10. Clear Enough?
Chapter 10
Clear Enough?
Taz
“Why are you trying to ruin what we have?”
He was throwing a wrench into our perfectly curated friendship.
Of all the people in the world, he was the person closest to me. He was the person who would be by my side to the end, probably more so because we had fucked, and he stayed my friend. Men didn’t do that. Most men got their fix, then left. So I knew we were friends. Real friends. The kind that stayed.
So why was he trying to rip it all apart now?
He didn’t answer me. Instead, he grabbed me by the shoulders and brought his face within inches of mine.
“I’m the guy, Taz,” he said, and I shook my head, confused at what he was trying to tell me. “I’m the guy you're with at the end of the story. I’m the guy you move in with, marry, get a dog, cat, hamster and goat with, and have kids with, if that’s what you want. I’m the guy. Not Riley. Me .”
There was that delicious insistence again. The one that commanded me to listen and believe. The one that told me I had no choice, like fate was pulling me to him. But I couldn’t let this happen. This thing between us wasn’t okay. It was a trap.
His words, his taste, the intensity of his eyes were the fucking bait, and the relationship was the trap I’d be stuck in. I wouldn’t do that again. I wouldn’t go through that a second time.
“What are you talking about?” I tried to push him away but he wouldn’t let me go. “You don’t want kids, and you’re never going to be tied down… that’s what you told everyone. Hell, that’s what you told Kristin and…”
“I was waiting for you.” His voice got quiet, but that fucking insistence didn’t let up. “It’s different with you, baby.”
Baby. Not Psycho or Pyro. Not even the more flattering nickname, Firefly. Baby.
It felt significant. Like we had reached a point of no return, and I had stepped over the line and didn’t realize it until I looked behind me.
“You’re so full of shit.” I reached down and found a plastic cup and threw it at his head. It bounced off harmlessly.
“No, Firefly. You’re the one that’s full of shit. I’ve been waiting. I keep waiting. But you could save me a shit ton of time, if you just got with the fucking program, and realize that I’m the guy.”
“Stop it.” My voice was barely a fucking whisper.
I could not believe he was ruining what we had.
“I’m not one of your girlfriends. I’m not a fucking game.” I almost laughed. “You waited? You had a fucking parade of women after Kristin…” That wasn’t really what hurt, was it? So, I gave voice to what truly did. “After me .”
I shook my head, realizing how stupid I was.
“No, that’s not right, is it? I was just one in the parade, right? The first one with the flaming baton.” A rebound. “Don’t turn me into that. I’m not one in a line waiting for—.”
“Believe me, I know it.”
He pushed away from me, walking down the small space of the trailer, running his hand through his hair.
“Someone would have to be shit faced to marry me, right?” I said, the bitterness rolling off my lips. “A guy would have to be certifiable to want to be with me, right?”
I was ready to hurl every insult and tease he had ever thrown my way. Years and years of remembered hurts that I didn’t react to but kept deep inside me spilled from my mouth. One after the other.
Each one was a reminder that he wasn’t mine and we were just friends.
“What kind of guy could sleep beside a psycho like me?”
Every time he had thrown an insult my way - even the ones that were meant as a joke now had new, poisonous barbs.
“I’m the kind of chick you get with, when the better ones aren’t available.”
And I recited them all.
“The only guy I could land, would be the kind who wouldn’t mind being castrated.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. He just lowered his head, keeping his back to me until I was finished.
Then he sighed.
“I’m a jealous fucker, Taz. You should know that.” He lifted his head as he whispered. “And my friendship with you hasn’t been perfect. I’ve said shit I didn’t mean because I was pissed at every guy you dated and bitter at every girl I fucked because they committed the cardinal sin of not being you.”
He turned and stepped closer to me. Close, but never touching. He hunched down, boxing me against the kitchen counter as the pulse in my ears beat out of my chest.
“I always thought it would be us in the end. I thought it was just a matter of the timing being right, and if I waited, then it would happen on its own. Was I wrong?”
I could smell him - his musk, the scent of earth, woods and the natural bit of coffee that scented his skin.
“Tell me, Firefly, was I wrong?”
No, he wasn’t . But I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t confess the desires that took over me each night. That I had to touch myself to the memories of his mouth before I could sleep. I couldn’t… because I’d lose him forever.
“No,” I whispered.
“So why aren’t we together now?”
Because I was yours a long time ago…
I couldn’t say that, so instead, I shook my head, “You can’t love me.”
“Yes, I can.”
“You don’t want me.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You don’t even like me half the time!”
“I’ll like you twice as much if you tell me you’re mine.” He placed his finger on my cheek, tracing down the outside to my throat. “What do you say?”
I leaned into his touch, even as my heart started sinking. He won’t stay once he gets what he wants. He won’t stay anyway. He likes girls who are pretty, high maintenance, and hot. He likes them girly, he likes them… normal. I’m just one of the guys to him, and eventually, my pussy won’t be enough to keep him.
“I… don’t… think I can…”
“Yes, you can.” He plunged in, parting my lips with his tongue, as he moaned into my mouth.
His kiss was intense, and unexpected. But it was exactly what I wanted.
My arms flew up around his neck, his arms circling my waist. He sucked my bottom lip into his mouth, letting it grind through his sharp teeth before he groaned. “Can you feel it, baby? Can you feel that you’re mine?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t get to, before he was kissing me again. His hands cupped my hips and ass and I jumped up to wrap my legs around his waist. I could feel the curve of his cock, throbbing to escape his jeans.
