Bait

by Jade West

  I nod. “All in good time. The lad’s a champ. We won’t be able to shut him up in a few months, you wait and see.”

  She gestures to the door. “When are you going to introduce them?”

  “Abigail and Cameron?”

  “Unless you have any other girlfriends you’re not telling me about.”

  I pull my jeans on. “She doesn’t know about Cameron yet.”

  Her jaw drops. “She doesn’t know you’ve got a son?! That’s a pretty major staple of an introduction, don’t you think?”

  “Our introduction wasn’t particularly conventional,” I admit. I meet her eyes. “I’ll tell her. Soon.”

  “And then you’ll introduce them?”

  I tug on a shirt, then pull her close enough to kiss her head. “All in good time.”

  She slaps my arm. “Take the girl home, finish what you started in the swimming pool. Tell her to bring clothes next time.”

  She has no idea what we started in the swimming pool, but she’s more right than she knows.

  There is a lot more to finish.

  A lot more to be said.

  She’s already heading back to bed when I pull the door closed behind me.

  Abigail is waiting in the truck. Her hand slips straight into mine as I climb in.

  “Thanks for the secrets.”

  “Thanks for the ear. It’s been a while since someone cared enough to listen.”

  I pull away from the house and make a turn for Hereford. We drive in silence most of the way.

  Her hand comes to rest on my thigh, and in spite of every harrowing word I’ve spoken this evening, I’m still hard for her.

  More fucking hard for her than ever, it seems.

  I guess the sense of mortality does wonders for the urge to procreate.

  There’s an easiness between us that wasn’t there before. A closeness in pain. Her sadness holding hands with mine.

  Now I’ve told her my secrets, I’m even more curious about hers.

  I wonder if this could really be a thing, her and me. I wonder if her pieces will fit with mine in a way that Mariana’s didn’t.

  I park up in my usual spot when we arrive at hers.

  She covers her modesty as best she can as she climbs down from the truck. My jacket swamps her and she moves awkwardly.

  “You don’t have to come in,” she says. “If it’s too much, I mean.”

  “Am I invited?”

  She smirks. “That doesn’t usually hold you back. I hope you’re not losing your bite.”

  “I was being polite,” I tell her with a smile. “You could say no. I’d just climb in through the window and make you regret it.”

  “I guess I should save us both the trouble,” she says, and slips her hand in mine.

  She flicks on the lights in her hallway as I close her door behind me.

  My jacket is off her shoulders before she’s even dropped her handbag.

  My mouth is fierce. Desperate.

  Her body is needy as I hitch her legs up around my waist and pin her to the wall.

  My thumb flicks at her tender nipples. Her skin is still clammy, even after the drive.

  I walk her to the bedroom and nudge the door open.

  I drop her straight onto the bed and drop down on top of her. I’m grinding hard against her pussy in a heartbeat.

  “You summoned a monster from the darkness,” I grunt. “Is it everything you were hoping for?”

  “More than I was hoping for,” she whispers. “But tonight I want to see the monster in the light.”

  She flicks on the lamp before I can protest. Her fingers are under my shirt before I can stop her.

  I flinch as her fingertips graze across gnarled skin.

  “Let me see you.” Her eyes are open wide. “Please let me see.”

  “My scars are hideous,” I tell her, but she shakes her head.

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” she whispers. “Even your scars will be beautiful.”

  Oh fuck, how I feel it in my gut.

  This sweet little siren from the deep, opening my sores and kissing them better. Making me feel alive again.

  Whole again.

  It feels strange to undress for her. Strange to see her wonderment as she trails her fingers down my tattoos.

  “So many,” she whispers.

  “A whole pile more secrets,” I say. “Each one tells a story. Some of them happier than others.”

  “I want to hear them all.” She smiles. “I want to know everything.”

  She wriggles out from under me even as her mouth is on mine. It’s tempting to hold her firm and make her appease the throb in my fucking dick, but I don’t. I let her up. She kneels before me, eye to eye, before she dips her head.

