Page 16

Crow

T he silence in my head has never been like this, like it’s just me and me alone in here.

Raven was pissed at me, lashing out to such an extent that he made his previous tirades look like little happy dances in the rain.

He didn’t think it was fair that he didn’t get a say in telling Tarynn about us. I shot back that I didn’t find it particularly fair that I woke up with a brutal hangover to find out that I was married .

He shut the fuck up as soon as Tarynn and I entered her room. It was like he knew I needed her and needed the privacy. I just about had a complete breakdown on the corner of a sidewalk. I couldn’t take lying to Tarynn a second longer. I know she’s not going to out me. I was worried that she’d look at me different. Of course she does, but it’s not different bad. She didn’t treat me like a freak. She reacted with the same careful consideration that she always has.

Don’t spend any money on me. I can wait. It’s fine. Use it for the vet bills.

You’re not okay. Let’s get you cleaned up and safe, where it’s quiet and no one is going to stare at you, and you can come apart if you want.

Let me be your comfort. Let me give you my body, my heart, my soul.

I might be paraphrasing here, but I know I’m not wrong.

It only makes me vow to be even more careful with her. She’s not made out of glass, but this is her first time doing this, and the last thing I want is for it to be anything less than special.

I set her down on the huge bed, on top of the rumpled covers. She must have slipped the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door before we went out because the room hasn’t been touched.

I take my time drying her, running the soft terrycloth along her limbs, patting her creamy skin, smoothing every line and curve before I move up to her hair. I don’t want her to be cold. It might be Vegas, but the room’s AC is pumping.

She shoves me away and simultaneously reaches for me.

“Just leave my hair. I want you. Now. Right. Now.”

“Hold on.” I’m still in my soaked boxers. I stalk to the bathroom, strip them off, wrap the towel around my waist, and snatch the box of condoms from the paper bag that was dumped just inside the door.

I tear out a foil packet and tuck it into the palm of my hand.

I’m not nearly ready to use this yet. Not that Tarynn knows that yet. When I said properly edged, I meant going out of her mind, nails shredding the sheets, climbing the fucking walls mentally, screaming, chanting, begging, sweating, swearing, threatening.

I want the need to hurt so badly that she’ll find what I’m about to do to be nothing more than a little pinch, quickly replaced with the pleasure and then, finally, with relief when I let her come.

She’s splayed out on the bed like a red haired queen, all porcelain and curvaceous. Before, I had my boxers to contain my dick, but there’s nothing contained about it now. The towel tents obnoxiously. I can feel myself leaking all over it.

The thing about my plan for Tarynn is that I’m also going to hurt. I’m already hurting. My dick is so hard that if I move too fast, it will probably topple me over. I’d go reeling and likely put a hole in the damn wall.

I drop to my knees beside the bed, tugging Tarynn down by her ankles. She squirms and makes little breathy gasps that turn my balls to stones. They’re practically hiding inside my body, they’re so drawn up, ready to shoot my fucking load all over the place.

I arrange her knees in an upright position and part her legs, going straight in.

I latch my mouth to her clit, ducking hard for a few seconds before I leave her whimpering, to lick her glistening slit. She’s so fucking gorgeous like this, spread open and glistening for me. I dried her well, so I know that this is all her.

She cries out, grasping at the sheet sand blankets as I lick her over and over, hard laps, flicking my tongue at her entrance to tease her. I don’t go near her clit again. I’m not going to have her unexpectedly explode. I know that she’s close. Her legs are shaking, threatening to clamp down on my ears. I hold her open with my whole hand, spreading her lewdly, and she fucking loves it.

Every one of her cries and frantic movements, trying to curl her hips up and ride my face, her belly quivering, chest expanding like a bellows, legs shaking, toes digging violently into the bed, sends thrills through me.

I feel guilty as hell about doing it, because I should play fair, but I grind my cock into the edge of the bed. I do it in a way that is straight pain, but I’m still barely grounded.

She’s soaking wet, but I don’t stop. I eat her noisily, messily, licking, kissing, sucking at her delicious pussy until her sweet taste saturates every bit of me. She’s like a drug. That’s one thing I’ve never fucking done, along with drinking—regarding my Crow vs. Raven control issues. I’ve never in my life been high. Not until right now.

I’m high on Tarynn. Drugged on her sounds, drunk on her sweetness.

I’m reaching my own limits of holding myself back, and I think that she’s ready. She’s a wreck. A mess. A gorgeous, beautiful disaster, looking up at me with desperation to the point of tears. I ease off, but she pulls me back, trying to fuck my face, trying to take what her body is so desperately straining towards. I break free again, snatching up the condom and standing.

When she spots the packet, she stills, her eyes tracking my every movement.

I tear it open and roll it down the length of my dick. I’m so hard that it’s a struggle. The damn thing rolls up once and nearly snaps me on the second attempt.

