Chapter Twenty-Five
Kane
I laid on the floor of the living room staring at the ceiling above me. The room was empty, but the floors were finished. I stared up, focusing on the old popcorn texture.
“Fuck,” I muttered. Why the hell hadn’t I scraped it? I’d noticed the fucking ceilings, but at the time, I’d not wanted to deal with it, so I’d ignored it. Now the room was nearly finished, and it looked nice… All that is except for the motherfucking ceiling. “Fuck,” I muttered again.
I took a shower when I finally tired of staring at the ceiling. My phone was ringing when I stepped out, and I answered it quickly, assuming or maybe just hoping it was Hell. It wasn’t.
“I could come over,” Lisa said in way of greeting. “Jake had to go see a parishioner about some … spiritual crisis or something… I just…” She sighed. “That woman seems a little stiff for—”
“Shut up,” I snapped at her. “You don’t know her.”
“So that’s it then. You’ve been fucking me for months, and now… You’re just done?”
“Yeah.” I shut up then, giving her no reason to think this conversation was going anywhere.
“What do you think my husband would say if I told him?” Her voice had this pathetic juvenile threatening tone to it.
“Tell him,” I said. “He’s your husband. Your infidelity is your problem. I’m sorry I played any part in it, but I can’t fix your marriage for you.”
She scoffed angrily. “How dare you—”
“Don’t call me again.” I hung up on her. She didn’t deserve my anger, but giving her my sympathy would be too ambiguous, and I needed to make this final in her mind.
I stumbled to my bedroom, threw on a pair of jogging pants, flopped down on my bed, and stared at the motherfucking popcorn on that ceiling too.
It was the middle of the night by the time I fell asleep, and when I woke the next morning it was after only a few hours’ sleep. I powered my way through the day, busying myself scraping the fucking popcorn, and I worked at a ridiculous and exhausting pace, giving myself no time to think. But when there was a knock on the door, I practically sprinted to get it. It needed to be Helene. It wasn’t.
Instead it was the city inspector. “Problem is,” he said as I followed him around the side of the house. “The three-season porch was built without a permit. It was clearly a patio at one point in time, and apparently your father decided to close it in without getting the proper permits to do so,” the man said smugly.
“I’m so shocked my father would do such a thing,” I retorted sarcastically. “So, what does that mean?”
“Well, you’re going to need to get a permit in order to—”
“How about I just knock the fucking thing down? Will that make you happy?”
The man looked at me as though he was horrified I’d just spoken to him in that way. “I suppose, but—”
“Great. Now I’ve got a lot of work to do, so maybe you can let me get back to it.”
The man glared at me, and he didn’t say another word to me as he stalked away around the side of the house where we’d come from. I walked into the house through the soon to be obsolete three-season porch, and I stopped in front of the fridge. I glanced to the top of it where, until a week before, there’d been a collection of liquor—enough to numb my brain to a puddle of mush.
I wanted a numb brain right now. I needed to stop feeling, because all I could seem to feel was panic.
“Fuck!” I spat out angrily as I rammed the heel of my palm into the front of the fridge. The old thing rattled before settling back into place, and I gripped the top of it, letting my chin drop to my chest.
I finally returned my attention to the ceiling, working to the point that my back ached. I tried to zone out and let the monotony of the work do what I usually used alcohol to do. It wasn’t effective, and I eventually fished my phone from my pocket.
I stared at the screen, finally dialing quickly before I could stop myself. When I heard Helene’s voicemail pick up, I hung up. When I pocketed my phone again, my fingers touched my keys, and I pulled them from my pocket. I stared at them, knowing I could take myself somewhere else—to her place, to the liquor store, to a bar, anywhere but trapped in this pit of bad memories where I was alone and freaking the fuck out.
I paced around in circles for a moment, and then I took a step toward the door. But I stopped as my hands balled into fists, and I hurled my keys across the room. I finally laid on the hardwood floor again, letting the popcorn that covered my new wood floors stick to my sweaty skin.
I didn’t move until later that evening, and when I did, it was to crawl my sore ass off the floor, stumble to the shower, and then back to my bedroom. I pulled jogging pants on again, and I collapsed into bed, hoping my brain would let me sleep. I fell asleep quickly that time, my body too exhausted not to, and I stayed asleep … until my phone rang. I stared at Helene’s number on the screen as I rubbed my eyes. It was two-fifteen in the morning.
“Hi.” The desperate sound of my voice was pathetic.
