The Arrangement Anthology (83 page)

Kissing the side of my face, he asks, “Are you all right?”

I don’t answer. Instead I say, “Untie me.”

Sean swallows so hard that I can hear it. He’s worried about me. Maybe he thinks that I’m going to run
, or that my face is covered in tears and that I hated it. Either way, he frees me. I roll over and get up on my knees and look into his eyes. God, those beautiful, haunted eyes, are so worried. I press my palm to his bare chest and shove him back into the bed. “I can’t believe you did that.”

He
avoids my gaze. “Avery, I’m sorry. I thought—”

I smile down at him. “And I can’t believe I liked it. Next time you want me that way, you don’t have to ask. I trust you, baby. I want to be with you
, anyway you want.”

He tries not to smile and it’s the sweetest look I’ve ever seen on his face. “So
, what now?”

“Now, I get what I want, because I’m a very good, bad girl.”

The corners of Sean’s lips pull up. “Yes, ma’am.”

After a quick shower, I ride Sean until I can’t sit up anymore. That might not sound romantic, but it’s what we needed. Sometimes life is rough and rough sex follows. Sean has claw marks down his chest and I nipped his nipple a little too hard. He’s started calling me a vampire because I like to bite.

I’m laying naked in the bed, tangled in the sheets
, watching him. I’m so tired, and feel so sated, that it’s hard to keep my eyes open. I don’t know how he sits there, working. There’s a little desk, and he pulled out a laptop, and he’s researching something. I watch him from behind lazy eyes, in his jeans and bare chest.

He must feel my eyes on his back, because he turns and looks at me. “Go to sleep,
Stanz.”

I pat the empty space next to me.
“Come sleep with me, Ferro. Like actual sleep, not sexy sleep.” I grin at him.

Sean watches me for half a beat, like he’s considering it, but doesn’t move.
“I can’t. I have to do this.”

“Do it later.”

He’s typing, not looking at me. “But I want to do you later.”

“So, you’re boycotting sleep, now?”
I push up on my elbow, and the sheet falls away revealing my breasts.

Sean glances at me and then sighs, before walking over to the bed and sit
ting next to me. He traces the pad of his finger along my breast, tracing the slope to the nipple. He smiles like he shouldn’t and pulls up the blankets, before leaning back against the headboard. Sean strokes the hair away from my face, gently repeating the movement over and over again.

He looks out the window and then down at me.
“I’ve never slept much, my love.” He smiles sadly and kisses my forehead. “It’s all right. You rest. I have plans for later.”

I don’t argue, mainly because his touch has put me in a coma.
As my eyelids flutter, he smiles at me. I feel happy even though the day was horrendous, because I can see the affection in his eyes. Sean isn’t hiding from me at the moment, and I hope he trusts me enough to stay that way.

By the time I wake up, it’s nightfall. Sean is standing in front of the huge glass window, fully dressed in tight jeans and a black sweater with those shitkicker boots, and his hands held behind his back. I watch him from my pillow, wondering what he’s thinking about. Before I can move, he turns and looks at me. God, his face is beautiful. I smile at him, still groggy from sleep.

“Hey,” I say, feeling a little ashamed of what we did
, now that I can think more clearly. I pull the sheets with me as I sit up and pull my knees into my chest. My body is sore, but in a good way. The thought makes me think of Sean behind me, pushing into me, and the fact that I pushed back.

Sean speaks before the burn
of embarrassment spreads across my cheeks. “Don’t belittle yourself for what you enjoy.” He stands in front of the glass with the inky sky and a spattering of stars behind him. Moonlight fills the window, giving Sean a faint halo. He always sounds so composed, so certain of who he is and what he wants.

I’m not like that.
I haven’t had the luxury to experiment and live the life that I’d wanted, but things shifted somewhere and now I’m here with this man. I’m too nervous to look at him, but I force my gaze up anyway. “How’d you react after you did something you thought you’d never do? Especially when you realized that you liked it?”

Sean slips his hands into his pockets and studies me. “How many lines did we cross, Avery?”

I smile weakly at him and wonder if he’s going to dodge my question. “Several. I had a picture in my head of the way things would be, and this wasn’t it. It’s more savage and I’m shocked at myself, and maybe a little disturbed. What does it mean that I like to be tied up even though it scares the hell out of me? What does it mean that I like to scratch and bite you so hard that you bleed? Sean…” I shake my head. I don’t want to continue the thought because I don’t like the dark places it’s leading.

Sean looks out the window again and then takes a steadying breath. “Things for me were probably the way you pictured your
future. I had my wife, we were together in civilized ways, and then she was gone. It felt—” His voice becomes so tense that his words are choked off. Sean glances at me from under those dark lashes. “I crossed so many lines that there was no way back after that. An honest man doesn’t use hookers. A good man doesn’t overpower them and force them to his whims. I did. I learned how to pinpoint their fears and feed them so they were terrified of me.” He’s breathing hard, watching me, and I know he’s thinking about something specific. The way his eyes travel over my body tells me that he never finished what he wanted to do with me.

My heart pounds harder and I no longer feel ashamed, but he’s right. Once the line is crossed, there’s no going back. I know what I like and even if I don’t want to admit it to myself, I know I want him to do things to me—things that frighten me.
“You’re not done with me, like that, are you?”

He holds my gaze and shakes his head. “I want to be done with it, but it’s still the
re. I still picture doing things to you.” He tears his eyes away and looks back out the window. His lungs fill with air and it makes his body swell. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He whirls around and gives me a quizzical look. I shrug and say awkwardly, “I kind of like it.” I’m afraid of what he’ll think of me, because I hate this. It’s not normal to want to be used and taken that way, but I do
—if Sean is the one doing the taking.

