Devoured

by Callie Wild

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Heath

  “Bella?” Heath asked for what felt like the hundredth time, though he knew it had only been about a minute since she’d dashed for the bathroom and slammed the door.

  “Leave me alone,” her muffled voice called from inside.

  “Bella, if you don’t let me in right now I’m calling the medics,” Heath told the closed bathroom door. “I mean it. And then you’ll have a huge hospital bill and the kids will hate me forever.”

  “I have medical insurance.”

  “Bella, please—”

  “I’m sorry, I just think I might be sick,” she said, with a moan.

  He laid his hand on the door. “Well let me in, I’ll hold back your hair.”

  “I don’t want you to see me throw up.”

  “I don’t care. I just want to see you. Besides, I like vomit.”

  She laughed then moaned again. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Let me in and I promise not to.” He felt a small lightening in his gut. If he could still make her laugh, all wasn’t completely lost. Right?

  “Just a second.” The toilet flushed, water ran for a long time, and then he heard the click of the lock and the door swung slowly open. “I think I feel better.”

  “Good,” he mumbled.

  She looked amazing. He thanked God he had shaved and gotten a haircut before he’d come. Otherwise, he might have blamed his own scuzzy appearance for Bella’s funny stomach. He’d been a wreck the past four months.

  “Hi,” he said with a cautious smile.

  “Why are you here, Heath?” she asked, her blue eyes as dark and stormy as he’d ever seen them. They were practically black.

  She hated him. She hated his guts whether he’d had a haircut or not. He’d been nuts to come. She didn’t want him here or she would have called, or written, or at least not returned every one of his letters with “return to sender” scrawled across the top in her gorgeous handwriting.

  Hansel must have done a piss-poor job of breaking the news of his arrival. Either that, or she hated him so much that she was pretending to have the stomach flu in order to avoid contact.

  “Heath?”

  “Yeah? I mean, hi, how are you feeling?” He cursed beneath his breath. “Sorry, you said you were feeling better. Sorry.”

  “Yes, and I asked you what you were doing here.”

  “Right.” He pressed his lips together as he followed her back into the open living-room/kitchen portion of the large apartment. “Okay, so this is more awkward than I thought it would be. I guess I shouldn’t have—”

  “No, it’s my fault. And Hansel’s. He surprised me.” She smoothed her hair away from her face self-consciously. It was a little longer and wilder than he remembered, and made her sexier than ever.

  “I know,” he said. “Should I have called and warned you in advance?”

  “No. I don’t know.” She looked seconds away from tears. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

  Okay, so that was good news, but why the tears when she was the one who hadn’t wanted anything to do with him? Maybe because he creeped her out? Maybe because she felt like shit for not thanking him for what he’d done for her and the kids? Maybe she wanted to puke again and that was making her eyes water?

  Who knew? Not him.

  “Oh good,” he said, instead of any of the other things that were flying through his mind.

  Bella sighed a miserable sigh. “Heath, I don’t know what Hansel told you, but I—”

  “I love you, Bella,” he heard himself say.

  So much for not making a fool of himself. Might as well go for broke now that he’d gotten started.

  “I’ve missed you like nothing I can ever try to explain,” he said, wanting to reach out to her, but still scared to push his luck. “I don’t know why you didn’t want to talk to me, but I don’t care right now, I just want—”

  “What are you talking about? You’re the one who sent me that package, Heath.”

  His brows drew together. “What package?”

  “The package that arrived the same day as the kids moved to the cottage,” she said, pointing vaguely toward the windows. “The one with the note that told me not to accept your calls or letters. The one with the…medical records.” Bella looked at him with sad eyes that seemed to question the soundness of his mind.

  Seemed to question the soundness of his mind.

  “Someone sent you my medical records.” Heath started to pace the floor.

  God, he wanted to hit things, but knew he couldn’t. If he did, the woman he loved would think he was even crazier than she already did. When he found the son of a bitch who’d done this, however, he was going to hit something, a lot of somethings.

  Like a head and a stomach and a spleen and anything else he could think of that would hurt. A lot.

  “You didn’t send them?” Hope flared in her eyes before suspicion crowded in. “Are you sure?”

  “Bella, I have a medical condition, but it doesn’t make me forget things and it doesn’t make me crazy. I haven’t had an episode for three years. And just so you know, I never did anything horrible when I was sick, no matter what those ‘records’ said. I was just a pathetic piece of shit who cried a lot and had a seizure every once in awhile.”

  He slammed his fist down on the island, next to a batch of chocolates. When Bella jumped at the sound, he immediately regretted it. Slowly, he crossed the room to kneel next to where she had perched on the edge of a very comfy looking couch.

  “Listen, B, I’m not crazy, I swear to you. I’m pissed as hell right now because some asshole wanted to make you hate me, or keep us apart, or something. But I’m not a crazy man. I love you. I want to be with you more than I’ve wanted anything in my life,” he pleaded, willing her to see into his heart, to see all the pain that he’d been feeling.

  To see that he wanted to cry, right here in front of her, because the idea that she might not give him a chance was the most horrific thing he could imagine.

