Page 60 of Was I Ever Free

I don’t even feel the orgasm coming, it surges like a deadly tide, like the air has been sucked out of the room one minute and then launched into space the next. I stop moving entirely, sinking as deep as I can onto Bastian, my nails digging into the skin of his thighs.

He groans behind me, his forehead falling between my shoulder blades, “Fuck, you’re going to make me come, you’re squeezing me so fucking tight.” Before I even know what’s happening, he pulls me off of him and spins me around, my back bouncing on the mattress, as he lets me fall onto the bed. He kicks off his jeans, now fully naked, and brackets my body with his, his cock thrusting back where it belongs in a matter of seconds. His hips slam into mine, I can’t comprehend how my body already wantsmore, more, more.My nails create divots into his back, as I breathe outharder, harder,and he complies, his balls slapping against heightened sensitive skin, his piercing rubbing against my clit, leaving me craving everything he can possibly give me.

The groan Bastian makes when he comes inside of me is nearly angelic. It suddenly makes me wish I could sink to my knees every morning and worship, just so I can hear it again and again. His head falls into the crook of my shoulder, his breath choppy and erratic. We lay still for a beat, as he catches his breath, and I, in turn, try to catch every detail of this moment so I can imprint it in my mind forever.

Finally, Bastian pushes himself off the bed, his hand stroking my warm cheek as he stands up, and then snaps his fingers. “Clean her up, and make her come one last time before you leave,” he says so offhandedly that at first, I don’t even know who he is talking to until I remember poor Barker still kneeling on the ground.

He stands up, a grin forming over his bruised face. “My pleasure.”

“Wait—I… I don’t think I can come again, I’m too sensitive,” I answer truthfully, and maybe a little sheepishly.

Bastian softens when he looks down, but his voice is still smoldering when he rasps, “You can, and you will. Let’s give our boy his treat, yeah?”

I can feel my nipples tighten at the thought, Bastian somehow tapping into an insatiable part of my psyche.Our boy.

I fall even deeper into the chasm of my desires and lean back into the pillows, opening my legs for Barker. He’s eager as ever, but this time one thing is different. I can feel Bastian’s release dripping out of me, and it only seems to spur him on even more, dragging two fingers in it, smearing it all over my clit, and then slowly pushing them inside of me.

Barker’s chuckle is wicked when he hears the moan his actions create. Bending down, he circles my clit with his tongue. My first instinct is to close my eyes, but instead, I find Bastian’s gaze, sitting in the chair, dragged back into the corner of the room. His jeans are back on but unbuttoned, watching me steadily as Barker goes down on me. I am so sensitive that it doesn’t take long for me to come, this time it arrives hard and disappears fast, my eyes never leaving Bastian’s proud gaze.

It only takes me a few seconds to crash, my eyes suddenly hard to keep open, as I hear Barker stand up from the bed. Bastian stands up and meets Barker halfway. They talk in low hushed voices, Bastian sliding his hand over Barker’s shoulder, then down to his arm, giving it a soft squeeze, and a slow grin. When I hear the door open and close, my mind starts to drift, and by the time Bastian finds me in bed, I’m falling asleep. Still, I’m conscious enough to feel the warm towel against my thighs as Bastian cleans me up. The last thing I remember is his arms around my waist pulling me into him.

31

Pushing off the desk, the computer chair rolls under me, and I let out a long exhale. Rubbing my eyes, I stretch my neck from right to left, stand up, and grab my phone, shooting Kenzie a quick text. I leave the surveillance room, my mind calm after hours of coding but the rest of me is still wired from last night.

Lucy was still sleeping when I left the room this morning. I kept her close and in my arms all night, the rules I first made up on a fucking whim in a strip club parking lot not feeling all that vital anymore. We’re beyond them, washed up ashore somewhere in the middle of a whole new fucking reality.

I don’t know what any of it means. I just know that when this road trip ends, we both won’t be the same people who met outside of her building on a sunny Noxport morning.

But this isn’t love. Because love hurts, and well—this is the opposite of that.

I’m restless to get back to her, to look into her eyes and see what new part of her blossomed last night, like the rarest flower discovered on a snowy hilltop.

Pushing the exit door, I walk out, fishing out my pack of cigarettes from my pocket, the sun making me squint. Taking a long drag, I press a palm against one eye as I head toward the garage knowing I’ll find Kenzie working on his bike. When I get there, he’s outside sitting on a dilapidated couch near the huge open garage doors, the trill of machinery emanating from inside.

I sit on the couch with him, neither of us saying a word while we each finish our smokes.

“I’m done. Everything is recoded,” I finally say as I peer at him from the corner of my eye. “It’ll be nearly impossible to hack into and take someone way smarter than me to decrypt. You know how hard those are to come by,” I add while flicking my cigarette further out into the yard.

Kenzie chuckles beside me, most likely about my last comment, but he knows I’m right so he doesn't bother contradicting me. Instead, he changes the subject completely.

“Are you going to tell me the truth about the bird?” he says with a smirk.

“What’s to tell?” I answer out of defensive reflex.

“You’re off your head if you think I’ll believe that lie, pal,” he says in jest, but I still pick up on the hard edge of his words and know he won’t put up with my shit for much longer if I keep this up. I smooth a hand over my mouth while I think, not sure how to even approach the subject.

My feelings for Lucy are like a tangled web, and for an unexplainable reason, they’re starting to feel like they stretch much further out than the three weeks we’ve been together on this road trip. Maybe because it’s Kenzie, one of the only people in my life who I know listens when I speak that I decide to lead with the unexplainable first.

“Sometimes, when I’m with her, I feel like I’ve done all this before,” I mutter.

Kenzie leans his forearms on his thighs, turning his head to look at me directly. “What have you done before?” he questions seriously.

I bite the inside of my cheek, thinking about how to answer before speaking again. “You remember when I got clean?”

His laugh is dry. “How can I forget?”

My throat grows tight, and I tensely pull out another cigarette, offering one to Kenzie but he waves me off. I focus on the flick of the lighter, the blaze of the flame, followed by the crackle of the burning cigarette before I figure out how to continue. “I have this notebook. Used to write in it a lot after my last overdose. Most of the pages are just filled with random objects. Never thought much of it. Never made any sense. The shit I wrote was so random that I’ve managed to convince myself that it was just remnants of my doped-up brain,” I pause, knowing I must be rambling, while I take a slow drag, rubbing my forehead with the back of my thumb, suddenly incapable of looking Kenzie in the eye, before saying, “Until this road trip with Lucy started… then, well some of the shit on that list started showing up in real life. All of it feels vaguely familiar and I’m probably just crazy.” I let out a small dry laugh. “But I can’t seem to shake the feeling.”

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