Not Letting Go

by R B Hilliard

  His mouth thinned and his eyes hardened. “He bugged my house.”

  “What?” I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly.

  His eyes blazed with indignation. “The motherfucker bugged my house. That’s the only thing that makes sense. If you know me at all, you know I don’t talk. Not to Dooley, not to Zippo, not to anyone…except for you. I talked to you. My life is mine and no one else’s. I don’t easily share it. Did he tell you anything else?”

  The thought of Dooley listening to Gage and I having sex made me want to hurl. “He said that you left me that first night because you were worried that he was going to be angry that we’d slept together. He said that you went to his house to confess and to make sure that he wasn’t angry.” I waited for Gage’s reaction.

  “Bullshit!” he shouted. I ducked again when parts of the second chair flew above my head. Guess Dooley made that up too.

  When Gage settled back down, he said, “You said you didn’t believe him. So what changed your mind? Obviously something did.”

  I swallowed deeply. Could this suck any worse? Nope. “You have to understand where my head was at. He had beaten and kidnapped me. Every time I thought he was finished, he would tell me something else about us that he shouldn’t have known.”

  “What did he do, Piper?”

  I shrugged apologetically. “He convinced me.”

  “And how exactly did he do that?” His whisper soft voice did not fool me for a second. The man was a hair away from completely losing his shit.

  “After lunch one day, he led me into his office, handed me my phone and told me to call you. I accused him of setting a trap and he said that it didn’t matter what phone I used. He told me to use any phone I wanted. All I had to do to find out the truth was to ask you.” I gave him a pleading look. “I was afraid that, if it was a setup, you would be mad if you saw that I was calling from either Dooley or Lester’s phones and I knew Dooley would never allow me to explain. I was so stupid for going over there in the first place. Having to explain-”

  He cut me off. “Had the tables been turned, I would have done the same thing. You have nothing to be ashamed of, do you get me? Not one fucking thing.” I got him, but it didn’t change what happened in the end. It didn’t change the fact that we were not together anymore. “Please continue,” he encouraged.

  “Selina answered your phone.” He stared at me for a minute and then recognition hit. I watched his eyes close and his head return to his hands. “I could hear you laughing in the background. She moaned about what a wicked tongue you had and about how she wanted more. Dammit, Gage, what was I supposed to think? Not only was she there, like Dooley said, but she was answering your phone, moaning and talking about your body parts. How was I supposed to interpret that?”

  His head shot up. “Did you think to ask me? Did you call or find me when you got away from him? For fuck’s sake, Piper!” He pushed from the wall and paced around the room. He reminded me of a caged tiger. “I remember when she answered my phone and you know what? We were eating ice cream! Could you have bothered to ask me about it? No! You took off without a word and never looked back! Fuck!” he shouted, “I got out! I got out from under him and came for you and you wouldn’t even give me the time of day!”

  I shot off the bed and got up in his face. “Put yourself in my shoes for a second, Gage! I thought you betrayed me! Dooley knew too much about us! I thought he was mad because he wanted to rape me and failed! I thought he was mad about Lester and his stolen property! I thought he hired you to pretend to love me and sent you there to finish the fucking job!”

  His eyes darkened. “He tried to rape you?”

  “No! But only because I got away in time!” I shouted.

  He exhaled loudly as he leaned back against the wall. “Finish it. We need to figure out how to finally put this to rest and move on.”

  His words seared through me like a red hot poker. I don’t know how but I managed to do just that. I told him about Dooley’s threat of rape, my escape, Lester showing up in Charlotte and how everyone else had become involved.

  “I need to see those drives.”

  “Fine but Garrett wants them afterward.”

  “That depends.”

  “On?”

  “On what Dooley knows. Look, everything I did for him was legal, as far as I know. That was the deal I made from the beginning. However, I assume that he most likely blurred some lines, especially after finding out all of this.”

