Streams and Schemes

by Rebecca Kinkade

This book is dedicated to anyone who fucks as a coping mechanism. You do you. Keep coping your brains out.

My stomach plummets so fast, scientists should study me. They should whisk me off to sea, track down a pod of deep-sea diving whales, and challenge them to a race. Then, all they’d have to do is put a hot guy in front of me and make him say, “Is this you?” and my stomach would drop, propelling me straight to the ocean floor faster than anything. Put me up against the baddest bitch in that pod. Bet I’d win.

We share a common wall. And yes—it’s as awful as it sounds.

“Don’t touch her. If you put your hands on her one more time, I’ll rip them off and then sue you for getting blood on my suit. Am I fucking clear?”

You’re a lawyer. I know how that goes.”

Never date a lawyer.

Never date a lawyer, even if he makes every part of your body yearn in unprecedented, unholy ways.

Fuck it. It’s the end. If I’m going out, I’m going out the same way I lived my life: however the hell I want.

If I’m dying tonight, I’m perfectly content to die fucking the one person I swore I would avoid.

Her ass is ridiculously phenomenal.

“Fuck me,” she whispers into my ear before biting down,

She says my motherfucking name.

We can talk about your daddy if you need to. Hell, I can be your daddy,”

I’m agile as fuck.

“Can you at least tell me you’re okay?”

“Or tell me what I can do to make this better, other than sue the ever-loving shit out of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency.”

He thinks I’ll give in. I won’t, but he thinks I will because he doesn’t know shit about my willpower.

It’s rock-solid.

He doesn’t get everything though. I keep the part where I came inside of her and watched my cum drip out of her wet, well-fucked pussy to myself.

“You two share a wall, Lander,”

“Knock on it. Learn morse code for, ‘Sorry I railed you badly. Let me try again.’

Yes—my fucking girl.

Damn. If I had known getting this girl would require Spanish fluency and regular cardio, I would have started training months ago.

“Because I wanted you, Lander,”

“Listening to you please other women was the only way I could have you, so I took it.”

I knew you were a camgirl. I knew, I watched, and I’m willing to bet I’m your best customer.”

“Motherfuckingshitballs.”

“Are you high?” “Occasionally, yes,”

“Let me kiss you. Touch you. Let me taste every inch of your soft skin and find every sensitive spot on your body. Let me make you come, Valeria. Let me make you forget whatever is holding you back.”

“Fine,”

“Give me three minutes and I’ll quit my job.

“I only got to have you for fifteen minutes, but fuck, woman, I know you keep the best shit to yourself.”

(I hate you, you man-child, and if you ever talk to my father about me again, I’ll beat you so badly that your dead ancestors will prune you from the family tree out of sheer embarrassment. They will replace you with a birdhouse and a tire swing and thank me for making the space),

Women bleed every month and literally grow babies in our bodies. There’s no reason we can’t fight like Kodiak bears and fuck like Valkyries.

And yes, using my hands is bootleg, but I’m not about to suck my best friend’s nipples on a random Friday afternoon—unless I’m getting paid for it.

“So I’m allowed to come inside of you, but I can’t come in your condo?”

My best friend Dalton was born exactly thirty-nine weeks after Bill Clinton was re-elected. That’s how we figured out who his parents voted for.”

But you told me you don’t like people telling you what to do, and I don’t either. I want you, Valeria. I’m going to keep wanting you.”

The cursor blinks…or was it—was that a wink? Does this contract want me to close my laptop and enjoy myself on a Saturday night for once?

He still would have showed up for me even if I had asked him to stand behind me and snap his fingers while I recited bad slam poetry under a spotlight in a beret, smoking a clove cigarette.

My whole world stops when she walks into the bar. The music is pounding, the lights are low, and the place is packed, but all I see is her. All I ever want to see is her.

Every butterfly in the continental United States could migrate into this bar right now, and they still would have nothing on the flutters in my stomach.

“I never tried to hide it. I want you. I’ll strategize, I’ll scheme—whatever it takes. I don’t care if I have to play dirty to get you, Valeria.”

And then he drops to his knees. I’m already battling the uptick in my heart rate and the inexplicable neediness I feel in his presence, but he goes and does it. This powerful man gets on his literal knees in front of me, and I nearly lose my willpower. Nearly.

“Show me how rough we can play.”

There’s something about a woman five years younger than me calling me a good boy that has me torn between finding enough rope to wrangle the moon for her or using that same rope to bind her and prove I’m neither good nor a boy.

“I have no doubt in my mind that I’m going to fall madly in love with you.”

“Why waste your money when I could whisper Spanish in your ear all night long?”

You don’t want me to confront him because he’s going to mess with my job? If that’s the case, I can’t wait to show you how few fucks I give about my career when it comes to you.”

“You promise it doesn’t hurt like this when I choke you?” “Promise,” I confirm. “…But I’m a little sick. I like when it hurts.”