Our Darkest Scar

by Sarah Bailey

  Chapter Twenty Two

  The words I’d been desperate to hear from his mouth for so long made my bottom lip tremble.

  “I want you, Jonah.”

  I’d been scared after we’d come down from whatever madness had overtaken us when our lips met he would run from me. Or he’d be completely uncomfortable with what we’d just done. I didn’t want that. It would have ruined the very best sexual experience of my life. The pleasure he’d given me was intense and unyielding. Feeling the boy who I’d loved for three years fuck me like he meant every thrust had driven me higher than I’d ever been before. I hadn’t wanted it to end but we were both so turned on and pent up, it wasn’t surprising it hadn’t lasted long. It didn’t matter. It was everything to me.

  I hadn’t told my sister I’d lost my virginity a few months ago. She would probably give me a hard time over it. Mostly because it had been with my housemate, Robin, who considered himself ‘try-sexual’ in the sense he’d try anything once. I hadn’t been drunk and neither had he. It was simply a conversation we’d had one evening which led to more. I wanted to get it over with since I was tired of wanting Raphi so much, I couldn’t be with anyone else. It hadn’t been romantic between me and Robin. He’d taught me about sex as he’d been with other men before. When it came to me and Raphi, I’d already been sure of what I wanted.

  Being with him had been everything and more. Nothing fucking well compared to what we’d just done. I would do it again and again to feel the sheer joy he brought on. I desired this boy more than life itself. He was the sun to me. No matter how much he’d hurt me, I still saw him as the person I wanted to spend eternity with.

  The way Raphi was looking at me right then had my heart aching. There was such tenderness in his eyes like I was something precious he had to take care of. I didn’t know if it was the aftermath of sex. If this sense of euphoria was because we’d been high off each other and later on, reality would hit him square in the chest. Knowing Raphi, it would likely fuck with him. I wasn’t going to get my hopes up about there being a positive outcome to us sleeping together.

  He leant down and kissed me again. I let myself get carried away in it. His kisses felt like fucking magic to me. They warmed me from the inside out.

  When he let me go, I had to keep myself from uttering a protest. He pulled out of me and cleaned up a little after he’d grabbed the tissues off my bedside table. He stood up to throw everything in the bin before tugging on his boxers and slumping down next to me. I watched him roll on his back, placing his hand on his chest. I sat up to clean myself up before pulling my boxers on too.

  My need to touch him overrode my common sense. I curled myself around him, my arm slung across his stomach as I laid my head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around me, stroking his fingers down my bare side. The contentment I felt at being this close to him almost overwhelmed me.

  “You okay?” I asked, my voice sounding loud in the silent atmosphere of my room.

  “Yeah… you?”

  “I guess so.”

  He looked down at me, his eyes full of questions.

  “You guess so?”

  “I don’t know what this means… for you and me.”

  He tapped his chest with his free hand.

  “What do you want it to mean?”

  I could feel him deflecting this all back to me and I was going to assume it meant he didn’t know what he wanted. It’s not as if I thought we would end up in bed together. Hell, I wasn’t even sure how we’d got this far. We’d been fighting over Cole and Meredith, although really, it had been about us. How our past with each other had affected the people around us.

  “You asked me that three years ago and it didn’t go well. I’m not sure I want to answer now.”

  He grimaced and shook his head.

  “I’m sorry. I said some pretty awful things to you. Hurting you is my single biggest regret. You didn’t deserve that.”

  “I appreciate you saying that.”

  I stroked my fingers along his side, revelling in the way his skin felt against mine. Then I kissed his shoulder, wanting him to know I accepted his apology.

  “I’m not sure what I want,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t want to hurt you again, I hope you know that.”

  I nodded. He’d been terrible to me, yes, but I understood why. He’d been through a traumatic event and everything had been too much for him to handle. I hadn’t helped by trying to push him.

  “I… I just got out of a relationship like two days ago.”

  My heart ached at the thought of him being with someone else. I had no claim to Raphi, but it didn’t stop me feeling… jealous. He’d met another person he shared a connection with. Someone he wanted to be with intimately. And it was a girl. I didn’t give a shit if he liked women, but he had no issues being with a girl openly. I didn’t know if he would ever reach a point where it was an option with me.

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, Lana and I got together not long after Cole and Meredith split up.”

  I dragged my fingers along his chest, hating myself for the stabbing pain in my chest.

  “Was it serious?”

