Page 41 of Vicious Hearts
14
Ben
Irelax my grip and toss the pantyhose aside. Roxy is breathing loudly through her nose, whimpering, and I remove the panties from her mouth.
My body is soaked from my navel to my knees, her come and mine running onto the carpet. I wrap my arms around her body until her chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, then disentangle myself from her, pulling on my pants as I stand.
Roxy looks shell-shocked, and I wonder whether I’m scaring her too much.
Yeah, right.And this young woman in her early twenties has never read a book, watched pornography, fantasized, or masturbated? Ofcourseshe has—she told me so. She knows damn well that the shit I’m doing does not equate to romance.
I don’t want to think about this thing we have. It’s not love—that’d be fuckingbanal. The middle ground on which I never stand.
I’m all or nothing. I have an obsession that has driven out all rational thought.
Whatam I obsessed with? The fantasy or the reality? Because when I refused to fuck her in Hawaii, I knew that her expectations and mine were worlds apart.
I’m well aware that Roxy is starved for affection, fears abandonment, and wants to belong to someone. She doesn’t need to tell me anything specific—it shows in her body language, behavior, and words. Her submissiveness when I fuck her. Already she’s embracing things that ought to frighten her, wanting me to take control because her desire is drowning out her common sense.
She wants me. Knowing what she knows, she still wants me to be hers.
It feels damn good.
For the first time in my life, I can imagine the possibility of sharing my dysfunction with someone who’s just as screwy but in a way that complimentsmyneeds perfectly.
We could be a glorious mess together, and I’d worship the ground she walks on.Would that be so bad?
I go to the kitchen and pour a glass of water, bringing it to Roxy. She’s sitting on the edge of the couch, her skirt straightened. If it wasn’t for her come and mine running down her legs, she’d look respectable. Almost.
“Your hair is a fucking mess,” I say. She smiles wanly and takes the glass from my hand.
“At least I could brush mine, and it’d look good,” she says. “What’s your excuse?”
I frown. “Our guest tonight on ‘I Don’t Give A Shit About My Hair’ is me.”
Roxy smiles, a real one this time. “I can see that.”
I sit beside her. “A fight and a fuck. Can rely on either one to ruffle me up, but both…”
She grins and nudges me, but there’s some distance between us that shouldn’t be there.
I wonder whether she’s regretting giving up her virginity to me. If she doesn’t yet, she will in time. Everyone who gets close to me pays the price.
“It’s been a shitty morning,” she says, “but at least no one asked me about my bruised neck. I could explain it away, say it happened when I,” she raises her fingers in air-quotes, “‘fell,’ but I’d rather not heap lies upon lies if I don’t have to.”
“You know what I got up to.” I put my feet up on the table. “Tell me what happened when you went to see Farraday.”
“He’s not taking his medication, but he’s lucid. I’ve never seen him that way before.”
She crosses the floor to where her jacket hangs up and fumbles in the pocket, producing two capsules. “Farraday asked me to hide these so the guard would think he’d taken them, but I forgot to throw them out.”
“Don’t toss them,” I say. “Let me see.”
Roxy hands me the pills, and I roll them on my palm. “They aren’t anti-psychotics, that much I can tell.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen every drug there is. I spent some time in psych hospitals.”