Page 11 of Possess Me! (I Want You To)

“Shit, ow.” Nowadays, unconsciously—and consciously—I was always punishing myself. In a weird way the pain made me feel better. It distracted me. A finger tapped at my shoulder and I jolted to attention, turning around swiftly, ready for attack. Fuck. Can’t believe I let my guard down! I knew better than that. If there was one thing living in the city had taught me it was to never turn my back on the crowds. Especially when I was alone.

I had no reason to fear though, apparently. The man was smiling at me, his brown eyes flashing, shaved head glistening as the sunrise caught on his dark skin in a way that made my insides flip. Cute-cute-cute.

He’s not hitting on you.

Stop it.

Well, maybe…

“You dropped this,” the man hummed, holding out his hand. And I—unthinkingly—grabbed what he was giving me without even looking, too mesmerized by the flash of his white teeth and the way he cocked his eyebrow at me.

“Thank you.” My jaw was on the floor somewhere. Damn, he was cute.

After I stared my fill, curiosity got the better of me and I glanced down to see what he’d placed gingerly inside my grip. Shit. A crisp twenty-dollar bill winked up at me. This would’ve been fucking awesome except for the fact I knew I hadn’t been carrying cash so… I glanced up to tell him the money wasn’t mine only to discover that he was long gone. I was alone again.

Weird.

My Uber arrived before I could do anything about it, so I pocketed the cash and shrugged my way into the back seat after checking that the license plate matched the app. Red roofed buildings blurred on either side of the vehicle as I pressed my cheek to the cool glass and watched the world spin by. Twice in one day something out of the ordinary had occurred.

Once was a coincidence. Twice though?

Maybe the necklace was lucky after all.

* * *

The next morning I picked my way through Violet’s last box of granola as I stared blankly at the street outside the lonely kitchen window. We lived in the busy part of downtown. Far enough away from the ocean that it took me a good fifteen minutes to jog there. I spent most of my mornings pounding across the sand and inhaling ocean-scented freedom as my bare feet tingled from the force of my steps, and the thrumming of the blood in my veins made my head blissfully blank.

Running as much as I did had the added benefit of keeping me lean and muscular. It was convenient that at least one of my forms of therapy wasn’t going to give me clogged arteries.

McDonald’s though…

Today I wasn’t at the beach. Obviously. Instead, I sat in a puddle of sunshine in our apartment as a dark oppressive cloud hung over me.

It was eleven a.m. Which was way later than I usually got up. My skin felt too tight and I could still smell the airport clinging to my body. I should be at the beach by now—self-medicating with sunshine—but I was too depressed to do anything other than shovel dry granola into my mouth and mope wearing a stolen pair of Violet’s lilac-colored silk pajamas.

When the box was nearly empty I tipped it upside down and inhaled the crumbs, choking a little when a wayward almond got caught in my throat. The next five minutes were spent regurgitating like a baby bird until my throat was clear and my eyes burned. Which was, of course, when my mother decided to call.

Again.

Shower.

I needed to shower.

Then I’d call her back.

I wasn’t procrastinating. Totally not.

The water pressure was abysmal and I tried to muster up the energy to jerk off again, hoping for a repeat of my drunken night in the hotel. To be honest, my thoughts that night had almost felt like they’d come from another person. I wasn’t normally that assertive.

Not that I was necessarily passive in bed, but I did have a preference. I liked receiving. In every definition of the word. Affection? Yes. Blowjobs? Double yes. Dirty talk? Oh, hell yeah. Dicks? Give them all to me. Seriously. The sky was the limit.

What I didn’t like was being the one in charge of what was going on. For me there was nothing less sexy than being asked what I wanted in bed. Which was why that night had been so wildly out of character for me.

My dick didn’t want to rise to the occasion, which was fair.

It probably wanted a vacation from me as much as I did. I was tired of moping too, but I had yet to discover a solution to my growing list of problems. I figured the death of my career and life savings deserved at least a few days of grieving. Not that I hadn’t already been doing that for months.

So, instead of jerking off—which is what I really wanted to do—I slapped more pink in my hair with the tinted conditioner that Violet had crafted for me. She was nice like that. She claimed pink was my color and told me having bright hair canceled out the fact I dressed like a dude-bro. I liked the pink. I also liked looking less—in her words, not mine—“straight.”

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