12.

D UB

Looking down at Elizabeth spread out before me on the bed was enough to make me wish I were an artist - a painter who could memorialize this beauty forever. Although, I was quickly coming to see that I had some territorial issues where Elizabeth was concerned, and those would probably just get worse once I’d tasted her and felt her squeeze my cock with the first of many orgasms I planned to give her.

The first time I saw Elizabeth - ages ago in a diner hours away from home, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. My distraction had been so obvious that Zeke, my cousin Lisa’s husband, had teased me about it. I had even asked Lisa about the woman I saw in the diner, and she’d gotten a shuttered look before she said, “I know her very well, actually. I’m afraid that if the two of you got together, I wouldn’t be able to guess who’d be the bull and who would be the china.” When I asked her what she meant, she smiled mysteriously and said, “Two people who have been through so much would either make glorious music together or burn the world to ash.”

I had no idea what Lisa had been referring to at the time, although I was well aware that she knew what my life had been like before my banishment and subsequent prison sentence. Now that I had gotten to know Elizabeth and seen the guarded look she got in certain situations, how jumpy she could be when she was spooked, and the scars that she tried to hide from the world, I understood a little more about what Lisa meant.

Now, looking down at Elizabeth’s naked body, I could see other scars - these fainter than the ones on her wrists and ankles, but still scars that had caused her pain. I wanted to ask how she had gotten them, although I had a feeling the answer would send me into a rage. I had other things on my mind right now anyway, and so did she. I had the opportunity to thoroughly explore the gorgeous body of a woman who’d become so important to me. I’d get her to open up and share her story with me later so I could complete the circle and know her in every way.

When Elizabeth moved her arm to cover her breasts and let her other hand trail down to cover her pussy I looked at her face and realized I’d been staring so long that I’d made her uncomfortable.

“Don’t cover yourself,” I urged as I settled my hands on the inside of her knees and slowly ran them up her thighs. “I want to explore every part of you so I can keep the memory in my mind to reference later.”

“Pretend you're blind, and explore with your hands and mouth,” Elizabeth suggested. She gave me a fake smile and batted her eyelashes before she looked down at my hard cock and licked her lips. “Are you nervous? Do you want me to . . .”

I dropped to my knees on the rug at the same time I spread her legs wider with the grip I had on her inner thighs. Whatever sarcastic question she was about to ask disappeared into thin air when I touched my tongue to her clit. More than anything, I wanted to be inside her, but I had a feeling that I wouldn’t last long enough to make it as good for her as it could be, so I wanted to get her as close as possible before I indulged myself in the place I really wanted to be.

I pushed a finger inside her slowly and held it there while I laved her clit with my tongue, and after a few slow thrusts, I added another and started fucking her with my fingers. I flinched when Elizabeth’s hands slapped the sides of my head and grabbed my hair in her fists. I started to pull away, thinking she didn’t like what I was doing, but she wasn’t having that.

She used her grip on my hair to direct my mouth exactly how she wanted it, and within just a few minutes, she was writhing on the bed spewing a litany of curse words, praises, and moans.

“Just like that,” she commanded. I took her direction and kept working her clit with my tongue as I slowly used my fingers to explore her until she tensed beneath my mouth. Her hands suddenly left my hair, and when I heard a muffled scream, I realized she had clapped them over her mouth so she didn’t wake the girls. I could feel her pussy squeezing my fingers and knew I had to feel that around my cock.

With her knees still over my shoulders, I stood and lined my cock up with one hand while I strummed her clit with the thumb of my other. I knew that she was wet enough for me, so I didn’t take it slow. I thrust deep on the first stroke and held myself there as she writhed beneath me, her pussy convulsing around my cock so hard that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold on. I kept strumming her clit as I pulled out slowly and then slammed back into her, causing her to scream again.

She seemed to like it as much as I did, so I worked up a solid rhythm and fucked her as hard and deep as possible in the hopes that she’d be able to come again.

She took her hands off her mouth and ran them over her face before she let them fall to the bed. I couldn’t keep my gaze on one specific thing, wanting to watch her face as she experienced the same magic I was feeling but distracted by the bounce of her tits with each thrust.

