I never knew true addiction until I met her. I never truly understood what it is to crave, mind, body, and soul—until nothing mattered but fulfilling that craving. Until the only thing that mattered was easing the hollow space inside me.
It was there whenever we’re apart. Like a dark hole, it lingered, intensifying until my mind was full of dark spots. Until my mind was full of easy curves, bare before me. Until my desires reflected her, bending at the waist, her pert, little arse in the air, colored red by my palm, the outline of my fingers visible against her pale skin.
Every day, it was something new, something different, something I never allowed myself to think of. It was more than against the wall, more than her hands bound, more than a blindfold across her eyes. Now, I could think freely, imagine all the ways and all the places I could have her.
Because she trusted me.
And she was fucking mine.
My Brenda. My bitch. My beautiful, sexy bitch.
Now, she was sitting in front of me with her eyes wide and her hands covering her mouth. She was deathly still. And quiet. So fucking quiet that every second that passed cut deeper than anything she could ever say.
But she hadn’t moved away from me either. She was still sitting in my arms, her legs hooked over mine, staring at me like it was the last thing she ever expected me to say.
I ran my eyes across her face, taking advantage of her silence to look at her. Her hair was messy, her dark-grey eyes shining, her cheeks flushed. She looked freshly fucked, and she was, but more than that, she looked shocked.
“Brenda?” I prompted. “Are you going to say anything?”
She dropped her hands and slowly licked her lips. My gaze instantly dropped to her mouth.
“I, um… I don’t know what to say to that,” she said slowly.
“Well, the last time I had to tell someone I fucked a student, I nearly got punched.” It was one of the only times I’d ever seen my cousin lose his shit.
She knocked her fist into my chest lamely. “There. Does that make you feel better?”
I stared at her. Why the hell wasn’t she running? Why wasn’t she looking at me with disgust? Why the fuck was she still here?
“Er, thanks?” I frowned.
She sighed softly. “I think I know what you’re expecting, but you’re not going to get it. I’m not going to get up and demand you leave, okay?”
“You should.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. But I shouldn’t have slept with you a second time. Or agreed to do it on a regular basis. Or gone on a date with you. So I’m a fucking expert at doing things I’m not supposed to.” She shrugged. “It’s in the past, right? Just like you didn’t push me away when I told you mine, I’m not going to do it to you.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“You’re really dumb sometimes.” She tapped me on the nose, her pink lips curving into a small smile. She cuppes the side of my head and ran her thumb across my cheek. “We said we’d try and work past all our bullshit. That’s part of it. We have to accept each other’s pasts and move forward. You can’t change mine and I can’t change yours, so there’s not much point in getting all panty-twisted about it, is there?”
I covered her hand with mine and wrapped my other around her neck. I pulled her into me, so close that our lips touched, and hummed low. I loved the way she tasted. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was incredible.
“You’re right, baby girl,” I murmured against her mouth.
“Of course I am.” She placed her other hand at my waist. “I’m a woman. Sooner or later, you’ll learn that I’m right even when I’m wrong.”
I already knew that. She was wrong to go along with anything more than just one night with me, yet nothing has ever felt more right.
“Do you think I should have asked him to leave?”
I rested my head against the back of the sofa and looked across my apartment at my best friend. She pulled the wine bottle from the fridge and paused, her fingers wrapped tightly around the neck of the bottle.
“You could have asked him why.”
Yeah, probably. “I don’t know, Day. I was shocked, y’know? I wasn’t expecting him to say that. And now, I’m wondering if letting him stay was the right choice.”
“Well, it’s tough. You had just agreed to make it work no matter what, but what he did was kind of wrong.”
I knew that. I knew, in my rational mind, that Ivan shouldn’t have fucked a student. It should bother me. It was a taboo. Frowned upon. Damn, it was more than frowned upon. It was fucking illegal.
I should have gotten up, asked him to go, then thought it through.
If only I were even a fraction rational around Ivan, the ‘should haves’ would have been ‘did haves.’
“Very wrong,” I corrected her, taking a glass of wine with a sigh. “I don’t know. It’s kind of fucked up, isn’t it? I mean, it’s something out of a damn novel. He mocks my so-called porn on a page, but he’s a living fucking book boyfriend.”
Day’s lips twitched. “I’ve never been that kind of ‘forbidden romance’ kind of girl. I guess it’s because your dad is a teacher. Every time I tried one, I pictured him with his stripy ties as the main character.”
Well, that was a visual I wasn’t prepared for. Much less needed.
“Thank you for that.” I sat up straight and took a long drink from my glass. “Moving on from that strange twist…”
“Yes, let’s.” She wrinkled her face up. “So did he just, like, come out with it? Or was there a preemptive warning?”
“There was a half-assed story but no warning. He just kind of…said it. Like, bam. Surprise!” I placed the glass against my chin. “I wasn’t expecting it. Ivan is the oddest mixture of bad guy and good guy, but I never thought he’d have done that.”
Dayton pursed her lips, looking into her glass. “I don’t know if you should be bothered or not. Is that bad?”
No. Because I didn’t think I was. I was more pissed about the fact that I was not bothered. Or that my ever-growing addiction to him made it that way. Somehow, it took the wrongness and reality of what he’d done and twisted it into something that wasn’t that bad at all.
That was what really bothered me. That I could disregard something so critical. Something that had made him who he was.
But wasn’t that exactly what he did with me? Didn’t he gloss over my teenage stupidity like it didn’t impact me at all?
Yes.
Acceptance of the past was the key to facing the future. As long as I remembered that, I’d be okay. I thought.
I hoped.
I really, really fucking hoped.
