Chapter 14
Kate didn’t do exactly what Ty asked. Before she went home, she stopped in at Peter Alexander and bought a negligee. It wasn’t a sexy negligee, at least not in the conventional silk and lace sense. It was made of pink cotton and patterned with cherries, symbolism that was almost too on the nose—yet as soon as she saw it, she knew it was the one she wanted to wear tonight. She felt like a pervert placing it on the counter, as though the sales assistant might know exactly what she was blushing about.
“We have a storewide sale on tomorrow,” she told Kate as she shook out the bed-dress. “Do you want me to put this aside so you can buy it then?”
“No, I’m happy to pay full price.”
The sales assistant gave her a funny look, but Kate just smiled. She wanted the negligee tonight, and she didn’t mind paying what Peter Alexander (or someone) had deemed it worthy of. After growing up on a steady diet of thrift store jumpers, shop clothes still had a novelty for Kate. As a kid, the only new dress she’d ever gotten had been for her First Communion and that was because the white gown that had been Jacinta, Molly, Grace, Hannah and Claudia’s before hers was so battered it had torn like tissue paper the moment she tried to pull it over her head.
She thought about her First Communion as she showered and got ready for Ty. How she’d stood in the sunlight by the towering bluestone church, not understanding why she was there, but feeling pretty and new in her silk dress, her white veil held in place by the diamante tiara Jacinta wore at her wedding.
“Mum,” she’d asked Brenda McGrath. “Am I getting married?”
Her mother had flicked her cigarette ash into the grass. “Yes. You’re getting married to God.”
Ah yes, getting married to God, the all-knowing father who punished and comforted and loved you better than anyone. The concept of god already intrigued Kate for reasons never encouraged by the Catholic Church but that comment had given her some weird day dreams. Maybe she was barking up the wrong tree with Mr Peterson being the root of her kink. Maybe her daddy/daughter obsession was born that day by St Michaels’ when she was told she was getting married to the divine Father, and that was a perfectly respectable thing to do.
At the very least, it couldn’t have helped.
Kate took extra care washing, shaving the hair in her underarms and on her legs and slathering her skin in strawberry lotion. She slid into her new negligee and white cotton panties and applied BB cream and clear mascara, hoping to avoid makeup stains on her pillows. Though it was only five thirty in the afternoon she climbed into bed the way Ty had asked.
Sooo… a snarky voice piped up. What now? Lying motionless for hours on end until Ty shows up and performs the sacred rite of ‘railing you?’
Kate knew that voice. It was the one that encouraged her to sell her panties and spit in Dutchy’s coffee, to buy sexy new clothes and write one sentence replies to Maria’s increasingly demanding texts. It was speaking to her more and more lately, pointing out that the guys at work gave her the worst jobs on purpose and Aunty Rhonda’s apartment looked like a mausoleum to the late nineties and how if Ty was any kind of gentlemen, he owed her oral sex.
Kate didn’t know what was causing this upswing in angst, but she didn’t like it. She felt like a previously calm lake upon which some dillhole on a jet-ski kept riding back and forth, chopping up the water. If she weren’t so clear-headed, she’d have been worried something about her ADHD had changed. But the only thing that had significantly changed about her life was Ty, or more specifically, her relationship with Ty.
“He held me today,” she said to her ceiling. “I was crying, and he held me.”
It had blown her mind a little, how completely at ease he’d seemed with her tears and her need for comfort. He’d kept her close to his chest until she was calm and when he wiped away her tears, it had felt better than any orgasm he’d given her by far.
Please tell Ty that, the snarky voice advised. He’ll love it.
But who knew what Ty loved? Kate didn’t want to be That Girl but the way he’d grabbed her and kissed her today, it felt like things were getting more serious between them. Of course anytime she had those kinds of thoughts her pride told her she was delusional.