Elizabeth had a better idea, though, and hooked her hands behind her knees so she could pull them closer to her, giving me access to go even deeper as I fell forward and put my hands on the mattress next to her shoulders, bending her almost in half. She begged me to go harder and deeper between commands of “Don’t stop!” and orders to “Fuck me, Dub!”

As much as I wanted this to last, it had been a long time for me, and her pussy felt so good that I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold back for much longer. I tried to think of something to take my mind off the ecstasy of her body beneath mine, but her breathless moans kept pulling me back. I felt her start to tense again, and without thinking, I said, “Come for me, sweetheart. Let me feel you come all over my cock before I fill you up.”

Elizabeth smiled as she let one of her legs go and reached between our bodies. I felt her circle my cock with her fingers before she started playing with her clit, and then she let go of her other leg and covered her mouth to stifle another scream. I felt her start to ripple around me and let myself go. As she squeezed my cock, I pushed as deep as possible and came inside her with a shout.

Elizabeth slowly relaxed, but I kept moving, loving the feel of her around me as my cock started to soften.

“That was so good,” she whispered before she lifted her head and gave me a kiss.

“Give me a few minutes, and we’ll go for round two.”

“Can you do that?”

“I’m gonna do my best, but until then, I’m just going to keep fucking you like this.”

“Don’t pull out. I like how you feel inside me.”

“I’m glad because that’s where I want to stay.”

◆◆◆

“Have you ever thought about having kids?” I asked Elizabeth. “I heard you tell the girls that you didn’t plan on it when you were younger, but now that you’re older, have you considered it?”

Elizabeth ignored my question and asked, “What exactly are we doing here, Dub? Spell it out for me.”

We had showered after round two, and then I helped her change the sheets on the bed, but by the time we were finished with round three, which was just as amazing as the first two times, we were too exhausted to move. As odd as it seemed to me, considering I’d never done such a thing before, I couldn’t keep my hands off of her pussy or the mess I’d created there.

I was being gentle with her since she was most likely a little tender after so much attention. Between my tongue, my beard, my fingers, and my cock, her pussy had been through some shit in the last few hours. However, I couldn’t make myself stop fingering her and gently rubbing her pussy.

I pushed two fingers deep inside her and held them there as I gently rubbed her clit with the pad of my thumb, and Elizabeth gasped.

“Well, right now, since neither of us are cuddlers, I’d describe it as occupying the same small area of a sleep surface while I worship your body after your pussy drained me dry for the third time in as many hours.”

“I can’t think straight when you’re doing that,” Elizabeth said before she pushed her ass against me. My cock was trying valiantly to wake up, but he and I both needed a little recovery time. “Really, though. What are we doing?”

“You want honesty?” I asked.

“I’ll accept nothing less.”

“We’re getting to know each other better. We took the steps a little out of order since we started out this relationship with you whipping my ass and then kissing my boo-boos better, but . . .”

Elizabeth laughed, but then moaned when I started moving my fingers inside her. “I can’t think when you’re doing that.”

“Try.”

“This is a relationship? Not just sex?”

“If I say yes, are you going to insist that it’s not and you want to just be fuck buddies because if that’s the case, I’ll know you’re lying.”

Elizabeth moaned again. “How would you know?”

“Because I see you watching me, and the look in your eyes says you’re interested in more than just a quick fuck. I have a feeling you want to know more about me, but then again, I also get the feeling that it’s in your nature to care for everyone, not just me. That’s what’s got me confused. I’m not sure if I’m reading your signals correctly or if you just . . .”

“I don’t let anyone else play with my body like this.” Elizabeth gasped when I pulled my fingers out and lifted her leg back and over my hip. I squeezed my hand between us and lined my cock up before I slowly pushed inside her and then rested my hand over her pussy again so I could gently rub her clit while I slowly fucked her. “I’ve never let anyone . . . No one’s ever tried . . . Yeah, just like that . . .”

“You’ve never made love slow and sweet like this before?”

“Never,” Elizabeth whispered as her hand covered mine. “This is new but . . . Right there.”

“Can’t quite finish a sentence, huh? I must be doing something right.”

“Tell me what you want, Dub,” Elizabeth insisted.

She tensed, so I stopped moving, my fingers covering her pussy and my cock deep inside her.

