“No,” she whispers. “I just missed you.”
“I’m right here, Elena. Right here, my love.”
I keep my hand where she placed it, sliding the other behind her neck to tangle in her hair. She drops her head to mine again, and her tears drip off her chin and onto my chest.
“I missed your soul,” she says with heavy breath. “I missed my best friend. I often wonder how I lived life without you.” She sucks in a ragged inhale, voice fractured. “But I think now I realize I wasn’t living at all.” She lifts her body before dropping down again, and my cock pulses as need builds in the base of my spine, hot and desperate. “I used to get so homesick, and thenI came back, but the sickness stayed.” With a trembling hand, I wipe her cheeks. “I think it was because I was sick over you. You’re home to me.”
I nod, my eyes stinging with tears of my own. “Come home, baby. I’ve been waiting for you.”
She gasps, and her head falls into my shoulder as she grinds down, rocking her hips frantically. Her nails dig into the skin of my shoulder, pussy tightening as she begins to break.
“I love you, Elena,” I whisper. “Let it all go, Little Vice. Come home to me.”
“August,” she cries against my neck as she loses herself. Her body goes taut, limbs trembling as her climax crashes over her.
I hold her tightly, helping her ride it out until I feel her go limp—entirely spent. She’s panting against my mouth as I continue fucking her through it, chasing her orgasm with my own.
It’s when the soft murmured “I love you” falls graciously from her luscious lips that the heat in my spine explodes, and my entire soul shatters like an imploding planet.
I’m mindless, gasping and moaning, driving into her with force as my release barrels through me, begging to fill every space inside her—claiming her wholly.
She continues the whispers, up my neck and over my jaw, imprinting her words deep into my skin. It’s when she reaches my mouth that I allow my eyes to open, finding hers staring back at me, still glistening with tears.
There’s a smile on her face now as she murmurs the soul-healing sentiment into my open and desperate mouth, “I love you, Augustus.”
I surge forward, capturing her lips in a searing and fervent kiss. Our bodies are still connected, still writhing as I flush us together, kissing her hard. Her tongue drags against my lips, andI moan as it tangles with mine. What was soft and vulnerable has turned intimate and fierce.
“You’re home now, Elena,” I rasp into her mouth. “I’m never letting you go again. Do you understand?”
“Hold me forever,” she pleads, bucking her hips against me. I’d only begun to come down from the high of my orgasm, but we both whimper as I begin to harden inside her again. I feel her smiling against my lips as she muses, “Are you going to show me your love for a second time, Augustus?”
I flip us around, laying her gently on top of the blanket in the back of my Bronco. With the roof off, she’s given a perfect view of the cloudless sky—like the night cleared just for us.
Laughing into her mouth, I kiss her once more.
“Now, Elena, I’m going to fuck you under the stars you love so much.”
34
VICE
“WARM GLOW” - HIPPO CAMPUS
A tension headachepounds against my eyelids as I pull into one of the parking spots in the employee lot behind the boardwalk. Lowering the visor, I wipe beneath my eyes to clear any last remnants of my tears—profuse sobbing the primary source of my headache—before snapping it shut and getting out of my car.
I finally saved up enough money to buy myself a car. Well, to afford the down payment on a car. It’s used, and ten years old, but it has decent mileage, and I’m guaranteed a lifetime maintenance warranty at Ramos Automotive on account of my last name being scrawled across the front of the building.
The most important thing was having reliable transportation for myself, because I was so goddamn tired of walking everywhere, borrowing cars from one of my brothers, or having to ask for rides. I’ll be thirty in a couple of months, and I desperately needed something that could help me feel independent. I was ready to finally begin getting back on the right track.
So, I told the love of my life that I do, in fact, love him. The next day, I scheduled my first therapy appointment, and then Ibought myself a car. It’s a burgundy Kia, and it’s kind of ugly, but I love it anyway.
My first therapy appointment was supposed to be last week, but as the day approached, I began feeling irrationally anxious and exceptionally emotional. So bogged down by my own mind, I ended up canceling the session entirely, and had no intention to reschedule.
Then, about ten days later, my period appeared, and everything clicked into place. The anxiety-ridden distress was because of my PMDD, and I hadn’t even realized it at the time. It looks so different every month, and when I’m not tracking my cycle, it can be hard to understand what’s going on in my body. Plus, those days tend to feel drawn out and beyond reality—I’m fully convinced I am as crazy as I think, and my anxiety is as warranted as my mind tells me it is, so it’s difficult to rationalize anything at all.
The funny thing is, in those moments, August never once suggested I reschedule my appointment. He never told me to calm down, or that I was overreacting. He came home the first night with a couple of pre-rolled joints and curled up with me in bed while showing me dozens of videos he saved on his phone that featured people being injured in the most hilarious of ways, because he knows they make me laugh when I’m high.
He made me food when I didn’t want to eat, held me when I couldn’t sleep, and never complained about watching my favorite television shows. He ran me baths and washed my hair. He never touched me without asking and didn’t initiate sex until I did. Even then, he continued asking me if I was okay until I got borderline annoyed about it, pinned his hands above his head, and rode him so hard he went cross-eyed.
