Like Dragonflies, page 19
By keeping everything a secret, I’m acting just like her.
I blink away the realization and focus on Dad.
“She’d do anything to keep us apart because he’s my brother.” The word brother no longer burns leaving my tongue. I leave my statement in the middle of the floor and for a while, Dad sits in silence.
“She kept it all a secret until she walked in on me and Mars fooling around.” My cheeks heat at the admission.
“So you fell in love with him before you knew who he was.” Dad’s eyes finally meet mine again and I nod in response. “Sage, why didn’t you come to me about this? That’s a mighty big thing to shoulder on your own.” His compassion is staggering.
“I know but Mom told me not to say anything. She told me it was illegal and that…I could never be with him.” I choke out the last words as emotion clogs my throat.
Dad pulls me in close and hugs me tight. Out of nowhere, I’m consumed with every emotion all at once. Sobs roll from my throat and sink into Dad’s shirt. After a few quiet minutes, he lifts my chin up.
“You think I’m sick for still loving him, don’t you?” I hold my breath while I wait for his answer.
He runs his thumb across the back of my hand and sighs. “No, Sage. I don’t. Love is a funny thing and it never does what you tell it to. It never stays in the box you try to put it in either.” His eyes crinkle at the corners as he regards me. “You love Mars and that means Mars makes you happy. That means Mars is the reason your paintings have been smiling lately. It means he’s why you’re shining with confidence, and it also means Mars is okay with me.”
I can’t control the relieved laugh that flies from my mouth. I nearly choke Dad wrapping him in a tight hug. He chuckles warmly and rubs my back.
“If you want to go be with Mars, I don’t mind. I’ll hold your mom off, but I have one stipulation.” He pulls away from our embrace to look at me. I can tell he’s not bluffing so I listen close.
“You have to keep in touch with me. I won’t be right if I don’t hear from my little girl. I won’t tell Eleanor where you are, so don’t worry about it.”
“Of course, Dad.” I launch into his arms again and he kisses the top of my head.
Downstairs, the front door closes and I yank away from Dad. I look into his brown pools with worried eyes, but he shakes his head at me and pats my knee.
“Eleanor, we’re up here,” he calls out.
“Dad, why are you calling her up?”
“Because I have something to say to her,” he huffs. I hear Mom’s heels clicking up the steps and I suppress a groan.
The moment she walks into my room, the area feels smaller. Her eyes fall to the bags packed on the floor, and she shoots daggers at me when our gazes lock.
“Did you think you were going somewhere, Sage?” she hisses.
“She’s going to go wherever she wants because she’s an adult,” Dad says with his arms folded.
“Did she tell you she wants to run off with that hillbilly, Mars?” Her top lip curls in disgust as she looks at me.
“You mean her brother, Eleanor? The one she didn’t know anything about because you did what you do best and bury everything?” Dad shakes his head at Mom, and I see the corners of her lips turn down.
“I just wanted what was best for our daughter, Charles. If that meant burying the unsavory bits of my past then, so be it.” Mom tips her nose in the air and folds her arms.
“At what cost though? Your secrets are causing so much trauma. At what point do you accept your fault and let the consequences be what they’ll be? You’re going to push Sage away forever if you don’t stop all of this.” Dad’s voice is a deep grumble I’m not used to hearing.
I wait for Mom to lash out at him but she never does. Maybe he’s the only person on Earth who can get her to shut up. Go, Dad.
Mom stares me down until I wonder if she sees herself staring back in the reflections of my eyes. “Don’t expect any help from me if you run off to be with him,” she says.
I don’t respond. I watch her leave my room and count down the seconds until I hear her and Dad’s bedroom door slam. Once the toxic energy in the room is gone, my shoulders relax.
“Stay right here, kiddo. I’ll be right back.” Dad walks out of my room and I expect to hear a rumble of arguing between him and Mom, but everything is silent. When Dad comes back, he’s holding his checkbook.
