by Sara Cate
Savannah found us in there after her friend left. My eyes met hers as she walked in, looking a little tipsy after I was sure they had one too many martinis out there. Her eyes were glazed over, like she couldn’t quite make eye contact with me. I wanted to ditch this project immediately, but I was almost all the way through the box when Savannah plopped down next to me. I don’t want her going through this shit with me. I don’t need her seeing the truth behind the man she knows, the boy in and out of foster care because his parents couldn’t keep it together. Once I let her into that deeper part of me, then it will be damn impossible to watch her leave when she goes.
She picks up a piece of paper on top of my pile. I've worked it all into two piles. Shit I might need, like legal documents, and shit I don’t care about, like letters from my birth mother and pictures of me and my foster brothers and sisters.
“Who is Ian Murphy?” she asks with a giggle.
I snatch the paper out of her hands with a groan.
“Is that your real name?” she gasps. Her face says she’s being playful about it, but I can only grind my molars.
“He never told you his real name?” Ryder asks from the other side of the desk. Fucking Ryder.
Savannah’s easy smile starts to look harder to hold as she starts to process this information. No. I didn’t tell her my real name. I don’t tell anyone my real name. My mother was the only person to call me Ian, and I can still hear her yelling it when I got on her nerves, so when I had a chance to change it, I did.
“My name is Murph. You know my name,” I growl at the both of them.
“I like Ian,” she whispers next to me, touching my arm. Getting physical in front of others is not really something we do, and it makes me tense. Plus, I can feel Ryder’s eyes on us and I don’t want him getting ideas about what this thing is between Savannah and me.
“Too bad.”
She picks up a stack of pictures from the box while I read through piles of foster paperwork. “Put them back,” I warn her.
“What? You don’t want me seeing you as a kid?” Leaning away from me, it’s clear she’s trying to play a little game with me.
I reach across her body and easily snatch the pictures, but she tries to wriggle free, sending the pictures flying across the room. “Look at you without a beard!” she wails as she holds onto one picture of me from high school.
A laugh escapes my lips as I wrap a hand around her waist and press her down to the floor, snatching the photo from her hands. “Nice try, princess.”
She leans up and presses a kiss to my lips, and even though we’re hidden by the desk between us, I know Ryder can hear everything. We can’t do this now, but having Savannah’s body beneath me makes me want to say, ‘fuck it’ and take her right here.
“What the fuck,” Ryder barks on the other side of the office. Savannah giggles, wide-eyed kissing me again. I’ve never seen her this tipsy, and I kind of love it. She’s even more adventurous and flirty.
“Murph, what the fuck is this?” The hard tension in Ryder’s voice makes me stop and climb up to see his face. This isn’t about me kissing Savannah, that much is clear.
“What’s your problem?” I ask. He’s holding a photo in his hands, one that came from Savannah’s hand. I see my face on the front, from when I was about five. It was one of my last memories of being with my birth family. My dad came to something at my school, and my mom snapped a photo. They had it printed and kept it with my things because it was so fucking rare to have my dad show up for anything for me. I can still remember what a big fucking deal it was.
“Who is this?” he asks through gritted teeth.
“That’s me, Ryder. What’s your problem?”
“Not you, asshole. Who is with you?”
My blood runs cold. Why is he starting this shit with me right now? Ryder and I haven’t fought in days. He doesn’t push my buttons and I don’t push his. So why is he pushing them now?
“That’s my fucking dad, Ryder. Why do you care? You surprised that I actually had parents or something? They were assholes who couldn’t get their shit together and let me grow up in the system. So what?”
“So what? So, that’s my goddamn dad, Murph.”
Blood rushes to my head as I stare at him, waiting for him to say something that makes sense. My mind searches for a memory of Ryder’s dad. Hasn’t he spoken about him or shown me pictures? They can’t be the same guy.
“That’s not possible,” I bark. “That man is in prison. Has been for fifteen years.”
He stares at me, his nostrils flaring, but the serious expression on his face has me shaking.
“What the fuck,” he mutters. Then, he rushes past me, repeating it under his breath the whole way.
Left alone with Savannah, I want to punch a hole through this desk. Instead, I grab Ryder’s papers and start rifling through what he has. Ryder was never a foster kid. His mom raised him, and I know she did it alone, but that was hardly rare.
I remember the day Hazel brought him home, giving his mom a job in the small market Hazel owned on the island.
“Is this possible?” Savannah asks.
I don’t answer as I continue scanning pictures and documents in his pile. They’re mostly football pictures from high school, a few shots of his unfortunate bleach blond days, and then at the bottom, a handful of pics from his childhood. Underneath it all is an envelope with my name on it in Hazel’s handwriting. A letter to me in Ryder’s box.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
“What is it?” Savannah asks, kneeling down next to me and putting a hand on my shoulder.
I pull open the envelope and there, no surprise to me, is a photocopy of Ryder’s birth certificate. I start to feel sick as I read it. Under her birth father’s name: Michael A. Richardson.
“I don’t understand,” Savannah whispers. “Who is that?”