  She’s so careful as she kisses my collarbone and sweeps her fingers down my back. My skin itches, but I let it. Today, I don’t fight it.

  “May I?” she asks.

  I love how she asks for permission.

  I’m tempted to say no just to hear her beg.

  But I don’t.

  Not tonight.

  “You can have everything you want,” I tell her. “Just know that I’ll take your everything in return.”

  She smiles against my neck. Her fingers are soft in my hair.

  “My everything is already yours,” she says. “I just wasn’t sure you wanted it.”

  Oh, how I fucking want it.

  I close my eyes as she moves behind me.

  Thirty-Three

  I’ve cried, and you’d think I’d be better for it, but the sadness just sleeps, and it stays in my spine the rest of my life.

  Conor Oberst

  Abigail

  I tell myself I’m prepared for this. But I’m not.

  I’m not prepared for the way his scars take my breath, or the way my heart bursts at the reality of his pain. I’m not prepared for the way I want to hold his wounds to my chest and never let go.

  “I still feel it burning sometimes,” he says. “I guess I always will.”

  My fingers dance down his spine, and my mouth follows them. He shivers as my lips kiss his ruined flesh.

  I want to tell him how I get it. I want to tell him how I wake up some mornings convinced the blood is still running down my thighs faster than I can wipe it away. How I still feel the cramps as I bleed out on that hospital gurney.

  How I still remember the moment the baby in my belly slopped out like offal onto the hospital floor as I tried to lift myself onto the commode.

  But I don’t say a word. Not as my fingers sweep across the taut skin on his shoulder and trail down his arm. Not as I kiss the marks the fire left on him, loving them just as much as the rest of him.

  “It is as hideous as you thought?” he asks.

  “I never thought it would be. Your scars are as beautiful as the rest of you.”

  He laughs. “That’s quite a statement.”

  “Didn’t really think you’d scare me off that easily, did you?”

  He twists back to look at me. “No. I didn’t.”

  I smile. “I’m kinda liking this lights-on thing. Maybe we can keep it running.”

  “Maybe I should start chasing you in the daylight.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Maybe.”

  “Be careful what you wish for. You might end up naked in front of your friends at your next barbeque.”

  “You’d have to catch me first.” I stick my tongue out.

  I squeak as he pounces, flipping to pin me flat before I’ve moved an inch. “I haven’t struggled to catch you so far.”

  “There’s time,” I whisper.

  “All the time in the world,” he says and my belly flutters so hard I could fly.

  I squirm to get my hands free, and he gives me enough leeway to slide my fingers down the back of his jeans. “I want you naked,” I say.

  “I want your pretty mouth around my cock,” he says back.

  I’m on my knees and waiting even as he gets to hi
s feet. My mouth is open as he drops his pants and presents the beast for my viewing.

  His fingers are gripped tight around his shaft, just like on his photograph. The barbells glint in the lamplight as he works his fist up and down.

  It’s monstrously beautiful. My fingers look tiny as he wraps them around the base of him.

  I love the way his piercings feel against my thumb. The bumps of metal under his skin feel alien. They clip my teeth as I suck him into my mouth.

  “Good girl,” he says and wraps his fingers in my hair.

  I’m a slavering wreck in one thrust. My throat heaves at the pressure as he pushes deep.

  But I take it.

  I’ll always take it.

  There’s a tenderness in the way his thumb brushes my cheek. A warmth in his eyes as he stares down on me, even as I choke and splutter.

  He pulls away as I feel him tightening in my throat. The bumps tickle my tongue.

  “Now I want to see everything,” he says. “On your back, spread that hungry little cunt for me.”

  How I love his filthy fucking mouth.

  I don’t hesitate, spreading my legs as far as they’ll go and splaying my pussy wide with my fingers. My clit is swollen, it sparks as he stares.

  He drops to his knees and edges closer, pulling me forward until my ass hangs over the edge of the bed. Perfect height.