  “I love you too, so much,” she said, tears rising in her eyes. “And I hate that someone did this. I can’t believe anyone would be so cruel, but—”

  “But what? There are no buts. Everything can be fine now.” He reached up to cup her face in his hands, prevented from kissing her only by the uncertainty he still saw in her midnight blue eyes. “We can start over, or pick up where we left off, or whatever the hell people do when they’re in love.”

  “But, Heath, you said it was real. That there was something wrong with you.”

  “Bella, please.” Heath jumped to his feet and drove his hands through his newly cut hair, wanting to rip out every strand. He wanted to rid himself of every single dark blond piece, dispose of everything that reminded him of his father, the evil son of a bitch who had indirectly caused this mess.

  “I’m sorry, Heath. I wish I didn’t know, but I do know and I have a family now and I can’t put them in danger.” She started to cry in earnest now, big teardrops that rolled down her cheeks, which looked thinner than he remembered.

  Apparently heartbreak wasn’t good for Bella’s appetite either. He’d lost ten pounds himself and the permanent dark circles under his eyes were a testament to the fact that weight loss didn’t agree with him.

  “My dad beat me when I was a kid,” Heath said, knowing only the truth, as horrible as it was, would have a chance of making her believe that he wasn’t whatever those “records” had claimed.

  “I’m so sorry, Heath.”

  “I don’t want you to be sorry. I’m fine. Other than the fact that the woman I love thinks I’m a violent lunatic, I’m at peace with my past. My father beat me until I had brain damage. It gave me seizures and the occasional bout of depression. The seizures stopped when I was twelve, the last depressive episode was three years ago.” He stared at the wooden floor next to her feet, then the wall covered with the candy ads he remembered from her cottage, anything to avoid the eyes that were killing him with
their prediction of doom for their future.

  “But the note said you killed someone, Heath,” she said, her expression cautious, though her voice held a hint of hope. He prayed she’d still feel that hope when he dropped the last bomb in his arsenal.

  “I killed my father when I was twelve, in self-defense after he almost killed me. When forced to decide between the two of us, I chose myself. Then I put him in a garbage bag and threw him in the river. No one ever found his body.” Retelling the horrific experience caused almost no emotional response within him anymore.

  He’d talked through it so many times with ten million different therapists that it was almost like it had happened to another person. He’d forgiven himself for it by now, and put the majority of the horror behind him. He was the man he was because of the cards life had dealt him and he liked himself most of the time. He tried to be a decent person, tried to harm no living thing, and to bring pleasure to the world in his own small way.

  “So that’s the story. The whole story and nothing but the story,” he finished lamely, the anger and frustration and anxiety he’d been juggling since he walked into her apartment fading away, leaving a peaceful, quiet space in his heart. It felt good to tell her, to tell someone, but especially her.

  “My family was possessed by a demon spirit for three hundred years,” Bella said softly.

  “For real?”

  “My great-great-whatever-grandmother sold us all into the demon’s service in exchange for spells that would make her candy the most delicious in the kingdom,” she said, starting to cry again.

  “That’s pretty shitty.” He sat beside her and took her hand.

  “Yeah.” She laughed, sniffed a hearty sniff and swiped at her nose. “If you’re going to sell your descendants to a demon it should be for something more important than candy.”

  “Like world domination,” he agreed with a serious face that he knew would make her laugh again.

  It did and it felt like a million bucks.

  “Or eternal youth and beauty,” she said. “Or all the gold in the king’s treasury or something.”

  “So are you still demon possessed?” he asked, bringing her hand to his mouth for a kiss. Even that slight contact of his skin upon hers made his heart start to do that melty thing in his chest, the thing it did every time he was near her.

  “No, I had it exorcised. Apparently it’s not kosher for people to sell their descendants into slavery. Demon service has to be chosen by someone with free will. My mom or Gram could have had it cast out a long time ago, but…I don’t know. I guess they didn’t feel they had a choice.”

  “They weren’t as strong as you are.”

  “I’m not strong, Heath. I gave in, like everyone else. It… It was there that night.” She looked at him uncertainly before she continued. “The night we were together.”

  “Is that why you pounced on me?” he asked, not wanting to believe that she’d only made love to him because the demon made her do it. Talk about a blow to his ego.

  “It’s probably the reason I pounced on you then rather than a few weeks later. That’s why I wanted to wait. The curse was supposed to expire on my thirty-first birthday. Every woman in my family ‘lay with one man and conceived one daughter before the clock struck midnight on the eve of her thirty-first year’. So I figured I’d wait to do any lying until I was thirty-one and then the curse would be broken. But the demon had other ideas.” Bella stared at Heath’s lips playing along her hand.

  He’d never been so glad to see a hint of lust in a woman’s eyes in his entire life.

  “So I was your first?” he asked

  “You were my first,” she said, tongue slipping out to dampen her lips. “Basically my first everything, except tongue kissing. I’d done that before,” she said with a nervous laugh.

  “I never would have guessed. You were amazing.”

  She shrugged shyly. “Well, I did watch a few adult films.”

  “You watched porn?” The news was as erotic as hell.

