Getting Worse

Marcellus

The dishes were done finally. I made sure to help Clarrisa with them.

I dried my hands on the kitchen towel, slower than necessary and watched the steam rise from the sink. Clarrisa hummed while she wiped down the counters with the kind of domestic contentment that should have made me feel settled.

Yet It didn't.

My mind was still at the dinner table. Still on the way Bonnie's hand had trembled when she reached for her wine. Still on the fork dropping against china. Still on the way she'd said "So now I'm the fucking problem?" with her voice cracking just enough that Clarrisa didn't notice but I noticed.

I noticed everything about that girl.

"You're quiet tonight," Clarrisa said, coming up behind me as she snakes her arms around my waist and pressed her cheek to my back. "Everything okay?"

I covered her hands with mine, "Just thinking about the engagement party, I want everything to be perfect for you."

She made a soft, pleased sound. "You're sweet."

If she only knew.

"Go on up," I said, turning in her arms as I cupped her face. "I'm going to have a cigarette on the patio. I'll be up shortly."

"Don't be too long." She rose on her toes and kissed my cheek. "I have ideas for the seating chart."

"I can't wait."

She smiled, full and unguarded, and left the kitchen humming again. I waited until I heard her footsteps on the stairs and the soft click of her bedroom door, before I moved.

But I didn't go to the patio.

I went upstairs. Past Clarrisa's room. Past the guest room she'd made up for me with its lavender sachets and pressed linens.

And straight up to Bonnie's door.

I didn't knock. Just turned the handle slowly, stepped inside, and closed it behind me.

The room was dark except for the moonlight spilling through the balcony doors. She'd left them open; the glass doors, the sheer curtains drifting inward on the night breeze. I could smell her before I even saw her.

She was out on the balcony. Barefoot and leaning against the railing in nothing but an oversized shirt.

Her hair was loose, falling down her back in waves. The shirt hit mid-thigh and the night air was cool enough that I could see her nipples pressed against the fabric.

She didn't turn when I stepped through the curtains neither did she flinch. Almost like she'd been waiting.

I stood behind her, close enough that my chest almost touched her back but not quite.

"You left the table early," I said quietly.

No response.

"Your mother noticed. She asked me if you were feeling alright."

Silence stretched before she finally spoke, "What did you tell her?"

"The truth." I leaned in, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. "That you've been under a lot of pressure lately and that you needed rest."

She laughed bitterly, "Pressure."

"Stress," I corrected, my hand finding her hip, fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt. "Anxiety. The typical ailments of a girl who doesn't know how to relax."

"Maybe I don't want to relax."

"No," I agreed, pulling her back against my chest. Her spine pressed hard against my Cock. "I don't think you do."

Her breathing changed, quicker and shallow. I felt it in the way her ribcage expanded against my hands.

"You're shaking," I observed.

"I'm cold."

"Liar."

I turned her around, gripping her hips, lifting her onto the balcony railing in one smooth motion. The drop behind her was three stories. She gasped, her hands immediately flying to my shoulders and her nails digging in.

"Marcellus..."

"Look at me."

She did. Wide eyes, her thighs parted automatically to let me step between them, the fabric of her shirt riding up to reveal the edge of her underwear. Black this time not pink.

"Disappointed," I murmured, hooking a finger under the elastic. "I preferred the pink."

"You ripped it, remember?"

"I do." I smirked.

Her throat moved as she swallowed. "You shouldn't be here. My mother is down the hall."

"Your mother is in her room," I said, sliding my hand up her bare thigh, slow and deliberate. "Planning her wedding to the man who fucks her daughter on balconies."

"Don't." Her voice cracked. "Don't say it like that."

"Like what?" My thumb found the middle of her underwear and pressed. She was already wet. Of course she was. "Truthfully?"

She didn't answer. Just closed her eyes, head tipping back, exposing the long line of her throat.

I leaned in, pressed my mouth to that throat, felt her pulse hammer against my lips. "You think I don't know what this is, Bonnie? You think I don't see it?"

"See what?"

"The guilt." I bit down gently on her collarbone, soothed it with my tongue. "The way you can barely look at her. The way you jump every time she touches you. You're drowning in it love."

Her hands tightened on my shoulders. "You're not helping."

"I'm not trying to help." I pulled back, looked at her...really looked. "I'm trying to make you admit it."

"Admit what?"

"That you don't feel guilty at all."

That made her go still.

"That's the part that's killing you," I continued in a low voice. "Not that you're betraying her. But that you don't care. That you'd do it again. That you're wet right now and pressed against me, while she sleeps in the next room."

"I hate you."

"I know."

"I hate you so much."

"I know." I slid my hand into her hair, gripped the roots, tilted her face up to mine. "Tell me to stop."

She stared at me, lips parted with her chest heaving.

"Tell me to stop, Bonnie. Right now. Say the word and I'll go downstairs. I'll sleep in the guest room. I'll never touch you again."

This was the second time I was warning her.

"Say it," I pressed.

She shook her head and tears spilled over.

"Then open your mouth."

She did.

I kissed her hard, swallowing the sob that rose in her throat. My tongue pushed past her lips, claiming, while my hands dragged the shirt up over her hips, her stomach, her breasts. She broke the kiss only long enough to let me pull it over her head, and then she was bare; bare and trembling and so fucking beautiful it made something dark curl in my chest.

"Wrap your legs around me," I ordered.

She did, ankles locking behind my back. I lifted her off the railing, carried her back through the curtains, across the room. I didn't turn on the lights. Didn't need them. The moon was enough to see the tears on her face, enough to see the way her body arched when I laid her on the bed.

She reached for me, her fingers fumbling with my belt.

