LUCA_Her Ruthless Don Read online

  I mean to answer, “Mmmhmm?” but it comes out a whimper.

  “I’m going to take off this hair, okay?”

  Wait…what? I come out of my daze. “You want me to take off the wig?”

  “No, I want to take it off you. Can I do that?”

  “You don’t want me to keep it on?” Boys prefer long hair. Even when they say they don’t, they do. The words float back to me. My mom’s explanation of why I not only needed to press my hair but start letting her put extensions in as soon as I turned fifteen. There were no boys to impress in our remote cabin, but I never had the heart to point that out because I knew making me the kind of pretty boys like helped her pass the time.

  But Jake is telling me the opposite of what my mom claimed. “I guess you can,” I answer, not sure how else to respond.

  His hand brushes the side of my face as he reaches for what Talia calls my “girl with a secret” hair, a sharp fringe of bangs and a straight waterfall of synthetic tresses that stop right above my breasts. He deals with both the hair and wig cap beneath in one sensual sweep, and his arm moves away from my body as he sets it aside.

  Cool air hits my scalp, and even though I’m still completely clothed, I feel naked.

  “You’re beautiful,” he tells me in that uncomfortable moment. “Did you think I wouldn’t want you without the wig?”

  “I didn’t think about it,” I confess. Until this moment, I didn’t realize how much I’d been carrying my mom’s opinions about beauty around with me, especially after going blind.

  “You never had sex without it?”

  The answer is no. And though I’m not a virgin, I feel like one right now.

  “Are we talking or fucking?” I snap instead of answering his question.

  He stills, his body tightening beneath mine. Then he says, “Don’t rush me, baby.”

  He’s not snapping back. It’s more like a quiet command. At first. Then it starts to feel like a punishment as he slowly takes off my t-shirt. Slowly unhooks my front clasp bra, and slowly takes it off.

  Hands cup both my breasts and smooth thumbs make slow circles around my nipples as he starts slowly kissing my neck again. It soon becomes unbearable.

  “Jake,” I gasp, reaching down to unbuckle his pants. But he catches my hands again and pushes them away.

  “Don’t rush me,” he says again.

  Another minute of punishment. It feels like hours. But I finally get why people make such a big deal out of foreplay because I’m ridiculously wet. I want him. I’m aching for him, my core clenching with need. But that’s not…that’s not part of the plan, and I go for his pants again, the urge to regain control of the sex coming back with a vengeance.

  But once again he pushes my hands away. Even rougher this time.

  “Why won’t you let me?” I demand.

  “You like being in control?” I can hear the lazy smile in his voice.

  “Yes.”

  “I asked you what you liked earlier, and you just said touching and pressure. If you wanted control, you should have included that in your terms.”

  “It’s not something I’d put on a list of things I like,” I say. “It’s just something that’s for me. My natural setting.”

  “Okay, I’ll let you be in control.”

  Thank you! I start to go for his buckle, but he grabs my hands and says, “Next time.”

  My heart slams in my chest, and I tilt my head to the side, because, “There isn’t going to be a next time.”

  “Too bad,” he says. “Guess you’re never going to be in control.”

  Then, before I can protest, he captures my lips in a slow kiss.

  Damn, he’s a good kisser. The stubble of his five o’clock shadow scrapes my face as he takes my lips. Drinking them in as his tongue slowly pulls on mine.

  His hands come back to my breasts. Massaging them. Torturing them, while he slowly grinds into me below.

  I soon become afraid. So much so, I have to pull away from the kiss to tell him with a gasp, “I’m going to come. I’m going to come if you keep this up.”

  “Then come.”

  “No…I don’t want…I don’t want…” I can’t finish because, after so many years of taking, when it comes to boys, I’m not sure how to tell him what I want. What I need.

  “You want me inside you when you come?” he asks, voice low and mean.

  “Yes!” I gasp. Finally giving him the last piece of pride that he’s been slicing off bit by bit.

