by Jayla Kane
“Fair warning,” I told him, “I’m more than satisfied—I’m just not done being satisfied. It’s not the same thing.”
He grinned, hissing out a breath as I explored him. “Semantics.”
“Maybe,” I said, then abruptly dropped my hand, and I couldn’t stifle a laugh when he gaped at me in mock horror. “Do you enjoy being right that much?”
“No,” he said gruffly, leaning in to kiss me, his mouth now quirked in that ridiculously sexy half-smile. His hand slid down my ribs, running over my hips and finding the curve of my ass; he dug his fingers in as his tongue sank into my mouth, and I squeezed him in my hand. The kiss grew deeper, heating my body, until he pulled back and looked me in the eye. “I mean it, Rae,” he said, “if you’re too sore—”
“Please,” I whispered, and then he was on me. In me. And it was everything.
Jake slid between my legs and into me with one solid stroke, his massive muscles making light work of the movement. I felt his arms on either side of me, his mouth on mine, my entire being filled with Jake as he thrust smoothly into me, my body finally ready to accommodate him. I felt the lingering remnants of my last orgasm re-ignite, binding with the new pleasure I felt from being able to enjoy his long, hard shaft inside of me; he seemed to realize it, and instinctively picked up speed, his lips finding mine as often as they could—he was so tall that when he was seated to the hilt in my body, my lips brushed his chest. But I liked that—I realized I could lick his nipples and listened to the soft groan that escaped him when I did, I ran my fingernails over the miles of taut muscle framing his back and felt his spine arch. I tightened my legs around his hips and felt him even deeper, impossibly deeper, and then the world began to blur as everything receded but he and I, but the movement and the rhythm and the feeling of us, of what we became together. I came screaming his name, wrapped in his arms as he panted into my ear, the low grunt reverberating through my entire being when I felt his slick heat fill me again, so far inside. When it was over this time, he laid on top of me, caressing me as I caressed him, kissing each other until he finally grew soft enough to slip out. We clutched each other for a moment longer, then separated just enough to fall asleep, side by side, facing one another in the dark.
When I awoke, daylight filled the room. I didn’t like the lack of curtains before, when it was just me in this bed, naked and twisting in the sheets, but now… Jake was awake already, his head resting on the pillow beside mine, his beautiful eyes in high definition. The natural light brought out all of the colors in his iris, the trace of gold beneath the green, the shimmer of silvery grey, sheer as smoke, whirling through the brown. His skin gleamed copper, his eight freckles perfect pinpoints of chocolate brown speckling his cheek and nose. Jake watched me, long eyelashes frozen as he looked, unblinking, at me watching him. I wanted to touch him, I realized, and without being able to stop myself I reached out and laid my hand on his cheek.
His eyelashes fluttered then, so long they made a shadow flicker on his cheeks, and his mouth quirked up at the corner.
But… I saw it.
The shadow that crossed his face.
Jake looked at me with nothing but sweetness until I didn’t say anything, didn’t move my hand, and then the half-smile disappeared. And I saw that Jake was… Sad.
Last night was one of the most important in my life. I would never forget it. And even though I knew the whole thing was probably no big deal to him—he couldn’t even remember all the people he’d slept with, I was sure—I thought making his mortal enemy scream his name in sheer ecstasy might rank as a victory, at least, to the Jacob Warfield I knew. Maybe he didn’t hate me enough for it to feel like that, though… He’d been so different. And I knew him too well to imagine that he was faking what he shared with me last night.
He was still a good person. Under it all.
And if he was still Jake, not the asshole that tormented me… Then he loved me. At least a little bit.
Wanting to fuck me? That was Jacob Warfield, Game Master. But that tenderness, that sweet playfulness… That was Jake.
And Jake was the boy I lied to.
As I looked at him laying there, the shadow of grief and loss and sadness so subtle I never would have seen it, ever, if I hadn’t spent the entire night in his arms, I realized what had just happened to him.
