Sliver of Truth (Shattered Hearts of Carolina Book 3)

by Jody Kaye

  “She does.” I kiss her temple. I’m disappointed, but she’s trying to meet me halfway. “Do you eat chicken and waffles?” I nudge with a raised brow.

  “Not together.”

  Her facial features scream it’s an affront to nature, cracking me up.

  “Why not?”

  “Because, ew, maple syrup with fried chicken? That’s like—”

  “Ice cream with hot fudge?”

  “Exactly!” Cece giggles, but I’ve watched the woman devour a salad. If she can put balsamic on greens, there’s hope for her yet.

  “You know what would go great covered in hot fudge?… An ice cream purist.”

  Her wild messy locks fan out in the air as Celine shakes her head, refusing. However, from the crimson seeping from the neckline of my shirt that she’s got on and the glimmer in her eyes, the idea has merit. Cees isn’t ready for me to wear her down, but considering the way she’s kissing me, she’s open to being worn out before our drive back to Brighton. One of us is going to have their mouths full soon, and knowing what she tastes like, I’m craving Cece.

  I skim a knuckle down her front. The shirt indents when my finger hits her navel and I twist my hand in the opposite direction, seeking her sweet heat. Cece’s hips rise on contact. She slides her hand under the waistband of my pants and grips my hard cock. I tug the fabric to my thighs cause I’m helpful like that and it’ll put Cees right where I want her faster.

  My palms rest on her hips and her delicate fingers line me up. She gets a pretty pink blush in her cheeks before impaling herself on my shaft.

  I flex up, deep and fast.

  “Oh fuck, Dusty!” She screams at the swift intrusion.

  Dear God, I could listen to that noise over and over and never be sick of knowing I’m the one about to make her come.

  If this is the last time before we head back to Brighton, I want it hard and rough with Cece panting, choking out my name as she drenches my balls. A week from now, I’ll lay her down and take her slow, the way I’ve been able to the past forty-eight hours. Until then, we’re both going to remember how amazing being together feels.

  The tension in her body eases as her pussy adjusts to my size. I feel every inch of her and she does me. Our tongues tangle, nipping and biting. Loving on one another the way we’ve learn to do best, but with the added power awakened this weekend by sleeping in the same bed and sharing parts of ourselves in more than a biblical manner.

  I cup her lush ass, grinding her clit against the base of my cock. Surrounded by the knowledge that what few parts of herself this woman hasn’t given me, she’ll surrender before long.

  I’m lost in her big brown eyes, staring at me in wonder. So much so, the snick of the front lock after being picked is inaudible. The slam of the door as the knob crashes though the drywall, Morgan’s crazed expression in the threshold, and the pistol he’s got in his solid grip, however, are hard to ignore.

  “Fucking hell!” I bark, startled, and pull Cece to my chest.

  The blinding light refracting off of the snow has us squinting.

  “Jesus Christ, what are you doing here!” Cece screams, her attention on the open threshold.

  I reach over us for a quilt that’s covering the back of the couch.

  “What am I doing? What are you doing!” Morgan yells from the open space. His brotherly voice reminds me of two kids in the thralls of a pissing match.

  “What the hell? I can’t unsee this, Cece.” Morgan groans.

  “Well, it’s not as if you’re trying! Look away, you idiot!” She screeches. “Could you at least have the decency to wait outside so we can find our clothes?”

  Morgan’s intense, red cheeks fill with air. He’s a balloon about to pop. I owe him an explanation, but I’m not giving it with my pants around my ankles. Not when he’s gotten an eye full of Cece and me going at it.

  He walks out, leaving the door wide open. Cece and I untangle our limbs and gooseflesh appears on my skin.

  She rushes for the bedroom to find clothes to put on and comes back out in those grey sweatpants. Hopping on one foot, Cece manages to get a second wooly sock on before venturing out in the cold. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.” Overwhelmed our romantic weekend has taken a downturn, she forgets her boots.

  It’s bright out in the yard. Cees uses her hand as a visor coming down the steps. Her brother’s barking into his cell that he’s found her.

