Darker the Release

by Claire Kent

  She came on a broken cry, her head tilting back and her mouth falling open. Her body shook and spasmed over him as waves of pleasure radiated out with the clenching of her pussy around his cock.

  He came too, just a few seconds after her. He swallowed over a few incoherent words as his body froze with coiled tension before it all released in clumsy jerks and hoarse groans.

  She fell against him as the contractions started to fade, her pussy having tightened around his cock so dramatically she could feel every tiny move he made. Resting her head on his shoulder, she gasped against his shirt, comforted as his arms went around her all the way, holding her against him.

  Caleb panted into her hair as he stroked her back and bottom. His body felt more relaxed now—his muscles softening in a way that thrilled her. She loved that she was the one who’d caused the transformation of his body.

  “That was good,” she said at last.

  “Yeah. No question.”

  He sounded sated but different somehow, like he’d come to some sort of conclusion.

  She pulled back and swung her leg over his lap, sliding off him as he helped her move. Her clinging pussy released him with a sound of wet suction.

  Kelly curled up in a ball and hugged her knees to her chest. She felt empty and overly sensitive, but her body was relaxed. She squeezed her thighs, feeling anxious and confused and hopeful all at once.

  Caleb startled her when he finally spoke. “You regretting it?”

  She gasped and jerked her head toward him. “No. I’m not. Are you?”

  He shook his head and zipped up his pants. “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know?”

  He stood up. “If this was a good idea or not.”

  “We both knew what it was. We both agreed it wasn’t a sappy reunion. If you’re afraid I’m going to throw myself at your feet and beg you for a wedding ring, then don’t be.” She managed to sound controlled, but she was feeling sad and kind of sick.

  It had felt so good—so right—when she’d been making love to Caleb just now. Even better than it had felt before. Like it was real. Like they knew each other all the way down to the core.

  She wanted to be with someone like that. She wanted to be with Caleb like that.

  But he didn’t seem to want to be with her that way too.

  And it hurt. It just hurt.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” He sighed and rubbed his jaw with his hands.

  She thought of something and decided she might as well say it. “I reread Hamlet last week.”

  He looked surprised and arched his eyebrows. “Did you?”

  “Yeah. And I realized I’d always been interpreting it wrong.” He didn’t answer, but she saw he was listening, so she continued. “Shakespeare wasn’t writing a Greek tragedy, where fate or the gods determine the course of a man’s life. Hamlet was lying to himself when he said so. Shakespeare seemed to be going out of his way to show that the final outcome could have been different—could have been so much better—if any of the characters at any given moment had made a different choice.”

  Caleb’s eyes had narrowed as he thought through what she’d said. “So that’s your answer? Just choose to make all of what happened go away?”

  She sighed, feeling suddenly heavy and exhausted. “No. That’s not really what I meant. Just that there’s always more than one choice.”

  It evidently didn’t matter what she meant, since Caleb seemed to have already made his choice.

  He said at last, “I guess it’s better to end it like this than like before.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded, since his decision was now clear and she was going to respect it. But as she stood up and smoothed down her skirt, she couldn’t help but add, “Are you sure it has to end? I’m not saying we should plan a honeymoon, but…isn’t there something in between?”

  Caleb stared at her a long time. “Not for us. I don’t think so.”

  “But it seemed like…” She shook her head, wondering why she was even pressing it. It was clear that he didn’t want to make an effort toward a relationship, and she should just accept it and leave him alone. “It seemed like you wanted something more. It seemed like trying for something more than casual sex…made you happier.”

  “It was a lie that made me happy. It wasn’t you.”

  And that hurt so much she sucked in a sharp breath and stared down at the floor. He was being honest with her. Maybe he’d intended it to hurt, but he wasn’t saying it only to hurt her.

  “I don’t think it was the lie that made you happy. I think the lie only made it safe for you to take the chance. I think it was the relationship that made you happy.” Her heart was racing and it felt like the blood had drained out of her face, but she made herself say all of it. All of what she’d been thinking through for the last two weeks. “I think being that man made you happy. The man who was you—but also a little better than the you you’d been before. Just like I was happier being the me that I never thought I could be. The me who is…” She cleared her throat as her voice cracked. “The me who is better with you.”

  Something in the words must have affected Caleb because he gave the slightest wince. But he got control of it almost immediately and shook his head again. “What a lovely little fairy tale it’s turned out to be, then.” There was a bitterness in his voice now that she didn’t like, that hadn’t been there before. “I guess all the lies and betrayal have been for the best, then,” he continued, “since the ending is so sweet and romantic.”

  “Nothing can excuse what I did,” Kelly said softly after a moment of processing his irony. “But I do think we’re better off now.”

  Caleb stared at her, evidently speechless at what she’d just said.

  Kelly felt the same way. Had to make herself think back over the words she’d just spoken. Wondered where they’d come from, after the life she’d led, after everything she’d done.

  Then she suddenly realized something.

  It was true. What she’d just said was true. It was a real revelation, the kind she’d rarely experienced before. The knowledge had come down on her like a gift or a benediction.

