Chapter 2: No More Denial
The mountain air bleeding through the window was cold, but under the duvet, the world was a furnace of tangled limbs. Kevin surfaced from a sleep so deep it felt like drowning. He was on his back. A weight lay across his chest. A scent—vanilla and sleep and something uniquely Ashlee—filled his nostrils.
And there was a rhythm. A slow, sinuous grind against his hip.
A soft, desperate sound, a moan stifled in a pillow, vibrated against his shoulder. His body, traitorous and half-asleep, responded instantly. His cock, already stiff from the morning, pressed insistently against the soft swell of her thigh where her leg was thrown over his.
His eyes snapped open. Dawn painted the room in shades of lead and rose. Ashlee was half on top of him. Her red hair fanned across his chest. She was asleep, he thought wildly. She had to be asleep. But the movement was too deliberate. The press of her hips was seeking.
Another grind, harder this time. Her bare stomach slid against his side. Her breast, heavy and soft, was crushed against his ribs. His hand, which had been resting on the small of her back, had slipped under the worn cotton of her sleep shirt. His fingertips were on the cool skin of her lower back, just above the waistband of her panties.
He felt the raised edge of her tattoo. That stupid turtle. It made his throat tight.
“Ash,” he whispered, his voice gravel.
She didn’t stop. If anything, the rhythm intensified. Her forehead burrowed into the crook of his neck. The noise she made this time was pure need, a hungry little whimper that went straight to his balls.
His resolve, the careful architecture of denial he’d rebuilt after the kitchen, crumbled to dust. Every rule he’d ever set for himself—don’t touch, don’t look, don’t want—evaporated in the heat of her. The “Great Countertop Incident” wasn’t an incident. It was a preview.
His hand slid lower, his whole palm covering the curve of her ass through her panties. He pulled her tighter against him, grinding her down onto his erection. She gasped, her body going taut.
She was awake. She had been the whole time.
Her head lifted. In the dim light, her eyes were dark pools, wide and guilty and shamelessly hungry. She looked at his mouth, not his eyes.
“Kevin,” she breathed. It wasn’t a question. It was a confession.
“We said never again,” he managed, even as his other hand came up to fist in her hair.
“I lied.” She leaned down and licked a stripe up his throat, rough and hot. “Tell me you lied too.”
He couldn’t. He was done lying. A dam broke inside him, a floodgate of pure, unfiltered want he’d kept locked for years. He flipped her, a sudden reversal of their positions that made the mattress groan. He loomed over her, her sleep shirt rucked up to her armpits, her breasts falling free. Her nipples were hard, deep pink in the gray light.
“You’re gonna break the rule,” she whispered, her chest rising and falling fast.
“Fuck the rule.” He lowered his mouth to her breast, sucking the peak deep, biting down just to hear her cry out. She arched off the bed, her hands clawing at his shoulders.
He kissed her then, finally, a brutal, consuming kiss that had nothing to do with brotherly affection. It was all tongue and teeth and shared breath. It tasted like sleep and desire and inevitable ruin. She met him thrust for thrust, her hips rolling up, seeking friction.
He broke the kiss, panting. “I can’t fuck you. Not yet.” The last shred of his conscience, twisted and brittle, held that line. To be inside her again—to claim that intimate, vulnerable space—felt like crossing a point of no return their friendship could never survive.
Her eyes flashed with understanding, and something else: a wild, reckless acceptance. “Okay.”
Her hands shoved at his sweatpants, pushing them down over his hips. His cock sprang free, thick and jutting, the head already slick. She didn’t hesitate. She wrapped her small, cool hand around the base, her thumb smearing the moisture.
“Then let me do this,” she said, her voice dropping to a husky whisper that shredded his nerves. “Let me taste you.”
Before he could respond, she slid down the bed, her body-moving under him until her head was level with his hips. She looked up at him, her gaze holding his, and then she opened her mouth and took him in.
The heat was shocking. Wet, silken tightness engulfed the head of his cock. He saw stars, throwing his head back with a guttural groan. “Christ, Ashlee.”