“Avery, you don’t have to pretend to—”

“I’m not. Why do you think I’m freaked out right now? Everything you’ve done has thrown me off kilter, and instead of running the other way, I want more. What kind of screwed up person wants more?” I’m nearly in tears, because I know what this means. I’ve read my textbooks, I’ve studied. We’re both totally fucked up and it’s the blind leading the blind. We’re both going to fall down a hole.

Sean starts laughing
, and at first I’m horrified that he’s laughing at me. When he gets to the bed, he rips away the sheets and pulls me to my feet and walks me to the window. I stumble along, letting him lead me, worried that his neighbors will see my naked body. Sean pulls me in front of him and then does the last thing I expect and pushes against my back, forcing my skin to the glass.

I gasp and try to shrink back, but he holds me there and whispers in my ear. “How does it feel?”
My heart is pounding, my nipples pucker from the cold, and I feel like I’m being displayed like a piece of meat. He presses his hips against my back letting me feel how ready he is. “Answer me, Avery. Tell me if you like this or not.”

Swallowing hard, I look over my shoulder at him, and nod. “It’s cold and wrong, and if you fucked me
against the glass, I’d come in a second because we shouldn’t do it—but I like it.”

“Is that so?”

I nod again and try to wiggle away from him. My boobs are going to be frozen solid, plus I’m pretty sure I see people down there. “Sean?”

He doesn’t release me. Instead he holds me in place, revealing every last inch of me to whoever is walking below. His lips find my neck and my tension eases. He whispers, “You want this, don’t you? You want me to pin you to the glass and fuck you until you fall to your knees.” I nod, but refuse to think
about the repercussions, which Sean likes. “Don’t think, just feel, Avery. Do what feels right and if this feels right, do it.”

Before I can speak, he has
his pants undone and I feel his hot dick slide across my backside before he shifts my hips and forces himself inside my wet folds. Sean has me on display as he pounds into me, harder and faster, while pressing me to the glass. His hands tangle in my hair and pull it back, so I’m looking up at the sky. Coils of lust build deep within me and travel through my body, making me gasp and beg for more. He pulls my hair harder and pushes deeper, forcing my climax to erupt in vocalized pleasure. I claw at the glass as my body clutches and releases Sean’s girth over and over again.

I’m breathing so hard
, and am still so enraptured, that I don’t realize what I’m seeing at first. After a few steadying breaths, Sean pulls out and zips up. He keeps me pressed to the glass, he’s not done with me yet, but the figure below is watching. “Sean?”

“
Mmm?” His lips are on my neck with his body pressed firmly to mine.

“Someone’s there.”

Sean doesn’t move. He stays there like he doesn’t think anything is wrong, but the way his body tenses tells me that no one should be anywhere near here. “Can you see his face?”

“No, he’s dressed in
a dark coat and standing toward the tree line. I saw something flash a second ago, like a piece of crystal or something, and…”

Before I can finish talking, Sean jerks me away from the window and to the floor. I don’t understand what’s happening or why he di
d it until a loud noise bursts through the room. A scream rips from my throat at the same time that Sean throws himself over me, and the floor-to-ceiling glass window explodes into a million pieces.

THE ARRANGEMENT
VOL 13

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THE PROPOSITION

                
Bryan Ferro

THE PROPOSITION

Vol. 1

The sky is clear except for a few white glittering stars. They’re hung high out of reach, impossibly beautiful and distant. The air has that crisp fall scent, and I know there will be frost tonight. Dad would have covered his plants with plastic to get a few more weeks from their fragile lives. The tarp is in the basement, still folded, where he kept it. The pansies will freeze and fade. This is their last night in this house, as it is mine.

Pushing the swing on the back porch with the tip of my foot, I start it swaying again. Life is so fleeting, so meaningless. The hole that’s swallowing me is relentless. I thought I’d cry more, but I haven’t even been able to do that. The tears won’t fall. Neil says it’s because my father’s death hasn’t hit me yet, but it has. The weight of his loss is pressing so hard on my shoulders that I can’t lift my face from the dirt. For all those years,
it was just the two of us. He was always there for me. He saved me from incomprehensible misery and now that he’s gone, I find myself back in the shallows, unable to escape.

My eyes sweep over the wooden fence, taking in the rotten boards. Things were tight and I knew Dad sacrificed for me, I just had no idea how much until now. My college bills, my car, and all the things I needed were paid for without a blink, but I never stopped to wonder where the money came from. Dad worked hard, so I assumed it was enough.

I was wrong.

     
There hasn’t been enough for a long time, and I had no idea. He never said anything. When I came home from classes at the end of the day, he’d hand me a twenty and tell me to be a kid and go have fun. He said stuff like that all the time. It makes me wonder if he knew what was coming, but there’s no way he foresaw this.

When I came home from class last week, I found him in the yard, face down in a pile of leaves. My throat tightens and I push away the memory. It’s not something that I ever want to see again, but it lights up over and over again. My senses are overloaded. I can
still feel Dad’s cold skin and the weight of his lifeless body as I rolled him over. The texture of his tattered flannel jacket is still on my fingertips. The sound of my strangled voice crying out his name over and over again still rings in my ears. I never felt so afraid. For the first time in a long time, I am alone.

My phone is on the wooden swing and chirps next to me. I don’t feel like talking. Silence has encased me inside a tomb of misery since that day. Neil stood next to me and held my hand until hours blurred into days. Neil didn’t want to leave me alone here tonight, but I insisted. It’s my last night in this house. I’ll never step over the threshold again. I’ll never catch the scent of my father’s aftershave in his little bathroom. All the memories will be lost and it will be like he never existed.

The Story of Bryan Ferro