Roxy Harte (34 page)

Swallowing more, I relax my throat, taking him deeper with my swallow. Hands gripping hard on his ass, I control the rhythm, forcing his cock deeper, letting him fuck my throat, but in reality, my rhythm, my control, I know he feels like I am fucking him…hard…harder.

He tries to slow the pace, to force down his own need, his own desires, but I don’t let him, knowing he’s close, very close. I push him, tightening my mouth, quickening the stroke until I feel him tense, knowing he’s about to come.

“Blessed mother,” he grunts, coming hard. “I’ve missed you.”

“It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.”

-Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

Thomas

Ohio is the land of ghosts. I heard that once, somewhere, but I can’t remember where for the life of me; but it must be true. I sit here watching Kitten sleep fitfully, wrestling demons she’d once locked far away.

While she was with me at the beach house, she’d seemed to find peace, but now the old fight resurfaces here. Even in sleep, her brow is pinched like she is thinking too hard. Garrett lies beside her, staring into space, not the self-confident man ofSan Francisco , but made fragile by a single flight.

I covered them both with the sheet and lightweight, institutional-grade blanket provided by the hotel, cranked up the heat, and hoped that we’d all find refuge in sleep. Kitten did, Garrett and I didn’t.

I have no time for thoughts of Lattie and my children, but they are on my mind much since I boarded the plane—too much time to think. I miss them. Kitten has spent so much time escaping her father, her upbringing, and Garrett, though he denies it, has done the same. I wonder if my children will even remember me when they are adults. I wonder if they will hate me for my desertion or will they realize that events out of my control kept me from their lives. I sigh, crossing the room, escaping my thoughts with distraction. I sit down on the edge of the bed next to Garrett. He lies on his stomach. I rub his back, offering him the small comfort of my thoughts. “She’s going to be all right, she’s just exhausted.”

Garrett sighs. “Ohio is an exhausting state.”

“We’re inKentucky .”

“Same difference.” He arches his back into my hands encouragingly.

My hands respond, kneading deeper, noting how tense his muscles are. It hasn’t escaped my notice that Garrett has been as despondent as Kitten since our plane touched down. “How far is your family from here?”

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He jerks with the question, admitting, “Across the river, ten miles.”

“Really?” I keep rubbing, focusing on the places that make him moan. “Will you go see them while you’re here?” I don’t think he’ll answer because he takes so long doing so, but then he stretches. “I don’t know.”

Sitting up, he looks from her, curled on the bed, to me. “She hasn’t said it, but this has to be destroying her. She didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.”

“Lots of people lose loved ones without getting to say good-bye.” I find a really tight knot that makes him squirm.

“I know, but isn’t it different when you choose to not see people on purpose, when you just write them out of your life?”

“Is that what you did?”

“No.” He shakes his head, standing, putting us shoulder to shoulder. “I’ve been back. I’ve done seminars in Cincy. I always stop by the house. Mom’s great. She doesn’t really talk about my lifestyle, but there’s no condemnation either. My dad…he’s always away when I visit, at the hospital, golfing, something, anything. I disappointed him a long time ago. He hasn’t forgiven me. I did everything I could, but over the years, we never really reconciled, even though I flew in to take all the final exams, making the money and time spent on med school not a total loss. I had the M.D. following my name after all. But it wasn’t the same. I wouldn’t be carrying on the family tradition, I refused to join the family practice.

Worse, I didn’t want the white picket fence dream.”

I roll him over so that he is on his back, looking up at me. I catch his chin in my hand as he turns his head away, pulling his gaze back to mine. “You’re wondering what it’s going to be like when you get the phone call that your dad died?”

“Maybe. Or I could just be missing the white picket fence.” He sighs. “I really don’t want to talk about this. I want to sleep. I want to stop thinking for a while. I want you to go to bed, too, with us.” He scoots, pulling Kitten with him to make room for me on her other side. She sighs, wrapping around him in her sleep.

“Three in a bed?” I ask, arching my brow. “Is that even legal inKentucky ?”

