The minute the high of the moment fades away I see the shame creeping onto his face, his mortification as he shoves her off of his now limp dick. A flash of anger appears in his eyes, and I know these moments are going to be more important that any others. I push Ailee off him, moving her to the middle of the bed, but I still look at Rain.
“I’m not … I didn’t want to … that’s not what I wanted to happen. I just wanted to watch.” He stutters as he collapses back down onto the bed. “Sorry, Ailee, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, Rain, you did nothing wrong.” I interrupt his self-pity parade. “Tell me how you felt, Rain.” I watch as he stiffens in denial and anger simmers. “Did you feel her body shudder as we made her cum? Did your cock touch the back of her throat as you came inside your wife?”
I move towards him and he tenses in anticipation.
Lifting his face, making him look at me, my fingers in his perfect beard, I move so our faces are only a breath apart. “Did it feel good?”
I don’t give him time to answer me. I kiss him. Every bit of the desire I took out on her is mirrored in the way I make love to his mouth. When I feel him kiss me back, hard and with intent, I pull away from him.
“I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know what I was thinking or doing, I just wanted …” He looks over at her where she’s curled into a ball, spent and a little broken. “I wanted what you two had, but I wanted you too. I wanted you as much as I wanted her.”
I knew that already, he just needed to admit it to himself.
“She’s upset. We hurt her.” He sounds almost mortified.
“Yes, but you are going to crawl into bed beside her and take that feeling away.” I whisper into his ear, “I will help you win the love of your wife, but that means she’s got to fall out of love with me.” Rain blinks rapidly, confused, as I swing my legs over the end of the bed and stand up. “Go hold her and make her feel safe.”
I leave them and go back to my room. I think I may like this game a little too much.
Fourteen
Straighten
AILEE
Trent leaves the room and I curl myself tighter into a ball, pulling my knees to my chest. My limbs feel heavy with fatigue and my heart feels as if it’s been weighed down with lead as it sinks deeper into a sadness I can’t explain.
All the energy is sucked from the room when the door shuts behind Trent, not that what he brought was good, but now everything just seems empty.
He was too good to be true, I kept telling myself that these past few months, that no one is that perfect – well, he let his flaws shine tonight. I want to believe he’s just trying to keep us alive, but it didn’t feel like it.
Rain gets up. I feel the weight lift off the mattress and I can hear him moving behind me. I don’t look, I just shut my eyes and try not to cry. The unmistakable sound of the safety on his gun clicks in the silence, and I wonder if he’s about to shoot me in the back – it doesn’t matter if he does. He took the only thing I was living for, and turned it into a monster like him.
The soft sound of water running in the bathroom is stifled by my thoughts. When Rain returns I know, because I feel him enter the room, followed by a dip in the mattress on his side of the bed.
A warm wash cloth between my legs startles me and I clamp them shut. His big hand on my shoulder and a soft ‘shh’ relax me, but only slightly, and he wipes me clean before covering us with the comforter, and this time he pulls me close, touching me.
“I’m sorry, Ailee. I didn’t know that’s what he would do.”
He’s blaming Trent, but I don’t want to believe him. I try to find a reason why Trent would hurt me, when I know he loves me. Rain has five years of pent up anger, I’m sure. Yet, he’s the one trying to comfort me after they used me and took what I didn’t want to give.
He brushes hair off my shoulder and face. I know he’s looking at me. His breath is warm against my skin as he settles into a comfortable position behind me.
Pulling my knees further into my chest, clutching at the comforter to keep me covered, I am desperate to retreat. I want to run, but fear won’t allow me to move at all. I’ve been in a bed beside this man before, only I never want to remember it so I pretend it didn’t happen.
My body is depleted from the sex and I can feel where they have been. My jaw and ass are aching and I can feel the tenderness between my legs, but I am far angrier about its betrayal. My body liked what they did to me; it craved it and responded with an orgasm that I could not stop even when I wanted to.
