by E V Darcy
He wasn’t ready to die, he decided. Yes, he’d lived a full life, sometimes one of hardship and heartbreak, but more often one of fame and fortune. He’d had a good run, better than most, but what did he really have to show for it? A Malibu beach home, a small collection of vintage cars, a few minor awards for his performances, and a story no one would ever know.
He’d merely be remembered for being the Hollywood playboy, the guy who’d shagged his way around the business, from one leading lady to another, until they’d all realised they couldn’t keep him longer than the duration of the filming—some even less than that.
He was sure the women wouldn’t speak harshly of him, and that he’d suddenly be remembered as sweet and loving during their time together; they’d remember how he’d tried to capture their hearts and how it had always destroyed him slightly when it hadn’t worked out.
Dammit, they were going to make him out to be some poor tortured fool, who’d spent his life moving from woman to woman desperately seeking something he couldn’t find.
Bollocks to that. He’d write a text on Paige’s phone when she woke up to set them all straight. He’d send it to his manager—
Shit, Tanya had the numbers.
And at the thought of his bodyguard, his mood went down again. She had been about to be a grandmother. She’d been preparing to leave him, to go and spend the rest of her life looking after her family rather than his self-entitled arse.
She had left behind a son and daughter, a future grandchild on its way and however many more her children would have given her in their lifetimes. Her funeral would probably be attended by people who could tell heartwarming stories about what a wonderful woman she’d been. They’d laugh at some of the things she’d done, and cry at some of the words of advice she’d given them.
Her kids would tell theirs about their brave Nana, the one who had protected people and saved lives. They’d show them pictures of her; some family shots, some from magazines when she’d been dragging his sorry arse out of the spotlight for one reason or another, and they’d point at him and say, he’s the one who got her killed.
Tanya’s legacy was one of warmth and family, while his own was of getting his leg over and generally being a prick.
‘I fell in love once,’ he whispered, just so it was at least out there in the world and that it didn’t die locked inside him. He wanted the universe to know he’d at least had a heart at one point in his life, before he became a womanising bastard. He didn’t mind his life—hell, he loved his life. He was free to do what he wanted, when he wanted.
He wanted to scoff at his moment of sappiness, but instead he ended up jumping a mile when Paige firmly said, ‘Tell me.’
He’d thought her out for the count. She shifted around in his arms and he imagined her green eyes looking at him, begging him to open up to her, and something within him wanted to.
He felt her hand move up, and he reached out to grasp it, bringing it to his cheek when their fingers touched.
‘Tell me who hurt you,’ she whispered, nudging his nose with hers. Her breath whispered across his lips and he was so tempted to close that tiny distance and capture her mouth with his, just to feel close to a body again, to know someone one last time before he became just a vague memory to the fickle world.
‘How do you know they hurt me?’
‘Because,’ she whispered, and he swore he felt her lips brush over his. ‘If your heart hadn’t been broken, you’d still be in love…’
He didn’t have to tell her; he didn’t have to say anything if he just bloody kissed her. He could do that. He was good at that.
No, he’s was fucking great at that.
‘I’d been on a gap year, travelling in India, working in remote villages,’ he said, instead. ‘I met this beautiful woman. Her name was Rabhya, it means worshipped, and I bloody did. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Her hair was long and dark, her eyes the colour of the finest Belgian chocolate; her body was tall and willowy, and always draped in the most gorgeous fabrics.
‘Her father was some rich guy in what was this tiny town in the middle of nowhere. And I mean nowhere. It wasn’t on a map back then—not that I’ve looked to see if it is now.’ But he had and it was. ‘She was like a princess, completely off limits.’
‘Ah, she was the forbidden fruit and it drove you mad. Or were you the taboo, the poor boy she took a shine to?’ Her thumb brushed his cheek and he pressed her hand harder against his face.
He was doing this. He was really telling someone. It wasn’t a memory or a dream being replayed in his mind. His tongue was letting the story go. Someone in this world would know the real Casey McManaman before he died. They’d been talking all day, swapping all their secrets, but this… This was the reason why he was who he had become. And it wasn’t as if she was going to be able to tell anyone.
‘It was ‘91, and I was an eighteen year old, white, British lad, who had all these ideas of how the world was, and not a clue what it was really like. Interracial couples weren’t taboo back in the UK, and I thought that that was how it was the world over.
‘We saw each other in secret for a couple of weeks. She’d sneak out of her house of a night and we’d make love on the banks of the river.’ He sighed, remembering how exciting it had been to feel the touch of a woman for the first time, and how perfect it had been as he gave himself over to someone under the brightness of the full moon.
He’d been such a sap.
No, he’d been a naïve dickhead.
‘A couple of weeks into our… fling, she told me she was pregnant. I was gob-smacked but elated. The woman I loved was going to have my baby! I immediately asked her to marry me and come live with me in England. But her father found out.’
‘Oh shit,’ Paige said.
‘Wait, it gets better,’ he whispered as he dropped her hand and pulled her closer to him. Her body was a line of warmth against his, from chest to knee. He buried his face in her hair and breathed in the faint traces of shampoo that clung desperately to her—apple and cinnamon. Bollocks, he was going to be hungry again.
