My eyes peruse his chest, and it’s amazing. Flawless. Cut. “I don’t need any help. You dared me to chase you, so…”
“You win.” His blue eyes study me, his thick brows tugging together as his features shift into an expression I can’t read.
“Are you going swimming?” I ask.
“Is there some reason you care?”
His derisive tone makes my chest tighten. “Is there a reason that you have to be an asshole?”
He lifts a brow.
“Don’t give me that crap. I’m just trying to be nice to you.”
His face tightens. “Tell me, Marley, why we need to interact at all.”
“You just egged me on to chase you. Pick one, Gabe!”
He nods. “Go, then. I pick go.”
“Or what?” I can’t resist. “You’ll run?”
Gabe’s eyes harden. I can feel his words before they leave his mouth. “That’s your job, don’t you think?”
“If your job is to be the stonewall, sure, I’ll be the runner. Someone has to do something! We can’t all just zone out when things get hard.”
His gaze rolls down me, then back up—a cool assessment. “Why don’t you get moving, Marley?”
“I don’t want to do this with you. It’s been years, and—”
“Don’t then.”
I swallow, horrified to find my eyes are watering. I can’t look at him another second, so I whirl around and go.
A moment later, I hear a disturbance in the brush, so loud I turn around—and find Gabe gone.
I walk back toward where he was standing. On a whim, I part the limbs and leaves and look down at the lake. I see the moment that he hits the water. I guess he dove off the cliffs, because he goes in neatly, head first: there one second, gone the next.
6
Gabe
My drinking started during senior year. I had this idea that if I applied to enough colleges, I would get a full ride to at least one of them. I figured my best shot would be to get accepted to a writing program. That meant I needed to write a fuck ton of essays, poems, and reports. So I started early. Months early, in fact, so I could polish every page and edit every line. The problem was, I wrote everything on a piece of shit laptop I bought at the second-hand store.
By November, I’d stockpiled twelve essays, a handful of poems, and three reports, and was working on a personal essay—ironically, about being raised by a drunk—when the computer crashed. Dead. Gone.
I picked it up, thinking I would hurl it at the wall. But Dad was sleeping in the den. Fuck knew, I didn’t want to wake him. I ran around the block once, barely able to keep a scream inside my throat. Then I walked to the corner store, where I’d been buying my old man scotch for most of my life, and got a handle for myself.
The next day, I rented a computer from the library and started my work over. But once every few weeks, when I had a shit day, I’d pour a few fingers into a plastic cup and drink it standing in the backyard, looking at the stars.
As it happened, no school offered me tuition, room, and board. I got offers for tuition from a bunch of places, so I chose the three I liked the best and deferred the offers for a year. By the time a group of kids from my class headed out to Vegas for a senior trip, I’d already learned to count cards and rented a hovel apartment.
The ceiling in Fendall House always takes me back there, to that studio apartment; it had the same exact one. And how apropos that it’s Marley’s footsteps drawing my eyes to it.
I’m lying on the bed, fucking around on my phone after an evening run, when I her the rumble of her footsteps over my head. Getting home from work, I think.
It’s been coming up on a week since our encounter at the cemetery. Since I lost my fucking mind and encouraged her to chase me. I was going to jump right off the cliffside, but after I pulled my shirt off, I got worried Mar might somehow fall, so I hung around.
Half a second in her presence—in the presence of that lush body, those heaving breasts and piqued nipples—and I was hard as fucking rock.
What did she mean when she said she was trying to be nice to me? Does Marley fucking know? I talked to Victor, and he said he hadn’t squealed. Same with my agent. Roy assured me no one knows.
I’m not proud I made the crack about Mar running. I’m less proud that since then, I jerk off to the memory of her nipples jutting up against the shirt, to the memory of her ass in those damp leggings. I think about her wide brown eyes and smooth pink lips, and soon, my eyes are shut as I imagine pushing my hard cock between another pair of Marley’s lips.
I hear my ex-wife move around upstairs, and I imagine that she’s getting undressed. Pulling off the blouse she wore under her white coat—Jesus, Marley in a white coat with nothing but a thong on underneath…
I think about the flawless, round globes of her asscheeks. The way her breath would catch when I would ease a finger past her tight bud. Then I’d spread her legs and push my tongue into her cunt. All the groaning she would do when she was tied to our bed… The neighbors pounded on the wall a few times.
I groan now as I reach my hand into my running shorts. And then I freeze—because I hear an echo.
Holy fuck, that’s Marley making O sounds. Fucking shit—she must be in the room right over mine. I swallow as the floor creaks, and I think I hear her panting.
I tell myself I’m hearing things—no way I’d hear her panting through these floors—but Marley groans again, and my cock hardens to the point of pain.
I hear a breathy little “ahh,” and rub my palm over my head.
“Oh God…” Something grates against the floor. I hear her laugh, and cold dread washes through me. She says something, but her words are murmured.
I jump up and, with my cock jutting toward my navel, I stalk down the hall, toward the front of the house. I feel slightly ill as I yank open the curtains in the parlor, my mind already painting a truck there at the curbside.
I exhale when I find nothing. No one.
Could she be alone? Alone and—oh fuck yes. Pleasure pulses through my cock and balls, making me feel dazed and heady. I hurry back into my room, and sure enough, I hear her rhythmic little cries and moans.
“You can’t come without your little noises, can you, Marley?”
I stretch out and shut my eyes, hooking my briefs below my throbbing balls, which are now taut and drawn up.
Marley groans, and I feel pleasure burst through my whole groin. I tighten my grip on my shaft and pump a little faster, picturing her pleasure face as she pants.
I drag my tongue over her clit, and Marley’s fingers tighten in my hair…
“God!” The word is easily audible through the old hardwood.
I can tell when she’s about to come because her legs press against my ears, she starts to lift her hips, and Marley’s moans are loud and desperate.
I tilt my hand so it’s coming up against the rim of my head, tweaking just enough to hurt. Because Marley’s a virgin. God, she’s fucking tight and hot…
“Are you okay?”
“Oh yes!”