  A final, poignant benediction to the last seventeen years of her life.

  “I am better off now,” she breathed when she could shape words again. She wasn’t hopeful, wasn’t optimistic, didn’t think this realization would change anything but her with its harsh, inexorable grace. “I can’t speak for you, but I know I am.”

  Caleb was still staring at her, and his defenses seemed to be lowered enough to reveal an agonizing confusion.

  She reached out to put her hand on his arm. “I am better off now. I’m a better person. And loving you is one of the things that has made me so.”

  Saying she loved him was evidently a mistake, although she wouldn’t have been able to predict it. As soon as she spoke the word, his face contorted with an intensity she didn’t immediately recognize.

  With a violent tug, he pulled his arm out of her grip, and the momentum of his arm caused her to stumble backward. She didn’t fall but she was shaken and disoriented by the sudden move.

  “I think you better leave,” he said.

  He’d made his choice long before she’d come to his office like this. And the sex—however good it had been, however real it had been—hadn’t changed anything at all.

  She nodded in resignation. “Okay. I will.”

  —

  Her mother died the next week, and Kelly buried her next to her father’s grave.

  It was the first time she’d been to visit her father since she’d been adopted, and after the simple burial ceremony, she stood alone for a long time, looking down at both of the graves.

  Her mother hadn’t been happy, but she’d seemed to come to terms at least a little at the end.

  It was better than nothing.

  Justice would never be done for her father, but at least now Kelly knew the truth, and her mother had known before she died.

  It was bet
ter than nothing.

  She focused on the simple grave marker over her father’s grave, etched with only his name, the years of his life, and two words: HUSBAND. FATHER.

  It was when she reread the word “father” that Kelly started to cry for real.

  “I’m so sorry, Dad,” she choked, kneeling on the grass beside the grave. She’d brought a small bunch of pink tulips, and she readjusted them next to the stone. “I’m so sorry I haven’t been what you always wanted me to be.”

  She sniffed and rubbed her eyes, getting herself together enough to say what she needed to say. There was no one else around anymore, and she wanted to hear the words spoken aloud. Felt like her father could actually hear her. She didn’t care if she sounded like a fool. “You worked so hard to make a good life for me, and I ruined it all as soon as you died. But I’m going to try to do better now. I’m going to try to…to live.”

  She impatiently wiped away a couple more tears that slipped out. “You were always proud of me, whether I deserved it or not, and I want to feel that way again.”

  Randomly, Kelly wondered if Caleb would ever have been proud of her, if they’d been together long enough for her to do something worthwhile. It wasn’t likely to happen now, but Kelly was finally coming to the recognition that there was more to her life than just Caleb.

  He was important. Incredibly important. But he wasn’t all there was.

  Kelly wasn’t going to taint her memories of her father again. Not with vengeance and not with the consuming loss of Caleb in her life.

  “I miss you, Daddy. I still miss you so much.”

  She stayed a few more minutes, saying goodbye. To both him and her mother. Until she finally found the strength to pull herself up to her feet.

  “I’ll be back,” she whispered before she turned to leave. “I love you. I won’t stay away so long again.”

  She felt a rising wave of emotion when she heard her phone ring. Her heart leapt, even though she knew there was almost no chance of its being Caleb.

  Glancing at the screen, she felt a sinking disappointment at the same time she experienced a tiny flare of warmth.

  It wasn’t Caleb. But the screen read, “Jack Martin.”

  She hadn’t heard from Jack for several days, and she’d been afraid he was tired of putting up with her. Despite everything else she was going through, Kelly was glad that Jack hadn’t decided to cut her out of his life for good.

  She didn’t answer the phone. She was still too emotional to appropriately deal with a friendly conversation. But she liked Jack and would like to be his friend.

  Then she would have two. Reese and Jack.

  It was a start.

  She turned around and took her first step back toward her car.

  Came to an abrupt, jerky halt.

  There was a familiar black chauffeured car parked on the drive behind her car. And there was a familiar man standing beside it, wearing black clothes, his dark hair burnished by the sun.

  She wasn’t close enough to see the expression in his eyes, but she could clearly tell that he was staring at her.

  Feeling a lurching in her heart, Kelly took an instinctive step toward him, but something about his stiff stance made her stop again.

  Whatever he was doing here, it wasn’t to sweep her up in his arms and take her home.

  Kelly stared back at him, memorizing the proud lines of his lean form and slightly arrogant tilt of his chin.

  They stared at each other for a full minute. Then Caleb got back into the car.

  It immediately pulled out and drove away.

  When she got back into her own car, Kelly sat behind the steering wheel for a few minutes before leaving.

  She’d been planning to say goodbye to her parents this afternoon.

  She hadn’t been planning to say goodbye to Caleb.

  And it felt like that had just happened.

  Chapter 12

  Caleb stared at his in-box, filled with new emails flagged by his assistant for immediate attention, and couldn’t summon the energy to even begin reading them.

  If possible, he hated email more now than he had before, and not even his work ethic could force him into beginning this morning.

