by Linnea May
It felt just as right as my laughter does right now.
“Are you making fun of me?” I ask, finding myself able to rest comfortably in a place that should be nothing but terrifying. I’m still tied, still exposed in front of him, still feeling the sting of clamps around my nipples and the throbbing wetness between my legs. It’s there, unaffected by the twists and turns my emotional state takes.
His handsome face is so close to mine that I can feel his hot breath on my skin, and when I feel his hand gracing along the inside of my upper thigh, I sigh in relief instead of trying to fight an unwanted assault. This time, it’s desired.
Only this time.
“I would never ridicule my Petal,” he whispers, leaning in while his hands journey closer to my core. “But I will admit: Your smile, your laughter—it’s just as intoxicating as those divine tears of yours.”
A gasp flees me, blending in with our kiss when his lips meet mine with carnal need. The urge behind his kiss is less staggering than the last time, allowing for me to respond instead of simply letting him take from me while I lie here overwhelmed and stiffened with fear. There’s more room for passion, for a desire that’s shared between us.
I blame him for dazing me like this. How could I be myself and be strong in my convictions if he robs me of my sanity like that? Of course I’m not myself. I’m aching with unfulfilled craving—and he is finally answering my call for release.
A moan underlines our passionate kiss when his fingers find my center, gently parting my lips to hopefully finish what he started an eternity ago. My entire body responds to his first brush across my clit. My back arches and I lift my head off the mattress, hungry for more of his exquisite kisses. I feel elated, reveling in the hot kindling that incites my core, my limbs, my mind, my heart. I willingly let him take over, granting him access to everything that I am, because I can already feel the first breezes of my long-awaited rapture.
He joins my moans while our tongues intertwine with a wild demand for more. It makes everything so much better. This kiss, it fuels the want in me, making it ravenous and impossible to endure much longer.
“I-I—”
My voice is hoarse and suffocated by our voracious kiss, making it impossible to speak. But he doesn’t need to hear the words. He knows. He can feel it in the way my muscles clench around his fingers when he lets them glide inside my channel, spreading me while he continues to massage my swollen nub. He can feel the tractions when unbridled lust sends tremors through my entire body, telling of the climax I’ve been denied for way too long. Crest after crest, I’m rocking through the motions, holding on to nothing but myself, and him. Always him.
Through it all, we never stop kissing, and it pains me to realize that, despite the beauty of it all, there’s a dark cloud tagging along, only waiting for my rapture to end so it can unleash its dark terrors on me. I see it emerging when I’m still in the midst of bliss, trying to hold on to the magic of the moment while I feel it slipping through my fingers, as everything that’s measured in time does.
I can’t stop the tears when they force their way down my face. I can’t stop the shaking as my lust-filled tremors are replaced by forces beyond my control, churning my body in pained upheaval as ecstasy is replaced with fear and sorrow.
He breaks our kiss, worry lacing the dark hazel in his eyes for the very first time he’s looked at me.
As far as I know.
He’s right. I can’t use the word “never,” because I lack the knowledge about my past that would have to be attached to it. I can’t refer to anything before the moment I woke up in a cold and gray cell. A cell he put me in, with my mind blank as an empty canvas, and my body exposed to his every whim and desire.
And when I was visited by a first taste of memory, a vision that could possibly place him and give some—albeit frightening—meaning to all of this, he denied it with such persuasive power that I found myself at the very beginning once again.
I close my eyes, barely noticing his fiddling around with my wrists and ankles as he frees me of my ties. I yelp when he loosens the clamps around my sore nipples, each release coming with a fresh jolt of fiery pain that doesn’t last for more than a second. My heart is still racing and my core still throbbing with a slight aftertaste of the bliss I was allowed to experience before the harsh reality of my situation comes crashing down on me yet again, with a force so violent that I have nothing to hold against it.
I don’t know what to think of the fact that he picks me up in his arms, holding me in a tight embrace against his chest while I start sobbing uncontrollably.
It’s too much. All of it. How am I supposed to bear this deceiving back and forth?
“Why would you do this?” I bring forth, my trembling voice muffled as I’m pressed against his dark shirt. “Why would you make me feel like this but refuse to give me any answers?”
He squeezes me in his strong embrace. But once again, he remains silent.
Chapter 31
J
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t know where else to go.”
She’s standing in my doorway, wearing a blush pink sweater and black skinny jeans, topped with brightly colored ballerina shoes, her dainty little hands folded in front of her. Her long ash-blonde hair is falling down her shoulders in loose waves, and her face is only kissed by a hint of makeup, leaving room for her natural beauty to shine. Perfectly innocent, just how she’s always looked.
“No reason to apologize. Come in.”
She called me on the same evening I visited her father’s flower shop, making a surprised gasp when I picked up.
“Oh my God, you still have this number,” she breathed, sounding nervous. I shared her surprise, though it was only because I had no way of knowing she was the one calling me. Unlike me, she’s using a new phone number.
“I’m sorry we got interrupted today,” she said. “And I was wondering whether I could... speak to you alone.”