She was silent, and I rolled over onto my side, wedging my phone between my shoulder and my ear.
“I’m terrified of you,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes, shaking my head subtly but saying nothing. It was not a good feeling being told by someone you would die for that they were terrified of you. In fact, it was a hellish sort of feeling that made every decent decision I’d ever made feel worthless.
“Jake was always a friend to you,” she continued.
I bit my lip hard, letting the pain build for a moment. “I know.”
“If you could do that to someone like Jake…”
She didn’t need to finish that sentence. I understood her point perfectly well, and there was very little I could say to refute it.
“I don’t know how to trust you, Kane.”
“What do you want me to say?” Defeat seeped around my words. I didn’t know how to assure her she could trust me and not sound like a fucking chump. I hadn’t earned her trust. I’d never once done what she needed to earn anything but disappointment from her.
“You could tell me why,” she pleaded. “Why…? How could you…? Does it feel good to hurt people?”
“No.” It was a struggle to get even that one word out through my throat that was quickly trying to strangle me.
“Do you want to hurt me? Is that it? Do you resent me on some subconscious level?”
“Jesus Christ, Hell. No!” I managed to be emphatic that time.
“Then—”
“It feels good to hurt me!” I snapped at her.
She was silent, and the quiet drew out between us for a long time. “I don’t understand why we’re doing this.” She sniffed her nose. She was falling apart. “Am I just another way for you to cause yourself pain?” Her voice broke, and she didn’t bother saying more.
I stared into the darkness, praying I wouldn’t fuck this up. “I didn’t know it would be like this,” I finally said quietly. “To see you again. I … didn’t know I would love it.” My voice broke that time, and I cleared my throat. “I didn’t know it would feel so good. I didn’t know how desperate I would become to hold on to it. I didn’t know how much I was still able to feel something with you.”
The sharp and sudden inhale of her breath sent a rush of panic through me.
“I’m not using you to hurt myself. I’m using you to feel again. But if you’re expecting me to paint you some pretty picture of what came before this, I can’t do that. You’re going to look at my life and hate the things you see.” My voice wavered as I fought the tears. “You will absolutely be disappointed in my decisions. You won’t like the man I was. And you will despise the things I was willing to do. I promise you will. And I’ll want to hide it all from you, because I’ll want you to see the good in me the way you always did when we were young, but I’m going to make it so … fucking … hard on you.” I sucked in a shaky breath, barely holding it together.
“I don’t know how to deal with this.” Her words were cried out desperately.
I gritted my teeth, shaking my head. “You don’t have to,” I finally conceded. “You shouldn’t have to.”
“That’s all you have to say?” The anguish in her voice was painful to hear.
“We can’t… We can’t keep yo-yoing around with each other, Hell.” I shook my head. “I’ve made too many mistakes. I could spend the rest of my life doing nothing but saying I’m sorry to you, and I will. If that’s what you want, what you need, I will.” I was silent for a moment. “But it won’t make you happy.”
I listened to her cry, and tears ran down my cheeks too. I held the phone away from my head for a moment as I gave up stifling the emotion, and I covered my eyes, gripping my temples with my fingers as my chest shook.
When I held the phone to my ear again, I paused, saying nothing as I focused on keeping my voice level. “I am always going to love you, Hell. And you will always have a place in my world if you want one. But your disappointment in me hurts. It’s completely valid, but it fucking hurts. And that’s not going to end. There are things in my past I can’t expect you to cope with. I can’t…” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Actually, I did. It was an ultimatum I didn’t want to give her, because she didn’t deserve it.
She didn’t trust me, and she wasn’t a woman who could survive life with a man she didn’t trust. She’d said it plainly enough, but I didn’t need her to tell me to understand that about her, because I knew her. And I couldn’t give her what she needed. And it was going to be worse the more she learned about me. I’d given myself a deadline on this life for a reason. What the fuck had made me think I had any business going back on that?
I finally hung up on her when the emotion became too much to bear, and I pulled my pillow over my head as I groaned out this half scream half grunt.
“Fuck,” I roared loudly as I hurled the alarm clock across the room. It exploded in pieces off the closet door, falling to the floor, and I lay gasping for air as every muscle in my body tensed for a moment and then finally relaxed again. “Goddammit,” I breathed out, and then I stared into the dark, my breathing slowing and my heart rate returning to normal.
I fantasized about a world where Helene and I made sense. It was a beautiful world where she trusted me and I deserved her trust. It didn’t take long for me to drift away; the exhaustion was just too much to fight against. That didn’t mean my sleep was easy, and I tossed and turned for hours. I must have slept, but whatever it was, it sure as fuck didn’t feel like sleep. It felt like hell.
