Page 56 of Cartel King

My balls might shrivel up and die if I stopped.

“Fuck. You feel so good, Ellie. I can’t last much longer.”

My dick is working on its own schedule. It wants what it wants, and it wants it right now. Blessedly, her inner muscles contract around me. I watch her arms straighten, her triceps straining. I see her fingers move, and I realize she’s reaching for me. I lean my body over hers and thrust once more before blowing my load.

I want to collapse, but I’ll crush her if I do. I rush to untie her wrists, then I lift her off the bed as easily as I put her on it. I can carry all of my nephews, and there’s not a light one in the bunch. She’s a feather compared to their two-fifteen, two-twenty asses. I sink onto the bed with her on my lap. I engulf her in my arms. If I turn her, I’ll have to lift her off my dick. I don’t want to break that connection.

Her hands run up and down my forearm as she tips her head to rest against me. She turns her face toward me, and even though it’s a little awkward, we share a kind of kiss I only share with her. She stands, but only so she can sit on my lap with both legs hanging over my right thigh. I wrap my arm around her back and brush away hair that’s sticking to her temple. She gazes up at me, and the ice that’s encompassed my heart since I was ten and stabbed someone for the first time cracks a little more.

“Let me take care of you, Ellie. Let me give you everything you need. Let me try to give you everything you want.”Let me love you.

“You are taking care of what I need. I needed that withyou.”

“More than that. Let me do more things like cleaning out your gutters. Let me keep you company when you aren’t walking your dog. Let me in.”

“Don’t do this. Please.”

“We want to spend more time together. We’re growing closer. You just don’t want to acknowledge it.”

I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I watch her withdraw into her protective shell. I realize too late she’s probably heard promises like these before. She believed them, and then she lived with the disappointment for years. I want to rail at her and tell her I’m not him. That I won’t disappoint her. But she’s scared.

“You keep pushing me, and all it does is make me want to run. Then I feel shitty because the only place I want to run to is you. You make me feel safe because I know you’ll do your best to protect me from anything. But I’ll resent you putting me in a position to need you like that. Please don’t make it come to that.”

She makes it sound like an emotionally manipulative cycle. She’s not wrong. It’s not what I want or intend, but that’s what I could wind up doing. But I hate how she refuses to accept what we both know is there.

“I told you I wouldn’t lie about my feelings for you. You might not lie about trusting me to protect you. But you’re lying about the other half of what you feel. You’re pushing yourself away. You’re distancing us because you don’t want to admit you want something more with me. You’re too scared to admit it.”

She scrambles off my lap, evading my hands as I reach for her. She shakes her head, then points to the door.

“I know I’m scared. I’ve admitted as much. I don’t need it thrown back in my face. Leave if you don’t like what I can give you. Find it somewhere else.”

“You know I won’t. I can’t. That’s the whole point.”

“It is. So, accept what I can give you or go without.”

Chapter Eleven

Ellie

I refuse to ever cry over or in front of a man ever again. I nearly did downstairs, but I caught myself. I willnotgive up control of my emotions, and I willnotgive up control of my relationships. I’m doing my best to meet Enrique halfway, but he wants all of it. I’m a fucking coward, and I know it. But I’m too fucking gun shy—ridiculous choice of words—to trust him completely.

I’m ready to kick him out then run after him.

I’m so fucking damaged. What’s worse is it’s self-inflicted. I could’ve walked away from my marriage years ago, but I didn’t. A small part of it was spiritual. Marriage is a sacrament and a covenant I didn’t want to break. But almost all of it was a fear that life would be worse for my boys. I traveled, but it wasn’t all the time. I was home far more than I was gone.

But each time I left, I worried about whether the boys would bathe since Tim refused to help them, even when they were young enough I feared them slipping. I worried they’d never have dinner, since I’d come home from my regular job at eight-thirty some nights, and he hadn’t made them dinner. I worried he’d ignore them because he was more interested in his sports video games and the people he played with online.

I worried that if I left him, he’d remarry. Then some other woman would mother my children. That last bit was entirely self-centered, but I still feared it would be worse rather than better if he brought another woman into their lives. What if she had her own children and mistreated or neglected mine?

I worried all the fucking time.

I don’t want to worry about whether Enrique’s feelings will dwindle. I don’t want to worry about whether he’ll show a different side of him when the newness of this wears off. I don’t want to worry that it’ll leave me in another emotional vacuum.

“Ellie, you want the benefits of being a couple without a label.”

“I want the benefits of being alone right now. Go.”

“No.”

---