I sat there, dumbfounded for longer than I care to admit, and incapable of believing what was happening.
After all those years. She’s back after all those years. And she wants to talk to me.
Alone.
It’s been three days since then, but still I feel like I had no time to prepare for this. She didn’t tell me what this was about, but the fact that she asked to see me in my office gives some room for assumptions.
“Do you want something to drink?” I ask as I lead her inside, gesturing for her to sit down at one of the chairs reserved for clients, leaving my massive desk between us once I take a seat myself.
She looks up at me, a shy smirk traveling across her face. “You don’t have any gin, do you?”
I chuckle. She remembers. It was a quick instance, an evening both of us never mentioned again. Gin was the last drink we ever shared, a lifetime ago. She was a teenager still, unruly in her own way, reaching for every little straw of independence and freedom that she could grasp.
And I was there to help her. Like I always was.
“That depends,” I tell her, as I walk over to a cabinet that harbors every drink one could think of, including gin. “What kind of visit is this? Business or private?”
She takes a deep breath, fiddling with the hem of her blush-colored sweater. “I’m not sure, actually. Maybe a bit of both.”
I arch my eyebrows in surprise. That I didn’t expect. Does she really want my services?
“Fine, a bit of gin it is then,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant when in reality, I’m dizzy with the prospect. What is it that she could possibly want from me? And why now?
I pour both of us a swig of gin on ice, handing her the glass before I take my seat opposite to her. She casts me a grateful smile, holding the glass up to her lips with both hands as she closes her eyes to take a first sip. I take a first taste myself, watching her over the rim of my glass. She looks nervous, her shoulders tense and up to her ears and her fingers trembling as they close around the glass. It’s striking that she em
pties half the glass in one swig, obviously seeking courage at the bottom of her drink.
“What brings you here?” I ask, trying to help her out.
She clears her throat, and her eyes follow longingly as she lowers the glass into her lap in an attempt to restrain herself. Good girl.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m back,” she begins, throwing me a look that screams of insecurity. It bothers me to see her like this, as if she owes me anything, an explanation even. Well, maybe she does.
I raise an eyebrow, swaying my head from one side to the other.
“Not sure if it’s any of my business, but yes, I do wonder,” I say eventually. “The last time I saw you, you told me you’d never end up here in this town, at your father’s shop. That’s why you left in the first place, and why we picked a college on the West Coast for you.”
“It was a good school,” she adds.
“It was,” I agree. “And far away.”
She nods, taking another sip of gin.
“I always thought you’d pursue graduate studies,” I continue. “Get your master’s, maybe even a PhD. I never thought you’d come back here right after graduating.”
She bites her lower lip, clearing her throat again and shifting on her seat in apparent discomfort. Whatever she’s about to tell me does not come easy to her. And just a moment later, I realize why.
“I never graduated,” she finally admits, looking at me with wide eyes and guilt written all over her pretty face. “I stopped going to school more than a year ago.”
I frown at her. This, I didn’t expect.
“What happened?”
Her lips start trembling and she manages to push down the first emerging tears with another swig of gin. Her glass is empty now, but I refrain from offering her a refill just now. I need to hear more first.
“I... It’s complicated,” she stutters, looking at me through watery eyes. “Please, promise me you won’t get mad.”
Don’t give me a reason to get mad, is what I’d like to tell her, but I keep my thoughts to myself.
What the hell is going on here? Where is she heading with this? Why would I get mad at her? I may have been her biggest supporter back then, the driving force for her leaving town and going to school at the other end of the country, but it’s not like I paid for her studies or she’s in my debt in any way. So far, her revelation worries me more than it angers me.
But I understand her concern when she continues to tell me.
“I fell in love,” she says, biting her lip as she casts me a cautious look. When I give no indication of a response, she clears her throat again before she continues. “Or I thought I did. It was a little more than two years ago. One of the rare occasions when I was out with friends. We met at a bar. He was a navy guy. His name was Kade. It was all very whirlwind romantic, so fast, so intense, so... stupid.”
She chokes, continuing to fight back tears while I sit there, stiff and tense, my fingers clawing into the armrest of my chair. Of course she fell in love. She has every right to do so. It’s not her fault my chest feels as if someone has ripped it open, tearing my heart out and squeezing it in front of my eyes while spewing hateful insults at me.
“And?” I ask, unable to hide the disdain in my voice. “What happened? Did you stop school because of him?”
She nods, sending another jolt of anguish through my chest.
“Kind of...” she whispers, taking a deep breath before she’s able to finish her tale. “He lived on base, out of town. We couldn’t see each other as much as we wanted to, and I was very unhappy with school at the time. My classes, my professors, even the friends I made—nothing was making me happy. Except him. I was so entranced, so addicted. He was so good to me, too good…”
She casts me a shy look, her lashes fluttering nervously.
Too good, she said. No man is too good for a girl like her, but I know what she means by saying it.
“And?” I ask, sick of hearing her praise of another man.
