Hi honey, I’m home!” I call into the large house. I half expect it to echo, but it doesn’t.
“Would have been nice of you to say goodbye,” Tobias calls back. I follow his voice into the kitchen where he stands, leaning against the counter in jeans and a T-shirt. I’ve never seen him so casual. It suits him.
“You were sleeping.” I move towards him, kiss his cheek and then all but skip to the fridge. “I wasn’t sure if I should wake you.”
“Why? Never bothered you before.”
In a sing-song tone I say, as I grab a bottle of water from the fridge, “We weren’t separated before.”
“Separated?”
“I’m better now.” I point at him with the hand that holds the bottle. “You have yet to return to my bed, despite the fact you said you would.”
“You’re not ready. It’s only been a few weeks.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m fine.”
“Where have you been? You look amazing.” He licks his lip and I see desire flash in his eyes before he looks away from me.
After sipping my water, I tightly twist the lid back on the bottle until the plastic burns the palm of my hand. “I’ve been with Enri, making up.”
“Enri?”
“Yes.”
“Huh, random.”
I nod. “Yep. I’m just trying to move on from all of the negative shit.”
His handsome mask stays in place as he stares at me, waiting for something.
“What?” When he doesn’t reply, I frown and repeat myself, though this time it’s curt, “What?”
“I’m going to go back to work tomorrow, now that you’re better.”
“Okay, me too,” I say softly. “I already spoke to Dane and Kai. They’re excited.”
He doesn’t argue, which I’m extremely grateful for. This happy revelation has stayed just that. Uncomplicated and happy.
When he doesn’t move, I go to him like I did the day before and push my hands up and under his top. His muscles twitch and his solid chest tightens as I glide my fingers over his soft skin, brushing over his nipples.
I hear his breath hitch when I lean in to taste the skin above his collar bone, sucking gently and then nipping at it with my teeth.
He grabs my biceps and pulls me closer. I smile and wrap my arms around his neck as he desperately lifts me onto the counter, wrapping my thighs around his hips. My body has never lit itself on fire so quickly. I feel as though my lust just spilled out like gasoline, consuming every part of me and him.
Moaning, he grinds himself against me as desperately as I drag him to me, needing to be filled so badly, to erase all of the bad stuff and make room for just him.
But then he’s gone with a growl and a string of expletives under his breath. I pant for air as I watch him do the same, his back to me.
“Okay you definitely want to fuck me,” I giggle, “so what’s stopping you? Why the theatrics?”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he admits. He turns to face me, looking so adorably desperate and pained.
“I’m almost healed. I can have sex.”
He doesn’t reply so I shake my head questioningly.
After another moment of silence, it’s my turn to growl. “Look, I’m extremely pregnant and extremely horny. So please… please. Don’t make me beg.” Then, with a giggle I add, “I just begged not to beg. I’m losing my mind.” He still doesn’t reply. “Okay… fine. Is it because of this?” I point my bump at him, glaring down at the reason I could be deprived of sex. “You’re scared you’ll hurt the baby?”
“No,” he groans, rubbing his face with his hands. “That’s not…”
“Than why! Damn it… WHY!” I want to start sobbing. I don’t even care if I have to beg anymore. I don’t want to pressure him into doing it, but…
My thoughts are cut off and my libido evacuated from the building when he snaps, “Because you were raped!”
“Okay.” I blink stupidly. “And just like that, I no longer want sex.”
“I can’t do it until I know I’m not going to hurt you emotionally or even physically,” he goes on, but like a child I plug my ears and chant, “LA LA LA LA LA!”
“Cerise.” He chases after me as I leave the area, still chanting. “Stop it. Let me explain.”
“Nope. No… You don’t have a right to decide when I’m ready or not. If I think I am, then I am. Low blow bringing that shit into our house.”
