I can’t fucking believe I’ve got this beautiful girl in my lap. ”
My blood thickens. Heats. “Right where I want to be.”
A rumble sounds off in his chest. “What time do you need to be home, Fairy Tale? I won’t have you getting into trouble because of me.”
“If they haven’t discovered I’m gone yet, I should be good until morning. They’re usually in bed by ten.”
He drags his fingertips in a path down between my breasts, making my nipples bead beneath the thin material of my red turtleneck, and he grunts his approval.
That touch continues lower, lower, the barest of brushes over the contour of my sex, before he begins to play idly with the hem of my skirt.
“I want to know more about your family. Why you have to be so secretive about having a normal social life, when your stepsisters don’t seem to have the same restrictions. ”
I try not to stiffen, but I do, and he catches my chin in his big paw, tilting my head back and scrutinizing my face with a frown.
“I’m a little more rebellious than them,” I whisper.
“I ran away and acted out a lot after my father moved us here. I didn’t adjust very well and she’s never really forgiven me for it. Or my drawings.”
“What’s wrong with the drawings?” he growls.
“Well, if you hadn’t called me, I was about to draw Colossal and the heroine getting freaky in the locker room.”
His booming laugh makes me giggle, and I’ve never felt safer or more content than I am right now, in my giant’s lap. “I’d rather talk about you. What is your family like?”
“It’s just me and my mom. My dad hasn’t been in the picture for a while. But she’s just…the best. When she finds out I have a girlfriend, she’s going to overreact. In a good way. But she’ll probably assume I’m playing a joke on her when she sees you.”
“Why?”
“Baby, I don’t think you realize how fucking gorgeous you are.”
“I don’t think you realize that women are biologically attracted to the dominant alpha in their species.
Size and height and the ability to scare off predators signal a good provider, a protector and a father.
So, it’s lucky for me that all the other girls don’t pay any heed to science.
Or open their eyes to the perfect man walking around in their midst.” I shift my hips side to side, slowly, slowly. “Because this is all mine.”
“Goddamn it, yes. Yes, it is.” Eric swallows hard, before nudging the sketchbook with his left hand. “Don’t let me interrupt your work,” he says gruffly, his legs opening beneath mine, bringing my limbs with him.
Opening me. Spreading me.
“R-really?” I manage, swallowing. “No one has ever watched me draw…that part.” Picking up my pencil and letting it hover over the page, I chew on my lip. “I’m not even sure I’ve been depicting…sex one hundred percent correctly. I just have a vivid imagination.”
This line of conversation is causing Eric’s erection to build, the steel trunk pressing up between my cheeks.
“I’ve never fucked either, Fairy Tale,” he says, slipping his fingers down, riding them up beneath my skirt to massage my slit through the cotton of my panties.
“But after this afternoon, I’m pretty sure we’re going to be naturals. ”
“I think so, too,” I whisper, trembling. “Actually, I was kind of curious about my…preferences after today. I did some interesting googling when I got home.”
“What did you find out?”
I look up at Eric with a solemn expression, gesturing for him to come closer. When he has bent all the way down, I turn my face to whisper in his ear. To tell him the undeniable truth I learned through the internet. “I think I’m a come slut.”