Caine
Rachel’s text was the last thing I expected. I read back through the ambiguous exchange from an hour ago.
Rachel: Could we talk tomorrow after class?
Caine: Of course. Is everything okay?
Rachel: Yes. Everything is fine.
Caine: Do you want to discuss something related to school or your thesis?
Rachel: No.
I knew she generally ran off to work on Tuesdays after class.
Caine: Don’t you have to work after class?
Rachel: No. I took a week off.
There was no damn way I was going to get any sleep tonight. I was too anxious. Of course, my mind started to screw with me, imagining all sorts of shit—like why she’d taken a week off. I pictured her sitting on a plane, heading to some exotic destination with that Davis tool. Even though a chunk of time had passed since our last text, I picked up the phone in an attempt to find out something that might help me relax.
Caine: Are you going somewhere?
She typed back a few minutes later.
Rachel: No. Not going anywhere.
Further attempts to relax after that were just as futile. Eventually I grabbed my keys and decided tomorrow was way too long to wait to hear what Rachel had to say. I’d given her the space she’d asked for, but if she was finally ready to talk, I had a lot I needed to say, too.
After I got to her place, I realized it was pretty late. Not wanting to scare her by buzzing the door at almost eleven, I decided to text first.
Caine: Are you awake?
The dots started to jump around. That answered that question.
Rachel: Yes.
Caine: Think we can do a little earlier than after class tomorrow?
Rachel: Sure. What time?
Caine: Right now.
Rachel: I think it’s better if we speak in person.
Caine: Me too. I’m downstairs. Can I come up?
My phone rang a minute later.
“Are you joking?”
I pressed her bell in response. “That’s me.”
After she buzzed me in, I waited in front of the elevator. The damn thing was too slow. Now that I was here and she’d let me in, I was desperate to see her. My heart beat unnaturally fast in my chest as I waited. Impatient, I looked around for a door leading to a stairwell. Once I found it, I flung it open to take the stairs two at a time.
Rachel’s door opened just as I arrived on her floor. “You’re really here.”
I couldn’t tell whether she was happy or upset that I’d come without warning—her face was mostly just shock.
“I am.”
She stood in the doorway in a thin, cotton T-shirt and shorts. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her face was wiped clean of makeup. I’d seen her looking beautiful all dressed up for an opera, but she was never more beautiful than in this moment.
“Can I come in?”
She stepped aside. “Sure. Of course.”
On the drive over, I’d decided that before she said whatever was on her mind—whether that be telling me off, telling me she was seeing someone else, telling me to fuck off, or even on the long shot that she’d be telling me she was willing to give me another chance—I was going to tell her how I felt about her. I was done keeping secrets from this woman.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
My mouth was parched from nerves and the race up the stairs. “Some water would be great. Thanks.”
While Rachel got me some water, I looked around the room, finding the wall of photos that always caught my attention. My eyes fixated on the photo of Rachel and her roommates. Davis, to be specific. I needed to know. So, when she brought me the water, I asked point blank without any preamble.
“Are you seeing Davis again?”
“No.”
“I saw you with him last week at O’Leary’s.”
“I know.”
“You saw me?”
“No. Ava saw you. Why didn’t you stay to talk to me if you came all the way there?”
I hung my head. “I was trying to do the right thing.”
“The right thing? What does that mean?”
“Let you be with someone better for you than me. Walk away.”
She seemed to contemplate that for a moment. “Why are you here now then?”
I sighed. “Because I’m a selfish asshole.”
“I don’t understand.”
I waited until she was looking in my eyes and decided to say what I should have said weeks ago. “I lied to you. I kept things from you. I got you hurt. I’m the reason you have a scar on your back. You have zero reasons to want to trust me or give me another chance, but I have to try.” I took a deep breath. “I have to try because I love you, Rachel. I’m so fucking desperately in love with you.”
She looked like she might cry. Dread knotted in the pit of my stomach.