She moaned around him, the vibration traveling straight up his spine. Her tongue did something filthy, a swirling pressure under the ridge, and his knees almost buckled. She pulled back, lips glossy, and took him deeper. And deeper.
This was not hesitant. This was not explorative. It was a fervent, skilled obliteration. She used her hand in tandem with her mouth, twisting as she sucked, her other hand cupping and rolling his balls with a gentle, knowing pressure. She took him so deep he felt the head nudge the back of her throat, and she relaxed, accepting him, swallowing around the intrusion.
The visual alone was going to kill him. Her red hair fanned across his thighs, her eyes closed in concentration, her cheeks hollowing with the force of her suction. The slurping, wet sounds filled the quiet room. He couldn’t look away.
“Fuck, your mouth,” he choked out, his hands tangling in her hair, not guiding, just feeling. “You greedy little thing. You fucking love this.”
She hummed in agreement, the sound a direct vibration on his most sensitive skin. She pulled off with a soft pop, her breath coming fast. “I’ve thought about it,” she panted, lapping at the tip. “For years. How you’d taste. How you’d feel.”
The confession, raw and honest, shattered him. He tightened his grip in her hair. “Show me.”
She dove back down with a desperation that mirrored his own.
She took him deep, her throat fluttering around the intrusion in a way that made his vision blur. The wet, obscene sounds of her sucking filled the room, a counterpoint to his ragged breath. He let his head fall back, his fingers tightening in her hair, not to guide but to anchor himself against the sheer pleasure.
“Look at you,” he gritted out, forcing his eyes open to watch. “Christ, look at you working.”
She moaned around him, the vibration a direct line to his groin. He could feel the scrape of her teeth, the incredible suction, the divine pressure of her tongue. It was messy and perfect.
“You have an average face, you know that?” The words fell from his mouth, harsh and honest in the heat of the moment. Her eyes flicked up to his, wide and startled, but she didn’t stop. “Truly. Utterly average.”
He thrust his hips up slightly, testing. She took it, her gag reflex suppressed by pure want. “But this mouth?” he continued, his voice dropping to a ragged whisper. “This fucking mouth makes up for it. God, does it ever.”
A breathy, choked laugh bubbled out of her around his cock. She pulled off, gasping for air, a strand of saliva connecting her swollen lips to his glistening shaft. “A ‘C’ face with an ‘A+’ mouth?” she rasped, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. “I’ll take it.”
“Your body’s nothing special either,” he murmured, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw. He was unraveling, the filter between his brain and his mouth completely burned away by need. “But your tits… fuck, Ash. Your tits are perfect. They always have been.”
She flushed, a deep pink spreading across her chest. Before she could retort, he gently pushed her head back down. “And that turtle,” he grunted as her lips sealed over him again. “So goddamn tacky. I’ve always hated it.”
She hummed, the sound annoyed and amused, and sucked harder, as if to punish him. The sensation was so intense he saw white. He bucked, slipping deeper into her throat than he thought possible.
“Oh, but step-sis,” he groaned, the taboo term falling easily now, a dark part of the game. “I can’t believe my little sister’s perfect red pillow lips are wrapped around my cock.”
She gagged lightly, then relaxed, taking him to the root. Her nose pressed into the sparse hair at his base. He held her there, feeling her throat work, watching tears well in the corners of her clenched eyes. The surrender was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen.
He let her up. She drew a huge, ragged gulp of air, her lips slick and bruised-looking. “You’re a real poet, Kev,” she coughed, her voice wrecked.
“I can’t believe my best friend is taking all of me into her throat,” he said, ignoring her, his own disbelief raw in his tone. He was panting. “My best friend.”
“Then stop talking and fuck my face,” she challenged, her green eyes glinting with a mix of mischief and sheer lust. “Or are you all talk, big brother?”
That did it. A switch flipped. The last vestige of gentleness vanished. He moved, rolling them with a grunt so he was kneeling above her, his cock hovering over her mouth. She looked up, her expression open and willing.