“We can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”
Is he for real? “You mean you can’t pretend it didn’t happen?” I hate this. Why did he have to do this? “I’m damaged goods.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” I laugh, grabbing my keys off the side, ready to leave when he puts himself in my path. “It’s what you’re constantly thinking.”
His eyes darken, his lips thinning to a white line. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“You’re right, I don’t, because if I knew you were thinking about me being raped every single time I touch you, I’d have left weeks ago.”
Shock crosses over his face. “I’m still processing this, trying to figure out the best way forward.”
“You should have taken your cues from me and just fucked me.”
“It’s harder than that… I like things a certain way, I always have. I don’t know how to not like them that way,” he yells at me as though I’ve asked him to change, which I haven’t.
“I’m aware of how you bloody like things, Lockhart. It’s one of my favourite things about you!”
“Then you can understand my hesitation!”
I nod. “Yep, it’s just my mistake for thinking we were past it.”
“You were assaulted… I watched… that stays with you.”
I sneer at him, my hormones getting the better of me. “So does being aware of a murder and not doing anything about it, but I’m still here, willing to give it my all.”
My blow cracks him straight in the metaphorical nose. “Uncalled for.”
“You’re right, I apologise.” My tone is as sarcastic as my vicious little soul. “I’m just bitter and horny and you’re not available.” I know I’m being cruel and I hate it, so I relax my face and say, “I know you think you mean well, but you’re not helping. I can handle it.”
“Well, I’m not ready yet,” he admits and it slices through me like a knife when he adds, “I don’t know how to touch you anymore without thinking of what you went through.” He smiles grimly. “I’ve tried. It’s all I’ve thought about, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.”
“Is this because you don’t like the thought of me being touched by somebody else? Or is it because you are worried you’ll trigger me or something?” I’m finding this all so fucking confusing. “Because if that’s the case, I should hate you for choosing to share Rebecca’s bed…”
He glares at me, his patience wavering faster than mine. “I didn’t sleep with Rebecca.”
“I know! But you still touched her, you still kissed her, you still held her hand in place of mine,” I shout, feeling frustrated and fed up. “Yet I forgive you for that because I believe that you genuinely felt as though it was the right thing to do for me.”
“I appreciate your forgiveness, but I’m still not having sex with you.”
I’m not going to lie, I genuinely feel like crying at that revelation. “Right now, I feel something akin to hatred for you.”
“Cerise…”
“No,” I snarl. “No… I’m leaving the room and you aren’t going to follow me.”
He stomps after me anyway, making me growl and spin to him, shoving his chest aggressively as I yell, “Stay the fuck away from me, Lockhart!”
“So it’s Lockhart now? Not Tobias? Because I won’t fuck you?”
“Exactly.” I sulk, pouting and turning back away from him.
“Babe…” He starts chuckling and grabs me from behind, pulling my back to his shaking chest. “We sound ridiculous.”
“I do not,” I sniff, wiping my tears away from my stinging eyes. “You do.”
He laughs harder as he turns me in his arms. “You’re crying.”
“Stop laughing at me!” I try to pull away but he squishes my sniffling body into his chest and rocks us gently, swaying us side to side.
“I love you. Can’t that be enough right now?” He whispers into my hair, making me cry harder. “What’s wrong?”
He wouldn’t get it. He couldn’t ever understand. I’m hormones trapped in a pressurised tank. I’m so fucking horny I can’t think straight. My body has gone untouched for too long and knowing that I’ll have to wait even longer is a torturous thought.
“If you don’t have sex with me then I’ll find somebody else to have sex with me.” It’s a petulant threat but I don’t care.
His arms that form tight bands around me stiffen. “Don’t say such stupid things.”
“Let me go,” I plead. “Lockhart…”
“It’s Tobias.”
“Whatever.” He releases me and doesn’t follow me when I go to my room.
As I stare at myself in the mirror, my chest heaving, I start to hate myself. I shouldn’t have said that or behaved that way; that’s not me. This baby is making me crazy.