"No." I caught her wrists, pinned them above her head. "You don't get to touch tonight."

"Marcellus..."

"You want to feel out of control?" I leaned down, my mouth at her ear. "You want to stop thinking? Stop feeling guilty?"

She nodded frantically.

"Then lie still."

I let go of her wrists and she kept them above her head, good girl....and stripped off my shirt, my belt, my trousers. Her eyes tracked every movement, dark and hungry.

When I was naked, I knelt over her and traced her body with my hands.

"Look at you," I murmured. "Soaked already. Before I've even touched you properly."

She whimpered as she lifted her hips off the bed.

I pressed her back down with one hand flat on her stomach. "Patience."

"Please."

"Please what?"

"Please touch me."

"I am touching you."

"Please..." Her voice broke. "Please fuck me. Please. I can't...I need..."

"What do you need, Bonnie?"

"You." The word came out raw, desperate, torn from somewhere deep. "I need you. I hate you but I need you so much it's killing me."

Something in my chest cracked. I didn't examine it. I just positioned myself between her thighs, felt how ready she was, how slick, how welcoming.

"Look at me," I said and her eyes found mine.

"That's right." I pushed inside her in one slow, deliberate stroke. She gasped, back arching, nails digging into the headboard. "That's my girl."

I didn't move. Just stayed there, buried to the hilt, feeling her clench around me, watching her face contort with the need for more.

"Say it again," I said.

"Say what?"

"Tell me you need me."

"I need you."

"Louder."

"I need you!" Her voice cracked, too loud, and she clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes going wide. "My mother will hear..."

"Then you'd better be quiet." I pulled out slowly and pushed back in harder. "Can you do that? Can you be quiet while I fuck you?"

She nodded with bottom lip caught between her teeth.

I started moving. Slow at first, deep and grinding. Every stroke hit something that made her eyes roll back. Her hands dropped from the headboard, gripping the sheets instead as her knuckles went white.

"Harder," she breathed. "Please. Harder."

I gave it to her. Harder...Faster. The headboard started hitting the wall. Let Clarrisa hear. Let her come running. Let her see exactly what her future husband did to her daughter in the dark.

The thought made me fuck her harder.

Bonnie came with a choked cry, muffled by her own hand, body shuddering around me. I felt her clamp down, felt the wave of it, and kept going; through it, past it, chasing my own.

She was crying again. Quiet tears slipping down her temples into her hair.

I wiped them away with my thumb.

"Don't," I said. "Don't cry."

"I can't help it."

"Yes you can." I slowed then pulled out and flipped her onto her stomach before she could protest. "Up. On your knees."

She pushed up on trembling arms, face buried in the pillow. I entered her from behind, it was deeper this way, and she moaned into the mattress.

"You're going to come again," I said, fucking her slow and hard. "And then I'm going to come inside you. And then you're going to tell me you hate me. And then we're going to do it all over again."

"Marcellus..." Her voice was muffled, desperate.

"That's the arrangement, sweetheart." I leaned over her, chest to her back and my mouth at her ear. "That's what you signed up for when you sent those photos. When you wore that skirt. When you looked at me across that dinner table like you wanted me to bend you over it."

"I didn't..."

"You did." I bit her shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark. "And I'm going to make you admit it."

I reached around, found her clit, pressed in time with my thrusts. She shattered immediately, crying out into the pillow, her whole body convulsing.

I let myself go then. Pounded into her until I felt the release. I came with a groan muffled against her neck, buried deep, holding her hips so tight I knew there would be bruises.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. Just breathing.

Then she laughed, it sounded broken and wrong in everyway.

I pulled out slowly and rolled her onto her back. Her eyes were red, cheeks wet, mouth curved in something that wasn't quite a smile.

"I don't hate you," she whispered.

I froze.

"I want to," she continued, voice barely there. "I try so hard. Every day. I try to hate you. I try to tell myself you're a monster. That you're using me. That I'm just some girl you're fucking because you're bored with my mother."

"Bonnie..."

"But you're not bored." She reached up, touched my face; my jaw, my cheek, my lips. "Are you?"

I caught her wrist. Held it. Didn't answer.

"I think about you constantly," she said. "Not just the sex. You. The way you look at me when no one's watching. The way you say my name. The way you..." Her voice cracked. "The way you make me feel like I'm the only person in the room."

"You are."

The words came out before I could stop them.

She stared at me. Then the tears started afresh.

"That's worse," she said. "That's so much worse."

And I knew.

I pulled her against my chest, wrapped my arms around her, held her while she shook. The guilt I'd accused her of not feeling? It was there now. Rolling off her in waves as it drowned the both of us at once.

"I can't do this," she whispered into my skin. "I can't keep lying to her."

"I'm sorry," I said, and meant it. For the first time in years, I meant it. "I'm sorry."

"Don't." She pulled back, wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Don't apologize. It makes it worse."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to leave."

I didn't move.

"Please," she said. "Before I do something stupid. Like tell her. Or jump off the balcony. Or..."

"Bonnie."

"Go." She pointed toward the door, hand shaking. "Go back to her. Go plan your wedding. Go pretend I don't exist."

"I can't pretend you don't exist."

"Then learn."

I stood up and pulled on my trousers then my shirt. Didn't bother with the belt.

I looked back when I reached the door.

She was sitting up in bed, "One week," I said. "The engagement party. After that..."

"After that what?"

I didn't have an answer so I left.

The hallway was dark. Clarrisa's door was still closed. I went to the guest room, lay down on the lavender-scented sheets, and stared at the ceiling.

I could still taste Bonnie on my lips. Could still feel her clenching around me. Could still hear her saying I don't hate you like it was the worst thing she'd ever admitted.

She was right, and it was so much worse.