  A lifting sensation as he rises with my legs wrapped around his waist. There’s no coffee table in front of the couch. No furniture to get in his way as he carries me to the bedroom.

  Moments later, my back hits the bed. There’s the soft whisper of clothes coming off, followed by a small tearing sound that I recognize as a condom being opened.

  Then he’s on top of me. His heavyweight pushing me into the bed as his cock, thick and hard, brushes against my belly.

  His breath caresses my face as his head aligns with mine for another kiss, but before he can, I say, “I need to touch you. Check that you’re wearing a condom.”

  Awkward pause. And a hot wave of resentment washes over me because I have to say it. Usually, I just do it. No weird conversation needed. But the only thing more awkward than having this discussion right now would be having it after I tried to touch his cock again, and he pushed my hands away like he kept doing in the living room.

  He reaches up and grabs my hand, guiding it between our bodies so I can feel the latex. But only for a moment. Then he brings the hand back up, entwining his long fingers into mine as he starts slowly kissing me. Kissing me so good that the awkward moment falls away and sooner than expected, the fear of coming too soon is back. He’s mostly naked now. I can feel all that skin against mine. Arms roped with muscle. Lean hard waist between my soft inner thighs. But I can also feel the barriers that remain. My underwear and skirt. I want them off. I want all of it off.

  “Jake…Jake…” I say, voice trembling. All this fucking teasing… I squirm underneath him, my impatience crossing over into full-on anguish.

  “Relax, baby,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

  But I can’t relax. I can’t. I’ve never wanted someone this much, and it scares me… scares me like voices at the top of stairs and the violent noise of gunshots. My hands push and pull on his, wanting both freedom and completion. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do…

  Maybe he gets it. How close I am to falling apart. Because he suddenly releases my hands, pulls my underwear to the side, and then starts easing into me, feeding me the longest, thickest dick I’ve ever felt. And oh… oh… I start coming before he’s all the way in.

  And now I really don’t know what to do. A wild cry tears from my throat. “Oh, fuck!” I call out, panting when he’s all the way in.

  “It’s okay, baby.” He starts moving inside me. Slowly stroking into my too-soon climax. I thought this was what I wanted. I thought this would stop all the scary feelings swirling around inside of me. But as the orgasm washes over me, hot tears spring to my eyes and ugly sounds fall out of my mouth because it is so intense.

  I hit his shoulder, slamming the ball of my hand into his arm. I don’t know why. I don’t want him to stop. But I feel so helpless. So vulnerable and scared.

  “It’s okay, baby,” he says again.

  But it’s not okay. I can’t stop the tears. I can’t stop all the emotions rolling over me.

  “Want me to come, too, so you don’t feel all by yourself?” he asks.

  What a strange question, but the answer is yes. I nod because my voice isn’t working right now. I’m too overcome by the crashing tide inside of me.

  His thrusts speed up, but not for long. I guess he was on edge, too, because he releases with a sharp expulsion of air that I can feel hot against my cheek.

  He rolls off me as soon as he’s done, and I hear something dropping into the trash
can next to my bed. The condom… and I wonder if he’ll go now. I want him to go now. Want him to leave me alone, swimming in the delicious afterlight of the fantastic sex we just had.

  But he comes right back. Wraps me in his arms and covers both my legs with one of his. It’s like the spoon position set to suffocation. And I love it. The feel of his skin against mine. But I also want him to go…. I need him to go.

  “You can go now,” I tell him.

  “Don’t rush me,” he answers, settling his chin into the crook of my shoulder.

  “I don’t do overnights,” I inform him.

  “Sssh!” he says like I’m disturbing his sleep.

  And I find myself silently cursing because I don’t do overnights, but…I like the feel of him. The hair on his chest and legs. The warm skin against my still hot body. Being able to sleep with a guy without having to worry about losing the wig…

  I decide to let him stay. Just for a little while, I assure myself.

  But when I wake up the next morning, he’s still there.