I’d lost her. Hadn’t I? Had I been the one to end this? I had. I’d ended it because I knew she eventually would when she learned all my secrets. I’d done this. Me. It was all … my … fault.
The thoughts swirled, kicking up a gut wrenching cloud of panic as they ebbed, swelled, and circulated through my brain. My eyes would fill with tears as the notion of giving her up again set in, and then I fought it tooth and nail, clenching my hands into tight fists and then pounding them on the mattress beside me as my body went rigid with tension. And then I’d fall into an exhausted stupor again.
There surely must have been sleep in there. But then I’d come to and remember how hard my life made it for her to love me. No part of my life deserved to be loved by her. And the cycle of hell, or Hell as the case was, would start all over again.
But then something happened. I’d felt myself drifting away, knowing I’d wake again to the panic of losing her, the anguish of hurting her, and the fury of failing her. But this time I woke to something else. Arms wrapped around me, and I felt the warmth of skin against my chest. For a moment I panicked, thinking it could be Lisa, but then Helene sniffed her nose, and her arms tightened on me. Her body pressed to mine, and I buried my face against her neck. I breathed deeply as my fingertips dug into the backs of her shoulders. I held her tight, too tight, clutching her possessively and desperately to me, and I never once pulled my face from her neck as I used her closeness to finally release the panic that had been building for two days now.
Her quiet shushing and gentle touch as she ran her fingers through my hair sent warmth through my veins again, and I ran my hand down her back and over her naked bottom. Her leg was between mine; it had fast become my favorite way to hold her—close, entangled, fucking without actually fucking.
I couldn’t let this go.
“I don’t want to make you feel bad,” she whispered. Her hands clutched at my cheeks, pulling my face from her neck, and she kissed my mouth.
I nodded even as she kissed me.
“I can handle this,” she said between kisses.
I pulled back. “There’s so much to handle—”
But her lips cut me off again, and she kissed hard as her body pressed closer to mine. I moaned as I thrust my tongue into her mouth, and I pushed myself against her just as hard as she was holding herself to me. It was desperate, it was terrifying, it was also intense relief. Even after the kiss ended, our lips remained touching as we panted, and it was minutes later before I finally took a deep breath, leaned back, and turned the lamp on.
The room lit up in a warm glow thanks to the dim bulb, and when I turned back to see her, she was watching me. Her eyes were puffy. She’d been crying. Of course she’d been crying. I ran my finger down the center of her forehead, trailing it over her nose.
“I can’t ask you to be okay with my life, my decisions, my mistakes. And there are so many.” I wanted her to ignore every last warning I gave her.
And she did. “I want to be a part of your world.”
I wrapped my arms around her again and buried my face against her neck once more. I couldn’t seem to give her body any space. “You’re the brightest, warmest star in my universe,” I whispered. “You will never be less than everything to me.” I pulled back, studying her eyes. “You’re my Hell.” The irony of my oldest nickname in the world for her wasn’t lost on me—her either for that matter. She could be attached to the most painful, agonizing memories in my mind, but she also filled my most favorite memories too.
She took a shaky breath as a tear ran down her cheek. I understood her. She was terrified of me. She was terrified of what I might do to her. And more than even that, she was terrified of what I’d do to myself. I didn’t have to hurt her to hurt her, because she cared enough to be destroyed by what I could do to myself.
And I was very capable of destroying myself.
“We’re going to be okay.” I focused on her puffy beautiful eyes that looked as exhausted as I felt. I loved those words. They were so old for us, but so new now. Once upon a time those words spoken from her mouth had allowed me to glimpse the tiniest hint of the flower peeking through the snow. She’d warmed me in the cold, she’d comforted me in the pain, she’d loved me in the nightmare.
She reached for my cheeks, still nodding slightly as she studied my face. And she pulled my mouth to hers again, kissing me gently and sweetly. I could taste her tears on her lips, but she kissed again, pressing her mouth hard to mine and moaning quietly. The intensity built as her body moved against mine, and when she pushed the back of my sweatpants down, it was to clutch harshly into my butt cheeks. She gripped and held me close to her, pulling my groin to hers.
