Free Torn - Part 1: The Torn Series by Ellen Callahan

off.”
    He quirked an eyebrow as he pulled the soggy garment over his head but I was already scurrying off to hunt down a towel. I found what appeared to be a clean stack of them on a shelf in the bathroom so I brought one back out to where he waited, leaning casually against the couch, his thickly muscled chest bared in all its glory.
    “You’ll catch a cold,” I said as I slung the towel over his shoulders, then scrubbed it through his hair. Something came over his face then - surprise, then a softness that I’d never seen there before. I half expected him to stop me and tear all of our clothes off but he just watched, his eyes locked on mine. I got the impression that he didn’t have many people in his life that fussed over him or too care of him. If my assessment was right then we had that in common.
    Finally, after drying his hair as best I could with the towel, I let it fall to the couch behind him. “As good as it’s gonna get without a hairdryer,” I said softly.
    His expression changed to one of lust and hunger. He smirked that mischievous smirk and said, “Your clothes are wet. Take them off.” I apparently didn’t move fast enough for him; he helped me tear my hoodie and shirt over my head, though he was happy to watch me push my jeans to the floor in a neat little pile with my shoes. Then he grabbed me and pulled me close.
    “This hot little body drives me so fucking crazy,” he growled, kissing his way down my naked belly.
    His filthy mouth was driving me crazy - the things he said, the things he did with it.
    “Just take me, Mal,” I said, tugging at his pants. He’d been slower to undress himself in his rush to see me bare.
    I kissed his bruises - one on his shoulder, another lower, on his ribs. Another even lower, on his hip. He groaned, then chuckled at himself. “Do they hurt?” I asked.
    “Naw,” he said, “They’re just from practice.” They didn’t seem as dark and ugly as the ones I’d seen after his fight. I kissed them anyway; then I moved lower still and took his rigid organ in my mouth.
    “Shit, baby. So good.” I was being at least partly selfish - I wanted to free up his mouth to keep talking. Something about his voice and the dirty things he said drove me wild. “You get one minute down there, babe, then I’m gonna make you scream my name again.”
    He kept that promise and then some.
    He was like a mad conductor; his body composed the bassline, the rhythm played out by the headboard against the wall. I cried out an incomprehensible animal tune while my mind flashed through lyrics one word at a time - skin, sweat, flesh, bite, taste, fuck.
    I wasn’t sure for how long I’d be able to play it cool. It was difficult already and I was sinking fast, wanting more, needing more of him, and I knew the longer I held on the more it was going to hurt when we had to end it. But I wasn’t ready to give him up, yet. Just one more time, I though as I dozed off with his arm across my chest. But even as I thought it I knew I was lying to myself.
     
    ○●○●○●○●○
     
    I'd been sleeping with Mallet for nearly two weeks before Tyler took any notice. During that time, we still somehow hadn't exchanged contact info. I supposed I could have asked for his, but I was still too shy, and more importantly, still too afraid of pushing him away.
    Still, dropping by just to pick me up for sex after my shift or after a gig was a little more casual than I had imagined when we spoke about it that one time. We hadn't breached the subject since.
    Yet when I did go home with him, I always spent the night.
    "You're seeing someone," Tyler said, standing in the middle of the living room. I had finally purchased a decorative privacy screen that I used to block off the futon when I slept at night. Unfortunately it also isolated the television. Tyler's passive aggressive complaints were starting to drive me mad.
    I tucked the screen against the wall and moved my sheets aside, making room for