Chapter 26: Empire of Desire: Chapter 25

I’m not drunk.

Yes, I’m swaying and my body feels light and hot, but it’s only because of the music.

And the dancing.

I don’t usually like electro, but the buzzing of energy keeps me on a high. I dragged Christoph and Jane with me and even called Jen and Alex to join us. Jen couldn’t, but Alex is a party guy so he showed up soon after.

They’re all party people, actually. I’m usually the fun-ruiner. The one with a words phobia and a general phobia of the outside world.

But maybe I’m drunk, after all, so it doesn’t really matter.

Alex is a few steps behind me, jumping to the upbeat music. He’s a bit taller than me, but he’s lean and fit because of all the cycling he does. Chris is dancing with me, letting me use his hand to twirl, even though he said we should go home an hour ago.

He repeats it again, shouting over the music, “You’ve had too much to drink, Gwen. I’ll give you a ride.”

“No! I’m not druuunk,” I slur. Okay, maybe I am. But only a little.

“Gwen, come on.” Chris tries to grab hold of my arm, but I pull myself free and plaster my back against Alex’s front.

“You go home. I’m staaaying.” I shake my ass against Alex and he wraps his arms around my waist and we sway to the music together. “Alex is so much fun.”

He’s fun because he’s laid back and loves weed, but he doesn’t care about anyone enough. That’s why I’ve always preferred spending time with Chris. People like Chris who appreciate that I’m a bit crazy, a bit different are rare to find. But that’s the thing, I don’t want to be crazy or different tonight. I want to be like Alex. I want to forget about what I saw and heard today.

From Debra to Nate to Dad. I want to forget that my father was searching for my mother and when he found her, he had a deadly accident.

Because abandoning me wasn’t enough, so she had to take Dad away from me, too.

Moisture gathers in my eyes and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. I’m grateful it’s dark enough in here that no one can see my weakness.

The darkness is soothing sometimes.

Tonight is to forget. That’s why I bought a slutty dress that’s too tight, barely covers my ass and shows half of my back, and then I drank more shots than I can remember.

But it’s like I’m floating in a different place than the dance floor. Yes, I’m in the midst of writhing bodies, upbeat music, and violet lights, but I’m not. I’m roaming inside that emptiness again, letting it fester and rot me to the bones.

Usually, I’m able to fill it, to somehow push it away by repeating the words hollow, empty, and void in my head. Not tonight, though. Tonight, it hurts so much that I’m unable to desensitize anything.

“Where’s Jane?” I ask Chris while Alex and I move to the rhythm of the music.

Even though I convinced her to put on a dress and come with us, she was anxious out of her mind because there are a lot of people here and she dislikes them more than I do on my empty days.

She refused to dance or drink or anything, just sat down with an energy drink in the corner of our booth, but she’s not there anymore.

“She probably left,” Chris shouts over the music. “It’s time you do, too, Gwen.”

“Why are you being sooo difficult?” I run my fingers under his chin.

“Yeah, dude.” Alex moves his hands up and down my side, feeling me up. “Chill.”

“Maybe we should teach him.” I grin and while I’m still swaying against Alex, I grab Chris by the cheeks and pull him close so that he’s glued to my front.

Then I rub my ass and stomach against their erections, feeling them get hard all at once. Grunts and groans fill my ears and I lick my lips, so intoxicated on the feeling of having them both so turned on by me.

“This isn’t you, Gwen,” Chris whispers in my ear, arousal evident in his tone.

I glide my breasts against his chest and my ass against Alex’s growing erection. “Maybe it is.”

We’re not dancing anymore. In a few seconds, the scene has turned into full on grinding, and I ride it out. I let the wave consume me because they want me, both of them, and if I let them, they’d have me at the same time.

But when I close my eyes, it’s not Chris and Alex who are engraved so deep into my soul that I see his face as if he were here.

There’s a frown there, a tension in his jaw because he doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like me grinding my body against two guys who aren’t him. So I do it harder, I take it to the next level until their hard-ons are poking against my dress, and they’re the only things I feel.

You hurt me first. This is what it feels like to be hurt, asshole.

It doesn’t matter that I want to believe those words, to believe that I could hurt him by giving myself away to someone else, because my body and soul and even my mind hate that idea.

And my heart. It’s currently clenching and squeezing and clawing at me to stop.

This isn’t what I want. These aren’t the hands that make me feel safe, like I could let go at any time and still wouldn’t crash to the ground.

“What the…”

I hear Alex’s dazed voice before that same strong hand I just thought about is wrapped around my wrist and I’m pulled out with a force that steals my breath.

Please don’t tell me my imagination is running wild enough to conjure something that isn’t real.

When I open my eyes, I gasp at the sight in front of me.

I’m pressed up against a body all right, but it’s neither Alex nor Chris. This one is harder, taller, broader, and so masculine, it should be a crime.

He should be a crime.

Because I’m always tempted to commit this particular crime, to take that step that will push me off the edge, even if I know that I will hit the ground at some point. Even if I’m sure it’d be the last step I’d take.

