Best of 2017

“Nine.” His hand covers mine on his chest and he rubs his thumb along my flesh. “I took it home. Named it Wail the Quail.” We both laugh. “Wail was loud and needy. But I loved him. I’d marched my butt down to the library and checked out every book I could find on quails. I learned about their feeding, nesting, sleep habits. Everything there was to know about Wail, I made it my job to figure out.”

“That’s so sweet,” I say, leaning forward to kiss his jaw.

He’s quiet for a moment before speaking. “I loved that bird. Dad knew it.” His voice grows cold, sending shards of ice poking at me. “One day, Mom cooked a nice dinner. As we were eating, Dad not-so-kindly pointed out that we were eating Wail’s mother.”

I tense and stare at him. His eyes are clenched shut and his nostrils flare with fury. I kiss him again in hopes to calm him, but it doesn’t work. A ripple of rage quakes through him.

“When I stood from the table and told him I would not eat my pet’s mother, he threatened to murder Wail if I didn’t eat the meat. With tears in my eyes, I choked down that bird. Mom had mentally checked out, staring at her plate and not touching the meat she’d prepared.” His voice cracks which causes tears to well in my eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

He swallows. “When I finished, I went back to my room. I’d felt so guilty and wanted to apologize to my bird but…”

My heart pounds in my chest. “What?”

“He wasn’t there,” he chokes out. “Wail was gone.”

A tear leaks out of my eye and I sit up. My palm strokes his stubbly cheek. “Where did he go?”

His eyes are hard when they meet mine. “My father said my bird stunk up our house. He killed my bird. Dad plucked the feathers and cleaned his carcass. Handed it to my mother and made her cook it up.”

“No…”

“She didn’t know,” he murmurs. “Always doing what he asked of her. But I didn’t eat Wail’s mom. I ate Wail.”

I press a kiss to his mouth. Soft kisses. Comforting kisses. Over and over again because I don’t want him to think about his asshole father. He’s still at first, but when I straddle him to kiss him harder, he parts his mouth to meet my tongue with his. His fingers spear into my hair to guide our kiss.

A moan escapes me when his hard cock rubs against my ass. When he reaches between us, I lift my body and let him guide himself into me again. My body aches from all the sex we’ve had, but this feels different. Not just fucking. Something else. I slide up and down on his thick length as my gaze meets his. Sadness lingers in his eyes, but the hunger he always seems to have for me slides into the forefront. His strong fingers find my hips. He grips them almost to the point of pain as he lifts his hips to drive into me.

“Gray,” I moan as my head tilts back. One of his hands slips to my breast while the other begins massaging my clit. I ride him wildly until an orgasm is rippling through me, causing every muscle in me to spasm. I’m trying to find the sense to slide off of him before he comes, but then he’s gripping my hips again. With hard, measured thrusts, he seeks out his own climax. And with a groan on his end, I feel his heat surge into me.

Fuck.

Why am I so careless with him?

He yanks me to him, and I fall hard against his chest. Our heartbeats are thundering against one another through our chests. His fingers tangle in my hair as he whispers sweet nothings against the shell of my ear through my messy hair.

You’re mine.

I want you forever.

Let me keep you.

Mine.

Let me love you.

Forever.

The words are intense and spoken quickly, but I drink them up. I greedily take them all as though I have no self-control around men like him. They offer intensity and I devour it as if it nourishes me somehow. Vaughn fed me this same way. It’s what I’m attracted to.

This attraction was, at one time, nearly fatal.

As my eyes drift close, my thoughts drift to the night I ran and never looked back.

“THIS WAY, LETTY SPAGHETTI,” Vaughn grumbles as he drags me by my wrist down the dilapidated hallway of the apartment building we came to.

I tug at the short hem of my dress but it’s so tight it hardly moves. I settle for fingering my pearls that belonged to Momma in a nervous manner. Vaughn and I have been playing this game for months. The sane part of my brain that survives when the pills wear off tells me I’m a prostitute. This is not my boyfriend. He’s my pimp. But prostitutes get paid, don’t they? What does it make me if he forces me to have sex and I see nothing in return?