  And when I’m making us coffee in the kitchen, he asks, “So, when are we going on that date?”

  4

  The Tender Trap

  We spend the whole morning going back and forth about the date I supposedly owe him. My argument, of course, is the omelet at my place was the date—because, c’mon, it was. But Jake insists it wasn’t because we didn’t order any food, and he didn’t take me anywhere but home.

  His voice gets further away from the kitchen doorway. “I’m taking out my phone to figure this out…all right, got it: Date,” he reads aloud as his voice returns to the kitchen’s open doorway. “A social or romantic appointment or engagement. Last night wasn’t either of those.”

  “It was social! We talked,” I insist, placing the cup of coffee I made him on the sliver of tile Naima had the nerve to call counter space when she helped me set up the kitchen.

  “Yeah, for like five minutes and then you jumped on top of me—you call that a date? Wasn’t romantic neither.” He takes the coffee from me with a chuff. “I think you can do better than that, Reynolds.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, honestly alarmed, because, “You gave me your lawyer, and I gave you what you wanted from me. Now you can cross me off your list.”

  I hear the slurp of his first sip of coffee before he demands, “What list?”

  “You know, your bang list. A blind girl’s probably worth like 10 or 15 points.”

  Silence…then the muted clink of ceramic being placed back on the counter. The next thing I know, Jake’s right in front of me, his voice low and intense as he says, “You’ve either got real low self-esteem or accidentally hooked up with one of those douchebags who has a bang list.”

  He gets his answer in my silence.

  “Ah, hell,” he says. “Was he rich?”

  More silence. Because this is not a look I like on myself, and I much preferred it when he thought I just didn’t like rich kids for the usual buncha-self-entitled-assholes reason.

  But Jake keeps on pressing. “Was he Italian? Tell me he wasn’t Italian.”

  “I don’t date Italians,” I remind him.

  “So, he was rich but not Italian. Thank fuck. Like I need another thing working against me with you.” He kisses me on the forehead like that’s all settled, and says, “Alright, we can talk about the rest over breakfast.”

  “I’m not going to breakfast with you.”

  “You wanna make it here? That’s cool. Could go for another one of those omelets…”

  “Sorry, I used all my eggs yesterday—you know, for our dinner date.”

  “But see, that wasn’t a date.”

  We end up arguing about this over breakfast at Tom’s Restaurant, which Talia told me is an iconic diner because it was the setting for some TV show I’ve never seen and some song I’ve never heard from back in the 90s. And we keep arguing about whether last night was a date or not as we walk to school.

  We talk about other stuff, too. Like my hopes and dreams and why I signed up for the extra hard grind of getting a law degree with a severe visual impairment. Which is kind of weird, because guys ask me out all the time, but usually they’re more interested in talking about themselves and their ambitions than mine. And you’d think somebody who’s pursuing a combo degree in both business and law would be especially all about himself. But Jake seems genuinely interested when I tell him the story about how I found myself doing more and more advocation work for other impaired students at Hamilton…

  “Until one day I just realized that I cared more about getting them justice than finishing my Education major and becoming a teacher. So I asked my friend Naima to help me apply to a few schools, and here I am.”

  “Good choice. Law school’s a lot better fit for you than teaching,” he says.

  “It totally is. I mean, I want to help people. That’s very important to me, but teaching requires a lot of patience and understanding, and my personality is…” I search for the words.

  “Kinda prickly,” he supplies, his voice more amused than annoyed.

  And here come those butterflies again, because, “Most guys who successfully ask me out don’t like that my insides aren’t as pretty as my outside.”

  “Yeah, those poor non-Italians can be pussies when it comes to dating a woman with a real personality.”

  I don’t laugh. But I kind of want to. Again. And that makes the butterflies even worse.

  We part ways outside of Greene Hall soon after. But when I leave my Civil Rights Lawyering in the Modern Era seminar at 8:30 P.M., the first thing I smell is his cologne. He’s there, waiting outside the door.

