God, I sucked at being a politician’s daughter.
For about a minute he said nothing. Absolutely nothing and I stared to worry that I had told him too much and he was turned off by my motives to make him pay . But then he spoke.
“First, I knew about your plan to get back at me, and second, I knew you didn’t have a date that night and would be out with Mika. That is why I didn’t tie you to the bed and fuck you within an inch of your life for turning me on like that.”
And just like that, I was aroused again. And for the record, our plan was the shit ; it was not my fault I sucked at following through and sticking to my guns.
“I knew you were hurting, and I knew what you thought that night I put you to bed. You were drunk, but you wanted me, and if I were a bigger asshole I would have taken you. I knew you’d think I’d rejected you, and that wasn’t sitting well with me , so I let you make that play, let you get angrier with me and gave you your control back. But hear me when I say this Ember: there was no way in hell I was going to let you go. Not then, not now, not ever. You’re my three baby, and I’m yours.”
Wow. Just, wow. Didn’t I feel all weird and shit now? I guessed we were going to have ‘the talk’ now and I’d have to voice my biggest fear to him. Because on one hand I wanted to believe him and just go back like things were, but on the other hand, I knew we couldn’t. Even though I’d already said I was his, and I always would be, we wouldn’t ever go back to the same relationship.
Matt
“What if…What if you decide I’m not perfect enough for you again and leave me? Nothing about me has changed Matt. I’m still the same girl you dumped nine weeks ago.”
“Rabbit…” I had no words. I knew that this would always be between us, and I hated it, even more I hated that it was my goddamn fault. Because of me she would always question my devotion to her, and I never wanted her to doubt my feeling for her.
“Baby.” I inhaled deeply, not ready to unload all the shit that had been rolling around in my head for months onto her, but I knew I needed to explain.
“You were always perfect Ember; I was the one who wasn’t. I thought I was. I thought I knew everything and had everything figured out when really I didn’t know shit. My father… My father, the one I had looked up to, practically worshiped, abused my brother, my big brother right under my nose for years. Baby, that did something to me. It threw me and caused me to question everything.” She gasped and covered her mouth, burying her head into my shoulder. If I didn’t push this shit out though, it would never come out. So, I pressed on.
“I had no idea about any of it, the beatings, the name calling, nothing, and I believed my father when he’d tell me what a fuck up Deklan was, and how he was a just a bad seed. He manipulated the hell out of me, and I bought all the shit he was selling. It wasn’t until Harley opened my eyes that I even found out.”
“Harley? My Harley?”
“Yup.”
“But, why? How? You don’t like Harley.” She was the last person I’d though he’d ever say.
“I don’t not like her. I think I just resented who she was to my brother, and I knew that he’d never come back home if he found a home somewhere else. But, I was wrong about that too.”
“So you were angry with everything. That’s why you broke up with me?” she asked, trying to understand.
“No baby. I was angry, but at myself. I was angry for believing the hype and falling for the bullshit. Everything I knew about my father and brother turned out to be a lie. I had to ask myself what else in my life was a lie? I wasn’t sure if anything in my life was because my father manipulated it or because it was meant to be. Including my love for you.”
“I see,” she said simply and tried to pull away, but I held a firm grip on her waist.
“Just hear me out Rabbit. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking straight, and the minute I ended things I regretted it, but it was too late. You haunted me in everything I did and everywhere I went. From your number three obsession to the smell of your hair, it all haunted me, but I was too angry and confused to try and mend things and I overdosed on booze and forgetting.”
“Did… were there others… I mean, it’s none of my business and you don’t have to answer. I mean I want you to be honest, but if you don’t want to, that’s fine, even though if you don’t that’s kind of the answer right the…”
“Yes. But not in the way you are thinking. It was still contact but not sex,” I replied, shamefully. I didn’t want to hurt her more, but I wanted nothing between us, and even though I’d pictured her mouth on me, I’d still been with someone else.
“Oh,” was all she said, and it was enough. Ember was logical but also emotional and while she logically knew what I’d done wasn’t cheating, she also knew emotionally it was.
“How many?”
“Just one .” I ran my fingers up her bare legs that were intertwined with mine and watched her. I knew how I made it looked, how everyone say it look, but I never took it father than the one.
“How come?” she asked lightly even though I knew It was a loaded question.
“No comparison,” I said truthfully and squeezed her hip. No one compared to her or would ever make me stop loving her.
“Oh.” And this ‘oh’ was wildly different from the other. This was a smug ‘oh’ and acceptance.
“And I don’t have an obsession with the number three,” she pouted. It was the sexiest pout and made me want to slide back into her and finish this conversation later.
“Babe, you do.” I fought my smile.
“Whatever. So then what changed? Everything is still the same,” she asked, switching gears.
“This is going to sound cheesy as fuck, but I swear Rabbit, it’s true. I was in Taste, same shit different night, and something pulled my attention away from me feeling sorry for myself. The pull was strong, and like a magnet I was drawn. I was up on my feet before you even turned around and right then, I knew. It was like my soul recognized you or some shit, and I knew it wasn’t because of my father or his manipulations. It was you. Just you.”