“I don’t blame you for anything that happened, Caine. That’s not why I couldn’t see you for a while. I couldn’t see you because I couldn’t look at you. I’m so ashamed of everything that happened.”
“Ashamed? What are you talking about? You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Rachel looked down. “I let things go on for a long time and didn’t tell anyone. I should have gone to the police. Or told a teacher. If I had been less afraid, maybe my sister wouldn’t have gotten things so badly. Maybe she wouldn’t have spent half her life in and out of rehab. I was the only one who could have done something about what was going on, and I didn’t.”
I placed my hand under Rachel’s chin and lifted, forcing her to look at me. My heart broke when I saw tears streaming down her face.
“You did nothing wrong. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing.”
“I should have—“
“You should have been a ten-year-old girl who went out and rode her bike without a care in the world. That’s what you should have been doing. The only person who did anything wrong to your sister was Benny. You were ten and scared and didn’t even fully understand everything that was happening. And even then, you did try to tell someone. You told me. I was older. I should’ve known better and gotten help.”
“You did help. If it weren’t for you, I don’t know how long it would have gone on.”
“I should have stopped it sooner.”
She shook her head. “The other day I was thinking about what made me go into that church to begin with, and I remembered a conversation I had with my mom. She told me to go there if something was ever bothering me inside. She said it was a place I could go to talk to God about anything. I was probably only about five when she told me that, so I took her advice very literally. I asked her what would happen if God was busy. And you know what she said?”
“What?”
“She told me if He was busy, one of His angels would listen.”
I stared at her, mesmerized by how strong and smart she’d been even back then. “Your mom sounds like a really special person, very spiritual.”
“She was. And she was also right, Caine. Don’t you see that? God was busy, so He sent me an angel. My own guardian angel. God sent me you.”
It didn’t matter that I looked like a pussy, I started to cry.
Rachel placed her hand over my heart. “It’s time we both let go of the past.”
“I’m so sorry for everything, Rachel.”
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for.”
Leaning in, I cupped her beautiful face in my hands and kissed her with everything in me. Her cheeks were flushed when it broke.
“I almost forgot,” she said.
“What?”
Rachel took a step back and lifted her T-shirt off of her body. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and I couldn’t hide the expression on my face.
“Hold that thought, Professor. I want to show you something else.”
She turned around and looked at me over her shoulder. On the bottom left side of her lower back was a big bandage.
“What happened?”
“Take the tape off. But do it gently because I’m still a little sore.”
As I began to peel back the tape, I realized the area she had covered was her scar from Benny fifteen years ago.
“Did something happen to your scar?”
She smiled. “It’s not a scar. It’s just a cut that healed. The real scars are the ones you can’t see—those are the hardest to heal.”
Lifting the dressing, I had no words, seeing what she had done. I could no longer see the long scar that had marred her beautiful skin. It was covered by a tattoo of an angel.
“That’s you,” she said. “I’d buried so much so I wouldn’t have to deal with old emotions. Everything coming out now wasn’t easy, but I finally feel like I’m on the other side of those memories. They’ll always be there, but I can see them in the rearview mirror now instead of in front of me.”
I was so choked up, my voice croaked when I spoke. “It’s beautiful. Just like you.”
“I can keep the bandage off now. The guy at the tattoo parlor told me to leave it on for up to eight hours. I just got it done today.”
Rachel turned back around to face me. Her tits were so damn full and perky, I couldn’t help but be distracted by them.
“Caine?”
“Huh?” My eyes lifted back to meet hers.
She looked amused. “There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“I can’t lie on my back.”
“That’s not a problem, Feisty. I can think of a lot of ways to be inside you without you being on your back.”
I leaned down and scooped her into my arms. Cradling her, I walked to the bedroom.
“Tell me, do you want to ride me, be on all fours, bend over the footboard, or spoon fuck? Or maybe you’d just rather sit on my face?”
I set Rachel down on the edge of the bed, removed her shorts and panties, and began to shed my own clothes. When I got down to my boxer briefs, I hooked my fingers in the sides and looked at her as I pulled them down. My cock was painfully hard.
