Scarlet
I didn’t see this coming.
At. All.
The candlelit dinner wasn’t foreplay or some sort of seduction.
I wasn’t lying when I told him I wanted a human connection.
Apparently, to men, a human connection is sex.
So why am I kissing him back like I’ve never wanted anything more in my whole life?
I skipped dinner. It must be my misplaced hunger.
I planned on ravaging the leftover Japanese yam that’s on the top shelf of the fridge. My mouth has confused his for a yam.
“This means …” His lips brush along my jaw as he whispers in a shaky voice that sends waves of chills over my skin.
My head falls back, eyelids heavy. “Nothing,” I whisper or really moan. Of course it means nothing because it’s not happening. Dear lord, my body is misbehaving tonight. His right hand slips under my shirt.
Don’t beg, Scarlet.
I’m a cat leaning into his touch.
Don’t purr, Scarlet.
Until the warmth of his hand slid along my flesh, I had no idea how much I needed it. I do.
So. Very. Much.
We have to stop, and we will … as soon as he makes it to second base. Then, I will grab that yam from the top shelf and bid him a goodnight.
“Oh!” I don’t mean to yell, but he forgot second base, and I know this because he has ripped open my trousers—and by ripped open, I mean the button pinged against the tile and my zip will never work properly again—and his hand is down my knickers vying to capture third base. He can’t skip a base.
“You … you’re m-marking me,” I protest with a weak whisper as he sucks and bites at my neck like he didn’t have dinner either.
“You’re fucking driving me insane,” he growls into my neck.
No. He was insane before me. However, I’ll wait a bit to make that case.
Two of his fingers plunge into me, and I forget about hickeys, bite marks, and Japanese yams. My knees forget their job is to keep me standing.
I didn’t like his finger retrieving food from my mouth.
But its current location? I like it—a lot.
Damn my knees for giving out because it forces him to remove his hand from between my legs to steady me. That’s unfortunate. Bollocks!
That thought did not go through my head, did it?
My name is Scarlet Stone, and I love sex. I believe if all emotion and reason were stripped from human existence, the answer to all physical questions would be sex. I know it should be food, too, but I’m starving right now and still, I choose sex.
He lifts me up and I wrap my arms and legs around him as he attacks my mouth again. So deep. So hard. So … angrily.
He carries me upstairs to my bed, and we become a frantic storm of clothes being ripped and discarded. This man hates me. His touch does nothing to hide it. Yet the second my back hits the bed, he plunges his hard cock into me with a deep grunt, knocking the wind out of my lungs.
No easing. No acclimation. Foreplay be damned. He’s punishing me. I can feel it. My existence pisses him off and this is his way of trying to scare me away.
While he fucks me, he whispers in my ear over and over, “This … means … nothing.”
I cling to him, because fuck him … I can use him the way he’s using me. He’s looking for a release, I’m looking for human touch. It’s not love, it’s not even sex. It’s … nothing.
But … as I hold him to my body, the bed creaking, the headboard knocking against the wall, I realize, for me, this is everything, and that makes tears escape the corners of my eyes.
I miss Daniel. I miss my dad. And right now, I’m drowning in the feeling of Theodore Reed’s naked body pressed to mine, the full warmth of him moving inside of me, the buildup of my orgasm, an orgasm I don’t even need. Just the touch.
“The—ooo!” I squeeze my eyes shut and hold my breath because even something as basic as breathing distracts from this feeling: my body temperature rising and a heavy tingling radiating deep inside, starting right where he’s hitting the most perfect spot over and over. Oh. Dear. God.
“Theo …” his name on my lips drags on forever, like this orgasm. I didn’t need it, but sometimes good things happen when you least expect it. Karma.
The wall takes three more unforgiving collisions with the headboard before Theo collapses on me, releasing the same deep grunt with which he entered me.
The man is not human. I’ve never been manhandled and flipped and fucked so thoroughly in my life. He’s obliterated every emotion I had.
