Wuther

by V. J. Chambers

  There were tears in her eyes.

  He felt soiled. He couldn’t do it. As great as it would be to thoroughly use her, to send her back to Eli ruined and broken, he couldn’t handle forcing her to do that to him. He’d felt her resistance, her struggle, and he’d tried to just hold her head in place, to grab her hair and force her up and down on him.

  But it was too ugly. There were things he couldn’t do, apparently. Lines he couldn’t cross.

  “I couldn’t breathe,” said Isabella, accusation all over her face. Her tits bounced.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  “You just… you can’t… You have to work up to things,” she said.

  He shot her a glance. What? She wasn’t spitting vitriol at him. He’d thought after that little experience, she’d hate him with a fiery passion.

  She reached for him again. “Maybe if you didn’t grab my head.”

  He stopped her. “Don’t. Probably not safe to do while we’re driving anyway.” He felt the guilt again. He managed to get his swimming trunks fastened again.

  “Do you want me to…?” She gestured at her discarded bikini top.

  “Leave it off,” he said. He was supposed to be fucking her, and he’d do it. He wasn’t sure how he’d do it yet, but he had to do it. It was the plan. It was the final nail. He had to follow through. Besides, he liked the way she looked topless.

  He drove them back to the place where he’d kissed her the first time.

  He led her to the picnic table, and he had her sit on his lap.

  “Did you know you were hurting me?” she asked him.

  “When?”

  “When you pushed me down onto your…”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  She looked away. “Cock,” she whispered.

  He should probably lie. But he wasn’t good at lying. “Yes.”

  She gave him a startled look. “Why?”

  “I thought it would turn me on,” he said. “It didn’t.” He put his mouth on one of her nipples.

  She sighed.

  “Don’t I frighten you?” he asked her.

  Her eyes were closed.

  He kissed her other nipple.

  She gasped. “No, you don’t frighten me.”

  “Then you’re an idiot,” he said. He slid one hand up her thigh, pushing aside her bikini bottoms. By some miracle, she was wet.

  She moaned at the touch of his fingers on her. “Stop saying things like that about yourself.”

  He sighed. “Isabella—”

  “No, I mean it. I know you’re good. Deep down, I know it.”

  He couldn’t look at her.

  She touched his face. “Are we going to have sex?”

  He laughed bitterly. “You want that?”

  She nodded.

  “You really are idiotic, Isabella.” He tugged the rest of her bathing suit off, and he took off his swimming trunks. He was only half-hard. He rearranged her so that she straddled him. He wrapped a hand around himself and stroked rapidly, needing to get stiffer if he wanted to perform.

  “Do you want me to—”

  “No,” he told her. Damn it, why couldn’t he get hard? He touched her breasts again, rolling one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger. She was so tiny. Everything about her was small and vulnerable, and she was offering herself to him and—

  He closed his eyes.

  She let out a little sound of pleasure. She likes it, he told himself. She wants me to. It’s okay.

  But if she knew that he was only doing it because he wanted to use her, would she want it then?

  She was a very stupid girl. It was as if he hadn’t warned her.

  “Have you done this before?” he asked her.

  She laughed. “Of course.”

  Was she telling the truth? Fuck. Did it matter?

  She smiled at him. Oh, no, he couldn’t handle that. He didn’t want her to face him anymore. Her eyes were unsettling.

  He stood up, and because she was on his lap, that meant he made her stand up as well.

  She gave him a confused look.

  He turned her around. He pushed her face down onto the picnic table.

  Think of Cathy, he told himself, trying to bring to mind her full breasts in his hands, her mouth on his cock.

  And then he shoved himself into Isabella.

  She cried out.

  He wasn’t using a condom. If she wasn’t a virgin, there were diseases and…

  But he could see that there was blood on his cock.

  The sight of it almost made him so soft that he couldn’t continue. But he squeezed his eyes shut, remembered Cathy telling him that she was his, that she’d always be his.

