Hell And Back

by Natasha Madison

  “He’s not the monster you think he is. It’s the drugs that make him like that. He needs help.” It’s the last thing she says before I interrupt her.

  “The first time he hit me was because Lilah was crying too much, and he hadn’t had a hit for a few hours,” I say, my voice strong. “There were a few good memories, in the beginning, but nothing could possibly outweigh the bad. I’m sorry, but there isn’t anything you can say that will make what he did to me okay. There is no excuse for it, and drugs weren’t to blame.” I look over at Jackson, silently asking for permission to tell her why I left. He silently nods at me.

  “I’m sorry, Nancy, but your son will always be a monster in my eyes, and he is a very real monster to Lilah. The night before we escaped, he was getting high, as usual. We were hiding in the bedroom, and she needed to pee. We tried to walk around him and his friends, who spent the day getting high.” I look down at my lap, not sure if I can do this, but Jackson squeezes my hand and that’s all the encouragement I need.

  “He needed money for more drugs, so he sold me to his dealer for his next fix. They tied me to the bed, where he beat me and then raped me all night long. All the while Lilah was locked in a dark closet with no food, no water, scared out of her mind. That is who Adam Fletcher is to us. He’s not the dandelion-giving, love-professing boy you raised anymore. He is the monster who terrorized me and my daughter for years.”

  Tears are streaming down her face, a nonstop flow that she cannot stop with the Kleenex in her hand.

  “That is the man you are sitting there trying to defend to me. I was not his wife or his girlfriend. I was his victim. But no more. I have Jackson now. He is the one who fought with my demons. He showed me not all men are monsters.” Looking right into his eyes, I say, “He is, without a doubt, the best thing to ever happen to me.”

  I don’t even finish talking before he bends down, kissing me.

  “I love you,” he whispers in my ear. “You are so brave.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Nancy says. “I…I had no idea what you two went through. That my son put you, put his daughter, Lilah, through that.” She shakes with the force of her sobs.

  I get up and go to comfort her. Not for Adam but for Jackson.

  I sit next to her, and we both hug each other as we cry. She, for the son she lost, and me, for the monster I escaped.

  I don’t know how long this goes on, but the doorbell rings three times in a row. When Jackson opens the door, Lilah marches in grumbling. “I starbing, and Ms. Brenda says no eating till you come home.” She is followed in by a smiling Brenda.

  As soon as she sees my face and tears, Brenda’s expression changes. She’s in mother bear mode, ready to battle. She moves to stand by me, but I smile at her to let her know it’s okay.

  “Lilah, come say hi to Ms. Nancy.” I hold out my arms for her, and she sits on my lap.

  “Hi, Ms. Nancy, you hubry?”

  “Umm, I am quite hungry. What did you cook?” she asks her, gently stroking her hand over Lilah’s hair.

  “I no cook, but Momma cooked her chili for Ackson,” she says matter-of-factly.

  “Really? That’s my favorite. Do you think I can come over and eat, too?” She looks from Lilah to me, making sure it’s okay.

  I smile, nodding my head and bringing Lilah closer to me. “We would love for you to join us.”

  “Okay, let’s go eat,” Lilah says, jumping off me and heading over to Brenda to take her hand, pulling her toward the door.

  I get up and reach out to take Nancy’s hand. “I suggest we go before she eats all the corn bread.”

  She places her hand in mine, and we walk over to my house where she spends the rest of the night getting to know her granddaughter. I spend the rest of the night falling more in love with her son.

  Chapter Forty

  Jackson

  It’s been six weeks since I found her beaten in that alley, and today is the day she finally gets her cast off.

  It’s been three weeks of us being together whenever I am not working. I spend every night with her, no matter what time I get in. I always go straight to her bed.

  I also have a serious case of blue balls. My showers have gone from warm to fucking ice cold.

  Every single day is some form of torture. It’s getting harder and harder not to push her. Right now, for example, we are sitting in her doctor’s office. She is wearing a flowery summer dress, and I know the only thing she has under it is a lacy thong.