The other day, she’d had too much caffeine and asked Stormy about Ty’s ex-fiancée. After rhapsodising about her beauty for almost five minutes, he’d given Kate a name. A quick Google search later and she was looking at the exceptionally beautiful woman who once owned Ty’s heart. She was relieved to discover Veronica Boyle was married and had a baby son, but some internal need for punishment had driven her deep into her Facebook timeline looking for pictures of her and Ty. She found the lion’ s share—albums and albums of images documenting their time together.
They looked like the ultimate Aryan power couple—tall, blond and insanely chiseled. Their expressions were always warm but a little aloof, as though they shared hot blond person secrets they couldn’t reveal to anyone, even a camera. They clearly had a very exciting relationship. There were snaps of them riding elephants in Africa, sitting by the pool with cocktails in Samoa, drinking Burgundy in ultra-cool Parisian wine bars. There were even pictures—horrible, horrible pictures—of their engagement. Veronica’s parents had hosted a huge party at the Marriott Hotel with balloons and doves and the bride-to-be waving a fat diamond in the camera as Ty kissed her on the cheek.
“Why the heck would you leave these pictures up?” Kate asked Veronica’s lovely, immobile face, as though it was her fault she had gone snooping and now wanted to spew.
Ty’s Facebook profile was little more than a shell and yet here he was, tagged in all these pictures of a love that hadn’t worked out. Stormy told her, amidst furtive glances around the office, that the engagement had ended because Veronica cheated on Ty, but Kate couldn’t believe that. Anyone who cheated on Ty would surely have horns.
She wasn’t sure what those old photos meant, only that it seemed very unlikely Tyler Henderson wanted to downgrade from a PR beauty queen to a girl who cried all over his shirts and had, like, two friends. Sex was what they had in common and sex was a world away from elephant rides and diamond rings.
Time ticked by slowly as Kate lay in her bed. She could have read a book or watched YouTube, but it felt wrong to do so, as though she was defying orders. With nothing to do but feel the fresh bruises pricking on her ass, she started getting turned on. She kept absentmindedly pressing her hand against her underwear, pulling it away and chiding herself. The gaps between these incidents became smaller and smaller until, finally, when the sky was dark outside, she decided the right thing to do was to make herself come. It would take the edge off, and then she’d be more focused when Ty finally showed up. With the guilty relief of a dieter who finally caved to a packet of biscuits, Kate shoved her hands into her panties and began to rub. She had barely gotten things started when her front door slammed shut.
That man has impeccable fucking timing, the snarky voice said. This neo-version of herself didn’t seem to have her fear of getting her mouth washed out with Pears soap.
Gently, Kate eased her hands out of her underwear and closed her eyes. Her pulse was high, her pussy throbbing.
She listened as Ty moved around her kitchen, the clink of glass indicating he’d poured himself a drink. She wondered if he might go into her living room to turn on the TV and string out her anticipation. It seemed like something he would do to torture her. But then, to her relief, his footsteps came pounding up the hall. They were different to the way they usually sounded, but why, she couldn’t tell.
Her bedroom door creaked open. “Katie?” He slurred the word as though it were spelled ‘Kaydeeeh.’ “Are you awake, sweetheart?”
She said nothing, trying to keep her body still and her breathing steady. Ty strode into her room, bringing with him the familiar smell of cologne combined with cigarette smoke and alcohol. Had he been at a bar while she lay there, hungry and impatient? Surely not, surely this was Ty’s way of ramping up the drama, adding extra touches of reality to the scene.
The evil stepfather has gone out, gotten drunk, and now he’s come home looking for me.
She bit her lip in anticipation of what was to come. She was going to be taken advantage of.
Yeah, excellent, Neo-Kate said darkly. Because that’s not what happens every single time he puts his cock inside you.
There were two loud clunks as Ty removed his shoes. Peering out from between her lashes, Kate saw he was still in the same suit he was wearing at the office. How had he gotten to her place? He couldn’t have ridden his bike, had he walked? She decided to show a few signs of life, rolling onto her back and moaning softly.