She sighs. “I was so in love, so sure of everything. I thought I was going to marry him, even after just a few months. So I told my father about him…” She pauses, looking up at me as she raises her glass. “Could I have a refill?”
I shake my head. “Finish your story first.”
She lets out a little huff, smiling in a way that makes me weak in the knees. It’s a smile full of affection, warmth and familiarity. A smile that’s reserved for the people closest to you.
“You’re so strict,” she says. “I always liked that about you. Your principles.”
We exchange a quiet look, burdened with secrets and a history that’s so much longer and richer than she will ever know.
She’s the one to break eye contact, averting her gaze with a little cough, as if to chase the ghosts that surround us away.
“I told my father about everything. About quitting school, about Kade, and…,” she goes on, adding another pause before she manages to finish. “Kade was about to be deployed overseas, and we wanted to get married before that. I had to tell my father. It felt like the proper thing to do.”
Proper. Nothing about this is proper.
I didn’t know I could feel the way I do right now. While everything she has told me so far has unleashed a series of painful bites, this last stroke almost blinds me with its intensity.
But I can’t let her see it. I can’t let her see the anguish her story puts me through.
“I don’t see a ring on your finger,” I say, ignoring the rush of guilt that comes with my remark and the harsh tone with which it’s delivered. “So I’m guessing the wedding never happened?”
She lets out a scornful huff. “Of course not. As expected, my father totally flipped when I told him that I wanted to marry a guy I’d only known for a few months. ‘You’re too young,’ he said, ‘You’re throwing your life away,’ ‘He’s never going to be loyal to you,’ ‘It will never last,’ ‘You’re acting like a goddamn fool.’ I had to listen to a spate of all those things and more. He called me a childish idiot, and he threatened to fly over there and get me, to bring me back where I belonged.”
Her voice is trembling as tears start streaming down her cheeks. It’s the same kind of pain I’ve seen on her so many times before. The same dilemma, the same blend of unfulfilled wishes and a restraint put on her that shouldn’t be there.
“He said he couldn’t let that happen,” she finally utters, looking up at me through watery eyes. “I tried to go behind his back and marry Kade anyway. But he found me. He flew all the way over to California to get me. He showed up at our door, yelling, threatening Kade and literally tearing me away from him. Of course, Kade was shocked and disgusted. The look on his face… I will never forget it. He looked so scared, so utterly disappointed, as if there was something rotten about me. He broke up with me right then and there, saying he wanted nothing to do with such craziness, with a father-in-law who threatens his life upon seeing him for the very first time.”
A pitiful wail escapes her. “I can’t even blame him, because I get it. Who would want to do that to themselves?”
Fuck. I clench my fists, wishing for nothing more than to smash this boy’s head in. What a fucking coward. I know about the power Robert holds over his daughter, his only child, his precious treasure. I know how fucking possessive and intimidating he gets when it comes to her.
But what kind of man would refuse to stand up against him if he claims to be in love with her?
Yes, what kind of man…
She snivels, wiping away the fresh tears from her face and taking a deep breath as she straightens her back. Her demeanor changes, the sadness on her face getting replaced by determination. My father dragged me home. I let it happen. I thought it was the only choice left, because at least here I’d have... something, you know. A place to return to.”
Her eyelashes flicker nervously when she throws me a tentative look. “I felt like the dumbest person on Earth. I should never have told him.”
&
nbsp; She chuckles, confusing me with that unexpected interlude before she continues.
“Then again, I probably shouldn’t have been so stupid to begin with. Stop school to be with a boy I barely knew. What did I expect?”
“You were in love,” I add for consideration. “You’d be surprised how often I’ve heard stories full of regret and failure—and they all started with love.”
Her expression freezes when she looks at me, pressing her lips together with such force that they’re nothing but thin lines, almost as bright as the color of her cheeks.
“What does that feel like?” she asks in a low voice that’s laced with an ominous undertone. “To know all these sad stories, to relieve others of those memories and carry them with you. It must be such a burden.”
I reciprocate her probing look with a stern gaze. She wants something from me. She’s not just here to talk to an old friend—if that’s even what she sees in me. She’s here with a request for help. Help that I’m not sure I can give her.
Either way, she will have to give voice to her appeal, as much as it may scare her.
“What brings you here today?” I ask, relishing the spooked flicker in her green eyes.
Her shoulders tense when I place my elbows on the table, leaning forward while I pierce her with an intense gaze. My pulse is speeding with prospect, fueled by the hot imprint of memories that have haunted me for years.
She’s right, carrying all those things with me is a burden, a burden that comes with the job. However, there’s one thing she doesn’t know.
The darkest secret I harbor is hers.
Chapter 32
Petal
Time is no longer a mystery to me. While I thought the white rose alone would turn out to be a somewhat reliable help as time will mark its wilting petals, I managed to find something better than that.
I’ve spent a lot of time at the boarded-up windows, searching for cracks or tiny vents that could tell me anything about the time of day—or even my location.
And I found something.