Chapter 27 Dangerous Curves
Dangerous Curves
Neither of us was in our right mind. I knew that.
The correct thing to do would have been to buckle ourselves into our respective front seats, turn the radio so high we couldn’t think, and process our emotions safely and separately before coming back together to discuss what the hell had just happened.
But the noise in my head was unbearable. The sounds of my inadequacy rang in my ears. Every fear I’d had about myself clawed its way out of the box I’d been locking it up in every time Hudson was around.
You can’t do anything right. The Fantasy’s launch is going to fail and it’s all your fault.
What made you think that you could have a normal existence—friends and sex—without ruining everything?
Do you really think Hudson is in this for you?
No, of course not. He’s just here to take some girl’s virginity and use her as a distraction while he’s in town for a few weeks.
Why are you letting him get into your emotions just like Lloyd did?
How could you be so stupid a second time?
However, unlike most times when they swanned back into my orbit, Mom and Dad’s sudden reappearance wasn’t the only thing mixing me up.
Hudson was there, too. While instinct and history and my mother’s harsh stare told me again and again that I was a failure, that there was nothing good about me but my skill with complex algebra and mechanical engineering, there were other parts of me just beginning to surface under Hudson’s attentions.
Now another voice whispered that my parents were wrong.
That I was already proving myself capable of succeeding on my own terms. That I could have Hudson and Leelah and a life outside the office without it leading to catastrophe.
I wanted to listen to that voice. Or, at the very least, I wanted to shut up the first one.
So I threw open the car door.
Problem: Too many thoughts. Too many feelings. Too complicated.
Proposed Solution: Get Hudson to fuck my brains out.
“Hey—”
“Don’t talk,” I commanded, grabbing him by the arm.
He allowed himself to be pulled along into the back seat, laughing like this was all one big tease.
But it wasn’t.
The door closed behind him with a thunk.
The car’s auto lights went out, submerging us in darkness.
I yanked him close to me and attacked him with a kiss.
This wasn’t any of that gentle and safe crap we’d been toying with so far.
This was a full-frontal assault, with teeth and fingernails.
For a second, he tensed, but just as quickly, he melted again, groaning and answering every gesture of mine with a kiss or claw of his own.
Lying down along the back seat, I relished his hot, burning kisses and his hand running up my thigh. Yes, this was what I wanted.
Reaching into my purse, I grabbed a Circler.
Instead of using suction like a Womanizer or vibrations like a Rabbit, this one had a simple handle finished off with what looked like the top of a pawn chess piece.
It rotated at various speeds, controlled by simple, discreet buttons on the side of the toy.
My pulse and pussy throbbed at what was to come. I didn’t want foreplay. I didn’t want lingering glances or teasing. I wanted to be used. Reduced to sex and nothing else so I didn’t have to think about the grating machinery of conflict currently threatening to go critical inside me.
“I want you to use this toy on me. And to fuck me,” I instructed. “Hard and fast and like you don’t give a shit about me. Fuck me until I can’t string together a coherent thought. Now, take your cock out.”
He froze over me, pulling away slightly. After shoving the toy into his hand, I took the opportunity to yank my dress over my head.
“But I do give a shit about you,” he said.
My turn to freeze. Sure, he’d said as much before, but this was the first time I believed him. The first time it meant something. All those other instances, I could write off as his thoughtful nature. He liked me, yeah, but he liked everyone.
Tonight, however, he’d shown his hand. He liked me for real. More than other people. Enough to be disliked if it meant standing up for me.
And that was terrifying.
“Well. Pretend like you don’t.”
He watched me with a guarded expression, but his hands went to his fly anyway. His cock was incredibly hard already, straining against his zipper. “Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. To me, it does.”
Really? What guy asked follow-up questions when a hot woman in her bra, underwear, and Keds asked him to bang her senseless?
“Do you want to talk about your feelings right now?” I asked.
“Only if you want to talk about yours.”
It was another dodge. In any other scenario, I would have pounced on it. I would have told him that he needed to tell me the truth rather than what he thought I wanted to hear.
But he’d given me what I craved—permission to stop talking, thinking, and feeling. So, selfishly, I took it.
“Fuck that. I want you. So shut up and take me.”
We went at each other again, our bodies colliding with raw, animalistic energy.
He was rough, and I was rough right back, tearing at fabric and teething at skin.
I rocked roughly against him, brushing his cock with my already desperate pussy.
He answered, yanking my panties aside so he could explore my folds with his fingers, which immediately dripped with my wetness.
“Fuck, Scout,” he breathed. “You’re so—”
That was dangerously close to a compliment. I didn’t want to hear it.
“Are you going to fuck me or not?”
Hudson, not wanting to miss a second of my wet, tightening cunt, positioned himself at my entrance, bringing The Circler down to my clit.