“Shh,” Ty whispered. “Shh, baby. Daddy’s just come in for a cuddle. Stay quiet, stay asleep.”
She heard a swish-whisper of clothes hitting the floor and wondered what he’d taken off. Ty was almost always fully dressed when they had sex. She had still never seen his bare chest.
The bed creaked as Ty climbed onto it, bringing with him the musty scent of debauchery. It wasn’t pleasant, but it added an air of authenticity to the dirtbag stepfather. Kate could just imagine him at an upscale bar, his golden hair gleaming as he chatted up everything in a skirt, laughing and sucking back bourbon. Ty’s weight settled on top of her, trapping her beneath the covers. He kissed her cheek. “Hey, baby girl.”
She struggled a little beneath his weight, shifting slightly. “Daddy, no. Please?”
“Oh, honey.” Ty pushed her hair aside and pressed his face into her neck. “Daddy needs pussy, you know that.”
A violent spray of goose bumps prickled across Kate’s skin as she acknowledged the wrongness, the rightness, and the feeling of being so vulnerable and innocent. She let herself sink deeper into that headspace. “I’m sleeping.”
“Then stay asleep.” He pulled back the blankets and smoothed his hands over her breasts, cupping them gently. “You feel so good, sweetheart.”
His words were mushing in his mouth and his breath was still hot with liquor. Wherever Ty had gone between work and now, he’d definitely gotten cut. Kate wanted to ask why but then Ty tugged her nipple through her negligee and her brain went utterly blank. “Daddy.”
“Yeah, that’s me.” Ty buried his face in her neck, his cold hair rubbing against her cheek. “You’re eager tonight. Were you hoping I’d come home and play with you?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you.” Ty nuzzled her neck, his five o’clock shadow scraping over her skin. “Daddy went to a bar tonight ‘n tried to find a woman to help him relax, but there was no one as pretty as you.”
He moved up and kissed her on the mouth. His lips were firm and wonderful, but Kate couldn’t relax into the kiss. He was still wearing his suit pants and shirt and she could smell cigarettes on his clothes and taste alcohol on his tongue.
“You love that,” Ty muttered into her hair. “You love being kissed by me.”
It was an observation Kate felt was more for her than the stepdaughter. “Yes, I like kissing.”
“No, you love kissing me,” Ty corrected. “Gets you wet between the legs, doesn’t it? Feeling like you’re Daddy’s special little girl?”
Kate closed her eyes. If Ty turned her secret wish to be cherished into ridicule, it would hurt. It would hurt so much. She kissed him hard, wrapping her hands around his neck, hoping to keep him from saying anything else . It seemed to work at least until Ty pulled back and glared at her from the darkness. “You been waiting for me here like I asked? You did exactly what you were told?”
“Yes.”
He grabbed her right hand and inhaled. “Then why can I smell you on your fingers?”
Oh damn. “I didn’t…I wasn’t…”
He bent down and sucked her pointer finger into his mouth, biting down gently before releasing it. “You couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, could you?”
Humiliation played the piano forte in Kate’s belly. “I’m sorry.”
Ty shoved himself between her legs, his erection pressing hard into her stomach. “You’re always sorry, baby, but you never stop because you’re a bad little girl. I could spank your ass every day and that would still be true. Did you make yourself come?”
“No, I promise.”
“You just played with yourself a bit, huh? Stayed up past your bedtime thinking about me coming in here and making your pussy feel good?”
Here Kate gave a token struggle. “No.”
“I don’t believe you, but I can find out for myself.”
His hand moved between them, and he rubbed at her swollen pussy through her panties.
“Wet,” he said, vindication and amusement mingling in his voice. “I can feel it though your underwear. You’re always wet between the legs these days, Katie. You can’t get enough.”
Kate, whose arousal had jackknifed, let out a pitiful moan. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”
Ty chuckled. “Don’t apologise for that. I wanted something sweet to put my dick into whenever I was home, and you’re shaping up beautifully.”
