by Savage, Shay
“You get to go home, too,” Raine said under her breath.
“I just left home.” I didn’t mean to say it. I never meant to tell her that. I tore my eyes away from her, focusing on the pile of fabric that had slipped off the bench and fallen to the floor.
“You didn’t want to leave,” she said suddenly. When I glanced back to her face, her eyes brightened with understanding. “You wanted to stay there.”
I stared at her for a moment and then looked down to my hands, which seemed to be entertaining themselves by twiddling my fingers around. It didn’t matter. Staying there would have been pointless, if for no other reason than the lack of booze, smokes, and whores.
“Bastian…why?”
“You were mine there,” I said quietly. “Making that work – I could do that. Not now. Now you are…everyone’s.”
“What do you mean, ‘I’m everyone’s’?”
“John Paul, Nick, Lindsay – you belong to all of them.”
“Bastian, that doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Well, you fucking asked.”
Raine sighed and closed her eyes. I knew I didn’t make any sense – I couldn’t justify that shit to myself, let alone anyone else. I couldn’t deny her a real life just because I was too fucked up to function around people.
“Bastian…are you jealous?”
“Jealous?” I snorted. I wasn’t fucking jealous…was I?
“You are, aren’t you?”
“I’m not, I’m just…I just…I…I don’t want to share you!”
“Oh, Bastian!” Raine let out another long, exasperated sigh. “Going home is going to be really hard for you, isn’t it?”
“You’re my home,” I said quietly. A big fucking knot crawled up my throat and lodged itself there. I tried to take a deep breath, but it hurt.
“Then you know where your home is,” Raine said. Her hand reached up and touched my cheek, and my hardened walls crumbled instantly with her touch. She took another step closer. “I know you’ve lost your home. I know you’ve lost every home you’ve ever had, Bastian, but you aren’t going to lose me just because we’re in a different place. I can still be your home.”
With her fingers tracing circular patterns over my cheek, I gazed at her and tried to understand. She was telling me it wasn’t over. I could still be with her. She wasn’t telling me to go away – she was letting me stay.
“But…where would we…um…live? I mean…would you want me to? Live with you, I mean?”
“Yes,” Raine said definitively. “You can stay in my house, at least for now. We have time, Bastian. We have time to figure out exactly what comes next. I don’t have all the answers right now either, but I know whatever happens, I want you there with me.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do!” Raine shook her head and laughed once, though there was no humor in the sound. She reached up, taking my face in her hands. “You adorable, wonderful, overreacting man. I always want you with me. If you don’t want to come to Ohio…well, I’ll go where you want to go, then.”
“You would?”
“Anywhere.” Raine leaned forward and raised herself up while she pulled me down to her. Her lips brushed mine, and all the words she had just spoken marched around in my head, creating little military formations and eventually firing a twenty-one-gun clue into my brain.
My hands found her hips, pulled her to me, and held her tight. I opened my mouth, my tongue seeking hers. She opened to me, kissing me harder and running her hands up into my hair. In a complete storm of an indescribable group of feelings, I grabbed her hips, pulled her up and slammed her against the wall of the dressing room. I didn’t stop kissing her – I just kept going while my hands found their way under the sheer skirt she had tried on. My lips moved across her face, down her throat, then back up again.
“I like skirts,” I growled into her ear as my hand gripped her bare thigh. Trailing up a little farther, I met with silken panties. I gripped one side of them tightly in my fist before ripping them off.
“Bastian! I haven’t even bought those yet!”
“I’ll replace them,” I promised. My mouth found her neck again while my hand reached between her legs, finding her sex hot and wet. Had there ever been a time she wasn’t ready for me? “And I’ll tear those fuckers off, too.”
Raine’s giggle turned into a moan as I opened the front of my shorts quickly and slammed into her without warning. Holy fucking shit, it felt like it had been days instead of hours since I had been buried inside of her. It was home. It was heaven. And it was the only place I had ever truly belonged.
“I just couldn’t stand it, Raine…” I mumbled into her ear.
“What, Bastian?”
“You…not being mine. I can’t stand the thought. It fucking kills me to think that you’re not mine anymore.”
“I’m still yours,” Raine said, her fingers gripping the back of my head, holding my mouth to hers. “Always yours…that hasn’t changed.”
“Everything’s changed,” I whispered into her mouth, my eyes squeezing shut against the sudden pain throughout my body. I slammed her up against the wall, thrusting into her again and again, terrified that this might be the last time I ever touched her like this.
“Only the outside has changed,” Raine said. She cupped my face in her hands and held me fast – forcing me to look into her eyes even as I continued to fuck her against the wall. I don’t know how she managed to speak so coherently with me fucking her like that, but she did. “Do I feel different inside?”
“You feel…fucking…incredible,” I growled, shoving my hips harder against her.
“Inside everything is still the same,” she told me. “Everything I feel for you is on the inside, Bastian. Only what’s outside has changed. Inside, I still love you. I’m still yours.”