  “When I spoke with Reyn she said that Dooley and Zeke knew things about you. If they didn’t, they had no problem making them up.”

  He stared at me for a minute. “What makes you think that Reyn is in trouble and not setting you up?”

  “After I got away from Dooley, I felt beaten down, shamed and for a while I was hollow. I may have been healed on the outside, but on the inside I was all kinds of messed up. I recognized that in Reyn’s voice. I heard her pain and shame. I’m not wrong, Gage. She’s hurting and I can’t just leave her there.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Well, if we’re going to go get her, we only have a few hours to sleep.” My shoulders slumped with relief. Thank goodness he believed me. “I’m going to say one thing and then we need to shut this down. You should have told me what Dooley was doing. I would have moved heaven and earth to protect you. You should have believed in me…in us… in our love. I would never, unless I saw it with my own two eyes, believe that you would cheat on me. Even then, I would still have questioned you. The fact that you didn’t speaks volumes. You’ll never know how sorry I am that he hurt you. I would have helped you get through it had you let me. But you didn’t.” He pushed off the wall and headed for the door. My heart stopped. He’s leaving! As his hand hit the doorknob, he turned and looked over his shoulder to me. “I hope that someday you find someone special to share your life with, Piper. If and when that happens, do yourself a favor and believe in it.”

  In the blink of an eye he was gone and I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this time it was for good. The dam of pain that had been building up over the past seven months splintered. All of the hurt and shame came pouring out and I wanted to die. I wanted to shrivel up and disappear. He was right. I should have asked. I should have tracked him to the ends of the earth and demanded the truth. I should have believed in our love. Dooley Shane had taken my love for Gage and tainted it…and I let him. I shot up off of the bed and, like a woman possessed, shrieked out my pain and anger as I systematically destroyed everything in the motel room that I could get my hands on. When I was done, I lay on the bed and cried my heart out. Dillon’s strong arms appeared out of nowhere. Even if his arms weren’t the ones I wanted to hold me, it helped.

  “Shhhhh, Piper. It’s okay. You and Gage are both hurting right now,” he crooned into my ear.

  “I f-f-f-fucked u-u-up,” I wailed.

  “You both did. He knows it. Just give it a little time.”

  “I’m o-o-out of time.”

  “As long as you are both breathing, you still have time. Trust me.”

  For some reason this made me cry harder. Dillon held me while I cried myself empty and, right as I was drifting to sleep, I asked, “Will it ever stop hurting?”

  “No, but the pain will eventually dull. One day you’ll wake up and know that it is time to move on. That doesn’t mean that it’s completely gone or that you have forgotten, it just means it’s time to live again.”

  “I don’t want to live without him,” I whispered.

  “I know, sweetheart. Believe me, I know.”

  “I’m so, so, sorry D.”

  “I know you are, baby.”

  “Love you, Dillon. You’re such a good friend.”

  His chuckle reverberated through my back. “Love you too, Pi,” he whispered and kissed the back of my head. “Now go to sleep. I promise I’ll be right here when you wake.”

  Two seconds later, I was out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dillon’s voice wo
ke me from a dead sleep.

  “What time is it?” I groggily asked. My eyes stung. They felt as if someone had thrown sand in them and my throat burned.

  “Early,” he mumbled.

  Movement at the foot of the bed caught my attention and I glanced up to see what it was. There, in all his masculine glory, stood Gage. By his change of clothes and wet hair, I knew that he had been up for some time. He did not look happy. In fact, he looked downright pissed. I watched his eyes scan over the room before settling back on me. Last night’s conversation washed over me and I buried my head in Dillon’s side, as if that would shield me from the pain. Not. “I need coffee and a shower,” I croaked.

  “I thought that might be the case,” Gage replied. He held up a large Starbuck’s Vanilla Latte.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled and gave him a half-smile.

