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Chapter 11

Sparrow

Aaron used to tell me that if you want something in this world, you have to boldly go after it. I’ve never dared to do what he preached, but on the other hand, maybe I haven’t wanted anything badly enough. Except to escape him, of course.

Now I want Louis, and he wants me too. He likes me , or at least he said so, but for some reason, he can’t let himself have me. Why, why? Not knowing is driving me up the wall.

The rest of the week, he’s working every single night, and with no one to give me the attention and care that I crave, I’m going stir-crazy in his apartment. Lilith texts me a few times to tell me about all the crazy parties she’s been to lately and how hot her boyfriend, Asher, is.

She knows how to get a guy’s attention. Why can’t I do it too?

The next few days, I start experimenting.

I start dressing differently when Louis is home. I lie on my stomach on the couch, dressed only in the tiny booty shorts that used to drive Aaron wild. It works. Kind of. I feel Louis’s gaze on me as he’s making dinner, and when the food is ready, he mutters with a strained sort of tone, “Get dressed and come eat.”

“Why?” I say innocently, waving my legs in the air. “Last time I checked, I don’t need clothes to eat.”

“Last time I checked, you’re in my house, and I make the rules.”

I try to pout and keep my childish tantrum going, but the creature in me that wants to obey his every order is helpless to resist the tone of his voice.

The day after, I paint my lashes with mascara and my mouth with pink lip gloss again, and that has him reacting, at least. When I greet him outside the university building after class, he runs his thumb over my lower lip with a smirk.

“What’s this?”

“Just trying something.” All the while, my brain chants, Do you like it? Do you like it? Do you like it? Please like it. But apparently, he doesn’t like it enough.

At night, I have to dig my fingernails into my palms to keep from jerking off under the covers. Last time I did, I failed to control myself, and some of my release ended up on the backrest. I had to frantically wipe it off, all while wondering if Louis had heard me.

One night, I fail to resist. Heart pounding, I imagine myself sneaking into Louis’s bedroom and crawling under the sheets. His body would stiffen, and without a word, he’d grab me by the neck, flip me over to my stomach, and climb over my body. Ripping off my underwear, he’d enter me with his massive cock as I wriggled underneath him, unable to move even an inch as he took me as his.

Ah, shit…With this fantasy clear in my mind, it doesn’t take long for me to shoot into one of the paper towels I stuffed under the mattress, and I bite my lip to muffle my helpless groans. For several minutes, I’m left panting and reeling from the intensity of my orgasm, the remnants of the fantasy lingering in my mind.

One evening when Louis is at work, I venture into his bedroom and look through his drawers. There’s nothing of note except for some condoms of the king-size variety and a bottle of lube, but in the bottom drawer, there are a few photographs.

One is a family photo of a mother and father, and the child standing between them has to be Louis. Oh my god, he’s so cute! He looks just like a regular kid—awkward and chubby—not like now that he’s a huge man with a full beard, tattoos, and a grim demeanor.

Another picture catches my attention even more. It depicts Louis as a young man—clean-shaven and with fewer tattoos on his bare arms. He looks…happy. There’s another young man beside him—blond and blue-eyed. They’re smiling, embracing each other with an intimacy that speaks of more than friendship.

I turn the photo, and there’s the name Justin and a date on the back. Nine years ago.

Justin? Who’s Justin? Louis hasn’t mentioned an ex-boyfriend. Despite us living together now for over a week, I know so little about him.

I leave his room, still at a loss for what to do with this new information. I can’t confront him about it directly; he’ll know I went snooping in his room, and he won’t like that. Better wait for tomorrow and consult someone else, but who? The only one I know well enough is Lilith, and even though I don’t really feel like talking to her about this, it might be my only option.

After the afternoon class that Friday, I find her in the corridor. I grab her arm and try to pull her with me to evade the wave of students leaving the classroom, but she flinches away.

“Whoa, there.” Her voice is sharp—halfway between annoyed and something else—scared? “What do you want?”

“I need your help.”

“Oh yeah?” She crosses her arms. “Help with what?”

She looks paler than usual, and her skin has an odd, clammy sheen to it. A new type of makeup? No…She looks…sick, and she seems to have lost weight since I last saw her. She also seems even more prickly than usual. I know she doesn’t like me that much, but she’s usually glad to see me—if only for the reason that she enjoys teasing me.

I tell her about what happened the night I went to Moe’s Den. I tell her about Louis’s jealousy, about him dragging me into the back room, and about how we almost…

“Oh,” she says, a smile tilting her nude lips. Her makeup isn’t as severe as usual; maybe that’s why she doesn’t look quite herself. “So you do want to sleep with him. He doesn’t deserve you, you know.”

