“Get in,” I groan, smacking her ass.
She flinches, her breath hitching before she steps into the tub, and I follow, pulling the curtain closed behind me. Surrounded by steam, I run my hands along her naked body, all the way down to the bare skin between her legs. Sliding my hand roughly along her sex, I plunge a finger in. She lets out a gasp, and I clutch her tighter. She’s so warm, wet, and tight, and I need her. But I can’t let myself get lost in this perfect sensation. I have to keep the upper hand with Everly.
Spinning her around so her back is against me, I hold her tight across the chest with one arm as I plunge my fingers in again. Writhing against me, she cries out as I stroke her relentlessly. I want her as close to coming as I can get her. Clutching onto my arm, she hangs from my hold as I zero in on her clit, rubbing it so hard I know she’s teetering somewhere between pain and pleasure.
“Cullen,” she gasps like a plea. She’s begging me for more.
My dick is pressed against her back, and I squeeze her closer. God, I want to fuck her so bad, but I can’t. I have to keep my head.
Drawing her closer and closer to her orgasm, I rub faster, harder, until she’s clenching her body just on the precipice, then I stop, pulling my hand away. She lets out a garbled cry as I shove my fingers wet with her arousal into her mouth. She sucks obediently while her backside rubs against my cock, but she’s not going to get what she wants. Not at all.
Putting my fingers back where they were, I do the whole thing all over again, bringing to the very edge of pleasure and then stopping just before she boils over. By the third time I do this, she lets out an angry grunt, fighting against my hold. “Cullen, please!”
“You don’t get what you want, Everly. You just get to see it long enough to want it, but you’ll never be satisfied. Just like I was, having my whole life ripped away,” I mutter into her ear. She pants, her fingers digging into the tile wall of her shower. Pumping some body wash into my hands, I stroke my cock with it, getting it nice and covered.
“Now press your legs together as tight as you can.”
She freezes for a moment probably because she knows I’m about to be cruel, and there’s nothing she can do about it. When I feel her legs clench, I squeeze my cock between her tightly clamped thighs, using her body as my fuck toy without giving her any pleasure. She can only feel my cock enough to want it, to have it so close but not close enough. Not how she wants it.
With my hands on her thighs, I press them together even tighter, fucking her soft flesh, and it doesn’t take me long. I know her moans aren’t from pleasure but from misery, and that gets me off. I pull away from her in time to come all over her back, leaving her desperate for release she’s not going to get. I wonder how bad it hurts, to be so close to coming without getting to. I know how bad that shit hurts for me, and I hope it aches just as bad for her.
Once I come down, and I look at her, with her shoulders tense and her expression closed tight, not revealing how much she hates me at the moment, I almost give in. I almost feel bad. All day she probably thought she was going to get what she wanted tonight. Instead, I took what I wanted and left her with nothing. Or worse, I made her want it more. Then I denied her.
But I can’t feel bad for her. She’s the enemy. All I have to do is remember her face in the courtroom that day, her smug grin plastered all over every news article about my family, having the best day of her life while I had my worst. That’s enough to take away my sympathy for her. It’s enough to remind me I have every right to make her miserable, and that I should be enjoying it. I just wish I did.
After the shower, something is off about her. She’s visibly angry with me. We wash up together before getting out, and I take my time with her, soaping up every inch of her body, exploring every inch, not out of lust but curiosity. Then she does the same thing for me, but she’s not enjoying it like she did before.
When we’re sitting at the dining room table, she orders Chinese food and I watch her. There is still so much tension behind her expression. She thinks she can pout and throw a little fit and I’ll give her what she wants, well she’s wrong. That’s not going to happen.
After the food arrives, we end up on the couch. There’s a football game on, and I watch with a box of chow mein on my lap while she works on her computer. It’s comfortable, and I don’t just mean her house, which is a lot fucking nicer than my dorm room. But it’s comfortable with her, the silence, the being together and not being alone. If I wasn’t here, I’d be watching the game on my phone alone in my bed. Instead, I’m curled up on a plush couch with hot food and the smell of some candle thing she’s burning in the foyer that makes her house smell like apples and cinnamon. It’s homey as fuck.
I find myself wondering what my life would have been like if my father had never been caught. Our home was nothing like this. It was huge, with so many rooms I didn’t have to see anyone if I didn’t want to. There was always someone to clean for me, cook for me, drive me wherever I wanted to go. Forget Chinese takeout and apple cinnamon candles.
My mother would still be alive. Her bright smile and warm voice is in my memory, but the more I search for memories with her, the more I come up empty. My mom was truly an angel, perfection personified, but I didn’t get enough time with her as an actual mother. Instead I remember nannies who held me close at night, read me stories, tied my shoes, told me jokes and made me laugh. There were a few different ones through the years, and they grew colder and more like employees as I aged, but there was one in my distant memory who was the kindest, warmest, most nurturing.
Even thinking that makes me feel like shit, like I’m desecrating the memory of my own mother by thinking of women who were better.
And what about all of those people my father stole from their homes to manipulate them into working for him? How can I sit here and complain about the mansion ripped from me when they were living in God only knows what kind of conditions?
My stomach turns and I lose my appetite. As I toss the box of noodles on the coffee table, I try to focus on the game, pushing away the sick feeling of self-loathing that creeps up from time to time. How is it my fault that I was dealt such a shitty hand? Why do I have to feel like shit for the things someone else did? My dad, Everly, fuck, even my own mother didn’t need to overdose on those pills and leave me alone, but she did.
“What is it?” Her quiet voice pulls me from my thoughts. Glancing toward Everly who is sitting on the chair next to the tall lamp, curled up under a blanket, I feel a sudden burst of emotions. I can’t figure out if I want to hold her, hurt her, or make her get on her knees and blow me, but I want something. I want something so bad I could choke on this want.
“Nothing,” I mutter instead. She wouldn’t understand.
She closes her laptop and lets out a sigh. “Cullen, talk to me.”
“You’re my therapist now?”
“No.”
“Then what are you?”
She rolls her eyes, shrugging her shoulders. “You tell me.”
“Do you want me to leave?” I bite back, feeling defensive but also self-deprecating like I want her to say something mean to me just so I can feel something from her. I’m hating myself right now so she might as well join in.