  He smiled back, but it failed to reach his eyes. I was glad to see that I wasn’t the only one feeling raw this morning.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and get showered? Then we need to get going. I have a custom bike to build so I have to be back in Charlotte by tomorrow afternoon at the latest,” he informed me.

  “Wait a second. When did we decide to take Piper with us?” Dillon asked.

  “I decided last night. Get a move on, Piper,” Gage said. Not wanting to get in the middle of it, I grabbed my bag and darted for the bathroom.

  Thirty minutes later, I was freshly showered and changed. In lieu of blow drying my hair, I parted it down the middle and made two long braids. When I exited the bathroom, Dillon and Gage were no longer there and the mess from my fit the night before had miraculously been cleaned up. I quickly packed up my things and texted Reyn to tell her we were headed her way before trying to find everyone. Something told me that I was seconds away from getting sent back to Charlotte. There was a knock at the door the moment I finished packing.

  “It’s open!”

  Zippo’s head popped in. “You ready?”

  “Just about.”

  “Dillon took your keys and is driving the two of you. We’ve got about five and a half hours to go, so let’s get a move on.”

  Of course I would be riding with Dillon. Gage could barely look at me, much less stand to ride in a car with me. He hates me.

  Zip and Dillon had to repack my car before they loaded our bags. I didn’t miss the fact that Gage’s eyes were locked on me the entire time this was happening. I also didn’t miss that every time Dillon came near me, Gage’s entire body tensed up. Nope, I didn’t miss any of it. I just didn’t know what to do with it.

  The first half hour of our drive neither Dillon nor I said a word. Finally, not being able to stand the silence any longer, I said the two words that had been on the tip of my tongue since I woke up this morning. “I’m sorry.”

  He glanced at me and then back at the road “For?”

  I opened my mouth to answer but his phone rang. He picked it up, looked at the screen and said, “I need to take this. Hold that thought.” Then he answered with, “Bro! How the hell are you?”

  When he started talking about the Middle East and deployment, I knew he was going to be on for a while. Looking out the window, I let my mind wander back to the night before and the pain I had inflicted. Gage’s final words about finding love one day and believing in it took me back to a conversation we had when we were together. We had been seeing each other for about two months and were in the throes of discovering each other’s secrets. Every night was a sexual revelation. Just the memories of what that man did to my body made me shiver. Dillon, being the nice guy that he was, thought I was cold and turned down the air. I wanted to laugh. If anything, I needed it on full blast.

  I gazed out the window and let my mind drift back… It was the night I had almost been fired from The Oasis. Gage and I had spent every night together, but I was feeling off that night. I called him before leaving work to tell him that I was in a horrible mood and was going back to my place. He asked me to stop by anyway before heading home.

  “Gage?” I yelled from the entry hall.

  “In the bedroom!”

  “I need sleep, Cowboy! Not sex!” His lack of response lured me right to where he wanted me. I opened his bedroom door and stopped short. Ambient light filled the room. On every solid surface in his bedroom sat a lit candle. Shadows danced along the walls and flitted across the ceiling. My hand drifted to my open mouth and I stood there frozen in awe.

  My sexy man sat on a makeshift bed in front of his fireplace, which was also filled with lit candles. He had on a pair of black boxer briefs and nothing else. His blue eyes met mine from across the room. The man was simply mouthwatering. He held out his hand.

  “Come here Princess and let me take care of you.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I whispered back.

  “That it is,” he said, his gaze burning through me. “Now, bring that gorgeous body over here and let me take care of it. How about we start with a massage?”

  He stripped me down and rubbed me all over. Never, in all my life had I experienced such reverence. Gage Blackwell treated me like a princess and I repaid him with nothing but hurt.

  “Have you ever been in love?” I asked as I lay on my stomach with not a stitch of clothing on. The man of my dreams was straddling my thighs and massaging oils that smelled like honey and ginger into my lower back. Could life get any better? No. At least not until his big, strong hands starting moving down my back.

  He stilled for a second and then started back up. “I was in love once. It was a long time ago.”