“I didn’t take you for a man who obeys the laws of the state you’re in.” Garrett laughs and it’s a good sound to hear after the day we’ve shared. “Now who’s scared?”

“It’s too early for bed.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve been awake forty-nine hours at this point. I could really go for some sleep.”

“Nothing else?” I tease, smirking as he squirms uneasily against Kitten. His guilt is palatable and I enjoy torturing him. We still haven’t talked to Kitten about a ménage à trois for real. And honestly, I don’t see the point. Garrett has always been and always will be monogamous. I don’t see that changing. I lean over Kitten, brushing her in her sleep and she snuggles even closer to Garrett. Bending closer, I bite his cheek, whispering around the fold of skin between my teeth, “Come outside and play with me?”

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“Only if I can snore through it,” he answers sarcastically.

I laugh outright, pulling away from him, leaving his face unmarked, though I really wanted to mark him.

On a more serious note, he asks, “The club is opening its doors for the evening in an hour, did you call anyone?”

“Anyone as in to say that neither one of us are going to be there to run the show?” I ask before assuring him, “Lewd Larry’s would survive without us, but yes, I gave George a courtesy call to let him know what was happening.”

“Thank you,” he says, patting the empty spot of mattress. “Now, come to bed with us.”

Too tired to argue, I pull my T-shirt over my head and push off my jeans. Naked, I climb in beside Kitten, but not spooning.

* * * *

I watch, seeing no reason not to, enjoying the show enough that I am fully erect when they stop moving, both convulsing into each other.

No words are exchanged as Garrett pulls away, bringing her with him to carry her back to the bed, where he tucks her between us. She rolls onto her side, wrapping her arm around my waist and snuggling her face deep into her pillow without a word.

“I’m sorry we woke you.” Garrett pulls the blanket and covers all of us back up.

“I didn’t complain.”

“I just needed a release, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking.”

“Are you done thinking now?”

“Yes.”

“So we can all sleep now?”

“Yes.” He sighs and it is a harsh, shuddering sound.

Reaching over Celia, I wrap my fingers around his bicep, giving a small squeeze. “It’s going to be okay, Garrett. Morning will be here before you know it.”

“It’s always worse at night,” he says and, in the dark, I nod, understanding exactly what he’s feeling if not what ghosts are haunting him. We all have those people, places, regrets that we spend all day hiding from, but in our wakeful thoughts and uncontrollable dreams, we brave the battle night after night. My ghost is Eva and some nights it is better to not sleep at all than fall victim to the memories relived in my dreams night after night.

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“To breathe is an affliction requiring real courage. At this hour of the night the only anodyne for such sadness is the diversion of sweet flesh itself.”

-Richard Wright, The Weekend Man

Kitten

I awaken, at once wide-eyed, realizing that the nightmare wasn’t a dream at all, but fact. My father is dead. With my awareness comes the moment it dawns that I am snuggled naked between equally naked Garrett and Thomas, a cage of their arms and legs wrapped around me. I vaguely remember the sex. It was powerful, feral, brief, and I am sore as a result. Shoulders aching, I shift to release the pressure, and realize without a doubt that the muscles of my ass cheeks and thighs are a firebrand of pain. I hold very still. Still enough to relax and let the pain pass. Still enough for the memory of last night to come racing back.

I’d awakened in Garrett’s arms as he pulled me from the bed, saying, “I need you, Kitten.”

Carrying me across the room, he’d received my assent in kisses…hard, fast, passionate, breath-stealing kisses.

“Fuck me hard, Garrett,” I’d whispered, coming up for air. “Make me forget why I’m here.”

