by Harper Sloan
“Clueless, Greg? Are you kidding me right now?”
“No, baby girl. And as much as it pains me to say this, I really think you two need to sit down and talk.”
“What? No way, Greg. No. I have nothing to say to him. Not one thing. Did you see how mad he was? I didn’t even see his face but I could hear it. I could feel it. He is acting like I did something horrid. What is so horrible about loving someone?”
“I don’t know, Iz. I just think there is something to be said about closure . . . for both of you.”
Closure? I laugh to myself as I lie back against the headboard. This man has lost his fucking marbles if he thinks I can, or want, to have a sit-down with Axel. I can’t. I just can’t. This must be some cruel joke from above. I knew I was onto something when I stopped praying. No one who throws so much shit at someone should be trusted. Haven’t I been through enough? I just started to feel ‘normal’ again. Hell, I just stopped seeing my therapist a month ago!
“Just go, G. Please, just go.”
I turn over, pull the sheets over my head, and cry softly into my pillow. I hear the door shut and heavy-booted feet stomping down the hall, followed by soft murmurings.
Just when I’m about to fall asleep, I feel slender arms wrap around me, holding me tight.
“Love you, Iz. We will get through this.”
Dee’s reassuring words are the last thing I hear before I fall into a restless sleep, hoping for some peace to be found.
CHAPTER 7
“God, Izzy, you feel so fucking good wrapped around my cock. So . . . fucking . . . tight,” he rasps as he slowly thrusts his long, thick length into my waiting body. “Never felt anything as good as you.”
His hands tighten on my hips as his pumping picks up speed. His powerful rocking is rubbing my erect nipples in the most delightful way against his sheets. I dig my fingers into the sheets, trying, but not succeeding, in keeping my moaning down. All I want to do is scream out in pleasure with every single thrust and every single roll of his hips. He gives a good push in, the tip of his generous cock hitting my cervix. Each thrust now has tightening up and lightning bolts of sheer pleasure shooting from my pussy to every part of my body. My fingers tingle; my toes curl; my breasts feel like they are throbbing. Every single inch of my skin is on fire for this boy.
“Fuck me . . .” he rumbles, his breathing coming in fast bursts against my back. “Like you were made for me, baby.”
I’m afraid to open my mouth, to respond with any kind of sound that will let him know he has me feeling the exact same way. I know the second I unclench my lips, screams of pure ecstasy will come bolting out. God, I love him. He’s right; we fit together like we are meant to be. Both our bodies align perfectly, our movements are in perfect sync with each other, and our thoughts communicate wordlessly.
His hand reaches between my thighs and he starts to roll his thumb in deliciously circles, making my body’s pleasure reach even higher than before.
“Come with me, Princess. Come fucking with me.”
Right when my pleasure reaches insurmountable levels and the claws of the most powerful orgasm start taking hold . . .
I wake up.
Sitting straight up with a giant jolt, I hear a thump to my right and look over to see Dee sticking her tired head up over the side of the bed. Unhappiness with a twinge of confusion mars her pretty face. Her hair is sticking up in every direction possible, and her flawless makeup from the night before is smudged under her eyes and lips. If I weren’t still feeling the effects of that dream, I might laugh. She looks absolutely ridiculous.
“Jesus Christ, Iz. A simple wake up would have sufficed, too.”
“Sorry,” I snort, earning me a new glare.
I take my eyes from the tiny ball of unhappiness on the floor and slowly look around my room, trying to figure out what feels so different. Well, besides waking up with Dee in my bed, freaking weirdo. A knock at my door has me frowning even deeper. For the life of me, I can’t seem to figure out what feels so off.
The door opens a crack and Greg pokes his head in. “Hey,” he says hesitantly, “Okay if I come in?”
And that is all it takes for it all to come rushing back in crystal clear HD Technicolor. My birthday, the package, Club Carnal, and Axel.
Dee pulls herself off the floor, rubbing her ass as she pushes past Greg on her way out the door and mumbling heated words under her breath.
