It was pitch dark back there. The path was no more than a right-of-way between the backs of houses. Echo Park and Silver Lake were full of untended spaces. Staircases built during the Depression, forgotten paths that were never lit or patrolled that were taken over by residents for extra garden space or burial grounds for unwanted cars.
I grabbed saplings and vines to pull myself up the hill. There was garbage everywhere. Just as I was thinking about how I had to get up there in the daytime with a few plastic bags and clean it out, I was pushed into the ficus.
“Where are you going, goddess?” His voice came from behind me.
His breath in my ear, his scent in my nose, the feel of his chest on my back, the way he fit like a puzzle piece… I didn’t even want to ask him what the f**k he was doing in the woody part of my backyard.
“You didn’t call.” I leaned my head back and exposed my throat. He made me forget everything when he unlooped my scarf and put his mouth on my neck, his lips a lightning rod for the electricity to my core.
“I was busy. I’m sorry.” His teeth found the place where my neck met my shoulder, and he gifted me a little crush of pain that translated directly to pleasure. I sucked in my breath. He ran his hands down my arms, to my hands.
“Apology rejected. Return to sender.”
Knotting his palms to the backs of my hands, he pressed them to the tree trunk.
“Spread your legs,” he said in my ear. I wasn’t fast enough. He kicked them apart. He was so f**king rough, and the precarious feeling of not knowing what he’d do next sent a gush of moisture between my legs.
How long would Jessica wait? Until tomorrow. Because Jonathan had appeared, and his hands were on my stomach, pushing up my bra. He pressed my bruised places gently while finding the untouched spots and pushing his hands against them until I groaned.
“You want something?” he asked.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” His voice softened as if he meant it, and his hands drifted down to my waistband.
“Are you going to f**k me?”
He unbuttoned my jeans and unzipped without answering, pressing his c**k against my ass. I ground against him. “God, I want to.” He took my right hand from the tree trunk and, still pressing my left to the tree, he slid it down my pants. “But it looks like you’re going somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“You wet?”
I ran my finger to my hole and felt the sopping, slick mass under it. “Yes.”
He removed his hands from mine but curved his body around me, his front to my back, his voice in my ear. “How wet?”
“Fuck-me-now wet.”
“Touch your clit. Do it so it feels good.”
I rubbed my engorged member with one finger, circling it, pushing myself into him.
“Two fingers,” he said, pulling away just a little. “Use two fingers on it, letting the center fall in the crease between them.”
I moaned.
“Feel good, goddess?”
“Yes.”
“How good?”
“Not as good as you f**king me.”
“Good answer. Hook your fingers. Put them in your cunt. Then drag them back out to your clit. Rub with the very tips.”
“Oh, Jonathan, please. Please f**k me.”
“Don’t you like this?” There was something in his voice, some sarcasm. As though this wasn’t foreplay, but him making an argument. I stopped and started to pull my hand out of my pants, but he grabbed my bruised elbow, making me flinch. “Don’t stop. Make yourself come.”
“I don’t—”
“Do it.”
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t demand he explain what the f**k he thought he was doing because when he said do it, I wanted to. I wanted to please him, to submit, to be his. I was more than a submissive because submission implied a choice. I was his slave.
I rubbed my clit, gathering fluids, juice flooding between my fingers. I let out a high-pitched ah then choked it off.
“Let’s hear it, Monica.”
“Oh, God,” I whispered.
He moved to my side, crouching so his breath was on my cheek. I turned to face him, eye to eye, my legs spread, my left hand on the tree, my right hand in my pants. He still didn’t touch me, just breathed with me as my lower lip dropped and my lids hooded.
“You like it.”
“I like you better.” My breaths got shorter and hitched. My cunt was hot under my fingers, twitching, engorged, soaking.
“I bet,” he said.
“Take me.”
“Come.”
“Yes.”
The tingle ran from my knees to my waist, and my ass bucked as if Jonathan was still behind me. I cried out loud enough for the neighbors to hear, driving my hips into the tree as if I was f**king it. My chest rose and fell against the white bark, my cheek feeling its rough winter texture as I looked at him, just a shape in the darkness.
“That was okay?” Jonathan asked.
“More, please.” I took my hand from my pants.
“You’re insatiable.” He kissed my wet fingers. “I’m glad you like it, because that’s your life if I go to jail. I’m not one of those nice guys who will tell you to date other men. I’m the guy who owns you whether I’m in jail or not.”
“Tell me what you think she’s going to say.”
He leaned on the tree and put my index finger in his mouth, sucking it clean. “Is it so wrong to want to keep you away from the ugliest parts of my life?”
“Yes.” The feel of his tongue as he sucked my fingers was arousing me again. I leaned my shoulder against the tree, bracing myself against the drop down the hill with my boot heel.
“It’s wrong to want to protect you? To keep you above my shit? A goddess?”
“Yes. It is wrong. It can’t last. If you make me into some perfect thing that’s separate from your life, we’re going to disappoint each other. And that’ll be it. We’ll be over.”
“I don’t think so.” He finished with my fingers and knotted our hands together.
“Yes, Jonathan, yes. We’ll be over. I love you. I love your past, no matter what it was. I love your present, and I want to be your future. But lying will break us. One day you’ll wake up and realize I don’t really know you, and it’ll be too late to bring me close. That’ll be it, whether you leave me or not. We’ll be over.”
“My secrets might be out for public consumption very soon. So let’s have now, before you run away.”