by Anne Malcom
I was anxious to get my senior year started. An entire year of school ahead of me seemed like torture, especially knowing that Cody would be living on his own and prospecting with the Sons of Templar MC, likely being exposed to all kinds of very attractive, very experienced women.
Not that I didn’t trust Cody, but my obsession made my thoughts ugly.
“Do you like drive your motorcycle into their compound and then they test you for worthiness or macho-ness? Or do you have to like rob a bank or something to show you’re willing to do anything for the MC?” I continued. “As much as I support you doing this, I really don’t think you should rob a bank. I know that movies make it seem like bank robberies have a high success rate, but they really don’t. It’s not a feasible way to steal money.”
Cody didn’t laugh or even crack a smile, which really didn’t reassure me about the whole bank robbery thing. In addition to the silence, there was the look. That look. The cold, tortured one from our first night together.
“Cody?” I asked, getting worried.
“I was your first,” Cody said, his voice dead.
I was scared. No, terrified. Because I didn’t recognize his voice. I didn’t recognize the way he looked at me. I suddenly felt too exposed with my shirt half unbuttoned. Like I needed a barrier because I had the feeling something was going to cut up my bare skin.
“I was your first,” he repeated.
The way he said those words to me gave me pause. There was something in his eyes. Something detached from us.
So I didn’t speak, just nodded.
“You weren’t mine.”
I flinched at his tone, though, the truth stung a little too. “I’m aware that you weren’t living in a convent prior to us getting together,” I teased, trying to joke but not succeeding.
“No, I didn’t have my first sexual experience with some fuckin’ cheerleader,” he scowled. There was violence in voice. In every cell of his body. My relaxed and charming boyfriend was nowhere to be seen. This was the dark side of him that I’d sometimes seen snippets of. Flashes. Things that had told me I hadn’t yet seen all of him. Didn’t know all of him.
“Without going into detail that neither of us need, my first sexual experience was not consensual, happened when I was too fuckin’ young to understand what was going on, and the fact that my uncle was the one doing the... shit, I wasn’t brave enough to stand up to him. To say no.” He ran his hand through his hair, looking anywhere but me.
My heart thumped between my ears, a dull roar. The beer I drank earlier tonight curdled in my stomach, and it took effort to keep from throwing up. Hearing the pain and shame in Cody’s voice was sickening.
“He did it more than once,” he continued. “Told me it was a secret, that I’d get in trouble if I told anyone.” He laughed, but it was a bitter, ugly sound. “Stupid kid that I was, I believed him.”
I stepped forward, intending on touching him, comforting him, doing anything to take the suffering, pain and self-hatred from his body. He was coated with it.
Cody stepped back from my touch. Recoiled. His rejection hit me in the chest, but I got it.
“You weren’t stupid,” I said. “You were a child. And he was a monster.” Tears blurred my vision, and I tried to force them from falling. I couldn’t be weak in the face of this. Couldn’t show him an emotion he might construe as pity.
“Ah, no, he was just a man,” he said. “One that has to die.”
My blood went cold. “What?”
“He ruined me, Lizzie,” Cody hissed, finally looking at me. “He ruined what I might’ve had with you. Stole it from me. Ripped me up inside so self-hatred is all I know. When I told my dad, you know what he did? He smacked me around and called me a faggot.” Another one of those cold laughs spilled from him. “My mom would’ve believed me. But it also would’ve broken her heart, I knew that even then. Was protecting her even then. My dad beat me so bad that it made her leave him. When she saw what he did to me, she ran. With me. As far away as she could get.” He looked away. “Here,” he murmured. “She wanted Amber to be a fresh start. Clean slate. Something good. I didn’t want to tarnish our good thing with the rancid truth, so I buried it. With the promise to myself that when I was older, stronger, I’d go back there. I’d find him, and I’d kill him.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. I couldn’t stop it. “Cody...” I stepped forward, but the way his body tensed made me pause. It wasn’t even tensing, it was a recoil. An emotional slap to the face and knife to the soul.
“You need to leave,” he said in that cold, disembodied voice.
“Leave?” I repeated, my voice shaking. “No. I’m not going anywhere.” Something told me if I left right then, I’d never see Cody again. It would be over in a scary, permanent way. “I can’t lose you.”
“You never really had me, Lizzie,” he countered. “Not all of me. I can’t give you that. fuck, you’re in fucking high school. This is not the kind of shit we should be dealing with. That you should be dealing with. We need to grow up. Both of us.” He stared at me. Like I was a stranger. “You need to leave.”
I knew him, so in that moment I knew nothing was going to change his mind. And he was right. We were too young for this intensity. He’d just told me something that he’d been hiding, his greatest shame. The secret had obviously been cutting him up from the inside out. And I didn’t know how to handle something like this. Even if I did, Cody was telling me he didn’t want my help. Even though I wanted to be there for him, maybe Cody could tackle his demons alone. Maybe he needed to focus on himself, because when we were together, all his thoughts, effort and love went to me. And how was he meant to repair what had been broken without time for himself?