“Someone woke up happy,” Greg says, walking over to the edge of my bed, taking a seat. He looks over at me, digging in for what seems to be a nice little visit. “Mornin,’ baby girl. Sleep okay?”
He looks so awkward in my girly room. His brown hair is tousled in a just-woke up way, giving him an almost boyish look to his normal hard face. He’s wearing sweats and a tight white undershirt, showing off his thick, muscled arms. He screams masculinity in my frilly room.
“Slept decent, I guess. Or at least I think I did.” I pick at some imaginary lint on my comforter, not looking up into his knowing eyes. I feel him shift, turning to his side so he is facing me. Still, I don’t look up.
“Look at me, baby girl. I need to see that you’re okay.”
I take in a big pull of air, hold it, and look up. His sleepy look is long gone and his hard controlled stare is firmly in place. A stare of which I am not used to being on the receiving end. I’ve seen him give it a million times before. It’s his look that always means business, business no matter what—a look that you do not want to cross.
Guess this means it’s game on; I was really hoping he would have just let this go. There wasn’t anything left to hash out.
“Look, G, I know you mean well, but this shit . . . This shit isn’t something I want to deal with. Not now, not later. I’m not even sure I want to ever deal with it again. What’s left to say at this point, huh? That road? It is not one I want to go down again. It’s been blocked off with detour signs for a long time now, huge fucking warning signs telling me to walk the other direction. I would be setting myself up for more pain and heartbreak and that is not something I want to do. Is it too much to ask for me to just be allowed a little happiness, some of this dark cloud to dissipate?” I don’t even give him a chance to get a word out, cutting him off before he can try and plow right over me. “We know . . . now, that you and . . . You and him are friends. Let’s just leave it. You can be friends with him and you can be friends with me. I don’t see why the two ever have to intermix. Ever.”
I can tell he is trying to talk his temper down, or maybe he is just having some convoluted one-sided argument with himself. Who knows. I don’t care at this point; there is no way I am doing this. Not when it is still cutting so fresh into my skin. I feel like I have a movie rolling in my head, over and over with the same images. Images of a past forgotten and a future lost.
“Izzy, this isn’t going to just go away. Sooner or later it will have to be dealt with.” I know he’s right, I really do, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with him. Denial is a perfectly acceptable place to pack up and move to. “He is going to be my partner now. He lives here and is staying, Iz. He isn’t going to just disappear.”
I don’t have the energy for this fight, and I know it will end up being a heavy one, a fight I will need all my wits for; going into battle with Greg is never easy.
“I get that this might not be going away, but that doesn’t mean I have to deal with it right fucking now.” I feel like punching something. Why can’t we just pretend that last night never happened? I’m the queen of fucking brushing it under the rug. That’s a game I can play with the best of them. Out of sight, out of mind.
“Baby girl, this pains me. I feel guilty as shit right now. You might be able to forget, or try to, but I can’t. I know what last night has cost you and I can’t sit back knowing you are in pain.” He shakes his head, his blue eyes losing that bright shine. “I should have known, but . . . fuck, Iz, I didn’t ever know him as Axel.” He pauses again. Whether he is going for dramatic
flair or just trying to figure out the best way to piss me off, I don’t know, but right when I get ready to freak the fuck out on him, he continues. “I have only ever known him as Reid. When we met at basic, he was H. Reid, and from then on, we only ever called him Reid, Axel . . . Fuck, baby girl, but he was never Axel. When we first got out and he started up his security gig, that was the only other time I have ever heard him refer to himself as anything other than Reid, and I promise you this—it was not Axel.”
Why is this so important? If I didn’t care so much about my friendship with Greg, I would fucking kill him. Go all crazy white girl on his ass. “Holt, right?” I laugh without humor. “He always hated that name. Said it reminded him of his old man,” I mumble, back to picking at the invisible lint. “Greg, can we please, please not do this right now?”
