Chapter 2: Tirone: Chapter 2

A Few Months Ago

“You can’t be here.” Jo’s voice wavered behind the closed door of her apartment. She wouldn’t even open it for me.

“Let me in,” I whispered, clenching my fists.

“No. Go home.”

“Open the door and let me in.” I kept my voice down for the last time. “Or my next words will be heard by the whole building, Miss Meneceo.”

Clack. Squeak. Then I saw her brown, doe eyes, red and irritated, staring at me behind a chain. They darted around, right and left. “How did you get in the building?”

I have my ways. I pointed at the chain lock, fury shaking through my finger. “Take down this shit and let me get inside, Jo. I won’t say it again.”

Her eyes bounced around the story corners again before she looked down and closed the door. The silence lasted more than one second. Fist prepared to tear down that fucking door if she didn’t open it, I snarled, about to yell her name at the top of my lungs. But then the door opened a tiny crack. That was all I needed to slip in.

She wasn’t standing by it when I entered. I shut it and called for her. When she didn’t answer, I stalked across the place, searching. “Jo, please. I have to talk to you.”

She appeared from her bedroom, one hand pushing shades up her nose, the other clinging to the thick cardigan covering her. I could still see the outline of her tits underneath. She wasn’t wearing a bra under that flimsy pale pink gown, and the cardigan fabric only accentuated the plumpness of her chest. I wanted to take the arms she was using as armory down so I could see her nipples, how taut they could become under my gaze. I strode toward her, but she slammed the bedroom door shut, keeping the room from my curious eyes, and took a step away from me. “You can’t call me Jo or come to my place in the middle of the night to talk.”

“If you like, we can do something a lot more fun than talk.”

“Tirone!”

“After what we had, that moment at the library, you can’t tell me what I can’t do, Jo, and I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t pull that shit. Unlike you, I made you a promise I intended to keep.” I moved toward her, and she kept taking steps back until her ass hit a wall and she had nowhere to back away from me. “We had a deal, and you broke it. Why?”

Her breath stuttered, fanning my face. “What deal?”

My palms pushed against the wall on either side of her, caging her in. “You know exactly what deal. Why did you stop coming to school? You missed two classes in a row. You promised me you’d be mine, Jo, and I promised you I’d wait. Why would you disappear on me?”

“I never made you any promises.”

“Yes, you did. Not in words, maybe.” I lifted my thumb, and she gasped, knowing what was coming. Slowly, the pad of my thumb rubbed against her lips, the softest thing I’d ever touched. “But these lips sealed our fate. You told me everything with your lips between mine.”

“You forced me into kissing you,” she panted.

“You have no idea what you’ve been doing to me, Jo. I’d battled myself for months and lost the fight. I had to make a move or I’d have gone mad. Literally. And you… You kissed me back.” My eyes dropped to where I was touching her. The engrained feeling of her mouth on mine in my head needed an encore, not as a reminder but as a fix. “You can’t take that away from me.”

She gulped. “Tirone, please leave me alone. This is insane.”

“Insanity is letting you go after I’ve found you.” I leaned in, both our breaths getting louder. “Insanity is not devouring your lips every day for the rest of my life.”

“No…Ty…”

I didn’t give her a chance to protest anymore. I breathed through her, reminding her of our bond that should never be untied. I took what she was still reluctant to give because I didn’t care what she had to say about it. She was mine either way. She just had to know it. It was my job to make her see it. One way or another.

She pulled away from me, her lips swollen. I wanted to bite on them until they bled, until she bit back and we stained each other with our blood. “You can’t do this,” she said.

“What did I just say? Don’t tell me I can’t be with you or touch you or kiss you. It’s you who can’t do this. You can’t go away whenever you like.”

“No, Tirone. I have to go away. As far away from you as possible.”

Don’t say that. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“I told you I’d wait.”

“Waiting isn’t kissing me whenever you feel like it, without permission. Waiting isn’t stalking me everywhere I go. You think I don’t see you when you lurk outside the stores I go to, the restaurants I eat at, and outside my building?”

“I wasn’t trying to be invisible. What’s wrong with watching over you? You’re a young woman living alone. I have every right to protect you.”

“I didn’t ask for your protection.”

“You don’t have to. You’re my girl. It’s my job.”

“I’m not your girl. Why can you not understand this is wrong and sick? I’ll never be with you.”

My patience had its limits, and my darkness wasn’t even as virtuous as I was. Her words spat flames on a monster she didn’t want awaken. “Don’t say that.”