“I—”
Ty pressed a hand to her mouth. “No more talking, baby, it’s time to give me what I want.”
He laid on his side, one hand alternating between her breasts, the other between her legs, rubbing her with a lazy finesse that made her hurt for his cock. Kate still didn’t understand how he was so good at this. Her first boyfriend, Rob, had been a slut of the highest order and he barely touched her pussy. Patrick, the red-headed Dom Maria set her up with, had bragged about how he made women all across the globe squirt and yet he’d pillaged her genitals with all the finesse of Edward freaking Scissorhands. Ty never bragged about sex, he let his skills speak for themselves.
A bad thought occurred to her—Ty in bed with his beautiful fiancée the woman who got to go to Samoa and Africa and wear his ring. Had she once felt everything Kate felt now?
Concentrate, woman. You need to enjoy this.
Why? She thought, but the voice didn’t elaborate.
Ty brushed his thumb against her clit. “You okay, sweetheart?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Good.” He kissed her cheek and the smell of whiskey floated over her face, strong but not unpleasant. “I’m gonna fuck you now, Katie.”
There was the crackle of plastic, and then he was there, inside her, sliding her walls apart and filling her as only Ty ever had. Rob’s penis had been squat, Patrick’s so long and bendy it resembled a peeled banana. Ty’s was perfect—thick, long and curved in all the right ways. He might have been made just for her, though the very idea was ridiculous. He was a god and she was, at best, one of those priestesses with the robes and the flower crowns that were sacrificed to his glory.
He began to thrust inside her, and it occurred to Kate that Ty was her third sexual partner and that three was a lucky number. She wrapped her legs around him and to her astonishment felt the familiar ripples of orgasm billowing through her center. She’d never come from sex before, but in this position something about his weight and the grind of his hips and the comfortable bed was making it work for her.
“Daddy,” Kate said in astonishment. “I think…I think I can come?”
A soft chuckle. “Go on then, sweetheart. Give it a try.”
Kate closed her eyes and relaxed back into the bed. As he continued to roll his hips, she smiled. This was perfect. She reached up and buried a hand in Ty’s thick curls and that was when he swatted her away, like a fly. “Focus on my cock, Middleton, concentrate.”
And she tried, she really tried, but all she could feel was the hurt of being whacked like a bug. Pleasure continued to radiate from the place where their bodies were joined, but the rest of her was uncomfortable. Ty’s pants were scratchy, and the buttons of his shirt were pressing into her chest, no doubt leaving little red circles on her skin. Kate looked up and saw Ty’s eyes were closed and it occurred to her that she was alone. He was inside her and she was alone. She tapped his shoulder. “Ty, please get off me?”
He was on his knees at once. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” she lied. “Can you just take off your pants and maybe your shirt? They’re digging into me.”
Ty hesitated, then got up. For a brief, painful moment she thought he was leaving, then she heard the sound of his clothes being pulled away. She couldn’t see him very well in the dimly lit room but she tried to take him in, the stretch of his shoulders, the shape of his back. When he returned to bed, his skin was hot and hairy against her own. “Better?”
“Yes,” she whispered, fighting the stupid urge to cry again and cement his opinion of her as a basket case.
Ty’s palm brushed over her cheek. “Anything else?”
Neo-Kat e gave her a nudge. “When I erm, tried to touch your hair, you kind of smacked my hand away.”
Ty kissed her neck, soft as bird wings. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting it. You can do it now if you want.” He took her palm and pressed it into his hair. “Better?”
“Yes, but I feel kind of silly grabbing your hair while you’re not having sex with me.”
He laughed. “In that case, can I keep having sex with you, Katie?”
“Did you know that’s my real name?” Kate said, apropos of nothing. “Actually, it’s Katie May. Katie May McGrath.”
She felt rather than saw Ty smile. “It’s pretty. It suits you.”
“It’s a dumb name. I started calling myself Kate when I was ten. I always meant to change it properly but I never have.”