I pulled away from her lips for a moment, focusing on her face. She watched me, saying nothing, but when she pushed my sweatpants farther down as she studied my eyes, I nodded and kissed her again. I shoved my pants quickly down the rest of the way, and my mouth never left hers as I used my feet to kick them from my legs. I’d been in nearly this exact position forty-eight hours prior, but there was no nosy toddler or meddling sister to interrupt us now, and the panting, desperate sound of Helene’s mewling drove my need harder and faster.
When her fingers closed around my cock, my mouth dropped open in a silent groan that was trapped somewhere in the pit of my stomach. My eyes opened wide as her fingers tightened, and her body stilled as she studied my face. I glanced down to see, and my groan finally made it from my mouth at the sight of her delicate slim fingers trying to close around me. But her fingers couldn’t encircle the breadth, and the stricture on my erection as she tried was intense.
She stroked, and I let my body fall back to the bed as she pushed up to her elbow—her other hand still gripping and pulling against my cock. My back arched and writhed against the bed. Her fingers tightened and pulled, and she moved up and down my shaft as my heels dug into the mattress. I grunted as she jacked me off, and my hands were fisted at my sides.
She was moaning, groaning, and whimpering in this desperate, erotic way, and her body couldn’t seem to stop moving against mine—her pussy grinding against the side of my leg, her hips rocking. When her hand sped, I nearly lost it.
“Baby,” I breathed out. “Baby, please,” I begged. “We’ve got to talk about this.” I didn’t want to talk about anything. I wanted to shove my cock so hard and deep into her she was too speechless to talk, but this wasn’t something we could regret later and survive.
She panted as her grip on my dick loosened, and when she sighed it was tinged with frustration. She collapsed to the bed beside me, and I rolled toward her, propping myself up to look down on her. Her eyes searched mine, and I watched her for a moment before I reached back and pulled the nightstand drawer open. When I pulled my hand back, she looked and bit her lower lip.
I didn’t say anything as I held the condom between my index finger and middle finger, and I studied her as she studied it. This had put a pause in her desperation. I couldn’t get a handle on what she was feeling, though. She just stared.
“This can’t be some impetuous, careless decision. We don’t have that luxury, baby.”
She inhaled deeply, and then she swallowed harshly.
“Nothing will ever be simple with us,” I continued.
She glanced down at my lower stomach where my cock still lay rigid and waiting.
“That doesn’t mean this can’t be incredible. That it can’t feel good, safe, perfect.”
I fought to hide my desperation, needing to know her decision about this was solely her decision. When she leaned to my mouth, she kissed me gently, and I felt her fingers fumbling with mine as she took the condom from me. I sighed against her mouth, and when she leaned back she bit into her lower lip again. It wasn’t a seductive move, though. She was concentrating, thinking, deciding. And when she she tore into the packet, it was with the shyest look on her face I’d ever seen. I leaned back, resting against the pillows so I could watch her.
My posture was casual, and the easy way my finger stroked over my lower lip as I focused on her was deceptively calm and thoughtless. I was actually freaking the fuck out. This woman had the ability to make me bounce between my desire to throw my life away as I knew it, and fight tooth and nail to keep it. And this was definitely a heavy thing for us.
She pulled the condom from the packet, and I watched as she reached for my dick and slipped it over the head. My breath left me in a rush as I felt her feather light touch. She rolled the condom tightly down my length, and her fingers trembled the entire time.
I rolled toward her, reaching to the inside of her thigh and lifting her leg to rest on my hip. She was shaking in nervousness, but she didn’t pull back. When I reached to her bottom and tugged her closer to my body, her breath caught in her throat.
“This is how I want it,” I whispered against her ear.
I had no intention of telling her just how terrified I was to be on top of her. I’d had too many nightmares in this lifetime of raping her and forcing my way into her body as she cried underneath me, and knowing those nightmares were rooted in reality made it even worse. I simply couldn’t physically put myself in that position with her. Not yet.
I squeezed her bottom, and her hips pushed against mine. And then I delved between her legs, trailing my fingers gently across the lips of her sex. She was wet and warm regardless of how nervous I knew she was.
“I want to be inside your pussy,” I whispered against her ear, and then I leaned back to see her face. “But I need you to do this part. Put it in.”
She didn’t move immediately, and when she finally did, her fingers grazed lightly across my skin as they brushed their way down between our bodies. She pushed the head of my cock between her legs, and her fingers fumbled with mine as I held her lips parted. I nudged, and the head slipped past her opening as she gasped. I paused.
“Keep your eyes open, baby. Watch me.”
When I rolled my hips under, it was slow. It was the slowest penetration of my life, and I focused on her eyes as I felt her warmth giving way.