A slave.

It makes me his damn sex slave.

Anger begins to bubble up inside me. Earlier when he shoved the pill into my mouth, I tucked it into the side of my mouth between my teeth and cheek. He’s so used to me swallowing without complaint that when he looked, he didn’t really look. Just a simple glance. I managed to pull it out on the walk down to the car and tossed it into the bushes.

My brain is clear.

My heart is angry.

My soul is broken.

He stops in front of a door and knocks loudly. A large black man answers the door wearing a tight white wife beater, a beanie on his head, and a baggy pair of jeans that hang several inches off his hips showing his blue boxers.

“V, my man,” he greets in a deep voice. “I got your money, dawg.” He pulls a wad of bills rubber banded together and hands it to Vaughn.

Vaughn nods and fist bumps the guy. “I knew you were good for it, Fuzz.”

The guy named Fuzz lets his gaze roam over to me. “Your girlfriend? Damn, she fine.”

“Could be yours for the night if you got more cash,” Vaughn tells him.

Fuzz’s easygoing features harden as he steps aside to inspect me as I cower behind Vaughn. He lets out a whistle of appreciation. “Shit, V, she’s got some fine-ass legs. Her cunt tight?”

I shudder at his crude words. Normally, I’m high off my ass by the time we get to these men he sells me to. Awareness prickles through me. I wish I were fucked up right now.

“The tightest,” Vaughn brags, a lingering hint of possessiveness in his tone.

“How much?” Fuzz questions as he blatantly eye-fucks my tits.

“How much you got?”

Fuzz laughs. “You took all my money, man.”

“You got any brown left?” Vaughn asks.

“I got a gram or two,” Fuzz tells him, his gaze never leaving the way my dress hugs my tits.

“I need it.”

I swallow and gape at him. Surely

he’s not selling my body for a couple of grams of crystal meth.

“Come in, man, shit’s over there,” Fuzz says and points to the couch.

Vaughn drags me into the dingy and trashed apartment by my wrist. Terror spikes through me. I don’t like this guy Fuzz and the way he stares at me as if he wants to hurt me.

“You got twenty minutes with her,” Vaughn tells him as he sits on the lumpy sofa and reaches for the tray of drugs. “No anal.”

Fuzz lets out a whistle before grabbing me from behind. I scream when I’m lifted off the floor and carried into the bedroom. Vaughn’s laugh sends ice shooting through my veins. This is an all-time low for him. So many times he’s hurt me but this betrayal runs deep.

Once inside the bedroom that reeks of body odor, I’m shoved to the floor. Fuzz shuts the door behind him and starts ripping off his shirt. He’s giant and solid muscle. It’s the evil glint in his eyes that has me scrambling away. I’m halfway toward the window when he grabs me by my hair and hauls me over to the bed. The screams ripping from me are otherworldly as he shoves me over the edge of the stinky stained mattress. He rips my dress up over my hips exposing my bare ass to him.

“No anal,” he mimics as he begins unbuckling his pants.

Tears stream down my cheeks and I once again try to claw my way away from him. He’s strong as he presses the back of my head down against the mattress with his massive hand. I’m squirming but it doesn’t stop him from pushing his fat erection into my dry pussy. I sob and claw my fingernails into the soiled mattress but to no avail. He drives into me brutally. His grunts and moans are like alcohol in a cut, stinging me from the outside in.

“This ass is so fucking hot,” he tells me as he slams into me. “I’m going to hit it too.”

I start screaming for Vaughn. Begging him to save me. Fuzz pulls out of my pussy and begins pushing the head of his cock against my asshole. Fire burns through me from the tiny intrusion. I’m fearful for when he manages to get all the way in.

“V-Vaughn, p-please,” I sob.

Pain, excruciating and all-consuming, explodes within me when Fuzz pushes all the way into me. I black out but the fire won’t let me go. It holds me just out of reach from passing out all the way. Some sick torturous game.