He looks at me, assessing for a while, taking me in, and once again trying to figure out how to weigh his words. “Iz, we are fucking doing this. I won’t let you sit here and fester in your hurt. Not when I can fix it. Not when I have the power to do something this time.” Hard and spitting. No argument. His tone leaves no room for wiggling. He’s settled in and ready to go at it.
Stubborn fucking ass. We really are too much alike sometimes.
“I’m fine, really. I just need to process,” I lie. He knows I’m lying; I can see it in his face. He might have come in ready to play, but he didn’t have this hardness about his eyes at first. My lying just confirmed his thoughts that I’m not handling this well.
“You aren’t fine, baby girl. Far from it, and if you expect me to sit here and buy that plate of shit you are insisting on dishing up, you’re out of your fucking mind. You forget I know you. That play won’t work with me.”
“Greg, seriously?” I screech. “Are you fucking serious right now? I am not trying to serve you some shit. I just don’t want to go there. It really is just as simple as that. I have no hidden motive here. Just give me a goddamn break. You know . . . You fucking know what he meant to me. Could you just give me a minute to, I don’t know, process this shit? Dead, G. He has been dead for twelve years and all of a sudden he isn’t. That isn’t something I can just wake up and deal with.” I can tell I struck a nerve and I might feel bad if I wasn’t so pissed off. He isn’t letting me figure this out. He isn’t letting me think. I just want a second, just a fucking second to wrap my head around this colossal mindfuck.
He looks a little more understanding after my outburst—not by much—but I can see that he is trying hard to see this from my shoes. “I’ll give you today, Izzy, but hear me this. We will be talking about this. No pushing it away, no locking this in tight. The can has been opened, and try as you might, there is no way you’re getting those worms back in.” He squeezes my leg and stands, leveling me with one more serious look before he turns to stomp heavily out of my room, firmly snapping the door shut behind him.
Well, that went well.
I know he is right. I do. I have to deal with this. I might not want to, and it isn’t going to be pretty, but I have to face this. With everything else going on, it isn’t something I even want on my radar, but it’s there. I’ll deal with it, but on my terms, and it will not be today.
I lie back down and roll onto my side facing the big picture window, looking up into the bright, cloudless Georgia sky. What a fucked-up mess. I still have to deal with Brandon, the divorce—or actually the lack of one—and his continued reminders that he is in my life and knows how to reach me . . . how to hurt me. Now I have to deal with Axel and a past I have been struggling to forget and move on from for almost half of my life. Oh how cruel fate is.
* * *
It really is funny sometimes how everything comes full circle. Just when you think your life is headed in one clear-cut direction, the light turns red and the turn signal comes on. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish my parents were still here, happily residing a few counties over in our old small three-bedroom ranch. If I hadn’t lost them, I never would have had Dee come into my life, and even though it doesn’t take away the pain of their loss, I have to consider myself lucky on some counts. Even through the dark times of my marriage, when our contact was few and far between, I always knew she was there and always would be.
Through Dee came Greg, another thing I wouldn’t have in my life if my parents had survived that wreck. He is another person Dee roped in with her overwhelming personality. She met him when she was dating his cousin, and even though the cousin didn’t last, her friendship with Greg did. She can’t help it. She just has something about her that people want to be around. She has that permanent outlook that everything is right in the world. And lucky for me, he just happened to be close the night she came to save me, even though I don’t remember him showing up with her. By the time she made it to me, I had completely blacked out. The first time I saw him, my initial reaction had been fear; Greg mad is not someone you want to be around. When he saw me step out of the van that day, his reaction scared the shit out of me. Huge, raging mad, and ready to kill. No one was more shocked than I was when the feral giant turned human shield. He was ready to protect me from anything, and that has never changed.
I know I am lucky with the friendships I have with Dee and Greg. They are the only two people I have left in the world. The only two people I know would die before they hurt me. They are my family now—family I sometimes want to hurt, but family nonetheless. It is hard sometimes to deal with all my fuckedupness. I know it isn’t easy for them. When I have a setback, they both have to deal with it right alongside of me. I go and crawl into myself, Dee goes into worried mother mode, and Greg goes into his protective grizzly alpha persona.