“Oh, God, Kane,” she whimpered out, and her eyes opened wider with every inch of my invasion.
She was tight—as tight as I recalled her feeling the last time I’d been inside her, but her wetness was real this time, and when her muscles constricted on me and her hips pushed down against the upward drive of my cock, it was clear her desire was just as real. She watched my eyes, just as I’d asked her to, and I paused when I was fully seated within her.
My hand was still wrapped around behind her and between her legs, and I caressed around her taut skin that was distended and stretched by my cock. It was incredible feeling her wet soft skin alongside my own, and I took my time tracing along the place our bodies were joined.
“You feel so tight, baby,” I whispered against her ear. “Touch it.”
Her cheeks flushed pink, but she reached back, and I could feel her index finger and middle finger parting around my cock and her opening. I placed my fingers just on top of hers, holding them in place.
“Just like that,” I grunted as I rocked my hips. “Feel it.”
She moaned, and she kept her fingers in place, feeling every slow penetration. She ground her pelvis against mine as I sank deep into her. She felt incredible—the heat, the wet, the tight, the need, the touch of her fingers as she felt what I was doing to her. There was no hesitance in how she moved, and as her hips rolled and her moans loudened, I relaxed and let my body move too.
I pushed and pulled my way in and out of her over and over again as her hips rolled seductively against me, and our fingers stayed in place, touching all of it. It was the right rhythm—this perfectly timed dance of thrusting and humping, and when her head fell back, I kissed that place at the base of her throat she’d just exposed for me. It hollowed in as she arched her back, and I snapped my hips harder up between her legs as my arousal intensified.
But before I could let my need to come get away from me, I groaned and rolled onto my back, pulling her with me and leaving her sitting squarely on my dick. She paused, her lips dropping open as she stared at me. I reached up, guiding her face down to mine, but I held her just far enough away to see me.
“It will never be fucking for us, but I’m still going to say it. Do you understand?”
I waited for her to nod, and she did.
“Now fuck me,” I whispered as I released her cheeks, and I watched, waiting to see if she would.
She pushed up on her knees, and her thighs trembled. It was all nerves, and I could see the worry as she stared back at me. I gripped her hips, and I slowly lifted her from my lap and pulled her pussy back down over my cock. I watched it disappear into her body. I reached for her pussy, parting her lips with my fingers so I could see the place our fingers had been exploring moments before. When she lifted again on her own, the glistening wet shaft of my erection appeared. I studied that spot as she fucked me, and after a few tentative penetrations, she reached back and clasped my thighs and her movements sped.
Her small tits bounced ever so slightly as she lifted and dropped her hips to my lap, and when I pushed myself up to sit, it was with no other thought in my mind but to get my hands on them. I gripped into her flesh as I hunched over, and I sucked a nipple into my mouth, pulling and tugging on it as she whimpered. When I released my hold on one of her breasts, it was to reach down and toy with her clit.
Her hips slowed and rolled on my lap back and forth, pulling my cock with her body, and my thumb stroked over those tight nerves as she panted. When she came, her stomach muscles tightened, and she pulled forward, wrapping her arms around my neck as she whimpered her way through it. I fell back to the bed, taking her with me and pinning her chest to mine. And then it was my hips moving, thrusting hard into her as I held her still and in place on top of me.
My hips snapped, and I grunted with each forceful penetration into her pussy. She breathed one sharp breath after another against my ear, and it drove me closer to my edge. I held her face back from my neck with my hands on her cheeks, and I studied her eyes as I fucked her. They were wide and frenzied as I pistoned into her, piercing and retracting harshly over and over again until on one final vicious thrust I stilled deep within her and came.
My eyes never left hers as my muscles tensed and strained, and my cum filled the condom as the tension and need drained from my body. She dropped her forehead to mine, and I gasped against her lips. My body trembled and lurched, and when my muscles finally started to relax again, I rolled her to my side, slipping from her pussy as she hissed. Her leg instantly snaked between mine again, and I held her in my arms. God, I loved holding her like this—so close, so perfectly wound up in her.
“That was the release I’ve been searching for,” I breathed out as I brushed her hair back, looking at her. “I’m not good at much in this world.”
Her brow furrowed. She didn’t like hearing me say that. She’d never liked it when I knocked myself down.
“But I’m good at loving you,” I whispered.
She snuggled up to my chest. She sniffed her nose, and I felt a tear drop to my chest, but she wasn’t crying. I wasn’t either when a tear ran down my cheek.