  I follow her lead, tossing my drawstring pants covered in her pussy juice in the hamper and snatching something to wear from my dresser drawer that doesn’t advertise we’ve been fucking all weekend. Not that Morgan hasn’t figured it out, but yeah… respect. My best guess is he issued an Amber alert for his sister and assembled the troops.

  “How did you know I was here?” Cece is saying as I get back to the front door. The cold from the frozen ground has begun seeping into her feet and she rotates lifting them as her toes go numb.

  “Nobody could get ahold of you. Skye and I went through a week’s worth of surveillance tape at the mill and the only thing off was you getting out of Dusty’s truck. You were fighting and then this weekend you both disappear. The last location your cell pinged off of was nearby.”

  “Then what made you feel like it was okay to burst in with a gun?”

  Christ, where did he even get a gun? As a felon, Morgan can get sent back to jail for possessing one.

  “He was acting suspicious. You were fighting on the tape. Both of your phones were off and I had no way of telling if you came of your own free will!” He pegs her with a frigid stare.

  “I forgot my charger.” Cees wrings her stinging hands. “And my battery died. I didn’t think anything of it.”

  Morgan doesn’t believe his sister at all. I’m pissed at his stupid ass for the attempted rescue. But I’m choking down the line Celine’s fed me. Her cell dying aside, her intentions weren’t as innocuous as she’s making them out to be.

  I don’t know what she was supposed to do different, but I was a fool not to ask who knew she was coming to Boone with me. Women nowadays text their best friends every damn thing from their Tinder swipe right’s profile information to the dick pic he private messages before they hook up. They call it safety. But a decent amount is bullshit bragging.

  Now that the blinder’s ripped off, I’m flashing back the flawless coincidence I could arrive early at the medical park on Friday and to Cece’s high-heeled jog across the street when we agreed I’d pick her up at the mill for our date.

  It doesn’t matter how different it would be if I could go back to the beginning and do things right. I’m Celine’s dirty little secret.

  “You didn’t tell anyone where you were going. How was I to know he wasn’t forcing you—” Morgan cracks his knuckles.

  “I’m fine.” She plants her hands under her pits, searching for some body heat.

  “Obvious now, Celine.” Cece’s brother grits out like it’s a little too late. He’s also not interested in discussing what he walked in on.

  Not that I want to either, so I stay silent, letting the anger build.

  “Then I guess I’m on my way.” Morgan’s jaw ticks, his ire is directed at Celine. Yet, his full attention is on me.

  Not that I give a rat’s ass what Morgan thinks of walking in on his sister while she’s got her legs spread. At this moment, I hate them both.

  What happened is on me, and I owe everyone an apology for making them worry. It’s my priority when we get back to Brighton. Right now, all I want is a chance to make it right with Dusty. The “sorry” I gave him while rushing out of the house wasn’t close to enough to cover how badly I’ve blown it. I want to hug him and explain away his fears. The ones I had a few days ago have ruined everything. The least I can do is be honest and hope he can forgive me.

  I spin to dash up the stairs. Dusty fills the gap in the doorway. In the few minutes it’s taken to talk Morgan down, he’s put on jeans and a soft henley. Like most shirts, it binds over his biceps.
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  I try not to lose it seeing his sharp scowl. What Dusty says next pierces my heart. But it’s warranted, and I’m certain the pang in my chest isn’t cutting as deep as the wounds he carries.

  “Go.”

  “What?” I blink fast and shake my head, thinking I haven’t heard Dusty correctly. I haven’t combed my hair and the messy knots from my bedhead pull, pinching my scalp.

  “GET OUT!” His voice booms into the rafters, shaking the house. Dusty could blow it down with his breath. His muscles clench and anger radiates from his body. “Whatever we’re doing, it’s over. I’m done with the game of pretend.”

  “I wasn’t—This weekend.”

  “This weekend means nothing.” Dusty towers over me.

  My neck cranes and my head tips back all the way, trying not to show any intimidation, but for the first time I don’t feel safe with him. He’s scaring me.