  “What happened?” I asked and let out a groan of pleasure as he massaged up the middle of my back. I wanted him to head back the other direction.

  “I was at a bar with some friends one night and ran into her brother. We pulled him into our group and asked him to have a drink with us. I had to be up early the next morning so I had to take off early. On my way out the door I ran into my cousin, Shelly. I hadn’t seen her in forever. We played catch up for a few minutes and then I left.”

  “And?”

  “Her brother went home and told her that he saw me out…and that I was kissing all over another woman.”

  “No!”

  “Yep. She texted me the next day and broke it off. I went to her house but she wouldn’t let me in. She wouldn’t let me explain. She learned the truth two months later and wanted me back. By then the damage was done and it was too late. She never bothered to ask me what happened. She just assumed the worst. If she had truly loved me, she would have confronted me and heard me out, but she didn’t. She ditched our whole relationship over hearsay and did it in a text. I learned a very valuable lesson the hard way and it’s one I will never repeat.”

  “Sorry, Cowboy. That really sucks.”

  His lips skimmed across my shoulder and up my neck to my ear. “It was a long time ago, Princess,” he murmured. Restlessly, I shifted my hips and could feel every inch of his hardness pressed against me. I bit back a moan. His tongue licked across the shell of my ear and I let out a needy whimper. “I have something much better right here, right now, but she said she didn’t want sex tonight,” he taunted.

  “She lied,” I breathily replied.

  His tongue swept down my neck and back up to my ear. It left a trail of fire wherever it touched. “Hmmmm, is she sure? I wouldn’t want her to do anything she didn’t want to do.”

  My body hummed with pleasure. I was wet…so very wet. “She’s positive,” I huskily replied.

  He shifted his straddle from my thighs to the backs of my knees, ran his hands gently over my ass and mumbled, “Looks like my girl needs me tonight.”

  “Always,” I rasped.

  I felt his chest against my ass. At the same time his tongue stroked up my spine and his fingers swept through my hot, wet center.

  “More,” I gasped and tilted my hips up like a total wanton.” I could hear his heavy breath behind me and the beginning of a climax crawled up my spine
.

  He spoke softly against the shell of my ear. “Tell me what you need.”

  “You. I need you.”

  “Are you sure?” he whispered. I ground back into him.

  “I need you,” I pleaded.

  In a flash, he yanked down his briefs, spread my legs and plunged inside me.

  I shouted out his name as waves of pleasure pulsed through my body.

  He took me hard and fast, as if he couldn’t get enough of me, and I loved every second of it.

  “Earth to Piper? You asleep over there?” Dillon asked.

  “I’m here.”

  “Sorry that took so long. Talk to me.”

  “My big brothers taught me a lot about life,” I told him. “They molded me into the woman I am today. I’m not weak and insecure. I’m not vain and pretentious. I’m not jealous and petty. I’m steadfast and sturdy. I’m honest and caring. I am the girl who will always stand by her man. Right?” His eyes darted to mine and then back to the road. “Wrong,” I answered for him. “When Ellie needed me the most, I wasn’t there. I was stuck in Virginia. Instead of talking to Gage, I ran to North Carolina.”

  “Both of those were not your fault, Piper.”

  “Really? Max vanished into thin air, Dillon. I could have gone home more, supported her more, listened more. My head was so far up my ass that I’m surprised I didn’t suffocate on my own shit!”

  “Don’t do this, babe.”

  “Do what? Tell the truth? Let it all hang out? That man loved me, Dillon. He loved everything about me and I walked out on him without hearing his side of the story. No, it’s not the same as with Ellie but in a way it is. There have been two people in my life that have loved me unconditionally and I have let both of them down. What does that say about me?”

  “Piper, I need you to shut up and listen. Your parents forced you to go away to school. Ellie knows that. Physically, there was no way you could have been there for her. According to Ellie, you, Joss and Kurt were her rocks.”