Chapter 30
three sheets to the wind
Dolly Beckett
“I think I’m drunk,” I say, stumbling against Preston as we leave the bar an hour later.
“Don’t worry, Doll, I’ll fuck you sober when we get home.”
“Preston,” I hiss, swatting his arm. Somewhere in the past hour, between the drinks and the trip down memory lane, he’s charmed me out of my anger, the way he always does. I can’t stay mad at him. I know him too well, have too much sympathy for him after everything he’s been through.
He leads me to his pickup truck in the parking lot, and a twist of nostalgia rises in me at the sight of it.
He opens the door and helps me in before closing the door.
I can’t help thinking that the last time someone opened a car door for me was when I went home to Arkansas last summer.
I run my hands over the smooth leather seats, remembering the times I rode in here with him and his cousins in another life. High school seems a million years ago.
He climbs in and reaches over to lay a hand on my knee.
His touch ignites something in me, something I forgot existed.
I squeeze my legs together and my eyes closed, trying to stop the throb of longing between my thighs when I remember the way he made me feel, the way no one else has ever made me feel.
It seems cruel that I only got to have him in my bed for one night, and we didn’t even go all the way.
It scared me, the way he saw me, the endless ocean of his desire.
It was like a whirlpool that could suck me down and never let go, drown me in it.
As shameful as it is to admit, a part of me was glad when he didn’t want to see me on my trips home.
I don’t know if I’d have been able to leave again if he had.
When we get to my place a few minutes later, he climbs out of the truck and comes around to help me down again.
“Let me walk you in,” he says, taking my hand and pulling me toward my building.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say. “There’s a security guard.”
“I want to make sure you make it into your apartment safely.”
The only thing making me unsafe is my memory, the way my body is urging me to let him remind me how good it felt to be his for that one night. With all the drinks I’ve had, I can’t remember why I kept pushing him away after that. Why we never took our shot.
It’s not just how good he makes my body feel, either.
I can have an orgasm on my own any time with a little help from my vibrator.
But there’s so much more to experience with someone else, and not just sexual.
I remember a hundred times after Devlin broke up with me when I’d have to get up and leave class because I couldn’t sit there with him, knowing how much I loved him and that he didn’t love me back.
How some foolish part of me always hoped he’d get up and follow me, tell me he wanted me back.
But it wasn’t Devlin who followed me. It was Preston. We’d sit on the empty bleachers in the Arkansas sun, and he’d listen while I asked the question that had no answer. “Why doesn’t he want me?”
Preston would just say Devlin was blind, that he was stupid, that he couldn’t see what was right in front of him.
And then one day, I looked up, and he was looking at me in this way that made realization sink like a stone inside me.
He didn’t say anything, but I knew then that he saw me in a way Devlin never had.
He knew me. He wanted me. And not just to fuck, the way I’d believed when he came over the night we ended up in bed. He really saw me.
He nods to the security guard as we climb the steps to my apartment, his arm tight around me. Pausing at the door, I dig out my keys and unlock, and we step inside. Preston pushes the door closed and locks it, turning to me.
“Tell me to stay,” he says, bracing a hand on the door on either side of my head, his good eye burning into mine.
I don’t say anything. I know I should tell him the opposite, tell him to leave.
But when he leans in, his head only dipping slightly for his mouth to find mine, I don’t stop him.
My tequila-emboldened body has taken over, and my fingers curl into the front of his shirt, pulling him closer as our lips meet.
His kiss is everything I remember and more, hungry and tender at once, commanding mine with the confidence of someone who knows exactly what he’s doing.
He cradles my cheek in his palm, stepping closer, his body pressing mine to the door.
“Take this off,” I say, reaching for his mask. He lets me pull it over his head, revealing his scars and the rest of his face that it covered. I drop it to the floor and wrap my arms around his neck, sinking into the haze of alcohol and lust.
He kisses me until I’m dizzy and grinding shamelessly against him, squirming for more. Some part of me knew the moment I let him walk me up that he wouldn’t leave until he’d gotten what he came for.
That’s why I let him.
