by Liv Bennett
She forces us to watch a dozen videos to prove her point that’s as far from making sense as the distance between Santa Monica and Pasadena. I’d rather sit in the traffic on Wilshire right now than have to endure these embarrassing videos of my past. I’ll have to make sure no one gets their hands them. They would put my orgy scandal to shame.
“I’m bored already,” I complain, already settled on a chair, when Julie moves on to the next video of her seemingly endless collection. Where on earth did she find them, and when will she end this torture?
Ace is sprawled over the couch and has Lindsay tucked under his arm. “Not me. I never knew you were so feminine as a child. It’s probably something genetic, passed down from Michael to you.”
His laughter at the end of his assault has me on my feet faster than an express train, and I grab his jacket and haul him down onto the floor. A rare surge of rage darkens my vision and I punch his face, ramming my fist into his cheeks.
“Are you supposed to be a man? You cry like a little girl. You’re not strong. You have no power to handle life!”
I stumble, as if hit by a wall of cement as Michael’s insults echo in my mind, over and over again.
“You’re a disappointment, Zane. I’d rather have Ace as my own, biological son than a scared little coward like you.”
“You don’t have what it takes to run a company!”
“Your ideas are bullshit. Your projects are ordinary. You don’t deserve the position I gave you at my company. Julie would have done a better job. Now I know the money I spent on your college education was a waste.”
Julie and Lindsay’s shrill cries barely register in my mind as Michael’s offending taunts continue to swirl in my head. I feel the fear again…the terror I had on a daily basis when he was alive. The fear of the unknown…when he’d strike…whom he’d hurt. I want it to end, vanish forever and never come back.
My hands feel heavier, harder, and clench with an uncontrollable rage. I slam my fist into Ace’s face again, despite Julie and Lindsay’s efforts to block my attack.
“You’ll never grow up into a real man.”
Pain…sharp and excruciating pain slices into my gut. His face appears in front of me, everything he feels about me, dismay, disappointment, hostility clear in the harsh lines of his face.
“You’re the reason why I have to punish Chloe. If you were man enough to protect her from the boys who want nothing but to get into her pants, I wouldn’t lay a hand on her. But, since her big brother is a useless piece of shit, she has to learn life’s truths the hard way.”
My chest closes up, air trapped in my throat. I snap my eyes closed to make him disappear. He’s dead. This isn’t real. It can’t be!
Gone, be gone! Get the fuck out of my mind!
Suddenly, I’m knocked over and my body crashes to the floor, the abruptness of the attack hauling me back to the present.
Three sets of wide eyes stare down at me through the fog. Lips move, but I can barely make out the words. I blink, my eyebrows pulling together.
“Zane, baby!” Julie’s voice filters through the clouds crowding my mind.
“Zane,” Ace growls and grabs my shoulders to shake me. For once, his move helps me back to clarity.
I sit up and look at Julie’s worry-filled expression. “What just happened?”
“You blacked out.” Julie kneels beside me, hugging me sideways, stroking the length of my face with gentle caresses. “Are you feeling dizzy? Do you need some water?” Before I can speak, she answers her own question. “Water would be good, actually.”
“I’ll get some.” Lindsay pushes up to her feet quickly and rushes toward the kitchen.
“Is it because you skipped dinner?” Julie mumbles, likely to herself because her words are too quick and disoriented. “Is it the stress I caused you? I went too far with my plan, didn’t I? Oh, God! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have gone out to dinner with you and explained my worries instead of pulling a crappy scenario like this.”
“No, no!” I grab the hand wandering over my face and bring her palm to my lips, kissing her soft skin. “It wasn’t you. I don’t know what happened. I was angry with Ace one second, and then Michael’s face was all I could see the next. He was yelling at me, as always. You know how he was with me.”
“Do you see him often?” Julie asks.
“No.” I shake my head vigorously. “Never, except for some nightmares while I sleep. This was the first time while awake.”
