Ryland

 

Three am.

Sleep eluded me.

The quiet whir of the ceiling fan overhead mingled with the shallow breaths dragging from my lungs. The faintest hint of her still lingered on the bedsheets, taunting and teasing me. I hadn’t washed them since she’d gone.

Mementos of her littered my apartment. Her clothes, her jewelry, her sticky notes with reminders scrawled on them in child-like loops and swirls. I couldn’t let these things go. I figured if she hadn’t come back to collect yet, hope still breathed.

It was fading though. As was my control of this situation.

Every night I lingered on the edge of reality and insanity. Imagining her face brought me peace, if only for a moment. Then it always blurred into something else. Blood. Smoke. Water. Pain.

Gone.

I groped around the bed for her nightgown and brought it to my face. It still smelled like her. Strawberries and sunshine. Christ.

Smoothing the silk material through my fingers, I recalled fondly the way it slid against the decadent curves of her body. Reminisced on the pleasant sound of threads giving way as I freed her creamy flesh from its gilded cage. The bite of leather against her skin and the way she came alive for me. Marking her with arrogant ownership. She was too lenient with me sometimes, and oh what a heady fucking feeling that was. I believed her when she said she loved me. And I also believed I could still have her once I’d gotten my way.

What a fucking prig.

Self-deprecation was not an attractive quality, but that’s what it’d come to. For a small while, I held an angel in the palm of my hand. Like one of those little dancers in the musical jewelry boxes. All I had to do was wind her up and watch her shine for me. Nobody else could do that. It was all for me. And now only the memories remained.

I slid the nightgown down and wrapped it around my cock, fisting myself through the silk.

Was that judgment I heard in your thoughts? Did you forget that I was a man? This is how we deal. We could be deep in the clutches of grief and still get a fucking hard on. Blame it on biology.

It didn’t mean I didn’t feel things. I felt plenty. I had Brighton to thank for that. She walked into my life and blew everything to smithereens. Talk about the best laid plans…

I envisioned her spread out over my desk, her ginger spiced locks spilling over her shoulders like a flaming halo. I curled and twisted those silky threads in my hands, tugging until two bright hazel orbs stared back at me. Often, I had trouble deciphering the exact color of her eyes. They changed so frequently depending on her moods. Sometimes they were liquid amber, warm and inviting. Other times, I’d find them tinged with blue or gray. There’d been times they shut me out, but she’d never gone cold. Brighton was never, ever cold.

Right now, they were burnished caramel. Hot and sweet and filled with naughty promises. Her lids were heavy like I’d drugged her into narcosis. She was high on me- I knew- because the same drug ravaged my own veins. Thick and potent it burned as I dragged my fingers down her spine and groped her heart shaped ass.

Pure perfection. My cock itched with the need to purge this agony from my system. It was too soon. Always too soon. I smacked Brighton’s pretty little ass cheek in reproof, enchanted by the tiny noise that tore from her throat. It was her fault I was in such distress. If she wasn’t so goddamn exquisite, I could make it last forever.

Rough hands slid around her front, her tits filling my palms with each stuttered breath she drew. My cock dragged in and out in a measured tempo so as not to plunge from the ledge just yet. Her snug pink pussy sucked me deeper in an invitation I could not refuse. Christ, she had such a pretty little pussy. If you didn’t agree that pussies could be pretty, it’s because you’d never seen hers. Brighton’s was the prettiest.

Fucks sake, I’d reverted to a boy in the schoolyard.

Back to the fantasy. Brighton was in my debt, and nothing short of proper chastisement would do. She’d made me wait. She alone had sentenced me to muddle through every insufferable day in her absence. Didn’t she know I couldn’t function without her? I wrapped my fingers around her throat and fucked her like a man possessed. If she’d forgotten how this worked, I’d be more than happy to remind her.

My eyes were nothing but vacuous pits of lust as I looked down upon her and shouted out my declarations of love and frustration. In the end, she’d cave recklessly to my every whim. We were simpatico, her and I. She loved to drip all over my cock while I tormented her. The dynamic of our connection couldn’t be recreated in the most intimate of sadomasochistic relationships. It was a perfect storm of events that catalyzed this bond.