  He clenches his fists at his side, holding back his anger. It’s as if it’s taking every ounce of control not to grab me by the arms and shake some sense into me. I’ve never taken him as a violent man, but I’ve bested his temper. I pushed him so far he’s holding back the beast that he hates people believing he is.

  I want to tell him, “This weekend was perfect. It was what I expected I’d have a million years from now. You’re the kind of man who I thought was waiting in the wings. I was blind not to see you’ve been there all along.” But none of those words leave my mouth because it’s too late.

  My shoulders slump in resignation. This is all my fault. Dusty lets me past him into the house only enough to snag my purse off the counter. I run to catch Morgan. He’s backed out, but I’m able to flag him down before he puts the car in drive.

  A mile down the road, my brother pulls into a gas station.

  “You want anything?” He notices my shiver when he opens the door and tosses me a sweatshirt. I have no shoes or coat, and it’s more than I deserve.

  “No.” I stare out the window.

  Morgan fills up at the pump and we drive all the way back to Brighton, unspeaking. The clear blue sky near the mountains gives way to dark rain clouds as we cross the state. The barometer falls putting pressure on my ears that seeps into my bones crushing me from the outside in. Overwhelmed, I’m helpless to stop the tears tumbling down my cheeks. My blotchy and swollen face seems to gloat back at me in the side mirror, proving how wrong I was. I stop worrying Morgan will notice and use the sleeves of his sweatshirt as a tissue. I can’t slide any further down the ladder of embarrassment than I have, and I can’t pity myself for the problems I’ve caused everyone else.

  Morgan shifts his SUV into park. We stare at the brick and green trimmed factory windows.

  “I don’t get it, Cece. It’s not as if we don’t know him. You can’t even buck up the courage to say he’d invited you to Boone as friends. And you let me drive all the way up there under the impression he was hurting you. That the guy we’ve all trusted wasn’t as trustworthy as we’d believed, when it was you who lied.”

  “I wasn’t lying.”

  “Do you hear yourself? Sloan, Kimber, Aidy? None of your friends knew where you were! Women tell their fucking girlfriends everything. But you disappear without a goddamn word to anyone. With the shifty way he’s acted when it comes to you, how could I not be worried?”

  “You pulled a gun on us! You and these people—whoever they are, whatever you’re involved with—they’ve made you comfortable enough to barge into a house ready to shoot!”

  “These people? You set me up with these people! What did you expect, fucking cucumber finger sandwiches and four o’clock tea?”

  “I didn’t ask you to come after me! After Dusty!”

  “You owe me an explanation. One I can give to Carver, so you’d better not leave a fricken’ thing out.” Morgan stops yelling at me.

  Humid air fogs the windows. I want to draw pictures on them the way we had as kids and we were too innocent to see what was going on around us.

  “Are you even willing to admit how long you’ve been seeing Dusty?”

  “A while,” I bite my lip. “This was the first chance we had to go be alone together. I didn’t let on because what if it didn’t work out?” I’d even convinced myself that unless I stuck to my plan, I’d wind up like Mom or Amy.

  What I hadn’t told Dusty, but Morgan knows is Amy was my very best friend. Her boyfriend skipped out once she’d paid his bail, leaving her to raise their child alone. Amy’s method of staying afloat became finding another man and having another baby, starting the cycle all over again. That kind of influence from the women I was closest to was an affliction in themselves.

  “Mom got bogged down with a baby on her hip and one in her belly, watching her dreams get flushed down the toilet. And then giving up when drugs provided an easy out.”

  “But she started using when we were older.”

  “There are things you don’t know about Mom and Dad.” Many times it got worse when Morgan went out of town for games or got camp scholarships that took him away for what felt like weeks on end.

  Morgan’s palm flips in a gesture as if to say, “like what?”

  “He hit her Morgan. I don’t know when it started, but I found out right after Amy’s boyfriend went to jail for beating her up. I walked into the kitchen to put back the bandages I’d taken with me to Amy’s. It was obvious Mom was high. She’d been rifling through the cabinets and turned after snatching them from the shelf with a shiner on her eye.”

  “How can you be so certain it was Dad?”

