Robin York - Deeper

It’s torture. The worst best torture of my life.

This is what deeper feels like.

This is what sex feels like, if you’re doing it right.

If you’re in love.

It’s incredible.

I frame her face between my palms, smooth her hair off her forehead. “You okay?”

I thought this couldn’t get better, but it does when she smiles. And when she moves, rocking her hips experimentally into me, then back away—Christ Jesus. I suck in a breath and close my eyes.

“I’m great.”

“Good.”

I’m not ready to move yet. I’ve been told I have amazing stamina, but it’s obvious now that this is only true when I don’t give a shit. With Caroline, I’m going to have to work hard just to not be the king of the premature ejaculators.

“West?”

She rocks again.

“Hunh?”

“Are you going to fuck me or what?”

“I ever tell you I don’t like bossy women?”

She slithers away beneath me, then thrusts up. Her mouth falls open in a soft O. Then she smiles and looks at me, like, I’m such a genius.

She does it again. “You—oh—like me, though—oh my God.”

Whatever tiny piece of control I was holding on to, I lose it. I start to move, and she’s right with me. I suck her tits, kiss her neck, behind her ear, everyplace she likes. I drive into her, savoring every stroke, the tight clasp of her cunt, the way she moans, the slide of our bodies, the sex stink better than any perfume, the taste of sweat at her throat.

“Can you come like this?” I ask.

“I don’t … know.”

I get a hand under her ass, angle her up. She squeaks.

“Better?”

“Oh, wow.” After a few seconds, she says, “Harder.”

Music to my ears.

I speed up, stop banking my thrusts, let her have more of my need, more of my greed, and she takes it. She wants it. She gets her legs around me, digs her heels into me on every stroke, lifts up into me, and says, “West, yeah, oh, God.” I didn’t think she’d be like this, this open, this loud, but she is and I love it.

“This gonna work?”

I don’t have to ask, though. She’s tossing her head, heels back on the bed, digging in, getting restless and desperate. “Please,” she says. “Please.”

She always begs me when she’s about to come. I love that, too. I love making her so crazy that she loses her pride and just begs.

“So fucking sexy.”

Then we’re moving fast and frantic, and I don’t have any way to describe it that’s worth anything. I push into her until there’s nowhere to get to, until I’ve already got there, and there’s no her or me, just us, our bodies, our heat, this gathering pleasure white-hot and dangerous, too dangerous, but I don’t care. I can’t think.

I can only move with Caroline, deep, deeper, all the way toward the center of something bigger than either of us.

She tightens. I groan. She grips me. I kiss her.

She moans and her voice breaks, a beautiful cracked-open sound. My balls tighten, the joy searing through me, her eyes closing, her arms clenching, my heart open as I watch her light up with pleasure.

We got five weeks.

I’d teased West for counting the days of our separation, even though I spent them dragging around, doubting myself, wrecked with missing him. But when we were together—the last two weeks of February, the first three weeks of March—it was so good that every day felt like an anniversary. Every day felt special, worth pressing into a scrapbook, sealing in amber, tucking away.

Nights at the bakery. Showers at the apartment, a snack in the quiet kitchen, trying not to wake Krishna, laughing behind my hand. Mornings in West’s bed, hands and mouths and the slow, beautiful rhythm of his body rocking into mine.

The way he moves has always made me crazy, but there is nothing like the way he moves inside me. Nothing.

I didn’t know it could be like that. So dirty and so good. So gorgeous and perfect.

For five weeks, we were always together. I went back to my vampire schedule, napping in the afternoons, waking up in the middle of the night and meeting him at the bakery for his shifts. I studied at the library when he was working there, set myself up in a carrel on the fourth floor and waited in the quiet for him to find a cart of journals that needed shelving. I pushed my fingers into his hair when he dropped to his knees beneath my chair, bit my thumb to keep from crying out, came against his fingers and his tongue, scandalous and forbidden and happy.

He kissed me in the dining hall. I took his hand when we walked across the quad. We raced each other down the train tracks, one on each rail, balancing with our arms out, pushing at each other’s hands to see who could stay on the longest, who would fall off, who would win.

Those were the best weeks. In the dead of February, the frozen cold, I had West, and we were beautiful and bright, friends and lovers, laughing all the time. Laughing until my cheeks ached and my stomach hurt and I had to ask him to stop, because it was so good, it hurt.

I loved him.

I didn’t tell him, but it was obvious. Obvious to me, obvious to West.

Obvious to anyone who was paying attention.

West is sitting on the edge of the mattress, bent over his phone. He’s got an eight o’clock. I don’t have to be up for another hour, but I’m up anyway. West had ideas.

Or, okay, West’s penis had ideas. I woke up to his mouth on my neck, his hand heavy and hot against my stomach, his erection pressing against my ass.

“Good morning?” I said. Because I wasn’t all that sure. That it was good, or that it was even morning.

“Mmm.”

That was pretty much all it took to convince me. He has this way of humming under his breath, this low, delicious sound that vibrates right up against my clit. It’s so sexy. It’s so West. One mmm, and I’m in.

I mean, what’s there to complain about when you’re with a guy who’s gorgeous and nice and who wakes you up with the slow, inexorable press of his fingers into your panties, parting your folds, sliding over your clit and inside you?