He takes his seat beside me and flips the checkbook open. “I want you to take this and start a life you’re happy with, Sage. Not a life your mother has designed for you. If that means you’re going to start a life with Mars, then go with it.” I watch in shock as he writes a generous check.
“But…we’ll have to always lay low. Being with your brother isn’t exactly legal,” I say with a sigh.
“That’s true.” Dad strokes his chin, but he’s smirking like I’m missing the big picture. “However, Charles and Eleanor Emerson’s names are the only names on your birth certificate. You’re free to love whoever you want, kiddo.”
Tears roll down my cheeks and I almost knock Dad over with another hug. “Thank you,” I whisper into his shoulder. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to repay you, Dad.”
“Just invite me to the wedding and we’ll call it even,” he teases. When we break our embrace, he winks at me and just like that, Dad has restored the calm again.
I say bye to him and give him one more squeeze before hopping into the back of an Uber. I don’t bother to tell Mom goodbye because I know she’d only find a way to manipulate me into staying.
I give the driver the Maple Grove address and send Mars a text telling him I’m on the way.
I need to see Mars.
I need to jump into his arms so I can feel like myself again.
Time can’t move fast enough.
Mars
I look around the dinky motel room and my nerves get the best of me.
You’re not good enough.
You’re taking her from her fancy life and giving her this shithole.
She can do better.
The negativity is always in Dad’s voice. It’s his glowing green eyes I see when I close my own. His words that rattle inside my mind cut me deep each and every time.
But it’s always Sage who seems to find me in the dark. With her sweet words and disposition, she bandages up all the inner wounds my father creates.
I scrub my palm down the front of my face and sniff the air. Stale smoke. Mildew. The motel room is ancient but it’s what I can afford in a pinch. And, thankfully, it’s far from Duncan.
A soft rapping on the door jerks me out of my sour thoughts so fast I nearly get whiplash. When I pull open the door, Sage flies at me. Her bags are abandoned at our feet as the door closes behind her, and she launches herself into my arms. I squeeze her tight, inhaling her sweet scent. All the worries that were clawing at my mind have dissipated.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” I murmur against her hair before pressing my lips to her head. “I was worried you might not come.”
She pulls away slightly and arches a brow at me. “Nothing and no one can keep me from you, Mars. You’re mine and I’m yours, remember?”
I brush a strand of raven hair from her eyes and frown. “I hate you’re leaving your life for me.”
Her lips purse together and her nostrils flare. “My mother’s life. It was always the life my mother created for me. I never fit in. The only person I care about is my dad.”
Not her biological father, but her dad.
The one who taught her how to ride a bike, kissed her when she got hurt, and tucked her in bed when she was little. The one who was there for every milestone, both good and bad. I know how much she loves him and it pains me that she’s leaving him for me.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What are you sorry for?” She tilts her head to the side as she regards me. I can’t help but stare at her. She’s so fucking pretty and she doesn’t even know it.
“For taking you from him.”
She smiles. “Dad wants me to be happy. He supports me no matter what.”
“Even being with me?”
“Even being with you.”
I let out a breath of relief. “So the man might let me take him to dinner one day? To prove I’m an okay guy for his daughter?”
“He’ll insist on paying, but yes. And you’re more than okay. You’re the best.”
Sliding my fingers into her hair, I grip her dark locks and tug so her face is angled up and ready for a kiss. My lips press to hers. One brief second of sweetness before we part our lips and dive into the carnal desires burning through each of us. Her moan of pleasure sets me off. I rip at her hoodie, taking it and her shirt off in one fell swoop. My eyes drop to her breasts and I admire how sexy they look in her black bra.
“You’re so beautiful it hurts to look at you,” I mutter.
“Maybe you should stop looking and start touching. I can’t have you hurting, Mars. When you hurt, I hurt.”