After a few moments I calm my trembling and my nerves and turn back to swallow my pride and apologise to him but, as I exit my room, I hear the front door slam and then his car peels out of the driveway.
My body starts trembling again as the loud cracking slam of the door echoes through the cavernous space. It slams over and over and over again. Each time it brings a wave of pain through my head and side.
SLAM.
SLAM.
SLAM.
I press my hands to my ears to make it stop, but it’s as though it’s inside my brain.
Do I have an aneurysm? Am I going to die?
I sink to the floor and squeeze my eyes shut. Trying to think of anything else to stop the slamming.
SLAM.
SLAM.
SLAM.
It sounds with each desperate beat of my heart.
It won’t stop.
It’s as though a distant memory is trying to break through an invisible door.
Break through a door…
Damn it. My head hurts.
I just want it to stop.
I crawl to my phone and pick it up, my eyes blurring with tears as the piercing headache doesn’t go away.
* * *
Cerise: I need you. My head really hurts.
I press send and drop the phone onto the floor, closing my eyes and resting my head back on the soft mattress.
SLAM.
“Stop!” I beg my mind out loud, as though that will help.
I’m not sure how long I’m sitting on the floor, gripping my head, before the front door slams again and Lockhart eventually skids to a stop in the doorway.
With the next slam comes the sound of crunching, like the breaking of a nose. Dane broke his nose in school when a door opened into his face. It crunched, like a shoe on gravel.
This same sound comes with the slamming…
“What’s wrong?” Lockhart pants.
As I look up at him the slamming stops; the crunching stops…
“He threw me across the room,” I mutter as a wheel of images turns in my mind, unjumbling and unfurling from a distant thread. My mental doorway is wide open and it’s Lockhart standing in the doorway breathing heavily that has triggered it. “You killed him.”
He crosses the distance and crouches in front of me. “Talk to me.”
“I remember everything,” I say breathlessly. “Oh my god…” As if it only just happened, the memories finally form a line and merge into something more coherent. “He said…” Nausea burns a path up to my throat. I try to swallow. “That Thatcher told him to cut the baby from my stomach and let me watch her die.”
He sits beside me and takes my hand in his. “Thatcher is gone. That man is gone. They can’t hurt you.”
“I was so scared.” The fear feels so real, so fresh.
“You don’t have to be anymore.”
I look at him, my eyes spilling fresh tears. “Don’t I?”
“No. I have you.”
“No you don’t. Nobody has this. Nobody gets it.” I stand and walk to the window. “I’m sick of this.”
He stands too, watching me with a wary gaze. “Sick of what?”
“It’s over.” I laugh. “It’s all over… like you said; we’re safe, we’re happy, we have a baby on the way.”
“Exactly.”
“So why won’t you let me move on?” I shout. “We almost died, both of us. He was a trained killer. He could have heard you and killed you too. But we’re here… we’ve been through so much. Why won’t you just let go of it all?”
“I don’t want to push you.” He says it softly, his eyes glistening. “The last time I tried to push you, you left. I can’t lose you again.”
“You’re not pushing me!” I shout, growling with frustration while picturing myself shaking him. “I remember everything that happened that night, but I’m okay. I’m okay because I’m with you and I’m happy and I know that you’ll keep me safe. I know you’ve changed. I know you’re not who you used to be when we first met, but what you fail to realise is that I loved you then too.”
“Cerise…”
“Stop looking so fucking ashamed. You’re not a bad person. You did some shitty things, we both did, but we’re here. We have this chance and you’re making us waste it because you’re scared I’m made of glass?” I shake my head at him. “Why are you forcing me to live in the past when you’re literally the only person in the entire world that has the power to make me forget everything?”
We stare at each other, a connection forming between us, and I see his resolve slide away like sand from tilted glass.
“Make me forget,” I beg, holding out my hand to him. “Let me make you forget.”
