32. Chapter 24
With Me
Rain
“This is a song called ‘Places We’ve Been’,” Dutch says so casually to the shell-shocked bar. Except there’s no one in here more surprised than me.
I have never really heard Dutch sing beyond a few odd lines of one of our songs, even though he does have a beautiful voice.
But I definitely had no idea he wrote music or that he played guitar.
Turns out the man’s been keeping nearly as many secrets as I have, although his aren’t the really fucked up kind.
He strums a few chords. The song is slow, but it builds. When his voice joins the music, I’m spellbound. First, there’s a straining edge to his baritone, as if he’s begging people to hear him. And second, it’s the words themselves.
He sings about parks and playgrounds. He sings about stolen street signs. He sings about jail cells and a garden shed. He sings about us. The Preaching Pistols, long before we ever carried that name. But when he builds to the first bridge, the song changes as he sings,
“These notes are a map
of the places we’ve been
Each line a reminder
of when you were with him
All the times that I held you
and then let you go,
Back into his arms
like mine weren’t the right mould,
Not shaped or designed to be what you needed
While I screamed on the inside
that he wasn’t either.”
The next verses are about late-night parties and screaming fights; he sings about the girl I was back then, drowning under the weight of something I wasn’t equipped to understand.
He sings about his own mistakes, and how anger led him to say things he never meant and wished he could take back.
That’s when it dawns on me that this isn’t a song about The Pistols. It’s a love song, and it’s about me.
The song ends, and not one person in the bar is looking at Dutch anymore.
I don’t even have to look up to know it.
The weight of his stare is the heaviest, but even the drunkest person in here has followed those brown eyes of his right to me.
I can’t take it. I’ll risk disappointing him, even after he’d just bared his fucking soul to me on that stage, because if I look at the whiskey in front of me for one more second, I will give in, because how could I ever be worthy of such a confession?
After everything that happened, after everything I’m still doing.
I shove the glass back at the bartender, and without another glance at Dutch, I bolt for the side door. Outside, in the alley, it is easier to breathe.
The night air of The Neck is damp, as usual.
Worse, the mist from earlier has transformed into proper old rain.
Each drop clings to my skin and hair in an instant, soothing some of the fire burning inside me.
Only it doesn’t quite reach the worst of the flames.
The ones that have been simmering inside me for weeks.
The ones that, if I am honest with myself, ignited the day Dutch put me over his knee.
The very same heat that, ever since, has had me reaching between my thighs every night for a bit of relief.
Looking down at my fingers, I debate taking the edge off right here and now. My panties are already soaked, so it’s not like it would take long. My fingertips are skimming the waistband of my skater skirt when the door bursts open beside me.
I yank my hand back and look up only to find a sparkle in Dutch’s dark eyes that told me it was too late. He caught me red-fucking-handed.
“Weren’t even going to wait for me, Rainy-o?”
In an attempt to act like he hadn’t seen a damn thing, I lean back against the brick wall of the bar and pretend to admire the manicure Tina gave me for tonight’s show. The magical witch that she was, she’d somehow managed to hand-paint little skulls on each nail.
I didn’t get to look for long because Dutch grabbed both my arms and pushed them gently back against the wall.
“Don’t play with me, Rain. I’m pretty sure I know what you were about give up in there. And I know you heard me, too. The song. And what it means.”
His voice is strained; the veins in his neck pop.
It is easier to look at them than into the face of my best friend.
It is easier than dealing with my own simmering feelings for the man who just confessed his love for me in a disgusting dive bar.
Or maybe that he has always been in love with me.
I don’t know. My scrambled brain is too fucked up right now to process if it’s one or both.
His voice ghosts over my ear as he leans in and whispers, “And I know what you were about to do out here, too.”
He pauses and scans my body. His eyes eat up every inch of me, and that fire I was complaining about, ooooh boy, is raging.
“You were going to touch yourself out here in this alley, where anyone could have seen you, weren’t you?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He just keeps up an endless trail of questions that my throat is too dry to possibly answer. The rain is getting harder. Each drop that hits Dutch leaves rivers trailing over his skin. They are almost as distracting as his questions.
“Was it the song that got you all hot and bothered?”
Did hearing his beautiful confession turn me on? Check.
“Or was it the sound of my voice?”
That deep baritone that seemed to slink right between my legs? Double-check.
“Or, have you been itching to ride this dick ever since you came all over my lap?”
Check times infinity.
My body gives me away before my mouth can spout some bullshit. My hips arch forward towards him, and because nobody has ever been able to read me as well as Dutch Kelly, he doesn’t need me to say a damn thing after that.
His big hands grasp behind my thighs and, as if I’m nothing, he lifts me from the ground.
The breath is stolen from my lungs in the next second when my spine is slammed into the brick wall of the building.
Dutch holds me there but goes no further.
His face, now so close to mine, allows our air to mingle with twin gasps.
In his expression, I read it: the years of waiting and hoping.
Of letting me love someone else, of letting me make stupid, bad decisions and of choosing to love me anyway.
This man. This fucking man. Even now, despite his clear desire—I mean, his rock-hard cock is firmly pressed against my pelvis—he is still leaving me the space to decide if we go further than this.
And it’s that alone that does it for me.
In my thirty years, no other man has waited, held back or let me lead.
Yet Dutch does. He always has; I was just too wrapped up in Cohen to notice.
My legs wrap around him, ankles locking together just at the top of his ass, and I use that leverage to pull him harder against me.
He smirks and asks, “What now, beautiful?”
Even if it’s a dumb decision, even if it will complicate things like crazy, it won’t even come close to the horrible decision I nearly made before Dutch set foot inside that bar tonight. So I swallow my worry and tell the man in front of me exactly what I want.
