Unbind (Sub Rosa Series Book 1)

by Lynch, Sarah Michelle

  “You don’t think he could ever change?” Cai pursed his lips.

  “I saw what was in his eyes, it was a soul lost to the darkness… a soul content to stay there. That was a more frightening thing than getting my head split open—the fact that some people just are irredeemably black inside.”

  Cai looked deep in thought, then asked, “What happened to Amanda?”

  I cringed. “I made a deal with the police. I’d press charges against Sonny if they caught her in possession.”

  He frowned hard. “Why’d you do that? That sounds crazy.”

  I shrugged, feeling nothing like that teenager who had the balls to make a decision about her sister’s life within a split second. “I woke up with my head stapled and glued like a fucking infant school project gone wrong, Cai. One more millimetre they said, one more and I could’ve been dead or facing the repercussions of nerve damage. The blood, Cai…” I started crying and he moved over to sit by my feet, “…all that blood. I didn’t know I had so much blood in me. When I woke up, I—I was blindsided, couldn’t see any other way she’d get herself free of that world. I knew they’d be lenient and they were. She got community service, rehab, all that kind of stuff. Except when she grew older, she went back there. Did it again anyway. She’s an addict, Cai. They made her one.”

  “Actually, some studies have shown that addicts have certain personality traits that make them more prone to addiction if a certain set of factors come together.”

  I looked at him and realised. His mother. “I forgot your mother was an addict too, I’m sorry.”

  I stroked a hand through his hair as he rested his cheek against my lap. “Hers stemmed from abuse too. Don’t ask me how I know she was abused, I just know.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  “You once said you didn’t realise it was abuse. What did he do to you, Chloe? What did he do?” Cai ground out, his head buried in my thick leggings.

  “Who? My dad?”

  “Yeah.”

  I avoided the question. “Did I tell you my mother called this morning to tell me he’s just had heart surgery… and I felt absolutely nothing. It’s why I was trying to rip your bag from the ceiling… I can’t force myself to feel anything for him.”

  “Damn it… what did he do, Chlo? Tell me.” Cai lifted his head, his eyes teary, desperately in need of knowing.

  My mouth trembled and I reached out to stroke his face. “I didn’t think it was abuse. I knew it was wrong. I didn’t think it was abuse.”

  “Quit stalling and tell me.” He frowned hard, seething.

  “No, I’m frightened. You’re frightening me, Cai. I don’t want to tell you. You’ll never want to be in the same room with him if I tell you.”

  Cai pushed up from the floor and held out his hand to me. “Stand up and do to me what he did to you. Do it. I can take it, Chloe. Show me. Show me like I showed you at Sub Rosa. Show me, damn it.”

  The hurt in his stance and demeanour was so incredible, it reached even the forked, drifting tendrils of my being. I stood up and looked him in the eye with nothing but disdain, jabbed a finger in his shoulder, pushed hard enough to shift him.

  “You’re tough, are you?”

  “Yeah,” Cai said, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “Show me then, show me how tough you are.”

  “I don’t hurt people,” Cai said, acting my part.

  “You’ll one day learn it’ll get you nowhere being a runt.”

  “A runt?” He grimaced, his face twitched.

  “An idle little nothing.” I poked his shoulder again.

  “I’m not idle, nor nothing.” Cai said.

  I twisted his arm behind his back, then spat in his ear, “You, are nothing. Now say it.”

  “No.”

  I got him on the floor, my entire body pressed on his back so he struggled for breath, or to escape. “You’re nothing. You’ll be nothing. I hope you fail… I hope you know what it’s like to lose. You’ll never do a thing good. You’ll never succeed… you never show us any love. Why should you get anything in life?”

  “No,” Cai said, perhaps unable to believe this was the treatment I received.

  I grabbed his hair and was just about to pull his head back and smack his face against the wood floor. “Say it. You’re weak. Say it and I won’t make a mess of your face.”