Just when I think he’s about to walk away, he strides towards me and crushes his mouth to mine.
I sigh, relieved to feel his strong hands caress my back down to my rear.
“If you need me to stop…” he whispers in my ear after kissing a tingly trail from my mouth.
“Shut. Up.” I grab his face, surprising him, and kiss him even harder. My lips ache from the pain but I don’t care. I’m tasting him properly for the first time in weeks.
Scared that he’ll change his mind as the strength of my need for sex rises significantly, I grab the front of his top and hold it tight, right before I shove him towards the bed. He lands with an ‘oomph’ on the bed, making me smile triumphantly.
Licking his lip, he smiles up at me with heated eyes and nods for me to come closer.
I oblige, lifting my shirt over my head and tossing it, then I grab the bottom of his and pull it upwards. He takes a moment to kiss my bare stomach after sitting up to allow me to rid him of his clothing.
My fingers trace a gentle pattern from his neck to his shoulders and back again. He shivers and I love it. I love that he feels that way.
“My turn,” he smirks and I squeal with glee when he flips me over, onto my back, and rolls between my thighs. Gripping my hands, he pins them above my head in a large fist and sinks his teeth into my neck.
I cry out from the blissful pain and arch my back, wishing he could sink something other than his teeth into me.
“Tobias,” I plead, writhing beneath him as he tortures my neck and chest with his lips and tongue.
For once he doesn’t make me wait. He kicks off his trousers and then yanks off mine, groaning with frustration and then laughing with me when they get stuck on my ankles.
My laughter is silenced when he tugs me up to sitting position and nudges my lips with his swollen head. I almost forgot how big he was.
I taste him, suck him, kissing and licking, loving every noise he makes, loving the way he tugs on my hair as though trying to control himself.
“Enough,” he demands and pushes me back onto the bed.
My lips are numb.
I love that too.
“Fuck!” I cry out, surprised when he suddenly closes his mouth on me down there. “Stop teasing me…” I normally love the foreplay but I’m so desperate to be filled that it’s just a tingly inconvenience right now. “Tobias!”
My thigh stings with his first slap, making me yelp and growl.
“Nice kitty.” He grins and then goes back to dining on me.
“Oh… OH!” I grip the sheets and his hair. I squeeze his head with my thighs. I almost cry as my eyes blur with tears forced to the surface by all of the nerves he’s tormenting so deliciously. “Stop!”
He stops suddenly, leaving me feeling cold as the clitoris he was just flicking with his tongue buzzes with disappointment.
“Why’d you stop?” I shout, leaning up to look at him.
“You told me to.”
“When have I ever meant it?”
For a moment I stare at him, glaring, but then I see his lips twitch and I know he’s just winding me up.
“Fuck you,” I snarl, sliding onto the floor with him before he can stop me.
With my back against the side of the bed and him on his knees, I literally impale myself on his length as I let gravity pull me down. We both cry out.
It has been so fucking long.
Giving me a moment to adjust, he brushes my hair from my eyes and then lifts me so easily back onto the bed with us still joined at the hips.
He tenderly brushes my lips with his and kisses my eyebrows, then my cheekbones, cheeks, jaw. Then he finally starts to move, slowly at first, easing me into it as he whispers his genuine declarations of love into my ear.
Sliding in and out, just a fraction, enough to make me pant wantonly.
He picks up speed, his gentle pushes becoming more rapid, his pulls becoming longer.
I watch his eyes squeeze shut and a shudder pulses through his body as I lose myself, orgasming gently around his throbbing length. He doesn’t stop; he doesn’t give me time to adjust and I spiral again, this time violently.
“That’s it, Wild One,” he murmurs in my ear. “I’m going to flip you now.”
“What?” He does just that, sliding out of my sensitive core and then just flipping me onto my knees with a little help from me.
As he kneels behind me, I gasp when he positions himself over my folds and then pulls me down onto him.
