Endless Love

by Drake, Tabatha

  Excerpt: Untouched

  Claire

  My stepfather turns the wheel and we travel off the highway onto a dirt road. The car rocks back and forth along the unstable drive and the contents of my stomach shift from motion sickness I never knew I had.

  Six hours. It’s been six hours in this hot, muggy car, driving farther south than I’ve ever wanted to be in my entire life. Chicago is my home and I miss it more and more with every mile we travel. The last thing I want to do is spend the summer down in Bumfuck, Missouri, but like they said, I have no choice in the matter.

  The farm comes into view as the fluorescent headlights illuminate it in the darkness. I cringe. It looks exactly as I expected it to, with a big, white house and an ugly, red barn at the far end of the driveway. Ugh, it even smells like it looks. Like dirt, mold, and dead things.

  The car stops and my mother and stepfather exchange a quick glance in the front seat. She’s barely looked at me in days, even when I begged her to speak to me. She’s weak, always has been. I know that this was all my stepfather’s idea, and like the submissive, doting wife she is, she never questioned it for a second.

  My stepfather steps outside the car and slams his door before wandering back to the trunk. I lean forward, taking the only opportunity I have left.

  “Mom, please,” I beg her. “You don’t have to do this. Just give me one more chance and I—”

  The door next to me opens and I look up into the dark eyes of my stepfather, Thomas. He holds my suitcase in one hand. “Get out, Claire.”

  I turn back to my mother. Her eyes are down, on the brink of tears. “Mom, say something,” I tell her.

  “Claire, get out of the car.”

  I ignore him and reach out to my mother. “Mom—” His hand grips my arm to pull me out. I snatch my purse off the seat beside me. “Mom!”

  She covers her face with her hands as I’m forced out onto the gravel driveway. Thomas closes the door behind us, casting her into total darkness.

  “Come on,” he growls. He keeps his grip on me and tugs me along with him toward the dark, white house. A dim lamp lights the porch above the scratched front door, painted red to match the eyesore of a barn across the gravel driveway.

  “Will you please let me go?” I ask, my voice shaking.

  Thomas says nothing, he never even turns back to acknowledge I spoke. We climb the wooden porch steps and stop in front of the door. He reaches out and knocks twice.

  Before I can take another breath, the door swings open and an older man stands in the doorway. He’s taller, a little taller than Thomas, but carries the exact same buzzed black and silver hair and mustache that every man I know born in the 1970s carries around with him like a badge of honor. I look up at him and we lock eyes for a brief moment.

  “Come on in,” he says.

  Thomas’ hand drops from my arm and he stares me down. “Go on.” He gestures me inside.

  My eyes scan the entrance. I stand firm, not wanting to take another step. “Please take me home—”

  “Get in the damn house, Claire.”

  I look at my stepfather and my hatred for him multiplies. A chill glides through my body. I wrap my arms around my chest to keep the warmth inside. The early summer air does little to help. I quake and shiver. My body doesn’t feel like my own. I feel out of focus, lost in my own skin.

  Thomas shoves me inside. I stumble, but keep myself upright as I walk into the large farmhouse. He tosses my suitcase inside after me and it lands with a loud thud at my feet.

  “Goodnight, Thomas,” the man says to my stepfather before closing the door behind me.

  We stand in silence as I listen to the sounds of Thomas’ boots on the porch outside and the car engine roaring with life before rolling down the gravel road.

  The shock hits me. They left me here. They actually left me here. They left me behind in some strange house with some strange man out in the middle of nowhere. I look around the entryway. The stairs to the second floor sit ahead of me and a living room sits just to the right of the front door. This house is obviously old, worn, and hasn’t seen a woman’s touch in quite some time. The furniture in the living room doesn’t match. The throw rugs are worn down from feet walking on them for decades. The television is small and just as old as I am.

  “Come with me,” the man finally says.

  He steps out of the living room and I reluctantly follow him into the back of the house. We enter a kitchen with white counters and a white floor. White appliances, white everything.

  “Sit down.” He pulls out a wooden chair from the round dinner table in the corner and points it toward the center of the room. As I sit down, I feel like it might break beneath me, it’s so old. I cling to my purse like a security blanket; the only sense of familiarity I have here.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” the man asks. He reaches up and grabs a drinking glass from the cupboard and fills it with water from the sink faucet.

  I scoff but say nothing. My teeth chatter together in my head. My thumping heart fills my ears. He walks forward and holds the water glass out for me to take. My tongue twitches, begging for it after the long and hot car ride. I take the glass and gulp the water down. It tastes old and strange, but it’s better than nothing.

  “Your parents believe you’ve gone down the wrong path and they sent you here for my guidance,” he says, leaning back against the kitchen counter near the sink.

  “What makes you so special?” I set the glass down on the table behind me.

  “My name is Charlie Eastwood,” he says. “We’ve never met, but I know who you are.”

  “Right…” I sigh, recalling the name. “Uncle Charlie. Thomas’ brother. The cop.”