‘Pissed wasn’t exactly the word I would use to describe how angry he was that his daughter had been defiled outside of marriage. No only that, but by a British white guy—we weren’t that popular with some parts of the commonwealth back then. Although, I’m still not sure we’re that popular to be honest.’
He took a deep breath and found her hand again, taking it and pulling it around his waist. He slid it under his shirt and when he felt her hesitate, encouraged her to feel up his back, towards his shoulders. When her hands felt the old, silvery marks, she froze momentarily.
‘What happened?’ she asked, quietly, before her fingers traced each line. He remembered receiving each and every one.
‘He had me tied to a post in the town square and flogged. Fifteen lashes.’
‘Oh, Casey, that’s horrible!’ she cried, her hand flattened against his back as she tried to pull him even closer to her. He felt her breasts push against his chest, her leg sliding over his hip as she tried to cradle his large frame in her small one.
He smiled into her hair at the action, thinking it so ridiculous that she could protect him, yet touched by her desire to do so. God, was this what it was like to you let someone in, to do more than just shag them and then say ta-ta?
Probably, for a while, before it all turned to shit like he knew it would. Paige was proof of that fact. She told him she’d loved Daniel, and look how that had ended.
‘It was worth it—at the time.’ He shrugged and pulled back slightly, resting his head back on his shoulder, his face close to hers once more. Their noses just barely touched. ‘I wore those marks with pride afterwards, as Rabhya held me and cleaned me up, calling me brave for taking such a punishment…
‘Her father demanded we marry—which I was all for—and preparations began. What had been a shameful affair turned into a joyous one. As soon as I was okay again, we’d be wed.’
‘I can’t believe they whipped you!’
He rubbed her nose with his. ‘Ah, ah, we’re in a happy part of the story now. Focus.’
‘But it can’t have a happy ending as you’re here, with me, buried under all this crap. You’re not with Ra— Rabhya’—she hadn’t said it right—‘and I’ve never read about this so it must be something you’ve kept to yourself because it still hurts.’
‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘Okay, let’s cut all the engagement crap. It took a couple of weeks for my back to heal so I could wear a shirt. Once I could, I began to go out around the village. I noticed people were looking at me strangely; the people who had visited and left gifts for us for our engagement suddenly wouldn’t meet my eyes and spoke hurriedly as if they wanted the conversation to end so they could move on.
‘Anyway long story short—oh wait, too late!—turns out the baby wasn’t mine. She was already starting to show and everyone knew that meant she was further along than she claimed—longer than I’d been with them. They all knew there was no way I could have been the father. One of them finally took pity—’
‘What!’
Casey pulled back at her sudden screech after she had processed his words.
‘Whoa, woman!’ he said as he shook his head.
‘Sorry.’ Paige lowered her voice back to the quiet levels they’d been using all day. ‘But, she used you and you got, well, flayed for it!’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. She was a bitch. Blah blah blah. I’ve gone over it a thousand times in my head. How she used me simply to hide her indiscretion with another white guy who’d gone through the village three months before. How she never really loved me, etcetera, etcetera.’
They lay in silence as they both re-ran the story in their heads. For Casey, it was one he usually avoided; it filled him with bitterness and was usually dealt with by a bottle of vodka and a call to his favourite booty-call of the month. He didn’t have that luxury tonight.
‘She must have been so scared.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Rabhya’—still didn’t get it right—‘she must have been petrified of her father, to do that to you.’
‘Don’t make excuses for her—’
‘No, listen,’ she said, as she tried to put her hand over his mouth. She missed and covered his nose, but he got her meaning. ‘Some guy comes along and woos her, sweeps her off her feet, takes her virginity and knocks her up, only to up and leave without a care in the world, leaving her to face her father, her village, and whatever religion she followed all alone. Then you came along—’
‘Yeah, the fool who—’
‘—the charming and handsome young man who wanted to love her, marry her, protect her. She’s a scared young girl, and you offer her everything she needs at that moment. She probably did care for you, maybe even did love you, but her fate was already sealed.’
‘I took lashes for her,’ he said, with a pout.
Paige gave a dreamy sigh. ‘That was very romantic. It probably stole her heart completely, knowing you’d go through such an ordeal to protect her.’
Casey opened his mouth to rebut such a sentiment, but then quickly closed it. He lay there in the dark, Paige’s hand over half his face as he rolled her words over and over in his mind.
Brave, not foolish.
Protector, not taken for a ride.
Loved, not laughed at.
All his adult life he’d seen what Rabhya had done to him as an evil that was inherent in all women. It had made him see that it was best to screw them before they got a chance to screw him. Would his life have been different if he’d heard Paige’s version of it before today?
‘Casey?’ She lifted her hand from his face and he felt her shift a little closer.
‘Hmm?’
‘Was that real? No bullshit?’
‘No bullshit,’ he confirmed, just as her lips pressed against his.
