by Vi Keeland
Caine was watching me, so I went for it—gave him actions to go with my bold words. Turning to face the headboard, I got up on all-fours and looked back over my shoulder at him. My voice was hoarse. “I believe you said something about my hair and wanting me on all-fours?”
It was two in the morning by the time we’d finished rounds two and three. Or was it three and four, since technically round one had started in the living room earlier? Either way, I learned something about Caine this evening—his fight to keep me out was weakened when he was physically exhausted. Considering the method for getting him physically exhausted was pretty damn spectacular, I’d say the discovery was a pleasurable one.
My head nuzzled his bare chest while he stroked my hair in the dark. When he spoke, his voice was low. “How did you get that scar on your back?”
“Fell out of a tree when I was a kid and took some branches with me on the way down.” I’d told the same story for so long whenever anyone noticed my jagged, three-inch scar, I almost felt like it was true.
“Ouch.”
“It wasn’t so bad. It healed fast. How about you? Do you have any scars?”
“No visible ones,” Caine said. “Although the invisible scars are the hardest to heal.”
I understood that sentiment more than he knew. I placed a soft kiss on his chest, right above his heart. After that, we were both quiet for a while, and I wondered if he was thinking about his scars.
“Do you mind if I stay tonight?” Caine broke our silence. “I think you sucked the strength out of me. Literally on that last round.”
I giggled. When was the last time I giggled? “Of course not. I want you to stay.”
He squeezed my shoulder in response.
A few minutes passed, and I thought he might have drifted off, so I whispered, “Are you sleeping?”
“No.”
“Can I ask you something, then?”
I wasn’t looking at him, but knew he was smiling when he spoke. “Would it stop you if I said no?”
“Don’t you miss this?”
“What?”
“This…snuggling with a warm body and companionship.”
Caine was quiet for a moment. “That’s not an easy question to answer, Rachel.”
“How come? Isn’t it just yes or no?”
“Very few things in life are that simple.”
“I think you make things more difficult than they need to be.”
He sighed. “I spent a year on academic probation for giving in to wanting a warm body. You’re my TA, and I’m your thesis advisor. I’ve never had a relationship that didn’t end badly. There is no simple yes or no.”
It hurt to be reminded that I wasn’t the first dip Caine had taken in the academic pool. I was quiet, and he must have sensed that I was feeling needy.
He kissed the top of my head. “I’ve never spent the night with anyone from the college.” He paused. “And before you jump to any incorrect conclusions, I’m never too tired to get up and go home. Even now.”
I took that as a victory, however small. “Okay… When was the last time you—”
Caine interrupted, snuggling me closer in his arms. “And this warm body feels really good. Now get some sleep. You can interrogate me more while you make me breakfast in the morning.”
A few minutes later, Caine’s breathing slowed as he drifted off to sleep. I kissed his chest and shut my eyes to follow him to dreamland. I smiled and thought to myself, I can’t wait for breakfast.
My eyes fluttered open, and I immediately reached over to the other side of the bed. Instead of finding Caine, I was met with only a cold sheet. My stomach sank. Stretching for my phone on the nightstand, I squinted at the time and was shocked to find I’d slept until almost eleven-thirty. The last time I’d slept that late…well, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept that late. No wonder Caine was gone.
Yawning, I dragged myself to the bathroom to wash up and brush my teeth. I was still completely naked, and when I looked in the mirror and saw my wild hair and the faint red marks on my neck from Caine’s incessant sucking, I couldn’t help but smile. God, did I have memories. And not just etched into my brain—muscles I hadn’t even realized I had ached, and between my legs was swollen and sore. Yet I felt better than I had in a long time. I actually liked the crazy way I looked, and I didn’t bother to fix it, feeling some sort of odd connection to Caine through my disheveled appearance.
Grabbing the first thing I reached in my drawer filled with lazy wear, I slipped on a vintage Rolling Stones T-shirt and headed to the kitchen for some much-needed coffee. I halted in place upon finding Caine at my stove. His back was to me, and he didn’t seem to have heard me, so I stood in the doorway watching him, half stunned at what I was seeing and half shocked at finding he was even still here.
Caine was…dancing? Well, not technically dancing, I guess. But he was definitely swaying to the beat of something as he flipped pancakes in one pan and rolled the sausage around in the other. Yum. And the food smelled pretty good, too.
I continued watching quietly, utterly amused at seeing Caine so disarmed.
“You want some coffee while you stand there?” he asked without turning around.
I jumped and then smiled. “I didn’t think you knew I was here.”
“I know.” He went to the cabinet, pulled down a mug, and poured me a cup of coffee. It seemed Caine and my kitchen had gotten acquainted while I slept. “Do you take cream and sugar?”
“One Equal and half and half.”
Caine finished making my coffee, and for some reason, I stayed in the doorway of the kitchen. He brought me the mug and kissed the tip of my nose before handing it to me. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
“How long have you been up?”
“About an hour.”
“I didn’t know you were still here. Why didn’t you wake me?”
Caine returned to the stove. “Figured you were tired after last night.”
