“Why are you here?”
“Because I care about you and there is nowhere I would rather be. Look at me Darby.” He firmly cups my chin and holds my red strained eyes captive.
“You matter to me, and right now I want to be here for you. Let me be here right now, for you. Let me take care of you.”
“I don’t deserve your kindness Turner. But I am selfish, so fucking selfish! I do need you, right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Things might be awkward between us, but I still love you.”
Turner just said he loves me, I am sure he doesn’t mean it in the way I want him to mean it, but it is something to hang onto right now.
He leaves me sitting on the words he just spoke. He returns a few minutes later with antiseptic and tweezers in his hands.
He lifts the heel of my foot and brings it to rest on his shoulder. There is nothing sexual in his movements, he just simply taking care of me. He pours the antiseptic over the tweezers and holds them in the light making sure they are clean. “This may sing a bit. But I need to remove the shards from your legs.” Carefully he removes each piece on by one. A low whimper escapes my throat, it stings but it isn’t unbearable. I deserve pain far worse than this. He repeats the motions now with my other leg, quietly and tentatively.
The way he is looking at me and treating me is as if he fears I may break, like a porcelain doll.
Turner hands me my purse and my phone and orders me to go wait in his car. He appears a few minutes later holding two bags in his hands. I watch as he locks the door and sets one of the bags on Caroline’s porch.
Sliding into the driver’s side he places the other bag on the floorboard beneath my feet.
“I brought some of your things. I thought you might want some extra clothes. I left some of Aiden’s things with Caroline”
“Thank you.” He places a reassuring hand on my knee and gives it a small squeeze.
How can he be so caring and so giving after the way I treated him. He knows most of the situation with Brody and yet here he is being my rock.
Chapter Fifteen
I slide across the seat and bring my head to rest on his shoulder. I bury my face in the crook of his neck. The way he smells is so enticing, he smells like an ocean breeze. I could melt into him right now and never resurface. I am trying so hard to shut all of my emotions off, but my feelings for Turner keep trying to claw their way to the surface. It isn’t right for me to be feeling this for him right now.
We pull into a parking garage, and he pulls into a spot and shuts the engine off. I am nervous. I have never been to his apartment before. I steal a look at myself in the mirror, and bloody hell I look like a deranged lunatic. My hair is fuzzed out in ten different directions from the humidity. There are streaks of mascara and smudged makeup running down my face.
Turner must think I belong in an asylum by the way I appear. My poor Aiden, he will think everyone is going to leave him. First Marla, now the father he never knew. I have got to get it together. I follow Turner to an elevator at the other end of the garage. He guides me inside and presses the button for the tenth floor. I stand with my back to him. I am so embarrassed that he has had to see me this way.
I feel like pure hell. God why did this have to happen? Why did you take Brody, I ask silently in my thoughts. The lies I told were not supposed to end in this way. Lord I was supposed to be able to make amends for my wrongs. I wanted to give Brody and Aiden the life they deserved. I’m not sure I am strong enough to face this. Marla always said the Lord doesn’t give you anymore to carry on your shoulders than you can lift. My shoulders feel pretty heavy right now. I feel like I am sinking fast.
The elevator dings and I follow Turner down a narrow hall lined with black doors on either side. There are a few welcome mats here and there. He stops abruptly in front of a door numbered 710. Following him inside, I take in the charm of his place. The kitchen is off to the right. The appliances are high end, stainless steel. The kitchen opens to the living room. His living room is spacious and has a warm feel to it his furniture is tan and cream. The whole front wall of the living room is one large window that looks out to an ocean view.
To the left the apartment stretches down a hallway to what I assume to be the bath and master suite.
“Just make yourself at home. You can lie on the couch or you can have my bed if you want.”
“I think I want a shower.”
He reaches me the bag he packed for me and leads me down the hall. He flips on the light and leaves me to myself. It is your standard guest bathroom. It has a fairly decent sized shower. The tile is a nice clean white. The shower curtain is a sterile white as well. I pull back the curtain and turn on the faucet. While the water heats up I gather my toiletries from my bag and take a towel and wash cloth from under the sink.
I step under the water. I can’t really tell if it is too hot or too cool. However the water is soothing to my weary mind even if it stings the cuts on my legs. I keep trying to scrub the images from the news from my soul. Rinsing the shampoo from my hair, I step out of the shower and slip into my robe. As soon as I step into the hall, I bump straight into Turner’s chest. He grips my arms. We stand there for minutes just looking at one another. I can feel heat radiating through the sleeves of my robe from his touch.
He looks like he’s having a battle within himself. All I want is for him to take me right now into his room and have his way with me. Controlling my body, my thoughts, all of me! I want to be owned by this man. I am tired of playing it safe. I don’t care if he says he doesn’t want a relationship. Right here, right now I want him any way I can get him.
Taking the initiative, I lean onto my tip toes and crush my pout to his full soft lips. I am so nervous, I am shaking. There is no more denying that he is very much a part of me. He pulls back from my swollen lips. “Darby,” he says my name in a hoarse whisper.
“No talking Turner, right now I need this. I want this. I want all of you, anyway I can have you. Even if it is only for right now, I want to be yours. Show me how you feel about me.”
