Page 27

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ashland

Are you a sex addict if you’re addicted to one dick, and that dick is addicted to you, too? It feels like mutual hypersexuality. Koda can make me feel better than I ever have before. It’s like being depressed and getting an insane dose of oxytocin.

It’s not the same game that it once was. Now, I don’t know what we’re trying to win, and I can’t tell who’s ahead. I’m fucking distracted by him in every sense of the word. Most of my bookings have been an athlete of some sort, and they always let Koda stick around. We’re almost never apart.

He's so demanding, possessive, of my attention. It makes me feel wanted in the way that Damien made me feel. I don’t want to compare the two, and I do my best not to, but it’s hard. I’m not seeing that fucker in my sleep, so I’ll take that as a win.

Because of his obsessive nature, Koda likes things a specific way. He has gone through my house and reorganized everything that he’ll be forced to look at. I didn’t stop him. It turned me on. I ended up having sex with him against the kitchen cabinets, throwing things onto the floor, because organization apparently makes me wet as long as I’m not the one doing it.

I also like it when he’s irritated. He has an insane amount of patience when it comes to me, and I know I’ll break it eventually. That’ll probably be the last time we see each other. Sometimes I think about holding myself back, ignoring the intrusive thoughts, and then I feel this need inside of me so I follow through anyways. I’m the person who presses the one button you aren’t supposed to and smiles as it all implodes.

I might be using him to fill Penny’s absence, but he doesn’t seem to mind. When she went off to the internship I knew there would be changes. Hell, she would be living away from me for the first time ever. I knew it would be hard, but it’s more difficult than I thought. Movie nights have become far and few between. Our daily chats have been limited to a few text updates a day. She’ll be home to visit in less than twenty-four hours and I’m vibrating with excitement.

I’ve been glad she isn’t worrying about me, and I’ve been sad that I’m not witnessing her life first hand. I feel dirty because I’m also happy that we’ve had space. It’s not that I want to be away from Penny, not ever, but there’s something freeing in having people around you who don’t know you at all. There’s safety, though, in knowing that Penny is there and that we aren’t separated forever. It means I’m not completely alone.

I want to talk to her. I want to gush to her about Koda and hear her squeal at the details, but my expectations for myself have stopped me. Does Penny know that we’re fucking? Yes. Does she know he’s calling me his girlfriend? Also yes, but she doesn’t know that I’m being consumed by him. Every single night it’s his place or mine. Recently? It’s been mine. I’m having a hard time reminding myself that it’s just a label he’s putting on me to tell everyone else I’m off limits until he’s tired of me.

He never presses me for information, but he finds the perfect time to ask me about myself. After telling him I’m from the South, he has tried to guess which state. He’s said Kentucky, like, sixteen times, and no matter what he says my answer is ‘good guess’. I might be obsessed with him, but giving anyone information about myself is still off limits.

We’ve been painting my room, and each time I pick a color, half way through painting I change my mind, and we have to start all over again. I turned the heat in the house all the way up just so he would strip his shirt off while he worked and I could watch him sweat. A few times we ruined the paint because I’m an insatiable slut when it comes to seeing his muscles flex.

I stare at the wall with a paintbrush in my hand and pout. It’s cathartic to paint over my own thoughts, and it also feels a little strangling, like I’m silencing someone who doesn’t want to be. I’m putting tape on a dead girl’s mouth and threatening her not to speak, not to scream into the void. I don’t know how to move on for good. Whether Koda is here or not, deep down I’m fucking haunted, and I don’t know why. It should be so simple.

“Ashland,” Koda pulls me from my existential crises.

“Yes?”

“Please, do not tell me you are changing your fucking mind again. Two of the walls are already dry. I do not want to paint this goddamn room for the rest of my life.”

“What? Do you have better things to do? Are you supposed to go to the beach for spring break with the gym bros and lift bitches for fame and glory?” I nibble on the end of the paintbrush before taking a deep breath and covering the last of my inner turmoil.

Koda slips his arms around my waist and squeezes me into him. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you in a wet t-shirt.”

His fingers manage to find my pierced nipple through my paint covered crop top, brushing against it. I shudder.

“Yeah? You like it when women douse themselves on stage and shiver like wet cats?”

“Mmm,” he hums in my ear. “There’s only one pussy I’m interested in, and I’m betting it’s already soaked.”