  “I’m weak,” Cai said, and burst into tears. I rocked back on my heels and knelt by his side, watching with tears of my own as Cai laid on his belly crying his heart out, his large bulk shuddering right before my eyes.

  “No, no…” he repeated, still unable to believe all that happened to me.

  That is how our father treated the daughters he was meant to love, to cherish, to protect.

  “He was most lenient on Anabel because she never answered back. I never saw him hit our mother but I saw her holding her side, or fiddling with the concealer stick for too long in the mirror. I know him and Mum had a stillborn boy before I was born and he never forgave my mother. She kept trying to give him a son, but she never did. I still can’t find any logic in existence that justifies the things he did.”

  “Oh god,” Cai moaned, wiping tears from his eyes.

  “When I had my head smashed open, he thought it was funny. Said I must have done something to deserve it. When I told him it was Amanda’s boyfriend who’d done that to me, he almost hit me while I laid in a hospital bed. He didn’t want to believe his youngest was at the mercy of a drug dealer. He didn’t like it when he found out I grassed her up… she wore orange overalls and had to clear rubbish around the town so everyone could see. My father was all about the appearances you see… keeping them up, putting on a show… nobody knew what was really going on.”

  Cai laid there, still struggling to pull himself together. I continued on, because this was my chance. This was the moment—the floodgates were open.

  “It didn’t matter what he did, I still did well at school and I was popular. Looking like this has its merit, you know? I had Kay most of all but like I said, even she didn’t know half the things I was dealing with at home. Like the nights when one of us put a foot wrong and he’d hold one of us down while encouraging the others to hit the one allegedly in the wrong. When we were small, we didn’t know much different I guess. I knew my mother suffered badly with depression but she was either low or so high on pills, there was no reasoning with her. It was only when Amanda started using heavily that Mum said enough is enough… and she forced everyone to go to family therapy. They’ve all had CBT but I haven’t. I’ve never had therapy even though I probably should, but I just don’t want the cracks to get bigger Cai. I don’t want them to get bigger.”

  He got himself to a sitting position but he still couldn’t look at me, his gaze fixed on the door of his workspace, like he needed his own escape too.

  “How did you cope?” he asked, still not looking at me.

  I took a long breath and breathed out again. I thought hard and I said simply, “I love life. I love that there are good people, interesting people. People who want to talk to me and have a laugh, too. Most of all, I always knew, I had my marbles. I had this mind to use. If only… if only I didn’t have this memory too, this memory, Cai…”

  He turned to look at me, his eyes red but no longer leaking. “Memory?”

  “I have this memory.” I pointed to my skull. “I can remember all the names and faces of people I’ve ever met. I remember when I fell from a rope swing into a stream when I was little, I was wearing some cheap high-top trainers I loved. They were ruined by the mud. I remember what top I wore to a school disco when I was 13, a thing I spent hours picking out. I remember the day Kay got her first tattoo,” I smiled, “I remember how long she spent making sure the design was right, how faint she looked when the dude doing her ink brought the needle toward her skin. I remember the ringlets in Amanda’s hair and how innocent they were and I remember every, single moment of pure evil
he ever wrought on us. You see I can’t forgive, Cai, not when I can’t forget.”

  He shut his eyes and looked down at the floor. “I wish you’d told me all this sooner, tigress. I wish you had.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve spanked you and hit you. I didn’t know, Chlo.” He thumped his fist on the floor in anguish.

  “Yes, you’ve spanked me lots of times and I never said stop because I like it that we’re open enough to do that.” I shook my head. “It’s not the same, Cai. It’s just not… you’re not spanking me to hurt me, you’re doing it because you’re expressing our bond, our passion… I love it when you spank me. I love you.”

  He looked like he wanted to tear his own eyes out. “Look… the truth is… I don’t like spanking, Chloe. I don’t fucking like it. I just do it because I think you want it.”

  “I do want it, but only if you want it too.”

  He shook his head madly, side to side. “I want to please you, I always said that. I want to give you everything you need.”

