Fighting to Forget

by J. B. Salsbury

  She jumps to her feet, and I grin at her eager need to please. Such a good girl.

  I grab the hem of her shirt and wait for her to nod the go-ahead. Once I get it, I drag the fabric slowly over her skin, allowing her to feel every fiber. Little by little her skin, smooth against my knuckles, is revealed. Perfect. I tug the shirt off over her head, and her hair falls to hit the tops of her shoulders. She’s still so thin, and there’s a slight indentation at her ribs that wasn’t there before. I vow in this moment to feed her any and everything she wants for the rest of her life.

  My gaze crawls up her torso from belly button to chest and lingers at her white lace bra. She’s breathing hard, her breasts rising and falling, teasing me with the visual of their pink tips through the fabric. My palms tingle to get at them.

  “Turn around.”

  She does, and I step in close behind her so my hard-on presses against her. I smile, enjoying the moan of pleasure that falls from her lips. Reaching for her bra, I slide down one strap at a time, kissing the path that it takes down her arms. The delicate coconut scent of her skin shoots through my senses and stokes my need. Releasing the hook of her bra, I drop it to the floor at her feet. I skate my hands up her belly to cup her breasts, rolling the tips between my fingers. She arches her back, pressing into my hold.

  “I want to look at you.” Using my lip ring the way she likes it, I run the metal against her shoulder and nip at her skin.

  She turns around and holds my stare. Her gray eyes are darker than usual, and I’m inflamed with the need to lose myself in them when I bury myself inside her.

  I drop to my knees and slide off her shoes and socks. Moving to her waist, I untie the drawstring of her pants and pull them down her legs, taking her panties with them until she’s gloriously naked before me.

  I make quick work of my sweatshirt and pants, and our gazes lock. She stares at me with appreciation and an acceptance that has me wanting to fall down at her feet and beg her to never leave. And just like when we were kids, I’m vulnerable, needy, willing to do anything for her love.

  A glint of disgust flickers in my gut, telling me that I need to be in control, warning me against falling victim to my need for love.

  I take a deep breath. She’s not them. From the beginning, she’s loved me regardless of my past. I don’t have to earn it from her. I own her heart.

  With a growl of victory, I close the space between us and hook her around the neck, crashing her lips to mine. She falls into me but fights against my dominance. Every thrust of my tongue she meets with a push of her own. Her hands rip through my hair, pulling me closer, pushing me back. Her leg hooks around my hip, and the heat of her exposed body rubs against mine. The simple act pistons my hips forward, knocking her back onto the bed where I tumble on top of her.

  She opens her legs wide and lifts her hips. “Please. I need you.”

  Sucking the tender skin of her neck between my lips, I slam my eyes shut and hold back from burying myself inside her wet heat.

  With loosely held control, I drag myself away to pull a condom from my bedside table. Faster than my aroused mind can follow, I rip, roll, and drop back between her legs.

  She digs a heel into the bed, and I allow her to push me to my back. Straddling my hips, she guides me into her body so damn slowly I grind my teeth to avoid slamming into her.

  Her head drops back. “Yes, that’s it.”

  I grab her hips firmly and growl. “I’m it.”

  “You’ve always been it.” She lifts and drops with long intentional strokes that drive me to the brink of blissful insanity.

  “Gia, baby, don’t stop.”

  Her eyes find mine through the fog of arousal. “Say it again.” Another slide in . . . out. “My name.”

  “Gia.” I cup her breasts and seize her nipples between my fingers. “My Gia.”

  “Yes. Always.” She rolls her hips in waves as the frenzy takes over.

  I drive my hips up, meeting her push for pull, and tilting my pelvis to add more friction. She drops forward, the full length of her torso pressing against mine. Her hair falls around my face. Skin to skin, breath on breath, climbing, pounding, reaching.

  “Harder, baby.”

  Her pace quickens, and she snags my lip between her teeth.

