Caustic Read online

  His thumb brushed across my lip before he kissed me again, this time even rougher than before. I fell into him, and he wrapped his hands around the back of my thighs, lifting me up. I wrapped my legs around his torso as he carried me to the couch. He sat down so that I was on top of him. I raked my fingers through his dark locks, settling on his stubbled cheek. He nipped at my lower lip, turning me on even more. This was so new, he and I, and that just made it more exciting and enticing.

  I felt him tug at my shirt, and he lifted it away with ease, exposing my light pink bra underneath. He unclasped it, releasing my breasts hidden beneath the think pink fabric. His lips left mine and trailed kisses down my neck and onto my collarbone; he stopped and pulled away, admiring my exposed flesh.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  I didn’t respond, just trailed my finger along his jawbone, willing him to continue. He didn’t need instruction; he simply pushed my hair to the side, and began suckling my skin. Eventually, his mouth found my nipple and he bit it lightly. It wasn’t playful though; it was just forceful enough that I started rocking my hips against him. I could feel his hardness inside his jeans, attempting escape. I unraveled myself from him and moved off to his right; he took his shirt off, a tight sweater, as I unzipped his pants. His cock sprang out like it had been caged, and I looked to him for approval before taking it in my mouth.

  His head tipped back against the sofa in ecstasy as I swirled my tongue around the tip. “Mmm, that feels so good,” he said.

  He was relaxed, more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. For once, he had his guard down. I stroked him with one hand while I unbuttoned my own jeans with the other. It took only a moment before I was ready to slip them off. I released his member from my hands, and I tantalizingly pulled down his jeans. They dropped to the floor, and his hungry eyes told me exactly what I wanted to know. He wanted me, all of me.

  “Stand up,” he instructed. I stood up from the floor, and stayed between his legs. He kissed around my navel as he yanked down my own jeans and underwear. I watched the shadows play on his features; his chiseled chest and six pack as the fire grew and the storm raged outside. He was everything I wanted, which was shocking to me considering most of the time I had no idea what I wanted. But, maybe it wasn’t so much as what I wanted, and more of what I needed. Ellis was my perfect escape from my horrible nightmare. He was my dream, the exact opposite of what I was used to. And everything about him screamed more.

  He stood up and moved so that he was behind me pushing my arms and upper torso against the couch. I held onto the edge as he pushed himself inside me. I immediately felt fulfilled.

  He wrapped his hand around my throat, slowly resting his hips up against my ass. Teasing me, and he knew it. He would pull back so far that it was almost as if he was going to pull out, but then he would push back in further than the time before. He was keeping me on my edge. He didn’t speed up, or slow down, he just worked himself into a perfect rhythm. I could feel my orgasm start to build at the tips of my toes. It was like a rush of warmth running through my body. I waited for the crash, the waves to roll over me, but just as I was about to, the rhythm stopped.

  “I’m not ready for you to come yet,” he whispered harshly in my ear. He took my hair in his hands, and pulled me back so that I felt just a little bit of sharp pain with the other pleasures running through my veins.

  “Did you hear me?” he questioned.

  I simply moaned in response, unable to nod or produce any real language. I was too involved, too intoxicated by him to say anything.

  He released my hair and my throat, and I heard him shuffle off behind me. As I stood up and watched him walk into the hallway, he didn’t even look at me. He knew I would follow. I wanted more, my release. And only he could give it to me.

  By the time I entered into the dark hallway, he roughly pushed me up against the wall. I felt a frame fall from behind me, but that it didn’t matter. He raised my hands above my head, and held them against the wall behind me as he ravaged my mouth with his own. I couldn’t help it a moan escaping my lips as his other hand trailed a single finger down between my breasts along my stomach until he reached my mound.

  “You stay standing.”

  I nodded while sucking in deep breaths. He released my hands, and they fell to my thighs as his mouth followed where his finger had just been. In moments, he was down on his knees, and he lifted my right leg over his shoulder as he licked my pussy clean. My fingers clutched onto his dark hair, and my groaning grew louder.

