We walk through the lounge room. All the furniture is mismatched and second-hand, but it only makes the house seem more endearing. Ana comes to a stop in the kitchen. I’m busy looking at the beautiful red, gold and green stained-glass windows with the sunlight filtering onto the wood floor in a swirl of distorted colours, so it takes me a while to notice the half-naked man standing in front of the fridge.
“God, you’re such a pig,” Ana mutters.
“Love you too, sweetheart.” The dude’s wearing only a towel around his hips. One tiny scrap of terry towelling between his Johnson and the world. My blood runs cold, then hot, then to boiling as I realise this guy might be my replacement. There’s certainly enough tension between them.
The dude closes up the carton of milk he was drinking from and burps in our direction. He’s pretty cut and he’s above average height, though not as tall as me. He looks like he’s never been in a fight a day in his life, so I’m as sure as fuck I can take him.
“Hey man,” he utters as his eyes roam over me. “Cool tatts.”
“Ana, you wanna tell me why there’s a half-naked man in your kitchen?” I say in her ear, though it’s loud enough for Captain No Pants to hear the threat, too.
Ana shivers, and is it my imagination or did she just lean back into me?
The dude holds up his hands in surrender, “Whoa, mate, you’ve got the wrong idea completely. It’s not like that.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what’s it like?” I say and take a step forward.
“Elijah, meet Jackson,” she says—and damn if that name doesn’t sound familiar—before clarifying, “my cousin.”
“Cousin, huh?”
“Unfortunately.” They both say at the same time, and now that I’m not thinking of pulverising the dude’s face, I can see a family resemblance. Actually, Jackson looks more like her brother than Sammy does.
“Good to meet ya, mate,” Jackson says, and steps forward to shake my hand. While my hand is grasped in his, he pulls me toward him to whisper-yell in my ear. “Just so you know, she’s been through hell. You break her heart again and I’ll kick your arse.”
“Jackson!” Ana’s sending death glares at her cousin and making a slicing hand gesture at her throat in my peripheral vision.
This whole exchange makes me smile, not because I’m being an arrogant, cocky arsehole—for once—and laughing at the threat, but because it feels good to know someone else has her back. He clearly loves Ana, and he’s going to keep an eye on me because of it. I nod and say, “I wouldn’t dream of hurting her again.”
He studies my face for a beat and then gives my hand one last shake before nodding his approval and moving across the kitchen.
“Now, if you’re done pissing all over our new roommate, do you mind if I show Elijah to his room?”
“Nope. Knock yourself out,” he says, then adds, “just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Ha! Is there anything you wouldn’t do?”
“Yeah, you’re right. Okay, don’t do anything Holly wouldn’t do.”
“You do realise that’s even worse?” Ana asks.
“What’s worse?” Holly asks, as she stumbles into the kitchen. Her hair is sticking up all around her head like a copper bird’s nest, and her clothes are swamping her. She’s clearly just woken from a nap, though she looks as though she hasn’t slept in days. She hasn’t seen me yet on account of me standing up against the wall beside the fridge, and she’s rummaging through the cupboard like her life depends on it. “Where’s the jailbird? I could use me some eye candy right about now.”
“Hey, I take offense to that,” Jackson says, and winks at her.
“You can sit on the fence, for all I care. Preferably one of those über pointy picket fences.”
“Hey Holly,” I say nervously, as she spins around with her mouth gaping open. We’ve always rubbed each other the wrong way when it came to Ana. I know I don’t deserve Ana, I could work on redemption my entire life over and the next one, too, and I’d still never be enough for her. But I love her. I need her in my life, in any way she chooses to be in it, and I’m worried Holly is going to have something to say about that.
“You’re back?” Her eyes widen a little and glitter with unshed tears, and the next thing I know, she’s throwing herself at me. After a moment of blind panic where I assume she’s going to start using me as a punching bag and I realise that there’s no way in hell I can hit a woman so I’ll have to just stand there and take whatever fucked up punishment she thinks I deserve, I nearly keel over. Her arms wrap around my waist and she cries into my chest. I have no choice but to wrap my arms around her.
“It’s good to see you too, Holly.” I can feel my eyes are saucer-wide as they shoot between Ana and Jackson for answers.
Jackson sniggers, “Feeling a little clingy today, Hols?”
Holly uncurls her arms from around my waist and glares at Jackson. “Shut up, fuck-face! Did you eat the rest of my crackers?”
“Holly’s pregnant and tends to get a little … er … emotional lately,” Ana explains.
Jackson hides his next dig behind a fake cough, “Psychotic!”
“Fuck you, Jack!” She stalks from the room, and a door somewhere in the house slams behind her.
“You just name the place, sweetheart,” he calls after her. “You know where to find me.”
“Would you stop provoking her, please?”
“She’s really pregnant?” I feel like I’ve stepped into the twilight zone.