I guess that’s what criminals feel. They know they might get caught, that they’ll be punished, but they still go for it anyway. Because the crime is worth it.

And I’m staring at one right now. At my own crime, and that emptiness doesn’t feel as damning anymore, nor is it lethal. It’s just lurking in the background, unable to manifest into anything.

Nate had always had that effect on me. His presence is so sharp and imposing that it eats up any hollowness.

“Let her go.” It’s Alex who speaks, sounding drunker than me.

I’m not really focused on them, because my wrist is being held hostage by Nate, and my soft curves are glued to his hard muscles, and he’s glaring.

God, even the way he glares is hot. My thighs clench and my nipples harden, and it has nothing to do with the not-really-dancing I was just doing.

From my peripheral vision, I can see Chris shaking his head at Alex while rubbing the back of his neck.

Alex, however, steps toward us—or, more accurately, staggers. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m her husband. Put your hands on my wife again and I’ll break them.” And just like that, Nate pulls me behind him and pushes through the crowd.

It’s impossible to keep up. One, I’m drunk—so drunk that I see double and can’t feel my legs. Two, I think Nate just told them he’s my husband. He broke his own rule and told my friends that we’re married.

Holy shit.

I think I’m drunker than I thought, because I’m unable to sort through all of these things.

When I keep tripping over my own feet, Nate picks me up bridal style. My arms automatically wrap around his neck and I squeal, but I don’t hear it through all the noise and chaos.

Once again, I’m caught in a trance by how easily he carries me, how effortless the act is, as if he’s not lifting a person in his arms. Not just any person. Me. His wife. That’s what he said, right?

Put your hands on my wife again and I’ll break them.

I wiggle in his hold but not so he’ll put me down, just to feel him more. To feel the strength of his taut arms wrapped around my back and under my legs. To soak in the hardness of his chest against my side and to breathe in his scent that’s more intoxicating than alcohol.

He’s not paying any attention to me, though.

Nate never watches me, not like I watch him. He doesn’t stop to see me as I see him.

The emptiness I shoved to the background jostles and rears its ugly head, and I don’t have the strength to push it back down.

I don’t have the strength to fight it.

The night air hits us and I shiver as he strides toward the parking lot. I don’t even focus on the onlookers who are watching us.

They don’t matter.

They never did. People don’t understand. People judge.

He doesn’t. Nate’s never judged me, even when he acts like an asshole with multiple jerk tendencies. He’s strict but never judgmental.

He’s practical, but never narrow-minded.

“Nate…” I whisper his name in the silence of the night, and I sound so drunk and emotional because he’s still not looking at me.

“Shut the fuck up, Gwyneth. I don’t want to hear your voice right now.” The harsh anger of his words is like a slap to my face, a hard one that springs tears. They’re gathered in my lids now and I don’t get the chance to wipe them away before he opens his car door and drops me in the passenger seat.

After he fastens my seatbelt, he yanks off his jacket and throws it on top of me. It smells like him—spices and woods and damnation. That’s what he is and always will be.

My crime and my worst damnation.

Another word on my D list.

By the time he’s in the driver’s side, I’m clenching the jacket tight against my hammering chest.

He pulls out of the parking lot and drives down the streets in silence. There’s no radio or words, and the more time passes, the tighter my grip on his jacket gets.

“Aren’t you going to say something? Anything?” I try not to slur but do so anyway.

“I said to shut your mouth, Gwyneth.”

“I don’t want to shut up. I want to talk, okay?” It’s probably liquid courage—or stupidity or whatever—but it’s there and I’m taking the bull by the horns. “In case you didn’t notice, you ruined my evening.”

“What the fuck did you just say?” He fixates me with a sideways glance and it pins me to my seat so forcefully, I hiccup. Or maybe that’s because of the alcohol.

“My evening, Nate. I was having fun until you showed up.” I’m feigning nonchalance and lying through my teeth.

No, I wasn’t having fun. I was miserable and headed down a path I didn’t like even in my intoxicated brain.

“You were having fun grinding against those kids and I ruined it, is that what you’re saying?”

“We…were dancing.”

“I saw your ass and stomach rubbing against their fucking dicks, Gwyneth. There was no fucking dancing involved.”

“Maaaybe.”

“Did you like it?” His voice is calm, but his entire body is tight, especially the hand on the steering wheel. That strong, veiny hand that I dreamt about when he wasn’t there.

“Did I like what?”

“Humping them, gliding your body against their dicks and turning the two of them so fucking crazy with lust that they would’ve taken you on the dance floor. Did you like it?”

“Maybe I did. Maybe I’m a slut.” I throw his jacket to the side, still high on the alcohol-induced adrenaline.

I remove my seatbelt and close the distance separating us, pressing my breasts against his shirt-covered arm.

“What the fuck are you doing, Gwyneth?”

“I’m showing you how much of a slut I am.” I press my lips to his hot neck and trail my hand from his chest to his erection. It jumps to life under my touch and I squeeze it as I continue kissing down his collarbone.