  And it was over quickly.

  Thank god.

  He pulled out of her, staring dumbly at the red smear between his legs.

  Isabella turned around to look at him. She didn’t get up. It was like she was asking him permission.

  He picked up the towel she’d had wrapped around her waist. He thrust it at her. “I’ll take you home,” he said flatly.

  * * *

  There was a soft knock on Cathy’s door.

  “Go away, Eli,” she called. “I don’t want to talk to you yet.”

  “It’s Isabella.”

  Cathy wasn’t sure that she wanted to talk to Isabella either. After all, she couldn’t stop thinking about Heath whispering in her ear. What had the two of them done together all afternoon?

  “I need to talk to someone.” Isabella sounded on the verge of tears.

  Cathy got up and opened the door. “Come in,” she sighed.

  Isabella’s hair was wet. She smelled of shampoo. She’d obviously just gotten out of the shower. But her face was red and swollen from crying.

  Cathy couldn’t be angry with the girl when she was so clearly miserable. She hugged Isabella. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Isabella shook her head. “I’m so confused.”

  Cathy led her to the bed. They sat down together. “Did Heath do something to you? Did he hurt you?”

  Isabella looked away. “He was just so cold. After it happened, he would hardly look at me.”

  “After what happened?” Cathy said.

  Isabella wound a strand of hair around her finger. “We, um, we…”

  “You had sex with him.” Cathy felt it like a blow to the chest. He’d told her that he’d never been with another woman besides her, but now that wasn’t true anymore.

  “Yeah,” said Isabella. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m overreacting. All my friends say that the first time is awful, no matter what. I’m the last hold out of all of them. I thought that it would be exciting to be with someone like Heath, but…”

  “I told you, didn’t I?” said Cathy, feeling flustered. “I told you to stay away from him.”

  “He’s not so bad, Cathy,” said Isabella. “I think he’s confused. I think… I wish you’d let him go. Maybe if you did, he could love me the way I love him.”

  Cathy glared at her. “You don’t love him.”

  “You think only you could love him? That’s not true.”

  “How can you be such an idiot?” said Cathy. “Can’t you see he’s only using you to hurt me? To hurt Eli? He hates us all, Isabella. He’s going to make us all pay for everything we’ve ever done to hurt him. Whatever love is in him is twisted.”

  “You’re wrong,” said Isabella. “He’s twisted because of you. Let him go.”

  “Oh, he’s all yours,” Cathy said. “I don’t want a thing to do with him.”

  Isabella started crying again, and she left the room without saying anything else.

  Cathy paced afterwards, feeling nervous and nauseous. She told herself it was only morning sickness, finally rearing its ugly head after four months of pregnancy, but she wasn’t sure if it wasn’t because of Heath and Isabella.

  She wasn’t being fair, of course. She’d been with Eli, even back when she and Heath were still together.

  B
ut she realized that she was only now understanding how it must have made Heath feel. It was like something had gone wrong with the universe. It felt wrong to breathe. It felt wrong to move.

  And, perversely, the baby started to move in her stomach. It had only recently started to do that. Usually, she liked it, but now it felt terrifying and alien. Had she made a terrible mistake staying with Eli, having this baby?

  She thought about going for a drive, but that would mean that she’d have to get the keys from Eli, and she didn’t want to see him right now. The guest room opened onto a brick patio outside her room. She opened the glass doors and sat outside, watching the sun set.

  It was peaceful outside, but inside her head, it was anything but.

  * * *

  Heath shut himself inside Cathy’s old room in the farmhouse. He hadn’t seen anyone on his way in, and he didn’t care if Matt confronted him. Fuck Matt.

  He hadn’t expected that what he’d done with Isabella would make him feel so horrible.

  It wasn’t a feeling he was used to feeling. He was used to acting with righteous certainty. Maybe he hurt people, but they deserved it.

  And certainly, Eli deserved pain.

  But Isabella really hadn’t.