“Yeah, she’s fourteen weeks along.” Ana gives me an uneasy smile. “Come on, let’s get you settled in.” She grabs my hand and leads me from the kitchen down a narrow hall, pointing out Holly and Jackson’s rooms at one end. In the middle is a decent-sized bathroom, and further along two more rooms sit opposite one another. The one on the right is covered in clothes, and there’s a yellow doona sitting bunched up on top of the bed. No guesses as to who occupies that room.
I follow Ana into the room opposite. There’s a black and grey doona sitting on top of a double bed that barely looks like I’d fit in it, two bedside tables and a chest of drawers leaning against the side wall with chipped and peeling black paint. On the top sits a framed picture of my bike and another of Ana and her family, Jackson and Holly included. I pick up the frame and stare down into the posed shot.
“Do you like it? You can take it out if you like. I just thought you should have at least one picture of … family. I know you don’t have any of your mum and sister and no one should have a room without pictures.” She’s rambling again, and it’s so fucking sweet it’s giving me a damn toothache.
“I love it, I love all of it.” I make a gesture that includes the room around me. “Thank you.”
She smiles. “The police confiscated your clothes; more like they confiscated everything in that motel room, even your bike. Dad had to buy it back at police auction.”
He hadn’t told me that. It would have cost him a shitload of money too, considering how rare they are here in Australia. Money I’ll be paying back down to the last cent.
“Anyway, Holly and I went shopping last week for some basics. There isn’t much, but I’m sure we can take some things back if they don’t fit. And sorry about the bed, it was the only one we could find within our price range. I have a queen-sized one, and we can swap them over if you like? I really should have thought of that before. I guess I just forgot how big you were and now that you’re here—”
“Ana?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up. Everything’s perfect,” I say and then realise that doesn’t even begin to cut it. I take a step toward her. “You’re perfect.”
She backs out of reach. “Well, I should see about dinner. You probably felt like a quiet night alone, but my family doesn’t really do quiet. Ever, actually. So everyone is coming around for a BBQ a bit later. Surprise.” She throws her hands up and turns to leave.
“We gonna talk about this?”
&n
bsp; “Talk about what?”
I raise my brow at that, and she steps back into the room and sits down on the bed, my bed. “You know, I haven’t had one of these since I was sixteen.”
“A bed?” she asks, as I sit down beside her.
“A bed, a room, a home.” I flop back onto the mattress and rest my hands on my chest. “My dad had a room at the clubhouse. After I went to juvie he sold the house. I wasn’t there anymore, and he hardly ever stayed there as it was. I think it just held too many memories of Mum and Lil, so he sold it. Sold all my shit, too. When I got out of lock–up the first time, the club came a-calling. I became a prospect, and prospects don’t amount to shit until they’re patched in, so I stayed on a clubhouse couch for the next year. Then I spent three years on the inside and after I got out, I roamed from one shitty motel to another, until now. Until you.”
“Well I’m glad you have a room—a home, now,” she says, and her voice cracks a little on the last word. Ana sat there, stiff as a board, throughout that story. She’s so different now. We’re different now. I grab her elbow and yank her back so she’s lying beside me, her arm flush with mine. She lets out a frustrated yelp that quickly turns into tears. For a moment I just let her cry, because though I hate the idea of her hurting, I know she has to work through everything she’s feeling with me being back.
When I can’t handle the silence any more, I link my hand with hers and say, “Talk to me, baby girl.”
“I can’t.”
“’Course you can.” I nudge. “If there’s one person in the world you can talk to about this it’s me.”
“I can’t fall back into things with you,” she blurts, and I’m glad we’re not facing one another because that hurt like a motherfucker and I’m sure it’s written all over my face.
“Can’t now? Or can’t ever?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers, like saying those words quietly is going to hurt me any fucking less.
“You still love me?”
“I don’t know that either.” She gets up and walks over to the door. The tears are openly streaming down her face now. She makes no move to wipe them away, she just stares at me from the doorway. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too,” I say.
Ana walks into the hall and then the few steps into her room and closes the door behind her. I can hear her gut-wrenching sobs from here. It tears and claws at something inside me, but I make no move to go to her. Right now I’m not what she needs, and that hurts more than hearing her say the words that ripped my heart into shreds.
Chapter Thirty Four
Elijah
As good as it’d been to see Ana’s family again I breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed behind them and the last dish had been wiped and put away. Bob was giving me a week off before he wanted me back at work. I should have been grateful, but all I felt was frustration that I’d be sitting around playing with my cock until I could get under the hood of a car.
Now, Ana and I sit side by side on the couch, watching some shitty reality show about bogan Brits who should all be banned from fucking one another to spare the human race from having to deal with their fuck-knuckle spawn. The temptation to pull her into me is so great I curl my hands into fists and allow the bite of my nails to sting my calloused palm and chase that thought away. I can’t be thinking shit like that or I’m gonna fuck this up and wind up not having her be a part of my life, even if it’s not the part I want.
In prison, it’s not just pussy a man craves—it’s the peace of the connection touching another person brings. It grounds and centres, makes us whole where we might’ve been incomplete. Right now, I’m so fucking incomplete I feel like a man on death row.