I broke his heart. I hurt him so badly he became a monster, just to make sure no one else could ever, ever even come close to that broken heart again.
And he still… He still…
“I can’t do this,” I whispered, and his eyes widened.
“Rae? Baby?” There was a note of panic in his voice, as if he had worried this might happen. “Please—we can talk about it, I just—I didn’t know how to begin to—”
“Stop,” I said softly, and sat up. He did too, and to my horror the veil of sadness on his face was getting darker. “Jake—don’t—this isn’t your fault.”
“Raven, please, I—”
“Don’t!” I held my hands out, palms down, as if I could stop the water I imagined rising all around me, to take me away, to drown me. “Don’t.”
He was staring at me when I was able to open my eyes, his face stricken. Oh no, I thought, crushing my fists against my face, trying to keep the sobs from erupting, from making this about me—as if he needed to comfort me. No. No. I couldn’t do it. “Jake,” I whispered, “I’ll take you to him. But I…” Too late. The sob rippled up and out of me, so fast and loud I clapped both of my hands over my mouth. It took me a second, but I controlled them, forced them back down, forced my eyes open. He was frozen, his eyes locked on mine in true horror. “It wasn’t Zelle’s fault—she was covering for me. It was my fault. All mine.”
We stared at each for what felt like days, the sunlight suddenly grim and harsh as it leeched the color from the room, from his beautiful face.
Finally he nodded once, and we got up and got dressed.
I didn’t care anymore if I spent the rest of my life in jail; I didn’t care what happened.
I couldn’t do it anymore. Not after last night. Not after this morning, when I looked at his face and realized he loved me—however much, he loved me enough for last night, a perfect night in so many ways—and I was still fucking lying to him. And he knew it. And loved me anyway.
All of the things that had happened between us, every time he ruined something of mine, a paper or a book or whatever, every time he orchestrated some humiliation or fueled a rivalry or inconvenienced or embarrassed me… None of that, I knew, would compare with the torment of loving the person that killed the only other person you loved. None of that would compare with being betrayed by them, and having that kernel in you, deep down, that was waiting to touch them all the same—nothing would compare to having it take over, making your body blend with theirs in ecstatic anguish. Jake tormented me, sure; he did horrible things, some of them not really forgivable.
Not if you were a person who deserved forgiveness.
But I didn’t.
Jake would be broken forever if I didn’t do this, and finally, in the end, he’d still chosen me over himself, over his sanity.
So now it was my turn to choose him.
“We’re going to the house,” I told him, and he nodded, as if he’d already known; I guess he did. He always did.
He grabbed his keys and we left, understanding hovering between us, an abyss that opened and swallowed all the of the warmth of the night before in a single tidal black wave.
Chapter Nineteen
Jake
Should I have been satisfied?
Triumphant?
Was this what a victory felt like, after years of knowing, of believing in spite of all logical reasoning to the contrary that I was right? Even if the cost was my soul, I had been willing to pay, but now I was sitting in the car next to the girl I hated—the girl who knew the truth, and denied me… And I felt hollow.
I felt more ruined now than I had before, when I was an asshole with on
ly a vague notion, a gut feeling of having been wronged. The only one who knew, who took my side for the real reasons behind it, was Hunter; everyone else was a tag-along, a piece of shit that wanted to feel big by picking on one of the Creepy Kellers. I didn’t mind their character flaws—I certainly had plenty of my own. But that husk, that thing that I was… Being that hadn’t felt like this.
I would never forget last night.
After all that time, all I’d done… She’d given me her virginity. Let me rip it out of her fragile body, let me use it in a way I wouldn’t have with another girl even if she begged me.
And she took it. Took it all.
That’s what broke me; I didn’t even fully realize what I was doing until I was almost inside of her, pumping away at those beautiful round ass cheeks, the wet flesh I dug into hidden beneath and even tighter because her legs were squeezed together. The welts on her skin, the sound of her anxiety, her pain… I can’t believe that was me. That was the worst thing I’ve ever done, even if she… She permitted it. She gave me permission to do that to her, that way.