Trent’s actions sting the worst. I understand I have made him mad, but he said he loved me. His actions weren’t loving at all, and now when I need him to hold me, keep me together and stop my world from falling to pieces, he’s left me alone without a word. Not a goodbye, not an ‘I love you’, just nothing but my worst nightmare in the bed next to me.
I have never felt so alone. Even when I left my family, and I had absolutely no one, it wasn’t this desolate. There is literally no one in my corner, and I am afraid.
I wince and hug myself, covering my naked body as much as I can when his fingertips linger on my shoulder, ghosting over my skin like a trespasser walking over my grave.
Holding back a scream that threatens to burst out of me, I remember what angry Rain looked like when I screamed five years ago, and my body shakes. I can feel the sweat on my palms where they are covering my breasts and I stop breathing.
I just freeze and wish he would disappear. In my head I try to imagine it’s not him. I want it to be Trent, kissing my skin and taking it all away, erasing this night completely, but the scratch of his beard prickling and scraping against me won’t allow me even that small mercy. My involuntary shudder makes him stop, I feel him pulling away a little, and I allow myself to breathe.
“Please don’t hate me, Ailee. Don’t be afraid of me. I am not going to hurt you.” His words tickle as he speaks against my neck. “I don’t want to hurt you, I just want you.”
With one small sentence he splits open a wound I didn’t even realize I had patched with a Band-Aid. When he sent me off to ‘live’ I waited, I waited for him to want me, and when he didn’t I started to think there was something wrong with me, when a man wouldn’t even want his wife.
His rejection broke me more than this whole arrangement ever can. That he so easily walked away left me thinking I was ugly. Maybe I am ugly – look what I’ve done to Trent. Why does he want me now? Now that I have someone else?
Five fucking years he was nothing but a shadow and a UPS delivery on our anniversary, but now he wants me. Where the fuck has he been? My fear is quickly building up to anger, with white-hot tears threatening to fall again.
“You didn’t want me before, Rain, so I don’t believe you. Just kill me and let him go. We both know that’s what is going to happen anyway.” My voice shakes and comes out like a child’s, all squeaky and high. I am not under any illusion as to what our families are like, and my untimely accidental death wouldn’t surprise anyone. “I was never what you wanted, be fucking honest, Rain. You only want me now because I want him, because I have someone to love. You had five fucking years to claim me and you didn’t.”
I try to think of one shred of evidence to show that my husband ever wanted me, in any way, but I come up blank because I have not seen him once in all that time – if he wanted me I would have known about it. No, I was nothing more than an inconvenient obligation then, and now I’m the pawn in some sick game.
“Ailee, don’t presume to know anything about me and what I want, you have no idea. I let you walk away. I set you free, because I fucking cared so much. Stealing your childhood would have been wrong, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t want to, or that I didn’t want you. It was my way of protecting you from me, from what happened that night. You weren’t ready to be my wife. But don’t you dare say I didn’t want you – if I didn’t want you, you’d be dead.”
His words turn my blood cold as it pumps faster through
my veins. The thundering noise of my pulse drowns out the sound of his voice. Rolling away from him further towards the end of the bed, I try to get away but his muscled arm curls over me and pulls me back.
Something in that admission, in his confession, has me fighting with myself. A mental war wages as I try to remind myself of the grown man that took me to bed on my wedding night. Reconciling him, with the man who now lies beside me spouting ridiculous proclamations of caring and protection. Lies all lies.
“I didn’t know what Trent would do, I lost control and let him push me. It won’t happen again.”
When he says that it won’t happen again my heart shrinks in my chest with an unexplainable disappointment. What is wrong with me? Do I want it to happen again?
I cannot trust my own mind to make sound decisions while Rainieri has me trapped in his arm and his home. I peel his arm away from me with force, and sit up.