But the selfish part of me didn’t care. I didn’t care about all of that. About all the possible repercussions. I just wanted my boyfriend. I wanted to undress and go to bed with him. Sleep with his arms around me. I wanted to find a way to fix his pain, show him that it didn’t make me love him any less. That it didn’t make him any less. But he wouldn’t believe me. It wouldn’t sink in. I didn’t have any experience with this kind of horror, and I had no idea how to help him. Worse, I was terrified I’d hurt him.
“I’m going to leave,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face, “even though I know this decision is going to be painful for the two of us. I hate that you’re forcing me to go. I don’t want to. I don’t want to be without you. I don’t want you to think horrible things about yourself that aren’t true. But I can’t control that. Just please, carry this with you.” I undid the heart necklace he’d bought me for Christmas. The one that caused him to take a month longer to finish his motorcycle than it should’ve.
I didn’t trust myself to move closer and physically hand it to him, so I laid it gently on his nightstand.
“Carry me with you,” I pleaded, looking at him, another tear rolling down my cheek. “Just remember, there’s nothing you can do that will make me stop loving you. No matter what you think. However long it takes, I’ll be waiting for you. No matter what.”
I turned and walked out.
Part of me thought he’d chase after me, kiss me and promise everything was going to be okay.
But he didn’t.
Because everything wasn’t going to be okay.
Unfortunately, that’s not the way this story goes.
Chapter 3
Five Years Later
“I’ll call you tomorrow, I promise!” I yelled to Laurie and Bull as I got out of their car, my words only the slightest bit slurred from the margaritas we’d had. Well, Laurie and I had been having margaritas Zane, I mean Bull, wouldn’t do anything to impair his judgement or motor skills when he was driving Laurie around. He’d turned into a full on badass since patching into the Sons of Templar MC, complete with the macho man nickname. There was something about him now that made him seem like he’d be able to handle anything bad from happening. That he’d be able to save Laurie from a fricking plane crash.
Nonetheless, he didn’t drink and drive. Not with her in the car.
It hurt to be around them, so relentlessly in love, so devoted to each other when I was just an empty space where a human used to be.
Okay, that was maybe a little dramatic. But heartbreak kind of did that to you. Especially when paired with tequila.
It took me a second to fumble for the door handle. I hadn’t expected to be out this late, or else I would’ve left the porch light on.
I was still getting used to being alone. Living alone. I’d gone from my parent’s house to my college dorm to a shitty apartment off campus with a few friends to this little bungalow in my hometown. I’d just gotten a job at the bookstore on Main Street, helping the owner, Evan, with accounting and business management. I’d been one of his best customers for years, and when I mentioned I was moving home, he’d offered me the job. The pay wasn’t great, but it was more than enough to pay rent and have enough money for tacos and margaritas. Or it would’ve been if Bull wasn’t caveman who didn’t let Laurie and I pay for anything.
Sure, I could’ve gone away, could’ve headed to a city somewhere where I worked my way up in the publishing business since college had made me fall even more in love with the literary arts. But that wasn’t what I wanted out of life. I’d never had big dreams of leaving my small town and living some fabulous life. No, I’d been happy with the idea of settling down again. Working somewhere close to Amber. Getting married, having kids.
With Cody.
I’d been so sure that it would happen with Cody.
He’d talked about wanting to patch in to the Sons of Templar MC. It had made me nervous, but I’d understood why he’d wanted to, and I’d accepted it.
But then he’d left.
Almost five years ago. Hadn’t heard a single thing from him. Not one single thing. In romance novels, there was always something big and dramatic that separated the two young lovers. It was necessary.
There would be pain, longing, but ultimately a happy ending.
There was plenty of the first two, but none of the latter.
I should’ve hated him. I wanted to hate him. I wanted to throw myself into college life, college boys and forget him. Find someone new and stop pining over my high school boyfriend like a pathetic teenager.
Best laid plans and all that.
Willow tried to help. She had wanted to make a puppet of him—Wicca was one of the many things she’d studied during her four years at college where she’d gotten a lot of experience but not much else—and curse him. Among other things. She wanted me to party with her every night and find a new guy to forget the old one. But I didn’t work that way. Willow had eventually accepted that, since I’d always accepted who she was. She was the girl who’d decided to drop out of her last year of college to drive around the country with a guy she’d just met. She sent postcards sometimes. I’d always known that’s all I’d get from her. Postcards and stories from travels that never landed her back here. She felt suffocated in our small, quiet town. Amber wasn’t her dream.
It was mine.
I’d had relationships, of course. Mostly because I wanted to try to prove to myself that I was over Cody, but also because I was lonely.
It hadn’t worked. Some of the guys were nice, others were assholes. Neither type helped. So I’d decided I’d forever be the slightly jealous third wheel to my friend and her seriously smitten boyfriend.
“You didn’t lock the door,” a voice stated as I stepped into my bungalow.
If I could’ve crawled up the wall in fear, I would’ve. As it was, I just scuttled back, hit the door and let out a girly scream. I didn’t go for a weapon or try to run or anything. Didn’t do any of the things women were meant to do when there was a man in their house nearing midnight.