  She was annoying. She was insipid and shallow.

  And what he’d taken from her she’d never get back.

  He lay face down on Cathy’s bed. When he’d made love to her here, years ago, it had been beautiful and raw and real. He’d been in love with her. But now, he felt like he’d betrayed everything that they’d meant to each other.

  Of course, it was ludicrous, considering Cathy had never considered their union sacred. She’d given her body to Eli Linton, and she’d never even thought what it might mean to him.

  Now he’d lost her. To Eli. To the child that was growing inside her.

  When he’d seen her today, he could see the way her body was changing. The roundness of her belly. The heaviness of her breasts. The way her face was fuller.

  She was gone.

  And the odd thing was that he’d been so certain that seeing evidence of her pregnancy would be revolting, but she was actually more beautiful than ever.

  And he’d left her to bend Isabella over a picnic table and shred her virginity like he was an animal.

  He shut his eyes against the quilt.

  “You.”

  It was Matt. Heath sat up. “I’m not leaving.”

  Matt shook his head. He was holding a glass of whiskey. “Not trying to fight you again, Heath.”

  Fight probably wasn’t the right word. Ambush was more like it.

  Funny. He’d hated Matt for not fighting fair, but he wasn’t much better, beating on a man after he was already unconscious.

  “You’re in her room,” said Matt.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Come downstairs and have a drink with me,” said Matt.

  Heath cocked his head. Was this a trap?

  But in the kitchen, Matt simply poured him a glass and handed it to him. He sat down at the kitchen table. Gestured for Heath to sit down as well.

  Warily, Heath picked up his glass and sat.

  Matt took a sip of the drink. “My mother died when Cathy was born. I was six years old, so I remember her pretty clearly.”

  “Is this going to be another sob story about why everything’s my fault?”

  Matt shook his head. “No, this is something I held back from you for a long time, because I didn’t want it to be true. But right now, I want to hurt you. All the things you’ve done to me. I hate you more than ever. And this will hurt you. This might destroy you.”

  Heath gulped his whiskey. “Sounds ominous.”

  “I also remember when my father moved Wanda Galloway into that tenant house. Your mother.”

  “I thought this wasn’t about how things are my fault.”

  “Shut up and listen.” Matt poured him more whiskey. “I was five years old at the time when she moved in. Now, I’m not an expert on this sort of thing, because I didn’t understand it all back then. But I think we can both agree that couple things are facts. One, your mother and my father were shacking up. You deny that?”

  “Why would I?” said Heath, glaring at Matt. It had gotten her killed, after all.

  “Two, Wanda Galloway got here before my mother died.”

  “Did she?” said Heath. What did it matter?

  “Maybe my father wasn’t a complete jackass—” Matt shook his head. “No, we know that’s not true, don’t we? He was scum.”

  “There we agree,” said Heath.

  Matt raised his eyebrows. “Agree? But you were his favorite.”

  “I wasn’t his favorite. He was afraid of me,” said Heath. He inwardly scolded himself. He’d resolved not to spill his guts about this before. There was no reason to bring it all back up now. Technically, he’d murdered Floyd Earnshaw, and there was no statute of limitations on murder.

  Matt just laughed. “It hardly matters anymore, Heath. I don’t remember why I hate you, not exactly, only that I do. It’s part of me, like another limb or something.”

  Heath nodded. He understood that exactly. He had that same steady hatred. It was hungry, and no matter how much he fed it, it never seemed satisfied.

  “The point is that my father was probably sleeping with your mother before my mother died, given what a piece of shit he was.”

  “Maybe,” said Heath.

  “And your mother wasn’t pregnant with you when she showed up,” said Matt. “At least she didn’t look pregnant to me. I was a little kid, and I can’t be sure, of course, but for a long time, I’ve wondered about it.”

  Heath set down his glass of whiskey, his head churning. “You’re not saying…”

  “Maybe Floyd was your father too,” said Matt.