He lifts me up taking me into his arms. I wrap my legs around his waist. With one hand he his holding me flush against him and with the other he is gripping my hair. Our lips meet desperately. His kisses are so hungry. I can’t get enough of him, I feel frantic. My tongue tangles with his. I can’t breathe, nothing else matters in this one moment.
My back is slammed against the wall and a picture falls. The sound of glass hitting the floor isn’t enough to break our hold. My robe falls to the floor. I am fully exposed to him. He rolls my nipple between his fingers. His mouth greedily takes over pleasuring my other breast. I reach my hands up and inside of his shirt, my nails rake across his skin. He lets out a growl of appreciation biting my shoulder. I grind my wet slick center against his finger when he pushes it inside of me.
“Oh yes, Turner, don’t stop. Faster.”
“Pumpkin, I am going to fuck you so hard, you won’t be able to walk straight for the next week. You’re going to still be calling my name for weeks on end.”
He grabs my ass firmly with both hands and takes me to his bed. I crawl to the head board giving him a perfect view.
“You are wearing too many clothes.” I tug on the buckle of his belt.
Removing his clothes, he joins me on the bed. Spreading my knees apart he runs his hands down the length of my body, until he reaches my throbbing pussy. He smacks my glistening mound. “If I take you right now, there will be no turning back between us. You understand?”
“Please Turner, there is nothing I want more than for you to fill your pussy with my cock.” I take his length between my hands and guide him into me.
“Your cock,” he growls in my ear as he pushes further in me.
“That’s right Turner, you said there is no going back. Now this,” I wrap my hand around the base of his dick as it is sliding in and out of me,” belongs to me.”
“Fuck,” he starts pumping into me faster.
Getting on his knees, he puts my legs over his shoulders. He throws his head back, as I grip the sheets trying to hold off from my orgasm a little longer.
“I’m so close,” he whispers in a strain.
“I want to fill you come with me Turner! I want you to come all inside of me.”
“Roll over.”
He lays kisses all down my back stopping at my ass, he bites my left cheek hard. I arch my back and push my ass up, giving him perfect access. I buck my hips as his hardness takes its claim on me. Just as I told him to, he fills me with his passion.
He collapses beside of me, bringing my hand to his mouth he places a tender kiss on the back of it.
Turner gets up and puts on a pair of shorts and hands me my robe. I make my way into the hall to grab the broom from the closet and sweep up the glass.
Chapter Sixteen
The intensity of the day takes its claim over me as I drift to sleep in Turner’s arms. I awake a few hours in a cold sweat. An image of Brody’s car keeps playing through my head. Then I flash back to grade school when I first met him. He looked even more like Aiden then. We were on the playground and he accidentally hit me with his bat. After that day we were inseparable until, the day I changed the courses of our lives forever. I don’t even realize I am talking and mumbling until Turner replies to what I am saying.
“You ready to talk to me about everything.”
“I’m ready to try.”
Turner cradles me closer and kisses the top of my head. I clear my throat and try to find the words.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Tell me everything about you and Brody. I want to hear anything you want to share with me.”
I start by telling him the playground story. I share with him how Brody always wanted to play baseball, and how proud I was to see him play on live television living his dream in the diamond. We talk about the day that changed my life forever, the day I learned I was pregnant with Aiden. All the emotions I felt, happy, scared, excited, like my life was ending. We talk about the emails and how life seemed to only help my lies grow stronger. I tell him everything leading up to the night Brody showed up on my door.
“I am so sorry I slept with him. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was so hurt from what I thought you had done. I used him to forget my grief. I used him to get back at you. I felt so torn. I knew it was wrong, and yet I did it anyways.”
“Pumpkin, you can’t take it back. It kills me to know that you thought I hurt you and deserted you, when you needed me the most. And as horrible as it sounds I hate him for being the one to comfort you, and for taking what’s mine. And at the same time I am grateful that he gave you Aiden. I am sorry that Aiden will never know his dad and that you have lost another person you care so much for.”
“I blame myself. I knew he was drunk, and I let him walk out the door. I should have stopped him. I was just so scared of what he might do.” My tears return as I begin to spiral back into the black void I deserve to live in. But Turner is here and he is refusing to let me give up on life, on us, on being Aiden’s mother.
He keeps soothing me and reassuring me that there is nothing I could have done to save Brody from himself.
“You are taking the coward’s way out Darby! I won’t let you sink into a depression and hate yourself. You are a good person, you hear me.”
I can’t listen to him sing my praises right now so I change the subject and ask about him. I mean I know Turner, but there is so much I don’t know about him.
We start with his childhood. He grew up in the Midwest, with his parents and his older brother Davie. He attended UCLA on a full soccer scholarship. His brother’s care fell to him once his parents fell ill themselves and were no longer able to care for him properly. He had an offer to go to Brazil to play soccer but he couldn’t walk away from his family.
Davie had muscular dystrophy and he required around the clock care that his family couldn’t afford. Turner finished college with a business degree and he threw himself into any job he could get to pay for his brother’s care.
