Chapter 10
Marlow
With my back pressed against my locker, I look up into Eric’s eyes and wonder how today is Friday and I’ve only known him since Monday. How fast my life has changed in such a short period of time. I’ve gone from lonely to loved. Sad to secure.
Physically unsatisfied to wildly fulfilled.
Well. Fulfilled might be a stretch, because as Eric lovingly points out, I am insatiable.
Between my strict parents, his hockey practices and his mother’s work schedule, we haven’t been able to have sex since our first time on Tuesday, but Eric and I have skipped our lunch period for the last three days to make out in the dark corners of the library.
All three times ended with me on my knees, so I could get my fix of his come.
The problem is, the more I get, the worse I need it.
“Can we skip last period?” I whisper now, restraining myself from unzipping his pants right there in the school hallway, so I can massage the thickness that barely fits in triple XL briefs. Goodness, I can’t keep my hands off it. “I already miss the salty taste.”
Eric’s nostrils flare, his zipper rising like a cake in the oven, and he hides his lap behind a textbook.
“Fairy Tale, please…” he says, pupils dilating in a way I’m coming to recognize.
He’s as horny as I am. And if I needed more evidence, the way he’s staring at my cleavage and pressing the textbook against his crotch is more than enough.
“If you skip a class, the school calls your house. My mom would let it slide, but I don’t want to risk you getting in trouble, baby. If I couldn’t see you, I’d go insane.”
“I’d go insane, too,” I breathe, my whole chest sore from having my breath stolen so often. “You’re right. It’s risky to skip class.”
He comes closer until I can feel his breath against the crown of my head. “Besides, as much as I love you sucking me off, Marlow, you’ve got cockburn on your pretty lips. Your knees are all red from kneeling, baby, and it’s killing me.”
“I love what I do on my knees,” I say, nudging the textbook against his erection, tapping the cover with my index finger. “It’s for both of us.”
Eric bites back a groan. “The next time I nut, I need it to be inside you.”
I close my eyes and latch onto a memory of Eric humping away furiously on top of me, sweat building on his forehead. “I want that, too.”
“Let me meet your parents,” he suggests.
Panic goes down my spine like an electrical current. “What?”
He’s watching my face closely. Curiously. “If they meet me and see how much I care about you, and that I have good intentions, maybe they’ll give us more freedom to spend time together. Hell, they can even meet my mother, if you think that’ll help.”
“Nothing will work.” My pulse is knocking against my ear drums. “You don’t understand…”
“Help me understand.” He presses a kiss to my forehead. “You won’t talk about your family. You’re forced to sneak out when it seems like your stepsisters come and go as they please—”
I’m saved from having to backflip out of this conversation when Garrett yanks open the locker beside mine, shooting us a wry smile. “Ahoy, lovebirds. Missed you during lunch.” He throws a book into his locker and takes another one out. “Let me guess. You were”—air quotes—“studying.”
“That’s right,” Eric says without taking his darkened eyes off me.
Garrett snorts. Angles his body in my direction. “So, Marlow. I was at your house for dinner the other night. The whole family was there, except for you. What’s that about?”
I press my lips into a helpless line. “I, um…don’t like to eat as early as they do.”
“Huh.” Garrett is clearly skeptical of my explanation for not being at dinner, but thankfully, he lets the subject drop.
Little does he know I was locked upstairs in the attic, listening to their conversation through the heating vent.
“Anyway, party tonight at my house. You’re both invited obviously. Any time after nine. BYOB.”
“A party?” I say, when Garrett walks away, and I look up at my boyfriend. “Are you going?”
“Only if you are.”
I hum, trying to run through the logistics. My parents stay awake later on Friday nights, and with both of my stepsisters probably attending the party, there is a higher chance I could get caught leaving through my window. “I’ll try and be there.”
Eric sighs. “I assume you’ll be sneaking out again.”
All I can do is avert my gaze. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Explain why Garrett and Tony are allowed into your house and I’m not. Explain why your sisters are allowed to go out and you can’t.” A muscle ticks in his right cheek. “If you’re treated differently than them, Marlow, I want to know about it.”
My face is slowly growing hot with embarrassment.
Over my parents thinking I’m such a degenerate that they lock me in my room and forbid me from social activities so I don’t bring shame on the family.
Or ruin things for my stepsisters. Part of me wonders if they’re right to take precautions.
Aren’t I the girl giving her boyfriend blow jobs in the library while everyone else is eating lunch?
“Eric, please. I don’t want to talk about this. ”
He can’t hide his disappointment that I’m shutting down his line of questioning. “Fine, we won’t talk about it.”
Even though he’s letting the subject drop, I can still sense his irritation that I won’t open up to him.
Doesn’t he know I would if I could guarantee he wouldn’t break up with me afterward?
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’ll see you tonight,” I whisper, slipping out from between his big body and the locker.