  “Fuck, yeah.” I throw my weight behind my hips, driving into her.

  My muscles go tight, eyes fixed on her red hair and gray eyes. The feelings of comfort drown me in my love for her. She’s harbored her loyalty and affection for me, dedicated her thoughts to delivering revenge for me.

  I spent my childhood bartering my body for the love of another when this whole time she’s had unconditional love for me. She held it, guarded it, and offered it when she finally could. And for that I owe her everything I have to give.

  “Gia, baby”—I release her hips, feeling her soft skin as I move up the curves of her body—“give me all of you.” I pull her in for a long, deep kiss. My head lifts off the bed, pushing toward her while tugging her closer. Our hips surge together in a frantic chase.

  Her neck arches back and she rips her lips from mine. My name falls from her lips seconds before the orgasm slides through her body. I pull my lip between my teeth. My head is light with euphoria as my body and soul climax together.

  A torrent of memories hit me at once: the first time I felt her skin and the tender brush of her lips, her easy smile that would make my chest ache, and her body, lying broken and alone.

  I almost lost her.

  I could’ve lost this.

  I roll on top of her, and she welcomes my weight with a sigh. Seconds after my orgasm, I’m not only still hard but hungry for more.

  And only then do I notice I’m not sick, not even a little. My gut that’s usually cramping is warm and tingles with satisfaction.

  At peace.

  Cured.

  I bury my face into her neck and fight back the urge to thank her, worship her, and devote the rest of my life and everything I have to making her happy.

  Twenty-eight

  Inhospitable, my soul.

  No life or love can thrive.

  But your belief in me

  Is what keeps me alive.

  --Ataxia

  Gia

  I didn’t know until now, wasn’t sure who I was or who I’d end up being in a year’s time. But now I know.

  I’m Gia.

  Rex’s Gia, new and improved.

  My body and mind are soothed by our lovemaking; a slow grin spreads across my face. His weight is heavy between my legs, crushing against my chest, and I’m lighter than I’ve ever felt. What we did had nothing to do with the past, but paved the way to our future.

  I only hope he feels the same. “Everything okay?”

  He kisses my throat, my jaw, and then my lips. “Perfect.” Pushing up, he moves to separate our bodies.

  My legs lock around his hips. “Not yet.”

  His pierced eyebrow lifts and he smirks. That, combined with his mussed-up hair and piercing blue eyes, stirs a delicious ache in my belly. “Don’t you worry, baby. I’m far from through with you.”

  I roll my lips between my teeth to avoid an all-out grin. Never thought I’d hear those words from his mouth, and even more fascinating is that I believe him.

  “Let me ditch this condom and order some takeout.” He kisses the tip of my nose. “You haven’t eaten anything since we left Denver. You need to get something down every two hours if you can.”

  He kisses down my throat to my chest, severing our connection as he trails his lips all the way to my belly button. A few passes of his mouth and he breathes in deep against my skin before pushing up off the bed.

  I watch in awe as his powerful frame, covered in vibrant tattoos, moves across the space to the bathroom. It’s not lost on me how far he’s come since I left, and I wonder how he got here. Is it possible that his past coming back to him may have helped in his recovery?

  “I wanted to ask you,” he says from the bat
hroom before walking back out completely naked and unashamed.

  My eyes rake over him, taking in all his piercings including the new one. I lick my lips, remembering the feel of the metal in the back of my throat, the combination of his taste and the metallic taste of his barbell.

  “Eyes up here, baby.” He’s standing by the bed, and there’s humor in his voice rather than the usual strain that would accompany anything sexual. It’s so different from before.

  My eyes slide up his rippled abs to his chest and sober when I study the three letters tattooed on his pec: Mom.

  “So, as I was saying, I was thinking you might want to hit the gym with me a few times a week, put some muscles back on that fine ass body of yours.”

  My gaze darts from his chest to his eyes. They’re shining with happiness and love, all the things I hoped I could bring to his life and finally have.