Maybe I should’ve left then, because what came after is what will haunt me even more. Or maybe I deserve that? Who knows anymore. The first fuck—that was revenge, helpless, crushing hatred and desire melded together into something so sick and angry I couldn’t stop it unless… Unless she said to. I have to believe if she told me to stop I would have, if she’d cursed me when I asked instead of stroking me, instead of soothing me, I would have clung to the last shred of decency left in me, and rolled off of her.
But the rest of it, what came afterwards in the night, what we did, how it felt…
My chest ached now. Ached, as if someone cracked my ribs and rummaged around in the cavity there, rearranging things, throwing things away. I rubbed my knuckles over the spot where my heart was supposed to be, but there was just this dull, throbbing pain. Carved out. Empty.
We pulled into the long driveway and headed back towards the house; I was surprised when she called it that. She always thought that was a stupid affectation, and she wasn’t wrong. But I did it because Mom and Dad did it, and they did it because Gramps and Ma’am did it, and I’m sure it went a lot further back. Raven and I were both descended from the original group of families that settled here; without all that witchy in-fighting, we could’ve been cousins. There were times, on very bad days, when I wondered if that would’ve been easier or harder. If it would have saved me from the thing inside of me that could never let her go, or twisted it even further.
No use worrying about it now.
I pulled into the West Garage, next to Lucas’s Jag. Out of habit, I bit back the urge to defile it—scratch it, slam my truck door into it, spatter it with mud. But I’d given that up long ago; Lucas and I avoided each other these days. We got out of the car and Raven immediately started walking back towards the rose garden, my mother’s pride and joy when she was alive. Now it was a tangled jungle, a maze of thorns. Just like everything else she left behind when she died, including me.
Raven knew exactly where she was going. She stepped through a dip in the brush that I hadn’t even seen and lifted a branch so that I could fit through, then continued walking towards the back, to an area that bordered the Orchard. We technically owned it, but the land had been leased to the Endicotts for so long that I still felt like I was trespassing just by coming so close. Mina Endicott, Lucas’s wife—and my aunt, although she never let me call her that, even when I was a kid—made jokes about how it was booby-trapped and full of monsters; a razor wit, that one. I still got chills coming so close, though, as if Mina’s invisible monsters were really there, lurking in the trees.
Raven hadn’t spoken once since we left my room. The room that smelled like her. Like us, like the incredible sex we had—better than anything I ever dreamed of, those long nights when I let myself dream about doing that, certainly better than any other night with any other girl. That was the best of my life, the sting of it sharp—I still smelled like the us, her musk all over me. My mind still swirled with images of what we did. What I did, with her, the girl I hated.
Jesus, I was completely fucked up.
I had been, for a long time—I mean, I never got into that cry-baby shit about my parents dying, although I was sad about it. That’s normal. And I had family issues… Some of them are worse than others, but that’s life. That’s also normal. Because I’m friends with Hunter I never feel alone dealing with the shit that happened with Lucas, and when it was actually going on Tristan was with me… So I don’t feel like I’ve suffered more than anybody else. Unless you top that whole sad rich-boy sundae with this little cherry, the one where I’m in love with the girl that killed Tristan. Or knows who did, and instead of telling me—instead of staying loyal to me, because at that point I had no one, no one at all, I didn’t meet Hunter until Sophomore year, my parents were dead, my brother was probably dead… Instead of choosing me, she lied. And then she ditched.
And here we are.
She’s still walking along the back edge of the garden, almost to the Orchard when she stops and turns. I follow her line of sight to a patch of blood red roses, still blooming even though it’s September—maybe one of my mom’s hybrid breeds, she was always experimenting. And then I realize when I see her lip tremble that this is it.
“Raven,” I hear myself say, but it doesn’t sound like my voice, and her whole face crumples in on itself, the tears thick and fast.
