Chapter Eight
Fox
I watched her for long moments, knowing that I shouldn’t, knowing that I would soon regret doing so. She wouldn’t stay, not forever and though I never really wanted her in the first place, I wasn’t ready to set her free.
Our journey to the world outside the mansion walls started horribly, with Raven being nothing but a quiet mouse in the corner of the limo. She watched me, just as I did her, waiting for the moment when I would slip up. What she didn’t know was that I never slipped up. Not even once.
“My mother and I used to come here all the time,” Raven gushed, as she bit at the straw of her Starbucks Frappuccino. Did she even have the slightest clue how beautiful she was? Her black hair blew in the wind, and her purple streaks shimmered in the sunlight. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her even if I wanted to.
“Here… as in to the mall or the garden?” I questioned. We were acting as a real couple talking as if we were closer than we appeared to the eyes of passersby, and yet I loved these moments even if I knew they weren’t real.
“The garden… We used to come here together and watch the butterflies. It was our thing, the only thing we usually got to do together…” Raven’s face fell and so did my heart. I didn’t know her reasoning for coming into my life as she did, but I knew Seth was digging for answers and I wanted to know. I wanted to know so fucking badly.
“Yeah… Before I lost my mom we used to go to the park and have picnics. It’s the only happy thing I can remember about her…” I trailed off, refusing to let the memory surface in my mind. Thinking about my mom depressed me because, as much as I wanted to paint her in a light that every child wanted to paint their mother in, I couldn’t.
From the day I was born things were hard, or so I was always told. Seth shielded me from a lot of the bad shit.
“I’m sorry, Fox…” She cast her eyes to the concrete in fear of being punished for calling me the wrong name. Truthfully, I loved hearing her say my name because it made me feel free. It made me feel like maybe this could work between us.
“Don’t be. I’ve learned to let go of the past. It doesn’t do you any good to stand in one place and complain about things that you can’t change,” I quoted my brother, those exact words were said to me repeatedly over the last five years. I had never handled her death well, nor had I ever healed from it. I simply shoved it under the rug and forgot about it.
“I know, but losing someone you love isn’t easy…” She spoke from experience, which was a bit insulting to because I was positive that she hadn’t the slightest clue what it was like to lose someone you love.
“How would you know? Have you lost someone you love before?” I snapped, regretting it as soon as the words came out of my mouth. This was supposed to be a peaceful place and I was once again letting the memory of my mother play on my emotions.
“We’ve all lost someone, a grandparent, parent, sibling…” She shrugged, kicking at a couple of rocks around the penny fountain. “I think, in a way, we know how it feels to lose someone but only to our own degree. From the way you talk, losing your mom was hard, but living with her memory was even harder.” I clenched my fists because no one, and I mean no one, had ever been able to put into words how I felt about my mother’s death. Not like Raven just had, and that evoked something inside of me. It rubbed the wound that had already been raw and bleeding.
“I need to talk about something else right now…” I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. I didn’t want Raven to see how weak this conversation made me, but I was done talking about the past. I was done reliving the moment.
“Okay… What’s your favorite color?” Raven asked, as she looked up at the sky. There were rain clouds moving in, which meant a storm was brewing.
“Green. What’s yours?” I asked back. She smiled, and this time it met her eyes, causing the brown in them to dance with laughter.
“Purple, of course…” She twirled under what little sunlight there was left. My heart slamming against my rib cage profusely I watched her, knowing that I was falling for a girl that I could never have. A girl that I was going to break one way or another, and one that could never stay.
“Food?” I asked the next question.
“I love, love, Italian food.” She laughed, and it melted the coldness in my chest. I was still sitting on the park bench as she twirled around like a ballerina around the penny fountain. The first raindrop falling and landing coldly against her forehead.
“Me too, but I love Mexican just as much.” It felt strange, but surprisingly fun to get to know someone on a level that was more than just physical. Though I would take Raven in my bed any day. Her body was a beacon to me and I would forever worship it, so long as she allowed me.
“Ahhh it’s raining…” she shrieked, running under a nearby awning. I couldn’t help but chuckle at her anger towards the tiny little raindrops.
“Yeah, that’s usually what it’s called when drops of cold water start falling from the sky.” I was a sarcastic asshole nearly every second of the day, so I didn’t see a reason to change now.