I tucked my head against her shoulder, hiding my face in her hair. One of my hands traced up her side and brushed the curve of her breast while the other gripped her ass firmly and lifted it to meet my body every time I pushed forward.
“I can’t lose you,” I cried into her hair. “I just can’t, Raine…it would fucking kill me if I lost you.”
“I’m right here, Bastian…oh God!”
“The whole store can fucking hear you,” I growled into her ear. “I bet they know my cock’s in you just from the way you say my name…oh, fuck…Raine!”
“Harder, Bastian…please!”
“Fuck, Raine!” I slammed into her again, not even able to comprehend how she could put up with my caveman approach of fucking her in the men’s dressing room at a department store, let alone ask for it harder. I wasn’t about to deny her what she asked for, but it still made me wonder what the fuck I had ever done to be worthy of her.
“Ohmygod…ohmygod…” Raine began chanting in a tiny, breathless whisper. Her heels dug into my ass, and her fingernails nearly clawed through my skin as I kept pounding into her until I felt her stiffen and clench around me. Not wanting to waste another moment, I let go, holding my hips tight against hers and growling low in my chest, forcing myself not to scream.
I held myself tight against her, which held her tight against the wall.
“Bastian…that was…” Raine took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “That was intense, to say the least, but I don’t understand why…”
“I’m fucking terrified, okay?” I interrupted. “I could…wrap my head around it – around you wanting me…around all of this – when we were there, but not now, not here. Not out here, where you have access to millions of other guys who aren’t as fucked up and worthless as I am…”
“YOU…ARE…NOT…WORTHLESS!” Though she didn’t actually yell the words, her tone was loud and fucking clear. The fingers she had buried in my hair tightened and pulled, twisting my head so I was looking right at her. “You are the most wonderful, beautiful man I have ever known. I love you, and that hasn’t changed just because there’s concrete under our feet instead of sand!
”
“If you left me…” I couldn’t even finish the thought, let alone the sentence. My whole body tensed up again.
“I know you’re scared.” Raine’s fingers traced over my jaw, and her voice softened. “I understand that, Bastian. I don’t know what else I can do but tell you to have faith in me – in us. I want us to stay together.”
“I want to believe you, Raine – I really do, but…I just…”
“I know,” she said, her voice softening. “I know how hard it is for you to accept it, but I still love you and that’s not going to change.”
“I love you, too,” I mumbled back, feeling completely chastised and a little whipped. I didn’t mind feeling whipped, which also scared the fuck out of me.
“We’ll make this work,” Raine said, her lips trailing across my jaw. “We’re still together, Bastian. Even when we are in a crowd, we’re still together.”
I stepped back, my cock getting cold as it slipped out of her warmth. I lowered her gently to her feet and started to yank my pants up from around my ankles.
“Take those off,” Raine said with a sigh.
“Why?”
“I need your boxers back now.”
“Oh…um…yeah, I guess you do.” I snickered a little, dropped my pants, and watched her shimmy my boxers over her legs. She checked herself in the dressing room mirror to make sure they weren’t showing. I pulled my shorts back on and then realized Raine’s torn panties were still in my fist, so I shoved them into my pocket. Raine leaned over and picked the lounge pants, a pair of shorts, and two shirts up off the floor. She held them up for a moment and then shoved them into my hands.
“These will all fit you,” she said with a nod.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Bastian.” Raine looked up and smiled slyly, “there is nothing I know more about than your body.”
I guess I couldn’t argue too much about that.
“If you ever want a refresher course, you make sure to let me know, okay?”
“I just might do that.” Raine smiled, took my hand in hers, and opened the door.
There was a decent-sized crowd when we stepped out of the dressing room, some glaring, others smirking. Lindsay looked at me with narrowed eyes, and I met her stare. I pulled the panties I had torn off out of my pocket and tossed them at Raine’s friend.
“She’s gonna need a replacement for these,” I said with a smile and then sauntered off towards the checkout area.
* * * * *
“Hey, Raine,” Nick gave her a big, warm smile which made me want to punch him. He held up a large bath towel. “Since we didn’t get you guys to a hotel or anything, I figured you might at least want to spend a little time in the shower. It’s a tiny thing, but the water’s heated.”
Nick had rented the four-room house near the docks about a month prior, and the three of them had been using it as a base of operations while searching for us. Lindsay had been here since she discovered John Paul hadn’t given up hope, and she and Nick had obviously hit it off pretty well. We had been there all of about fifteen minutes, and he was asking Raine to get naked. All right, it was obvious that he was with Lindsay, who was also standing right there, and he was only trying to be nice, but it still fucking pissed me off.
“Oh my God, that would be awesome!” she responded, clasping her hands together. I was torn between being happy for her because she was happy and pissed off that he, instead of I, had said something that made her so happy. Even after the dressing room fuck, I was on edge. I was seriously fucked up. Once Raine disappeared into the washroom, I went outside to get some air. John Paul apparently noticed.
“Hey, you want one?” he asked quietly. I leaned heavily against the porch railing and moved my eyes from the harbor lights to the pack of Marlboros he had in his hand.