“My biological father. Murphy was my step-dad. Ryder took his mother’s name.”
“Jesus.”
My head falls into my hands.
“There’s a letter,” she says, pulling the pages out of my hands.
“Read it.” I can’t even look at it, and Savannah does what I ask.
Murph,
Don’t be too angry with me. All I ever wanted for you was a family. By the time I found him, your walls were up. I knew you’d figure it out when the time was right. Maybe the time is never right.
Love you darling.
Hazel
“Son of a bitch,” I mumble, taking the letter and crumpling it in my hands. I need a fucking drink, but there’s no chance of going out there where Ryder is. No way could I face him, not now. There won’t be any tearjerking family reunions. This doesn’t change the fact that I want to break his jaw more often than not.
“Talk to me,” Savannah says gently.
“I need a drink.”
When I suck it up and leave the office, Ryder is standing in the living room, staring out the dark window. I don’t stop at the bar though. I need a drink and a fucking minute to think outside of the house, so I head straight for the garage. Savannah is hot on my heels and puts a hand on my arm when I reach the bike.
“You’ve been drinking all day,” she says, trying to put herself in between me and the motorcycle.
“Move, Savannah.” Her weight in my arms is light and easy to move when I put her to the side and slide a leg over the seat.
“Don’t do this,” she whines. She’s back on me, placing her body against the bike. Our faces are closer to the same height, and her hands land my cheeks as I start the hog.
“Murph, please!” she howls, holding me tighter.
“It’s too much for one day.” The words seemingly fall out of my mouth without knowing why I say them. Her eyes find mine as she holds my face only inches from her.
“You don’t have to be alone,” she mumbles, and I notice the way the edges of her form are blurred and seem to bleed into two Savannahs. She was right. I have been drinking t
oo much to drive, but I’m too reckless to care.
“Move, Savannah,” I growl at her. Outside the open garage door it’s started to rain, making the roads even more dangerous.
“If you go, I’m going with you.” She climbs on the back of the motorcycle and wraps her arms around my midsection.
I’m about to put the bike into gear and roll forward when something stops me. A vision of our bike skidding off the road and into a ditch, throwing Savannah as it spins. It could kill her, and that thought alone makes my stomach fill with lead.
“Goddammit,” I mutter as I kill the engine. Her arms don’t leave my body as she squeezes me tighter, her legs tight against my sides.
“Murph,” she whispers against my back. When she climbs off and gets back in my face, I get lost in the fullness of those lips. I want to forget about everything that happened today. Burying Hazel. Ryder’s birth certificate. Fuck it all.
Her hands reach back up to find my face, and it feels so nice, I lean into the touch.
“Come to bed with me,” she whispers, tracing her lips along my cheek and down to my mouth. Her sweet taste has my stomach growling.
“Fuck the bed.” Lifting her up, I pull her onto the bike with me, facing me and draping her legs over mine.
I trail kisses along her jawline and down her neck. She purrs against my lips, but her hands against my body push me back.
“Murph, I meant to talk.”
My lips freeze in their place.
“We don’t talk,” I answer. “We fuck.”
It was too harsh, and I regret it immediately, but it’s true. Savannah and I are just physical, and that’s what I love about us.
She tries to climb off, but I stop her, placing another deep kiss against her neck. My tongue carves a trail up from her clavicle to her chin, and even I can feel her grind against my body in response.
“I don’t want to be your quick fuck, Murph.”
“You weren’t saying that when my face was buried in your pussy last night.”
“If you’re not going to talk to me…” she pulls away again.
“This is how I do my talking, darling.” My hands run under her dress and stops just before I reach her soaked panties. “You still want to talk?”
She squirms, fighting her own demons but clearly trying to ease my fingers closer to where she wants them.
“Tell me to stop,” I purr practically taking a bite out of her neck. She groans deep and loud. I’ll take that as a no. Slipping the fabric aside, I sink my finger inside her and let my thumb work her clit as she squirms on my lap.
“Murph,” she squeals. She’s stopped pushing me away, and instead, her hands are now fumbling with the button of my pants.
“Take it out,” I whisper against her neck.
My cock is throbbing behind the zipper of my jeans so that when she finally gets the button undone, they practically peel open on their own. Her hand wraps around me, and my hips jerk forward in response.
“Tell me you want me inside you,” I groan against her throat.
“I want you inside me,” she pants.
In one stroke, I rip her panties clean off, the tearing sound muffled by her moans. She wraps her arms around my neck as I link my hands under her legs and pull her closer. I enter her quickly, gliding in smoothly. And just like that, I forget it all. No funeral. No birth certificate. Nothing but her.
One hand grabs her ass to bounce her against my cock, while the other hand buries into her dark hair. My nose digs into her hair as I breathe her in.
I lean her back on the handlebars of the bike so I can look at her. Savannah in the throes of pleasure is the most beautiful fucking image I’ve ever laid my eyes on.
I know she can’t be comfortable, so I pick her up and squeeze her to my body, her limp form hanging onto my shoulders as I climb off the bike and carry her over to the workbench, setting her down carefully.