“Kate suits you, too,” Ty said. “Both names suit you.”
Kate wove her fingers through his longish gold hair, and they kissed again. It felt so different, she realised, with his long hot body lying atop of hers. She could feel the hair and skin of his legs and chest. He seemed both bigger and smaller at once. More human. She wished she could see him, but her room was pitch dark now. Ty’s cock naturally slipped between her legs, and she began working her hips against him in silent confirmation of what she wanted. Ty nipped her lower lip. “I asked you a question before, Katie May McGrath. I asked ‘do you want me to keep having sex with you?’”
“Oh,” Kate said, surprised. “I thought I was telling you without words; yes, please.”
Ty shook his head and once again asked, “What am I going to do with you, girl?”
This time the answer seemed to be ‘give you a slow, comfortable screw until you’re begging me to let you come.’ He worked away at her with lazy languid thrusts, as though he knew he had all night, as though this was his favourite thing in the world. When she was close—she still couldn’t believe she was so close—he wound his fingers through hers, and pressed her hands back into the bed. “Go on baby, come on me.”
Pinned down and luxuriously aroused, Kate let go, her body shuddering, her mouth sucking on the salty skin of his shoulder.
“That’s it,” Ty muttered. “That’s it, beautiful girl.”
Had he ever called her beautiful before? Kate didn’t know. She let the word wash over her along with her orgasm, revelling in the newness of both. When she was done, Ty’s motions sped up, and he began taking her with a sleek force that had her jolting with orgasmic aftershocks. He pressed his mouth to her ear. “Say what I wanna hear while I ride you, baby. Say it.”
Kate moaned as he drove deeper inside her. “Daddy.”
“Who owns your pussy, honey?”
“You do, Daddy.”
Ty came then, his whole body stiff and his jaw so tight not a sound escaped him. There was latex between them, but Kate swore she could feel the fluid filling up the condom. She wished there was nothing between them, not her nightie or the latex. Ty exhaled and rolled off her. Kate, unsure of what to do, stayed quiet. Despite the release, there was a tight tingling feeling in her belly. It wasn’t fear. It was like when she had to give a big presentation at school. Something, her body told her, was going to happen.
“I’m turning your lamp on, okay?”
Kate wanted to ask how Ty knew it was there but didn’t. “Okay.”
The switch to her salt lamp was flicked, and there was Ty standing by her bed. Seeing him without a shirt on was odd. He had a gorgeous body but Kate had never pictured the golden-brown skin of his shoulders, the heft of the muscle and bone. She’d given him countless blow jobs but the sight of his jutting collarbones seemed almost obscene, wrong somehow.
That feeling intensified when he turned to pull the condom from his cock and wrap it in a tissue. He had thick, muscular thighs and a round peachy ass covered in golden brown hair. Kate couldn’t help staring at it, wondering why men had hair on their butts and women didn’t.
Be grateful. If they did, you’d have to wax that shit, too. Neo-Kate told her. You know something is about to happen, right?
Ty caught her eye as he returned from throwing the condom in her wastepaper bin. “Help you with something, Middleton?”
“I’ve um, never seen you naked before.”
Ty picked up his briefs and tugged them on. “True. How are you feeling? It felt like something went wrong halfway through.”
“It wasn’t anything serious. I just kind of freaked out. It felt different having you here in my bed.”
“That’s understandable. You sleep here, and you need to feel safe where you sleep.”
“Sure,” Kate said, unnerved by the fact that he was dressing so quickly, that he’d yet to come back to bed. He never cuddled, but that seemed less obvious when they hadn’t been in a bed.
“I wonder if that’s why kids see monsters in their cupboards,” she said to fill the slightly chilly silence. “Because they’re meant to feel like they’re safe and they don’t?”
Ty shrugged. “Maybe. Did you see monsters when you were a kid?”
“No, but I shared a bedroom with two of my sisters, and they were kind of like monsters if monsters were really into hair extensions and guarana-based energy drinks.”