“You asked for it.” He didn’t ease into it. He gripped the headboard with one hand, used the other to guide himself, and pushed into the wet heat of her mouth with a controlled, relentless thrust.
Her hands came up to grip his thighs, her fingernails biting into his skin. He set a brutal pace, a steady piston of his hips, using her mouth for his pleasure. The sound was vulgar, a rhythmic, choking, slurping symphony. He watched himself disappear into her, over and over.
“I’m going to face-fuck my best friend,” he chanted, the words a hot, dark promise.
He did.
The words became the rhythm. Each thrust into the wet clutch of her throat was a piston of ownership. “My. Best. Friend.” He wasn’t making love to her mouth; he was using it, and the raw, grunting pleasure of it vibrated through his bones. Saliva pooled at the corners of her lips, dripping onto the white duvet. Her gag reflex triggered twice, sharp convulsions that made her whole body jerk, but she didn’t push him away. Her grip on his thighs tightened, her knuckles white.
He watched her face, the tears tracking through her lashes, the utter submission in the line of her throat. It ignited something feral and dark in his gut, something that had been coiled there since she’d first crashed on his couch years ago, laughing about some boyfriend who didn’t deserve her. The protected had become the claimed.
After a few minutes of this relentless pace, a brutal idea crystallized. He pulled his cock out of her mouth with a slick, obscene pop. It glistened, thick and angry red, under the dawn light.
Before she could gasp a full breath, he brought his hand down, not with his palm, but with the heavy, damp weight of his shaft. He slapped the side of her face with it. A wet, stinging crack. Her head snapped to the side. He did it again on the other cheek. Then again. Not playfully. A deliberate, numbing punishment.
The sound was flesh on flesh, vulgar and specific.
Ashlee froze, her breath hitching. A red bloom appeared on her pale skin. Her eyes, wide and watery, found his. There was no fear in them. Only a deep, shocking void waiting to be filled.
“Gotta numb it, step-sis,” he growled, his voice shredded from panting. He lined himself up with her parted lips again, tapping the head against them. “Can’t have you feeling too much. Wouldn’t want you to think.”
He didn’t give her a couple of nice cracks with his open palm to get her into the game. This was the game. The only one left.
A shaky, breathless laugh escaped her. She turned her face back, nuzzling against his cock, smearing the redness. “Thanks, Kevin.” She opened her mouth, her tongue darting out to taste her own cheek and him. Her gaze was unnervingly direct. “Thanks, big bro.”
The acknowledgment, the acceptance, blew through the last of his sanity. The brutality ignited him, a hot wire straight to his core. He pushed back into her mouth, deeper this time, his hands moving to frame her face. His thumbs stroked her damp cheekbones for a second, a bizarre parody of tenderness.
Then he shifted.
He pinched her nose shut between his thumb and forefinger, cutting off her airway completely.
Her eyes flew open, a flash of primal panic. Her body tensed beneath him. He held her there, buried in her throat, watching her. He felt the wild fluttering of her throat around him, the desperate, choked attempts to suck air that couldn’t come. Her hands came up to clutch at his wrists, but she didn’t fight to pull them away. She held on, as if anchoring herself to the pain and the lack of air.
“That’s it,” he murmured, his own breath coming in ragged pulls. He watched the subtle change in her face, the deepening pink, the pleading in her eyes that had nothing to do with him stopping. He leaned down, his lips nearly brushing her forehead. “Breathe through me. Just me.” He emphasized his point with a slow, grinding roll of his hips, pressing himself impossibly deeper. “I’m so fucking proud of you. You take it so well.”
Her grip on his wrists tightened convulsively. A single, soundless tear rolled into her hair.
“You can be my little dirty secret,” he whispered, the words venomous and sweet. “My perfect, filthy little secret. Nobody has to know what a good throat you have. Just me.”
Her eyelids fluttered. He could see the darkness creeping at the edges of her vision. At the last possible moment, he released her nose and pulled his hips back, letting just the tip rest on her tongue.