From an outside perspective, my cruel and abhorrent behavior might appear nothing more than ire wrapped in thorns. At first, perhaps it was. But Brighton’s submission and thirsty demand for more forged something else. Devout worship for the creature who flirted with my darkest desires and begged them to come out and play. I was as much her servant as she was mine.

You’d probably assumed that my grief was to blame for my insanity. It wasn’t entirely true. It was Brighton. She made me fucking insane. Her beauty and absolute perfection dissolved any moral boundaries that may have existed within me. She hadn’t a clue that sometimes when I looked at her I could scarcely breathe. How my need for her outweighed everything else. It was the way she loved me in spite of it all that made me unable to walk away.

Misery and bliss wrestled inside of me at the silent admission, and I choked out my release, spilling it across my abs like I was sixteen years old again. Pitiful. Even my cock thought so. My hand was a poor imitation of her.

I needed my light. I needed to know she was okay.

I rolled over to check my phone, and as promised, Mick had texted me every hour on the hour. There wasn’t anything to report. I sent Brighton a text.

I didn’t expect an answer. I never got one.

The nights were the worst of it. Not having her close, her heart beating a rhythmic tattoo across my chest. I was supposed to protect her, but instead, I’d been the one to hurt her. I couldn’t stop the horrific events of that night from playing through my mind. The fear and betrayal on her face and the stinging realization on mine. There was no forgiveness for what I’d done. I knew that. I would never forgive myself.

But this wasn’t about forgiveness. It wasn’t just want for her, it was a vital need. She was the only antidote for the bleakness that lived inside of me. My goddess. My deity. I wasn’t a believer in any religion, but I’d make an exception in this case. I’d get down on my knees and worship at her alter every day if it brought her back to me.

I couldn’t take no for an answer. A better man would have. I had no claims on such titles. Causing her pain had never stopped me before. It was part of the process. I’d dole it out, and she’d accept.

This was a different kind of pain, I’d admit it. A whole different animal. So I’d indulge her some space. For now. It was generous for me. She didn’t grasp how the weight of my sins crushed my chest with every passing hour. How without her, there’d never be absolution.

Brighton saw the good in everyone. She saw good in me too. I’d believe for her sake it was true, lest my darkness swallow us both whole.

I still had Brayden to compete with. There weren’t enough choice words in my vocabulary to describe the many feelings I had about his weak and tarnished soul. But I wouldn’t ever lay a hand on him again. For Brighton’s sake.

She wouldn’t believe it, but there wasn’t even a question about it at this point. What happened that night couldn’t be undone, but it had undone something. I’d promptly realized I was far more selfish than could be considered purposeful. Five years of planning went out the window in the presence of five minutes of her pain. Thoughts of family and revenge forgotten I’d learned there was something I wanted more. And I almost lost it that night through my own careless actions.

I’ve washed my hands of evil plotting. As much as I liked to hand out punishments, I wasn’t too proud to receive them when warranted. I shouldn’t have tried to kill her mom and brother, maybe. I’d even felt the tiniest flicker of regret if you can believe it. You probably don’t, but who the hell gives a shit?

Brayden was digging his own grave, anyway. Back in Chicago, he’d hooked up with the usual shady contacts. Did you expect anything more from an ex-con? Okay, let me rephrase that. Did you expect anything more from the son of Frank Gallo?

I sure as hell didn’t.

Still, I wondered if Brighton knew what he was up to. Or if she’d sent him to the same special purgatory that was reserved for me. Silence.

I only hoped Brayden didn’t go digging up old dirt. Nothing good could come of that. Frankie’s associates had been well and truly paid off, but I trusted them about as much as I believed in unicorns. What they did to Brayden was of little consequence to me, but if they ever came after Brighton, they’d have a different beast to contend with.

I was the son of Michael Lockhart, but there were vast differences between him and I. Unlike Michael, I wasn’t afraid to protect the woman I loved. I’d single-handedly go to war and burn their whole organization to the ground before I ever let them harm what was mine. And there were no two ways about it- Brighton would always be mine.