He chuckled, but Kate sensed it was more out of obligation than anything else. “Fair enough.”
“What about you? Did you see monsters in your cupboard?”
Ty went rigid and she knew she shouldn’t have asked but it was already too late.
“Once or twice,” he said, without meeting her gaze. “Most kids do I guess.”
Kate tried to imagine a young Ty hiding in his bed, afraid of monsters, and came up with nothing. Children were vulnerable and a vulnerable Ty was an impossible image. She watched as he tugged up his suit pants, cutting off the V-shaped muscle lines that forked his groin.
“Why don’t you like taking your clothes off when we have sex?”
Ty fastened the top button on his pants. “Just don’t. It’s nothing personal.”
“Like you not wanting to go down on me?”
Ty sighed. Not in the satisfying way he had after they were done fucking, like a basketball with a puncture. “You know I used to be a firey, right?”
“Yes,” Kate said, deciding now wasn’t the right time to ask for a picture of him in his uniform.
“I know everyone at work gossips. Do you know why I was retired from the MFB?”
“You saved a baby and got a medal.”
A ghost of a smile flashed over Ty’s face. “That doesn’t explain why I had to give up the job.”
“Oh. Then I don’t know.”
“Because of this.” He twisted his body to the side and at first, she was too distracted by the flex of his muscles to see what he was showing her, then she gasped. A mottled burn was melted into his golden brown skin. It was the size of a car tire, spanning his rib cage and half his back. She felt instantly, impossibly, stupid for not seeing it sooner. “Oh my gosh…”
Ty’s lips twisted into an ugly smile. “Nasty, huh?”
“How did you get it?”
“My last job. The one with the baby.”
“You got hurt bringing it out?”
“No. We had the family in the clear but the house was coming down either way. We were trying to work out what to do, when I found out one of my guys was still inside. Emmett Poletti.” Ty picked up his shirt and slung it over his shoulders. Even in the dim apricot light of her salt lamp, Kate could see the spots where she’d stained it with her mascara in the storeroom.
“He’d just gotten married, the silly prick,” Ty said, buttoning his shirt. “But he was always a loose cunt, always putting himself in danger even when he didn’t need to.”
“Did you…did you go back in for him?”
Ty met her gaze, his brow was furrowed and his eyes were cold, no, not cold as they could sometimes be when he dominated her. Dead. His eyes were dead.
“I tried to go back in for him,” he said. “Got about a meter inside when a load bearing beam came down on me.”
“Oh my gosh,” she said, feeling woefully inadequate.
Ty did up the last button on his shirt and straightened his collar. “Yeah, it was shit. Em died, burned up in the house. I had to be dragged out myself, third degree burns all over my back. Once I recovered, there was an enquiry. I got told I shouldn’t have gone back inside for him. Went against standard procedure.”
“But you were trying to save him!”
“And I couldn’t,” Ty said flatly. “No one wants a hero who can’t do the thing he broke the rules to do. I was retired two months later.”
There was a bitterness in his voice she’d never heard before. A pain that was far more disturbing than the marks on his skin. Her feeling of inadequacy surged even higher. “You were an amazing firefighter. The fact that you were in the MFB at all is incredible.”
Ty shook his head. “You don’t understand. That fire was the last one I ever fought, and it won. It was hard enough leaving my dream job, but knowing that…” he shook his head again.
Without any solid idea of what she was doing, Kate moved across the bed. When she was as close to him as she could get, she reached out and lightly touched the place where his scars began. “I’m so sorry this happened to you. I wish it hadn’t.”
“You still want me to take my shirt off when we fuck?”
Kate knew he was aiming for a joke but the uncertainty in his voice was heartbreaking. “You got those scars trying to save someone’s life. When I look at them they’ll remind me you’re a hero.”
A quiet huff of laugher and then, “I feel beat up around you, Middleton. I’m like this…” he gestured to his scars “…and you’re so fucking smooth and pretty.”