  But there’s still one thing he doesn’t know.

  “Well?” He snags his pants off the floor and pulls his phone from the pocket. With one knee on the bed, he climbs in next to me. “What do you think?”

  I curl into his side and rest my cheek against his chest. “Oh, yeah, I think that’s smart.”

  He chuckles, scrolling through his phone contact list. “Smart?”

  “A good idea. I meant a good idea.”

  He hits the button to call for Chinese food, and his fingers sift through my hair. “You sure you’re all right? You seem, I don’t know, preoccupied.”

  Preoccupied? Or absolutely terrified?

  The last time Rex and I had sex he found out the truth of his past and wanted nothing to do with me. And here I have to tell him the one thing I’ve been keeping from him that has the potential to ruin everything we’ve built over these last couple days.

  While he orders enough Chinese take-out to feed thirty guys his size, I contemplate my options.

  What if I tell him and he kicks me out again? I can’t bear to lose him, but keeping secrets got me in trouble before. He called me a liar and accused me of manipulating him. He compared me to my parents. My stomach lurches and I breathe through the urge to barf.

  I have to tell him regardless of the fallout.

  Rex has taught me that hiding from the truth, no matter how ugly, only prolongs the inevitable. Facing the fire head on, knowing it has the potential to burn and destroy, is always the best thing to do. The right thing to do.

  And now that I have him back, I’ve vowed to always do right by him.

  “Shit, Gia. You’re crying?” He shifts up on the bed, trying to look at my face.

  I am? I wipe away the hot tears that wet his chest. “Ha.” I force out a laugh. “Guess so.”

  “That’s it.” He pushes back so that he’s resting against the headboard. “What’s going on?”

  I wrap up in the sheet and face him cross-legged. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from all this, it’s that I want to always be honest with you.”

  His eyes narrow and the sting of possible rejection has me second guessing my vow.

  “Honest about what?”

  This is the right thing to do. I take a deep breath. He needs to know, and after this, I’ll never keep a secret from him again. If he’ll still have me.

  “Rex, I’ve been trying to tell you something important, but every time I get the chance, it just doesn’t come out.”

  His mouth forms a tight line, mimicking his eyes. He nods once. Firm and demanding.

  “It’s about your biological father.” I study his expression and only see a slight response in the flare of his eyes. “I know who he is.”

  He shakes his head. “Impossible. No one knows who he is. My mom didn’t even know. There was no name on my birth certificate.”

  This is going to be harder than I thought. It’s as if he’s refusing to even entertain the idea of having a biological father to avoid the pain it might bring. Makes sense, but it doesn’t change the fact that he needs to know.

  “When they took you from my house, I thought you were dead.” I shake my head, trying to rid my mind of the memory. “God, Rex. There was so much blood.”

  He blinks rapidly, either pushing back the memory as well, or fighting off the emotion that comes with it.

  “I was miserable, thinking I’d signed your death warrant. My parents thought you’d talk, but then . . . you didn’t. You were gone. No one believed me when I cried and screamed at the top of my lungs that you’d been abused. It was like it never happened.”

  He rubs the back of his neck, obviously uncomfortable, but then he looks at me. “Go on.”

  “Then he showed up and pulled me from the dark closet I’d been locked up in.” Relief billows in my chest even now remembering his face, bright blond hair slicked back to reveal the blue-green eyes that were so clear they were ethereal. I thought he was an angel. “He took me in, fed me, and spoke so sweetly that I was convinced with him all the world would be made right.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I chuckle at the irony. “I didn’t either. The day I was locked up in the institution, a raving little girl going on about bad men and my dead brother, he walked away from me and I realized then he was the incarnation of evil.” My body breaks out in a rush of goose bumps as I remember his evil grin as he stared down at me with the pride of an executioner. “Before he said goodbye, he leaned in and whispered the words I’ll never forget.”

  The more you talk and scream, the crazier you sound.