  “I only want you to make love to me, how ever you need to make love to me. I don’t care how… I love you. I just need you holding me. I don’t care about the rest, Cai! I don’t care!” I yelled, trying to get him to listen. This wasn’t just about my fear of violence. This was about old demons reawakened for him, too. I knew it.

  He stood and started pacing the room rapidly. “You’ll fight everyday now, Chlo. I’m not having you hide who you really are anymore. You’ll fight me and I’ll teach you some better tricks than the ones you learned. I’ll teach you and protect you. I don’t care if you hurt me, you can hurt me because I can take it. Chlo, you have to be who you are, do you hear me? You don’t know how much I need that from you? Please… say you’ll fight again, for me? Please baby.”

  I moved up behind him, caught my hands together around his waist. “I’ll do it for you, if you ask it of me.”

  He turned in my arms and put his hands on my cheeks. “Fight for me.”

  “I’ll do it.” I sounded emotional and all the air between us felt loaded with sparks of despair and disbelief.

  “Good. You’ll still keep your figure. I want breasts and my big ass, still.”

  “Okay,” I said, but didn’t get chance to say any more as he rushed me upstairs in a cradled position and placed me on the bedroom floor. Then he took his clothes off and laid himself on the bed so I had to wonder what he wanted now.

  “Tie me up. Do whatever you want to do to me. I need this. Now, do it. Damn it. Tie me up, tigress and use me. I’m yours to use, baby.”

  I grunted and felt reckless and emotional enough to growl. “Spread ’em, then. You better be ready.”

  “Fucking use me, Chloe. Agh,” he cried, “you make me so hard.”

  “I see that,” I said, as I began stripping my clothes off again.

  I went to my drawer and took out four stockings.

  “You’re always abusing my hosiery, now it’ll abuse you.”

  “Fuck me, tigress. Fuck me.” His chest heaved, his cock stretched away from his body. It never ceased to amaze me how big and broad the bulbous head of his member was.

  “Behave while I bind you.”

  “Ugh,” he grunted, brandishing his teeth, his eyes soaking up the curves of my body.

  “Bastard,” I snarled, as I tied his ankles, wrists… and for good measure… took out a blindfold to render his eyes useless, too.

  “Use me.” He encouraged, and I saw my man laid out for my pleasure. There was only one thing I wanted to do—a thing he rarely gave me chance to because he was always so eager.

  “I’m going to lick every inch of your body, Cai.”

  “Oooh! Yes!” He crowed.

  “Then I’m going to stick my finger in your butt and suck you until you come down my throat. I might push my pussy on your face and ride it. Then I’m going to slap your ass until it stings and I’ll take your cock inside me until you cry for saviour. You’re mine, Cai. Say it.”

  “Hell, I’m freaking yours you nasty bitch.”

  I began a slow assault of his body with my tongue, and followed through on all my promises. After I was done with him, we slept the whole day away. A ghost exorcised, a demon expunged.

  Chapter 41

  THEY SAY THAT most break-ups happen at Christmas or roundabout, when couples spending time together discover that they don’t really have anything in common anymore. Possibly the worst time of year to break up, but inevitably, one of those periods where people have no escape from their own or each other’s company. Touch wood, we were closer if anything and still finding out things about each other that I couldn’t have predicted. Yet each and every revelation made me feel justified—I knew I hadn’t moved across an ocean for nothing. Cai and I were so similar after all.

  In lieu of the fact my father had just had open-heart surgery, Cai called Carl and said it might be best if I spent another week at home rather than get straight back to the office after the new year. Carl agreed and Cai took more time off too, to look after me so to speak.

  I called Anabel and got the latest… she said Dad would pull through but was bitter about his illness. Thankfully she and Amanda were getting a flat together in Rotherham, where they both had jobs lined up. I was grateful, so grateful, for that. Timing is everything, they say.

