Well, fuck him. I did have my own money.

Still, it was probably time to break down and move over to that shit hole my dad was living in, because the cost of this place together with my New York apartment was putting a huge dent in my funds. Although I had to say, last night my pop’s house looked in better shape than I’d seen it in years. Then again, maybe last night was just the first time I looked at it differently.

No matter how clean he tried to make it, though, nothing would ever erase what had happened there or the blood that had been spilled. What Tommy had done was an act of revenge that he never wanted me to forget.

He had succeeded in that.

I cranked the water as hot as I knew I could stand it and tried to wipe my mind clean of what he’d do to Elle if he saw her and worse, much worse, what he’d do to her if he saw her with me.

Fuck.

Stripping off my clothes, I stepped into the large glass expanse and let the water flow over me, welcoming the familiar burn that was never enough to really make me feel clean.

And thought of Elle.

Beautiful.

Natural.

Smart.

Tough.

Vulnerable.

Vulnerable enough that if I couldn’t have taken her when I dropped her off last night, I knew I could have when her body covered mine as she slept, or this morning when she stood next to me practically naked. Those visions of her made my cock throb so much it hurt. But I craved her for more than just a single fuck.

And that just wasn’t possible.

I was already hard just thinking about her again, her long, lean legs, her perfect body, her small, tight ass. The water ran onto my hair, down my face, and fell to the drain. Before I knew it, I wasn’t paying attention to the water. Instead I had my cock in one hand, my balls in the other.

It had been a while since I’d fucked anyone. This shit with my father and Patrick had my mind on other things. But damn, my body needed this. I wanted her hand to curl around me and feel how hard she made me. I wanted to tell her what she did to me. Whisper in her ear. Scream it if I had to.

That wasn’t happening, though, so I settled on this.

I closed my eyes and gently rubbed first around the head, and then down my shaft. I fisted my balls in my other hand.

Fuck, that felt good.

Because I couldn’t help myself, I pictured her doing it. Her in the shower with me and us free to explore each other in any way we wanted. God knew, I wanted to explore her. All of her body. I grabbed my shaft and moved up toward the tip. I wanted her hands to be the ones gripping me, not mine.

Water droplets from the shower pounded down my body and acted as a lube, making it easier to move faster. I thought of her, her face, her body, how much I wanted to touch her, where I wanted to touch her.

Oh, fuck.

I imagined driving my cock into her sweet pussy and it made me want to come hard and fast.

Oh, fuck yeah.

My fist pumped at a quicker pace and I licked the water from my lips. I thought about slowing down but I was already too far gone.

My forehead fell to the shower wall and I grabbed my balls tighter, twisting my cock to feel a little pain.

Oh, fuck.

Pressure welled deep within me and a tingling radiated down my spine.

I was going to come.

I was going to come.

Oh, fuck.

As my orgasm sped higher and higher, so did the pleasure—it felt like electricity was shooting through me. That unbelievably good feeling mounted and I couldn’t hold on any longer.

I clutched on tight and let myself go.

As I came, my cock twitched so fast, it felt like a spasm, but so incredibly good. I exploded at the thought of her and the intensity of my orgasm shocked me. When the feeling rose again, I couldn’t believe it.

I wasn’t finished.

This time I really let myself go—crossing that threshold to another world and reliving the same feeling again and again until I was spent. Just the thought of her milked me for everything I had.

Afterward, I slouched against the glass and thought that if this was all I could have of her—a hand job given by my own palm with her in my mind—I’d take it.

It felt that fucking good.

As my breathing returned to normal, so did my senses, and I chastised myself. I shouldn’t be thinking of her at all, especially in that way.

With a sudden urge to want to chop my dick off, I lathered up with soap, rinsed off, and got the fuck out of there.

I didn’t bother to shave.

Wrapping a towel around my waist, I wiped the steam from the mirror and stared at my reflection, the scar under my eye opening up the memory that grabbed me before I could shut it down.

*

“You sure your family doesn’t mind if I stay at your house?” she asked.

“Fuck no, my pop’s passed out somewhere by now and my gramps isn’t home.”

It was the summer after college graduation and I was spending it with a bunch of my friends in the Hamptons. At a party, I had met a girl named Kayla who I wanted to get to know better. It had been the first time since Emily that I had taken any real interest in any chick.

After about a month of dating, I liked her enough to ask her if she wanted to road trip it to my hometown of Boston with me. It was last minute. I was on a drug run for my friends. It was supposed to be quick. Drive to Boston, spend the night at my gramps’s, pick up what I needed, and turn around and go back.

Kayla was excited to tag along and packed quickly, but then had a number of stops she wanted me to make before we actually got on the road. I was a bit annoyed but rode with it. By the time we pulled into Boston, it was late and Kayla complained that she was hungry. I remember thinking how high maintenance she was and that I wasn’t sure the relationship thing was for me. Still, I took her to a local pizzeria in Dorchester to get something to eat and put those thoughts on pause for the night.

It was around eleven before we finally reached Gramps’s place and I unlocked the door that led to his kitchen. Just as I stuck my key in the door, I remembered what it was I really liked about Kayla. It was her aggressiveness. She wrapped her arms around my waist and her hands drifted down. With my cock taking over my thoughts, I turned toward her and started kissing. We stumbled inside in a tangle of tongues, arms, and legs. I seriously doubted we’d make it past the kitchen.

I reached behind me to close the door but before I did, I felt another pair of hands on my shoulders and thought, what the fuck. Out of nowhere, I was shoved forward. I whipped around to see a gang of guys bursting in. There were four of them. I tried to shield Kayla, but one grabbed her from me as the other three went after me. Lunging forward, I made it to the counter and managed to clutch a kitchen knife from the wooden butcher block. This time when the three of them tried to secure me again, I flipped around and blindly stuck the blade somewhere.

“Fuccckkkk, he stabbed me!” one of them screamed.

Everything happened so fast after that. The knife was still in my hand. It didn’t go deep enough that I couldn’t withdraw it. When I tried again, somehow one of them managed to take it from me. He brought the blade right to my face. “Stop struggling,” he ordered.

Heart racing, I felt like a caged animal. My breathing constricted and I was having difficulty drawing air as I fought to free myself.

The one with the knife got real close, trying to scare me. I was lost in my own rage—fear wasn’t even under my radar. I just knew I had to get Kayla out of there. I didn’t know who these guys were, but I knew what they wanted wasn’t anything good. The scuffle continued, and then he managed to slice the blade across my face, just under my eye.