thirty-four: in which she rides the future (kind of hard)

RECAP (do we need one?): Maya is about to meet her estranged aunt from her mum's side. This is the aunt who Facebooked her out of nowhere and said she was planning on traveling from South Africa to the States for a visit. Jake is taking a VERY cold shower ;-)

*~*

"Give me touch, 'cause I've been missing it" -Daughter, Touch

********************************

We sat on couches that were on either side of the coffee table, our backs ramrod straight.

She looked at me. I looked at her. From somewhere in the house, I could hear a girl giggling.

"How did you find me?" I spoke first, trying to get rid of the frog in my throat by clearing it.

It didn't even budge.

"I asked one of your friends. Kia, right?"

I felt goosebumps prickle my skin at the sound of her voice. That accent, that cadence - the voice of my mother. It was uncanny. I hated it and fell in love with it at the same time.

I was going to kill Kira.

"You were ignoring my calls," Aimee pointed out, her hands in her lap. "My messages."

"Now isn't a good time to be here," I heard myself say, and I was glad that my voice was clearer. Steadier. "And it's Kira."

"Sorry?"

"My friend. Her name is Kira. Not Kia."

Pink tinged Aimee's cheeks. She was a brunette and she'd pulled her hair into a tight bun at the top of her head. Her eyes weren't the same slate-gray as mine or my late mother's. They were darker, with flecks of green around the irises. Her lips, thin and downturned, were coated in light pink. She'd worn a black pantsuit to meet me, the niece she'd never been interested in until recently.

As if this was a business meeting.

"Maya," she said gently, "I'm glad to finally see you. To have you right in front of me. It's like... it's like having Chantelle right here."

"Don't mention my mother," I snapped, feeling tears prickle my eyes. "You don't get to show up after nearly thirty years of ignoring me and the rest of my family."

I heard her take a deep breath, heard her perfectly manicured nails graze the fabric of her pants. "I want to make amends. I want to get to know you."

"I don't care about what you want. Really, just go." I rose to my feet, hugging my own arms around myself. "This is the worst possible time for you to be here."

Aimee stood as well, nervously wringing her hands together. "I'm sorry, Maya," she said, eyes pleading with me to understand. "For not coming to the funeral. For not reaching out sooner. For...ambushing you like this. I'm truly sorry."

"Leave."

"Your grandmother died last month," she blurted out. "I'm sorry for just springing this on you, but that's part of why I'm here. She left you a lot of money and, even with the exchange rate, it'll be quite substantial. She wanted you to have it, Maya."

I sat back down, feeling lightheaded.

"Maya?" Aimee prodded, her voice hesitant. "This isn't the only reason I'm here. I'm hoping to... I'm hoping that you can find it in your heart to forgive me."

"Keep the money." My voice was shaky. "You and your mother had years to try to make amends but you didn't and now you think you can toss money at me to assuage your sudden burst of guilt? Go to hell."

Aimee's eyes widened. She took a step back, as if she were afraid that I'd jump up and attack her. I was too stunned to do that. I couldn't believe that after all these years - all these years without hearing a peep from them - my aunt was trying to buy her way into my life.

"Chantelle broke our parents' hearts by choosing a man over them," she said, her voice soft. "Yes, they had a problem with his skin color, but it was dangerous in those times. They were worried about what would happen to her - to him, even - if their relationship continued. Later on, when they tried to reconnect with her, Chantelle had shut the door on them and decided to cut them - us - out of her life. She never gave an address, a phone number - she disappeared. We were broken."

"You were racists," I snarled. "You were a family of prejudiced assholes who didn't give two shits about me or my parents. Do you think I'm a struggling black girl you can pay to love you? That all I care about is green paper? You can get the fuсk out of here and pray that God is more forgiving than I am because I am never letting you or any other van Rensburgs into my life. End of story."

I was breathing heavily when I was finished and at some point, I'd gotten to my feet. My heart was beating so hard it hurt and I could barely see through the veil of anger over my eyes.

"You heard her," a voice said from the doorway. "Get the fuсk off this property."

Aimee visibly blanched, no doubt taking in the formidable, tattooed giant who was shooting her a glare from the only exit.

She turned and grabbed her handbag from the couch, gave me one last lingering look, and then squeezed past Jake on her way out. I would've sagged onto the floor if it wasn't for Jake pulling me into his embrace.

"She wanted to give me money," I said on a sob, gripping onto him as if he were my lifebuoy. "I've been alone for so long and all she wanted to do was give me money."