“Fuck, yes,” I said as I took one from the pack and lit up. I drew on it heavily and turned around, leaning my back against the railing.
“You doing all right?” he asked.
“I guess.”
“You’re kind of quiet,” he noted. “Not sure what I expected, but this isn’t it. Or is this just you sober?”
I chuckled.
“Nah, I’m just not sure what to think right now.”
“Been an interesting couple of months?”
“You could say that.” I took another puff, then another. “Fuck, I’m getting an actual nic buzz off this thing.”
John Paul laughed.
I finished the smoke and tossed the butt into the street.
“What happened to The Oblation?” I asked, not completely sure I wanted to know.
“Underwater earthquake,” John Paul said without missing a beat. “We were basically right on top of it. It wasn’t a big one, but it was enough to cause the wave that knocked us over when it first hit. There was a second one about five minutes later, which flipped us back but took the mainsail with it. Combine that with the rainstorm, and we didn’t have much of a chance, especially not at night. I couldn’t see a fucking thing.”
“Did everyone else get to the lifeboats?”
“Most of them,” John Paul said quietly. He looked away for a minute before turning back to me abruptly. “The bodies of two of the passengers were found the day after they picked us up, near the wreckage. They looked for you for a week, figuring you’d drowned, too. It wasn’t until divers finally found the wreckage that we realized the inflatable wasn’t there, and everyone started looking for that.”
John Paul stopped and turned to me, his eyes intense.
“I didn’t know, man. I didn’t know you were on that piece-of-shit emergency raft. We almost didn’t even put that thing on the ship! If I had known, Bastian…fuck…I would have tried to find you that night. I thought you were in one of the other lifeboats. It was a day and a half before the coastguard picked us up, and you weren’t there. Holy shit, I just about had a fucking heart attack.”
He looked like he was going to cry or something.
“John Paul, it’s all right,” I told him. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I should have fucking looked. The radio on my lifeboat wasn’t working, the fucking piece of shit. I just assumed you were on one of the others. I didn’t know…fuck, Bastian…I’m sorry.”
“Don’t fucking apologize,” I said, sounding more harsh than I really meant. “I don’t blame you for any of this shit. Besides, it’s not like it was all bad.”
”Yeah, I got that idea.” John Paul shuffled his feet and stared at the ground for a minute, and then looked back up. “So…you and Raine are a thing, huh?”
I stared at him for a minute, trying to figure out what he thought of the idea, but his expression wasn’t giving anything away.
“We’ve been through a lot.”
“No shit.” John Paul eyed me for a moment. “You told her everything, didn’t you?”
“Why the fuck would I…” I stopped, realizing he already knew. I don’t know how he knew, but he did.
“Did you figure it would help?”
“What would help?”
“Saving the daughter of one of the victims. Did you think it would make the nightmares go away?”
“How did you know?” I asked.
“I actually read the names of the passengers, asshole,” John Paul smirked. “I knew before she even got on board. Did it help the dreams?”
“I didn’t think…I mean…I never…when she told me…ah fuck!” I gave up stammering like a fool and shoved the end of the smoke back in my mouth, inhaling hard.
“Coherent much?” John Paul snickered.
“I don’t know what I thought,” I finally said. “Regardless, they didn’t go away. They’re…not as bad…when I’m with her, but there are new ones, too.”
“New ones?”
“Yeah, don’t fucking ask.”
“Hrm.” He looked over his shoulder and then lowered his voice. “Did you kill four guys?”
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug
. “How did you know?”
“That’s what told me where to look,” John Paul informed me. “Reports of them going missing went through the underground right after the official search was called off. Given the location of where their boat was found drifting, I kind of had a hunch. Someday you’ll have to tell me the whole story. What did you do with the bodies?”
“Burned them,” I said nonchalantly. “Buried the bones on the north side of the beach. Who were they with?”
“No one I had heard of,” John Paul said. “Drug dealers, a few other illicit activities.”
“I figured.”
“Not one of the big players, but still…we should make sure they aren’t found. A connection could be made.”
“Probably.” I didn’t really give a shit at this point though I knew I probably should.
“Did they try to take her?” John Paul was always an intuitive guy.
“Yeah, but I think in the end they regretted it.”
“I bet,” he said with a humorless laugh. “Want another?”
I took another cigarette out of the pack. John Paul lit up, too.
“What about Alejandro?” I inquired.
“He’s good,” John Paul said with a nod. “He says he’s never getting on the water again, but he’s good. He got himself a job in a restaurant. He says he makes pretty good money as a chef even though it’s just a small place. Good food – Italian. You would like it.”
“Where is it?”
“Key West,” John Paul told me. “One of the touristy places.”
I nodded, stared at nothing across the street, and smoked for a minute.
“What now?” he asked.
“Whatever she wants, I guess.” I turned and faced him. “After everything that’s happened, I think she’d probably agree with Alejandro. I kind of doubt she’ll be interested in sea-life.”
“Can’t blame her,” John Paul said. “It was the first time she had ever been in anything other than a fishing boat on a lake with her dad.”
I felt like a shit for not even knowing that.