He’s not wrong. I’m practically quaking with need. Fuck the paint. Fuck it all. Fuck him. Literally. His hand travels down my hips and over my pelvis, clutching me between my thighs. I’m not wearing underwear. He knows it, because he hasn’t done my laundry. I think it’s on purpose.

“So fucking wet, baby girl.” He pats my pussy and backs away.

“Maybe next spring break I should go to the beach,” I muse out loud, as if he doesn’t exist. He hates that shit.

“What the fuck would you do there?” He’s trying to hold the anger in, but he’s faltering.

“I dunno. Sounds like the perfect place for me. Wet t-shirt contests. Letting men do body shots off of me. Penny and I can rent a cabana and do a whole ‘put a sock on the door’ thing for fun. Do you think they just let anyone dance in the strip club, or does it take special permission?”

We haven’t talked about any sort of future, but I can picture Koda and I. I can see it, and I don’t know if I hate that or like it. Even if we weren’t together, I don’t see how he wouldn’t come with Alexi on a beachy spring break trip, if only to torment me.

“You talk so much shit for someone who can’t go five minutes without begging for me to make you come.” His hand wraps around my throat. “I’ll drown you in fucking sink water and drink tequila out of your mouth. You won’t need some contest to be soaking wet.”

My breath hitches in my throat. I feel something cool pour over my chest. Sure enough, Koda is dumping a bottle of water over my breasts. My nipples pebble as the shirt soaks through. He throws the empty plastic to the side and takes both of them into his hands, squeezing and massaging them. His forefingers reach in front and flick the piercings, sending electric bolts straight to my clit.

“Now all I need is tequila. Too bad we’re all out.” He grins, flipping me around. He shoves his thumb between my lips and forces my mouth open before he spits in it. “Guess that’ll have to do.”

My pussy is on fire, pulsing. The thought of someone else touching me set him off, and that’s my favorite fucking thing. I feed off of his jealousy. It’s a fucked up thing to do, but it’s confirmation that he wants me. I’m something to covet. It’s not that I think I shouldn’t be, but usually that sort of territorial dominance comes from the wrong person.

He grabs my ass and forces me up into his arms, shoving me into the shelf of books we've dragged to the center of the room. Books and trinkets fall to the floor. He shoves my leggings off as quickly as he can, and I fumble for his jeans as we breathe the same oxygen. The second we’re free of the confines of clothing he forces my mouth open, dominating me with his tongue. My ass barely sits on the ledge of a shelf, and he drives into me with rage.

“You wanna know what it’s like to be railed at spring break?” He huffs a laugh. “Just like this, baby girl. You won’t need to pack sunscreen because you won’t see the sun. I’ll fucking live inside of you. I’ll be so deep…” He thrusts and forces me down on him, pressing himself against me. I gasp. “…For so long that you won’t remember a time that I wasn’t.”

I’m already climaxing. In the back of my mind I’m faintly aware that another spring break with Koda isn’t even a possibility despite my secret wishes. We’ll break it off by the end of the summer. This fantasy, though, is an orgasm for my ears. Sweat bursts across my skin like hangover chills, and I can feel every vein, every ridge, with every slam. My nails dig into his back as I ride him out and he presses his fingers into my hips, slamming me down onto him. It’s not gentle. It stings my clit in the best way. I toss my head back in ecstasy, hitting it against the shelf.

“Fuck, Ash.” He watches where we’re connected. “You’re all fucking over me.”

I moan, because every word he ever says during sex is tantalizing.

“Goddamn,” he mutters to himself, slowing his pace. I can’t take much more. He’s sending my body into overdrive with the way he’s looking at us and with how sensitive I am. More expletives fall from his lips, ignoring the fact that I’m barely holding on to life.

He pushes his thumb against my clit rubbing the both of us together. His sandy hair is coated with sweat. I reflexively reach up and trail my fingers along his torso, scratching lightly. He shuts his eyes and shoves his forehead against mine, trapping me against the shelf. His thumb presses against my lips and I take it in, sucking and rolling it with my tongue.

“Such a pretty fucking mouth.”

He watches my tongue as I work my magic, doing my best. I know my blow jobs are legendary, but he has never asked me for one. He doesn’t shove me to my knees or tell me to finish him. He just uses the pad of his thumb to trace my lips before sliding it across my tongue to the back of my throat. It’s menacing, He looks like he might decide to ram his entire fist down my throat and kill me, but it makes me come again as an aftershock while he finishes inside of me.