“Just tell me what to do. Please?”

She sighs and runs a hand through her hair—usually so shiny and freshly dyed, now dull and unkempt. “You got one thing out of that night, at least: making him jealous works.”

“I don’t really like making him jealous. He gets scary.” I remember the crazed look in his eyes as he prowled toward me in the back room and pushed me up against the wall. It was thrilling but scary too.

“Scary hot?” Lilith says with a smirk, and when I don’t reply, she scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Told you he was a jerk.”

“How about your new boyfriend—”

“Asher.”

“—doesn’t he ever make you scared?”

“We’re not talking about me now, Sparrow dear, we’re talking about you and that big oaf of yours.”

“Stop calling him that. And he’s not mine.” I lean into her, shielding us from the students flowing through the corridor. “You’re going to help me make him mine,” I add with a sweeter tone to my voice.

Lilith stares at me for a few seconds before she throws her head back and laughs. “I knew you had some fun in you after all. Very well. I know just what you need. Let’s go to the Love Loft.”

“The Love Loft? What kind of place is that?”

“You’ll see,” she says with a wink.

I wring my hands, suddenly even more uncertain about this idea. “How about you just tell me what to do?”

“No way, this is way more fun. You’ll see.”

At least she seems happier than she was earlier. The issue is she now seems too happy, and happy Lilith somehow unsettles me more than broody Lilith.

As it turns out, the Love Loft is a sex shop.

A full-on dildos-in-your-face sex shop.

“Ooh, I like this one,” Lilith purrs, pointing to a clear dildo with two ends. “Used something like it during my first threesome. Or how about this,” she says, something wicked in her voice as she holds up the biggest monstrosity I’ve ever seen.

Monstrous literally . It’s huge and dark purple, with a set of bulges by the base. It looks obscene.

“Not that one,” I say, in awe at how she can be so casual about this.

“Obviously not,” she says, cackling. “This thing would split you in two. No, we need something to make you irresistible.” She takes a look at me and clicks her tongue. “Now, that might be hard, but maybe Louis is into wet puppy-dog-looking guys.”

“I look like a dog?” I ask, puzzled.

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t get it.”

No surprise. Lilith says a lot of things I don’t understand. Not for the first time, I wish I was as experienced and confident as her and not a nervous wreck with a desperate streak.

“So you really like this guy, huh?” she asks me as we browse the lube section.

“Yeah.”

“Do you love him?”

“I don’t know,” I say with a frown. “What does that feel like?” I was in love with Aaron, I think, but what I feel for Louis holds no resemblance to the nervous dread I used to feel around my foster brother.

“Well, for me, it’s when I don’t mind their company and want to fuck them twenty-four seven.”

I hum, fiddling with the buttons on my parka. “All I know is that I want to be around him all the time. I want him to take care of me.”

Lilith walks off, ignoring what I just said. “Fuck it. Let’s just get you a butt plug.”

“A what ?”

“How about this?” With a leer, she holds up an absurdly big contraption with a bulbous tip tapering to a sharp point. “How big is he?” she asks casually. “You should know—you’ve sucked his dick, haven’t you? Or did you lie about that?”

“He’s … big .”

Lilith turns around and flashes a smirk. “Knew it. But you’re tiny, so we better not get overconfident here.” She holds up a smaller version—steel-colored, with a pink rhinestone at the end of what I assume to be the handle. “This one’s cute. It’ll do.” She pushes the plastic package into my hands.

“Cute,” I repeat, staring at it. “So this goes…inside?”

“Yeah, you stick it up there, with lube, of course, and then you need something to show it off in.”

“Are you sure about this?” The rhinestone at the end of the handle gleams in the harsh fluorescent lighting, almost as if it’s mocking me.

“You want him to fuck you, don’t you?” Lilith asks.

I nod.

“If that doesn’t get him going, I don’t know what will. Remember,” she says, hands clutching my shoulders. “Men are simple. Once they see tits or a pussy—or an ass, in your case—they’re unable to help themselves. It’s like something switches in their head—ding!”—she makes a silly face with her eyes rolling back—“and they’re helpless to the force of their primal urge to fuck the shit out of whatever’s in front of them.”

“If you say so,” I mumble.

“Trust me. If Louis damn near fucked you in the back room of his bar, he’s hot for it. All you need to do is give him an offer he can’t resist,” she adds, gesturing to my backside.

I flush and break eye contact.

“Now the lube!” she shouts, loud enough to make heads turn.

I stand there with the butt plug in my hands, wanting to sink through the ground. At the same time, I can’t wait to test Lilith’s theory and see if she’s right.