  She is also getting more comfortable with me. Coming out of the shower in just a towel, and she’s not so quick to cover up when I come in and she’s changing.

  The doctor calls her in and cuts off her cast. Opening it up, the powder dust is all over her legs. The doctor throws the cast in the garbage and then examines her wrist. It looks so fragile. The skin is a yellowish color from being in the cast for so long.

  He makes her bend it left to right and then back and forth. His examination takes a good ten minutes before he gives her his instructions. “Looks good. It’ll be sore for the next few days since it’s been immobile, but you should be back to normal soon.”

  With a nod, he walks out of the room. Bella keeps moving it in circles, getting it working again.

  “How does it feel?” I ask her from my spot against the wall so as not to get in the way.

  “I don’t know yet. Come here and let me try something.”

  Walking to her, I see something in her eyes I don’t think I’ve ever seen.

  Once I make it to the examining table, I move between her legs. I’m waiting for her to put her hand in my hair or under my shirt, but instead she palms my dick. Squeezes it just a bit, just enough he almost wakes up to a full salute.

  “Umm.” I look at her and now I get what that look in her eyes is. It’s lust, it’s want, it’s need.

  “Brenda is keeping Lilah tonight. They are going to visit her friend and stay in a hotel all night ordering room service and movies. Brenda was more excited than Lilah.”

  I swallow the huge rock that seems to be blocking my airways right now.

  “We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready to do.” I push her hair behind her ears so I can see her whole face.

  “I want you, Jackson. I want to do this with you. Don’t you want me, too?” She looks up at me, and I can see the vulnerability in her eyes.

  “I want nothing more than to make love to you. I’ve dreamed about it. I’ve fantasized about it,” I tell her while holding her face in my hands and kissing her.

  “Then let’s get out of here.” She pushes me away to jump off the examining table as she grabs her purse and pulls me out of the room.

  I’m in the car driving, and I’m a nervous wreck. It’s almost like this is my first time.

  I don’t want to push myself on her. I want to go slow with her. I want to cherish her. I want to worship her.

  We make it home in almost record time. Turning off the truck, I look over at her. “You can always change your mind.”

  She turns her body, putting her back to the door. “I know I can, and I know if I do you will stop. But I don’t want to stop this time. I want it to be you.” Without waiting for my answer, she turns to open the door and is practically sprinting into the house.

  Dumping the purse at the door, she turns around. “Can you give me ten minutes, maybe fifteen, before you come up?” Then she runs up the stairs, leaving me here silently laughing.

  I lock the door, close the curtains, check the windows, and fifteen minutes later, or maybe thirteen—I don’t know at this point as it was the longest window check I ever did in my life—I head upstairs.

  My palms are sweaty with nerves, my heart beating so fast I can hear it thumping in my ears.

  Her bedroom door is closed, so I knock once, turning the handle, and walking in.

  The sight that greets me makes me stop. The room is dark with candles lit everywhere on every single surface. Tall candles, short candles, the glow bathing the room i
n a warm yellow.

  The bed is made all in white, which is different from the brown cover that was on her bed this morning. All of that takes a backseat, though, to the woman standing in the middle of the room.

  Holding her hands in front of her, I can see her chest rising and falling with each breath she takes.

  Her blonde hair cascades down around her shoulders. But as I take in what she’s wearing, I’m almost brought to my knees.

  She stands before me in white. A white lace bra holds her now fuller breasts, a tiny blue bow nestled between the soft swells of her cleavage. This bra is more like a cropped tank top, the lace extending down from her breasts and clinging to her torso, stopping just above her belly button.

  A slash of skin separates the top from the panties. I trail my eyes along her tight, flat stomach and down to the matching panties. A sheer, lacy triangle is all that hides her from me.

  She looks like a vision in white. She is a fucking wet dream, and she looks like a fucking angel. My angel.