  “Adult films,” she said with pink cheeks.

  “Bella, I have to show you something,” he whispered.

  “What’s that?” she asked with a smile.

  “How much I’ve missed you.” He pulled her tightly to him, pressing every inch of her amazing body against his. He claimed her lips and told her with his tongue, his teeth, his hands, how much he loved her, needed her, wanted to be with her forever—or as long as she would have him.

  “I’ve missed you too.” Her voice was so thick with desire that he had to stop kissing her for a moment, pull back and take in her parted lips, her breasts lifting toward him through her red V-neck t-shirt, and the love that he’d prayed to see shining in her eyes.

  He’d actually prayed. For real, on his knees and everything.

  “So you’re going to give me a chance?”

  “I don’t see that I have a choice. I think we were made for each other,” she said, slowly starting to work open the buttons of his black dress shirt.

  “People with ancestors like ours have to stick together,” he said, dipping a finger down between those lovely breasts and tracing the edge of what looked like a black lace bra. His cock did a dance of celebration, swelling to epic proportions as he imagined being inside her again.

  “Absolutely.” She eased his shirt off his shoulders and leaned forward to kiss his bare chest somewhere close to his heart. He’d never been so glad that he hadn’t had a clean undershirt to wear in his entire life.

  Heath smiled and made a mental note to tell Mary never to ride his ass about wearing underclothes again.

  “Mary.” He said her name out loud, his heart clenching so powerfully that it actually skipped a beat. The raging erection in his pants began to soften.

  “No, I’m Bella.” Bella arched her brow as if trying to figure out what game he was playing. Then she read something in his expression, something that made her take his face in her hands and turn him gently to look at her. “Mary is a friend?”

  “She’s my vice president, my personal assistant, my best friend—just about everything except my lover,” he managed to choke out past the lump in his throat.

  He couldn’t believe it, but there was no one else who knew about his dad who wasn’t bound by doctor-patient privilege. If he hadn’t been so worried about him and Bella, he would have realized Mary was to blame the second Bella told him that the mysterious “package” had mentioned the murder.

  “She’s the one who sent me the medical records,” Bella said, guessing the truth.

  She was smart, his girl, as well as beautiful and tough and sweet and all the rest of it. He nodded slowly, struggling to understand why Mary had done it, what could have caused his best friend to try to destroy his only shot at happiness.

  “Do you love her?” Bella asked, waiting until he nodded. “Then you’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. She might have been thinking she was doing what was best for you. You came home saying you were in love with a woman you’d known for less than a day, and you were going to get married. I mean, in most normal circumstances, that would be lunacy.”

  “Are you always so understanding of people who try to permanently fuck up your life?” Heath asked, knowing there was some truth in her words despite the sting of betrayal that still lingered in his own mind.

  “No, sometimes I have them exorcised.” She gave him a wink before she lifted her shirt over her head, revealing what was indeed a black bra, a very sexy black bra.

  “Right now, I’m not going to let anyone fuck up what I’ve been dreaming about for the past four months,” she whispered as she slowly moved to straddle him on the couch, lifting her black cotton skirt until he could see her black panties pressing against the fabric of his gray trousers.

  “Have I ever told you how much I love it when you curse?” Heath smoothed his hands up and down the insides of her thighs, amazed that her skin was even softer than he remembered and that his cock had sprung back to full attention in
less than two seconds.

  “I think you mentioned it once.” Bella started to lower the straps on her bra, but he stopped her with his hands.

  “Please, allow me.” He tugged the fabric away with his teeth as his hands smoothed around the curves of her ass, urging her to rock against his erection as he flicked a welcoming lick to each of her newly exposed nipples.

  “Heath.” She arched into his mouth as he started suckling her, swirling his tongue against her swollen tip.

  When she moaned in response and ground against his shaft, he knew he wasn’t going to last long this first time. Four months was longer than he’d gone without sex since he was old enough to drive, but he hadn’t wanted to fuck anyone but Bella. He hadn’t even wanted to jerk off, he’d been so depressed. Both factors, of course, contributed to the desire that was now swiftly getting beyond his control.

  He needed her fast and hard and hungry. They’d get around to slow and sensual the second round.

  “Bella, I need to fuck you,” he growled as he moved on top of her on the couch, tearing at his belt and disposing of his pants and boxers in record time.

  “Yes,” she nodded, looking as desperate as he was. She’d already slid her bra the rest of the way off of her arms and was reaching for her underwear by the time he gripped the top of the skirt and panties and ripped them off in one frantic motion.

  “We’ll do this better the second time.” He settled on top of her, crushing his lips against hers as he spread her legs and found her pussy, thankfully already drenched.

  She moaned as he positioned his cock and slid home in one swift motion, beginning to roll his hips as soon as he was buried deep inside of her, gliding his pubic bone over her clit again and again. He might be incapable of extended foreplay, but she was going to come on his cock.

  She was going to come hard, pussy milking him, fingers clawing at his back. His pride—and his love for her—wouldn’t settle for less.

  “Come, Bella, come, baby.” He whispered the words against her lips before he kissed them again, devouring the groan she sent vibrating into his mouth.