fifteen
King
I’m standing in the kitchen looking out over the neighborhood when I hear footsteps behind me. The August sun is murky in the east, the heat visible over the buildings even at eight in the morning, but I turn away, spinning around fast enough that my coffee sloshes out of the mug.
“You’re jumpy this morning,” Eliza says, giving me a little smirk. She picks up the coffee pot and pours some into one of the tiny teacups we got for our wedding.
“Someone tried to kill me yesterday,” I say, grabbing a hand towel to wipe up the drops I spilled on the floor.
“I’ll get a maid today,” Eliza says, gesturing around the kitchen, which I cleaned up last night after she went to bed.
“Is that why you’re up so early?”
“You’re working today?” she asks, watching me adjust my tie. It’s too hot for this shit even with the air on. There’s not enough AC in the Bronx to cool a penthouse apartment on a day like today.
“Do you need me for something?” I ask.
“No,” she says, her voice light. “It’s just… You’re shot.”
“I work every day,” I point out. “Did you want me to help you interview for the maid position?”
“I’ll figure it out,” she says. “I’m meeting Bianca for lunch, anyway. I need to ask her about something.”
I watch her swallow a mouthful of coffee, her cognac eyes meeting mine over the rim of the cup. She smiles shyly, and a twist of guilt tugs inside me. After she stitched me up last night, I cleaned up and then turned in, staying on my side of the king bed, with an ocean of space between us. I wanted to hold her, but I didn’t know how she’d react to that after I basically accused her of trying to kill me.
So instead of holding her like I have for the past week, I lay there alone, thinking about what she said about me finding a woman on the side. I know my frustration with not getting laid is getting to me, but I’m not about to hire a prostitute like it’s the same as hiring a maid. Not when my wife sleeps next to me. But I can’t push her to do something she doesn’t want, either. I shouldn’t want her for more than what a whore could give me, for more than fulfilling a basic need. I shouldn’t need more. But I do.
And the fucked up part is, I’m never going to get it. Not from her. But I can’t even conceive of taking a mistress because my wife has been abused. If I was a better man, I’d wait forever with nothing but patience and understanding. I’m trying. I want to be that man. But in truth, I’m frustrated as hell. I want to fuck my wife. And not the way it would be now, with her lying there stiff as a board and shaking, letting me get off on her like she’s a blowup doll. I want her to want me. I want her to grab me when I walk in the door and start ripping my clothes off. I want to throw her down and ravish her, make her cum with my name on her lips and my cock so deep inside her she can’t remember her own.
And then I feel like a piece of shit for wanting those things from a girl who’s had those things stolen from her. I’m a selfish bastard for thinking it, but those things have been taken from me now, too. I can’t even make my wife feel good. I can’t kill the sick bastards who took those experiences from us, either, because she’s protecting them. If it’s not her dad, then who? And why is she protecting them?
“What?” she asks, jerking me back to reality. I realize I’ve been staring right through her for two minutes straight.
“Have fun today,” I say. I set my cup in the sink and turn away, but her arms snake around me before I can take a step.
She drops her cup in the sink, the coffee splattering against the stainless steel as she squeezes me hard, like she thinks she could crush me with her tiny arms. She presses her cheek to my back. “Be careful,” she says quietly.
I pry her arms loose and turn to face her, wrapping my arms around her gently. “I will.”
She stands on tiptoes, lifting her face to mine and looping an arm behind my neck. She pulls me down for a kiss, and I’m so surprised I don’t even react for a second. She’s about to drop back onto her heels when I grip her tighter against me, cradling her head in my palm and kissing her harder. I want her so much I think I’ll explode from a single kiss, and I have to rein myself in to keep from backing her against the table, spreading her legs, and devouring her.
I kiss her gently instead, my lips pressing against her soft ones, and fuck, she’s so soft, so delicate, it makes me ache. I want to hold her like a fragile flower, never bruise her petals. When she opens her lips, I almost don’t want to taste her deeper. It will only make it worse.
But I’m weak, and I slide my tongue between her lips, taking everything she’ll give me. She shivers against me, and I pull her closer even though she’s already flush against me. I can feel her soft tits pressing into my abs with each breath she takes, can feel her pulse fluttering like a moth trapped against a windowpane when my thumb caresses the side of her throat. She makes a soft sound of pleasure into my mouth, halfway between a moan and a whimper, and I come undone. Before my brain catches up, I’ve slid my hand down over her curves, cupping her ass and grinding my hips against hers.
She breaks off, her eyes flying wide. “You’re hard,” she whispers.
I curse and jerk away from her so fast she stumbles back, catching herself on the wall that separates the kitchen and dining area. She’s staring at me like… Well, like I’m the asshole who just ground my cock up against her after she told me she didn’t like to be touched, that she’d been molested, that she didn’t want me that way.
I sink back against the counter and rake both hands through my hair and grip handfuls of it, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to get my raging hard-on under control. I should never have let myself kiss her back. I should have known she makes me lose my fucking mind when she touches me. She deserves someone else, someone better, someone who can control himself and doesn’t act like the horny teenager he is.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting that. It wasn’t abadthing. I was just surprised. Don’t be embarrassed.”
“I’m not fucking embarrassed,” I say, lifting my head. Ashamed, yes. Not embarrassed.
“You’re not?”
“And why would you be surprised?” I go on, too pissed at myself to hold back. “I haven’t had sex in months, and I sleep next to you every night, and you’re about the most beautiful, desirable, irresistible woman I’ve ever seen, and I can’t have you. So yeah, kissing you makes me hard, and if that makes me a fucking monster, then that’s what I am.”