Ana yawns, bringing my attention back to her. She lays her head back against the couch. Her feet are tucked away under her body and she looks so damn fuckable with her hair all dishevelled and her make-up smeared.
“You wanna go to bed?” I ask her, and I swear I meant that to be an innocent question. Maybe it’s the way I’m watching her, maybe it’s the two Stolis she had with dinner, or maybe it’s the fact that I want more than anything to know that keeping our distance from one another is as hard for her as it is for me, but a small frown turns down the corner of her lip and I think I see the crease form in between her brows, the way it does when she’s about to cry.
She rises and heads towards the hall. “Good night, Elijah.”
“Night,” I mutter, hating myself for constantly making her cry.
“Welcome home,” she says and then she’s gone.
Home. I’m beginning to think that word isn’t worth shit.
I sit bolt upright in bed. For a half second I forget where I am, and think the screaming across the hall is just another inmate seeking attention. Then I hear the shouting again and I’m out of bed and pushing open the door to the room opposite mine.
Ana thrashes on the bed. Her blankets are pulled tight around her, restraining her, and she’s whimpering in her sleep.
“No!” she cries. “Get off me!”
I race over to the bed and untangle her limbs, which may have been a piss-poor decision on my behalf because she lashes out and punches me square in the jaw. She’s sobbing and screaming, and I’m wondering how the hell she hasn’t woken the whole house.
I don’t bother trying to restrain her. I think that may only make things worse, so instead I sit on the edge of the bed and gently shake her shoulder while calling her name. She lunges upright with a gasp and lashes out at me again. I don’t fight her, I just sit there and let her beat on me until she comes to enough to realise that I’m not him. When it does finally dawn on her, she lets out a wounded, sobbing cry that tears me all to pieces.
“You’re okay, baby girl. You’re safe.” I fold her up in my arms and she clings tightly to me, tucking herself in against my chest. I’m buck-naked and she’s wearing only a pair of cotton knickers and a singlet top, but none of that matters. The only thing I feel right now is love and hurt and helplessness that I wasn’t there to save her that night. But I’d willingly spend all of my nights awake in bed with her body wrapped around me until she fell asleep if it meant she felt safe in my arms.
Safe with me.
Chapter Thirty Five
Ana
I woke this morning feeling lighter than I have in months. For the first time since the rape I’ve slept the whole night through, which makes me ecstatic and gives me the hope that maybe I’m slowly coming to terms with it. I’ll never be able to erase it, or wash it out like I would a stain, but I might finally be able to look in the mirror and not blame myself.
Of course, the downside to being nightmare free is that, for the first time since Elijah moved in two weeks ago, I woke up this morning alone. And I actually kinda missed him, though waking up to a naked man every morning who’s tenting the sheets with his morning wood was becoming increasingly awkward and impossible to ignore. Still, I’ll never admit it but I’ll miss the way he held me in the middle of the night, and not just because he was the only one who could chase the nightmares away.
Holly has been bugging me to make my special macadamia pancakes for weeks now and, thanks to the public holiday on Monday, I don’t have to spend my entire day slaving over a hot stove so I’ve decided to give her what she wants. She’s always been a tad bit demanding, but pregnancy seems to have pushed her over the edge and into the homicidal maniac territory. Honestly, if I didn’t know that was Coop’s baby turning her into a crazy person, I’d think it was the second coming of Satan.
After having Holly buzz around me like an over-excited kid as I pulled together ingredients and a mixing bowl and turned my skillet on to preheat, I headed down the hall to see if Elijah’s awake and ready to eat. I knock but don’t really wait for a reply before opening the door, partly because I’m not thinking clearly this early in the morning, and partly because I’m sure he’s still dead to the world. But when I walk into the room I see it’s not sleep that Elijah is immersed in, it�
��s something entirely different.
His overly large body is buck-naked and stretched out on top of the doona, and the muscles in his chest and arms are straining as he pumps his fist up and down his shaft. I know I should look away, I should walk out and quietly close the door behind me, but I can’t. Has there ever been a more magnificent sight then a man pleasuring himself? If so, then I haven’t seen it. This is not the first time I’ve witnessed Elijah touching himself, but it is the first time I shouldn’t be allowed to watch. He’s not aware he has an audience—not that I think he’d mind if he was made aware of it, but it’s the principle that counts here. I shouldn’t be watching because he’s not mine anymore and this sight, as glorious as it is, is not mine to see because I gave up that privilege when I told him we couldn’t be together.
It’s at the exact moment, when I decide to leave quietly, that he opens his eyes, rolls his head toward me and says, “You just gonna stand there, baby girl, or are you gonna join in?”
“I didn’t know you were … I am so sorry,” I blurt and grab for the doorknob behind me.
He slows his stroking and looks me dead in the eyes. “I’m not.”
I swallow hard. “I’m just going to go now. So, have fun. I mean, enjoy your … bye.”
I’m just about to slink from the room like a dog with its tail between its legs when he whispers, “Stay.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“You shouldn’t be entering my room without knocking either, but you still did and here we are.”
“I did knock. I just didn’t wait for a response … I really should go.” I mutter.
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