Torn - Part 1: The Torn Series (6 page)

His friends trickled in a few at a time after the last fight ended. Surly wore a bit of gauze across one hand's knuckles but seemed otherwise unharmed. The men and the few women were a much grittier crowd than I was used to spending time with and I worried as I exchanged shy greetings with them that they could see a big, flashing neon "dork" sign over my head.

But Mallet was there. My nerves subsided every time he touched my shoulder or brushed my knee.

All the while, my mind raced. He'd kissed me in the stairwell and then brought me here and introduced me to his group of friends - what did it mean? I liked him, for sure, but I wasn't ready to start anything serious. Or much of anything at all. Especially not while I was still sharing an apartment with Tyler. I honestly wasn’t over it yet; part of me still hadn’t given up hope.

I didn't want to jinx things by asking. I didn't want to look like a naive little girl.

It turned out to be a little bit of a culture shock hanging out with Mallet’s crowd. They were so loud and so vulgar, and had little regard for the other customers. It just wasn’t how I was raised and wasn’t how I’d grown up. In my life, it was all about being quiet, avoiding notice, being good and polite all the time. Manners and appearances were important.

These people didn’t care much about appearances. It took them an extra moment to take in my whole punk look when I met them, but nothing more than that. None of them curled their lip and called me a freak like Tyler had when he saw my hair for the first time.

They were a little loud and a little crass, sure, but they were also really genuine from what I could tell. I liked them all immediately, tense as I was.

“Having a good time?” Mallet asked. He followed me to the jukebox and wrapped his arms around my middle as I flipped through the selection. I glanced around us - would anyone see him with his hands all over me like this? What would they think?

I had to stop caring, I knew.

“Relax,” he said as if he could hear my thoughts racing. His fingers gently stroked my ribs. “No one’s paying attention.” He pulled me tighter against him, my back to his chest. He was so warm and so solid. It felt good -
really
good. I sighed as I sank into his embrace.

“You’re a strange girl,” he said, his lips close to my ear.

“I don’t know how to take that.”

“I’ve hung out with you twice and I’ve already decided that you’re the jumpiest person I know. But you’re so comfortable onstage.”

“Yeah?” It was true. I had my issues but stage fright was never one of them.

“Yeah. You’re a contradiction.” He kissed my temple. “It’s… interesting.”

He thought I was interesting. He had his hands all over me in front of his buddies and he thought I was interesting. I needed to talk to someone who would know how to interpret that. My best friend from back home would be as clueless as I was, so who did that leave? I hadn’t exactly been a social butterfly while I was dating Tyler. My list of confidants was depressingly short.

Why not ask Jen?
She was cool and collected and she had encouraged me to hang out with Mallet in the first place. She’d have some insight, I was sure of it.

I excused myself to the bathroom and shot her a quick text about the situation - “Hanging w/ Mallet and co. at a bar, pda all over the place, what does this meeeaaann??!” Okay, a little more dramatic than it needed to be, but I wanted a fast answer.

Luckily I didn’t have to wait long for a reply - “it means he wants to bone u like I said, go for it!! <3” I started to compose another message but my phone buzzed with another message from her - “don’t read into it, he is a nsa type, just have fun!”

NSA. No strings attached.
Could I do that? I checked myself out in the mirror. My eyeliner was still miraculously unsmudged. I didn’t look like Alexa, the girl from the suburbs who led a quiet and uninteresting life and had a serious and hardworking boyfriend. I looked like Riley, punk girl, too cool to care.
Punk goddess,
I corrected myself, and giggled.

I sent Jen a quick “thanks” with a bunch of little hearts, reapplied my deep red lipstick, and pointed my feet back towards Mallet and the bar.

CHAPTER 5

“I thought you fell in,” Mallet said with a smirk when I found him. I playfully punched his shoulder.

“Maybe I did. Took a while to swim back.” It was a lame joke but he smiled anyway.

He passed me a new glass of beer. “One more,” he said, sipping from his own, “Then you’re gonna let me take you home with me.”

