by Mia Storm
“I need to know what happened the night of the fire.”
She looks suddenly uncomfortable and shoots a glance at the guard near the door she came through. “What do you want to know?”
“What did they arrest you for?”
She picks at frayed fingernails. “Your dad wasn’t very discreet. The cops had been watching the house for months. When the fire broke out they figured it was a lab explosion.”
At the mention of Dad, I see him crumpled on the floor with a bloody dent in his head. “It took me a while to really remember what happened that night.”
Her eyes flick to me and then back to her fingernails. “That might be a good thing.”
“Destiny had a mental…something…a breakdown or whatever.”
Something like concern flashes in her eyes. “Because of that night?”
“You really just asked me that?” I feel rage swirl my insides into a cyclone. “Because of every fucking thing you and Dad did to us.”
She lowers her gaze.
There are two answers I need. The sooner I ask the questions, the sooner I can be out of here. “Why didn’t you wait to set the fire until Destiny and I were out?”
Her frail body heaves with a deep breath and she hangs her head deeper. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Because you were stoned,” I spit.
She offers a feeble nod. “I…” She trails off and shakes her head. “I think I forgot you were upstairs. I just knew I needed to burn the bodies before anyone else came in and found them.”
“You forgot us.” The words are acid leaving my mouth.
She cringes up at me, but doesn’t respond.
I push the cyclone of emotions that I don’t fully understand away and ask the next question. “Why did you kill Dad?”
There’s no doubt she understands what I’m asking when her eyes flick to the guard near the door. She lowers her gaze guiltily. “It just happened.”
I shake my head. “None of it ‘just happened.’ Things like that don’t ‘just happen.’”
Her eyes narrow. “You think I meant for that to happen?”
“I don’t know what I think. All I know is that one second Dad is carving a hole in Destiny’s forehead, and the next, there’s a hole in his.”
She takes a deep breath and the creases ease from her face. “He changed when he started using.” She shakes her head. “I guess I did too. I know I didn’t do right by you girls. I let him hurt you. When I realized how much, I couldn’t live with myself.”
“He more than hurt us,” I say, the fury eating a hole through me at the image of the guy pinning Destiny to the wall.
Her eyes drop to the bleeding cuticle she’s been picking at. “I should have stopped it before it went that far.”
“You think?” I spit.
She cringes up at me. “Things were complicated.”
“They weren’t complicated,” I say, standing. “They were easy. You were our mother. Your one job was to take care of us. But the only thing you took care of was your habit. You forgot us! Nearly burnt us alive!”
I can’t stay here anymore. Just being in the same room as her is making me sick. I spin for the door.
“Lilah, wait!”
I want to keep walking. I want to not care. But I can’t stop myself from turning to look at her. She’s standing, her hands braced on the table as if she needs the support. “You lit the fire,” I say, not even caring who hears. “You trapped Destiny and me in that house to burn. All you’ve ever given a shit about is yourself.”
A tear leaks over her lashes and she drops into her seat like a ton of bricks.
I don’t know what she thinks is supposed to happen. If she thinks I’m going to go over there, patting her on the back and telling her not to cry, that everything’s okay, she’s sorely mistaken.
“Hope you enjoy burning in hell,” I say, spinning for the door. “It’s the least you deserve.”
When I burst through the door, Bran is pacing on the other side. He stops and looks a question at me. I step into his arms and hate the tears that spring to my eyes. I don’t want to care enough to spare even a single tear for her. She doesn’t deserve it.
He retrieves my things from the locker and guides me to the exit without a word. And even when we’re finally alone in the car, he doesn’t push me to talk.
I lean back and close my eyes. “I killed a man.”
The tears roll down my face as I say it. He pulls me against his shoulder. I cry and he holds me as he drives. I feel his strength. I feel his love. I feel him in my soul, and it spills over into him.
I press my face into his shoulder and start talking, and when I’m done, we’re home and rain has started to shower down on us like the tears I finally let myself cry.
And Bran knows everything.
Chapter 33
Bran
I knew it was bad. I just never expected it to be this bad. I bring Lilah back to my place, because after everything I just heard, I don’t think she’s ready to handle Destiny in the shape she’s in. I lay her on my bed and she curls onto her side. I slide on next to her, lean against the headboard and stroke her hair. There are a few more tears before she falls into a restless sleep. Once her breathing becomes heavy, I get up and call Mom.
“Hey,” I say when she answers. “Lilah’s going through some shit and I need to be here for her. You okay covering the bar tonight?”
“I got it,” she says. “Everything okay?”
“Not really, but it’s not mine to talk about.”
“She’s a good kid,” she says.
I want to tell her Lilah hasn’t been a kid for a while, but I keep my mouth shut. “I’m just going to let her hang here until she’s good to go home.”
“Okay, Bran.” There’s a pregnant pause and I know my mom well enough to know there’s more coming. “Just be careful.”
I haul a deep breath. “Got it, Ma.”
I go back to Lilah and sit, my legs extended and my ankles crossed, my back against the headboard. I watch her sleep and only realize hours have gone by when the sun starts to set outside my window. Finally, just as the room goes dark, she stirs and opens her eyes.