  “After everything, why do you still give him credit? Look at the past ten years; he dropped you like a hot potato when you became better at basketball than he’d been. He told everyone when you went to jail it was just desserts for you bragging about getting a scholarship. Mom and Dad only latched on when it made them look good or when they needed something. She called me to see if I’d write her a prescription, Morgan. She broke her arm and even after it’s healing she wants pain relief.”

  “Oxy?”

  I nod my head and my brother blows a long hard breath. Our parents faked it until we’d grown up enough where they couldn’t pull the wool over our eyes anymore.

  “Dad did it?” I hear him lose the last bit of hope he held onto.

  Having lousy parents fills you with dread. There’s always this tiny storm cloud ready to overshadow any happiness and remind you a bit of the same darkness resides inside your heart. Because of this, there’s a little part of both of us desperate to believe we weren’t as bad off as we were.

  I want Mom’s love the way Morgan wants Dad’s approval. I needed my mother to tell me she was proud of my accomplishments, not the crushing blow when my usefulness was tied to what I could do for her.

  “Mom is an addict and Dad’s hurt her before. It could have gone a million ways. Reading into whether or not Mom had an accident is fruitless. She lies to cover up the truth. Besides, we agreed a long time ago some people don’t want help. Their choices are too ingrained.” I have no remorse for keeping this particular secret from him.

  Morgan lets another layer of reality sink down into the abyss we left behind when we became adults. Dad had roughed Morgan up a few times, but not enough to leave visible marks. Our father had encouraged Morgan’s basketball skills. So when my brother’s sportsmanship gained him a way out, the emotional scars our father’s jealousy left on him endured.

  I’d rather love nobody at all than for a child of mine to wind up surrounded by people who don’t care.

  “There’s something else.” I’ve rubbed my snotty face on my brother’s sweatshirt so many times I have rug burn under my nose. I have no dignity left to lose, so I might as well hammer the last nails into my coffin.

  “What?” Morgan studies me with genuine concern.

  Blowing out a deep breath pushes more tears to the surface and sure my stomach. “I was afraid I’d have to defend him.”

  “Who, Dusty?” Morgan stuffs his fingers in his eye soc
kets. “Hate to break it to you, Cece, the guy’s built like a brick shithouse. Unless…” It dawns on him. “Wow. I’m speechless. I mean, I’m not sure I’m proud of you for admitting a human reaction, or it makes me angrier because the sister I grew up with wasn’t—”

  “Judgemental? Self-conscious?”

  “The first one, no. The second part I always thought you had under control better than the rest of us.”

  “I didn’t know what people were going to say. I didn’t want to hear anyone talk down about him and not be able to explain he wasn’t stupid. Or be teased about why I was with him.” I didn’t even understand our attraction.

  “By us? Awesome, Cece. We’re your friends.” He inhales through his nose. “Glad you think so highly of us.” He mutters “dumbass” toward the driver’s window. “Okay, pretend I’m bashing one of my best friends because he takes a bit longer to speak and when he does it’s with a stutter. I’ve got one better!” Morgan holds up a finger in challenge. “Explain to me why you’re shacked up in the woods with this hulking, perpetually pissed off stalker guy, who has spent the past year glowering at you while you take your clothes off, chases after you with a permanent boner, and stam-mers to get out ev-er-y sen-tence.” Morgan mimics Dusty’s speech patterns.

  My palm flattens and I do something I’ve never done. I slap my brother hard across the cheek.

  “Oh, God!” I cover my mouth, ashamed. “I shouldn’t have hit you. See, I can’t be with Dusty. He has a daughter. What if I’m like Mom and Dad? I can’t bring this on them. He’s got the biggest heart and all he’s trying to do is raise his little girl. She means everything to him. He’s not so damn cocky that he’s beneath playing tea party and knows every princess name well enough to tease her by mixing them up. They ski and they’re already their own tiny family. Even if I’m not ready for kids now, he’s exactly the type of father I wanted my children to have because his kindness would make up for everything awful inside of me.” I shake my head since none of those things are meant for me. I should be alone so I can’t hurt anyone the way I did Dusty today, become an addict like my mother, or lay a hand on people the way my father has.