Chapter 7 #3
Not interested in the least to hear his response, I spin away from him. But not before I catch his lips part and brows scrunch, telling me that was the last thing he thought I’d say.
I inhale a much needed breath through my flared nostrils. Despite the fact he’s nowhere near me now, I swear I catch a lingering note of sweetness trailing on the breeze.
Like candy.
Like sugar.
But there’s something else there too, tainting it.
Something metallic.
Bitter.
He calls something out after me, but whatever it is gets washed out by the roar filling my ears.
Rounding the corner, I stalk back the way I came, being careful to avoid the tire-formed trenches.
Up ahead, the fire blazes on—embers dancing in the night. Drunken laughter and pounding music welcome me back to a world that feels more foreign than ever.
A world that no longer feels like mine…
Smoke trails on a gust of wind blowing through, burning my nostrils. Not unlike that sweet, yet bitter and metallic scent I haven’t thought about in years—the scent that’s haunted me, catching me unaware as I hovered on the edge of sleep.
A scent I know that isn’t actually here right now—doesn’t actually cling to him now—but is present all the same.
Souring the air around me. Spoiling it.
It closes in on me, surrounding me, smothering me.
It makes me restless.
Jumpy.
Out of control.
Makes me want to turn around.
Makes me want to hunt Aston down and make him pay—make him hurt.
For all the things no one else can pay penance for.
Only him.
Only the one who was there.
Only the one still breathing.
Blackness tinges my vision as I stride purposefully for the keg. I hate beer—especially this cheap sour-tasting shit—but right now it’ll have to do. I’m too impatient to search for the liquor that I know is being passed around.
I’m vaguely aware of an approaching figure and have just enough wherewithal to relax so I don’t flinch when Seth’s arms come around me. He croons something in my ear, pressing cool, sticky, wet lips to my neck.
My jaw ticks, nostrils flaring. Gulping down my cup of foamy piss water in two long pulls, I crush the cup and toss it, replacing it with Seth’s chilly, damp hand.
He says something else, slurs it really. Must’ve got into the good stuff while I was gone…
But whatever it is, it gets lost in the pressure continuing to steadily build. Pressure that needs to be released.
I lead him back to where we were before when we were so kindly interrupted—back before I stupidly let myself get involved, when I knew better. I knew better.
I could’ve easily done nothing and just focused on the promise of a hot mouth on my cock. But no, I just had to throw myself into Aston’s path.
Now, I all but shove Seth behind the stacks, deep into the shadows where no one passing us can see. I crowd him against the stone wall, grip his throat, and grind against him. I’m so hard, I could cut through the steel these furnaces used to produce.
Seth makes breathy little whines and moans, fingers scrambling at my arms. My back…
Diving beneath my shirt.
With a grunt, I force him to turn around as I make quick work of pulling myself out. Seth, not hesitating in the least, shoves his stupid pressed khakis down right along with his boxer briefs.
While he gets himself ready, I dig out a condom from my wallet, ripping the wrapper open with my teeth.
It’s in the forties tonight, and yet I’m sweltering. Even away from the blazing fire.
Sweat clings to my temples.
My heart is racing.
My flesh feels too tight for my bones.
But I don’t waste time ridding myself of the sweatshirt.
When Seth’s pleading and assuring me he’s ready—spit-soaked fingers slipping free of his hole with a wet squelch—I don’t waste a second, shoving into him without any sort of warning or preamble. Bottoming out.
I don’t wait for him to adjust. I take him with deep, rough thrusts that have our flesh smacking loudly and obscenely. Whether or not he’s enjoying it doesn’t even occur to me.
I just need this thing…this wrongness out of me before I put my fists through the stone wall we fuck against.
Burying my face against Seth’s neck, I clench my teeth together to trap the ragged sound trying to escape my throat.
I wish he smelled like beer, I think.
Beer would be preferable to whatever sugary drink is working through his system right now, wafting from his pores, making it impossible to think of anything but him… Aston.
And everything I’ve tried to bury these last six years.
All while I fuck my boyfriend, it’s Aston’s lips I see.
Aston’s throat.
Aston’s hands.
I don’t even bother trying to shove the images back.
Nor do I try to convince myself I’m not sick in the fucking head for getting off on it—the violence, the fantasy of taking the power from Aston, making him beg and cry for me to stop while simultaneously moaning from the pleasure-pain of being at my mercy.
I know I am. Sick, that is.
Disgusting.
Wrong.
Moans and grunts surround me, but it might as well be coming from miles away—from bodies that aren’t mine or the one I rail into.
“Do you always just swoop in and save all the boys?”
I didn’t fucking save you.
I didn’t.
Childish laughter fills my head. Singing…
The giggles laced with hysteria as he rocked back and forth.
The past bleeds through the present, eroding and distorting the fantasy, reminding me who he is. Not just some pretty stranger I met in a field who sparked interest in a way so few rarely manage to do…
But a walking reminder of the worst moments of my life.
The blood that coated his hands, his face, his half naked body…
The way it splattered everywhere as he sunk the jagged shard of glass in Rick’s chest. His stomach…
Over and over and over again.
More memories converge, rushing in and out of order, and I see those lips shivering around soundless pleas.
See hands coming toward me…slim fingers…
Those eyes, big, bright, and shining.
Please. Pleasepleaseplease…
He was just a kid, for fuck’s sake.
But so was I.
So was I.