“No, it won’t happen again. I’d like to go and speak to him now, please.” My stomach tightens and my limbs are heavy. “Please, Rain.”
I look at him now, his body half covered with the bed sheet and his torso resting up against the headboard. He strokes his beard, his gaze on me as he thinks about my request, considering it like he’s the boss of me.
Fuck him.
Getting up, I take one more look at him, and the knot in my belly pulls tighter like a sailor tied it, before I turn and start walking towards the door.
“Ailee,” he says as my hand turns the brass handle. I turn to look at him; he is shifting his body to lie down on the bed. “Goodnight, I will see you in the morning for church.”
His shoulders are slumped, and a sad, bitter smile curls beneath the thick beard. Although he closes his eyes I can sense his disappointment to my reaction. I’m not sure what he expected, but the man I love is in the next room and all I want is to go to him. I need him, I need Trent to make this okay.
“Night, Rain,” is all I manage as I slip away into the dimly lit hallway.
My bare feet are cold as I move as swiftly as I can to the place that calls to my heart, Trent’s room. I can see a sliver of light shining beneath the closed door and I know he’s still awake.
I swallow hard, for this conversation isn’t going to be easy, he’s angry at me. I lied to him, put his life in danger and broke his heart – he’s not going to want to talk to me.
* * *
Those dark eyes meet mine when I push the door open. I knocked softly but he didn’t answer, so I go in uninvited.
His cheeks are wet when I threw myself at him and pepper kisses on his face, each one an apology that I can’t even begin to put into words. He holds me tight on his lap, and lets me cry and kiss him. We weep together like that for a while before either of us says a word.
“I can’t do this, Ailee. I am so angry at you. I want to hurt you. So you can feel just a small piece of what I am feeling. The fucking agony. I trusted you, I fell in love with you and the whole time you were lying. You could have told me, so many times you could have said something, but you didn’t, you just lied.” He hisses through gritted teeth, his deep voice slithering out with venom and viscous intent.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I love you and I couldn’t face losing you. You aren’t the only one who fell in love. You know what, Trent, I want to hurt me for what I’ve done. I let you do that to me tonight. I allowed you to humiliate me and force me into the lap of my fucking biggest fear and worst nightmare. Because I deserved it, so hurt me if you have to, but don’t stop loving me. I can take the punishment if you love me.”
I plead my case, desperate for him to know that all I wanted was him. Picking me up and placing me down on the floor, my shaky legs barely holding me up, Trent bends to kiss me.
My skin flushes hot as he touches me. I lift my chin and allow his tongue deeper into my mouth. Our souls touch when we are connected this way. Everything between us falls away, becoming insignificant in comparison to the passion in our touches. As I am lost in the moment, falling down the rabbit hole of desire, he pushes me away abruptly.
“Go back to your husband, Ailee.” Cruel words drive a knife into my already fragile heart as he steps back and sits on the end of the big bed.
“I don’t want to, and he said he would see me in the morning, so I’m sure he won’t come drag me away.” I can’t stop myself, my hackles are up and I want to fight. This is all crazy and out of control, and I want it to stop. “Please don’t do this, Trent. Don’t push me away. I don’t want Rainieri. I never wanted him.” The words feel like a lie even though I believe them. “Our families are different from others. I guess he told you about who we are. It’s normal for arranged marriages to happen. It was a fucking business transaction, one father with no son and another with only one. I was the currency in the biggest arms deal ever. Rain is nothing to me but a signature on a piece of paper. I was fifteen, Trent. He is thirteen years older than me. I was afraid of him, I’m still terrified of him.” Just talking about it has me shaking, my knees knock and I ball my hands to hide my shaking fingers. “Don’t push me away, I love you. We can find a way around this. We can run away.” I fall on my knees at his feet, ready to beg him.
“He’s not going to just let us run away, he’s obsessed. He has been watching you, taking photos of you – of us, together. Intimate pictures. The man is insane and jealous, you should be afraid of him.”