“Hey.”
She pulls herself up and rubs the sleep out of her eyes. “How long have I been asleep?”
I glance at my phone screen. “About three hours. Hungry?”
“Yeah,” she says, pressing a hand to her stomach.
“I’ll pull something together.” I stand and hold out my hand. “C’mon.”
She lets me haul her off the bed and follows me to the kitchen. I open the fridge and don’t find much. “Eggs?”
She smiles a little and the sight lightens my heavy heart. “That actually sounds really good.”
I pull a pan down from the rack and crack a few into it. “Plates are behind you,” I say, nudging my chin at the cupboard behind her.
She pulls two down and stands with her butt against the counter, looking around the apartment. It strikes me at that moment that she’s never been here before.
When they’re done, I slide two eggs onto each plate and hand her one. I grab a couple of Cokes from the fridge on my way to the table.
“Mom’s covering the bar. I’ll stay here with you tonight,” I say as we slide into seats at my small kitchen table.
There’s a second her gaze catches on mine and sparks, but the spark flares out almost immediately and she just looks worn down. She pokes at her eggs, then carves off a bite. That first bite seems to fuel her appetite and she devours the rest.
“That was good,” she says, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth and setting her fork on her plate. “Thanks.”
She polishes off her Coke as I lift our plates and drop them on top of a few others in the sink. I grab two more Cokes as she heads to the couch. She picks up the remote and surfs the channels. By the time I make it to the couch and pull her tight to my side, she’s stopped on It’s a Wonderful Life.
&nbs
p; Christ, I’d forgotten that Christmas is next week.
I sit and drape my arm across her shoulders and she settles into my side. For the next two hours, as George Bailey goes through hell and back trying to save everything he loves, I hold the thing I love close. I know she has to find her way through this, but I’ll do whatever I can to help, even if it’s only this.
As the credits start to roll, she yawns. “I slept all afternoon. I shouldn’t be tired.”
“You’ve faced down some pretty major demons today. That’ll knock the crap out of you.”
She presses against me and when her mouth meets mine, I can’t stop the shudder. I know she feels it when she draws back and looks into my eyes as if looking for something she lost in there.
I stand and pull her off of the couch by the hand. When we get to my room, I dig a T-shirt out of my drawer. “In case you want to change before bed.”
Her eyes widen slightly. “I’m staying here?”
“I’m not going to tell you what to do, Lilah, but if you need some space to deal with what you’ve remembered, you can have that here. I’ll stay tonight, because I need to know you’re okay, but beyond that is up to you. I can stay with you or just give you the place and let you decompress here.”
She takes the shirt from my hand. “Has anyone ever told you how incredible you are?”
I back toward the door. “I’ll be on the couch tonight if you need anything.”
She lunges for my hand and tugs me back to her. “I do need something. I need you with me. Please stay.” Her eyes reflect the desperation that she barely manages to keep out of her voice.
“Whatever you need, Lilah,” I tell her, and I mean it. I will give her anything.
She starts to lift her shirt over her head and I turn and pull a fresh shirt for me. When I glance back at her, she’s shucking off her jeans and my shirt falls mid-thigh. I breathe deep to keep my libido in check. Tonight is about making sure Lilah feels safe.
She pulls back the covers and climbs under. I flick off the light and slide in next to her. She grasps my arm and pulls my front to her back. I curl around her like armor, and that’s where I finally fall asleep.
♫
I wake to daylight thorough the window and the warm smell of vanilla all around me. When I open my eyes, Lilah is watching me. If she were anyone else, that would feel intensely creepy, but with her it sends a ripple of pleasure through my whole being. But as I scrub a hand over my face, wiping away the remnants of sleep, she sits up and tugs my baggy T-shirt off her pristine body. All I can do is stare as it hits the floor in a heap. She straddles me in just her panties and I resist the urge to reach for her and drag her to me. Her nipples are tight buds, so pink and perfect, and when she leans down and kisses me, the sizzle of her skin on mine lights my fire. I brush my fingertips over her back and goose bumps pebble her skin, making her shudder. She draws back and stares down at me with some expression that I can’t quite name. All I do know is the ghosts that have been haunting her are gone from her eyes.
She rolls her hips, rubbing herself along the bulge in my jeans that there’s no way I can stop.
She is so fucking perfect there aren’t even words.
She flicks open the button of my jeans and drags down the fly, and when she lifts her hips and pulls her panties aside, I don’t stop her. If this is what she needs from me right now, I’m not going to deny her. She wants to get lost, I can’t imagine any safer place than in me. She sinks slowly down my hard cock and it’s the most excruciating thing I’ve ever felt, pure pleasure so intense it’s painful.