Standing me up, pressing my back and hips against the wall, he posed me, hands high above my head, as though I was chained there, and although no chains bound me, my hands stayed in position, even when he went down on his knees and pulled my clit into his mouth. I held my hands high above my head, even as I bit the inside of my lip to keep from screaming, as he pulled the first orgasm from my body. He held my hips tight while I convulsed against his mouth, and then he stood, kissing me, hard, deep, tasting my blood in my mouth. He forced my shoulders into the hardness of the wall. The textured wallpaper was a distracting irritation against my bare shoulders and ass as he lifted me, impaled me, his hard length an undeniable force demanding to go deeper inside me with each thrust. His hands squeezed my ass cheeks hard with each unforgiving pound, so intense were his hands I still feel the throb of ache deep in the muscles he gripped. My nails scored equally painful tracks down his back.

He growled, grabbing my hair, forcing me to meet his gaze.

Something happened in that moment.

He pulled away to look at my face, locking gazes with me in the darkly shadowed room. Trapped between wall and man, I felt strength and power and emotion that had no name but whispered harsh and needy against my cheek. “You are mine, Kitten. I am all the darkness you will ever need. Let me Master you.”

I tremble with the memory and hope I don’t wake the man on either side of me.

Their breathing tells me they sleep still.

Reaching down, I tentatively touch my pussy lips with my fingers. Dry. Painful. God, really painful, this is going to require triple antibiotic ointment and a few days recovery time. Abraded pussy lips…just in time
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for the funeral…a constant reminder of the whore I am. Thank you, Garrett, for that.

“I’m yours.” That’s what I’d said to him last night. “I’m yours, Garrett, forever and always.” But lying here, between the two of them, I wonder, did I mean it? Did I mean exclusively Garrett?

I don’t remember him returning me to the bed. I don’t remember Thomas coming to bed at all or being there in the middle of the night. Did he hear us? Did he see us?
Oh, God.
Thomas watched me have sex with Garrett. I can’t reconcile any other conclusion; however, my brain can’t even go there this early in the morning, not without coffee.

Equally strange is unraveling my body from the grip of two naked men.

I want to wake up and find that all of yesterday was a dream, but I know that there is no waking up from this as I pad silently over the plush carpet to the window. Pushing aside heavy foam-backed curtains, the view from the room slams me back into the middle of my nightmare. It is still dark, not middle-of-the-night dark but not yet dawn. My hometown glares at me. The Waffle House across the road was a home away from home my high school years, every penny saved for college a drop in my sanity bucket. From here, I can see the glimmer of glittering city lights—white, red, yellow, green—reminding me thatCincinnati really is just across the river, the skyline I grew up with. Tears well, sudden and unwelcome. I have come home. The pain is more than I can bear.

Ashamed of my nakedness, I pull on the shirt and shorts borrowed from Charlie.

“Celia?” I turn and face Thomas, folding into his warm solidness when he holds open his arms to me.

Memories of last night and the intense pounding I took against the wall from Garrett come back and, for a moment, I am embarrassed. Knowing that Thomas was there, even though it was dark, what he didn’t see, he heard. That part, yeah, in the light of day, mortifying. Rubbing my hair, he asks, “Are you okay?”

I laugh and the sound against his chest is harsh and ugly. “How do I answer that question? My father is dead and I’m having illicit sex in a hotel room with not one but two lovers.”

“I missed that part. I don’t feel like I had sex.”

“Oh, you had sex, you participated by listening.” I am so glad I pulled on the shirt and shorts.

Embarrassed and clothed is so much more preferable to embarrassed and naked.

The rumble of laughter, deep in his chest, is comforting. “I don’t think it works that way.”

“I can’t believe my life,” I whisper.

“What do you mean?”

“My father has never cared about my happiness and now, with this, you and Garrett, and me, I really want this to happen, but I’m here…and I feel his condemnation, I feel his eyes on me, his voice in my head screaming, “Sinner!” and all I want to do is run. I don’t want to be here. I feel like I can’t go to his funeral, that I’m too evil, too dirty. I shouldn’t go.”

“Whether you go, or don’t go, is a decision that only you can make.”

“I could skip it? Just not go?” I ask incredulously, my voice muffled against his chest. My eyes are open and I focus on the chest hairs closest to my left eye, dark curly hair again a solid wall of pale skin. Pale in
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