Kate thought of all the times he’d had sex with his clothes on and her heart throbbed. “You don’t need to hide anything from me, Daddy.”
They both froze.
It was a slip up like no other. They were talking as equals, as Kate and Ty; referring to him as that unholy word, especially after he’d told her something so personal, was beyond weird. She pulled her hand away. “I’m so sorry, that was weird.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I won’t but you should know—”
He bent his head and kissed her. It was a lovely kiss, full of easy affection, but Kate felt her pulse spike. Something was about to happen.
“I got you a present,” Ty said, when he pulled away. “I’ll go get it now.”
“Okay?”
“Hang on a second.”
He was gone a few minutes and though she heard him in the bathroom, then clinking around the kitchen, part of her kept saying he was gone. Her palms kept prickling with sweat. Something was going to happen.
Ty returned with two glasses of water and a silver parcel under his arm. He held out a drinking glass. “Water first, then present.”
Kate drank quickly. Her tongue was prickly and though she wanted to drag out the moment, the glass was soon empty. Ty took it from her and placed it on the bedside table. He gave her the silver package.
“You shouldn’t have done this,” Kate said, peeling at the paper.
“You have to open it before you say that.”
Kate was already pretty sure she knew what it was; nothing much felt like a dildo except a dildo.
She opened the bag, determined to act pleased no matter what it looked like then gasped. It was a dildo, but it was the prettiest one she’d ever seen; clear glass with a heart-shaped handle. A violet ribbon ran through the length of the toy, immobilized beneath the crystal. It looked more like modern art than something you should use inside yourself.
“You like it?”
Again Kate fought the ridiculous urge to cry. “I…yeah, it’s beautiful.”
Ty’s smile didn’t touch his eyes. “I want this to be the only toy you use when you think of me. I’d say the only toy full-stop, but I don’t want to be a prick.”
“You’re not,” Kate whispered. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem.” He gave her a swift kiss, then took a long swallow of water from his glass and put it down on her dresser. “Middleton, work’s sending me away for a couple of weeks.”
This is it. “Oh, uh, where are you going?”
“Queensland. I fly out early tomorrow morning.” Ty paced to the other side of the room and inspected the small painting Aunt Rhonda had hung there when this was her bedroom. “Is this a Delaney?”
“I have no idea. So you’ll be gone for two weeks?”
“Yeah. They need someone to look over the Pinkleton project.”
“Oh.” Kate knew she sounded like an idiot, so she forced herself to add, “Are you going to see your family while you’re up there?”
“Might do.”
The air between them thickened with everything they weren’t saying and after a few tense seconds Kate couldn’t take it anymore. She held up her dildo. “So is this a substitute for a while you’re away?”
“Of course.” Ty said, with a small but genuine smile. “You didn’t think I’d leave you all alone, did you?”
Yes I did, because you are. You’re leaving, and when you get back, you’ll never get back to me. That’s why you went out and got drunk tonight, that’s why you’re giving me a present. Maybe it’s why you let me see your scars, because tonight was the last time.
She was surprised, but she was also utterly unsurprised. She had felt this coming the moment she cried all over him in the stockroom, the moment she opened herself wide and he allowed her, however briefly, to take comfort from him. She wanted to ask why. Instead, she smiled and said, “I hope you have a great trip.”
“I will.” He knelt down on the bed and kissed her again. It was soft and sweet, but she could feel the distance between them. Space seemed so relative to her at that moment; their bodies were close, but Tyler Henderson and Katie May McGrath were as far as far could be.
Ty picked up his suit jacket and left. Kate wasn’t sure where he was going but she suspected, it wasn’t home. Back to the bar, maybe, or to see a friend. They were over. Kate could feel it in her bones. So much of what she and Ty had was ignited without a word, and this was no different. She looked down at the severance package dildo and a line from church came to her, blasphemous given the context, but so incredibly apt—take this, in memory of me.