See, assholes can be sappy, we just don’t like to be, but women like Ember sometimes need the sap, and she deserves it. Especially because she knows it’s true.
She didn’t say anything for a long time, but I felt her tears hit my chest and I held her tighter until she took a deep, calming breath.
“I felt you that night too. Before I saw you, my body, my soul, felt you there too,” she whispered, and I closed my eyes and let her words, her admission sink in.
“I love you Ember. I will spend the rest of my life loving you. You are woven in me deep.”
“How deep?”
“I’ll unravel without you.” And the minute I said it, I knew it was cheesy as shit, but it was also true.
“That…That was…really cheesy,” she said on a giggle, and that giggle was the second best thing coming from her mouth other than my name. It had been a long time since I made her giggle. I missed the sound.
“I know, but it doesn’t stop it from being true. I know who I am with you.” She hugged my middle tighter and we lay like that, bodies tangled together for a long ass time. Her skin was so soft it put me in a trance.
“Okay,” she said, and if it hadn’t been so quite in the room, I’d have missed her talking.
“What’s that baby?”
She cleared her throat. “Okay, I’ll marry you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Matt
“Ember don’t toy with me,” I warned. It wasn’t that I wanted to give her time to change her mind, but I wanted to make sure this wasn’t the sex talking. Sex made you do and say some crazy shit.
“I’m not. I’ve been thinking this entire time we were apart. It’s practically all did, and even though I figured it was a long shot, I thought about this moment. The one where you’d say you
made a mistake and ask me back. At first, I was positive I’d take you back no questions asked and we’d go back to being happy. But then I realized we couldn’t go back.”
“Ember…”
“No, let me finish. I knew that if I were to ever get this chance with you, things would have to be different because I was different and you are definitely different, and even if we tried to go back to the way things were it’d fall apart. I’d always wonder if you loved me enough to stay and you’d always feel guilty for hurting me. We would have been at an impasse. So, we need to change our relationship. We need to get married,” she finished, and I wanted nothing more than to slide back into her. My fiancée . I couldn’t stop the smile splitting my face even if I wantd to.
“All you heard was married huh?” she accused when I slid my hand between her legs and yeah, she liked the idea of us getting married almost as much as I did if how ready she was for me again was any indication.
“No, I also heard that you were always going to give in to me. You just wanted your revenge ,” I surmised, and she couldn’t even deny it.
“Not in so many words . But don’t think for one second that if you do this again, I will forgive you. I’ll divorce you and take all your money. And take the dog!” she added all cute and shit.
“We don’t have a dog.” Because I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off her now that she’d agreed to marry me, I slipped two fingers inside her and massaged her walls; she clenched around me.
“We, we…”
“You want a dog, baby?” I asked as I eased a third finger in and began pumping in and out of her. When she cried out yes a few minutes later, I had no idea if she was answering my question, and I didn’t care.
A while later, Ember was draped across me. Mika had called Ember, and after she heard me in the background, she instructed Ember to give me the phone. Before I even said hello, she proclaimed, “You’re welcome.” Then she disconnected the call. Spence’s girl was fucking crazy, but I had to give credit where credit was due. Ember was back in my arms, and we lay in bed after round…hell, I’d lost count, and she was all excited about the wedding.
“Oh shit, what will my father say?” She jumped up, and I forced her back down.
“Relax, I’m sure part of his beef with me was the fact that I hadn’t asked you to marry me after the first date. I don’t think he’ll be an issue.” Didn’t mean I’d respect the asshole because he’d be my father in law. I already had a dick of a dad; I didn’t need another one.
“Yeah, you are probably right. Mom will be ecstatic though. Ugh, she going to turn this into the wedding she never got.” She groaned, and I knew she didn’t want that shit, and I couldn’t care less. All I cared about was permanently changing her last name.
“Forget the big wedding. Let’s just go to the justice of the peace and do it,” I suggested, only half kidding. I knew all girls dreamed of this big day and wanted all the flowers and perfume to go along with it. But Ember shocked the shit out of me when she latched onto the idea. Make her mine sooner? I was down for that.
“We should probably tell your father at some point though,” she said, and that thought had me crashing back down from my cloud. One thing that was guaranteed to bring my mood down to pissed the fuck off was talking about Royce Kane. Even though I knew she was right, it still didn’t make me any less pissy.
“There is no need,” I said dismissively.
“There is a need,” she proclaimed and sat up. The sheet pooled around her waist, and all I could focus on was the way her tits bounced when she talked. What could I say?
“He has to know; he has to give his blessing or something .” Shit, she was cute when she rambled.
“Babe, relax. First, he doesn’t have to give anything; that’s the other way around, and second, even if he did, I don’t give a shit what he says. Nothing is stopping me from tying you to me.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” she mumbled and snuggled into me again.
“It’s just that he’s the reason we met. He did introduce us,” she stated a fact that I was well aware of and had tried to forget. It made hating him a little difficult at times, until I thought about how he treated my brother. I knew I couldn’t keep putting this shit off; she was right, he did need to know, but it wasn’t for the reasons Ember might think.