“What’s your pleasure, sweetheart? Which one are you in the mood for?”
Rachel licked her lips. “I have to pick just one?”
I stepped out of my boxers and stroked myself a few times. “No, babe, you’re picking the first position. We’re going to do them all. Tomorrow you’re going to be so sore, it will hurt when you sit down in class. And I’m going to watch you sit and know exactly why you’re squirming in your seat. Then I’m going to have a hard-on for the entire class. Pick one so we can start making you sore.”
“Ride you. I want to ride you.”
Her face was so sexy with that impish smile. I climbed up on the bed, settling my back against the headboard, and lifted her onto my thighs. I wanted to watch her face while she took my cock into her body.
“Are you wet?” I slipped my fingers between her legs and found her completely soaked.
She nodded.
Gripping my cock, I held it near the base. “Take it. Nice and slow. I want to watch it disappear inside your pussy.”
Rachel lifted onto her knees, placing her hands on my shoulders for balance, and hovered over the glistening crown of my cock. I had the strongest urge to thrust up and bury myself deep inside her, but I didn’t. She wanted to ride me, and I wanted to give her anything she wanted.
“Christ,” I groaned as she began to lower herself onto my cock. She was so tight and hot. I was captivated by the sight of her pussy sucking me inside. It had only been a few weeks since we were last together, but I was starving for her like it had been years.
She lifted up and down a few times, easing me farther and farther in until she was seated with me fully inside, her ass pressed against my balls. When she started to gyrate her hips, I pressed my thumb to her clit and rubbed small circles, while I grabbed hold of her ponytail with the other.
“Ride me, Feisty. Ride me hard.”
She moaned, so I yanked a little harder. With her head back, her magnificent tits were right at my eye level. I watched them bouncing up and down, taking my eyes off only long enough to lean forward and suck a nipple into my mouth—one and then the other. Rachel’s speed increased—bobbing up and down, lifting halfway off my cock and taking me back in with a rhythm that was so fucking perfect. Just fucking perfect.
Whimpering, she began to lose steam as her orgasm took hold. I grabbed her hips and took over where she’d left off, thrusting up into her from underneath while she met me with whatever she had left. The tight squeeze of her pussy and her moaning my name over and over as she came undone had me thrusting harder and harder until my name was barely a whisper from her lips. I swallowed every last one of those moans in a kiss. Then I buried myself as deep as I possibly could and came long and hard inside of her.
“I love you, Rachel Martin,” I mumbled against her lips.
“I love you, too, Caine West.”
We stayed like that for a long time, her sitting on my lap, me caressing her face.
I just couldn’t get over the way things had turned out. I was awestruck by her beauty, inside and out—and by the way fate had brought us back together again.
“What? You’re looking at me funny,” she said.
“It’s just so crazy how many years this has been in the making, how we found our way back to each other.”
Rachel smiled and tilted her head. “You know you’re the reason we met again, right?”
“I think Professor Clarence dying had something to do with it.”
“Maybe. But if it weren’t for you, I might not have even discovered the power of music for therapy. All those years ago, you gave me your headphones and told me to listen to music—to concentrate on the words whenever I was upset. I listened, and it really helped. That’s how I really got into music.”
I thought back. “I did give you headphones, didn’t I?”
“You did. You know I wrote you a letter the morning everything happened. Well, not you, but fake-priest you.”
“Oh yeah? Did you get to bring it to the church?”
“No. I don’t even know what happened to it. Got thrown out when we went to live with my aunt and uncle, I guess.”
“What did it say?”
“I don’t remember exactly. But I know I thanked you for talking to me every week.”
“I went back on Saturdays for a month just in case you came back. It felt like something was missing each time I went and you weren’t there.”
“There was. A little piece of your heart.” She smiled. “I kept it and brought it back to you.”
“No, you didn’t, Rachel. You’ve always had my heart, and I don’t ever want it back.”