“Shit, Ashland. How will I ever get over you?”

He likes to pretend he’s going to pull out. A few minutes ago he was thinking about it, but he never does. It’s because he knows there will be a day that he can’t. We both do. What he just said proves that. He instantly dismantled that hopeful bullshit my head was trying to piece together.

I shove him off of me, just like I shove away the very real feelings he’s giving me. I flip on the shower and jump in quickly, trying to wash all of this away. Hopefully, when I step out he’ll have composed himself. But no, he steps in behind me.

“I didn’t mean to say it like that,” he admits.

I think it’s the fastest shower of my life.

“Please shut up, Koda,” I groan. “I know I have the Golden Pussy. It would be a problem if you did get over it.”

“Ash.” He tries to catch me as I jump out of the shower.

“Are you hungry? I’m hungry,” I call behind me.

He hurries to catch up, drying off and pulling on gym shorts. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“I think we have Chinese leftovers.” I reach into the fridge and dig around.

“We ate an hour ago.”

“Tea, then?” I yank the kettle out of the freshly organized cabinet. Koda put it where I could reach it, and I fill it with water, slamming it down onto the stove.

“Can we talk about this?”

“About what?”

He pulls at his hair and sighs heavily. “I’m not leaving.”

“Are you supposed to?”

I’m frustrating the fuck out of him, and I’m not mad about it. This time I’m not turned on by it though. It feels like it’s a form of self-preservation to send him into a fit.

“Why are you so against any type of commitment?”

“What? You’re the one who just admitted that this is temporary. You’re the one who is so insistent on calling me his,” I pretend to gag, “girlfriend.”

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay. If you want me to pretend we’re not doing a thing, then we’ll do that, but…”

I chew on my nails. “But what?”

He leans his forearms on the counter. “I just wanna know you, Ash.”

“Uh, you’ve been all up in my guts. I think you know me pretty fucking well.”

He rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “That’s not what I mean."

“Go paint or something. You’re getting on my nerves, and you keep distracting me.”

He studies me for a minute. Knowing Koda, he can probably see the panic that’s eating away inside of me. His features soften. “I’ll go move the shelves back. Those walls are dry. Do you want them how they were?”

“Yes. Do that, peasant.” I smile, grateful for his patience.

He pulls me into his embrace. “It wasn’t what I meant,” he repeats.

“What kind of tea?”

“Chamomile.” He kisses my forehead and retreats down the hallway. “Don’t think you’re getting out of finishing this fucking wall. I’m not doing it all myself.”

“Uh huh,” I giggle. No way am I fucking painting. I’d rather watch him.

I hear the shelves moving and release the breath I was holding. Koda didn’t mean to say it like that. I’m overthinking everything. It’s a habit. Hasn’t he proven over and over again that he isn’t trying to hurt me? Refused to leave me alone? Damien refused to leave me alone, too, and I don’t think he saw it as hurting me either. I don’t know where to draw the line in the sand. Penny will be able to help me determine that. She wants me to open myself up, but she doesn’t want to see me hurt. She’ll be able to look at this objectively and tell me to grow some balls or cut them off.

I delve back into my daydream. In a perfect world, Koda and I work. We do everything just like this and have careers and a whole life. Penny and I still live together, traveling and exploring the world, but Koda would be there waiting for me. Maybe he would come with us. Life would be chaotic and messy in the best way.

That’s not how things work. It’s not just Koda. It’s my entire life. So many loose ends that won’t turn into knots or tie themselves together. The real reason I don’t want to tell Koda about myself isn’t just because of the looming gloom and doom of what my life is, but it would mean that I have to tell him about who I really am. I would have to explain what we've painted over time and time again because there aren't enough coats in the world that will make it all go away. It requires telling someone the darkest parts of yourself. It means telling him about all of the fucked up things that have led me to this point, and then giving him the keys to the closet full of skeletons and hoping that he doesn't pawn them.

I don’t feel any better when the kettle whistles. It feels like an omen. The sound reminds me of the screaming that became the theme song of my life and a constant inside of my head. Maybe it’s been there since the day I was born. I blink it away and turn the burner off, reminding myself that Penny will be back soon. She can set me straight.