“Get back to your seat. Now.” He’s ordering me, but I’m too far gone to listen. His body is tightening against mine and I rub my breasts down his arm, hardening the tight buds until they’re painful.

“My nipples didn’t get this hard earlier, you know.” I take his free hand and slip it under my dress until he’s sinking his fingers against my folds. “I wasn’t this wet either. Do you know what that means?”

He doesn’t look at me, his entire attention on the road, but he doesn’t remove his hand from my pussy either. “What?”

My lips meet the shell of his ear and I whisper, “It means I’m only a slut for you, Nate.”

The change is barely noticeable, but it’s there in his flaring nostrils and the tic in his jaw. His fingers tighten on my core and I moan, feeling my wetness drenching my panties and messing up his hand and my thighs. That’s all I’ve ever been for freaking five years.

A mess.

And it’s one of the most beautiful messes to have ever been created.

One that he made. One that he keeps nurturing.

“No, you’re not.” He removes his hand from me and the car comes to a halt. We’re already home, but I couldn’t care less about that right now, because he stopped touching me.

“What? Why?”

His eyes meet mine, and I think I liked it better when they hadn’t, because there’s a strong current there that’s about to sweep me under and bury me in its depths.

“You’re not my slut if you let other people touch what’s fucking mine. Get the fuck off me.”

I do the exact opposite and awkwardly tumble forward until I’m sitting on his lap. My legs stretch wide on either side of him so that I’m able to sit down. But I don’t sit anywhere. I lift my dress and lower myself onto his erection, so his cock is nudging against my soaked panties.

My core clenches in remembrance of him inside me and the image turns me delirious as I glide myself against his bulge.

“Gwyneth, stop.”

I shake my head frantically. “I lied. I didn’t like it, not really.”

“You didn’t like what?”

“Grinding against Alex and Chris.”

“Then why the fuck did you do it?”

“Because…” I wet my lips. “Because I wanted to forget.”

“Forget what?”

“You…among other things. But it didn’t work. All I could think about was you.” I bite my lower lip because his hard-on is growing against my swollen folds and I can’t help rocking against it. Back and forth until I’m so wet, my thighs are soaked with the evidence.

His strong hand wraps around my waist, under the dress that’s now bunched to my stomach. He jerks his hips up as I go down and I whimper. “You thought about me, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you think about?”

“Your strong hands and hard chest. I thought about your cock, too, and how big it is.” I’m dry-humping him now, my movements turned frantic by his thrusts.

“What else?”

“I thought about how much my pussy wants you. Not anyone else, you.”

“Because it’s my pussy?”

“Yeah. It is.”

“And you’re a slut. My slut.”

“I am.” He didn’t ask, but I’m answering anyway. I’m sliding up and down, fucking myself on his bulge and I’m getting close, so close that my legs tremble.

“Is my slut going to let anyone else but me touch her again?”

“No…no…I won’t…”

“That’s right, because if you do, I’ll fuck up their lives, Gwyneth. I mean it.”

I come then. It’s so harsh and intense that I scream. I scream loud and uncensored, not caring that someone might pass by and see me becoming his slut.

That someone could see me screaming and panting and moaning Nate’s name.

Actually, they should.

I really wish someone would see me shattering all over him.

His words shouldn’t make me this horny. I shouldn’t come at the promise of him hurting people because they touched me, but I do, and it goes on for such a long time that I don’t think I’ll ever come down.

The alcohol in my blood makes my head buzz as I stare at him through droopy eyes, still rocking back and forth against him. At some point, both of his hands wrap around my waist and now it feels like everything is complete.

There’s something in his dark gaze. I don’t know what, but it’s there, and it’s filling me with so many emotions at once.

I lean in to kiss him. My mouth is a few inches away from his lips, the same lips I’ve fantasized about since I was fifteen and got my first taste of when I was eighteen.

The forbidden lips that I shouldn’t have wanted to kiss in the first place but couldn’t help myself.

But before I can touch them, he pulls away and opens the door, and I jerk back, my action delayed because of all the alcohol in my bloodstream.

I don’t hear it, but I feel when my heart splinters to pieces.

What was I thinking anyway? Men don’t kiss their sluts. Even if they make them their wives.

I ease off of him, as awkwardly as I planted myself on his lap, and he gets out first.

He waits for me in front of the car, probably to carry me, but I run ahead of him to the house. I’m hot.

Too hot.

And my steps are wobbly and incoherent. But I’m burning, and that needs to go away. That and the fucking breaking that’s currently happening in my chest.

My feet come to a halt at the edge of the luminous pool. Water.

I unhook my zipper and push the dress down my body, then yank away my panties so that I’m completely naked.

“Gwyneth, don’t,” Nate calls out in the distance, but I’m not listening. Because he’s the cause of this burn. He’s the reason I have to do this.

Taking a deep breath, I jump in.

Shock ripples through me, but the burn doesn’t go away. Is there water for internal fire? Because I’m about to explode from it.

My lungs burn and I realize it’s because I haven’t been breathing. That’s when I realize something else, too.

I can’t move.