  “Yes, oh fuck yes,” I cried, unable to control myself. He continued to expertly use his tongue along my slit as the waves rushed over me. If he hadn’t been helping to hold me up, I would have melted right onto the floor. He stood as I caught my breath, and lifted me up, carrying me into the back bedroom. He laid me down on the old bed, it creaking under our weight, and put himself between my legs. But, instead of entering me, he closed my legs in front of him, and turned them, and me to the side.

  He slapped my ass and said, “Keep your legs closed.”

  I did, and he slowly slid into my tight crevice, almost making me come again on the spot. He drove into me again and again. I could hardly contain my screams for more. Ellis was a sex god, and I was his slave. Anything he told me he wanted, I would have given it to him. Fuck I would have given him anything right then. Just to keep him. Just to make him mine.

  I felt my body start to spasm again, this time around his cock. He pushed harder and faster, feeling me at my climax. He pushed one final time, and I felt his warm seed rush into me. He collapsed on top of me just as I came down from my own high.

  I didn’t care how forbidden he was. He could make love to me like that whenever he wanted.

  He lay down next to me, tossing an arm over my bare chest. I didn’t stop him. I didn’t want to. I wanted to spend the night with him. Suddenly, Ellis was my prince. He would scare away all the monsters from my nightmares. He would keep me safe, always.

  SIXTEEN

  SKYE

  The next morning, I found myself tangled in Ellis’s arms. We’d spent the night on one of the twin beds in the back room. It had been one of the first moments since I had been sent on my little journey that I hadn’t thought of Leia. I knew I probably should have. She obviously cared about him when she knew him. But none of that mattered now; we were at a dead end. She’d obviously been here at some point, but it’s been weeks, at least, if not months.

  My phone started ringing, and I grabbed it off of the nightstand as I got out of bed, the floorboards creaking underneath my weight. The place was in really bad shape. I didn’t know what else to do, so I did what I know how to do best, I lied.

  “How’s the trip going? Did you find anything?” My mother’s voice sounded desperate, but what was I going to tell her? That I was up at the cabin, and that it was in shambles? I didn’t have the heart to do it.

  “Mom, I haven’t found anything. This trip is a waste of my time. I could be spending grandpa’s last few days with him instead of away from him. I’m going to come home today.”

  I heard her sigh at the other end of the line. “You’re sure? Nothing at all?”

  I looked over my shoulder, watching Ellis sleep softly in the bed. “Nothing.” I quietly got dressed as I listened to her tell me about my grandfather’s hospice care, and where I could visit him. I could hear the sadness in her voice, but I wondered if she ever had any hope. Or if my grandfather was the only one that still had held onto it. The vision of Leia and I walking through the doors together, smiling and laughing like we did as children, it was just a dream. There was no way that was to going happen.

  “Okay, I’ll try to get there at some point today. But, it’s going to take me a while. I’m pretty far up in New England.”

  “How far?”

  “Probably about three hours from you at least. Plus, I have to check out of my hotel and all of that,” More lies, but it was the only way to protect her.

  “Well, maybe y
ou’ll be back by tomorrow to visit him. Visiting hours end pretty early, but the nurses are nice, and he seems content. Though I’m not sure how he’ll take the news that you weren’t able to find anything.”

  I close my eyes in frustration. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “I know. Me too. Drive safe, baby.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  I hung up the phone, and went to the kitchen, even though I knew there wasn’t any food. It just seemed like my natural next step.