“You feel amazing; I don’t want to stop,” he admits and I mumble an incoherent agreement. His hands grasp my breasts, massaging gently as we roll our hips together.
It’s surprisingly tame for all of twenty seconds and then I’m eating bed sheets as he shoves me face first into the mattress and starts pounding into me from behind. His fingers tweak my still sensitive nub. It’s insane. I need him to go faster and faster. I demand it but there’s a limit to even his speed, which feels so frustrating in this moment.
Especially when he starts to slow down his movements and I know what that means. He’s trying to control himself, but I don’t want him to.
As much as I don’t want this to end, I really need to feel him lose himself in me.
“Behave,” he orders, smacking my rear gently. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I breathlessly say as I push my hips back into him and circle slowly.
He pulls out again and kisses my spine.
“What are you doing?” I groan, turning to look at him as he moves to the closet. His length bounces, still completely solid.
I wait for him to return to me and my eyes widen when he pops a glass ball on a cord into my mouth.
“Good girl.” He tugs it from my lips and then pushes me backwards so I’m spread eagled on the bed with my feet on the floor “Relax.”
I know where this is going and the second it pops inside, I breathe again.
The second he pops inside my normal entrance I start writhing and begging for him to make me cum, again.
I want to wipe that smug grin off his face but then I just want to sit on his face.
The burning is too much. My eyes roll back into my head as he grinds into me in an erratic rhythm.
“Can’t… breathe…” I say and then it happens. This time it isn’t gentle or violent; it’s a fucking massacre of every cell in my body. I’ve never felt anything like it. I hook an arm around his neck and bite his shoulder as the pleasure rushing through me becomes almost too much. I feel the ball leave me when he tugs it, which only seems to extend the feelings I’m having. When he roars out his own release, clinging to me just as tightly as I cling to him, I smile and this time whisper my own declarations of love in his ear.
We collapse side by side, too warm to touch, too sweaty and gross. So we link pinkie fingers instead and gently fall asleep, only to go again less than an hour later, and then again in the shower.
The next day even he is too sore and tired to go to work, so we spend the day sleeping, eating and snuggling in front of crappy movies and epic game sessions.
All is literally perfect in the world.
* * *
“What are you doing?” I mumble, peeking open an eye and looking at Lockhart, who has my hand on his lap.
It feels like yesterday when I caught him fingering the scars on my wrists, a faraway look in his eyes. When he caught me looking, he shushed me with a kiss and then kissed every single part of them. It almost made me cry.
“Nothing.” He brings my hand to his lips and pats his chest for me to snuggle up to him. Not one to pass on such a brilliant offer, I do just that. “I have to go back to work today. The place is falling apart without me.”
“Me too.” I sigh. “I already let Dane and Kai down yesterday. We have songs to write.”
“I don’t want to leave your side.”
“That’s a one-way ticket to a quick divorce.” I bite his pebbled nipple, making him tut and scratch at it with the hand not around my body.
I look up at him and admire his face. He’s so handsome. I wonder what features of his our daughter will get. I’m praying for her to have his eye colour.
“Promise me that you won’t force me to stay at home with the baby,” I say suddenly, surprising us both. Before he can interrupt, I explain, “I have an actual tour next year. I don’t want to leave her behind and I don’t want to be made to feel guilty for taking her with me.”
“Like I said before we even planned to have children, she’ll fit into our worlds and she’ll grow up with so much love and happiness. She doesn’t need a constant home for that. It’s unconventional, but…”
I dive on him and kiss his face over and over. “We’re so well matched it’s not even funny. I love you, Tobias Lockhart, and she’ll love you too, probably more than she’ll love me.”
“I love you too.” He smiles softly and stretches with me still on his chest, so I bite his nipple again. His smile becomes a glare. Knowing I’m likely about to get spanked, I giggle and try to escape, but he pins me down before I get to the edge of the bed.
We both go into work sore and late.
Oops.
No regrets.