She keeps me mesmerized by the shining silver of her eyes, the feel of her body riding mine, the intensity of the electricity crackling between us. I grasp her thighs and start to move under her to her agonizingly slow rhythm, feeling her from the roots of my hair to the nails on my toes. She’s everywhere inside me, leaving no room for the demons that have haunted me for so long. She starts pumping faster and I glide my thumb forward to her clit. Her head drops back and she vibrates with her moan as I press. While I work her clit with one hand, I trail my fingertips up her body and tease the pebbles of her nipple with my thumb. She arches into my hand, my palm cupping one perfect tit, and I’ve never wanted anything in my mouth as much as I want to taste that nub.
But this is her show. She’s calling the shots. I let her take what she needs, knowing in the process she’ll be giving me more than I could ever ask for. More than I deserve.
She fucks me, slow and steady, and her moans escalate to mewls, so base it’s as if she devolves into pure need. Her movements become more frenetic as she gets closer to peaking and I begin to thrust harder into her. She rewards me by dropping her mouth open and crying out her release. I give her mine and come hard inside her.
She drapes her body over mine and moans her satisfaction softly into my ear.
This is fucking heaven.
♫
Lilah stayed with me for three days. We didn’t fuck again, but I listened while she sorted through everything. The last two days, she’s been back with Destiny. They’ve been working things out between them and I’ve tried to stay out of the way, but it’s Christmas and I have something for Lilah.
I’ve never been one to get all caught up in giving Christmas gifts, but I’m barely holding it together this morning because I want Lilah to have this. I’m up early and I hold off for as long as I can before shooting off a text. I’ve got something for you. Can I come over?
It’s nine when she finally texts me back. Okay. When?
Now. I’m parked outside.
O_O
Sorry. I couldn’t wait.
I shove open the door of the Torino and lift a hand to press the buzzer, but before I can, the door swings open and she’s there. She’s in one of my T-shirts and her hair is all over the place. There’s nothing sexier on this entire planet than the way she looks when she just wakes up.
She tugs me inside and presses against me. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” I say, drawing away and holding up a small box with a ribbon around it.
She takes it and looks a question at me.
“Just open it.”
Instead, she takes my hand pulls me up the stairs. “I have something for you too.”
When we get to the top, the family room is empty. We take seats on the couch and she pulls her guitar up from next to the arm. She rests it in her lap and starts strumming softly. “This still needs some work,” she says, “but it’s your Christmas present, so here goes.”
And then she sings to my soul: a song about accepting what’s happened and moving on; about forgiving; about learning to live again and allowing yourself to be happy.
When she’s done, she sets the guitar aside and climbs astride my lap. “Thank you.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You did. You’ve taught me that it’s okay to live.” She kisses me. “And to love.”
“If I’ve given back anything for everything you’ve given me, then I’m happy, but I don’t deserve any of the credit.”
She smiles. “Shut up and kiss me.”
I do as I’m told, because I’m helpless to resist her. When she finally draws away, I set her on the couch next to me and nod at her box. “Your turn.”
She slips a finger gingerly under the ribbon.
“It’s a gift,” I say, “not an incendiary device.”
She smiles and tugs harder, pulling the ribbon loose. When she opens the box, she just looks at the key to my apartment inside for a long moment before pinching it between her finger and thumb and pulling it out.
“I want you to know there’s no part of my life that’s not yours. Anytime you need somewhere to go, I want it to be my place you think of. I want it to feel like home to you.”
She’s still staring at the key. “I couldn’t just walk in.”
“Why not? I want you to.”
“What if you’re…I don’t know, dancing aroun
d naked or whatever?”
I just look at her.
She shrugs. “Okay, I guess you’re not a dancing around naked kind of guy, but you know what I mean.”
“I don’t.”
She tosses a hand at me. “What if you’re doing something private, or…with someone?”
My heart freezes. This isn’t how I saw this going. I thought she’d get that me giving her a key is a huge deal, and it means I’m committed to her and this relationship. “That’s really what you think of me?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she says, shoving a hand through her hair.
“You’re joking, right?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve told you I love you at least half a dozen times. You’ve never said it back. I figured that meant you weren’t ready for any sort of commitment.”
I fix her in my gaze and pick the key I just had made yesterday out from between her fingers, holding it up for her to get a solid look at how new it is. “I’ve never done this before, Lilah. If you weren’t sixteen, I’d be asking you to move in for real. I want you with me every second of every day. I will never be with anyone else because no one else is you. You’re all I want…all I need.” I press the key into her palm and close her fingers around it. “I want you to have this because I trust you and, even if I don’t say it back, I love you.”
“Well that’s touching,” Destiny says from the hall, and both Lilah’s and my gaze snap to her. “Do you mean a word of it?”
I stand as she crosses past us to the kitchen. “Every single one of them.”
Destiny glares at me as she pours a cup of coffee. “So my sister’s not just your current flavor of the week?”
“There are no other fucking flavors,” I say getting more than a little pissed. I almost open my mouth to tell her she was my last one of those and there hasn’t been anyone but Lilah since, but rather than proving my point, that will only hurt them both.
“So you’re saying you’re going to stop bringing home barflies and college chicks from Sam Hill? Because old habits die hard, Bran.” She glances at Lilah and back to me. “Does she have any clue how many women you’ve slept with?”