We’re just standing here. I wasn’t the first one to move—finally, after a lifetime has passed in silence while she tries to get it together and I pray she’s not about to say what I know she’s going to say, Raven turns to face me.
“Tristan was in the house after the funeral. He saw Lucas doing something with my mom—I don’t know what. He grabbed my hand and started pulling me outside, asking me if I knew where Zelle was.” Her older sister and Tristan were the same age; they were close the same way Raven and I had been close. “He was… Really upset,” she said, and had to stop for a second before she could speak again. “He was saying all kinds of crazy shit, but he said something about mom—you know, so many people said shitty things about her, and I was so taken aback when he said she probably fucked him—” She couldn’t talk for a minute, doubling over and then forcing herself back up to look me in the eye. “I pushed him. He was running all over the garden, he said he just saw Zelle out here and he had to talk to her. But when he said that I just turned and pushed him, really quick, like, hey, Tristan, you asshole—” A sob. A shake of the head. “And he… He fell. He must have hit his head on a rock or something, because he… He didn’t get back up.”
“No,” I said, staring at her.
“Yes, Jake,” she said, and now the tears were ripping through her; I could see her beginning to convulse. “Yes, he wouldn’t get up. He laid there, and I—I couldn’t make him wake up.”
“No,” I said, still unable to wrap my head around this, unable to accept it. I thought he was dead—well, I rationally knew he had to be—and yet… “No.”
“Jake, it’s the truth.” She sobbed the words, her hands clenched, knuckles white. “We can—we can go and talk to Zelle, she knows.” Raven started to fumble with her pockets, pulling her phone out and trying to text while she stared at the screen through her tears. The wind picked up around us, ripping through the Orchard, the trees wild. “She can meet us here—”
“No,” I said softly, staring at the ground where my brother lay. Those roses… I suddenly realized why they were different. Someone tended them. Pruned them, fertilized them, nurtured them. Raven. “Tell me you’re lying,” I whispered.
“You know I’m not,” she said, and her knees gave way as she crumpled to the ground.
Tristan.
My brother. I knew he wouldn’t have left me with Lucas. With Mina. I knew he wouldn’t have abandoned me here, in the house where our parents’ ghosts wandered the halls. I couldn’t believe it though; denial is incredible, I thought, conscio
usly feeling the resistance in my chest, the deep down soul-knowing that my brother was not dead. He was not dead. “No,” I said again, but Raven just stayed where she was, her head in her hands, her black hair whipping in the wind.
Hunter would be here any minute, with Zelle in tow—whether she wanted to come or not. I needed to know what she would say, what she could possibly say to justify the lie they told me, and kept telling me, over and over again. I heard his truck on the long drive and swung towards it, watching it grow bigger and bigger as he approached us, his speed maddeningly slow. Raven stood up behind me, and I heard her walk over; I abruptly spun on her and backed away, staring down at her tear-streaked face.
I loved her.
I did. There was no denying it—this was the face I’d always loved, the one that soothed me, that drove me insane. But I didn’t want to love her.
I wanted to hate her.
And not because of a simple resistance I had towards the truth, not because of stubbornness. But because she was everything I’d ever feared… And worse. My little liar. My disease.
“How could you do this to me?” I stared at her, and she started to shake her head, back and forth, trying to find the words. “How? How could you live with yourself?”
She couldn’t, I saw, and it made me glad—I was glad that she suffered, that her face was white with pain, that she could barely breathe. I was almost glad that last night we made love, that she gave herself to me, and now she could live with that wound on her conscience—
But no, I couldn’t be glad of that. That hurt me too.
Cut me to the bone, to the center of my being.
Hunter wordlessly drove up in his truck, not bothering with the garage; he drove across the grass and pulled up next to us. I expected him to have brought Zelle here in whatever manner necessary, but I was surprised when she burst out of the cab and ran over to her sister. “What did you do to her?”