Tarynn slaps a hand over her mouth, but the pretty laughter slips through the cracks in her fingers like water. “I’ve read so many books and they’re hardly ever realistic when it comes to safe, common sense sex. Everyone is always in a rush, or they don’t even mention it at all. When people write about things like this, it’s not sexy. But watching you put that on right now… I changed my mind. It’s hot. Really hot.”

I finally get the thing secured. I don’t know what to say.

She opens her arms to me, desperation and welcome glowing in those sparkling forest greens. I take just a second to appreciate her body, splayed out naked on the bed, not haphazardly, but with an almost feline grace. Her skin is so pale and perfect, unmarred by scars, untouched by ink. If she had either of those things, she’d be every bit as beautiful, but all that delicate, untouched, unmapped terrain makes me swallow nervously. I’m half afraid that I’ll sully her just be touching her. Leave black, sooty marks behind where my fingertips lingered.

One cinnamon brow arches. Her nose wrinkles and her freckles jump before they realign themselves. “What are you thinking about?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

I kneel on the bed, trailing my hand up her inner thigh until I reach her soaked, swollen center. I soak my fingers in her wetness, teasing her again, but lubricating my own length.

She watches me intently before she raises her arms over her head and arches her back, nipples pointed straight to the ceiling, abs flexing, all her curves redefined in mouthwatering glory.

“Do you want to hear my darkest secret?” she purrs, eyes heavy lidded.

I nod.

She doesn’t make me wait. She’s already decided that she can trust me with it, which scores my chest like a hot blade. “I don’t even know if I even believe in god. Between my religious studies classes, taught from a more secular standpoint, and studying so much science… but I- if there’s something out there, I think that it meant for us to be here right now.”

My eyes are doing something weird. They’re hot and grainy, itching at the backs and the corners, prickling like a sneeze trapped in my nose.

Our gazes lock, the world grinding to an aching halt. “Will you come inside me?”

My cock kicks at her question, at the deep level of trust there, besides her carnal hunger.

“If that’s what you want.”

She surges up and grasps my hand, pulling me down to meet her. Her legs lock around my waist, her hands grasping my shoulders. She kisses me slowly, but beneath the soft passion is the metallic tang of need.

I reach between us and fit my cock to her entrance. She was tight around my tongue. I know that she’s small. In the dick department, I’m well above average.

When I pause, she reaches between us. She smiles up at me as she runs her fingers over my length, feeling where we’re about to be joined. She’s so innocent and so bold. She might have read about this, might know all about it from a biological standpoint, but it’s different in reality. Her sweet exploration and all the unspoken, burning questions that she’s answering for herself, is so hot that I can barely keep it together.

“I’m not afraid,” she whispers in my ear. “You can go fast or slow, but I need you. I need you filling me up.

I groan, my cock aching to be sheathed to the hilt inside of her, my balls begging for release.

She wriggles underneath me, tilting her hips up at the same time that mine instinctively surge forward.

Her head arches back, nails digging into my back muscles.

“Oh,” she moans at the way she stretches around my tip. “Oh…”

I make a fist where I’m holding myself up, nearly breaking under the urge to push all the way forward. Just that inch is so fucking good. Even with the condom, she’s so hot, tight, and slick. It’s far from a zero sensation situation for me.

She wriggles against me, gasping, “Please, Crow. Please.”

I watch her face, her closed eyes, her thick copper lashes, her parted lips and heaving breaths, as a slowly press forward another inch, then another. There’s nothing on her face but naked pleasure. No pinch or sudden biting of her lip so she can power through the pain.

I give her everything until my entire length is sheathed inside of her.

Her eyes flicker open, “Weird, I guess I was expecting pain or something…” she murmurs. “Although, maybe not. I’m so old already that it probably just shriveled up and turned to dust.” She snorts, shocking the hell out of me. “Seriously, though. I’ve had two pap tests already and I did all the school sports in gym class as well as horseback riding at Bible camp. I suppose anything like that could have actually been the culprit.” She turns her heavy lidded eyes up to me and the uncertainty I see there is heartbreaking. “Is that disappointing?”

“Fuck no!” I pepper her chin with open mouthed kisses and then claim her lips. “Never.” I stroke her tongue with mine, mimicking my first movements inside of her, drawing back and thrusting forward, dragging my dick along her walls and pushing back in until I bottom out. “I’m so fucking relieved that I don’t have to hurt you. Virginity is just a goddamn social construct anyway.”

“Hmm,” she moans, tilting her chin back up and losing herself in the sensation. “Mmm.”

Not every man wants to deflower a virgin. Honestly, it was a terrifying thought. It’s heavy enough that I’m her first. She’s wearing her ring on my finger. Is that real? Could it be? Do I want it to be? Does she? Could we make it work, even if it never should have happened, even if we agreed that it’s just convenient for the moment? Can I take her back to real life? Make space for her not just in my house, but claim her openly as my old lady? It seems nearly impossible that she’d want that, that she’d want me, as fucked up as I am, that she’d want Raven , but here we are.