I tilted my head and tried to hide my shock at his statement. “You’re pretty cocky, aren’t you?” I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

“Honey, you have no idea,” he said. He bit his lip and rocked his hips at me, just as a joke, just once, but I blushed anyway. Arousal coursed through me at his mocking suggestion. I took a long swallow from my glass to hide my face, but he’d seen it. His tone changed as he pulled me closer.

“You want to,” he breathed against my ear. “Say yes.”

A hundred protests ran through my brain. A thousand reasons not to, the top ones being “I’m not that sort of girl,” “I’m hung up on an ex and still in limbo over it,” “What if I embarrass myself somehow,” and so on for ages.

His fingers traced slow circles on my back as he waited for an answer.

And what if I get awkward over it? The band is his employer, what if it causes weirdness with the girls?

The unconcealed lust in his eyes called to me.

And am I even ready?
I was pretty angry with Tyler. I wasn’t even sad anymore, I just felt defeated. Had I truly given up hope?

He leaned down and kissed my neck, softly, just a warm brush of his lips against the sensitive skin. It made my breath catch.

What if he thinks I’m a slut or something?

“Riley,” he whispered, “I want to make you come, baby. I want to pin you under me and wipe all that stress off your face.” His fingers stroked my arms. “Let me take you home. Let me fuck you and satisfy you like no man ever has.”

Whoa.
I was far into uncharted territory. Whatever resolve I had crumbled with his seductive tone and his hot promises. No one had ever spoken to me like that before.

I released a shaky breath that I didn’t even realize I’d been holding. “Talk about an offer you can’t refuse,” I said weakly.

“Don’t joke. Just say yes.”

“Yes.” I said it before my stupid brain could catch up and defy my body’s desires. I wanted this. I wanted him. It was past time to stop being so scared and so cautious. “Yes.”

He stepped back a fraction and raised his glass to me. “Finish your beer.” Then he winked - it was that same arrogant wink he’d given me the first night we’d met, back when I’d seen him fight. Back when I’d had a boyfriend. It had done things to me even then.

I was ready. I was going to do this. I’d never chugged a beer so quickly in my life.

○●○●○●○●○

He drove me crazy on the train ride back home. His fingers traveled up my skirt, teasing, just inching along until I protested as if we were playing a naughty game of chicken. He kissed my neck whenever I turned away to blush. The city was working in our favor that night - we waited for our transfer for less than five minutes, a damn miracle at that hour. That train was much less crowded and he pulled me onto his lap as we passed into Queens.

“What are you doing?” I hissed, casting my eyes about the car. No one was paying us any attention beyond disinterested glances.

“I want to show you how bad I want you,” he said as I settled across his legs, and sure enough, I could feel his hardness straining against his pants. I tried to stifle a grin.
I did that. That’s for me.
It was hard to tell much in our position but it did not feel insubstantial. I leaned into him and thought,
mine.

His apartment was on the fourth floor in a small multi-family building that only had five apartments. The elevator was out of order, so he pushed me ahead of him up the stairs, shamelessly grinning at the view as he walked up behind me.

“Pervert,” I teased.

“You have no idea.”

Once inside I barely had a chance to get a look at the space. He shut the door behind us and didn’t turn on any of the lights, instead taking me by the hand and leading me through into his bedroom.

He whirled me around and pressed me against the door. His lips descended onto mine before my head could stop spinning.

I melted into him. He was so big and masculine, and more aggressive than any of the few guys I had known, but I loved it. I moaned as his tongue traced my bottom lip before sliding inside my mouth and exploring. My whole body bloomed with heat, opening like a flower in anticipation of the things he'd promised to do.

He flicked the switch next to my head, bathing us in dim light. Breaking our kiss, he pushed my skirt up around my waist and looked down at my body. He groaned. "I've been wanting to do that since I first saw you." He tugged my panties down to my knees and I wiggled my legs so they dropped the rest of the way to the ground.

