Aedan
I could have ridden the train all the way back to Newark. Hell, I could have gotten a cab—I was okay for money, since I didn’t have much of anything to spend it on. But I like walking. No one bothers you, walking at night. Not if you look like me.
So I got off a few stops early and walked past the industrial parks and the docks, past walls of shipping containers taller than buildings and past black water as still and calm as glass.
My apartment block’s lousy for just about everything—no nearby stores, no nightlife. Half the apartments are empty, some with broken windows. No one in their right mind would want to rent there. Which is exactly why I liked it. No neighbors, no visitors. Everyone left me alone.
Upstairs, I opened the windows to try to let in some air—the air conditioning broke a long time ago. But there was barely a breath of wind.
I settled for a shower, cranking the spray up hard and cold and letting it blast against my body, foaming and hissing against my chest and then my back.
Cold showers were a boxing thing, a good way of helping swollen muscles to heal.
I hadn’t needed that for a long time. I’d kept in shape, still went to the same gym, but I hadn’t felt that burn and ache that comes from really using your body.
Working out isn’t like fighting, in the same way cruising in your car on the freeway isn’t like a race.
But tonight...tonight, I could feel just a hint of it. Just a touch of that fire in my shoulders and chest, from swinging punches. Just a little throb in my fists where they’d connected with those bastards faces.
It felt good. I tried to tell myself it was because I’d done good, because I’d saved Sylvie. But I knew it went deeper than that. Fighting had felt good.
It was the first time I’d raised my hands to anyone in over a year. The first time I’d let myself be myself, instead of a locked-down, hooded nobody.
And something else had felt good, too. Her.
The sight of her; the touch of her. I squeezed my hand shut, remembering the feel of her soft skin against my calloused fingers.
The scent of that long dark hair when it had passed close to my face, like walking through a fucking meadow filled with blossoms.
I turned off the shower and toweled myself dry. But the memories didn’t stop.
The way her ripe breasts had pushed out the top of that pink t-shirt. The curve of her, from breast to waist, sculpted just perfectly for me to grab her and lift her and push her up against a wall.
I hit the light and flopped onto my bed, naked. It was way too hot for clothes. I lay there in the darkness with a faint breeze blowing in through the window.
Her back. That feline curve that ran from between her shoulders all the way down to the top of her ass. It made me want to strip her naked and run my palm down it. Maybe she’d gasp a little as the heel of my hand rubbed against that soft, tan skin, my fingers trailing along each sensitive vertebra.
Her legs. Those fantastic, sculpted calves and thighs, the tight denim hugging every smooth curve, leading up to—
I could feel my cock rising now, unbidden.
Her ass. Those tight, tight globes, high and firm and sticking out in just the right way. Just the right size for my hands to cup and squeeze. She’d groan. And then, with her on all fours, I’d gently part them….
My cock was pointing at the ceiling, now, throbbing. No. For feck’s sake! I wasn’t going to jack off to her like some teenager.
Her lips. Pink and full and so soft. Pressed together, a lot of the time, like she was worried about stuff.
I wanted to take that away. I wanted to see her smile.
The closest I’d seen was that little sigh of relief when she’d finally gotten her soda, and her lips had parted to show shining white teeth.
It was burned into my memory: the little beads of sweat on her forehead, the way her lips had trembled when she paused her drinking and panted in air.
It was easy to imagine her on top of me: head thrown back, that long, silky hair flowing down her naked back and spilling over my hands.
I’d be stroking her all the way from her ass up to her shoulders and my cock would be buried inside her, her thighs clamped around me.
She’d pant and beg as she spasmed around me—
I snatched my hand away from my cock, thumped the pillow in frustration, and turned over on my side.
There was no use fantasizing about what I couldn’t have. The worst thing in the world for Sylvie would be to get mixed up with a monster like me. I liked her—feck, I was hard as iron for her.
So I’d have to steer clear of The Pit.
For both our sakes, I’d make sure I never saw her again.