She pushed my chest and ducked, slipping away under my arm. “That’s all I’m ever going to say. So you either leave me alone and I go back to school as your teacher, putting all this behind, or I’ll have to leave this whole city to get away from you.”

That’s it. I spun. “What makes you think I’ll let you?”

She shook her head once, panting. “What?”

I grabbed her wrist, pulling her into my body. She collided against me from the force I applied. I was done being gentle. Her tits bounced against my chest as she struggled out of my grip, driving my hunger for her to a feral level. I locked my arms around her body and pressed my aching erection against her stomach. “Tell me you don’t want me.”

“Tirone, let go.”

“Take your shades off and tell me you don’t want me,” I growled, waiting for her lies so I could punish her. I needed to punish her. I needed her. Only her.

“I-I don’t want you.”

My arms slid under her ass, and in one swift move, I carried her over my shoulder. She banged her little fists on my back, kneeing me in the ribs, as I headed to the bedroom. Her teeth scraped my neck, and then sharp pain speared my skin. Shit. Had she just bitten me?

Ignoring the pains she was inflicting upon my body—compared to the pain in my blue balls and the wounds forming in my heart they were nothing—I stormed into the bedroom and dropped her on the sheets.

She continued to fight me—she was really strong for a girl—when I pinned her down and straddled her. I wondered why she wasn’t going for my face with her nails or even screaming for help. They were the easiest defenses she could have used. “Get off me, Tirone. Get off me or I’ll never forgive you.”

“Not before I expose your lies.” I pulled the sunglasses off her face and tossed them aside. She shied away, but I forced her attention back on my face with my grip on her chin. “Not before I punish you for them.”

I shoved my knee between her thighs. She pulled them together, squeezing hard, but I managed to spread them apart. My hand crawled under her gown and found the elastic of her panties.

“No. No, Ty. No,” she whimpered, kicking, pushing me off with all her might.

I forced her wrists on top of each other and squeezed them in my grip. Should I tie her? She’d look so hot tied in bed while I… I snapped myself out of it before I lost control. There would be another night for that, but not tonight. “Hushh. I’ve been patient and understanding, but you lied to me. You tried to leave me. Now, you’ll take your punishment without so much of a word.”

“No. I won’t let you, Ty. This… I won’t let you.”

“What is this, Jo?” My fingers dipped under her panties, and both of us swallowed. The shiver of her body as I touched her mound almost drove me out of my fucking mind. “What is this you think I’m gonna do to you?” I parted her lips and slid one finger inside her pussy, watching her gasp.

She was suddenly silent, except for her catching breath, her unreadable eyes holding mine in the dark. Although I expected it, the slick wetness that coated the tip of my finger in abundance made me suck a breath between my teeth in a hiss. “What is this?”

My tongue darted to lick my lips. Her stare dropped to my mouth as her breathing accelerated. I lifted my finger so slowly to my lips, watching her face following me, and sucked her off my finger. “Fuck. You taste so fucking sweet…even when you lie.”

“Fine. You caught me. You punished me. Are you done?”

I blew an unhurried sigh out on her face, and enjoyed the way her eyes rolled. “Haven’t even started yet.” I smeared her wetness on her mouth. “And something tells me you’re as anticipating for my punishment as I am.” Her eyes glinted in the dark, and her tits rose with a trembling breath. “Taste yourself for me. Maybe, you’ll know how crazy you can make me, Jo.”

Without any resistance, her little tongue peeked out and licked her arousal. I pictured her doing the same when it was my cum on her lips. “Happy?” she mocked.

“A little.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to let you—”

“Let me what, Jo? You think I’ll hurt you like this? You think I’ll rape you?”

She scowled at me. “You kissed me without consent, twice, and you’re pinning me down in bed, saying you were going to punish me. What am I supposed to think?”

“And yet you didn’t utter a single scream for help. What am I supposed to think?” Did she want me to force her? Did she want me to take her against her will so she wouldn’t blame herself for it? I wouldn’t let our first time be tainted by anything but passion and euphoria, not guilt or fear. Shame didn’t belong to us. What we were having was epic and right. I wouldn’t allow her to feel otherwise. My grip eased on her wrists. Then I drew back, moving my knee out of her way.

Instantly, she bolted out of the bed. I, on the other hand, kicked off my sneakers and made myself comfortable. “I heard you the other day talking to Mrs. Williams. You told her you had trouble sleeping, and that was why you wore those shades all the time. To hide the circles under your eyes. I’d like to help with that.”