“I want you. Not just right now, and not just naked. I want to be near you in the morning when you’re grumpy. I want to make you coffee while you shower and then kiss you when you join me in the kitchen to have your first cup. I want to pop into the barn when I’ve got a free minute and watch you work your magic with the dogs while they hang on your every word. I want to cook dinner and talk to you while we eat together. I want to rub your feet while we watch television, and I want to do that every night. I want to piss you off so I can apologize and make it up to you and then promise I’ll never do whatever it was again. I want to fuck you every night before we go to sleep knowing that my come is deep inside you trying its hardest to make a baby, and then someday, I want you to tell me you’re ready to take that step and have that contraption removed from your body so I can knock you up. I want to watch you grow with my children and then let you squeeze my fingers until they’re dust while you go through the pain of bringing them into the world. I want to pace the floor soothing our baby so you can get some sleep and then lay in bed and listen to you sing to them when it’s my turn to have a break. I want to watch your black hair get shot through with gray and then tell you how beautiful you are while I watch you rock our grandchildren to sleep.”

“Holy shit,” Elizabeth murmured.

“Too much?”

“I can see all of that as if it’s a movie playing in my mind,” Elizabeth whispered.

She was relaxed against me now, not tense at all and not arguing about what I’d described either. As I slowly started moving again, I wondered where the hell all of that honesty had come from because I’d never admitted any of that to myself.

I’d only known Elizabeth for a few weeks, but in that time, I’d seen all of those images flash before my eyes and knew for certain I’d never wanted anything more.

“I have things to tell you that might change your mind, Dub.”

“Nothing you tell me can do that,” I assured her before I started kissing her neck. “Let’s just be for now and then work our way through everything else later. No need to overanalyze things, Karen.”

“Fuck you, Kevin.”

“Right now, I am fucking you, but you can have your turn in a little bit.”

◆◆◆

“Almost twenty years ago, I was kidnapped by a police officer who had pulled me over a few weeks before. He kept me chained up in a one-room cabin out in the middle of the forest.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” I murmured before I shifted to kiss Elizabeth’s forehead. I could see the planes of her face with the moonlight from the window and saw there were tears in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

“He held me for about a year. He didn’t stay there with me. He left me alone, sometimes for days, before he would come back and pretend that everything was normal. He called me his wife and told me that as soon as I accepted that I belonged to him, he’d take me to his house and introduce me to his other children . . . and his actual wife. He told me we were all going to live together as a big happy family.”

Elizabeth was quiet for a few minutes, lost in thought as she drew circles on my chest and I felt her tears start to make tracks down my side.

“I escaped several times only to get lost in the forest. He always found me and dragged me back to the cabin, but even with all the horrible things he did to punish me for leaving, I never stopped trying to get away.”

“And you finally escaped?”

“No. I never did. I got pregnant after a few months, and before long, I was too big to even try to run. I was huge,” Elizabeth said with a bitter laugh. “For months, the only company I had was the baby inside me until the day I went into labor and he dragged me through the forest and into his truck. I thought for sure he was going to take me to the hospital to give birth and just knew that was how I’d finally be able to escape, but that’s not where he took me.”

“Where did you go?”

“We went to his house. His wife helped me. She cleaned me up and whispered that she’d get help, and she did. She pretended that she was going along with his plan but somehow snuck away and made a phone call. Suddenly, there were cops everywhere, and they took me away in an ambulance. She was the first person I’d talked to besides him in over a year. Even though it was the most fucked-up situation imaginable, she was wonderful and didn’t leave my side. She rode in the ambulance and then talked to me while the doctors did a c-section. While I was in the recovery room, the police took her away. They thought she’d helped her husband, but I knew in my heart that she had nothing to do with his plan.”

“What happened to your baby, Elizabeth?”

“Twins. I couldn’t look at them. I didn’t want to . . . I couldn’t do anything. I knew that I wasn’t strong enough to be a good mother to them right then because I had so much healing to do, so I asked her to raise them with their sisters - her children that Troy had talked about. I made her promise to let me know that they were okay, and she said she’d do everything in her power to keep them safe. She did that. She also found help for me. When I got out of the hospital, her nieces drove me to Rojo. A friend of her family runs an apartment complex for people who need help after escaping abusive relationships. I lived there until I was strong enough to be on my own. Through it all, we kept in touch through phone calls and letters. She sent me pictures of the twins and said I was welcome to see them anytime but didn’t have to if I wasn’t comfortable with it.”