Julie’s jaw drops and her eyes turn to Ace. Ace nods silently to their unspoken communication. I frown, trying to understand. “What is it?” I ask.
Lindsay brings a glass of water right then, and Ace and Julie help me up and onto the couch. I gulp down the cold drink, each sip calming me bit by bit until I feel my full strength back.
Ace settles on a chair and pulls Lindsay over his lap, both looking at me with a cautious expression, as if I’m a few minutes away from turning crazy.
Julie sneaks in next to me and grabs my hand, guiding it between her hands toward her knee. “Do you remember what I was talking about before you passed out?”
I force myself to remember the last minutes before I attacked Ace. The pictures all over the walls catch my attention, and the missing pieces of my memories quickly fall back into place. “Yeah, my fucking bastard brother, who I should accept as my real brother, and my anger toward him is actually due to my helplessness against Michael’s abuses?”
Julie laughs. “Damn right. So, what do you think of my theory?”
I glance over at Ace, who looks worried. About me? I wouldn’t think so, but then who else could he be worried about if not me? His left cheek is glowing red, and a few drops of blood are lingering at the corner of his lips.
“I’m sorry, man! I didn’t mean to ruin your face,” I apologize. He shakes his head as if it’s no big deal.
I’ve hated him for so long, it’s hard to find my way back to the warm and fuzzy feelings I had for him when he was a baby. The videos Julie showed us and the pictures decorating the walls didn’t convey something that didn’t exist. There was a time in our history, a very long time ago, where I felt very close to him, loved him and even felt proud of being his older brother. Everything changed once I found out Michael had adapted him to fight against the latest rumors about his homosexuality and maintain his image as a loving father and husband.
It is painful to watch someone you love being abused and not be able to stop it. Acknowledging Ace as my brother meant, I had to feel for him too, in addition to Chloe. Hating him was an easier route, one that didn’t add to my anguish, but lightened it immensely. I now realize it was immature of me.
He didn’t do anything wrong. In fact he did his best to make Mom happy and protected her and Chloe as best as he could despite his weaker position. There’s a reason why Chloe is fonder of him than she is of me. Mom loved him to pieces too; so does Julie.
Julie pushes her face closer to mine, her eyes examining my face. “You’re not gonna faze out again, are you?”
I grin. “No, I’m good. I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“About what you said.”
“So?”
I take a deep breath. “What do you want me to say?”
“Say that I was right in my observation,” Julie demands playfully.
“Oh, God!” I growl. “Is this how it’s going to be? You coming up with scary scenarios to get your point across? I’d like to live a long, happy life with minimal stress, you know?”
Julie chuckles along with Ace and Lindsay and punches me gently on the shoulder. “I promise I want you to be happy. That was the whole purpose of this setup. I wish you could see how much better our lives could be if you’d accept Ace as a part of your family.”
“I guess you’re right.” The truth is, I’m exhausted…of fighting, trying, failing, and feeling lonely. With Michael gone, there is no reason for any of those anymore.
As annoying as Ac
e can be, he knows me better than anyone else in this whole wide world. He has been through the same ordeal as me, and he has never tried to stab me in the back, except for stealing Lindsay from me, which actually turned out to be a good thing. Besides, now that I’m a father to a baby boy, I’ll need as much help as I can get. What’s better than a brother’s helping hand in such a hairy situation?
“Time to make peace?” Julie chirps, clapping her hands cheerfully.
I nod and move to stand. Ace rises and approaches me with an irritating grin that I do my best to ignore. The first step to accepting him as my brother is to see past his annoying ways, which are plenty.
I offer him my hand to shake. Instead of shaking, he grabs my hand and pulls me into an awkward hug. I let him. He’ll be the embarrassing uncle, I can see, and I’ll be the cool dad.
CH 24 - The First Time
~
“Why did you thank Lindsay earlier?” I ask Julie after Lindsay and Ace depart, while her arms are locked around my neck as we lazily lie side by side on the couch.
Julie’s gaze falls on my chest and her cheeks flush, possibly from getting caught in action. “For her help.”