Dee and I are close, and we will always be, but Greg and I share a bond of loss and heartache no one else will ever touch. I still remember the look he had in his eye when he told me about his sister. That was the only time I have ever seen his hard self shed a tear. I broke down, clinging to him, mourning his sister, but also feeling the pain the last six years of my life had imbedded in me with the stark, cold knowledge that I could have had a very different ending. That was the day he promised me he wouldn’t let my husband touch me, the day he promised to do everything he could to keep the pain at bay.
I roll back over and stare up at the ceiling, following the fan’s rotations with my eyes, letting the memories of the past come rolling back over me.
I remember when I was as constantly happy as Dee, always looking at the world with rose-colored goggles. I wasn’t the most popular girl in school, but I had a good number of close friends. My childhood was so full of laughter and love; my parents were the things dreams are made of. They were always happy, always smiling, and always full of love. Love for me and love for life. For a parent-child relationship, ours wasn’t the most conventional. I could go to them with anything and they never cast judgment or scorn. Not a day went by that I didn’t feel the joy I had brought into their lives.
I was lucky enough to meet the love of my life young. We had a relationship that reminded me of my parents.’ Always happy, always smiling, and always full of love. I had three of the best young and dumb years in my life with that boy.
I thought I was untouchable, and I thought that our love was unbreakable. Together we could overcome anything that life threw at us. By his side, I was complete.
Axel left for boot camp three days after he graduated from high school, and that, unfortunately, meant he was leaving me behind in the process. I understood this. Hell, I had even rallied behind him. I wanted what would make him happy, and I knew he was setting his own path, proving to the world that he was nothing like his parents, who had cared more about their next big fix than their own son. Axel had been living in and out of foster homes for the better part of his eighteen years, and knowing he had nothing to offer me for a solid future, he did the only thing that made sense to him; he enlisted in the Marines.
Together, with my parents by my side, we dropped him off at the bus station with a promise to reunite
and live out all of our dreams when I graduated the next year. That day was the first hard day of my life.
I let a bitter laugh escape my lips when I think back to all those stupid dreams. They are funny things, the dreams of an innocent teen. You never know when you’re planning them that you are planning nightmares instead.
I wasn’t too broken by him leaving. Sure, I was upset, but I knew that he would be back; he would return to me. My parents planned a few trips that summer to keep my mind off missing Axel, at least until I could hear from him again. I was so excited for that day, even knowing it might just be a letter. I couldn’t wait to hear about all the changes he was encountering and how he was dealing with them and without me.
But that day never came. Two weeks after I waved goodbye to my love, my parents were killed in a car accident. I was devastated and heartbroken. Looking back now, I can say that was the start of my downward spiral. I didn’t deal with their deaths well, especially without Axel there to ground me. My parents had both been only children, and my father’s parents had been long gone before I was even born. With no other family left to take over my care, I was shipped off to live with my mom’s parents in North Carolina. Even through all my grief, I still held on to the hope that Axel would be back in my arms again and that he would take all that pain away. I loved my grandparents. Don’t get me wrong. But they were older and just didn’t know how to deal with my pain on top of their own.
I had left their address in the care of Axel’s foster mother, June. I knew she hated me, but I had hoped that if I couldn’t contact him, this would be the next best thing.
The fog from my parents’ death had finally left me when I found out I was almost two months pregnant. It had been almost a month since I’d lost them and not a day had gone by that I hadn’t felt the stabbing grief, but this pregnancy gave me something to focus on. Something to look forward to. It was Independence Day when I found out, ironic enough. I remember sitting in the bathroom of my grandparents’ house, thinking I had the next best thing to having Axel with me—a piece of him and our love. I was still scared; what seventeen-year-old wouldn’t be? I was basically alone and pregnant. I loved that baby from the second I saw the positive test strip. I just knew that any baby created with our love would be beautiful.