"Last week?" I breathed, pressing my back against the door as his eyes drank me in.

"Before that. When you were with that dweeb."

I didn't want to laugh; I didn't want to ruin the mood. But who the hell said "dweeb" anymore?

"Think I'm funny?" He let the plaid fabric drop back over his hands as his fingers traced up my inner thighs.

"Sometimes." The closer he got to my throbbing center, the more I forgot what we were just talking about.

"Think this is funny?" A finger brushed over my soft folds, making me jump and gasp. I was already wet and so damn sensitive - what was it about him? My panties were on the ground and I hadn't even gone through my litany of self-doubt yet. No thoughts of "too thin, too fat, too pale," nothing. He had a way of looking at me with such intense desire, how could I imagine he didn't like what he saw?

“Maybe a little funny,” I breathed, biting my lip and grinning. He pressed his fingers inside me, slowly. I rose to my toes and threw my arms around his neck with a gasp.

“Still funny?” He curved his fingers deep within, finding that sensitive spot and expertly stroking against it.
Holy shit.
I saw sparks. I tried to formulate a response but all that came out was a garbled croak as I moved with him and grasped him tighter. “No? Not laughing?” He tugged back my hair with his free hand, exposing my neck to his hot mouth.

Not laughing.
He removed his hand from where he held me inside and I whined, feeling bereft. He silenced me with a deep kiss. Moving with urgency, he pulled the straps from my shoulder and tugged the corset-style top down, exposing my breasts. Yes, I wore no bra. The top had built-in support so I didn’t need one. I was glad for it, then. One less article of clothing to fumble with.

His head dipped and he drew his tongue across one of my nipples, rough and hot and wet. Then again, on the other. My hands found their way to his hair, drawing him closer as my fingers tightened around the short, light brown waves.

I tugged on his shirt, hungry for skin-to-skin contact. He got the hint and ripped it over his head in one quick motion. I was much less smooth trying to get the zipper down on the back of mine, and he finally just grabbed the bottom and pulled it up over my head.

“Fucking gorgeous,” he growled, taking a step back. When he said it like that, looked at me like that, I could nearly believe it. Holding his eyes with mine, I unzipped the back of my skirt and let it drop, pooling around my feet. That earned another low groan.

He unzipped his jeans as he walked backwards towards the bed, a wicked glint in his eye. I followed as if hypnotized. I couldn’t bite back a gasp - he pulled his rigid member free and kicked the pants away as he sat on the edge of the mattress. “Come on over here, baby,” he said, patting the bed to either side of him. He gave himself one long, slow stroke. “This is all for you.”

I couldn’t peel my eyes away.
What have I gotten myself into?
I was loathe to admit it but aside from Tyler I was worryingly inexperienced.
And he’s way bigger. Oh, man.

Mallet’s expression softened at my hesitation. “Here,” he said, reaching for my hand. I took it. He pulled me along the bed with him until we were both lying on our sides facing each other. Staring into his eyes like that was unexpectedly intimate. He traced my curves and looked down between us; looked down at me. “I’ll make you feel really good. Promise.” I nodded. He tugged my thigh over his hip. I blushed at feeling so open, despite the fact that he couldn’t see me very well positioned as we were.

Then he kissed me again. His tongue slid inside my mouth, withdrew, slid inside again in a slow and sensual imitation of sex. I moaned and tilted my hips toward him, seeking contact. He smiled against my mouth; reaching between us, he dragged a finger through my wetness with a light touch, drawing a deep moan from my throat. I wanted him so bad, I felt dizzy.

“That’s it, baby, just relax,” he said softly. “I’m just gonna slide these two fingers inside you real slow.” He did as he said, and my mouth fell open in a soundless cry of pleasure. “And I’m gonna stroke your clit.” I didn’t care what he did, as long as he started moving. I thought I was going to lose my mind. He sought out the sensitive bud with his thumb and stroked it. I made a garbled sound somewhere between a moan and a yelp.