by Cage, Aria
We never had limitations before, always able to find secret places and stolen moments. I knew how to be quiet, and he knew how to love me and play my game. I liked it a certain way; my father conditioned me that way. Nate would touch me, whisper in my ear and I would always come at his command. I shared a secret with Nate no other would understand; we liked it. That’s a confession I made in those pages I should never have. Never. Ever. He saw my betrayal, our secret inscribed with ink to paper. Nate and I learned to like the show my daddy filmed for him and other deviants to watch. We learned to enjoy, love, and crave what he taught us. We may never have liked doing it with an audience, or with direction, but the action, the brazen touch youth shouldn’t know or experience for years to come—that is what we became addicted to.
After Nate was taken from me, I suffered a withdrawal not unlike a crack addict, I suppose. I shook and cried myself to sleep. I itched for his touch and the feel of him filling my insides. I tried to pleasure myself and imagine it was him, whispering his name in the darkness of my strange bed. I couldn’t come; I was empty without him. I couldn’t make it past the flashes of those I wanted to see die. All it did was leave me cold and alone, so I stopped trying.
Now, I have him back. He is mine, and he wants me even though I spilled our secret. He wants me even though I’m broken, even though I wanted to murder. He wants me even though I’ve been used and abused by others.
Nate took all those things away from me, punched, pummeled, and smashed those demons right back to hell so I could be with him without the images of those dark, evil faces before. Nate took me to the end of the earth where I wanted to scream. I was so scared of falling off the edge, but then he’d hold my hand, linking his fingers with mine, and he would tell me it was okay. My heart walloped against my chest, my belly on fire, and my pussy clenched in preparation of the final jump together.
“Now, baby. Come for me now,” he growls in my ear. I had the go sign and I gripped his hand tight and jumped, freefalling with Nate alongside me until we reached the bottom of the universe. We fall onto a soft, velour cushion in a swathe of sweat and juices of our lovemaking. We lay there in the air of sex and our depleting pant as we gather our thoughts and body for the journey up the stairs, and into a shower before bed. Suddenly the idea of sleep calls to me like a siren. I’m so exhausted, mentally and physically, and just like that, I yawn like a kitten fat on milk.
“Come on,” he snickers and kisses me gently. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“Shower me first.”
The smirk on his face howls out his thoughts, as though he speaks them to me.
“Not with Nona two doors down,” I reprimand and playfully slap his chest.
He sighs, and I regret my rejection. I had no right to reject him after he forgave me for everything I’d done.
“Stop that.” He grips my chin tightly, almost painfully. “You don’t have to have sex with me just because I want to. I have always wanted you to choose to be with me, and I never want to take that away. I will never take that from you.”
I bite down on my lip so hard I can taste the tang of my own blood. It’s only when he pulls against my chin and licks my lower lip that I release the abused flesh.
“We have a lot of work ahead, you and I…” His eyes soften as his forehead leans against mine. “But for now, I just want to hold you and listen to your cute little snore. Tomorrow we can worry about the rest.”
“I don’t snore,” I say playfully, ignoring the seriousness of what was to come in the morning.
He chuckles, and I feel it from his chest, massaging mine. “Baby, sometimes you snore like a damn freight train.”
I gasp and slap him, wriggling under him, trying to get free. “Ladies do not snore.”
“I have no answer to that.”
I can’t help the laughter which betrays me. I like our banter; I miss it almost more than the sex… almost.
It’s still dark when I hear the hint of padding feet in the room. Normally this would scare me, have me scuttle from the bed in search for safety and freedom from my nightmare. This time, I feel an inner peace I’ve never known… or maybe just never remembered. I doubt I have felt it since my mother passed. Stretching my used body across Nate’s small bed, I smile into the cast moonlight.
“Where are you going?” I ask in a suggestive tone, willing him to come back to me.
He freezes, chuckling quietly before sauntering his way back to me, bracing his hands on either side of my head. The indent of his weight pulls me away from him, when all I want to do is be closer, to kiss him and make love to that mouth of his. I want to draw him back into this bed and have him slide right into where he belongs.
His breath is hot as it brushes my cheek. I shiver, even though the air is warm. “You need your sleep. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice me gone.”
My smile disappears, replaced by an instant ache in my temple. I don’t have abandonment issues, not by far, but that’s how I feel right now. I’m scared he’s going to leave me, realizing he is better off without someone like me. I think I always had those fears, even from the age of six when I took him into my nightmare. I have always needed Nate more than he’s needed me, and that’s my disaster, my crippling nightmare. One nightmare is replaced with another.
Maybe that’s why I did what I did; I took him into a darkness I knew deep inside to be wrong, all because I didn’t want to lose him. I never gave him the choice; I trapped him with guilt, secrets, and sex, and he’s now seen my ruse.
He leans in, kisses and licks the tears that drip to the shell of my ear, his deep breathing echoing loudly. “Come with me.” I shudder and begin to bawl as I wrap my arms around his neck. He pulls me up and across the stiff denim of his pants. “Shh, don’t cry. It was just a bad dream, remember? You’re here, and you’re safe with me in my old bed, the way you like it.”