“What?” Perplexed was an understatement of the face she was making.

“Get ready for bed. I’ll be waiting.”

Even in the dark, I could see her brows hook. “That’s not why I wear sunglasses. I’m photophobic, and the lights hurt my eyes.”

“Then why can you not sleep?”

“I sleep just f—”

I rolled fast, had her in my grip again and cupped her pussy a little too harsh. “Don’t you dare lie to me again. I can see those circles and tired eyes.”

She gulped, moaning a little. “Okay. I get nightmares.”

I sighed, embracing her, and then my lips pressed against her forehead in a long kiss. “One day you’re gonna tell me everything about them, but tonight, I’m here to help you sleep.”

“H-how?”

“I’ll take you in my arms all night and scare them away.”

“That’s…”

“If you say wrong one more time—”

“I was going to say sweet.”

My palms cradled her beautiful face. “I can be sweet for you, baby. I can bow at your feet and beg for mercy if that means you’ll take me. Please don’t ever set me free. You’re my jailer. I’m your slave. Yours forever until I go to the grave.”

When she gazed at me this time, a hint of smile crossed her lips and eyes. “I remember this one. It made me think you were dating Gaynor Mosley.”

“The Emo girl?”

“She looks more of a dominatrix… So…”

“She’s into some kinky shit that’s for sure.”

“Oh, so you did…you know…date her?”

I couldn’t help the smirk. “Jealous?”

She shrugged, averting her gaze. “Why would I be?”

“Because if you were, I’d say you were so fucking hot when you were jealous, Miss Meneceo,” I answered, and she blushed. Fuck, she was killing me right now. “Then I’d say that I’d been fucking the entire class just to get my mind off of you, and when it didn’t work, I wrote stupid poems about it and gave them to you as homework, hoping, praying, you’d get a clue.”

Her lips stretched into a full grin for one second, but then she shook it off her face and gave me her stern look. “I thought you were here to help me sleep.”

“God, you’re cruel.” I kissed her forehead one more time, and then I plopped on my back on the bed, hands clasped behind my head. “All right, go do your whatever girly bedtime ritual you have. I’ll be waiting.”

She sauntered toward the bathroom, and I murmured, “The flowers have not yet died… She swallows me whole.”

“I don’t remember this one. Where is it from?”

“Stuff I kept to myself.” I nodded toward the bathroom door. “Don’t take too long.”

A couple of minutes later she came out without the cardigan, not looking at me at all. Then she locked the front door methodically and turned off every single light in the apartment. It was pitch black in the bedroom, but somehow she found her way in. She went over to the curtains, closed them and made sure not a speck of light came through them.

The mattress sank next to me. Her breath was loud in the room, and her warmth radiated off her body. The bed squeaked under me as I scooted over to her and placed my arm under her head. She curled up against me, her back to my front. Her body fit perfectly on mine. Her scent, a whiff of roses and lavender and something…salty, summer breeze and sunrise, filled my nostrils. I inhaled her, engraving her smell in my memory forever.

“If you need to take your jacket off, only your jacket, that would be all right,” she said.

“Thank you.” I did want to take it off but didn’t want to spook her or give her the wrong idea. She already had plenty of those about me. I took it off and resumed my position. How lucky was I to have her in my arms, in her own bed, spending the night at her place?

“Ty…”

As much as I hated that name, I was happy she was no longer being formal with me. “Yes, baby?”

“What happens in the morning?”

“I’ll still be here. When you wake up, I’ll make you breakfast, and then we’ll go to school. I’ll make sure of that. Then I’ll be spending excruciating eight hours thinking about your body in the dirtiest ways you can ever imagine, knowing that I can’t act based on those fantasies…yet. Later again, around the same time like tonight, I’ll sneak in and cuddle with you all night, while you pretend it’s not my painful erection that’s poking your ass, just like now.”

I imagined her doing that cute jaw drop thing she did whenever she was too stunned to speak. I couldn’t see shit in this induced blackness, though. No wonder she had nightmares.

“I-I mean, how are you going to leave without anybody seeing you?”

I chuckled. “Don’t worry, baby. I won’t let anything hurt or disturb you…as long as you’re here with me, as long as you’re mine.”

“That sounds more of a threat than reassurance.”

“I didn’t mean to. The two days you were gone… You don’t know what they did to me. I wasn’t myself anymore.”

“What do you mean you weren’t yourself?”

I stroked her hair. “Hushh. I’ll never hurt you or put you in danger, Jo. All I ask in return is that you be with me. Can you do that for me, baby?”