“Wider.”
“Joe I —"
He thumbed my clit and growled, “Wider.”
Reckless, I hitched one leg up, and, resting my heel on the wall at my back, I completely bared myself to him.
“Good girl.”
“Asshole.” An illicit shiver rolled through me. “Hey, Joe?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t hurt me, okay?”
His hand stilled inside of me and he frowned. “Am I hurting you now?”
“No. What you’re doing feels amazing.” Breathless, I shook my head and encouraged him with my hips to keep going. “Just don’t hurt me like my dad hurts my mam, okay?”
He stilled again. “Molloy.”
“Don’t stop,” I groaned, rocking into his touch. “I want you.”
“I won’t do that to you.” He pressed a kiss to my lips. “I promise.”
“Good.” Exhaling a ragged breath against his lips, I bucked my hips and grinned. “Now shut up and make me cum.”
“Fuck my fingers,” he replied, tongue snaking out to trace my bottom lip before he claimed my mouth with his. “Help me stretch this tight little pussy.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“Fuck me, Joe.”
“I will.”
“Fuck me now.”
“I will, Molloy.”
“Yes.”
“But not tonight.”
“Joe.”
“You’re not ready.”
“I am.”
Shaking his head, he leaned in close and pressed a kiss to my lips. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
“Then don’t stop,” I encouraged breathlessly, reaching between my legs to push his fingers deeper inside of my body. “Don’t ever stop.”
“Howdy, lovebirds. Don’t mind me. I’m just on my way to send a salmon up the river.”
“Oh my god!” I strangled out, hands moving to push my dress back down, as Joey reluctantly tore his hand away.
Furious, Joey swung around to glare at the huge blond guy, in a Tommen uniform, who was grinning at us. “Do you want popcorn, asshole? Get the fuck out of here.”
“No, no, I have everything I need,” he replied, still grinning wolfishly at us. “But I may be of some assistance to you.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a condom and held it out to Joey. “Because sex is fun and all that, but it’s best practiced with a glove on your d—"
“Are you serious?” I laughed, flustered and amused by the strange boy. “We’re not having sex.”
“Yet,” the blond lad chuckled with a wink.
“Listen, prick,” Joey snarled, bristling. “I don’t know how things work in that posh school of yours, but where I come from, you get your ass kicked for pulling a stunt like this. So if you don’t start walking the fuck away from me and my girl, I’m going to rip your head off your shoulders and feed it to your asshole.“
“Gibs!” an even taller, dark-haired boy snapped from the doorway, thankfully interrupting us. “Would you leave them alone, ya weirdo. They don’t need your running bleeding commentary.”
“Hey, Cap,” this Gibs lad said in a cheerful tone. “I was only providing some safety precautions.”
The dark-haired boy’s eyes landed on the condom his friend was holding, and he audibly groaned. “Jaysus.”
With a shake of his head, he stalked down the corridor and quickly clamped an arm around his buddy.
“Excuse my flanker,” he told us, as he led the blond lad back towards the lounge. “He’s like a bleeding Labrador. Completely harmless, with zero awareness of social cues and etiquette.”
“I was only being friendly,” the blond lad argued as his friend led him away. “It’s nice to be nice, Johnny.”
“Yeah, I know you were, Gibs, but those people are strangers, and what did we say about you talking to strangers?”
“Don’t do it?”
“Exactly.”
The lounge door closed behind them, and Joey turned to look at me. “Did that really just happen?”
I choked out a laugh and shrugged. “I think so?”
CASUAL SEX WITHOUT THE SEX
APRIL 12TH 2004
JOEY
I was in over my head.
What had started with a kiss had developed into several months’ worth of kisses, with a whole heap of heavy petting thrown into the mix.
Basically, what Molloy and I had going on was casual sex – minus the sex and multiply the feelings.
Yeah, I’d fucked around and caught feelings.
I was a real genius.
I never wanted to be in a relationship.
I never wanted another person to depend on me for something that I couldn’t give, and that’s where it got fuzzy, because, somehow, Molloy had become exactly that.
Hearing everyone at school whisper about how we wouldn’t last longer than a week, or how my head would turn, only made me more determined to stick with the girl – to stand over my decision to be with her.
Their lack of faith in me only strengthened my determination to not fuck this up, whatever the hell this was.
I’d been with girls before Molloy, but I was no hardcore fuck boy like I knew the girls at school made me out to be.
Like I knew she thought I was.
It wasn’t like I’d fucked my way through the entire female population at our school.
Only a handful.
And besides, that wasn’t what was happening between us.
When we were together, it wasn’t because I was out of my mind and trying to float away in the moment.
Being with her made me want to keep a clear head, because I wanted to remember her.
I wanted to be in the moment with her, and not just float through it.
Because she was Molloy.
My friend.
Maybe even my best friend.
“Are you going to do something about that?” Podge asked, dragging me back to the present, as he waved a spoon in front of us, gesturing to where Molloy looked to be in a heated discussion with Ricey.
“I’m not her keeper, lad,” I replied, leaning back in my chair, as I studied the jam-packed canteen. Molloy was standing in line for the tuck shop, with Ricey breathing down her neck. “She can handle herself.”
“You’re a better man than him,” Podge said. “Because if the shoe was on the other foot, and you were trying your arm with her like that, he would flip.”
“That was his mistake,” I said, eyes glued to her fucking peachy her ass, barely concealed by her scrap of a skirt. “He thought that he could put her in a cage, and slap a label on top saying look, don’t touch.” I shook my head. “That girl is her own person, lad. Believe me. Nobody’s going to cage her.”
“Except for you,” he chuckled.
“No, lad,” I corrected, feeling my heart roar to life when she smiled across the room at me. “Especially not me.”
THE DOOR’S ALWAYS OPEN
APRIL 23RD 2004
JOEY
Trouble.
I was in big fucking trouble and going through some major changes to add to the cluster fuck of a mix.
On the one hand, since I turned seventeen everything at home had steadily gotten worse.
Dad was drinking more than normal these days, which only meant one thing.
Mam was self-medicating with more valium than usual – something I had realized the other night when I broke into her stash for my nightly fix and found it almost completely gone.
Shannon was being continuously tormented at school.
The boys were on edge.
And I was beyond agitated.
For as far back as I could remember, my coping mechanism for when shit hit the fan at home had always been one similar to my mother’s.
The only difference was that I didn’t have a prescription from a doctor for what I needed.
And I needed it.
Badly.
On the other hand, there was Molloy.
That was it.
She was the only reason I had to not lose myself.
Because I told her that I would try.
And I’d been trying, dammit.
I was trying so fucking hard.
To be honest, the only reason I’d managed to hold out as long as I had was the thought of how she would look at me if she found out.
She was a fucking beautiful distraction from a life of bullshit.
But even she couldn’t take the edge off how I was feeling tonight.
Not after I’d taken just about all I could at the hands of my prick of a father.
My body was aching in ways that I never knew it could and there was only one thing I knew that could help me.