  He wraps a hand around the back of my neck and holds me up. “I want you to see this,” he says, and I do too.

  I cry out at the glorious moment the head of him plunges inside me. It’s divine to watch him shunting it in, inch by inch.

  I watch every thrust. Grunting like a dirty little slut as he fucks me deep.

  I keep my fingers splayed wide, my thumb brushing my clit enough to drive me fucking crazy.

  I come way before he does, and again before he’s even broken a sweat.

  I lose my shit as he circles his hips and his ridges press deep. I’m begging him for more even as it hurts.

  His forehead is tight to mine as he curses and comes.

  He stays deep as he comes inside me, his eyes right on mine as he catches his breath.

  And I wish…

  I shouldn’t, but I do…

  I wish that the baby had been his.

  The revelation is enough to take my breath. My belly pains at the memory of losing half of me that night.

  “What is it?” he asks, and I shake my head. He’s not deterred. “What’s wrong?”

  I take a breath as he pulls out of me. My lips are on his as he shunts me further up the bed and climbs up to join me.

  “It’s nothing,” I lie as he breaks the kiss and comes to lie by my side.

  His hand is on my belly, his chin on my shoulder, and his seed is deep inside me.

  But it doesn’t matter.

  It doesn’t matter how many times he comes inside me.

  How many times I get a flutter at the memory of having a new life growing inside me. Of talking to a little person who’ll never be born. Of promising them we’ll be just fine on our own, Stephen be damned.

  It’ll never happen.

  Because my scars are deep.

  Raw even though they are unseen.

  Leo’s heart is so strong against my ribs. His breath is steady.

  “Are you thinking about him?” he asks, without even a hint of jealousy.

  I shake my head. “Not him, no. He’s a stupid prick. I wouldn’t care if I never saw him again.”

  He takes a breath. “Tonight is a night for secrets, Abigail. Yours as well as mine.”

  I smile, but it’s a sad smile. “I lost a baby,” I tell him, even though he already knows.

  His arms wrap me up and hold me tight. “You were ready to be a mum?”

  “No,” I say, wishing my laugh would sound more convincing. “I mean, yes, but no. I don’t know if it works like that, if one day you wake up and know you’re ready. The test was positive and I knew I wanted it. That’s as ready as I felt.”

  “And what about him? Was he a class-A cocksucker from the word go?”

  I sigh. “Pretty much.”

  “He was a fucking idiot,” he says, and my heart thumps. “I’d never have left you.”

  And I know he wouldn’t.

  Not even if staying burnt him alive.

  Stephen wouldn’t risk his flat screen TV, let alone his personal safety.

  Wouldn’t risk a stable pay check to make sure I was still alive.

  “Being a father is the greatest gift on earth,” he continues. “He’ll regret his mistakes every day of his life, even if you never know it. Even if he doesn’t know it himself.”

  But he won’t. I know he won’t.

  He doesn’t need to.

  Which makes it even more fucking painful.

  My own secrets are right there, begging for confession.

  Ones I’ve buried. Ones I’ve run from.

  Ones that won’t stay quiet now I’ve seen the beautiful strength in someone else’s scars.

  I just hope Leo can love my scars just as much as I love his.

  Because he’s right – being a father, a parent, is the greatest gift on earth.

  One I may never know.

  And loving me might well take it away from him.

  Just as the universe took it away from me.

  And handed it back to Stephen on a silver platter.

  “Do you mean that?” I ask him, even as my words choke. “That being a father is the greatest gift on earth? You want kids?”

  He smiles. Oh, how he smiles. “Yes, Abigail, I want kids.”

  I feel so exposed as he kisses my forehead.

  “The miscarriage was bad. Bad enough that I nearly died,” I tell him, then opt to spill the rest before I change my mind. “Stephen told me he didn’t want to beg me to get rid of our baby, but he did. He didn’t want the baby and he didn’t want me. He told me his wife was estranged, that they were strangers in the same house, that he wasn’t in love with her and had no idea how he’d ended up with a mortgage and a whole host of entwined families. He said she’d hurt herself if he left, that she was fragile, depressed, that she wouldn’t handle it. He said that’s why he stayed.”