  Heath shook his head. “No.” Couldn’t be true. Couldn’t.

  But the way Matt was putting it, it seemed obvious now. Like he should have thought of it before.

  “I don’t want to be your brother, Heath,” said Matt. “Trust me, I haven’t wanted to admit it either. But maybe now you can understand why I went apeshit when I found out about you and Cathy. Unnatural, man.”

  Heath was trembling. He tried to pick up his glass of whiskey, but he knocked it over instead.

  Matt laughed—a jeering sound. “I knew it would hurt you.”

  Heath stumbled to his feet.

  “You should leave her alone now, though,” said Matt. “She’s happy with Eli. And there’s no chance that they’re, you know, related. Obviously, the two of them are meant to be together. Don’t you think?”

  Heath’s stomach lurched. On unsteady feet, he made his way out of the kitchen. Scrabbling at the walls, he propelled himself down the hallway and out the front door.

  He leaned over the porch and heaved, vomiting everything that was in his stomach.

  * * *

  The clouds rolled in black and angry, blocking out the last of the sunset, but Cathy didn’t go inside. She sat on the patio outside the guest room when the thunder rumbled in the sky. When the lightning split the clouds, turning everything bright white, she only watched and waited. When the rain drops started to fall out of the sky, she didn’t move.

  So she was there when Heath’s car pulled up.

  Was he here for Isabella? It didn’t matter.

  She ran out to him, the rain pelting her, soaking her hair, drenching her clothes.

  He saw her, and he came to her, catching her in his arms.

  He’d been crying. “Cathy,” he said, his voice agonized.

  She ran her hands over his face, brushing away the rain. “What’s wrong, love?”

  He buried his face in her shoulder.

  She led him back into the bedroom, shutting the patio doors after them.

  Outside, the storm raged, wind whistling and thunder crashing. The noise drowned everything out.

  She went into the adjoining bathroom and brought out towels.

  He
didn’t want them. He put his hands on her stomach. Her shirt was plastered to her skin, and her pregnancy was very apparent.

  “It’s good,” he said. “It’s good that you and Eli did this and not you and me.”

  “Why are you here?” she said. “Do you want me to get Isabella?”

  “Isabella can fuck herself,” he said.

  “Well, that isn’t who she fucked, is it?”

  He buried his face in his hands. “She told you.”

  “You wanted her to tell me.”

  “I wanted… It was a mistake. I don’t want to talk about it.” He thrust his hands into his hair.

  “If you’re not here for her, then why?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked lost. He looked like the little boy who had been her friend all those years ago.

  She wanted to comfort him. She wrapped her arms around him.

  He rested his forehead against hers. “I guess I came to say goodbye.”

  “You’re leaving?” She shook her head. “No, you can’t leave me again.”

  “I think I have to,” he said. “I think everything I’ve been doing here…” He let go of her. “Oh, Cathy, the entire universe has conspired to keep us apart. It’s not meant to be. I think we both see that. And yet… you’re all I want.”

  He sank down onto the bed with a sob.

  She sat down next to him. “What happened?”

  He looked at her, his expression fierce. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you, but first, let me make love to you. I promise it’ll be the last time. I’ll never bother you after this.”

  “Eli—”

  “Eli can go to hell,” said Heath. His mouth was on hers, hot and urgent.

  She felt herself softening against him. His tongue was magic, undoing her. She moaned.

  He peeled at her sopping clothes, his fingers brushing her wet skin. His hands were large and tanned. His fingertips were calloused, but he touched her so carefully, as if she were the most precious thing on earth to him.

  She caught the edge of his chin, ran her fingers over his jaw.

  He closed his eyes. “I miss you. I always miss you.”

  “I’m here,” she said, kissing him.

  He pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor, where it lay in a wet heap.

  She felt exposed and self-conscious suddenly, her swollen stomach unclothed. She wasn’t sixteen anymore, and she was pregnant with another man’s child. This wasn’t the body that Heath remembered.