5
She had no idea why she kissed him, but the moment their lips touched, it felt completely right. He responded to her immediately, no hesitation and it almost made her think that perhaps the story was bullshit, a tale to tell just to get into a woman’s panties. But the pain she’d heard in his voice, the way he had tried to skim over some of the more painful moments, the scars on his back… It had to be true.
This man had loved, and loved so deeply that the woman’s fuckery had screwed up his entire life afterwards. Paige might have given him platitudes towards the woman’s actions, but inside she wanted to strike the woman down for turning Casey into what she imagined was a bitter shadow of what he could have been. A husband, a father… devoted to one woman his whole life. He’d have felt whole, complete, instead of the empty shell she imagined he was inside. How could anyone be truly happy so alone?
The arm under her shifted, to let his hand cup her head, as the other slid up her leg. His fingertips lightly traced the inside of her thigh and made her shiver in anticipation.
If there was one thing all her exes would agree on, it was that Paige Hamilton was not shy in the bedroom. But right now, she had never wanted any man more than she wanted Casey.
His fingers reached the apex of her legs and brushed along the already damp crotch of her panties. Her whole body shuddered at the teasing caress, and she wriggled her hips trying to get him to touch her more intimately, to slip his fingers under the pair of lacy French knickers she wore.
When he grinned against her lips, she knew he was playing with her and she couldn’t have that. She pushed at his shoulder, gently, to get him to roll onto his back. The man complied; one hand grabbing at her arse to bring her with him, but still he tried to control their fun by refusing to allow her to settle against him. Instead, his hands moved to her ass, grabbing at her ample cheeks, to keep her up on her knees.
She played along as his fingers finally slipped under her fancy briefs… and she smiled against his lips when he moaned into her mouth. He’d discovered she was completely shaven.
She gasped, throwing her head back and breaking their kiss when his finger slipped inside her slick heat and brushed over her clit. She rocked against him, in time with his short, quick strokes, delighting in the electric current that was rushing through her at the pleasure he was evoking.
When his thumb pressed against her entrance she cursed, ‘Oh, fuck!’
‘Get me out,’ he said, his words tinged with desperation. ‘And I will.’
Her hand fumbled for the fastening on his jeans and she hissed a curse at the fact she was shaking like some blushing virgin. She wanted to feel him, know him the way he was getting to know her. She finally popped the button of his jeans and inched the zipper down, slower than she would have liked, but carefully over his long, thick shaft. She reached in for her prize, revelling in the feel of the velvety texture of his erection; her eyebrows raised when she realised he was uncut—she’d never had an uncut man before. Damn, she wished she could see him.
‘Fuck, Paige,’ Casey moaned as she pulled him out of the confines of the denim. She bit her lip, to stop herself from smiling as he hissed when she lowered herself just enough to slip his hard cock between her legs, pushing her lacy underwear to one side, and rubbed his shaft against her wetness.
Their mouths met in a dirty kiss as she rocked against his cock, revelling in the feel of its head as it slipped between her lips and brushed her clit.
‘Oh, God,’ she moaned as she moved up and down his shaft. His head would reach just to her entrance before she would slide back up it to push against that little nub of pleasure.
‘I thought you wanted me to fuck you.’ His words were muffled against her mouth, but she understood them. He was as desperate to be in her as she was to sink down on him. She wondered if his uncut length would feel different inside her to those of her previous lovers…
‘Casey I want you to fuck me so hard I scream,’ she told him, making him groan at her words. His hands on her hips tightened their hold, keeping her exactly where she was, with his cock righ
t at her quivering entrance.
‘I want to feel your dick for hours after we’re finished,’ she said as she trailed kisses along his jaw, up towards his ear. ‘I want you to make me forget any other man I’ve ever been with,’ she growled as she sucked on his lobe, nipping it gently with her teeth. ‘I want to leave this earth with only the thought of your cock, the pleasure you gave me, on my mind.’
‘Paige!’ he cried as she slowly began to sheath his aching erection in her tight, wet hole. It was torture not to just sink down on him, to take what she really wanted, but she wanted him to feel the same, to remember only her wrapped around him when their end finally came.
His fingers gripped her hips so tight, she thought she’d be left with bruises afterwards, marking her body under her dress letting everyone know that he’d had her before they went.
Fuck, they were still both fully clothed; they hadn’t removed a stitch. He was still in his white t-shirt and jeans, she in her little green dress. No one would know until later—much later—what they’d been up to down there, hidden in the darkness, in their own little cocoon where they were free to explore and ravish one another.
She shivered at the idea of people realising they’d been together; would they try and picture it; imagining what position they’d had to use in these close quarters? She bet Tumblr would go fucking nuts with gifs representing them, flashes of skin between screens of darkness.
The idea of others knowing what she’d done just before she died, knowing who she’d done just before they’d died only intensified her pleasure and sent her higher.
‘You’re going to make me scream so loud we’ll either cause another cave in, or those looking for survivors will hear me and find us,’ she whispered, and she felt his control snap. He’d been holding back before, letting her control everything, but now he needed it, and she let him have it. She really did want him to screw her good and hard.