I shake my head in his neck and kiss his cheek before I pull away from him just enough to see his eyes glisten in the dim light. “It didn’t come tonight.”
Nate brushes my cheeks, his smile bright. “You didn’t? But you get them every night.”
“I know, I know.”
“That’s fantastic… why are you crying then?”
Again I shake my head. I don’t want to admit my newfound shame. I don’t want him to see what a mammoth mistake he is making by staying with me and risking everything for our love.
Pft. Our love? What a fucking joke. I trapped a beautiful bird, tamed it, trained it to love me, and essentially broke its spirit.
I freed myself from my captors so I could be with Nate in peace, only to realize I was his captor.
“Nate, you can go without me. You were right; I do need some sleep before I go to the station to give my statement. I don’t want to hold you back anymore, not when you have a company at stake. You need to look after things and stop worrying about me.”
He scoffs. “Charlie, I will always worry about you, and as for my company, I have a great leading hand who can take control in most instances. I was only going in early so I would have the rest of the day to be with you.” He was brushing my hair from my cheeks and ears. I didn’t give a shit about my hair. I just wanted to banish the new awareness from my mind so I didn’t have to do what needs to be done, for his own good.
This was going to hurt him in the short term and probably kill me forever.
“Nate…”
“I won’t take no for an answer. Up ya get.”
My body wants me to, it moves with its own accord even though I know he needs me to push him away or stay in this bed, until his truck has gone around the corner. I don’t think I can do it if I don’t make that step right now.
“Charlie, this actually would mean a lot to me for you to see how much I have changed. Everything I have done, I have done because I wanted to be a better man, because you deserve the very best. I hit rock bottom when I lost you, and have had to fight my way back to where I am, to someone I could be proud of, someone you c
an be proud of.”
If I wasn’t crying enough before, I am now. I don’t know how much more pain I could put this man through. I was going to leave town so he could move on, but I don’t think that I can do it. “I don’t deserve you.”
“What are you talking about?” His body has gone hard; I hit a nerve and I think he’s cottoning on to what I was planning. “You are my everything. Don’t you fucking dare think any different, Charlie. Don’t you fucking think that you’re not.”
“I’ve trapped you, trained you to think that. You never had a chance.”
I’m crushed into him, wrapped by his strong arms against his shuddering chest. “You are my only chance at happiness. I thought we sorted this out. I chose you; I love you. It doesn’t matter that someone else brought us together. We were bound to be together from the moment you jumped out of that truck in your red dress, not when someone else dictated. I chose you, Charlie Barns.” He pulls my face to his almost painfully, kissing me over my weeping eyes, my damp cheeks, my mouth, everywhere.
I want to kiss him forever, feverishly, hungrily, lovingly and leisurely for all of my days. I would tell him if he gave me the chance, but he keeps gripping me like I might slip from his arms. My mistake is clear now; I’ve been killing him more painfully by not showing him I was his forever. No one else’s—not Daddy’s, not my foster parents’, not Paul’s. I was Nathan Shaw’s, always and forever.
Nate finally stops his parade of kisses on me and goes back to squeezing my body, holding me from my selfish desertion.
“I would love to see what you have accomplished, and I have always been proud of you. Don’t you ever forget that.”
My mouth is swamped by his tongue and I yield to it, desiring it to never end, for the world to disappear and there just be us. God’s earthly creation can close up, and leave us right here in this bedroom where we dreamed so much for us, when we couldn’t rely on anything but dreams. To finally see Nate was getting his, that he is happier with me in his new life, blew away so much of the dark guilt I had swelling up within, choking me by its poison. Nate broke open my prison, the cage I had locked myself into and for just a moment, I was blinded by the flock of birds that I always pictured as ugly, black ravens—I can see the truth now that I’m under his light. I was caging beautiful white doves, crisp and pure, and now they were free.
He doesn’t allow me a moment for second thoughts or truths; he drags me from the bed, dressed me in a pair of his gym pants and tee. I am giggling as he dresses me like a child and then has to tie them in knots for them to resemble a fit. I probably look like a homeless person. My hair is wild with the slept-and-shagged look, but against my protest, he holds claim that I am beautiful and practically launches me into the truck. It’s once we are two blocks from home that I flip the visor down and gasp.
“Jesus!”
“He has nothing to do with this.”
I glare at Nate and then laugh at the glint in his eye and the massive grin plastered across his face. “You may think I’m beautiful, but I assure you, I need a shower and some clothes that actually fit me before I step out of this truck.”
The sun was quickly rising, making me squint while Nate continued to beam and ignore my plight. I obviously wasn’t going to win. I was going to be stuck in these ridiculously large clothes until Boston Store opened. I needed to buy some new clothes; I could not continue wearing clothes from my childhood, either.
“Fine,” I continue since he ignores me. “Be like that, but you will be taking me to Boston Store as soon as they open.”
He chuckles, and I fight my own. I don’t want to show him how much he affects me. He knows it all too well, but I refuse to show it. “Sure. We’ll grab a few things now, and in a couple of days we’ll make sure we get into the city so you can get a whole new wardrobe.”