Should I be mad?
Grateful?
I don’t know.
I bet myself he’ll pull out of me and be gone within five seconds. I lose. He waits a full ten seconds before leaving me covered in his sweat. No eye contact. No words. Nothing.
That’s fine because he gathers his clothes from the floor and walks away naked. I declare Theodore’s naked backside to be the eighth wonder of the world.
*
The next morning I wake to a tall glass of water and a white pill on the bedside table.
I’ve awoken to flowers, pastries and coffee, even the occasional love note, but never water and a white pill.
I slip on my shirt and knickers and carry the glass and pill to the kitchen.
Theo’s at the table eating porridge, already dressed in his work jeans and T-shirt.
I face the sink, my back to him. “What’s this pill?”
“Emergency contraception—Plan B.”
My soft laugh sounds more like his grunt as I shake my head, drop the pill down the drain, and drink the glass of water. Did he send off his date with a pill and bottled water before he decided to follow me up the beach? “You’re not worried about STDs?”
“No.”
I nod slowly, letting the echo of his monotone voice settle into my conscience.
“Are you?” His aloof tone does little to make me think he actually cares about my answer.
Am I worried about STDs? “No.” I deposit the glass in the dishwasher and go back upstairs to shower before meditating and breakfast with Yimin.
I suppose I should replay the previous night’s event over in my head, try to make sense of it all, but … it was nothing. And by nothing, I mean the roughest sex, yet best orgasm I’ve ever had, which was only by chance because Theo’s goal was not to pleasure me.
My meditation proves to be more difficult than it’s been in weeks.
The physical part of my world has reared its head again, distracting from my real purpose.
Yimin doesn’t say much during breakfast, but that’s nothing new.
I’m content to eat in silence since I have my thoughts from last night to keep me company.
I miss seeing Theo swimming this morning. Why did he go straight to work before his swim? To avoid me? Does it matter?
My father used to ask me that all the time.
When kids in school made fun of my hair, because in spite of my dominant black traits, I navigated through a disastrous blond-home-bleaching-kit phase in school, I’d come home in tears and my father would ask if what those kids thought of me really mattered?
Even when I was sad about not having my mum, he asked if it really mattered.
Maybe that’s why I’m in search of what does matter in life because my years have been filled with days and nights of … nothingness.
Daniel was my chance to have something that really mattered. Now he’s gone and I’m left with the same introspective question. Does it matter? I don’t think it does. I think I’ve passed a critical point in my life where anything can ever matter again.
I go for a walk along the beach, relishing everything from the cool, gritty sand beneath my feet to gatherings of seagulls awaiting the beachgoers and their picnic scraps sure to litter the shore by midday.
I seem to notice everything. Only a couple months ago, I’m certain the sky could have turned green and I wouldn’t have noticed it past my computer screen.
As I approach the house, I spot Theo on a tall ladder, replacing some siding that blew off during the storm a few nights ago.
“I noticed you and your date didn’t eat the food I made last night. If I warm it up, would you eat some of it?”
Theo hammers at a nail, hair pulled back into a low ponytail, sweat beading along his tight, tan skin. “We’re not doing this.”
My hand shields my eyes from the sun as I squint up at him. “Sorry? Doing what? Eating?”
“I told you last night meant nothing.”
“You did. You told me on every single thrust and once more before you pulled out. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I agree, it was nothing.
Frankly, it was the least memorable sex I’ve ever had.
A weak two out of ten. Now, come down and I’ll make us an early dinner, and we’ll discuss all the animals in the world that have better sex skills than Theodore Reed. ”
I reheat the leftover curried rice and beans, fluff up last night’s tossed salad, which does little to revive the wilted lettuce leaves, and I crack open a beer for Theo, bottled water for me. To my complete surprise, he comes inside as I retrieve the baking dish from the oven.
“I need a shower.”