She dragged in a huge, shuddering, noisy gulp of air. It was followed by a coughing, sputtering fit, her whole body wracked with the effort to breathe. She swallowed, her throat working, her expression dazed and utterly shattered.
Before she could recover, he slid his cock back between her swollen lips, a shallow, gentle rhythm now. A reward. “Again,” he commanded, his voice soft.
And she obeyed.
He repeated the process, ownership cemented with the control of her very breath. Each time he sealed her nose, her submission became more profound, more frantic. She didn’t fight. She worked her tongue, she swallowed, she took him as her world narrowed to the burning in her lungs and the fullness in her throat. Her hands fell from his wrists to her own breasts, pinching her nipples through the thin cotton of her shirt with a frantic, distractable pain.
He was close. The pressure was a tight, screaming coil in his abdomen. The sight of her—used, red-faced, completely surrendered—was going to undo him.
“You’re going to swallow every drop,” he grunted, fucking her mouth in short, sharp jabs. “You’re going to taste me all day. Every time you talk to some idiot on the phone, you’ll remember my cock on your tongue.”
He sealed her nose once more, his thrusts losing rhythm. He was just holding himself there, deep, as his orgasm tore through him. It was violent, silent for a beat, then a raw shout was ripped from his chest. He emptied himself in pulsing, hot streams directly down her throat.
He felt her swallow, once, twice, a desperate reflex to clear the flood even as he stole her air. He let go of her nose as the last shudder wracked him. She gasped, choked, swallowed again, a messy, desperate sound.
He collapsed onto his side next to her, spent, his cock slipping from her lips. For a long minute, the only sound was their harsh, ragged breathing sawing through the quiet room. The sunrise was full now, painting everything in a relentless, clear gold light that felt accusatory.
Ashlee didn’t move. She stared at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling rapidly. A string of saliva and cum connected her bottom lip to her chin. The red marks on her cheeks were vivid.
Slowly, she turned her head to look at him. Her green eyes were glassy, hollowed out. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, then looked at the glistening residue.
She brought her hand to her own nose and inhaled deeply, her eyes closing. A tiny, trembled sigh escaped her.
Then she turned onto her side, curling her back to him, pulling the duvet over her bare shoulders. The tacky turtle on her back was hidden. She didn’t speak. She just shut down, the distance between them on the vast bed suddenly an uncrossable, frozen tundra.
The silence in the room was a physical weight. It stretched, punctuated only by the distant hum of the building’s HVAC and the ragged, slowing rhythm of their breath. Kevin stared at the ceiling, the white expanse now seeming sterile and accusatory. The heat of his orgasm had dissolved, leaving a cold, creeping awareness in its wake.
He had face-fucked his best friend until she cried. He had called her average. He had cut off her air. The memories played in stark, brutal cuts. A savage pride warred with a nausea so profound it tightened his throat.
Next to him, Ashlee hadn’t moved. The duvet formed a conclusive ridge between them.
“You should gargle with salt water,” he said, his voice rough from shouting. The clinical advice sounded absurd. “For your throat.”
She didn’t acknowledge him. She just stared at the mountain view, her eyes dry and distant.
He pushed himself up on an elbow, looking down at her profile. The red marks on her cheeks stood out like brands. “Ashlee.”
“What.” The word was flat, devoid of its usual musical lilt. It was just sound.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, she turned her head. Her expression was blank, a wiped slate. It was more unsettling than tears or rage. “I can still taste you,” she stated, her voice raspy. “It’s salty. Metallic. It’s stuck in the back of my sinuses.”
He had no response. An apology would be gasoline on this particular fire.
“My jaw hurts,” she continued, as if cataloguing symptoms. “My throat feels … raw. Used. Which I guess is the point.” She finally blinked, and some life filtered back into her gaze—a weary, complicated understanding. “You marked it. The whole thing. My face, my throat, my stomach. You marked all of it.”
“Yes.” He wouldn’t deny it.