He lifts my face so that I can look up at him. The smile on his face stops my heart. I have never seen the evil glint that shines in his eyes before.
I fall back, so that there is more space between us, and when he opens his mouth I want to scramble, crawl to the door and run away, but I’m frozen in terror as I look into the eyes of a brand new monster.
“But, you should be more afraid of me, because Ailee,” and he leans over, closing my safety gap to grip my throat in his hand, “I am going to destroy you both, just like you used your lies to destroy my heart. Now get the fuck out.”
Fifteen
Brush
RAINIERI
It doesn’t take as long as I thought for me to fall asleep. Somehow I know that this will be a fight, for she has everything she wants in him and nothing of that in me. But I have feeling that when she goes to him she isn’t going to find the man she thought she had.
Even I am slightly concerned. I have that feeling, like when you have seen something and want it so badly for so long, and when you finally get it you can’t understand why you wanted it at all. They are nothing like they seemed when I watched them. Nothing at all.
I can’t get my mind, body and conscience, on the same page, so I just close the book and go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day – a long day.
* * *
The alarm wakes me earlier than I usually rise on a Sunday, but there are three of us to get ready today. If this madness is going to work then we are now a unit, and that means they go where I go – including church and Sunday lunch.
Opening my bedroom door with the intent of banging on the door to wake them up, I surprisingly find a shivering Ailee curled up asleep in the passage between the two rooms. Her skin is ashen and I can see the goosebumps, but it’s not lost on me that she would rather freeze on the floor than go to either one of us.
Trent’s last words to me are a reminder of what he is doing.
“I will help you win the love of your wife, but that means she’s got to fall out of love with me.” So I bend and pick her up, and she curls into me, I presume for warmth, without opening her eyes.
When I woke I wanted to be angry and mad, and go wake them with threats, but the smell of her melts the bitterness away as I carry her back to my bed. Putting her down and covering her up so she’s warm, I stand over her and just look at her.
She’s young and beautiful, and even in this messy, sad state, she is perfection to me. If only she saw me the same way, but one night of poor judgement and acting in anger, made sure that she never will.
L
eaving her I go and take a hot shower. She can sleep a little, it’s early enough that we will still be on time. Hot water, thick steam and the music from the sound system I turn on when I come in here, make my mistakes disappear for a few moments.
She was right about one of us ending up dead, but it won’t be her. Trent, however, is a temporary part of this arrangement. I need him and so does she; for now at least. I have the story sorted out in my head for the family. He is her best friend and will be helping her settle in for awhile, and if they ask I will say that he prefers men.
It’s not a complete lie. His kiss still lingers on my lips like her lips still linger on my cock, the ghosts of the depraved things that exist in my mind.
I dress for church, exchanging jeans for smart trousers, jacket and tie, and a sport’s jacket in place of my comfortable leather one. When my hair is combed and I look as respectable as a mobster can, I pass her sleeping body and wake up my other house guest.
Thudding my fist on his bedroom door, I call loudly. “Get up, we have church in an hour and a half, and God knows how long it takes to get your pretty boy self ready.” My feelings about Trent make me act irrationally, I lash out when I don’t have reason to.
“I don’t go to church. I don’t even believe in God.” He calls back in his thickly deep voice, which sounds rougher with fatigue.
“Well, you do now. Get up, this is not a request or a negotiation, Trent, this is how things work now.”
I hear him moan and mutter, and when I know he is awake I to go make some coffee and breakfast. I have no idea what vegans eat for breakfast because I like eggs and bacon, so he can make his own when he rises and shines.
It isn’t what I set out to do. I had no intention of it when I walked into the kitchen, but after eating my food and drinking my second cup of coffee, I dish up for Ailee, remembering that Sunday morning she always goes to get breakfast at the diner. I put it on the only tray I can find and carry it to my room, where she is still asleep.
Cut & Blow: Book 1 Page 13