Nothing.

He got me breathing heavy, flipped me over, eased a pillow under my stomach, and moved into me from behind, his hand at my clit, kissing my neck, my shoulders, until I came so hard I saw stars.

After he was done collapsing on top of me like a giant slug-man, he took a shower, so now he smells like soap, wet hair, West. I’m still all snuggly and sex-relaxed, and he’s whistling, rubbing my bare leg, scrolling through a bunch of texts.

“Who wrote to you?”

“Franks.”

“What’s she up to?”

“She got on Mom’s phone and sent me a whole bunch of selfies.”

“Let me see.”

I crawl half onto his lap, and he shows me. “She’s so cute.”

She looks a lot like him—West with round cheeks and a sharp chin, eye makeup, and a sparkly shirt. She’s in love with taking selfies, too. I’ve seen probably thirty of them in the past three weeks, because West has been as open as he promised to be. He told me all about Frankie, about his mom and Bo, about his dad.

There are some things he’s holding back, I think. Something about sex, about that money I dropped in his lap. But I know enough. I don’t need to know absolutely everything to understand what makes West tick.

Sometimes I think about what life gave me compared to what it’s given him, how hard he works, and I get so angry. He doesn’t like to talk about fairness and unfairness, though, or to dwell on the gap between how we grew up.

“It is what it is,” he said last time I brought it up. “You hungry?”

He says now, “She’s got all that crap on her eyes.”

“It’s called eye makeup.” I peer at the phone. “Actually, that’s a good nighttime eye. I can never get my eyeliner to look that awesome.”

“You don’t wear that stuff.”

“Not for everyday, but sometimes if there’s a party or whatever.”

He frowns at the pictures. “She’s too young.”

“She’s just trying it out. I was the same at her age. In a big hurry for bras and lipstick, all that stuff.”

“Yeah, but I doubt you had anybody sniffing after you in Ankeny. It’s different with Franks. She’s got to be smart, or some useless jag-off will get her knocked up before she’s even old enough to know what she wants yet.”

I watch him type out a text. Wash that shit off your eyes. You’re pretty enough without it.

“Heartwarming.”

“I’m her brother, not her boyfriend.”

He’s more like her father, though, I think. The closest thing she has to one.

Standing up, West stretches and drops his phone on the desk. “Can you hand me mine?” I ask. “I need to see if Bridge is going to breakfast before class.”

He does, then pulls on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. I watch his bare chest and stomach disappear from view, sad as always to see them go.

West is smiling when I glance at his face. “What?”

“You. You look like you’re ready to go another round.”

I swipe my finger over the screen of the phone. “I was barely awake for round one.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You woke up pretty good by the end. I thought I was gonna have to shove a pillow over your head, keep you from waking up Krish.”

“You’d probably accidentally suffocate me, you were so busy back there doing your business.”

“Doing my business?” He sounds offended. I love offending him.

“You know.” I stare at my phone, flapping a hand at him. “That man-business. Thrust thrust, pant pant. I swear, sometimes I’m not sure why I put up with it.”

I barely see him coming before he’s grabbing my ankle and yanking me down the bed. I’m all tangled up in the covers, thrashing and laughing, when he crawls on top of me and braces his arms on either side of my head. “Thrust thrust, pant pant? I should spank your ass for that.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

His eyes are blazing. “So would I. But I’m gonna be late for class.” He dips his head and kisses me. “You coming to the library later?”

“Yeah, but I have a group-project thing after lunch, so I’ll be downstairs.”

“Come up after.”

He means the fourth floor. Our floor.

I swear, we’re going to get caught, and then he’ll get fired.

He says it’ll be worth it.

“Sure.”

One more kiss, with tongue, a bump against my hip that’s a hint and a promise, and then he’s moving away. He shoulders his bag as I navigate from texts to missed calls.

I’ve got a bunch. I had the ringer off last night, my phone deep in my bag, and I didn’t realize.

They’re all from my dad.

“See you later, babe.”

One at nine o’clock last night. One at nine-thirty. One at ten. Ten-fifteen. Eleven-thirty. Six o’clock this morning.

My stomach sinks like a rock.

“What’s a guy have to do to get his woman to say goodbye around here?”

I look up. West is leaning in the doorway, hand braced against the jamb.

“My dad called six times last night.”

“That’s—that sounds excessive.”

“Yeah.”

Bad news, cunt, the Internet Asshats whisper.

I’d almost forgotten about them. I’d let myself forget. Let myself pretend.

Not ready to listen to Dad’s voice mail, I switch to email. Fifty new messages. I scroll through the list, seeing strange email addresses and threatening subject lines.

Seeing my dad’s name. Call Me. Urgent Matter.

An email from my sister Janelle. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.

I don’t click on any of them.

I open the web browser and type in my name.

Caroline Piasecki. Advanced search. Limit to last twenty-four hours.

So many hits. All the worst sites. All the same pictures, all over again.

This isn’t supposed to be happening, but it is.

West is behind me, hands on my shoulders. The phone’s hidden from view by the fall of my hair, and I wish I had something better to hide behind. Some place, some world where I could take him, where everything wasn’t already being ruined.

“It’s bad,” he says.

It’s not a question. He can feel it. He knows.

“Yeah. It’s bad.”

But after that, it only gets worse.