Jake was stroking my hair, holding me so tightly it was almost a struggle to breathe. "You're not alone," he told me. "You have me."

I pulled back, tilting my face up to look at him. "Do I? Do I have you?"

"Always. Forever," he said fiercely, wiping away my tears with his fingertips. "In this life and the next."

"Take me to your room," I demanded. "Take me to your room and make love to me."

His eyes searched mine for doubt, for uncertainty, maybe, and when he found none, he murmured, "If that's what you want."

"It's what I need," I said back.

*~*~*

He peeled my T-shirt - his T-shirt - off like I was his gift and slid my sweatpants and panties off as if they were fragile and made of the flimsiest material. Slowly. Gently.

Kneeling at my feet, he allowed me to place my hand on his head to steady myself as I lifted my feet for him to get my pants clean off. When I stood in nothing but heated skin, he kissed his way up my knees, up my thighs, past my pussy, past the scar on my side - until he was standing up and could kiss me on my mouth.

My hands went to the back of his head and gripped him tightly, eyes sliding shut. I wanted fast; he went slow. I wanted hard; he was gentle. In the end, I just wanted him.

"Are you sure?" he asked once he'd ripped our lips apart. "Are you sure you're up for it? Are you sure you're up for it with me?"

After your surgery. After last night, and the kids I killed. After everything.

He didn't have to say it. I knew.

"I'm sure, Jake," I uttered breathlessly. "Please love me."

He let out a harsh breath, his eyes darkening. Without another word, he lifted me in his arms and I wrapped my legs around his waist, breathing in his clean smell of soap and aftershave. He set me on the bed and removed his clothing, and I felt my mouth go dry.

Why was he so beautiful? Inked and pierced and sinfully ripped - and all mine.

I lay back on the bed, holding myself up on my elbows, parting my legs. Desire made his eyes darken and he palmed his erection, from base to tip, his chest heaving with every deep breath he took.

"Put your fingers inside your pusѕy," he directed, his voice hoarse. "I want to watch."

Uncertainty made me stare dumbly at him and his face softened.

"You have a beautiful puѕsy, baby," he said, "and I want to stroke my diсk hard watching you touch it."

My hand was already drifting down my belly until my fingers reached the lips of my vagina. God, I was so wet. It was his rough voice, his body, his obvious yearning for me. With two fingers, I spread my labia, never dragging my eyes from his. Biting my bottom lip, I rubbed my сlit at first, and pleasure warmed my lower half. I squirmed under Jake's heated gaze and yet, I found that I rubbed myself harder, faster, until I had to slide two fingers inside myself.

It was different, doing this to myself, but the fact that I was doing it while he watched - while he stroked himself, pre-cum glistening at the tip of his penis - made me desperate for release.

"Stop," he grunted - and I stopped, breathless and unfulfilled.

Jake got onto his knees between my parted legs and took my hand in his, bringing my wet fingers to his mouth and sucking on them. His eyes closed as he licked my arousal clean off my fingers, distracting me from the fact that his other hand was on my pusѕy.

"Jake," I moaned, arching my back when he pushed his fingers inside me.

They were thicker, rougher, and I pushed back against them, arching my back.

He released my fingers from his mouth, sending me a cocky grin that made me clench around him.

"Close," I whimpered, my abdomen taut with my impending release. "Close..."

His fingers left me. Frustrated, I cursed him. Chuckling, he leaned in and kissed me. On the nose.

"I love you, baby," he whispered, "even when you call me a dickfuсk."

He maneuvered himself over my legs and sat beside me, leaning against the cushioned headboard. "Come here."

He was gripping himself in his right hand again, pulling upwards in rough strokes, his eyes on me. I felt more than agreeable so I pulled myself upright and moved to straddle him, my eyes tangling with his. His hands were on my waist, his cock hard against my inner thigh.

"Do I have you, Maya?" he asked, repeating the question I'd asked him earlier on.

I kissed his nose. "You do, Ripper. You do."

He let out a sigh - maybe because I'd used his road name as well - and, eyes lowered, he positioned me over him, directing the head of his erection to my opening. His eyes shot up to meet mine before he pulled me down onto him abruptly.

We inhaled loudly at the same time and I put my hands on his shoulders, feeling totally filled by his coсk. Feeling totally joined with him.