Holding back the pressuring chuckle, I reach to feel the heat on her cheeks. “What help? Her little show in the elevator in your apartment building?”
She blinks before drawing her gaze back at me. “Yes.”
“What was the purpose?” I ask.
“Past loves have a way to rekindle in our hearts. I wanted to make sure that your feelings for Lindsay were completely dead and won’t sneak back into your heart.”
Throwing my head back on the armrest of the chair, I laugh heartily. “How about the hot waitress in the restaurant? Did you have anything to do with her heavy flirting with me, too?”
She nods and sinks her teeth on her bottom lip.
“How did you even know which restaurant I picked for our date and have time to arrange such a scene?” I ask, because I have to know what lengths she’s capable of going to in order to get what she wants.
“You used the company’s credit card. I get alerts for expenditures that are over a thousand dollars. I knew our date would be there the moment I saw the restaurant name on the text alert.”
“You’re a sneaky little woman. What am I going to do with you?” I lean in and gently bite her neck until she purrs soft moans that send jolts of electricity down to my groin.
She runs her hands over my arms and shoulder, her fingers eager in their exploration of my muscles. “Why don’t we stay here overnight?”
Her suggestion throws me off-guard. I thought she hated this house. “Are you sure about that?”
Her eyebrows lift enthusiastically as she nods. “I don’t know about you, but for years, I had this fantasy of having you in my teenage bed.”
My blood starts simmering with desire. “Did you imagine me just lying on your bed?”
Her cheeks flush beautifully, and she sucks her bottom lip in obvious embarrassment. I kiss her burning cheeks, their heat warming up my own body. Without waiting for an answer that’ll likely not come, I jump to my feet and slide my arms beneath her small body, lifting her quickly off the couch.
“What are you doing?” she shouts, surprised and laughing.
Carrying her upstairs is so easy. She must weigh a hundred pounds or less. Fearful of falling, she tightens her hold around my neck, her lips close to mine. Her breath, a warm blaze, caresses my skin, her eyes following my gaze.
I kick the door of her bedroom open and drop her down on her old twin bed. Shoving my hands into the pockets of my pants, I glance around to examine her room. She didn’t have any posters of celebrities on her walls, like ninety-nine percent of teenage girls do. The only two pictures she has are of her two families; one of her biological family, and the other of us, the Hawkins.
The photo of her with her birthparents ignites my interest, and I stroll toward the table and lift the framed photo up to my face to study the little brown-haired grinning girl holding her parents’ hands. “How old were you in this one?” I crane my head to look over at her.
She straightens up in her bed, fixing her hair and pulling her skirt down to her knees at the same time. “Seven, I guess.”
“You look just like your mother.”
When her lips curl up, the smile that appears is a painful gesture. Not wanting to sour her mood, I abruptly set the picture back in its place.
“She died when I was seventeen.” She moves over on her bed toward the wall to give me space to sit. Her hair, a thick curtain of brown, falls over her flushed cheeks, the contrast of brown to red of her face creating a beautiful image.
Yanking off my shoes, I slide onto the bed next to her and rest on an elbow. “Of cancer,” she adds with a nostalgic tone.
“I remember,” I say quickly, not wanting to interrupt her in case she wants to talk more about it.
“She left me, but I desperately wanted her to live. I was ready to do anything for her so she survived—” A sob interrupts her, tears filling her eyes.
I reach for her face instinctively in an attempt to erase her pain and protect her from her demons.
“That’s why it wasn’t difficult to accept Michael’s offers.” She cups my hand and leans on it. “He said he’d pay my mother’s medical bills…that she’d get the best care available.”
A jolt of pain slices through me right then. “What offers?” I ask, although I know exactly what kind of offers Michael had in store for Julie.
She looks up at me with guilt and pain. “Do you remember Uncle Sean?”
Sean McNeal. Michael’s business associate and a family friend. I nod quickly.
“He was the first guy—” She breaks into a shaking burst of sobs, covering her face with her hands, pushing mine away.
