Carmen Jenner - Welcome to Sugartown

“No, Elijah, it was your sister’s. It’s all you have left of her. I can’t take that away from you.”

I ignore all this. It suits her, and I’d rather see someone as perfect as her wearing it than know it was collecting dirt and dust under my bike. Lil would want that, too. Lil would have loved Ana. She would have idolised her, the same way Sammy idolises me. Hell, one look at Ana and Lil would have asked if she could swap siblings. “You know what they mean?”

She shakes her head, no.

“Love, freedom.” I stick my hand out in front of her and turn my palm up, then I trace my finger around a tiny shape beside the reaper, hidden amongst the rest of my tattoo sleeve. It’s Lil’s swallow. Ana’s swallow, now, I guess. Maybe that tattoo was always intended for her and I just didn’t know it. “Loyalty. A swallow represents the loyalty of a person always returning to them. I’ll always return to you, Ana. There’s never been anyone else for me.”

Ana stares up at me, all doe eyes and sad smiles, but there’s something else in her expression, too, and it’s as clear as the day is fucking hot. She wants me. Right here, in this moment, Ana Belle wants to fuck my brains out. It doesn’t change anything, though. She still won’t allow herself to give into it and I won’t push it upon her because she’s not ready yet, and when I do finally get that woman beneath me I won’t ever be giving her up. Not even if she begs me to.

I pull her in and place a soft kiss to her lips. I hadn’t meant to linger there, but her mouth is so god damned inviting and she doesn’t push me off, so I take the opportunity to draw out the moment I’ve stolen. I don’t force my tongue down her throat, it never even leaves my mouth, but there’s heat all the same because our eyes are open and neither one of us is walking away.

“Ewww, dude,” I hear Sammy whine behind us. He runs back to the dining room complaining, “Dad! Anath’s thucking on Elijath’s face again!”

I place once last kiss against her lips and then I saunter away, feeling satisfied. I’m probably about to be murdered by Ana’s father in the next few minutes, but I don’t care. Every second was worth it.

I’m halfway to the dining room when Ana says, “Elijah?”

“Yeah babe?”

“I love it,” she whispers and gives me a megawatt smile.

Best fucking Christmas ever.

“Hurry up, bitches, or we’re starting this lame-o movie without you,” Holly yells from the lounge room. Elijah and I are in the kitchen; apparently we’re the designated snack providers for our impromptu cinema night. I swear, sometimes being the only person that can cook in a household of constantly hungry boys and cranky pregnant women kinda sucks arse.

“Yeah, and don’t forget the beer.”

“Popcorn and beer? That’s disgusting!” I hear her say, and Jackson rattles off a list of reasons as to why ‘that shit is the fucking bomb’. “My baby is crying right now inside of me, you know that, don’t you? You’re making him cry with your disgusting eating habits and then he’s going to throw a tanty and start kicking my vagina and then I’ll want to throw up all over you, so could you please, just for once, shut up? And where the heck is my chocolate milk? I had like, half a glass left.”

I finish dusting the popcorn with icing sugar while Elijah fishes out two beers for himself and Jack. “You want one?”

“No thanks, could you grab me a Stoli though?”

“Uh-oh. You better tell me now if you’re planning on getting so shitfaced you have to be carried to your room.” He waggles his brows at me. “I’ll go easy on the beer so I don’t drop you.”

“Very funny.”

I grab the bowl of popcorn and head for the lounge. I’m halfway there when Holly yells, “Can you bring the chocolate milk, pretty please?”

I swing back and run smack bang into Elijah, who clearly wasn’t watching where he was going because I’m pretty sure his eyes were firmly fixed on my bum.

“Shit. Sorry.” He rights the bowl of popcorn before it falls from my hands, but not before several pieces fall and find a new home in my cleavage, which of course turns him into a drooling boob of a man—pun intended. “You’ve got popcorn … uh.”

I fish the pieces from my bra and pop them in my mouth, then I push him back a step before heading over to the refrigerator. “Geez, Elijah, it’s like you’ve never seen boobs before.”

“I never seen boobs as perfect as that.” He points to my chest with his stubbie and then takes a long pull while openly ogling my breasts.

I shake my head and retrieve Holly’s milk from the fridge. I almost make it out of the kitchen before she yells, “Bring a glass too, Jackson drank from mine and I think he has cooties.”

“You ever feel like we’re running a hotel here?”

I let out a sigh. “With those two? Ha! More like we’re running a daycare.”