“Wait. Baby, wait.” He lunges after me, pulling me into his arms, leaning down to angle his mouth against mine, kissing me with so much affection, my worries temporarily slide to the back of my mind.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay. Always.
That is always going to be my number one concern.
I’m sorry if I sounded upset with you. I’m not.
How could I ever be upset with my Fairy Tale? ”
“I love you,” I blurt, my chest prying open and letting out the truth.
Moisture pools rapidly in his eyes and he’s forced to blink it away, his chest heaving once, twice. “God, I love you, too.”
My heart squeezes until I gasp. “Then be patient with me.”
“I will,” he says, nodding, obviously wanting to press for more of an explanation, but holding himself back. “I will.”
I believe him.
I also wonder how soon that vow will be put to the test.
It’s nine thirty before I attempt to sneak out.
I’m late to the party—a party where both of my stepsisters are in attendance.
They walked right out the front door with their straightened hair and cropped tank tops.
Meanwhile, I’m getting ready to jump from the second-story window in a slip dress and heels.
I’m not sure why I decided to wear the naughty little dress that I found at the thrift shop and hid in the back of my closet.
Maybe I desperately need to assert my power or wrestle back my freedom.
If that’s the case, it’s working. As I run through the wooded area beside my house and cut down the block toward the party, I feel giddy with excitement.
I’m in love. The boy I love returns my feelings.
I’m on my way to see him. Sure, I’ll have to return to a house that stifles me and paints me as a villain later, but I don’t have to think of that for the next few hours.
I can embrace this lightness and just be.
It takes me ten minutes to reach my destination.
The music is pumping so loud, it’s a miracle the neighbors haven’t called the cops yet.
Silhouettes move in the windows, seniors are crammed into doorways passing vapes and red solo cups back and forth.
I look for Eric among the crowd, but I don’t see him yet.
I’m not accustomed to walking into parties at all, and I have this pressing urge to call Eric and ask him to come outside and get me.
I don’t want to seem needy, though, or green, even though I am.
So I fix my wind-mussed hair and slide through the group blocking the door, taking a deep breath when they all stop talking, the men openly checking me out.
“Goddamn, where did she come from?” one of them says behind my back.
“Bro, that’s Colossal’s girl. Let me know if you’re going to hit her up so I can start working on your eulogy now.”
“Oh shit.”
“Oh shit is right.”
I duck my head and smile, moving further into the party, searching through groups of dancing seniors for someone I recognize. For Eric. It’s not until I reach the kitchen that I see him, pacing in front of the alcohol laden island, staring at his phone.
“Relax, Colossal,” says Tony, his arm around my sister’s neck. “She’s coming.”
“She’s probably waiting for my mom to fall asleep on the couch,” says Suzie, giggling when Tony kisses her neck.
“Why does she have to do that?” Eric shouts over the music. “She’s eighteen years old. You’re both treated like adults, but she’s not? Make it make sense.”
“I’m here,” I say quickly, stepping into Eric’s path.
He draws up short, his expression transforming from stressed out to relieved.
At least, until he sees what I’m wearing and does a double take.
His Adam’s apple freezes mid-swallow, his gaze darkening so rapidly, I wonder if it’s a trick of the light.
“Christ, Marlow. Please tell me you didn’t walk here dressed like that. ”
“Okay, I won’t.”
“I want to start picking you up any time you leave the house,” he says. “I want to escort my girl door to door.”
I nod, knowing it will never happen, but my easy agreement temporarily appeases him.
He rakes a hand through his hair, closing the distance between us and blocking me from the rest of the kitchen. “How am I supposed to think straight with you in that outfit?”
“You don’t have to think straight,” I say, going up on my tippy toes, so I can slip my arms around his big neck. “You only have to think about me.”
“Hell, baby,” he groans, stroking his hands down the cheeks of my bottom and lifting me up, my legs opening naturally to wrap around his hips. “You’re here less than a minute and my cock is already stiff as fuck. Thinking about you is my default.”
“Eric?”
“Yeah,” he fairly pants, because he knows what’s coming.
I brush my lips against his ear. “Is there somewhere we can be alone? You’re not he only one who can’t concentrate.” Looking at him from beneath the veil of my lashes, I tighten my thighs around his hips. “I need Daddy.”
His inhale is ragged. “Daddy needs you, too.” With a hard swallow, he looks back over his shoulder at Garrett.
Or at least that’s what I assume, because I can’t see anything but the giant man who is holding me like a fragile doll.
“Point me toward a room with a lock, man, and don’t say a fucking word about it. ”
Garrett swallows a smile. “Up the stairs, first door on the left.”
“Yeah.”
I tuck my head under Eric’s chin and listen to his heart slam while he charges up the stairs, turns and ducks beneath the doorframe of a dark room.
There’s no light to register my surroundings and I wouldn’t have bothered anyway, because I’m suddenly sandwiched between a hungry beast and the door—and he’s chomping at the bit to get me naked.
Good thing I’m already halfway there.