She grabs my face again, locking eyes with me as I pound into her. I try to look away, but she only pulls me closer. “Look at me when you come,” she whispers, and I nearly lose it right there.
Her hands grip tighter as I pick up speed, but she doesn’t take her eyes off of mine. In her eyes, there is nothing else. Only us.
Watching her while I fuck her wildly, a new thought starts to dominate my thoughts. This girl is mine. This pussy is mine.
Mine, mine, mine.
With that thought, I finally come, letting out a howl like thunder as I release inside her, claiming her as mine.
All fucking mine.
And my eyes never leave hers for one second.
I wake up sometime in the middle of the night to find Murph standing at the bedroom window, watching the rain come down outside. I get up and touch his back gently, letting my fingers trail across the tattoos covering his skin.
“Did I wake you?” he whispers.
“No. Can’t sleep?”
“I’m fine,” he answers.
He’s clearly not fine. I don’t know if he’s ever been farther from fine than he is right now, but I’m still hopelessly aching for him to say something, anything. One sentence. Hell, one word.
Then I remember. We don’t talk, we fuck. It hurt, which it shouldn’t. I knew this. I brought it all on myself, but it still sucks to hear.
“It’s okay to not be fine,” I whisper, reaching around to stroke the soft skin of his chest.
“I said I’m fine,” he grunts back.
“You buried someone today and found out Ryder is your brother...all in one day. I get it if you don’t want to talk to me…”
“Savannah.” It’s a warning to stop, but I don’t.
“But you should talk to someone. It’s okay if it’s not me.”
“Why are you pushing this? Please drop it.”
I’m in a mood to shake shit up apparently. What we did last night unravelled me. Not the sex—we do that all the time, but staring into each other’s eyes as we both came so hard I nearly saw stars. It was too fucking intense. Eye contact alone is too much to handle for both of us, but that...that was a stupid thing to do. I asked for it. And now I can’t get him out of my head.
“Sure, I’ll drop it,” I say, walking away. “We don’t talk. We fuck. That’s what you said, right?”
“What did you think this was?” he demands, his voice laced with venom. We’re both clearly exhausted, coming down off an emotionally exhausting day and a lot of drinking. This will end badly, but the band-aid is already peeled back. Might as well rip it off.
“I don’t know what I thought this was, but seeing as how I didn’t even know your fucking name, I guess I can’t be surprised.”
I’m almost to the door when his hands are around my waist and I’m against the wall in the next breath. He boxes me in, his hands planted on either side of my face, daring me to move. “You know my name,” he grits through his teeth. “You scream it every fucking night. Now you want to fuck with me because I don’t talk to you, but what about you, Savannah?” He draws out my name, and I feel my lip tremble.
Nope. He will not make me cry. Another promise to myself. I will never let a man make me cry again.
He grabs my leg, his thumb brushing over the almost-healed tattoo. “What about this, huh? You want me to talk, so where did you get this? What are you running from?”
His lips are just inches from my face, and I hate how much I love the feel of his breath on my mouth.
“You want to know how I got it?” I bite back, a question I don’t expect him to answer. “My ex was a narcissistic asshole, part of a cartel in Newport. I would have done anything to get out, to get away from him. One night we were in the car, and I knew that the only way I could get away from him would be to end it.”
His hands lower so that he’s still pressing my body to the wall but no longer boxing me in. The hardness in his expression softens, begging me to continue.
“He never let me leave his sight. Never.” Tears prick my eyes as I speak. “One night, he was driving,
and I just looked at him and realized I couldn’t take another moment. I would rather die than stay with him, so when we approached a bridge…”
“No,” he mumbles, touching my chin.
“I did the only thing I could. I grabbed his arm and pulled our car straight through the guard rail and into the water.”
“Jesus,” he mutters, stepping away and walking away from me. When he turns back, the look in his eye is scrutinizing, like he’s searching my face for the familiar features of the girl I was just a few moments ago. He didn’t think I was capable of something like this. Well, neither did I.
“We both tried to scramble out, but I used my heel to break my window. It broke at a weird angle though so when I climbed through, my leg caught on the broken glass.”
“What happened to him?” he asked.
“After I reached the shore, I ran. We were so close to traffic that it wasn’t hard for me to get a ride, even soaking wet and wild looking. When I looked back, I saw him climb out, but he didn’t follow me.”
“Savannah, this is insane. That’s when you came to Hazel’s?”
“She had an ad in the paper. She called it “Your last resort and your saving grace.”
“Of course she did,” he snapped.
Tears streamed out of my eyes and as I stared up at him. “Have you ever felt so imprisoned? So ashamed that you hate the thought of living another day like that? I wasn’t supposed to get another chance at life. I was happy to let it all go, but when I climbed out of that car, all I told myself was that I just had to get away from him and if I was away from him, I could be free.”
It felt like a weight had lifted once the words were out, but now he was across the room and still angry at me for pushing him. I was desperate for his touch. I craved his kiss.
“So, that’s my secret. Now you know.”
“What are you going to do after this is all over?” he asks, his voice cold and flat. He’s back to avoiding my eye contact.