“You do. I’d join you but I don’t want to eat a cold dinner.”
He stops two steps beyond the kitchen. His panic is palpable.
“I’m kidding. Two out of ten … I don’t have sex twice with a two. Life’s too short and the men are too plentiful for that.”
“Two out of ten?”
“Yes.” I whisk the balsamic dressing in a bowl. “When you basically use a woman as a wanking vessel while whispering ‘this means nothing’ in her ear over and over, you get two stars.”
He pauses, I assume to contemplate the proper response to someone telling him he was shit in bed. “So why a two and not a one?”
I shrug. “You didn’t have to take a pill for ED, which got you one star, and you didn’t call out some other woman’s name … that secured your second star.”
“And the orgasm?”
I still. “What do you mean?”
“You orgasmed. That doesn’t get me a third star? You yelled my name—twice. That’s another two stars. We’re up to five.”
“I didn’t orgasm.” I resume my whisking, refusing to let him fluster me.
“You did.”
“And how would you know?”
“I could feel you milking my cock while your eyes squeezed shut and your heels dug into my ass.”
Bollocks! Mr. Reed is pretty damn observant in bed.
I snicker. “Maybe you’re remembering your first shag of the night. Don’t forget, I wasn’t your first.”
His lips purse while a chill slithers along my spine. “You were my only ‘shag’ of the night.” My head snaps up, but he’s already halfway up the stairs.
*
Theodore eats like a caveman. His right arm rests on the table, curled around the perimeter of his plate protecting his food while he shovels it in with the fork fisted in his left hand.
“You’re a lefty.” I lean back in my chair, after maybe two bites of food. Observing Theo satisfies my appetite more than food.
“Sometimes.”
I chuckle. “Sometimes?”
He shrugs, giving me a brief look before returning his focus to his endangered meal. “I’m ambidextrous.”
So he’s good with both hands. That wouldn’t make headlines, yet it fascinates the hell out of me. I want to know everything about this man, but I don’t know why.
“Nolan said you’re moving in six months … well, four now. Where are you going?”
He pauses then drops his fork onto his plate. “Why?” he asks with exasperation as his cold eyes meet mine.
“Curiosity, that’s all.”
After a good five seconds, he resumes eating. “You know what they say about curiosity,” he mumbles over a mouthful of food.
“It kills the cat?”
Theo keeps shoveling food.
“Fine. Then make something up.”
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand then takes a swig of his beer. “Make something up?”
“Sure. Make something up. Make everything up. We’re going our separate ways in a few months, so make something up … but make it good. I love a good story.”
He’s mastered the you’re-crazy look. It’s possible I’ve helped cultivate its perfection.
Leaning back, he blows out a long breath. I freak out on the inside because he’s really going to do it. Theodore Reed is going to make up some bullshit story and share it with me. Life is good.
“I’m the lead singer in a band and we’re going on a world tour.”
My eyes double in size like he’s telling me the truth, but I know he’s not. I didn’t expect him to say something so cool.
“Do you play an instrument?”
“Guitar.” He gets a gold medal for the fastest answer ever. He’s good at this.
“Genre?”
“Country Rock.”
“How many band members?”
“Five.”
“First tour?”
“No.” He keeps a straight face the whole time, eyes glued to mine.
“Favorite part about touring?”
“Getting laid.”
I laugh and one corner of his mouth relinquishes the slightest twitch of a smile.
“Why do you act like you hate me?”
That tease of smile vanishes. “What makes you think it’s an act?”
Before my head or heart, or whatever the hell seems to control my emotions these days, can react, he stands and takes his plate to the dishwasher.
“Don’t you want to ask me anything?” I grasp for something that will keep him from walking away, even though he’s halfway up the stairs and, really, I should be pissed off about his reply, but I’m not.
“Did you shut off the oven?”
“Yes.”
His bedroom door slams shut. That was the only question he wanted to ask me? Oh, Theodore Reed … what happened to you?