  “So, what you wanna do?” he asks. “Go to your place for dinner or get that date you owe me out of the way?”

  In the months that follow, we argue about whether I still owe him a date over several meals—at my place and out and about in the city. During the intermissions of the special TDF Accessibility Broadway show performances which I try to attend at least once or twice a month. While he’s hanging spare suits in my closet, so he doesn’t have to schlep over to his Upper East Side condo to get dressed for class every morning.

  Sometimes he even brings it up when we’re trying to decide what music to play via the Jawbone Jambox Wireless Bluetooth Speaker he gifted me early on in our relationship—“just because, Reynolds, don’t make it a big deal.” He likes Sinatra, like all day and every day, while I usually listen to current music made by people who aren’t dead. “We should go to a jazz bar on that date you owe me,” he argues like he’s poking me. “Then you’d learn to have some appreciation for the greats.”

  In late April when we make the rounds of all the end-of-the-school-year parties together, we drag our fellow law students into the argument, asking them to take a side. Only to band together against the one classmate who points out, “Um, aren’t you pretty much already dating? What does it matter?”

  Okay, it matters. Yeah, maybe we are kind of together. Like, technically. But keep in mind, Talia, my best friend go-to guide, is currently planning the wedding of the decade. So, I guess you could sort of call Jake a fill-in. Who I happen to have sex with—lots and lots of incredibly hot, soul-shaking sex.

  Plus he’s never kept his promise to let me be in control when we have sex, even though he’d said, “Next time.” According to him, he meant next time after our date. Which I don’t owe him, so cue another argument whenever I try to get on top.

  Though the arguments have lessened as the weeks have gone by. I don’t want to say Jake has tamed me. It’s more like I feel a little less prickly every week I spend with him. I mean, he’s all right. He’s always doing stuff he doesn’t have to do for me, like coming over to my place to study, even if it’s for a class we’re not in together. Like, just in case I need anything. He’s great at navigation and listens to the specially trained narrator at the Broadway shows we go to so he can get better at describi
ng things. He says it’s a useful skill for a lawyer to have, but still…it warms my heart more than I’m comfortable with, and I can’t say I don’t enjoy spending time with him. Also, he’s the only guy I know who always does the dishes without being asked.

  He can be so stubborn and irritating. I almost never laugh at any of his jokes, but it feels like I’m always smiling whenever we talk.

  I mean, we’re not officially together. We haven’t had any conversations about it or changed our Facebook statuses or anything like that. It’s just that we’re always, like, not not together. To the point that when we attend the b-school’s end of the school year party, one of his classmates asks Jake, “You and your girlfriend have plans for the summer?”

  Jake answers, “Haven’t decided yet. I have to take a few more summer classes to finish my business degree, and Amber has to start studying for the bar after she’s done with her final exams. What’re you and Heather doing?”

  “Why didn’t you correct that guy when he called me your girlfriend?” I ask later when we’re walking back to my place on what feels and smells like a beautiful spring New York City evening. Warm flower-scented air with cool breezes carrying faint whiffs of concrete and pee.

  “Because that would’ve been stupid,” Jake answers.

  So I guess I’m his girlfriend now? I write to Talia the next afternoon. Jake goes down to New Jersey to spend every Sunday with his parents and their large extended family, so he’s not there to overhear.

  Even though it’s late at night on her side of the world, the voiceover on my computer notifies me I have a reply message, like, seconds later.

  Of course, you’re his girlfriend! He’s over there all the time. He’s probably over there now!

  Yeah, all the time except now. He spends Sundays with his family.

  Have you met them yet?

  No!

  That’s weird.

  Not really. Jake and I talk a lot. But not about our families. And not about my past. Which I’m totally fine with. Saves me the trouble of an awkward conversation where I have to claim I don’t talk about my family or my past because I’m still so traumatized by the car accident. Almost the truth, but not quite, and another consequence of inadvertently becoming his girlfriend—I’ve been feeling worse and worse about lying to him.