I wanted him to know so that I could gloat. So that I could show him that Ember loved me. Just me; the asshole/sometimes arrogant/short-tempered prick that I really was, and not who he tried to make me. Deklan wanted nothing to do with his ass, even to throw in his face that he was finally happy, but I was a lesser person than my big brother, and I couldn’t wait to shove his face in this shit.
“The sooner we tell him, the sooner we can get married.” She dangled what I wanted most in my face. It was that reason alone that made me pull her closer to me, kiss then release her, and get out of bed to pull on my jeans.
“What are you doing?” she asked the played out as hell question.
“Getting dressed so I can tell my dick of a father I’m getting married.” Then before I could argue with myself that I shouldn’t do this, I added, “You coming?” And as the words left my mouth, I knew I would need her with me when I faced tough shit; and this was tough shit.
I realized as I watched her face soften that Ember was becoming more than my friend and future wife, she was becoming someone who I depended on to ground me. I could always look at her to know who I was because she knew me, the real me. Royce might love me because he raised me, but Ember loved me because she knew me. And that made all the fucking difference in the world.
Ember
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw Mr. Kane after everything that Matt had told me. I remember him as a force to be reckoned with, a man you didn’t want to cross. But now, looking at him, I couldn’t find that man if I’d had a microscope. Mr. Kane was half sitting, half slumped over in a chair and clearly very drunk. Matt wanted to get this over with now sooner rather than later so, despite it being almost dinnertime, we left for his dad’s house. On the drive over, Matt had explained more about what had happened to his brother over the years and how they had been close once, but then his father fed him lie after lie about his brother and eventually pulled them apart. He didn’t say it, but that had hurt Matt more than anything else. I knew from past conversations that he used to worship his brother, looked up to him, and his father made sure that relationship fizzled out and died. Matt missed his brother and he rightfully blamed his father for that.
I hadn’t known anything about what was going on and what Matt was going through, and I felt a little guilty in putting him through all that I did. I would do it all over again if this was the outcome, I’d just feel guilty. Hearing that he had…contact with another girl did make me want to hurl, especially after what we’d just done, but deep down I knew he hadn’t cheated and given the opportunity when I was in the anger stage of my grief, I might have done the same thing. Again, I would have felt incredibly guilty, but still.
Matt also mentioned that since his mom died, Mr. Kane had taken on drinking like it was an Olympic sport, and he wasn’t exaggerating. I’d hardly ever seen Mr. Kane with a hair out of place, and now, everything was out of place. The clothes he wore looked more like they were wearing him, and he had a months’ worth of growth on his chin. His eyes were vacant, even though they still tracked our movement as we walked into the house and stood before him in the foyer. And he was considerably smaller than I remembered him. He was always imposing, but now, he just looked sad, and I felt bad for him. Matt clearly didn’t share my sympathy.
“You’re pathetic,” Matt said disgustingly, and I reacted to defend his father but Matt cut my words off before they even had a chance to fall from my lips.
“No Ember, I told you what he did, what he took from me and Deklan. I can’t just sweep all that under the rug.” I knew he was right. I had
issues with my parents, none like this, but I still had issues and I couldn’t imagine if this were my family. Again, my heart broke for Matt.
“I know, but Matt…” I said and paused when he looked at me. For a minute, just a minute, there was so much anger and resentment flashing in his eyes, and then it was gone and replaced with softness. “Oh Matt,” I said on a sigh.
“I’m not condoning what he did by any means, but there are always different perspectives. Clearly he needed help if he was able to do that to someone he loved. Maybe he felt like he failed, or he was less of a man, I don’t know, ask him. I know you’re pissed at him for what he took from you, but there are always two sides to a situation like this: theirs, and the truth .” My mother would be proud at how passive aggressive I just sounded. Royce deserved much worse. I didn’t want this anger Matt had to taint him any longer. All this anger would only hurt him and call me selfish but I did not want this darkening our happy time.
He contemplated me for a bit, his eyes going softer if that’s possible. Then squeezed my hand as if in a silent agreement.
“So, Father, why’d you do it?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Matt
I waited for the old man to make his plea to me, and I didn’t want to hear it. I could see how much Ember wanted this for me. I was far better at giving her what she wanted than hating my father. I wasn’t even sure the asshole heard me, since he took his time speaking. He focused his glazed eyes on me, and for a second, I was afraid he had given himself over to the booze, but he answered with a surprisingly strong voice.
“I guess you hate me now, huh?” he asked, and I watched as he shuffled in the seat and attempted to stand, only to fall on his ass again, either too weak or too drunk to support his thinning frame. This shit was getting old. Yeah, I could tell him I hated him and let it soak in that both his sons hated him, but despite my rage at him, my disregard, he was my father, and deep down I knew that I couldn’t really hate him. But instead of telling him that, I went with the asshole version and said, “No, I don’t feel shit for you.”
Know Me: A 'Me' Novel (Book 3) (A 'Me' Series) Page 16