“Oh, shit!” I jolt up, breathless, anger thick in my blood. “That mother fucker! Jesus! I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna make him regret the day he laid his hands on you!”
“Don’t!” She wipes her tears and offers her hand to me. “It’s okay. I’ve come to accept my past as it is.”
I swallow my anger and take a long, deep breath to cool down, before sitting back down beside her.
“I couldn’t tell Irene about it,” she continues, her voice low. “But she knew it right away. I don’t know how, perhaps she knew Michael all too well.”
My hands move toward her, but somehow I can’t leap the distance to reach out and touch her. Unaware of my hesitation, she leans back against the wall and crosses her legs on the bed, her hands fidgeting on her lap. “Sean was the only man I had sex with, though.” She smiles. She actually smiles while explaining one of the worst things that can happen to a child.
I don’t speak a word so she can continue without interruption.
“Irene came up with a great idea.” Her grin grows, her eyes almost wicked. “She told me to tell Michael that I’d gotten genital herpes from Sean. From that day on, he never asked me to have sex with men. Only oral or sometimes a hand job.”
Shall I be happy about the fact that my girl slept with only one man in her entire life, or angry that she was sexually abused anyway by many? I can’t decide. However you look at it, she was denied a normal childhood and the joy a young woman experiences in the discovery of sex.
“I’m sorry this happened to you.” Once again, I feel anger for Michael, who ruined the lives of so many people. I move forward and pull Julie to me, cupping her head and kissing the top of it. “I wish I could have protected you.”
“There was nothing you could have done and you know it.” Her fingers curl into my shirt and she rests her head against my chest, over my heart, right where she belongs. “I’ve decided there’s no reason to live in the past. If I allow the tragedies of the past to define me, I’ll be allowing Michael to keep on hurting me, and I don’t want that.” She looks up at me, with teary eyes, but joy is the only emotion I can read on her face, as she cries. “I want to finally be happy, and I think I can b
e…with you.”
“I’ll make you happy. I promise I’ll make you the happiest woman on earth.” I grab her chin and capture her trembling lips, tasting the salty tears on her skin.
As our kiss deepens, her body shifts quickly to stand on her knees, our bodies pressing against each other. My tongue slips past her lips, exploring her mouth, while her hands impatiently explore my chest, my shoulders, my biceps. Her deep breathing and soft moans quicken my blood.
In a normal make-out session, this would be my cue to take it to the next level and reach for the buttons of her blouse. But, this is neither normal nor predictable. I should let her take the lead to take us to the point she’s comfortable with. Besides, if I indeed start getting her naked, there’s no telling if I’ll be able to stop myself. I’d rather not scare her away before truly capturing her of her own free will.
Grinning, she pushes me down until I’m lying on my back. Lifting her leg, she moves it over my hips, sitting on top of me in the cowgirl style. My cock instantly comes to life, thickening under her weight, rather beneath her pussy.
Holly heavens!
Her breasts are heavy against her blouse, and her legs are completely bare now that her skirt has ridden all the way up. Hell, I can even see her black lacy underwear. My hands itch to touch it, explore her pussy through it, then slide a finger underneath to feel her wetness.
While her body sways forward and backward on me, using the length of my cock as her guide, I relax and rest my head on the pillow. If I don’t focus, I risk the danger of coming in my pants like a hormonal teenager.
Her eyes open and close and open again. Curiosity and desire flame in her dilated pupils. My breath hitches at the sinful sight of her lustful expression. Her hands on my chest, she glances down at me with curiosity. “Don’t you want it?”
“What? Hell, yeah! I do want it. I just thought, you’d want to take it slow,” I mutter, unable to stop feeling like I have a girl with me for the very first time.
She laughs and throws her body on the bed, falling in line beside me. Although she’s not straddling me anymore, she drapes her leg over my thighs, her knee slightly touching my balls. “You’re right. I don’t want to go too fast only to get panicked and end it suddenly.”