I moved first, grinding against him and making him groan. His hands went to my backside, and he moved me - back and forth, back and forth...slowly. Until slow wasn't good enough and he made sure I knew it. I rocked against him almost feverishly and he pushed into me desperately, forcing himself deeper.

"Fuсk," he rasped, his hazel eyes reflecting the awe that I was sure was in my own. "It's always fucking perfect with you."

I moaned in response, and when his mouth closed over one of my nipples, I threw my head back and cried his name. He sucked on my nipple until I begged him to stop, and he did - only to move to my other breast. My hands left his shoulders and my fingers dove into his messy hair, pulling at it until he swore and hissed my name.

"I'm coming, Jake," I announced, my voice strained. My movements became choppier the closer I got to my release.

I barely managed to get the words out before my entire body seized and I climaxed. Jake had stopped moving just to watch me. To watch me lose control and surrender to bliss as I fell apart around him.

Panting, I dropped my head onto the place where his neck meets his shoulder. "Use me," I whispered. "Fuсk me. Come inside me. I love you so damn much, okay?"

And he used me. Fuсked me. Came inside me so hard and long I felt high on the feeling of him emptying himself inside my puѕsy.

I lay against him and he lay against the headboard and we both tried to catch a breath. His heart beat furiously against mine and my breasts were smashed against the silver hoops in his nipples. Lazily reaching between us, I pulled on one hoop and felt his diсk jerk inside me.

"Why did you do it? Pierce them," I added, realizing that I'd never asked him this. Ever.

Even though I couldn't see his face - because I was currently sniffing his neck - I knew he was smiling.

"I was told it would hurt," was his answer.

"Oh, Jake." I lifted my head and looked at him. "Seriously?"

"Pain can be good, sweetheart," he told me, wrapping his arms around my waist. "It reminds me that I'm still here. Still alive."

I reached behind me for one of his hands and placed his palm flat against his chest. "Can you feel that, Jake? That's your heart beating. That should remind you that you're still alive."

"You remind me that I'm still alive," he said, linking his fingers with mine. "You're the best fuсkin' thing to happen to me, do you know that? The best."

I dropped my forehead until it pressed against his. "I know now."

We ended up going for another round that drained the remainder of my energy and left me feeling lethargic. Jake left the bed to go get what I realized was going to be brunch and when he returned, he found that I was in the middle of sending Kira a very angry text.

"What's wrong?" I asked when I saw his face. I put my phone down.

Jake put the tray of bacon, toast and eggs on my lap, looking guarded. "I gotta go out for a while."

"Out," I echoed, feeling my stomach turn.

Inside was safer than out there, where he could be killed at any moment. God, how I'd pretended for one morning that we were a normal couple. Stupid. Pointless.

"I'm sorry," he said to me, looking pissed off. With himself. I knew the difference.

"No, don't be. I know the score now." I set the food on the nightstand and pulled myself out of bed. "Just come back to me."

He cupped my cheeks and gave me a brief kiss on the lips before he left. I stood naked in his bedroom, listening to the roar of motorcycles outside as they left the compound.

"He will come back to me," I said out loud.

I said it a couple more times and then I got dressed and ate the breakfast Jake had made for me. It felt great to be eating grown-ups' food again.

Once I was finished, I took my plate to the kitchen - noticing how quiet the house seemed - and then crawled under the covers to finish my text to Kira about sending my aunt after me.

Despite the fact that it was early afternoon, I felt incredibly tired and before I knew it, I'd fallen asleep.

When I next awoke, it wasn't in Jake's comfy king-sized bed, in Jake's airy bedroom at the Phantoms' compound.

It was on a cold, concrete floor, in a dark room that reeked something awful. Stuck in that bewildering state between cognizance and slumber, I didn't realize that I wasn't alone until I sat up and heard a voice from the other side of the room say, "You awake, Maya?"

I rubbed my eyes, squinting in the near-darkness to make out a shadow slumped against a wall much like I now was.

"Sebastian?" I exclaimed, only because I knew his voice like I knew my own. My head was sore. Why was my head so sore? "Where are we?"

"Ssh! Keep it down," he hissed. "Promise you won't freak."

"Sebastian," I said through gritted teeth.

"James McNally has us," he said quietly. "You've been out cold since they dumped you in this cell with me a couple hours ago. I think I've been in here for a week and a half. I'm not too sure."

I felt my heart kick into panic mode at his words, and I gingerly put a hand to my head, feeling thick liquid coat my fingers.

I didn't even have to smell it to know that it was blood.