  I can’t find the words to tell her how beautiful she is. I just stare at her, calming my nerves and barely restraining myself from picking her up and throwing her on the bed.

  “Brenda bought this for me. I know I don’t fill it out right.” She looks down at herself, folding her arms over her stomach. “I also have stretch marks,” she says in a soft whisper, looking to the side.

  I walk into the room, closing the door behind me. No one will ever see her like this, except me.

  “You’re beautiful.” I make my way to her, afraid to touch her. Afraid this isn’t really happening, afraid I’ll wake up, and it’ll all be a dream. A fucking great dream, but a dream nonetheless.

  I trace my finger along the top of the bra, and my touch makes her shiver. “You’re so fucking perfect.” I lean down, kissing her neck, feeling her racing heart beat under my lips.

  “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve anything you have to give me,” I say as I trail kisses along her neck, “but I’m not walking away from you.” Her hands grab my shirt, bunching it in her fists. “You’re my perfect, you’re my salvation, and you’re my everything.”

  I kiss her on her lips, dragging my tongue across them right before I invade her mouth. The kiss starts out gentle, soft, but it slowly builds into frantic, fast, hard, needy.

  “I think you have too many clothes on.” She breaks the kiss, sliding her hands under my T-shirt, pulling it up and off of me.

  Her fingertips trace along the tattoos on my chest. My cock sprung to life the moment I laid eyes on her, and it’s throbbing now. She follows her fingers with her tongue as I drop my head on a groan.

  “The first time I saw you without a shirt, that night I dreamed of doing this to you,” she tells me while placing little butterfly kisses on my chest.

  Her hands snake to the button on my jeans, opening it slowly lowering the zipper. “Can Mr. Big come out and play?” She laughs while kissing and biting my nipple.

  “Oh, he’s coming out to play all right.” And it’s in that moment I remember I have no condoms.

  I step back away from her hands before I shoot off in her hand. Her startled look breaks me. “I’m sorry. I went too fast,” she stutters, shaking her hands on the side of her hips.

  “No, angel, it’s not that. I don’t have any protection. I mean, I didn’t think this was going to happen today.” I grab my hair in my hands, ready to pull my own hair out.

  “I’m on an IUD. I have been since Lilah was born. I know that”—she looks down at her hands clasped in front of her—“that I was, um, with that guy, but I’ve been tested.” She wipes away a tear with the back of her hand. “I understand if you don’t trust me.” Another tear falls down her cheek, this one wiped away by me as I lift her face to look into her eyes.

  “I’m clean. I’ve never been without one. I don’t want to have anything between us. I want just you. I want just me. I want it to be just us,” I tell her. “Is that okay, angel?”

  She places a kiss right over my heart. “Yes, Jackson. That’s perfect.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Bella

  He places me gently in the middle of the bed. I sink into the fluffy, down-filled cover like it’s a cloud.

  The minute Brenda showed me this outfit, I ran upstairs to try it on, dreaming of the day I would wear it for him.

  She knew I was ready. She knew we needed this time. So, like the fairy godmother she is, she gave me this.

  Now here I lie in the middle of the bed I’ve shared with him for the past month where I imagined the day I would give him this last part of me.

  He stands next to the bed, shirt off, pants button undone. The white boxers he put on after his shower this morning peek out over the waist.

  Toeing off his shoes, he looks at me while I lean up on my elbows, watching the show before me. Watching him undress for me.

  The candles make him look like a Greek god. His body is perfect. He’s so handsome and his darkened, lust-filled eyes are hooded and raking over me hotly.

  “I love you.” I sit up when he finally sheds his pants. His cock is huge and pressing insistently against his boxers.

  “I love you, always,” he says, getting on the bed on his knees in front of me. “We do this at your pace. We do this on your time. You get me, Bella?” he asks.

  I nod, not able to respond verbally without the tears over his thoughtful concern for me falling.

  “Now I’m going to take off these sexy as hell panties, angel. This is something I’ve dreamed of doing, usually while jerking off to thoughts of you.” He licks his lips and turns his darkened, stormy blue eyes down to the apex of my thighs.