I’ve spent my whole life trying to guard against the unexpected, trying to prevent total anarchy and chaos. I locked Raven into a prison and in the process, I threw myself into one as well. Can I live without those bars? Can I give over just a fraction, until it becomes something bigger and bigger, until the two parts of me could live in harmony and be wanted, treasured, and even loved?

I know it’s not just stupid to think like that. It’s dangerous.

But Tarynn gives me hope. Not just for this moment, but for tomorrow and the days after.

“Crow,” she breathes as I move inside of her. She buries her fingers in my hair, tunneling deep so she can stroke the back of my neck. “Adam.”

It’s jarring and strange hearing my real name. I thought I’d hate it, that it would trigger all that old shit, old memories from an old life, but it doesn’t. I don’t feel anything other than a strange peace, an answering stillness, and the pleasure leaching into every nerve ending in my body.

She kisses my jaw and then my cheek. “I’m right here. Are you okay?”

Holy fuck. I should be asking her that. I’m the one splitting her apart.

I keep my movements so low that the agony is a real being, a snake coiling around my limbs. “Are you?”

She answers by surging her hips forward to crash against mine, driving me even deeper. “I’m so full. It hurts a little, around the edges, like it feels a little bit sore, but it’s good. I like it.”

My cock kicks violently, my balls drawing up to come at her sweet, filthy words.

I dig my hand under her hips, grasping her ass, helping her move with me as I set a slow rhythm before I die an even slower death trying to hold back.

She pulses around me with every thrust, eagerly matching my energy, coming alive under my hands.

Her movements and little whimpers and cries urge me forward. I’m thrusting faster and she matches my pace. I commit every single detail of this moment to mind right before she grasps my face and slants her lips over mine. She kisses me hard as I drag my cock out and fill her with a single hard thrust.

“More,” she begs, feeding me the word. “Please.”

I do it again, and when her ankle shifts to open her hips up, curling into my ass, her heel digging in to drive me forward, I give her what she’s silently asking for. I thrust harder, until our skin slaps together.

She moans, breaking the kiss and shifting her face to drag her lips over my cheek, along the bridge of my nose, and up to my temples. She curls around me, wrapping her other leg around my hip, digging her second heel into my ass.

“I- I’m so close.” The words are hoarse, drenched in ecstasy and wonder.

That’s a good fucking thing, because I’m about to blow both nuts here, and if I went first, I’d never live it down. The one saving grace is that she’s so damn hot and the condom would probably keep me hard long enough to get her there too.

Fuck that, my cock is so rock iron hard that it’ll probably take a month to deflate.

She’s wild, trying to take her own pleasure from me, fucking me with enthusiasm and abandon.

She’s spread wide open under me. It’s easy to get my hand around her ass cheek and move to her tight little hole. I run my thumb over the rim like I did in the shower, pushing in just slightly, and she explodes.

“Oh my god!” she cries, her pussy spasms around me, her inner walls flexing around my dick so that I can barely draw back and bury myself in her again. “Oh fuck, I’m coming…” As if I couldn’t tell. “It’s so good.”

Clearly, it’s not good enough if she still has oxygen to talk.

I double my efforts, pumping inside of her in an almost crazed motion. It’s not because I want to. It’s because I can’t control myself.

All that comes out of her now is a high pitched whimper, almost a scream, followed by a little sob as she works for it, taking herself higher.

My vision darkens as my own release barrels down on me, screaming through me. I burst inside of her, the warmth filling the condom instead of her, but it’s so good that for a few seconds, I can’t see anything. I can’t feel anything but the pleasure. I’m lost to anything but her and this moment.

I never thought I’d find anything like this. I never thought that someone could ever see me and want me. I never thought I deserved anything half this good.

The backs of my eyes are doing that strange prickling again when Tarynn pulls me down on top of her. She hugs me tight, canting her hips up to keep me inside of her. I’m still hard and throbbing, half aftershocks, half ready to go again and a-fucking-gain, over and over, incessant for her, chasing our releases together.

“Wow,” she whispers after a moment. “I love the way you feel inside of me now. I love how sensitive it feels, how full I still am.” She skates her lips to my ear and licks along the shell and lobe. “I love how you smell. I love that noise you made when you came, like you were just letting go of everything. You make me feel safe, but also like I’m somehow able to keep you safe too. I- I don’t know what to do with any of this. It’s scary, but it’s also amazing.”

I’m not ready to pull out yet, to be without her. We’re going to have to leave her soon enough, and out there is a whole world that can be cruel and hard. A world where the odds are vastly not in our favor.

I cling to her, awed that she could give words to everything I felt, with such exactness.

I nuzzle into her hair, burying my nose in the damp strands, tightening my arms around her, unable to speak past the lump in my throat, but I imagine that she knows that if I could, I’d tell her something grand, something just right, something not perfect but perfect for her, the same way she just told me.