  I must be a masochist for asking questions about his relationship. Thinking about him with anyone else made my stomach roil in protest. I was a masochist for even having sex with Raphi in the first place. My fucked up need for him had overridden common sense, but I no longer cared whether or not it was right. The honest truth was I wanted him and the mess it would create didn’t matter.

  “Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She’s the first girl I’ve been with, but we always knew it was finite as I’m staying here for uni and she wants to go up north.”

  “Did you not want to do long distance?”

  He stilled my hand on his chest and laced our fingers together.

  “She didn’t. We didn’t have much in common, to be honest. Not… not like you and me.”

  I stared up at him. He had this softness to his eyes which made my whole body ache for him.

  “You and me…”

  “You don’t think so?”

  We had a ton of things in common. Shit with our parents. Feelings of being lost and lonely. I understood him and he got me. It’s why we’d become close in such a short period of time.

  “Not what I was questioning.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Then what?”

  “Is there a you and me?”

  He didn’t answer, merely stared into my eyes with an almost blank expression on his face. I didn’t know what to make of it. I knew I shouldn’t have asked the question since I was well aware Raphi didn’t know what he wanted.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” I told him when I couldn’t stand the silence.

  “You need to give me time to think about it. I meant what I said about not being freaked out by us having sex, okay? It’s not the thing I’m struggling with.”

  He didn’t have to tell me. I already knew. It was his sexuality. It’s what he’d always struggled with since we’d started talking and why he’d even said all that shit to me before. Even if it killed me to be stuck in some kind of limbo with him, I still cared about Raphi more than anything else. My feelings hadn’t disappeared. I knew my answer.

  “I can do that.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded, squeezing his hand in mine. He gave me a smile. He was so fucking beautiful when he smiled like that. As if he was happy. As if I made him happy.

  “Come closer.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to kiss you.”

  I felt my face growing hot. He’d told me he wanted to think about things and yet still wanted to kiss me.

  What do I even do with that? Fuck, I don’t care right now.

  “You do?”

  “You going to make me come to you?”

  Instead of responding, I shifted, raising my he
ad to bring my lips closer to his. The moment he caught them with his own, I was lost. His touch was everything I craved and desired. I wanted him so fucking badly. Wanted this intimacy I’d missed out on. It was more than just the mechanics of sex, which is all I’d experienced before. This connection was real and alive.

  I let go of his hand and traced my fingers down his jaw as we kissed. Raphi’s arm around me tightened, his hand curling around my waist in a possessive manner. I attempted to remind myself not to get carried away. Attempted and failed miserably. My whole soul called out for him. Needed this boy who held my heart.

  I shifted over him, straddling his waist whilst not breaking our kiss. My fingers dug into his hair and his did the same to mine.

  “Do you have to go?” I murmured against his lips.

  “No.”

  “Stay then.”

  He pressed his mouth against mine, his tongue delving between my lips seeking mine. The kiss became heated and passion flared between us.

  Stay forever, Raphi. I need you. I’ve needed you for three years and now here you are. I can’t let you go. You are the only person I’ve ever felt this way about. The only person I want. Don’t leave me again.

  All those words were on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t utter them. No, I continued to kiss Raphi, showing him without words just how much I wanted him. How much I needed him. I couldn’t say those things for fear he would run from me. For fear he wouldn’t want this with me. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I’d said I’d give him time. I had to stick to that even if it killed me in the process.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  I’d promised Duke I’d do lunch with him today. It wasn’t much of a chore if I was honest since I hadn’t made plans for the summer. He was working at the Syndicate, our parent’s casino whilst he was off from uni. Duke was studying accountancy like my dad had done. It’s the part of the business he’d eventually take over from our parents, whilst Aurora was working directly with Quinn and Mum. Cole and I had no interest in working at the casino, but our parents didn’t mind. They wanted us to be happy.

  Aurora had pestered Quinn to upgrade the restaurant and hire some high-flying chef whose name I kept forgetting. He’d finally relented a year ago and it had been thriving ever since. The members certainly appreciated it. It’s where I’d met Duke whilst he was on his break.

  I stared out the window, tapping my fingers on the table whilst my mind ran rampant with thoughts of Jonah. It’s as if my whole being had been consumed by him and what happened between us a couple of days ago. The memories assaulted me, taunting me with the need to do it again. To shove him up against a wall, pin his hands to it and fuck him whilst he begged me for more.