  During that glorious week free of burdens and work, Cai and I spent hours laid in bed talking, telling each other stories. Cai told me a lot about Claire and Dirk, the couple he considered his parents until Jennifer came along. I told Cai that Claire seemed sweet and Dirk, perhaps a bit stony, but harmless nonetheless. I recalled all the monstrosities of my childhood and my father’s sick brand of parenting—some of the other examples were less terrifying but just as ludicrous for a man to have gotten away with.

  The rose and his parent’s deaths circulated my mind but I wanted him to tell me himself—if there were indeed anything to tell.

  During this period there was a discernable change in how Cai made love to me following my admission about the night I was attacked. I couldn’t put my finger on it but there was something different.

  It wasn’t me, it was him. He was different.

  The routine of morning sex and last thing at night sex ceased. Whether it was because it was the holidays still, I didn’t know. What I did know was that Cai began taking me whenever and wherever he pleased. For the first time, he made love to me in a public place—a toilet in a pizzeria.

  He bent me over the kitchen island without even preparing me, took me on his desk (yes, again!) without warning, even once plunged himself inside my mouth though I sat on the toilet.

  When he did take me to bed, he kissed me for so long that even when I begged him to push inside me, he didn’t. He refused. He kept me dangling. I figured he was testing my love, trying my patience. Taking me unannounced to see if I would baulk or cry out in ecstasy—the latter always the case. I didn’t know what was going on but the unpredictability had me in knots, making me jump whenever he brushed his fingers across the nape of my neck—just the thought of him fucking me then and there gathering wetness between my thighs. He knew when I needed him and he might give me one look that I knew meant, Don’t you dare see to that yourself.

  I couldn’t explain how he began to make me feel, especially when we also began working out together. Some sex became more like wrestling. He made me shave everything away too, down below. In fact he did it for me. He was more man than any other I had ever known yet I still knew, beneath it all, he was still that frightened 14 year old, worried nobody loved him.

  So when he came and sat by my side on Friday night and said, “We need to talk,” I had my high hopes. I prepared for a glut of revelations that might satisfy my curiosity.

  He perched on the couch wearing a robe. We’d spent the day screwing so hard my whole body hurt. He had just stepped from the shower and I was poised to take a long, hot bath.

  I saw his hands shaking, his whole body shaking in fact. I
took his fingers between mine and asked him, “Please, talk then. Whatever it is, I’m here for you.”

  “You’ll hate me when I tell you. You’ll hate me.” He held his forehead, his eyes tight at the corners with tension.

  “How could I hate you? I’m in love with you.”

  “You’ll hate me,” he said, “what I have to say won’t be easy to explain.”

  I turned his face to get a look at his eyes and he seemed adamant that what he needed to impart had to be said. Now was the time. Yet he hated it. He’d worked up to it, no doubt. Felt a bit sick over it, even. I knew that feeling—facing a truth you thought you had tucked away nice and tight.

  I felt my pulse quicken and chills raced down my spine, but somehow I kept a lid on my fear and said bravely, “I’m ready and I’m here. We’ve conquered so much already, Cai.”

  “My name’s not Cai,” he said first and foremost.

  I held two hands at my cheeks, bit my lip to keep my shock inside and nodded, over and over again, begging him to get it over with.

  “I mean, it is Cai. But it isn’t. I was born Caius Cortez and when Jennifer took over my guardianship, she made me change my name so that it cut my association from him… my father. I always used to shorten it to Cai and so when she made me change my name to something less like the name they’d given me, I don’t know… I thought of Kincaid. Seems dumb, doesn’t it? Yet when I thought about it… Kincaid is so far removed from Caius, the Mexican gangster’s son.”

  From the look on his face, we were only just getting started.

  “Jennifer thinks I was there when my mother died and she’s right, I was there. I know exactly what happened and I haven’t told a soul, not until right now.”

  I launched myself across the sofa and whimpered, “My love.”

  I wrapped my arms tight around his shoulders and burrowed into his neck.