It’s then I remember my accounts are frozen; I need to go see the bank again. Shit. It meant I would have to see Molly and her judging eyes and scornful tongue. By the afternoon she will have condemned me to the population of Beaver Dam, Nate included.
“Nate, don’t be mad.”
Instantly, the big grin is gone and he looks at me, flicking his attention back to the road and then back at me, before pulling over to the side of the road.
“I can’t imagine ever being mad at you, but I hate that sentence.”
I scrunch my face and apologize. “I didn’t tell you before because I was scared for you…”
“Go on.”
“The day you came around and I was painting, I found out Paul froze our accounts. I have no money until I see the bank, and possibly a lawyer. Oh, my God, I’ll have to see a lawyer. We have accounts, car loans, bills. I’ll have to find out what to do with those now he’s gone. Our rent…”
“Slow down. Take a breath, Charlie.” Nate has his belt off and is beside me before I can follow his instructions. His hands are warm as they wrap my face. All I can do not to disappear in the flurry of tasks ahead is to think about how warm his hands are. “Nothing needs to be done today. I can help you through it all.”
I know that, my brain knows that, but I can’t stop the panic from rising. What will people say? What will his lawyer say? Has Paul left a will? Has he told my secrets, our secrets, to anyone?
Nate’s lips suddenly clash with mine, his mouth open as his tongue invades my mouth. Although shocked, my body knows what it wants and Nate has always been at the top of that want list. Of their own accord, my mouth, hands and body, dive in hungrily, drinking the passion Nate served on my platter. It was quick and it was unfair that he deprives me of more, but when his mouth ceases to caress me, and my eyes flutter open to see his beautiful green eyes, I see clearly.
“You with me now?”
All I can do is nod.
“What am I going to do with you, huh? When are you going to get it that you’re not alone in this?” I smile and stroke his hands that still lay against my face as he continues. “I don’t want you to have to do things alone anymore, as I don’t want to go on alone with my life.”
“I never want you to leave me either.”
Nate’s face scrunches and he squeezes my face. “You still don’t get it. I. Will. Never. Ever. Leave. You! Neverever.”
“You say that now.”
His forehead leans against mine, his eyes darken, and I’m torn between wanting to know what he’s going to say and the need to feel his lips against mine again. “I will say that forever. While there is breath in my body, I will always be yours.”
“I don’t deserve such a man as brave as you. You wear your sins on your sleeve and fight harder, while I hide mine, drown, smother and bury them so deep I ended up losing myself along the way.”
His lips caress mine once, and I sigh when he stops. “I will always find you.”
I feel the warmth of my heart reaching my growing smile. He is my hero, and he is mine.
I HAD CARMEN SEND some basic clothes over from her Boston Store. Carmen had already heard what happened to Charlie and was happy to bring them to the office.
Sheriff Noel seems like a different man; he seems to have lost the large, misplaced chip on his shoulder for me and her. I don’t, by any means, give him that credit. No, that was all Charlie. She calls me her hero, but she is so wrong. She is and has always been the strong one—the hero. I won’t say heroine because it just doesn’t sound as epic as it should, it sounds like she is the sidekick when in reality, she is the shit. She would never think so. She thinks she is weak, but again, she is wrong. She survived and fought hard against all odds, right up until she had no other option than to tell Noel everything that would expose her, and her life she had tried so hard to hide. She showed him the horrid videos I wished and hoped had burned down with the garage. The sick fuck kept them to watch again and again. Charlie threw her freedom to the mercy of a guy who could have thrown it all back in our faces, like he had in the past. She, like a hero, sacrificed everything in the hopes she could end this nightmare for all of us.
Yes, Charlie is my hero, and one day I will tell her how much of a hero she is to me, but she’s not ready to hear that yet.
I have sorted a crew ready to help me clean the house; I can’t have her coming home to that, all that blood and history. I’ve got a shitload of paint being delivered, and plans for doing some renovations. Of course, I should run them by her, but I want to surprise her. Besides, I know she will agree.
I feel like today has been a race against time and I’m losing. I glance at my watch for the thirtieth time in twenty minutes.
“Nathan, we’ll get as much done this afternoon as we can; I don’t think she expects a miracle.” Connor pats me on the shoulder, and although he means well, it makes me want to punch him. He doesn’t get it; she deserves a miracle.
“I know, but I want the miracle. I just need to make sure she’s still busy organising all the details of her bank and lawyer.” I could have killed Paul for throwing her out with no money. I would have actually marred him for less. Which is why she kept it from me, I guess. “When she’s done, bring her home for her surprise.”
“I don’t know if she will come with me, she is…”
Connor is squirming; he has something to say, but is too nervous. I may not want to hear and he may not want to tell me. I guess I don’t blame him, really; we shared time in a place where I was a different man. But when it comes to Charlie, maybe I wasn’t; maybe I was just as ruthless. “Connor, spit it out.”
“I spent enough time with the abused to know when they are ready to trust again. Your girl is like an abused animal, not ready to trust strangers yet. Her eyes tell so many horrible truths, man. It breaks my heart.”