“If you don't stop me,” he growled. “I’m taking it all.”
“No!” I said on a whimper, but my words had no teeth.
“Your mouth is lying, Taz. But your body is telling me the truth.”
He slammed us against the side of my RV, the vehicle tilting with our weight.
Securely pressed between him and the wall, my legs wrapped around him, he let me go, his hands coming between us. With several jerks, he ripped at my jeans, the seams coming apart at his brute strength. He groaned, his fingers grazing my soaking underwear before his hands ripped those open at the crotch as well, giving him access to what he needed - what we needed.
I heard the metal of his belt come undone, and in a breath, the head of his engorged cock was at my entrance.
It stretched me apart, demanding to carve inside my body and soul. I gritted my teeth, taking the sting of his invasion as I held on.
He had prepped me better before. He had taken his time, and teased me open. He’d given me an orgasm so that my body could relax to take him. But not now. I felt every ache of his entrance, and I liked it.
“You’re so wet, but still so fucking tight,” he gritted out, his forehead on the wall beside my head, his lips at my ear. “Open your eyes and look at it.”
I shook my head, my eyes firmly clamped shut. I didn’t want to look at it. I had no idea why; I just didn’t want to.
“Stubborn fucking Psycho,” he said against my mouth as he kissed me again. I squealed as he pushed all the way inside me, down to the hilt, slamming me up higher against the wall.
When his lips let go, he cupped the back of my head and pushed it down so my forehead rested on his shoulder.
“Look,” he commanded, and I was too dazed not to obey.
His cock was slick with my juices as he pulled out, only to thrust back in. I whined, gritting my teeth at the beautiful pain of being too full, too wet, too… everything.
“See? Even that looks right, doesn’t it?” He tilted my chin up with his thumb and forefinger, before he delved back in with another searing kiss. “You can’t sneak away tomorrow and pretend you don’t remember. You can’t ignore me in the fucking morning. This is happening.”
His hand possessively closed around my throat. He wasn’t cutting off my air. He was just taking control of my head, turning it this way and that so he could pepper my face with kisses. Soft, gentle kisses that didn’t match the insane pounding of his hard cock inside me.
“Good girl,” he groaned against my cheek. “You were like this last time too. Holding on for dear life, your mouth open, screaming with pleasure.” He bit down on the sensitive spot below my ear, taking my skin between his teeth as he kept pounding and pounding into me, jolting me with every thrust. “Do you think I can make you cry those pleasure tears again?”
I swallowed, my throat dry from my moans as I shook my head in disbelief.
“You were too drunk to… to…” I complained, “to remember.”
“Baby, I remember every fucking thing.” He brought his head up so we were forehead to forehead, his eyes and those ridiculously thick lashes boring right into me. “Want me to recreate that evening just to prove it to you? I’d love another go ‘round.”
He thrust in deep and I whimpered, my head tilting back.
But he didn’t pull out this time. He didn’t create distance to move his hips. He just pinned me there, my legs around his waist, my taut nipples brushing against his hard pecs.
He licked me, right on the cheek, where a tear had escaped. He licked the trail from jaw to my cheekbone, before he whispered, “I licked it. Now it’s mine.”
God damn, those words. They were the damning evidence that confirmed he’d known this whole time. He’d only let me think he’d forgotten, the asshole.
He planted his mouth firmly on mine in a searing kiss that was far deeper than any that came before. He was possessive and making a spectacle of it. He was making sure that I got his message loud and clear.
His hands cupped my ass with a hard smack, before he pulled me off the wall and stumbled towards the kitchen counter.
“You have a birthmark,” he said, his finger tracing over my shoulder blade. “Right here. It’s maroon and shaped like a firefly.”
Holy shit. Was that why he started calling me Firefly?
I had never thought about the birthmark. I had rarely seen it, after all. It was just a spiky thing I might see in the mirror if I was trying to look at the back of my hair, or dress, or something.
His thumb circled the spot where the blemish I had been born with - a wine stain birthmark - rested at my bra line. Only a lover would ever see such a mark, and none had remarked on it until now.
“Your townhouse had a bigger counter than this fucking trailer, but it’ll have to do.” He put me on the counter and spread my legs. And I let him. I didn’t want to stop him.
It was like I had been walking through the desert and he was holding a glass of water to my lips, offering me what I needed most. His hands went up my shirt, just as it had back then, finding my breast, and pinching my nipples, causing a delightful pain that went right to my core.
I groaned, my body leaning into his hand, wanting more… begging for it.
“And I remember a very cold bottle that I placed against your skin. Do you?” I blushed, remembering the dirty place he had put an Edelweiss beer bottle. How he’d used it as a fucking toy and made me lose control before taking me in every room of my Fayetteville townhouse.
Then he stopped, abruptly. His hands left me and I was left in the cold even though we were still so intimately connected at the hips. I opened my eyes, looking at him with despair.
But he wasn’t looking at my face. He was staring somewhere away from me, his jaw ticking with anger. Was he already regretting this? So soon?
“Pick a safe word.”
“What?” I gasped, feeling whiplash from the sudden change of direction.
“Pick. A. Safe. Word.”
He said it slowly, punctuating every single syllable.
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been thinking about this every day for five years. Resisting me, telling me no, pushing me away won’t stop me. I’m going in, no holds barred. So give me a fucking safe word. For your sanity and mine.”
“I don’t… understand.”
“I’m going to pin you down and fuck you to within an inch of your existence,” he growled. “Is that clear enough?”