  “I’m not a cop anymore,” he says. “But back then, I was the one they called to deal with situations like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re in withdrawal, Claire,” he says. “You’re twitchy. You can’t get warm.” He furrows his brow. “How long since your last hit? Two days? Three?”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Your parents aren’t sure what you took, but I’d guess cocaine, maybe a little bit of something else.”

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?” I ask.

  “You have a drug problem, an attitude problem, and…” he takes a breath, “a boundary problem.”

  “What boundary problem?” I scoff.

  “They told me about you and Rick.”

  I shift in the chair. “Oh, come on…”

  “You two are family—”

  “He’s my stepbrother!” I shout. “Step. We’re not actually related. You people know that, right?”

  “Family is more than blood, young lady.”

  “Okay, yeah. Sure. Fine. Whatever. But Rick and I did nothing wrong!”

  He pushes himself off the counter. “Calm down,” he warns. “Now, I don’t care about that as much as they do. The cops didn’t pick you up for fooling around with your stepbrother. They picked you up for being a minor under the influence of drugs and alcohol. And to be honest, I’m more concerned about the bruises on your face right now than anything else.”

  I flinch. “He didn’t do anything.”

  “He’s not here, Claire. You don’t have to cover for him—”

  “I shouldn’t be here,” I interrupt. “This is bullshit.”

  “I won’t tolerate swearing in my house.”

  “What is this, 1962?”

  “While you’re here in my house, you will follow my rules,” he says. “You should consider yourself lucky—”

  “Lucky?”

  “The officers that picked you up could have booked you with enough to put you away for a long time. I’m not just talking jail, I’m talking rehab and lots of red marks on your permanent record. Your life, ruined, in one night — over something as stupid as getting high—”

  “Thanks for the recap, Dudley Do-Right.”

  He pauses and stares down at me. I expect anger in his voice, but
he holds it back, calm and collected. “Claire, you’re lucky,” he repeats. “You might not think so, but the other kids you were arrested with didn’t have the connections with the law your stepfather does and they’re all sitting in concrete cells right now. You aren’t.”

  “May as well be…” My eyes wash over the bright kitchen again. “You can’t keep me here. This is kidnapping.”

  “The law says otherwise,” he says. “You’re a minor and your parents have transferred you into my care for the summer.”

  “Only for another month,” I say. “I turn eighteen soon and when I do, I’m walking out of here.”

  “We’ll see about that.” He nods. “In the meantime, you’ll follow a strict schedule for meals, chores, and bedtime—”

  “I have a bedtime?”

  “And you’re late for that tonight, so I better see you to your room.”

  I scoff. “It’s nine o’clock.”

  “Oh, and also…” He reaches out and snatches my purse out of my hands.

  “Hey!” I shout.

  He fishes inside of it and grabs my phone. “You’ve lost all phone privileges. And we don’t have wi-fi out here, so it’s basically useless to you.”

  “What the hell—?”

  “I said no swearing.”

  “Hell isn’t a swear,” I argue.

  “It is the way you use it.”

  I take a breath and it clatters throughout my body, knocking my insides around. “This is crap,” I say.

  Charlie glares at me, his eyes falling down my face. “You want to tell me how you busted your lip open?” he asks.

  I press against the cut with my tongue and the near-forgotten pain fires up my cheek from my bottom lip. “Slipped on a banana peel,” I quip.

  “I bet you tumbled right onto a doorknob, too, didn’t ya?” he asks.

  I say nothing.

  He sighs and drops the empty purse back into my lap. “Let’s go.”

  I follow him back to the entryway and I grab my suitcase off the floor. My eyes wander upwards and I see a long rifle mounted above the door. I missed it earlier, but it’s clear as day now from this angle.

  The floor creaks beneath us as we climb the stairs. It’s loud, annoying, and completely eliminates the possibility of sneaking out. I get the feeling Officer Killjoy here sleeps with one eye open.

  There are four doors in the second-floor hallway. Charlie points to the left, targeting the nearest door to the top of the stairs. “That’s my room,” he says. We head to the right and he pushes open the next door. “Bathroom here. If the toilet won’t flush, just jiggle the handle a little.”

  “Of course.” I sigh.

  We continue to the next door. “This is your room,” he says, opening it.

  I step inside and look around with curious eyes. A canopy bed lines one wall with a pink bedspread, decorated with a floral pattern, with a small vanity and mirror next to it. The closet sits open and I spot various articles of women’s clothing inside. There’s a bookshelf in every corner with dozens of novels and textbooks.

  “Whose room is this?” I ask Charlie.

  “Yours.”

  “No, I mean… whose stuff is this?”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s yours to use while you stay here.”

  “Do you have a daughter or something?”

  “I said don’t worry about it.”

  I turn back around, startled by the firmness of his tone. “What’s in there?” I point to the fourth and final door just across the hall to change the subject.

  “That’s my son’s room, Tobias. You probably won’t see him much. He works nights.” He steps back and grips the doorknob.

  “Where’s your wife?” I ask.

  “She passed many years ago,” he says. “It’s just me and him now.”

  I pause. “Oh.”

  “Get ready for bed. Lights out in ten minutes.”

  “Lights out?”

  “Lights out.” He steps out into the hall and quickly closes the door behind him.