  Chester had followed me in from wherever he had been spending his night. I looked for something to do to busy myself, and found myself back out in the living room, touching the blanket that had once been my sister’s. I realized that, while Ellis was still sleeping, I could at least clean up the place a little bit, or search it more thoroughly for any clues of where she might have gone next. I started with the cabinet that we used to keep games in underneath the television, which no longer worked. Inside were some old relics from my grandparents, a set of checkers, and some cards that we’d used in what seemed like another lifetime. I continued around the living room, opening up the curtains, and letting some of the sunlight in. As I walked behind the couch to the bay window, I found a box with more old games. But, when I lifted it up, I recognized one of the games in particular. It was an old chess set that that Leia and I had learned on. Grandpa had taught us when I was probably ten. I lifted it out, set it on the windowsill, and I took a look at the pieces. They were all still intact. I was shocked because they were glass, and I figured after all these years, we had broken at least a few. But they here like they were frozen in time. I could remember the two of us sitting out on the back porch, playing until it got dark, and we couldn’t see anymore. We would laugh at each other’s moves only until we were old enough to become competitive. And Grandpa would watch from one of his rocking chairs and cheer both of us on, or neither of us, depending on what kind of mood he was in. Sometimes, it was just quiet, and all you could hear was the crickets and animals running through the woods. Those summers were some of the best days of my life. I took the chess set and put it next to the door, deciding that I would take it with me. Hanging on the coat hanger were a few of my grandfather’s old jackets. I considered putting them in the back of the house, in his and my grandmother’s bedroom. But it didn’t seem right, me moving things without him here. There was a raincoat that I could remember him wearing every single time it even drizzled. I dragged my fingers along the 1960s vinyl that had somehow survived all this time, when I realized there was something in the pocket. The coat was far too heavy; I could remember wearing it a few times and it weighing hardly anything. I chewed on my lower lip, trying to decide if I should put my hand in or not. With my luck, it was probably a rat. But I put on a brave face, reached my hand in, and prayed nothing would bite me, but instead I found another leather journal. Another piece of Leia.

  Maybe the trail wasn’t so cold after all.

  I walked back into the living room, and sat down on the sofa. Chester immediately hopped up next to me, curling his body against mine. I was happy to not be alone.

  I flipped through a few pages of drawings, she had always been a far better artist than me, until I finally got to one of her first journal entries. It was dated only six months ago, so she had been here.

  It’s hard to be back here. Once I signed the papers and I left, I thought I’d be able to fall right back into life. Like I’d be able to get a job and move on. I don’t care that my family has tried to get in touch with me. It’s none of their business what I do from now on. It’s mine. It’s my life, and I’ll live it the way I want to.

  I went to see Frank the other day. I think he’s off his meds again, though I hardly take mine so I can’t blame him. Don’t throw stones at glass houses… isn’t that the saying? I don’t know. But if I threw a stone right now, I’d break. I don’t have any money left. And the small temporary jobs I can find are few and far between. The power got turned off yesterday. And I can’t call anybody to pay it even if I did have the money because then my parents would know where I was.

  I don’t blame them. I don’t want to see them, but I don’t blame them either. It’s not their fault that I’m like this. I just fell apart. People break. Glass houses break. And that’s what I was.

  But Skye threw the first stone. She started all of this. I know it. Regardless of what they told me in therapy, or however many drugs they pumped me with, I know somehow that she was involved. She was part of my demise.

  Somehow, I will figure all of this out one day. Someday, I’ll confront Skye about how this was all her fault.

  I sighed. So she still did blame me. I mean, I had read her other journals, and I knew that she wanted me dead, but I figured that was just the drugs talking, or the demons inside her mind. But this is the first time I had read a journal entry by her that I could tell she was completely lucid, and yet, she still wanted nothing to do with me. Whatever had happened to her was still my fault. And the worst part was, I knew it was true.

  I waited for Ellis to wake up to tell him that we were leaving. I’d searched the rest of the house for more journals, but came up empty. And, after flipping through the rest of the pages, there was hardly any information there. And nothing that said where she was going to after she left the cabin. We locked the door behind us and, after Chester ran around some more chasing ducks, we decided to head on our way.