“You know that’s actually a pretty apt description.”

“Oh, like you can talk, Mr I-Go-Gaga-for-Boobies.”

He shrugs. “They’re nice boobies.”

I roll my eyes and follow him into the lounge room. Holly and Jack are hunkering down on the couch. Despite sitting at opposite sides from one another, their legs stretch out in the middle of the couch, leaving no room for anyone else. Elijah plonks himself down on the recliner and I shoot all three of them dirty looks.

“Where the heck do I sit?”

“Jackson, get up,” Holly commands.

“I’m not getting up, you get up,” Jack says, and shoves her foot with his.

“I’m pregnant! Besides, Ana’s a woman. You’re supposed to give up your seat to women and the elderly; it’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”

“Gentlemanly? Since when do you care about gentlemen?”

“It’s fine, I’ll just sit on the floor.”

“Sit with me,” Elijah ventures.

“I’m not sitting with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re … big, you hardly fit on that thing as it is.”

“Fuck, you two are worse than a couple of tweeniebopper virgins trying to figure out where the condom goes. Just sit on him already and be done with it.”

“Jackson!” I chide.

At the same time Holly pouts at him and says, “Hey, that’s my line.”

I’m thinking I might just forget this whole movie night thing and go to bed, but Elijah’s looking all too sure of his ability to ruffle my feathers so I smile snidely and say in my most seductive voice, “Where do you want me?”

The cunning in his gaze is immediately replaced by desire, and I bite down hard on my lip. I shouldn’t be flirting with him. It’s cruel and wretched, and yet I can’t seem to make myself stop. I don’t want to stop. From the looks of it, Elijah doesn’t want me to stop either, because the challenge is back in his eyes, the one that says he doesn’t think I’ll do it.

“Right here,” he says and—surprise, surprise—he pats his lap.

It’s just sitting on his lap for goodness sake, it’s not like I haven’t done it before, I think, and then that evil voice in my head helpfully supplies, Only the last time we were completely without clothes and trying to get as close to one another as possible.

Ignoring that judgemental bitch in my head, I casually stroll over and lower myself onto his lap. I’m only resting half my weight on him and the rest is on my knees and feet as I push them against the floorboards in an effort to ground me. Elijah’s not happy with this arrangement, though. He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me into the hollow created by his open legs. Before I can get my wits about me enough to move away, he pulls the lever for the footrest and I’m flung back against him in a reclining position.

The first thing I notice is his hard body pressing against my back. The heat and delicious all-male scent of him blurs my senses, forcing me to momentarily lose my mind and fall prey to how good it feels to be in his arms again.

The second thing I notice is that he’s rock hard … everywhere. I try shifting away but he presses his large hand to my abdomen to secure me against him. I squirm in my seat, my breath becomes laboured and my knickers are soaking wet.

Elijah tilts his head so that his lips are pressed against my lobe. “Unless you want me to blow my load, baby girl, stop squirming and watch the movie,” his words are low and hushed, but the authority in his tone causes goose bumps to break out all over my skin. They also cause a streaking bolt of alarm to shoot through me. Until now, I wasn’t aware the movie had started, but Paris Hilton’s plastic-fantastic face is plastered all over the screen and her friends have just made a gruesome discovery in the woods.

I glance around. The lights are off, Holly’s eyes are growing heavy just a few minutes in, the popcorn’s been demolished and Jackson’s madly typing away on his phone.

I’m hyper aware of Elijah behind me, around me. It’s intoxicating and frightening, all at once. I also don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on—which, given that all my past sexual experiences, bar one, had included this man, is really saying something. Elijah knows exactly how to seduce me and he’s certainly not pulling any punches. One hand is grasping the back of my neck with only the barest hint of pressure, just the way I like it. The other is splayed against my lower abdomen, his pinkie and ring fingers resting against my pubic bone and causing pleasure to arc between the gentle press of his hand and my core.

I hear him inhale and then whisper, “You smell so fucking edible, baby girl. I’m gonna die if I don’t get to taste that sweet pussy of yours soon.”

My breath leaves me in a rush that sounds an awful lot like a whimper. I hate that I can’t control myself around him, that even as I sit here I’ve been turned into a whimpering ball of need and longing and he knows it. He knows just how to slink past all my defences and twist the knife deeper into my heart. It’s the night outside the Sugartown Hotel all over again, only this time I’m the only one he’s screwing over. And he’s enjoying every second of it.