I grab her hips and pull her to me. My dick is achingly hard pressed against her. She pulls at my belt buckle while I unhook her bra with a quick flick of my thumb and finger.
“It’s oddly erotic how fast you can get me out of my bra,” she says, giggling.
I pull the bra away and toss it somewhere behind me. “It’s in the way. I like seeing all of you and it’s a deterrent. Hell yeah, I’m going to rid you of it as soon as possible.”
The next few seconds are desperate moments where we shed the rest of our clothes. I grab her bare ass and pick her up. My sweet girl does the work of guiding my tip to her center and adjusting us so she easily slides down over my dick. I lean her against the wall and thrust my hips hard, needing to fuck my feelings right into her.
I love you. I need you. I fucking want you more than anything in my entire life.
With each thrust of my hips I tell her how much we belong together.
Her fingers grip my hair and her heels dig into my ass. Our bodies fit so perfectly together. I slide one hand between us and rub at her clit with my middle finger. I love how with each circle of my fingertip, her cunt clenches around me. It feels so maddeningly wonderful.
“Mmmm,” she whimpers. “Oh, God…” Her body shudders the moment she finds her orgasm. The way her pussy milks my dick has me coming with a groan. I spill my seed deep inside of her, loving the sloppy, juicy sound it makes once she’s nice and filled.
On shaky legs, I back up until I find the bed. I sit and then lie back, bringing her to me. We’re both sweaty and breathing heavily, but completely sated. She presses kisses to my jaw and throat, while I absently run my fingers through her silky hair. My dick has softened inside her, but I make no move to pull out. If I had it my way, we’d stay physically linked together as often as possible.
“What do you want to do, Sage?” I ask, my mind wandering back to reality.
She sits up all the way. My eyes roam down her gorgeous tits and land on her red pussy lips before raking back up to her swollen mouth. “Like right now?”
“Like forever.”
She rocks her hips. “This.”
I chuckle and grip her thighs. “This is a given. We’re going to do this as often as possible. But what do you want to do with your life? What’ll make you happy?”
Her knuckle taps at her bottom lip as she thinks. Normally, I don’t like when she hides from me, but she appears to simply be thinking, not hiding. “Well, until now, I never really considered what I wanted. My mom urged me to go into political science. But…”
“You don’t want that.”
She shakes her head. “Not at all.” Her cheeks burn pink and she shyly looks away. I give her thighs a little tickle to draw her gaze back to me.
“Tell me. I’m not going to laugh.”
“I know,” she says with a smile. “I think, if I had a choice, I’d want to teach art. I love it. When I was in middle school, I had the most awesome art teacher. Mr. Gillespie inspired me to think of art as more than just a class, but a medium for expressing my emotions. Since Mom always made me bottle things up and force a smile, art helped me explain the turmoil inside that I wasn’t allowed to speak of. If I could help use art to give voiceless souls a way to speak, I would love that.”
The passion with which she tells me this is catching. It makes me want to tell her my hopes and dreams too.
“When I tagged all those buildings and got my ass in trouble, it was still art,” I explain. “I didn’t paint anything crude or derogatory or racist or any of that shit. I painted with purpose.” I smile as I think of the roller skate. “A lot of the folks in Duncan had their businesses for decades, but time and the inability to keep up with the growing, nearby community of Ashton Hills hindered their success. Some of those businesses were eyesores. They couldn’t afford to have shit repainted. So, I did my civic duty. I gave them a free facelift.”
She lifts a brow. “A free facelift, huh?”
“The mattress store for instance. I painted a herd of sleeping sheep on the side of the building. It was cool as hell.” I shrug. “Sure, I fucked with their property, but I’ll have you know, none of those businesses ever painted over my art.”
“What do you want to do? If you had the choice,” she says, her green eyes twinkling.
“I’d want to get paid for my art. I think people would pay for it if they could.”
“I think they would too.”