I walked over to the awning, letting the rain drops soak into my white t-shirt. Once underneath it, I settled onto the bench next to Raven. Silence settled over us as the sound of rain drops beating against the metal roof echoed through the garden.
“You told me when we first met nearly two weeks ago that I should always be honest with you. That if I was, you would be honest with me too.” I nodded my head yes, because that was something I had told her.
I could see the anxious look in her eyes and wondered what the problem was. Had I said something to her, done something? Suddenly I was overly concerned with her safety and the need for her to be okay.
“What’s wrong, Raven?” I used her real name, showing her just how serious I was about getting down to whatever it was that bothered her.
“I’ve been lying to you this whole time…” I ground my teeth together, hating the words that she uttered and knowing what they meant for us. If she was really lying, and Seth could prove it, then the punishment she would receive would be jarring. Lying did sit well with me.
“Do tell me what it is you’ve been lying about.” It took everything in me to remain seated, when all I wanted to do was take her over my knee and spank the fuck out of her.
She looked me straight in the eyes as she spoke, unafraid of the devil in disguise. “Hearing you talk about your mother like you did broke me. The reason I auctioned my virginity off was for my mother. She has cancer and we need the money to pay for her hospice care. The cancer she has is treatable but only with medication, medication that neither of us could afford to get her.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Regret. Remorse. Pain. All of those emotions swirled inside my chest. I was evil, so fucking evil.
“You didn’t need the money for college then?” I had to ask. I had to know that she was lying about that one thing and that that was it.
She shook her head no. “No I didn’t. I was going to give the money to my mother so that she could get cured and I could focus on graduating from night school.” Sweet Raven. She was so fucking smart, and wise beyond her years, yet she had made a deal with the devil, and one that she couldn’t get out of.
“You know what lying to me means, right?” I exhaled, squeezing the bridge of my nose in frustration. I was falling for Raven and more than that, I was falling in love with her heart, and the person she was underneath the walls she put up.
“Yes, I do.” Her face fell, her eyes refusing to meet mine. She knew she had done wrong by lying. Now I just needed the information from Seth and I could confirm everything that she had just told me. The punishment she would face still weighed on my mind.
I could make it good for her, just as I had today. I could bring her to her knees with pleasure and pain. I could take her to new heights and leave her begging me for more. I could give her happiness instead of giving her pain.
I could make her see that, though she had sold her virginity to me, there was always a silver lining. I knew now exactly how it was that she knew what it felt like to lose someone you loved. She was losing someone as we spoke.
“I promise you that it’ll be worth it, Raven. No matter what type of punishment you get from me, it will always come with some type of pleasure. Always remember that.” I placed my hand on hers, gently showing her that I was here, and more than just an evil asshole.
There were pieces of my heart that still beat and those pieces no matter how small, belonged to Raven.
“I know that. I also know that, no matter what, it will never work.” She spoke as if she already knew of my feelings and that shocked me. Not once had I showed her that I felt anything more than lust for her. I might have shown weakness, but that wasn’t love.
“That what won’t work?” I asked, the question burning at the tip of my tongue.
“Us. There are things you don’t know and will never understand. You make me weak in the knees, and my body craves your touch like it does sunlight, but that’s all this is… and will ever be…. Physical.” Her words hit me in the gut and enraged me all at the same time. She knew nothing about my emotions for her, yet she played off what she was seeing right now.
“It doesn’t have to work, Raven. All that matters is that you listen and follow directions well. If I say suck my cock, you do. If I tell you to bend over and let me fuck you till you’re worn and beaten, then you do. That’s the relationship we have, and the relationship that will remain between us, and nothing, no sob story you spill, is ever going to change that.” I regretted every word I said, hated how wrong they sounded coming from me. The man I was, and the man I wanted to be when I was with Raven, were two different people and I didn’t know if I was capable of merging them into one.
“Good,” Raven said, jumping from the bench and heading in the direction of the parked SUV. It was then, as I watched her run in the rain, that I saw a butterfly land against the bench seat next to me. It was free, and beautiful, and I knew then that I would have to let Raven go, one way or another, because even the most beautiful of objects couldn’t remain hidden forever.