“Did you ever see them?”

“Not for years. I watched them grow through the stories she’d tell and the pictures she sent. It took me a long time to separate the twins from what Troy had done to me, and by the time I was able to do that, I almost lost the chance.”

“How?”

“They were in a car accident with their aunt. She was high on pills and crashed.”

“Oh shit!”

“Their mother trusted her like a sister and would never have let the kids go with her if she’d known Melinda had a problem.”

“That happens sometimes.”

“What does?”

“The family is too close and doesn’t see the addiction until it’s too late.”

“Oh, no. They knew. She became addicted to painkillers and went to rehab a few times, but they had no idea she’d relapsed or they never would have let her take the kids. Her husbands were a united front when it came to their safety and . . .”

“Her ex and her . . .”

“No. Two men. They were a throuple.”

“Interesting.”

“Even after all this time, the entire family is still feeling the repercussions of what she did. But in the end, they’re better off without her and much stronger together. They felt horrible that they’d trusted her when they should have seen the signs and known better.”

“She must have been good at hiding it.”

“She was. The twins were six, and she was taking them with her sons to visit a dinosaur exhibit in Denver when she passed out at the wheel and ran the car off the road. She had somehow gotten off the highway you’d take to get there from Colorado Springs and was on a deserted two-lane mountain road. The car hit a tree before it flipped onto its roof and slid some ways down the mountain. They’re not sure how long it was after the accident that another motorist saw the car and called for help, but she was trapped in the vehicle with the boys. By the time the rescuers got to the car, she was dead and the kids were all suffering from exposure and had some pretty serious cuts and scrapes from the shattered glass.”

“Jesus. That’s horrible,” I whispered as I thought about the danger they’d all been in from the woman’s negligence. “And that wreck made you want to see them?”

“Yeah. I heard through the grapevine that the twins were in the hospital and was terrified they might die without knowing that I loved them. I hadn’t been back to Colorado since a few days after they were born, but I braved my fear of this place . . .”

“You were afraid of the whole state?” I asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“Just the trees. Well, I wasn’t very fond of the mountains either. For a long time, just seeing a picture of a forest would give me a panic attack, but I sucked it up. The entire ride here, I used every skill my therapist had ever taught me to talk myself into being okay. I got to the hospital after what seemed like years but was really only a few hours. I met the boys and started to calm down, but on the ride home through the mountains, the panic came back with a vengeance.”

“Obviously, you’re better now. I’ve seen you go off into the forest and thought you were one of those nature runners who goes off-road.”

“Off-road?”

“Jumping over logs and shit. I don’t get why people run in the first place, but you do you, Karen. I’ll just watch from a distance while I sip my tea.”

Elizabeth chuckled, and I was glad to hear that there were no more tears in her voice. Finally, she said, “I met some people who knew how to survive in the wild. They had experience living off the grid in the forest and taught me enough to make me feel comfortable anywhere.”

“There’s a forest near Rojo? I’m not sure I saw more than two or three trees grouped together anywhere near there. They definitely don’t have any mountains.”

“You’re right. That’s a rare commodity in that part of Texas. My friends aren’t originally from there. Terra was raised in Alaska. The other friend, a biker named Bear, had lived in the mountains his entire childhood and now calls a canyon near Rojo his home.”

“He roughs it in a canyon rather than a forest now?”

“If you could see his house, you’d understand how far away from roughing it he is, but he does like to camp and hike. He spends as much time as he can out in the canyon. He raised his kids to love it too. They’re friends with the twins and their cousins, so Bear’s family spends time up here too.”

“Well, that’s convenient. Have any of them visited lately?”

“No, but they’re coming up for a reunion in a few weeks, and I’ll get to see them then.”

“Sounds fun.”

I was pleasantly surprised when she said, “You’ll get to meet all of them if you want to go to the reunion.”

I didn’t have the guts to say I’d follow her anywhere. Instead, I said, “I’d love to go.”