He pushed inside me. I screamed. Okay. So he could fuck me hard. And he was good at it.
Only it wasn’t enough. Intrusive thoughts were slamming at the doors of my mind, begging to get in and ruin everything.
And no matter how feral my own body became, Hudson didn’t rise to the challenge, instead keeping a rough but measured pace and focusing The Circler on my clit in an equally frustrating manner.
“More,” I choked.
Hudson did exactly the opposite, backing off. “I’ll hurt you.”
“I want it to hurt.”
Where was the smug sex jerk who’d smacked my ass the other day? Sure, that had been mischievous, but still. I wanted more, I wanted deeper, I wanted harder, I wanted to see stars instead of my own failures.
“You never have before,” he said cautiously. “Not like this.”
“I thought we weren’t talking right now. I thought we were fucking.”
“But, Scout…”
I jerked against him, hoping to inspire a spark of anger or sexual frustration that would send him spiraling alongside me. “Harder.”
He stopped entirely. I responded by rocking back onto his cock with a fury, knifing myself onto him as The Circler worked miracles on my clit. Close. I was so close.
But it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to feel his soft and giving hands on me while I made myself cum. I wanted him to dominate me. To fill my brain with so much sex and lust that there would be room for nothing else.
“I don’t think I want this anymore, Scout,” he whispered, palming my hips to stop their movement. “The sex, I mean. This sex. And I don’t think you do, either.”
I eyed him, wild and desperate. My gut agreed. I didn’t want this sex. I was always horny for him, but right now, I wasn’t chasing sex, nor was I trying to connect with him. I was trying to do the very opposite—trying to put sex between us.
After a beat he murmured:
“Cosmos.”
Our safe word hit me like a sonic blast. I went rigid. Still. Ashamed. Conflicted.
With a press of a button, The Circler died against my pussy. He withdrew from my body, and that—that sudden emptiness, paired with his unflinching gaze looming over me—knocked free everything I’d been trying to hide from these last few minutes.
My brain’s limbic system went into overdrive, irritating my lachrymal glands.
In short, tears welled up along my bottom lids. I was on the verge of crying when Hudson moved off me and situated himself on the far edge of the back seat. I tucked my legs up, mirroring his position at the other end to give him space.
“You told me to be honest about what I want and what I don’t. Here it is. I don’t want to have sex when it’s like this.”
“Like what?” I asked, still playing dumb.
“I don’t want to be used, Scout. And I don’t want to use you.”
I swallowed hard. Blinked back the tears. Took a shaky breath. He rushed to speak again.
“Sorry if that’s the wrong thing to say. I understand if—”
“No,” I said, cutting off his self-conscious overexplanation. “It was exactly the right thing to say. It’s the truth. You should always feel safe telling me the truth. Always feel safe to be who you really are.”
And here’s the crazy thing. I meant that. I meant every word. I wanted to be the person he trusted with himself. In a world of people who he craved to please, I wanted to be the one he never worried about disappointing.
“I’m not going anywhere if you’re not,” I said, trying to reassure him.
“I’m staying as long as you’ll have me, Scout.”
My chuckle broke the air between us. “Don’t worry. I won’t call you on that. You’ll be free of me as soon as your contract’s up. You’ll never have to see my shitty parents again.”
“Why do you let them treat you like that?”
“Not all of us can charm everyone, Mr. Bailey.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t exactly charming tonight. They broke me with the way they talked about you. How can you stand it?”
On any other night, in any other circumstance, with anyone else, I would have given some bullshit answer about them being my parents. Honor thy mother and father and all that.
But Hudson, the people pleaser, had stood up for himself and ended bad sex between us despite how badly I claimed to want it. That meant a lot to me. That he believed in me enough to communicate his needs—which he didn’t do with really anyone else.
It told me that he cared about me. And cared about this relationship, whatever it was.
And care had a way of frightening me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’m just used to it.”
“I hope you never feel that way with me, Scout. I want to be better for you. To show you that people can be better to you. Do you want that, too?”
It sounded like a proposal that went deeper than sex.
That frightened me even more than the care.
Shit. I was going to have to end this, wasn’t I? Before it got too serious to take back?
Well. At least I had a sure-fire way to do that. To make sure Hudson wanted nothing to do with me ever again.
“Will you take me back to my house?” I asked.
“Oh. Um. Yeah.”
The way he played with his cuffs told me everything I needed to know—that he thought I was ditching him. I backtracked.
“Sorry. I mean…will you come back with me to my house?”
Even in the low light of the dark car, relief etched itself all over his face. The sight pierced me straight through. He’d been so afraid of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, and losing me.
“Of course. Absolutely.”
My heart broke for him a little. Because he wanted to keep me. And in a few minutes, he’d understand why he shouldn’t.
Why he couldn’t.