  The drive was long and quiet. I had no idea what to say to him after last night. That it was amazing? That I was kind of a whore, and I slept around a lot? No. Not what you tell the guy that you are suddenly interested in, the only guy who knows all of your secrets. The only person who probably knows more about you than you do. You don’t tell him all the things that you’ve been doing for the past couple years. All the secrets you’re trying to hide, and all the nights that you didn’t want to be alone because those other men, they chased the nightmares away, too. I couldn’t tell him any of that, so instead I just looked out the window, and I thought about going home. How I would leave him and probably never see him again. And how much that hurt every fiber of my being.

  “So, what’s the next step? Where do you go from here?”

  Ellis shook me out of my miserable state, and back into my current reality. “Home. Connecticut. Then I guess back to my apartment to find a job. I mean, after my grandfather passes anyway. I want to spend as much time with him as I can until then.”

  His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “And, what about last night? What about not staying away from me?”

  “This isn’t me trying to stay away from you. This is just me fulfilling my obligations and getting back to my life.”

  He looked at me, a darkness in his eyes that I hadn’t yet seen. “What does that mean? That I was just somewhere to run away to? Someone that you could escape with?”

  “You weren’t an escape, Ellis. If anything, you were the most I have ever looked at my reflection in my life. You know everything about me. There’s no hiding from you. That doesn’t make you an escape.”

  “So, what does that make me? A cage?”

  I shook my head, “No! It just makes you someone that I actually want to be with. And I don’t do that. I don’t let people see the real me! Because, once you see it, you’re not going to like what you find.”

  “And I thought I was dangerous.”

  “And I told you that you weren’t,” I muttered under my breath.

  The rest of the ride was completely silent. We didn’t say anything until we pulled back into Fairmont. I wasn’t very familiar with the town, but I could tell that we weren’t heading back to Ellis’s place. “Where are we going?”

  “Well, now that we know your sister is kind of local, I figured you should file a police report. Missing persons or whatever. So, we’re going to the police station. Then, I will take you back to my place, so you can get your stuff and go.”

  That was actually really good idea. I had to give them some credit. “Ellis?”
>
  He looked at me. “Yes?”

  “Thanks. I know this isn’t how you planned to spend the past few days, so thanks.”

  He nodded, outstretched a hand, and placed it on my knee, squeezing it, before placing it back on the steering wheel. We might’ve been like water and vinegar, but, somehow, I knew that maybe one day we would make it work.

  SEVENTEEN

  SKYE

  We pulled into the police station. After leaving Chester in the car with the windows down, we entered the brick building. Mostly, there were a bunch of guys in uniform, sitting around and eating doughnuts… exactly how I pictured it would be in a small town. I mean, what were they going to do? Get a cat out of a tree? I was guessing that was probably the biggest thing that happened in Fairmont.

  “Can I help you, Ellis?” A large portly man came up to us in full uniform, minus the hat. Even had a gun on his belt. Maybe darker things happen in Fairmont I realized.

  “We need to file a missing person’s report. Skye, this is Jerry, the police chief. Skye’s sister has been missing for quite some time, but we have some new information that she may be in the area. If you could just file it, and send it out to some of the neighboring counties, maybe someone will have seen her.”

  “Well, how long she’d been gone, son?”

  I responded instead. “Six years.”

  He shook his head. “You have a picture? I mean, how would I get a rendering? Six years is a long time.”

  “You can just take a picture of me.”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “I’m sorry?”

  “We’re identical twins. So, you can just take a picture of me. We even have matching tattoos. You can put that on the report.”

  He nodded, his bald head shining under the bright lights. “That’ll do just fine. Let me grab that report. We can fill it out in my office.”

  I placed my hands on the linoleum counter. They were cool, and it seemed to calm me down. This had been a great idea, but I didn’t realize how sick it would make me feel. Reporting my sister as missing was almost as bad as wondering is if she was dead. I pushed those thoughts so far from my mind over the past three years that I didn’t realize they would affect me this way. What if she was dead?