“Now, I want you to fuck me.”
“With pleasure,” he beams. His right hand moves like lightning. He reaches further under my skirt. There’s a tear and a sharp sting as I watch my cotton thong get tossed aside.
He then presses both of us a bit harder into the bar’s exterior wall, makes use of its support so that same hand can be used to free his cock from his jeans, followed by a condom from his back pocket.
“You just carry one of those around with you everywhere, do ya?” I sass.
“Only when you’re around,” he sasses back. I keep forgetting that, unlike Cohen, Dutch won’t rise to my bratty bait. He’ll just meet it shot for shot. It’s refreshing. It’s easy. And I can’t fight back my smile at the result. Neither can Dutch, and his eyes sparkle with laughter in return.
With a level of coordination I don’t possess, he manages to roll the condom on one-handed.
Once he’s satisfied, his hand returns to its rightful place, palming my tattooed thigh.
His sheathed cock presses against the heat of my core.
Though mentally I’m already craving him, my body hasn’t quite caught up.
Ever understanding, Dutch squeezes his fingertips into my flesh, garnering my full cheeks as he promises, “Next time, I’m going to worship this pussy the way it deserves.”
“How are you so sure there’s going to be a next time, big boy?” I tease.
This time, my teasing is met with sincerity that unsteadies me momentarily.
“Because, Rain, now that I finally have you in my arms, there is nothing I won’t do to keep you.”
Tears cloud my vision a little, because it’s hard to fathom how badly I’ve fucked this up.
How much love I’ve missed out on. Thankfully, they never spill over, because Dutch brings me back to the moment, with a soft kiss and a warning, “Baby girl, I need you to hold on tight because I’m about to fuck you. Hard.”
That warning is all I get, and he presses the head of his dick against my centre.
Between the rain, the shadows of the alley and our wet clothes, I can’t exactly see, but I can feel how big he is as he slides inside of me.
My body stretches to accommodate him, and it comes with a bite of pain that I relish.
It’s been so long since I’ve had sex that it takes my pussy a second to catch up.
Dutch helps it along by extending his thumb so it can find my clit.
He massages it in slow, light circles that ease the pinch just enough and have me breathing heavy.
He keeps it up until I bite my lip to keep from moaning. The action spurs him on.
“Na-ah, baby, that won’t do. I want everyone to hear you sing for me.”
With that, he slams forward, burying himself deep inside. And sing, I do, because I feel so fucking full. My hips rock of their own volition even though I don’t have any leverage other than my hold on Dutch’s hips to help me move.
Frustrated, I whine, “Dutch, please.”
“Please what, Rainy?”
Apparently, it’s his turn to tease me, but I’m so wound up now I can’t bear to wait. So I shout back, “Move!”
Dutch takes that order to heart. He sets a punishing pace as he draws back only to slam home again and again.
Tomorrow, my back will be a wreck of bruises and scratches thanks to the rough brick.
Then again, his likely won’t be much better as I dig my nails into his shoulders and claw at his muscles.
There are teeth and tongues as our lips collide in a brutal, hurried exchange.
There will be time for love-making later.
This, right here, right now, is down and dirty fucking.
It’s messy and ugly. I hear my voice call out his name.
I hear him grunting out “fuck” and “So fucking tight,” and other curses, but I’m so caught up in my own passion, it’s like it’s happening to a stranger.
My pulse thunders, my need is driving higher and higher.
Our shared movements grow wilder. Dutch tears at my tank top, exposing the crest of my small tits, and like the animals we are right now, he bites down.
Deep. While at the same time, his thumb returns to my clit and the mixture of pain, of pleasure, cracks my world to pieces.
The cry I release is enough to send the few pigeons scattering from a nearby dumpster. It’s also enough that Dutch’s thrusts get shorter, faster; he loses his rhythm, and unlike me, he comes with a low moan, “Rainnnnnn,” against my skin.
Neither of us moves. I don’t know if I’m capable of it, since aftershocks are still coursing through me.
The only sign we’re both still here, in this moment, is our frantic breathing as we both attempt to come back down to earth.
Bit by bit, I manage it. Gradually, Dutch’s cock slips from my body, and he sets me back on the ground ever so gently.
He pulls the condom off, ties it and tosses it in one of the many garbage cans that surround us. He’s only gone a second, not even out of sight, but the absence of his body heat is enough that the harsh realities of what has just happened between us slam into me.
Dutch was crystal clear about his feelings.
He told me straight up. He was honest. While I’ve done nothing but hide or lie or omit the truth.
And let’s face it, a lie of omission is still a big fat fucking lie.
Then there’s the Cohen of it all. He can barely look at me.
God, he’s called me a whore so many times, and though there’s a tiny voice inside me screaming that it’s not true, there’s the reality that tonight I was on the receiving end of a marriage proposal from one guy, and barely an hour later I’m fucking a different one in a goddamn alley.
A hand brushes through my hair, tucking it behind my ears.
Dutch is watching me. His tongue is tracing his teeth, and for the first time ever, I see real fear in his eyes.
His voice breaks a little. “Don’t regret it. Please, Rain, don’t regret me.”
In an instant, my heart shatters, and the tears from earlier, welp, they are back with a vengeance and spill over instantly.
“I d-d-don’t,” I manage to stutter, “b-b-b-but it’s just tonight…and everything…and I…and now we have to go back to the bus-s-s-s.”
The words finally come out, though it takes a while through my body-wracking sobs.
“Fuck the bus. I’m taking you home.”
I don’t know what he could possibly mean.
I don’t really have a home anymore. Except, after what just happened, after the way Dutch held me like I am precious, like I’ve always been precious to him, tells me that maybe I could have had a home in him all along.
If I’d only just had the courage to ask for it.