She sat up suddenly, the duvet pooling at her waist. Her sleep shirt was still rucked up, her breasts exposed. She made no move to cover herself. She looked down at her own body, then at the dried mess on her stomach. She dabbed a finger in it, brought it to her nose, sniffed.
“Why did you say those things?” she asked, not looking at him. “About my face. My tattoo.”
“Because they’re true.” He sat up too, facing her. The distance between them on the crumpled sheets was only two feet, but it felt continental. “And because I wanted to see if you’d stop. You didn’t.”
A faint, spectral smile touched her lips. “You wanted to see how far you could go.”
“I wanted to see how far we could go,” he corrected, his voice low. “You were right there with me. You swallowed. You took my air. You let me slap your face with my dick.” He reached out, his thumb tracing one of the red marks on her cheek. She flinched, but didn’t pull away. “You fucking gloried in it.”
Tears welled in her eyes then, finally. They didn’t fall. They just shone, magnifying the green. “I think I did,” she whispered, horrified. “What does that make me?”
“Mine,” he said, the word leaving him as a simple, devastating fact.
She shook her head, a quick, frantic denial. She scrambled off the bed, her legs unsteady. She stumbled into the connected bathroom and slammed the door. He heard the lock click, a small, definitive sound.
He listened to the shower turn on. He imagined the water hitting her skin, sluicing his spend off her stomach, running over the raised ink of that turtle. He pictured her standing under the spray, her face tilted up, water mixing with the tears that wouldn’t fall in front of him.
He got up, pulled on his sweatpants, and walked to the kitchen. The scene of their first transgression was spotless. The counters gleamed, antiseptic. He made coffee with robot-like precision.
Twenty minutes later, she emerged. She was dressed in yesterday’s jeans and a clean t-shirt from his drawer that swam on her. Her hair was damp, her face scrubbed pink. She looked young and unbearably fragile.
She walked to the entryway, picked up her purse.
“Where are you going?” he asked from the kitchen island.
“Work,” she said, not turning around. “My shift at the call center starts at nine. Remember? The place where I have to be polite to strangers for eight hours straight.”
The mundanity of it was a slap. “Call in sick.”
“And say what?” She finally looked at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were clear now, and hollow. “That my throat’s too fucked-out to form sentences? That my best friend ruined my voice?” She shouldered her bag. “I’ll be fine. It’s just… a sore throat.”
She left. The door closed with a soft, expensive sigh.
The penthouse was tomb-quiet. He stood in the kitchen, the steam rising from his untouched coffee. The ghost of her choked sounds seemed to echo off the minimalist walls. He had gotten everything he’d ever secretly wanted. He had taken it, brutally and completely.
He felt utterly, profoundly ruined.
His phone buzzed on the counter. A work email. Another merger. Millions in flux. It meant less than nothing.
He poured the coffee down the drain and picked up his cell. He scrolled to her name and typed a message. No apology. No poetry. Just five words.
Let me see the tattoo.
He sent it. He put the phone down and waited, his heart a dull, painful hammer against his ribs.
Five minutes passed. Then ten.
His phone screen lit up. No text. A single photograph.
It was a close-up, taken in her car selfie style. The frame was filled with the pale, freckled skin of her lower back, just above the waistband of her jeans. The massive, cartoonish turtle sprawled across it, its shell garishly green, its smile dopey and permanent.
And across it, in stark, angry red lines, was the fresh abrasion from the quartz countertop. A perfect, parallel set of scratches, right through the center of the shell. A raw brand over the old, foolish one.
His breath caught. It was a wound. It was a map. It was an answer.
Before he could process it, a second message followed.
It’s not even a sea turtle. It’s a box turtle. I was drunk and cheap. It’s literally the dumbest thing on earth.
He stared at the image, at the ruined tattoo, at the admission. He typed back, his fingers moving faster than his thoughts.
I know. I’ve always known. Come back after your shift.
The typing bubbles appeared. They vanished. They appeared again.
Why?
He didn’t hesitate.
I need to ruin the rest of it.