He fucks me hard, unrelenting. Then his bare chest is against my back and I know he’s taken his shirt off and I want to see but he’s speaking in my ear, distracting me. “Do you like that, pretty girl?”
I can’t speak, but my eyes feel like they’re going to roll back in my head with his words and how deep he’s inside of me. I try to swallow, try to open my mouth, but then he spits on the side of my face, warm and wet against my skin.
He doesn’t slow down, but he runs his mouth along my cheek, spreading his saliva all over my face. It isn’t a kiss, but in this game, it’s as close to it as I’m probably going to get.
He grips my hip, bows his head and groans against my shoulder. “Goddamn, Ella,” he whispers, and I feel a rush of power at his words.
His chest is heaving against my back, his cock buried so far inside of me, I think that when he pulls out, I’m going to feel empty.
I’m going to be empty.
“You’re a little slut, you know that,” he whispers against my shoulder, his thrusts more frantic, jarring me, my tits bouncing beneath my shirt—his shirt—every time he pounds into me.
I try to nod my head but his grip on my hair is too tight.
“Tell me,” he murmurs. “Tell me you’re my little slut.”
He loosens his grip, and I repeat his words back to him, and in this moment, I mean them. “I’m yours,” I whisper, my voice hoarse, eyes still closed as I drown in the feel of him drowning in me.
“My what?” he growls, his teeth against my shoulder.
“I’m your little slut.”
“Fuck.” His body shudders on top of mine and he slows, letting go of my hair entirely, his hand going to my shoulder as he shoves me back against him. I work with him, slamming my ass back against his hips, milking him for everything he has as he comes inside of me.
When he stills, I rest on my forearms, my brow to the cold floor.
He pulls back, slides out halfway. I can only imagine what he’s seeing; his thick cock covered in me. He pulls out further, until he’s all the way out, but he keeps the tip of his cock against me, and I know he’s seeing the cum between us, connecting us.
“Fuck, Ella,” he whispers, almost to himself.
He runs his hand over my ass. I make to sit back on my heels, but he keeps me exactly where I am.
“I want to see it,” he whispers. “I want to see me run out of you.”
I bite my lip, force myself to stay where I am, completely exposed for him.
I keep myself this way, let myself relax.
The more relaxed I am, the easier it’ll come out.
But Maverick seems desperate. He swipes his fingers inside of me, as if he’ll scoop out his cum himself.
I hear his sharp intake of breath as I try to push, helping it come along. Then I feel the warmth of him as it trickles down my lips.
“Fuck,” he says, gripping my ass, hard.
I say nothing but I can’t fight the small smile he can’t see.
After a moment, I sit back on my heels as his touch leaves me.
When I turn to look at him, on his knees behind me, his eyes are on mine. He smiles at me.
Then he pushes to his feet, grabs his sweatpants, every muscle in his toned body flexing. “Come shower,” he commands me, offering his hand as he pulls his sweats back on.
I take his hand. His eyes wander over my body and he smiles, but then he turns.
And I see it again.
All of his wounds.
Including my scratches.
“Maverick,” I choke out.
He stops, still not looking at me.
“Who did that to you?”
His hand squeezes mine painfully. But then he exhales, pulls me toward the bathroom. “I did it to myself, baby.”
Chapter Nine
Saturday, I go home. Mom’s car is there, but her bedroom door is shut, and I hear her bed creaking behind it.
I watch Maverick’s car back out of the driveway and I want to run outside. Tell him to take me with him. Tell him he can start paying me, and I’ll just be his plaything.
But no.
I won’t be my mom.
And besides, that’s what she expects of me. It’s what she already thinks of me. That I’m a whore.
So I let him leave, shut the door and head to my bedroom.
It was my idea to go home anyway. I have no idea what it is we’re doing, how a chase in the forest and him following me at work turned into me staying with him for nearly a week, but it feels weird being without him now.
I press the heel of my hand to my eye, sink down onto my twin bed, so much smaller than his King-sized one. God, my entire bedroom is the size of his guest bathroom.
This is not good.
A year after what happened with Shane and clearly, I haven’t learned my lesson. Clearly, I’m so fucking desperate for affection that I’ll let myself be used by anyone that gives me the slightest amount of attention, good or bad.
I know these things.
Marnie, the therapist at The Ark, has worked with me on them. I no longer wish I was dead. No longer wish my mom would just kill me instead of looking at me with disgust every time I’m in the room. No longer think about Shane every damn day, and all the ways I did wrong.
I’m better. I’m fine.
I didn’t love Shane anyway, Marnie tells me. He was just…there. He was just like a father I never had, although that comparison makes me feel sick to my stomach. Teenage girls don’t fuck their fathers.
Just their mother’s boyfriends, apparently.
I wrap my comforter around myself, pull out my phone, connect it to the neighbor’s spotty wireless internet, and put on a rom com until I fall asleep.
Romantic comedies never have devils in them.
It’s why they’re so easy for me to watch. I don’t get attached to the good guys.
I get up Sunday morning before the sun. And before my mother. After a shower, brushing out my hair for fucking half an hour, only to toss it up in a sloppy, wet bun.
I head down the hall.
And stop short.
There’s a man in there, sitting on the sagging couch. He’s got his shirt off, a beer in his hand, and I can see in the ruined blinds behind him that the sun is just fucking rising. Did this guy stay up all night? Who gets up at sunrise to drink a fucking beer? Even my mother doesn’t do that.
He grins at me, scratching at his hairy belly. “Morning.”
My stomach twists into knots and I glance at the front door of the trailer, even though I have no idea why. Maverick left last night. He’s not coming back this early, and not so soon. As I shift my gaze back to the stranger, it occurs to me that last night was Saturday night and most people do things on Saturday nights.
Including other people.
I push that thought aside. Maverick isn’t mine. I’m not his. And I’ve got a man-sized problem sitting on the couch in my living room.
“Kim asleep?” I ask the guy, tugging at the crème-colored skirt I’m wearing. It’s down to my knees and I’ve got on a worn black turtleneck tucked into it, but I wish I was in a fucking snowsuit in front of this guy.
He scrubs a hand over his stubble, and I wonder where my mother found him. He winks at me as he tips the can up to his lips. I suppress a shudder, and the sudden desire to smash the can over his head.