I smiled and brought the coffee to my lips. “I am. I feel like I got beat up.”
Plating pancakes and a few sausages, he set breakfast on the table. “Sit.”
“You’re really bossy, you know? Borderline rude. I’m not a dog. Sit. Stand.”
Caine walked back to where I was still leaning against the doorway and put one hand on either side of my head on the wall.
“You didn’t seem to mind it last night.”
“That’s different.”
“No, it’s not.”
He dropped his head, chuckling. “How about we have breakfast without a fight?”
“Fine. I’ll sit. But only because it smells really good and not because you barked at me.”
He shook his head. “Whatever it takes, Feisty.”
As soon as the fork hit my mouth, I realized I was starving. I woofed an entire pancake in a few bites.
“Hungry?” Caine raised a brow.
“Shut up. So what did you do while I was sleeping?”
“Listened to music on my phone, checked out the pictures on your wall some more.”
I pointed my fork at him. “You were snooping? Wouldn’t have taken you for a snooper.”
“I didn’t go through your drawers. I looked at pictures hung on the wall. I don’t think that’s the same as snooping.”
“Snooper.” I smiled like an idiot.
We ate in silence for a while. I smiled too much, and Caine looked like he was trying to hide that he was a little terrified of my enthusiasm over breakfast. But it was so much more than I’d expected from him after how things started off last night.
While I was rinsing the plates, my cell phone rang. It was plugged into the charger on the kitchen counter, and Caine and I caught the name flashing at the same time. Davis.
Caine’s eyes flickered up to mine. Ignoring it, I went back to finishing the dishes.
“Not going to get that?”
“I’ll talk to him later.”
While I wiped down the table, Caine went
back to the living room wall with another cup of coffee. I joined him when I was done. He stood in front of a picture that had been taken just about a year ago. It was of my three roommates and me the week before we all moved out and went our separate ways. Our couch was six feet long, made of two, three-foot cushions, but the four of us were all sitting squished on one. There were a lot of smiles in that photo.
“Who’s this with you and Ava?”
“That’s Beth and Davis. Beth is the one with the cleavage.”
“I gathered that much.”
Caine sipped his coffee. After a moment, he turned and faced me. “Why didn’t you sleep with him?”
“We just had dinner. He wanted to talk.”
“But he wants to sleep with you?”
“He wants to give dating another try, yes.”
Caine sipped again, studying me over the brim of the mug. “And what do you want?”
You, you idiot. I want you. I knew he was skittish enough about what had happened last night, so I treaded cautiously, trying to make light of the subject. “I wouldn’t mind some more of what I had last night.”
Caine slipped his hand under the hem of my T-shirt and discovered I had nothing on underneath. He grabbed a handful of my ass and squeezed. “You’ve had nothing on under here since you got up?”
“Nope.”
He took the coffee I was holding out of my hands and walked to the kitchen, leaving both our mugs on the table. Returning to me, he leaned down and lifted me up and over his shoulder, fireman style. I squealed, but loved every minute of it. Especially what came after…
It was the middle of the afternoon before Caine made mention of leaving. I had to work at O’Leary’s at five, and we’d just taken a shower together. He dressed while I was in the bathroom doing my usual routine. Still wearing just a towel, I leaned into the bathroom mirror to rub moisturizer into my skin. Caine came up behind me and watched in silence. We exchanged smiles and looks, but for the most part, neither of us said anything. He just watched as I finished with my face moisturizer, rubbed a different one into my legs and arms, then brushed my wet hair.
Eventually he spoke. “Ever hear a song for the first time and you don’t know the words, but the music is really familiar?”
“Sure. Like ‘All Summer Long’ by Kid Rock where he uses parts from ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and ‘Werewolves of London’?”
“No. An all-original song that you hear for the first time, but you know the music anyway?”
I turned to face him. “I guess. I mean, all songs have commonality to them. A riff, a chord, a lick, a common register or timbre. Our brain seems to index all those little things so we hear something and have that familiar feeling, yet we can’t figure out where it came from. Why?”
“You’re that song. I don’t know any of the words, but the tune is so damn familiar.”
I understood what he meant. I’d felt a connection from the first time we met, too. I didn’t want to scare him, but whatever was between us had always felt bigger than me—bigger than us.
Teasing, I wrapped my arms around his neck. “Well, my body probably reminds you of some supermodel. I’m guessing the one that football player is married to.”
Caine smiled. “You mean Tom Brady?”
“That’s the one. My body? Dead ringer for his wife. And my heart, probably a little Mother Teresa.”
“Is that so?”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on my lips. “That must be it. I gotta run, Mother Teresa, and you need to get to work. I’ll see you tomorrow in class. I’ll be the one at the front of the room, ignoring you and trying not to stare at your rack.”
“Okay.” I pushed up on my tippy toes and kissed him this time. “And I’ll be the one you’ll know has no panties on.”
Caine
Fifteen years ago
She didn’t show up last week. It should have made me happy that after eight weeks of sneaking off to church, I finally had my Saturday back. But it didn’t. It made me anxious, and the goddamned week dragged.