  “Wait, are you talking about . . .?” His biceps flex and a muscle in his jaw jumps. “What did he say?”

  Keep it up, Georgia. You’ll never get out of here.

  He used my love for Rex and my fight for justice against me. According to the police, Rex was a troubled foster child who tried to kill himself. He didn’t speak of what happened to him in the basement. Nothing I said was taken seriously.

  Accused of being crazy eventually made me just that.

  “Rex is alive.” I swallow the next words and say a quick prayer that when they come up again they don’t slaughter him. A single tear rolls slowly down my face. “And he’s my son.”

  Twenty-nine

  Love isn’t a two-way street.

  It’s a one-way gate.

  --Gia

  Rex

  I’m in my bed, in the safety of my home, sitting naked with the only person in the world who knows everything about me and loves me anyway. And yet, I’m totally alone, secluded in the dark, tumbling down, and grasping for a sliver of sanity.

  “That can’t be right.” It can’t be, right? I drop my head into my hands and scrub my eyes. “He lied. It’s not true.”

  “Think about it, Rex. My parents worked for him. How do you think you ended up in our house?”

  “But why? If I was his kid, why would he do that to me?” Thoughts of Raven penetrate my mind. She was his daughter and look what he did to her.

  Dizziness socks me hard and I drop back to the bed. “Holy shit.”

  “Your eyes. They’re blue, but they’re like no blue I’ve ever seen. And have you ever really looked at Raven? Noticed the similarities in your faces?”

  “Holy shit.” No, I never had, but now that she mentions it . . . “Holy shit.”

  What does all this mean? That I have a half-sister? One of my best friends is my brother-in-law? Heat pricks the backs of my eyes. I’m an uncle.

  I never had a family. Growing up in foster care and then a group home, I didn’t have anyone I could really rely on until I started fighting for the UFL. The organization, my fighting camp, they’ve been the only family I’ve ever had.

  And now she’s telling me I have a family.

  I gaze up at Gia and study her, curled in on herself, eyes bloodshot, still so fragile and now scared.

  It had to be hard to tell me that, after everything we’ve been through and how I treated her the last time she exposed my past. But she braved through it regardless of the consequences, and it looks as if she’s expecting me to lash ou
t and attack.

  “You’re scared.”

  Her eyes lift to mine. “More than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”

  My chest cramps. She was locked up as a child, made to feel as if she were losing her mind, all because she fell in love with me. She’s the bravest woman I’ve ever met, but the thought of me pushing her away has her terrified. Fuck. I’m a stupid prick.

  “I’m the son of Dominick Morretti.” The words are like gravel in my mouth.

  “I believe you are.”

  As horrible as that should be, and as many questions as the idea implies, it somehow feels like good news. What Gia gave me with her confession outweighs the ugly blood that runs through my veins.

  She gave me her loyalty.

  Her faith.

  And I got a family.

  But above all of those things, she gave me the ultimate sacrifice, risking our love for the sake of the truth.

  “I love you, Georgia McIntyre.”

  She squints through her tears and tilts her head. “You do?”

  I grin. I can’t help it; she looks so damn worried and cute as hell. “I really do.”

  She launches herself into my arms, and I wrap her up as tightly as I can. I bury my nose into her hair and breathe in deep, immersed in her soothing tropical scent.

  Her body quakes with emotion. “I thought you’d hate me.”

  “I could never hate you. Pushing you away was the worst thing I’ve ever done. I’m not the smartest man, but I learn from my mistakes. I’ll never let you walk away again.”

  “Please, I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

  I kiss her head and rub her back. “Everything I put you through . . . God, Gia, I had no idea. I have so much to apologize for, so much to make up for.”

  “No, you don’t.” She pulls back and wipes her cheeks. “Just promise to love me.”

  “That’s easy, baby.” I tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I promise.”

  With whatever I have left, the scraps of a man that she’s brought back together, resurrected with her dedication, I promise to love Gia McIntyre.