She places her palms on my chest and starts moving her hips slowly. The movement wakes my dick back up and soon I’m hard inside her. I groan each time she lets out a raspy moan.
“I always wanted to live somewhere where art was appreciated. Like out west. Seattle or LA. Some place where art is a way of life,” I tell her absently, my attention leaving reality and getting lost in the fantasy come to life right before me.
Her green eyes are hot with lust as they lock on mine. I’ve never seen anything more fucking gorgeous than the way Sage—my girl—rides my cock like she owns it. She leans forward to kiss me and I grip onto her breasts. When I tweak her nipples, she moans and works her hips harder. With each frantic grind of her body against mine, we float higher and higher.
Up, up, up, and up.
I abandon one of her tits to give her pussy some attention. The moment my fingers find her clit, she whimpers. It’s still sensitive from her last orgasm, but I don’t give her a reprieve. I pinch the bundle of nerves, loving the way she cries out.
“Mars,” she exhales, her breath hot against my lips.
I tug at her clit and then roll it between my finger and thumb. Over and over again, I work her closer to the edge of bliss.
Up, up, and still further up…
“That’s it,” I croon. “Almost there, babe.”
Her pussy contracts hard around my dick and her body jolts with spasms of pleasure. It forces me right into my own climax. I come with a guttural growl. She grows too weak from her orgasm to continue moving, so I thrust up hard from beneath her, making the springs of the mattress squeak in protest. Hard enough that she cries out in surprise. Our bodies slap together, the wet sounds in unison with our heavy breathing. As soon as the last of my cum releases into her, I pull her to me and then roll her beneath me. I bury my nose into her hair as I seek out her ear with my teeth.
“I’m going to end up getting you pregnant,” I tell her, my tone matter-of-fact. “I just can’t stop when I’m with you.”
She tenses which makes me nervous. I lift up so I can see her telling green eyes.
“What do you think about that?” I ask.
A smile plays at her lips. “I think I want whatever I can get with you.”
“We don’t know…” I trail off trying to keep the hurt out of my voice. “Because of who your biological father is. You know, there could be…problems.” Fuck the universe.
Her dark brows knit together. “There could be. Or there won’t be. I want a life with you, and I won’t worry about everything that could go wrong. I’m only looking at all that will go right.”
“If people find out, it could be bad,” I mutter.
“Find out what?” she asks with a smirk.
“That we share the same dad.”
A wicked grin turns her lips up. “According to my birth certificate, Charles Emerson is my father.”
“Marry me,” I blurt out.
“I will,” she says, her green eyes twinkling with love. “On one condition.”
I frown. “Anything. I will do anything for you, Sage.”
“We leave all the self-doubt behind us and refuse to let the clouds of our past sneak into our sunny skies. Your dad. My mom. They don’t get to impede on our happiness.” She fingers a strand of my hair. “You’re not allowed to think you’re not good enough for me. Not ever. I know you, Mars McKinney. If things go wrong, you blame yourself. I won’t have it. I won’t stand for it. If we do this, we start fresh. A blank canvas. We paint our own story. Messy and beautiful, but ours.”
I turn my head to kiss her palm that’s stained with paint. “Together,” I murmur, agreeing with her. “I can do that.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll find a place on the map. We’ll up and leave the past. Together we’ll make a new future. Someplace bright and busy and ours. We will find things that make us happy. I’ll transfer my college courses and start anew. It’s going to be awesome.”
I smile and admire her pretty features. My heart thunders in my chest. I’ve never looked forward to a future. It’s always been a thrashing to stay above water in my present. Everything has been stressful and hard. But with Sage, it’s easy. Like breathing. In and out. Without thought. Natural.
“Tomorrow, huh?” I ask. “Why not tonight?”
“Tonight I just want to be held by you.”
Her green eyes shine with pride and adoration. It makes me want to be the best man I can for her. I will be. I’ll do whatever it takes to take care of her and make her happy.
“Holding you is just about the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