  “Okay,” is all I can muster to say when he reaches to spread my knees apart.

  He runs his hand down the center of the lace, through the wet spot formed from watching him undress. “Bella,” he breaths out while leaning forward to kiss my stomach, making my breath hitch.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he groans while running kisses along the top on my panties. His thumbs hook into the sides of the lace, peeling them down my legs. He throws them over his shoulder, and my instinct is to close my knees, but he stops me. “No more hiding from me.”

  He opens my legs further, and I’m still tempted to cover myself, but he’s faster than me. His mouth hovers over me, his warm breath so close, I can feel it tickle my wet flesh.

  “Watch me,” he says.

  He pulls my lips apart with his thumbs, opening me up. “So beautiful.” Those are the last words he says before slowly licking up my slit.

  His warm, hot tongue on me causes me to sink back into the pillows. My head rolls to the side, my eyes almost rolling to the back of my head.

  He licks up again, slowly this time, stopping at my clit where he makes little circles with his tongue. Lightning bolts of pleasure zap straight through my core.

  “Jackson,” I pant out.

  “I knew you would taste like this. I knew you would taste like heaven,” he says while he licks up again, but this time he slowly slides a finger into me.

  The gentle invasion causes my hips to lift off the bed.

  “Oh, God.” A few more gentle licks and soft strokes of his finger, and he pulls his mouth from me.

  “Why are you stopping?” I’m ready to beg him to continue. Never has it been like this. Never has someone worshiped me.

  “I’m taking my time. I’m savoring this moment. I’m doing everything I dreamed of doing to you,” he says, his finger still moving slowly in me while he kisses his way up my stomach.

  “Well, you were doing a great job. You didn’t have to sto—” He stops my words with his mouth as he slips his tongue into my mouth.

  The taste of Jackson and me mingles together on my tongue. I grab his head, pulling him closer. My kiss is frenzied with need. His fingers are still moving in me, touching places I forgot could bring so much pleasure.

  The feeling of his weight on me is comforting. He breaks the kiss to trail
his tongue down my chest to my heart and places a kiss there before continuing. “I want your heart, Bella.” He kisses me right on the bow in the middle of my chest. “I want it all with you, and I want it forever.”

  “I’m yours.” My eyes look straight into his. “I can’t be anyone else’s since my heart beats for you.” It’s true. I never knew love could be like this, so pure, so wholesome, so fucking fulfilling and beautiful and so, so perfect. “Make love to me, Jackson, make me yours completely.”

  He leans forward so he can kiss the swell of my breast. His finger leaves me, and I feel the loss. His hands go to the back of my bra, snapping it open. He pulls the shoulder straps down, freeing my breasts to his view.

  Leaning forward, he takes a pebbled nipple into his mouth, turning his tongue around it while his hand cups the other. Rolling that nipple between his fingers while his warm mouth caresses the other, the feelings are almost overwhelming.

  My hand runs through his hair. His eyes look up at me as he switches to the other breast.

  I’m on edge. My body is tight with the urge to release. I want to groan, I want to beg, I want to scream, and I need him to help me go over that cliff.

  “Jackson, please.” My voice comes out in pants.

  “Do you want to come, Bella?”

  “Please.” I’m not even sure I know what I’m begging him for at this point.

  He smiles at me as he slowly moves two fingers back inside me while his lips find my clit and suck lightly. It’s all I need to let go. My legs spread wider, giving his broad shoulders more room to lift my legs up onto his shoulders.

  I fall over that cliff, and my back bows off the bed, throwing my head back into the pillow. My hands find their way into his hair, pulling at it to hold him in place at my core. The prickles from his beard are a delicious contrast to his soft lips and tongue and are just what I need to send me over again.

  It’s too much pleasure. His assault on me is overwhelming, and I cry out, “Jackson,” thrashing my head side to side, my hands fisted in the sheets. “Jackson, it’s too much.”