Stupid Dirty (Possum Hollow, #1)

by Erin Russell

So the layout doesn’t make any sense, and it looks like Frankenstein fucked a Winnebago and this is their spawn, but it’s better than nothing.

Anger is like an old friend that always has my back. I can do anger in my sleep. Anger keeps me safe. Other emotions are dangerous, and I don’t have the bandwidth for them right now.

My best friend Wish calls it my “fuckboy haircut”, which annoys the shit out of me. I’m tempted to shave it all off for the thousandth time.

Possum Hollow is a decaying town built around agricultural products that are becoming obsolete. It has a population of less than 2,000 and the tallest man-made structure is the Dairy Queen sign. If you want a job that’s not in a store or on a farm, you’re shit out of luck.

This never gets old. All the other shit in my life fades away and gets drowned out by the thrum of adrenaline through my veins. All I see is dirt. All I smell is fuel.

Nothing will ever compare to the pure joy of breaking out into the lead and then tearing through the course, lap after lap, leaving everyone else in your dust.

That fucking asshole. He just ripped the prize money out of my hands and nearly killed me in the process. I want to snap his fucking neck. That’s my first concrete thought.

Tristan used to be an army medic, and he’s damn good at his job, but he’s not exactly known for being a soft touch. Which means he isn’t going to waste his limited supply of bedside manner on me.

Wish is looking at me with an arched eyebrow, and I realize I’m standing with my shoulders hunched and my arms crossed, already giving off angry toddler hissy fit vibes.

Platonic intimacy is wildly underrated.

Affectionate physical touch, without expecting anything in return, does everyone a world of good.

This is the most physical contact I’ve had in months, and every time his fingertips brush my chest through my t-shirt, it makes me shiver. It’s not quite as good as a hug from a loving parent or something, but maybe picking fights with strangers is as close as I can get.

Anger is basically my love language.”

She studies me too hard for a minute. “Okay, good. You know I hate it when you go back to the old ragey Cade. Or, as he’s also known, pre-Wish’s-positive-influence-Cade. I prefer baby bird caretaker Cade.”

“Well, it’s a good thing that baby bird caretaker Cade is on the case.”

“I’ve got you now, buddy. You’re stuck with me,” he murmurs in my ear. Something in my chest cracks open so my guts and my heart and everything else can spill out onto the floor. “Okay.”

“You can do this, robot boy.”

He looks like a computer that has too many windows open and its processing speed is for shit.

Every inch of me is screaming that whatever I do in my life, I cannot let him go. Like as soon as I do, all the broken pieces of him will fly apart.

But it’s like everyone’s speaking a different language, and I’m the only one without the dictionary. Every time someone says something, I have to go through my brain like a Rolodex to figure out what to say back. It’s like…” There’s a pause while he searches for his words, and it takes all my self-control not to fill the silence. “It’s like algebra. Yeah. I can do it if you ask me. But it’s not my idea of a good time.”

“Come on, robot boy.” I ruffle his hair again, which he pretends to hate, but doesn’t duck away from this time. “Let’s go home so you can plug your social battery back in to charge.”

He’s like the Energizer Bunny of compassion. He never stops.

I hope he knows what he got himself into when he invited me into his world, because he’s not going to be able to pry me off him anytime soon. It’s too late. There’s no way I’m giving this up now.

No matter how still and quiet I stand, all the other pieces of me are getting sucked down and shifted with the rest of it, whether that’s a good or a bad thing. Whether I want it to change or not.

That boy can’t make a fucking sandwich without taking a detour.

The sign is a picture of a unicorn farting and the word ‘Whatever

And if I’m spoiling him with attention, so what? He fucking deserves it. He deserves everything I have to offer, so I’m not going to hold back because of whatever arbitrary decisions society has made about men needing to be independent. Fuck that and fuck you for suggesting it.”

He’s my best friend. He keeps me safe. I keep him safe. This is just another part of that.

Sometimes it feels like I was created specifically to undo every shitty thing that’s ever been done to Silas. Every smile gives me a bigger sense of accomplishment than anything else in my life, and it’s literally my job to save people’s lives.

If I could hollow out the space inside my ribs and place him there for safekeeping, I would.

“Fuck yes, Silas, that feels so fucking good. I always want you on top of me like this.”

“You want me to fuck you? To be inside you and fucking own you? Because I thought you were mine before, Cade, but this-” My voice is a dry rasp. I push my fingers back into him, making him gasp. “This is something else. This isn’t something I can forget about.” “Do it.” He sounds so sure. “Fuck me. Own me. You already do, I just didn’t realize it.”

My need to keep him safe has always been deep-seated, but now it threatens to overwhelm me.

“I mean, no, but isn’t your first time supposed to be all hearts and flowers with an R&B mix playing or something? Not whatever stupid dirty fuckhot shit we did last night.”

“‘Stupid dirty fuckhot’ was a compliment, just fyi,”

He’s mine. My job is to take care of him and keep him safe, like no one has before.

I love the way he looks at me, his pupils blown out with lust, like I’m beautiful. I love getting wrecked for him.

“Don’t hold back,” I say, my voice already gravelly from the abuse. “I want to taste you. Feed me your cum.”

“Mmm? Mmm?! If we’re going to keep hooking up, I’m going to need you to get a thesaurus and work on your compliments, boo. My ego is fragile.” Silas laughs, which almost makes me break, but I push through. “That blow job was not ‘mmm’. It was spectacular. Incandescent. Life-altering. Phenomenal. Breathtaki-mph.”

“I would also accept mind-boggling as a compliment. Or panty-melting. Dick-dazzling. You’ve been dickmatized, Rush.”

“I feel like I’m living in Santa’s ass.”

But Cade is a fundamentally tactile person, and every time I do it, he sinks into me like a housecat, and the confusion seems worthwhile.

My mind is a loud place. My life is also loud. Silas is the only thing in the world that can make it all go quiet.

Hold me. Promise you’ll never leave me. Be my family and let me be yours. I can only breathe because you’re still here.

“I don’t need my hand for you to use my mouth. Show me who I belong to, baby.”

“No one has ever done sex as good as we do sex. We sex the best. Sex champions.”

I want him to be so dirty with me that it can never wash off.