But I knew that voice.
I used to, at least.
My hands fumbled for the light switch.
“Cody,” I whispered, my eyes running over the man standing in front of me. That’s what he was, a fully-grown man. Sure, he’d been pretty damn manly the last time I saw him, but he’d packed on muscle now. A lot of it. The sleeves on his Henley were straining with the muscles he’d covered it with. His shoulders, broad before, were huge. His midnight hair was closely cropped now, making the angles of his face that much sharper.
It was his eyes that had changed the most, though. They were colder. Scarier. But there was still something in there. Something him.
I moved forward, to go to him, smell him, taste him, but his hands on my shoulders stopped me.
“Why wasn’t your door looked, Lizzie?” he asked, voice flat.
I blinked at the inane question considering everything. His hands burned at my shoulders, my body sucking up the contact like a drug. “Um, the door?” I repeated, still swimming through tequila even though his presence was enough to almost entirely sober me up.
“Yes, Lizzie, the fuckin’ door.” The grip on my shoulders bordered on pain now.
Cody had never hurt me. He was always gentle. Too gentle almost. I’d ached for him to press me against walls, to ravage me like I’d read about in all those books.
That was a good word for him right now. Ravaged. With something.
“This is Amber,” I said in response. “Nothing happens here.”
This, apparently, was the wrong thing to say. His face twisted into something resembling fury, his grip tightening even farther.
“Something can happen anywhere. You’re alone.” His eyes ran over my body, my body immediately responding. “You’re fuckin’ beautiful. Something will happen. It’s just a matter of time.”
“Maybe I’m not alone anymore?” I wondered out loud, looking up at him. “Are you back, Cody?” I swallowed roughly, his presence, his anger, his scent doing things to me. Awakening things that had lain dormant for four fucking years. But I had to pause. I forced myself to take a slow, deep breath even though all I wanted to do was pounce on him. Taste him.
“Have you come back to me?” My question came out softer than I’d intended. Weaker. I was supposed to be stronger now. Harder. Supposed to prove what these four years had done to my independence. Supposed to torture him, make him pay for the way his absence had tortured me. Make him work to get me back. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t lie to Cody, couldn’t put on any kind of mask. All I wanted was him. I didn’t want games. I’d already forgiven him the second I walked out of his bedroom four years ago.
Something moved on his face again. It wasn’t fury. No, this was something else. Something softer. Something that resembled the Cody I had once known. The one I dreamed about.
“You’re not going to yell at me? Tell me how much you hate me for breaking your heart? Tell me to get the fuck outta your house?” He sounded different. Confused. Lost some of that fierce bravado that was foreign yet attractive.
“You did break my heart,” I explained. “But you broke your own too. You hurt yourself because you thought it was the best thing for me.” I moved my arm to cradle his jaw. When we were together, he’d let his stubble grow because he’d known I liked the roughness against my skin. Loved the marks I’d get on my inner thighs. He’d grown a full beard now. It was rough against my palm. He smelled different too. Leather and smoke.
“You’ve tortured yourself more than enough by the looks of it,” I whispered, my heart breaking all over again as I took in everything that was different about him. “And I’m not going to waste the precious time I have with you yelling. Now, I repeat my question, have you come back to me?”
Pain clouded his eyes, his body still tense under my touch. “It’s not that simple.”
I tilted my head. “Oh, of course there’re a lot of complicated things that we’ll have to work through. But the one thing that is simple is whether you’re going to let me in or not. If we’re going to work on them together. I want to tell you right now, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done that I’m sure you’ve convinced yourself that I can’t handle,” I
narrowed my eyes, “I can handle it. I can handle you. So are you here to stay?”
There was a pause. A long one. One that frayed the nerves I was trying so hard to hide from my voice.
Then he moved. His mouth crashed onto mine, and I surrendered, submitted easily. There was no point fighting this. No reason to struggle about the years between us. The things that had changed. And many things had changed, that much was obvious.
But what hadn’t changed was the magic between us. The fire.
It was hotter than ever before.
It was an inferno.
And I let it devour me.
Let Cody devour me.
We were naked on my bedroom floor.
After fucking against the wall, we’d moved to the bed. Fucked some more. That’s what this was. Fucking. It was primal. Urgent. Desperate. Carnal. Maybe there was still love in there somewhere, but this wasn’t making love. It was something else entirely. It was like I was losing my virginity to him all over again. No one had ever touched me like this. Cody had never touched me like this. It awoke something different inside of me.
We ended up tangled in blankets on the floor
Well, Cody was on the floor. I was mostly on top of him, relishing the feel of my skin on his. The need I had to be close to him was bordering on desperate. Like I had to make sure he wasn’t going anywhere. At least not without me attached to him.
We’d been quiet for a long time. He wasn’t asleep, though. I knew that because of how tight he was gripping me. Bordering on pain. Hinting at that same desperate need I had to have him close.
He’d missed me too.
Sure, I’d had my moments when I’d convinced myself it had all been fake. That Cody had never really loved me and that he was never coming back.
Those moments usually involved some kind of liquor or a romance movie.