I looked up at the cross above the church and grumbled to myself before going inside. Sorry about the goddamned, big guy.
The church was empty as usual, and I had a song to learn, so I went to my regular spot to take a load off rather than stalking outside. Liam had been on one of his drunk-songwriting binges again. But after the last fiasco where he could only remember half of a kick-ass song, we’d all chipped in and bought him a portable digital recorder. The thing was smaller than a phone and could record twenty hours of music with the press of a button. It worked great. When he showed up hungover at practice this morning after his typical Friday night drinking and songwriting session, he couldn’t remember shit. But all we had to do was upload.
We were grateful Liam had remembered to turn the damn thing on. Only, unfortunately for us—and for him—he didn’t remember to turn it off all night. We were definitely going to find a way to sample some of his midnight jerking-off grunts on a track in the future.
I sat in the dark confessional for almost a half hour with my earbuds in. Even though she hadn’t shown, at least I’d learned the lyrics Liam had come up with. When I was done, I sank down into the red velvety plush seat, closed my eyes, and put on some Bob Dylan. The sound of “Blowin’ in the Wind” blocked out everything else around me—including the sound of the door creaking open on the other side.
I wasn’t sure how long she’d been there when I finally opened my eyes and noticed her. Pulling a bud from my ear, I slipped from priest mode and let my sixteen-year-old self show. “Hey. I didn’t think you were going to come.”
The music blared from my dangling earbud.
“What are you listening to?” she asked.
I couldn’t very well tell her I’d been listening to Dylan. That wasn’t very priestly. “Some new hymns.”
“It sounds like Bob Dylan.”
I grinned. The kid knew Dylan. No wonder I liked her so much. I lowered my voice. “Shh. Let’s not let the other priests in on our little secret.”
I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was smiling. “Okay.”
“Speaking of secrets, what do you have for me today? Have you been a good little lamb?”
“My sister came back home.”
“To get you?”
“No. She got in trouble, and the police brought her home.”
Good. The police needed to be at that house. “What happened?”
“She was staying at her friend’s father’s hunting cabin up north. She drank all his liquor one night and wandered out to find a store and got lost. The police brought her home after she threw up all over the back of their car.”
“Did they talk to your parents?”
“They talked to Benny. I listened through my bedroom door. He lied to the police, told them she drinks all the time and runs away with boys. That she’d been that way for a while.”
Shit. “They didn’t ask any other questions?”
“Not really. There were two of them, and one knew Benny from the garage.”
“The garage?”
“Where Benny works.”
“Benny fixes cars? He’s a mechanic?”
“Yes.”
“How is your sister now?”
“She’s sad.”
“Why didn’t you come last week?”
“I couldn’t leave my sister alone. Benny was really mad at her after the police brought her home. He was drinking and yelling a lot for days.”
“Did he hurt her?”
“I think so.”
This wasn’t a game anymore. “You need to tell me. Did he or didn’t he?”
She was quiet for a long time. I’d decided that if she took off, either I was following her home or the two of us were going to finally meet face to face. The fact that I’d violated this poor little girl’s trust didn’t even matter. She could hate me and run away from the church for all I cared, so long as she was safe.
&nbs
p; I pushed with a stern tone. “Talk to me. Did he or didn’t he hurt your sister?”
“She won’t tell me. But I saw him come out of her room in the morning, and she told me I had to lock my door at night, that he’d promised he wouldn’t bother me if she was nice to him from now on.”
Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! “We need to go to the police. I’ll go with you.”
“I need to go home now.” I could see through the lattice that she had stood.
“Wait!” I yelled.
She stilled. “Why did you come today if you don’t want my help?”
“Because it feels safe here with you.”
“You trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Then I need you to do something for me.”
“Okay.”
“Get your sister and come back here.”
“I can’t. Benny’s going to be home soon.”
“Then tomorrow. It’s Sunday. What do you usually do on Sunday?”
“Benny usually goes to work in the morning. My sister and I play music. We’re not allowed to play it when he’s home.”
“When he leaves for work, come here. I want to speak to you and your sister. Together.”
She was quiet for a while. When she finally did speak, her voice wasn’t convincing. “Okay.”
“You’ll come? And bring your sister?”
“I’ll try.”
I waited until I heard the door to the confessional and then the church open and close. It would probably take a few minutes to unlock her bike, and I knew the direction she came from.
The last thing I wanted to do was scare her when I followed her home. But if she didn’t show tomorrow, I needed to know where I was going.
Rachel
Mind-blowing sex had after effects. It was not even nine o’clock, barely halfway through my shift, and I was dragging my ass. Even that thought, though, made me smile to myself. I’m dragging my ass. The ass that Caine had his hands all over last night…and this morning.
Ava caught me daydreaming. “Oh my God. You had sex with Davis.”
“What are you talking about?”
She tossed her tray on the bar next to some random guy who was immediately interested in our conversation. “I can see it in your face. You’re normally all…” She waved at her face while she scrunched it up to look like she might be in pain. “…uptight looking. Now you’re not.” She slapped the back of her hand against the guy drinking his beer and asked his opinion. “Am I right? She definitely got laid.”