  “Stephen is a fucking asshole,” he says.

  “I saw him every day for four years before anything happened between us. I knew his thoughts better than I knew my own, just by looking at him.” I pause. “Or so I thought.”

  “Sometimes you can know someone for years and know nothing at all,” he says.

  He’s got that right.

  I meet his eyes. “I shouldn’t have ever done it, not knowing he was under the same roof as someone else. I should’ve known better, but I loved him. I thought he loved me, too. I was stupid enough to think we’d end up together, that somehow he’d find a way to leave and make sure she was okay.”

  “He didn’t want to leave her when it came to it?”

  I smile a bitter smile. “I don’t think he ever really wanted to leave her at all, no matter what he had to say about it. They had a nice little slice of suburbia. A Scandinavian pine kitchen and a big TV. A decent lease car on the driveway. Their own little corner of domestic bliss.” I pause. “I didn’t think it mattered to him. I didn’t think he’d go running for cover as the fireworks started.”

  He takes my fingers in his. Squeezes tight. “Like I said, the guy’s a fucking idiot. When it happens next time it’ll be different, I swear.”

  I can hardly bear to look at him. “You really want kids?”

  He smirks. “Right now? I’m sure we’d do just fine if the situation arose, Abigail.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I say, and my voice is barely more than a rasp. “I mean, is that what you want, in your future? You’re sure? Definitely sure?”

  I know he’s misunderstanding me. I know he thinks I’m looking for reassurances.

  I know he thinks he’s helping me when he rolls me to face him and presses his heart to mine.

  “I�
�m sure,” he says.

  My cheek is on his shoulder. I’m glad he can’t see my tears.

  “And what if it never happens?”

  He sighs. “These are supposed to be your secrets, Abigail, not mine.”

  I don’t understand. He moves so quickly I have to swat the tears from my cheek.

  “A miscarriage is awful,” he says. “Believe me, I know. Serena, my sister, she had several when she was younger. They broke her apart.” He digs his wallet from his jeans. My heart is in my throat as he opens it up. “But you can try again. We’ll try again, if that’s what you want. Maybe not now, but soon. We’re gonna be good together, you and me. I think our pieces fit pretty well together, all things considered.”

  I stare dumbfounded as this horror unfolds.

  “I’d love to have a baby,” he says, and he’s smiling. “Mariana didn’t want one. I had to beg her to keep Cameron. I think that was what ended us ultimately.”

  He pulls out a picture. My stomach turns over itself as I see the little boy smiling at the camera.

  “This is my boy,” he says, “he’s a real champ.”

  My voice is a ghost. “You have a son?”

  “He’s nearly four,” he continues. “He’ll love having a little brother or sister someday.”

  “Stephen is having a baby with his estranged wife,” I say on autopilot. I’ve never spoken it aloud before, never allowed myself to think about it. “That’s why I ran. Because I couldn’t stand it. Because being around children makes me…” I stop.

  Makes me feel empty.

  Broken.

  Makes me feel like my life is nothing.

  That I’m not a woman.

  That I’ll never know the love of a mother.

  That my body killed my baby and nearly killed me too.

  Leo’s eyes are so kind as mine spill tears. I wipe them away but my lip is trembling.

  His hand is firm on my knee, his voice so strong.

  “Hey,” he says. “Abigail, listen to me. It’s not over for you. We’ll try again. You’re gonna love Cam, he’s got his issues, I mean, the kid’s been through a lot, way more than any kid should ever go through. He was there that night, asleep in the back of my truck. Jake called and told me to get the hell up there and Serena wasn’t with us at the time. I put him in his car seat and took him with me.” He pauses. “And he saw the flames. He heard the sirens.”