He got back in touch with Ritchie and he took a job working for him as a manger for The Masquerade Club. His brother passed away last year from his illness, it was very hard on him. He tells me had his parents not needed him so much he may have never moved to Florida to take care of them. They are in a senior living community not far from Miami and most of his income is used to pay for their care so that they aren’t put under state care.
Turner was in love once or so he thought, but once his sweetheart found out that he would not be her ticket out, she up and left him high and dry. She actually had the nerve to tell him that if it weren’t for Davie they would still be together when he bumped into her a few years later.
I am amazed that this wonderful man can find room in his heart for me. But now I see why we are so drawn to one another. I make a vow to myself to be the kind of woman that deserves his love. Life is too short. This past week is proof of that. I never could have imagined I would lose my mother and my first love in a week’s time.
Turner spends the rest of the night showing me and telling me how deserving I am of his love. He rolls on top of me. Looking me directly in the eyes he tells me over and over again he loves me between kisses. Digging my nails in his firm ass I pull him closer to me. It feels as if my hunger for him will never be filled. If I could shrink him and carry him around in my pocket all day I would, just to have him near me always.
I have Turner take me home so I can get Aiden. There is so much I need to take care of.
I call my dad and ask if he knows what the arrangements for Brody’s funeral are. He gives me the information reluctantly telling me that it might not be a good idea for me to go the funeral.
Aiden will not have this taken from him too. He has every right to be there even if he isn’t old enough to understand. Turner has vacation time that he is able to use so he can accompany Aiden and I home to West Virginia for Brody’s funeral. I call Chris and explain to him that I am going to need a few more days off. He is a great guy to work for. He says it is not a problem, that Jessica can cover my classes.
I tell Turner that he doesn’t have to go to the funeral but he insists that he wants to be there for Aiden and me. He feels guilty that he wasn’t here for me when Marla passed.
My mail stack is out of control, sorting through it may take me a year. There is a notice that the lease on the house will be up in twenty days. The owner wants me to call him and let him know if I plan to renew or move out. Another thing I will have to worry about after my trip back home to West Virginia.
Part of me is so scared to take Aiden to the funeral. I know Brody’s mom is going to be so hurt and angry with me. But I need to talk to her. I have to explain what happened. I hope she can forgive me for hurting her family and that she can accept Aiden into her life. I will never get over what I have done to Brody, part of him lives on through Aiden, but he will always remain a part of me as well.
The moment has come to board the plane and I am so sick. My best friend and father of my son is gone. He will now forever rest in his field of dreams. I only hope that when the time comes to really tell Aiden about his father he understands.
I hope my dad likes Turner. It feels so strange and yet so right when the three of us hand over our boarding passes.
Aiden does great on the plane. He just has to sit with Turner while I on the other hand get seated beside an older lady who wants to talk my ear off about organic fruit. Turner rents a SUV at the airport for us. We are staying the night at my dad’s. I can not wait to hug his neck. I just wish I was coming home under different circumstances.
Driving through these mountain roads brings back so many memories. I feel like a ghost of my former self driving through my hometown. Turner is getting a little sick from the winding roads so we pull over at a gas station so I can take over the wheel. Aiden has slept most of the way. I think the winding roads have managed to soothe him unlike Turner. It is the edge of
dark when we pull into my daddy’s driveway.
Images of Brody riding his bicycle down my lane pass through my mind briefly as I look up the street to where we used to play as kids at the playground. I am so anxious to see what my dad’s impression of Turner is. And I know he is so excited to spend some time with Aiden.
The porch light flickers on as my dad holds the front door open for us. He looks older than I last remember, but it has been more than a year since he last came to Florida to visit. His hair has thinned and is now fully gray. “Well come on in. Sis it sure is nice to have you home.” He gives me one of his tight bear hugs.
“Easy old man, you’re gonna crack a rib.”
Turner comes through the door with Aiden shyly holding on to one of his legs.
“Come on and give Pops a hug.”
“Go on Aiden, don’t be shy.” I pry him loose from Turner.
Dad sticks his hand out to Turner, “nice to meet you son.”
“Sir.”
“Now call me Jim, none of that fancy city talk for an old country boy like me.”
“Jim it is then.” Turner shakes hands with him. They go on through the house talking football or some sport that I don’t care to hear about. By the looks of them they will get on with each other just fine.
I take mine and Aiden’s bags to my old room and set Turner’s in the guest room. I know better than to even think of sharing a room with Turner under my daddy’s roof. Being in my old room is almost like taking a trip back in time. My daddy hasn’t touched it since I moved out. My dance trophies are still setting in the same spot. I lift the corner of my mattress and my old diary is still there as well. I pull it out and start skimming the pages. It is more like a timeline of Brody’s life while we were in high school than my own.
It doesn’t matter which page I turn to, his name is written here. The last entry is from the night I broke his heart.
Dear Diary,
I can’t believe I was able to go through with my plan. I broke Brody’s heart along with my own in the process. My life will not be the same without him. He is all I have ever known. I have lost my one and only love, my best friend, the other half that keeps me whole. I hope one day we can find each other again.
Beautiful Liar (The Masquerade Series) Page 9