My uncle tightened me in his hold and then moved before me to grip my cheeks. “You are enough! It’s not your fault, you hear me?”
My head shook in disagreement and my eyes closed, but the f**king stream of tears just wouldn’t stop… anger and grief now the only emotions I had left.
31
I woke with a start, sitting up in bed, sweating, panting, and my c**k so damn hard in my boxers. My hand felt beside me, searching for Mol, but the spot to my left was empty. Oh, yeah. She’d gone, and it was my third night at my uncle’s place… alone.
I looked around the unfamiliar room, my eyes catching sight of the clock beside me—three in the morning. Shit. My thoughts were immediately on my girl, knowing she’d already be awake and going about her day in Oxford.
Was she missing me? Wanting to come back home?
Falling back onto the mattress, I groaned and squeezed my eyes shut, but the replay of images from my dream was a slow torture, a temptation—I’d broken from my sleep way too soon. I wanted the memory of making love to my girl to seem real, wanted to feel once again what it was like to be inside her, chest to chest, rocking together, hands intertwined… lost in her… saved by her.
Closing my eyes, my memories slammed into me like a f**king truck, but I embraced them. I wanted to remember…
“Romeo, what are you doing? The party… you’ve just won the SEC Championship, you should be with the team…” Molly panted into my hair as I held her against the wall of my room. As soon as the door slammed to a close, I began pushing down her panties.
Lifting the skirt of her dress, I wrapped her legs round my waist. “They’ve had me all day in that f**kin’ parade, showboating me through town. The press has heard everything I gotta say. Now it’s all about you, and me, and sinking my c**k into this sweet little pu**y,” I said slowly, taking my hand and flicking my finger along her clit.
“Rome!”
Slipping back to reality and groaning with need, I reached down, stroking along my cock, trying to remember everything: how it felt being that close to my girl, how her face looked in the moonlight as I thrust into her against that wall. I was f**king desperate, searching for some connection to a time when things weren’t so messed up…
I freed my dick from my jeans and guided it toward Mol’s hot center. “You ready, baby? You ready for me?”
“Yes!”
I ran the tip around her warm hole, teasing, feeling her push down in frustration. “Mmm… I might just wait until you need it a bit more.”
“Rome! No! Please…”
Smiling as she tilted her hips just right, I breeched her entrance, and with one fast slam, pushed right in to the hilt.
Christ, it felt so good.
Molly gripped the nape of my neck as I pressed kisses along the sides of her neck and the swells of her tits. “Shit, baby, you’re so tight.”
“Harder, Rome, harder…” she begged.
I gave her what she needed and pounded her against the wall, the rhythmic thuds of her back against the drywall sounding with each thrust.
“Ugh… Rome… I’m… I’m—” Her sentence cut off as she screamed against my neck, her tight channel milking my cock.
“Mol… Mol!” I croaked as I came, gripping my girl’s legs and holding her off the floor with my torso.
Pulling back, Molly beamed her smile at me. “We should get back to the party now. People will be wondering where we are.”
Grinning back, I said, “Fine,” and leaned in to whisper in her ear, “but keep the panties off. There are more walls I’m wanting to try out…”
Staring at the ceiling, breathing fast with cum on my stomach, I felt a friggin’ tear slip out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t get that feeling of contentment back, jerking off like a desperate fool in the middle of the night just to get a feeling even close to what we shared.
What Mol and I shared was never just a f**k; it was never just making love. It was f**king life-changing, life-affirming, and fear seized my chest at the thought of never having that back.
Yeah, the way we f**ked was rough, intense, but it didn’t make the connection any less real. In fact, it made it the total opposite. In those moments we were exactly who we were meant to be, and we’d been unashamed to expose that side of ourselves to one another. We fit like a friggin’ puzzle.
Feeling like I’d taken a blow to the chest instead of reliving a happy memory, I sat up straight, swinging my legs off the bed, my head falling to my hands. My promise to my girl tormented my mind. I’ll make sure we get our happily ever after… Like hell I did. She got a f**king nightmare, and she—no, we were still stuck in that damn hell.
Walking to the bathroom, I turned on the shower, letting the hot water pound on my head. Grabbing the soap, I ran it over my skin, staring at the tattoo on my hip. “One Day.” I thought back to the day I got it—the day I told my daddy I’d gotten the UA football scholarship and was leaving home at the end of the school year. I was going to play for the Tide. It was the happiest day of my life, or had been until I met Mol. That tattoo was a symbol of my freedom, of my intention to get the hell away.
Switching off the shower, I toweled off and sat on the bed. The clock now read four a.m. Only a bastard hour had passed.
Reaching for my cell, I found the only number worth knowing.
Lying back on the bed, I listened to the voicemail greeting that kept me company most nights, then spoke:
“Hey, baby, just thought I’d call. It’s four in the morning and I can’t sleep… again. I dreamt about you tonight… God, I miss you. Being away from you is killing me. Come back, Shakespeare. I need you. I feel like I’m going insane. It’s Christmas tomorrow, for f**k’s sake. You should be here like we’d planned, just being with me, not in friggin’ England on your own. If you can’t talk yet, fine, but just let me know you’re okay, text, email, just something—”
The long tone cut me off, telling me I’d run out of time, and, throwing my cell to the floor, I lay back, closed my eyes, and let more memories rip me into shreds.
32
I was right to come back to Tuscaloosa. It may’ve only been the day after Christmas but I’d pretty much spoiled most of the holidays for my aunt, uncle, and Ally. Getting the news on Christmas day that my momma was being released without charge for her assault on Molly at the hospital—a restraining order and a court issued rehab program, her only punishment—was a complete head f**k. The news got me so damn mad that I couldn’t sit at the dinner table, celebrating the joys of Christmas, when my momma had gotten away with her crimes, and just to top it all off, I still hadn’t heard from my girl.