I want this, even though I know it’s a mistake. It’s one I want to make. I spent too many years making excuses for why I couldn’t do this, why I couldn’t let myself have it. Now that life seems far away. Now, I let myself have what I’ve wanted so long—all along.
Our lives are intertwined in some unexplainable, inescapable way, and no matter how wrong it is, it’s like I’ve been waiting all these years for this very moment. Like I always knew it wasn’t over, even when it felt like it was.
All my life, he kept coming back for more—more rejection, more punishment, more heartache. And I kept pushing him away. I should have known he’d never give up. He never does. I’m tired of fighting him, myself, and this thing between us. For one night, I want to know what might have been.
He breaks our kiss, his thumb pressing against the underside of my jaw, lifting my chin so he has access to my neck.
His hot breath sends shivers of desire spiraling through me as his mouth moves down the column of my throat, kissing and sucking and nipping at my skin.
I moan and let my head fall back on the door, let him take over.
He gets rougher as his desire grows, his hand moving to my hip, squeezing until a dull ache throbs under his fingers in time with the hungry ache pulsing between my thighs.
“You feel so fucking good,” he growls, biting my skin hard enough that I know I’ll have marks tomorrow. He pushes his hips against mine, grinding his hardness against my soft center. “I want to bury my tongue inside you and feel you shatter.”
“Oh god, Preston,” I breathe, opening my thighs, not caring if I’m so wet he can feel it through my clothes. “If we do this, you know it doesn’t change anything. I can’t come home.”
“I’m not asking you to come home right now,” he says, palming my heavy breast, thumbing my nipple. “Right now I’m asking you to cum on my cock, and my fingers, and my tongue, until there’s not a drop left in your body.”
He slips his hand up my shirt, letting his fingertips graze across the skin just above my bra. A shiver of longing works its way through my body, making me whimper for more, my hips moving against his with a fevered frustration.
“Wrap your legs around me and let me suck these magnificent tits while you milk every drop of cum from my cock,” he murmurs against my throat.
His free hand slides up the back of my thigh, hitching it up to his hip, and I eagerly obey his command, wrapping my legs around him while he pins me to the door.
“I want to hear you say it,” he growls. “Tell me to stay.”
“Stay,” I gasp, using my thighs to rise up and sink down on the ridge of his erection. “I haven’t felt this good in so long.”
“Good girl,” he says, turning from the door.
“Put me down,” I protest. “You’ll hurt your back.”
He smirks and buries his face in my chest. “The only back getting broken tonight is yours,” he assures me as he carries me into the bedroom.
He lays me down on the bed, stopping only to strip my shirt off before lowering himself on top of me and reaching behind me to unhook my bra.
I try not to think about how good he is at that, how easy he does it.
We’re not in high school anymore. We both know what we’re doing. Not that he didn’t know in high school.
“Turn off the light,” I say, reaching for the lamp.
“Take your skirt off,” he answers.
I know he hates the way he looks now, but I don’t care.
I know him for who he is, not how he looks.
I was there when he was injured, have seen every stage of his healing.
The burn scars across his forehead and cheek break my heart, though, and his one blind eye brings back memories I’d rather stay buried.
More than that, I know it must break his heart to think about it constantly, to be reminded every time someone looks at him.
I don’t want him to hold back or be self-conscious.
In the dark, we can let go of inhibitions, like we did that one night together.
I can’t believe this is happening, that after all this time, we’ll finally be together. I close my eyes and bring his head to my breasts, pushing them up for him to devour.
“Make me feel good,” I breathe, dropping my skirt off the side of the bed.
He moans, sucking a mouthful of my flesh between his teeth. When he bites down, I cry out, halfway in pain. God, I forgot how rough he is. He growls and backs off, pulling out until only my nipple remains. Squeezing my tits, he sucks hard enough to make me whimper and squirm under him.
He releases my nipple, leaving it wet and puckered from his tongue while he kisses his way down my cleavage and up the slope of my other breast. “Fucking hell, Dolly,” he groans, lathing his tongue across my other nipple. “Your tits could cause wars between the gods.”