  “Jesus Christ…” I mutter to myself.

  I drop my suitcase onto the bed and glance around. It feels strange to live in another person’s private space, but as I run a finger across the vanity desk next to the bed, I find a layer of dust. Whoever lives here hasn’t been by in quite some time.

  I sit down on the stool before the vanity and stare into the mirror. My brown hair is tangled and in desperate need of shampoo. My eyes are bloodshot. My lips are chapped, making the thin reddish-black scab stand out even more against my pale skin. Black rings circle my eyes. My gaze falls to the pale blue bruise just below my left cheek.

  I think, for a moment, that maybe they’re right. Maybe I do have a problem.

  But it doesn’t make me feel any better about being stuck in this dump for the next few weeks.

  * * *

  I stare at the clock and watch the numbers climb to sixty then jump back down to zero. It’s quiet, far too quiet for me to be comfortable. I miss the city buzz. The constant chatter of voices, cars, and life. The country silence of 3 A.M. sounds deafening in my ears. I lick my dry lips, feeling a deep hunger I can’t satisfy.

  Charlie was right before. I’m in withdrawal. Right now, I’ll do anything for another hit — anything to distract myself from the sounds of my body screaming at me.

  The sudden grind of an engine brings me out of it. I sit up and turn to look out the window behind the bed. It’s dark, but the darkness is quickly cut by an approaching headlight. The motorbike comes into view with a lone rider guiding it slowly to the red barn across the driveway. A lamp above the barn illuminates the ground around him as I watch him dismount and pull the black helmet off his head. I can barely see his face but I can tell he’s young. He places the helmet on the bike’s seat and rolls the thing into the barn before sliding the door closed behind him.

  I lay my head against the pillow. It’s soaked in my own sweat. I flip it around to the other side, hoping that sleep will somehow come, but my eyes pull toward the window again. I see the boy walking toward the house. This must be Charlie’s son, Tobias. The one who works nights. He looks up at the house and immediately drifts toward my window. I fall back down, hoping to avoid his gaze. His shoes hit the front porch and I listen carefully as he enters the front door.

  I climb off the bed and press my ear against the door to listen to him move. I feel a presence on the other side but I never heard him climb the stairs…

  The doorknob turns and I jump out of the way as the door suddenly swings open.

  “Who are you?” he asks through his teeth. He steps forward fast to grab me by the shoulders. “What are you doing in her room?”

  I blink repeatedly as his dark face fills my vision. He has the same black hair as his father and my stepfather, but it’s longer and more casual. It falls down to his angry eyes and he stares back at me with jade green irises.

  “I’m Claire…” I whisper. I scan his face again, placing him somewhere in his early twenties. He reminds me of Rick. His demeanor is so wild and intimidating. I’m scared to move.

  “Why are you in my house, Claire?” he asks.

  “Believe me — I’m not here by choice,” I say, my limbs shaking. “I got into some trouble and my parents brought me out and left me here…”

  His grip on me loosens. “Right…” He nods slowly.

  “I guess no one told you I was coming…” I mutter. I lick my dry lips again. “They didn’t tell me either until I was in the car.”

  He takes a step back and drops his hands to his sides. His eyes wander around the room with a protective vibe before finally falling back on me and staring at my bottom lip. “Sorry if I hurt you.”

  “You didn’t—”

  Before I can complete the thought, he’s out the door. He steps inside his own room and quickly closes the door behind him.

  Once again, I look around the room and wonder who the hell lives in it. My teeth graze along my lips in thought, making me cr
inge as they slide along the scabbed wound.

  Rick never spoke much about this side of his family. I’m not sure why, nor did I ever think to ask. Talking isn’t our strongest suit anyway. My relationship with my stepbrother isn’t conventional. We party. We do drugs, and yeah, we almost ended up in bed together once, but it’s more than that. I feel a strong connection with him, stronger than I ever thought possible.

  He loves me.

  He told me that he was the only person in the world that did.

  I believe him more and more every day.

  Each passing moment has me reaching for my phone, but of course, it’s been taken from me, along with what was left of my freedom. The instinct remains. I want to talk to him. I want to hear his voice, smell his skin. I want to get out of this hellhole and go back to the city to be with him where I belong.

  I climb back into the bed and wrap the blanket around me to get warm. My skin quickly breaks out in a cold sweat and I find myself begging for another glass of water.

  * * *

  Click here to keep reading UNTOUCHED!

  Books by Tabatha Drake

  Killer Love Saga

  Killer Love

  Secret Love

  Tainted Love

  Broken Love

  Mad Love

  Cruel Love

  Endless Love

  The Midwest Alphas

  Co-write with Tabatha Kiss

  Untouched

  Unbroken

  Undying

  For more, go to

  tabathadrake.com/books

  About the Author

  Tabatha Drake is the dark and dirty alter ego of USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Tabatha Kiss! She lives in Chicago, Illinois. You can probably catch her huddled up in a hoodie, reading a good romance beneath a tree with her trusty husky by her side. She enjoys roller derby, sushi, and is always searching for her forever bad boy. In the meantime, she writes.