  For the last two weeks, ever since Kelly had come to see him in his office and asked him to make a different choice, everything in his life seemed to have a pall on it that nothing would remove.

  Working in his office, going to meetings, driving his car, eating dinner, walking Ralph in the park—none of it felt satisfying anymore. As if all of it had a gaping hole in it that simply wouldn’t be filled.

  Kelly had done this to him.

  He had done it to himself.

  Both were equally true.

  He turned his head when there was a tap on the door, and his assistant, Linda, stepped into his office.

  “Hey,” he said, trying to sound friendly, although he didn’t feel that way. “Is it still just eight thirty on Monday?”

  She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid so. You’ll want to look at the message from George Farmer right away.” She nodded toward his computer monitor, where she could obviously see he’d not made any headway on the email.

  “Thanks.”

  He took the pages she walked over to hand him and glanced at them briefly before he signed each one.

  He stared down at his signature on the last page for a long time, for no particular reason.

  “I think it gets better,” Linda murmured when he made no move to hand the papers back.

  Startled out of his reverie, he straightened up. “What does?”

  She looked suddenly self-conscious and dropped her head. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s none of my business.”

  He waved away her apology. “It’s fine. What were you talking about?” He knew, but he wanted to hear what she would say.

  She looked like she wished she’d never brought the topic up, but she replied, “A breakup—like you had. I think it does eventually get better. Not that I’d know.”

  She was single and evidently had been all of her life. Her world seemed to revolve primarily around working for him. Until the last couple of months his schedule had been so rigorous she wouldn’t have had much time in her life for anything else, even if she’d wanted it.

  “Yeah,” he breathed out, hoping it was true but not really believing it.

  His life wasn’t any different than it had been before he’d met Kelly. His schedule was back to normal, and work had become his top priority once again. He hadn’t fucked anyone since her, although he’d tried. He’d had a call girl visit him last week, but for some reason it had felt wrong and empty, so he’d sent her away before she’d done more than stroke his cock. Then last night he’d come on to a woman in a bar—hoping to feel more like his old self again. She was beautiful and more than willing, but he couldn’t summon any interest at all, so he’d left without picking her up.

  Otherwise, though, his life was basically what it had been before Kelly. It just didn’t give him any satisfaction anymore.

  That would change eventually, though. Surely it would change.

  Realizing Linda was still standing next to his desk, he said, “I hope so. Thank you.”

  He never would have admitted any vulnerability at all to his assistant in the past, so that felt different too.

  When she walked out, he stared back at his email, pulling up the one from George Farmer.

  It was a crisis. There was always some crisis or another. He just didn’t care anymore.

  When his phone rang, he was glad of the distraction, but he paused when he saw who was calling.

  Wes.

  His friend had tried to call several times in the last couple of weeks, and Caleb hadn’t picked up.

  It wasn’t Wes’s fault. None of it was. He’d genuinely been worried and had been trying to help.

  But it felt too closely connected to Kelly for Caleb to be able to have a conversation with him yet.

  He didn’t have the energ
y to let it keep ringing this morning, though, so he connected the call with a sigh.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey. Caleb. Thanks for picking up.”

  “Yeah. Sorry I haven’t returned your calls. I’ve been…” He wasn’t sure how to describe how he’d been, so he concluded, “busy.”

  “Are you pissed?”

  Caleb thought for a moment before he answered. “No.”

  “Are you…okay?”

  Again Caleb had to think before he finally replied, “No.”

  “Shit,” Wes muttered. “Did you…were you able to take care of her?”

  His friend had no idea what had happened after he’d sent Caleb the information on Kelly’s adoption and her real identity. Caleb hadn’t told him anything. “No. I don’t really think I did.”

  “Fuck, so she’s still going to cause trouble for you? I mean, about…” Wes trailed off, obviously hesitant to say it out loud.

  Caleb had always been hesitant to say it out loud too. He’d told Wes more than he’d ever told anyone—and only because he’d been drunk one night shortly after it happened. He’d been so torn up about it back then that some of the story had spilled out. Wes didn’t know everything, but he knew enough to know there could be trouble. “No. She’s not. Her mother died last week, so there won’t be retaliation from that direction either. I think it’s just…over.”

  “So why did she do this whole thing if she was just going to drop it?”

  Caleb knew the answer to that. Kelly had told him herself. “She’s trying to let go. She says…” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Wes waited for a long moment but then finally prompted, “She says what?”

  “She says she fell in love with me. For real.”

  He heard Wes’s quick intake of air. “Seriously? Do you think she means it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, then, that’s good, isn’t it?”

  Caleb gave a dry little laugh. “Why is it good?”

  “Because you love her too, don’t you?”

  Of course he loved her. As far as he could tell, he would love her until he died. “But that doesn’t change anything. She still used me. I still used her.” Caleb cleared his throat, still feeling the knot of dark guilt that just wouldn’t go away. “And I still knew what happened to her father and did nothing. How can she not continue to resent me for that? Neither of us has ever been in a healthy relationship, so even without all of the other stuff, the likelihood of making something work is slim. None of that is going to go away.”