  I didn’t know where this side of me came from. When Jonah and I kissed, a part of me I didn’t know existed had unlocked. The part that got off on those pants and moans he made. The neediness in his voice. The way he’d begged me to give it to him. It fuelled a fire under me which kept burning hotter. And I’d had to outright restrain myself yesterday from texting him to see if he was busy.

  It wasn’t the way I acted normally. I was relatively quiet and unassuming, at least it’s what my brother kept telling me. Me being dominant as fuck in the bedroom? Well, it shocked me just as much as it probably surprised Jonah.

  “Earth to Raphi.”

  I shook myself, turning to Duke who had a raised eyebrow and a sceptical look in his eyes.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “You were away with the fairies. What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yeah, okay, totally nothing when you’ve got some weird as fuck smile on your face like you did something bad and liked it.”

  I felt my face blaze. I looked down, fiddling with my cutlery instead.

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah, Raphi. Did you suddenly forget I’m like the only person in this world who knows you better than you know yourself?”

  I sighed. Duke did as well. He was the only person I’d actually told the full truth of what happened between me and Jonah. I didn’t feel comfortable revealing it to anyone else given it painted me in a bad light.

  “No,” I muttered, looking up at him again.

  “Then spill.”

  Getting out of telling Duke would be impossible. He was a dog with a bone. The two of us had always been as thick as thieves. We didn’t keep secrets from each other.

  “I slept with Jonah.”

  He blinked before his ice-blue eyes widened in shock. I gave him a shrug. I hadn’t been sure how he’d react to the news.

  “When?”

  “Two days ago.”

  He put a hand on the table and leant closer. I did not like the look in his eyes.

  “Let me get this straight… you and Lana broke up then you jumped into bed with the guy who you’re so fucked up about you can’t even decide whether you’re straight or bi?”

  For fuck’s sake!

  “I didn’t jump into bed with him like ‘oh hi, Jonah, let’s have sex because my girlfriend broke up with me’. It was an accident.”

  “An accident? So your dick accidentally slipped into him or was it the other way around? Because, you know, without adequate lube that’s going to hurt.”

  I scowled. Trust him to say something crude.

  “No! Not an accident like that. Jesus, Duke.”

  He shrugged and leant back in his chair.

  “Well, you’re not exactly giving me much to go on here.”

  I rubbed my face and adjusted my glasses.

  “Cole asked me to return something to Meredith. I went around hers and Jonah answered the door, then we got into a fight over the whole him sabotaging their relationship and… and then we were kissing and then we were…”

  “You were fucking, right?”

  I rolled my eyes. Duke was just as crude as Xav. I didn’t know why I was even surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “And? Was it good?”

  “That’s what you want to know?”

  “Yeah, Raphi, you just fucked a guy. Of course, I’m going to want to know if you enjoyed it. And you didn’t tell me if it was you doing the giving.”

  Again, why I was surprised by this was beyond me. I should have told him in graphic detail what happened because clearly, it’s the kind of shit my brother wanted to know. I wouldn’t do that. The details of what I’d done with Jonah should be kept between us.

  “I did enjoy it. And who did who is none of your fucking business.”

  He grinned and gave me a wink.

  “Oh, a little shy, are you? It’s okay, I can guess.”

  “No, you can’t.”

  I was annoyed by his idiotic grin widening and the twinkle in his blue eyes.

  “I’m willing to put money on it being you giving him a good, hard pounding.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “See, the protesting confirms it.”

  How the fuck he guessed was beyond me. I didn’t even know I was into that until Jonah had asked me to fuck him. And there I went again having images of him naked assaulting me at every fucking turn. I gripped my knife handle, trying to calm down. It was difficult since all I wanted to do was get Jonah naked again. I wanted to do bad things to him. I wouldn’t go there when I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted from him outside of sex. A lot of hot, explosive and passionate sex.

  Stop it. You can’t. He’s not someone you can just have some kind of fuck buddy relationship with. It’s not fair on him or you.

  It wouldn’t be a fuck buddy situation since he meant more to me. I cared about him deeply.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter which one of us is the fucking top, Duke. It’s not about that. I don’t know what to do about me and him.”

  “So it’s still the same thing, eh? You don’t want to like guys.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to like guys. You know why.”

  He waved a hand and rolled his ey
es.

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re just confused, fucked up and everything in between. You’re going to have to make up your mind at some point, Raphi.”

  My insecurities about myself were something I’d battled with for years. Finding this new side of me made it worse. My skin itched. I didn’t feel comfortable in it. I never had.

  We were interrupted then as the waiter came over with our meals. He gave us a bright smile and a nod. All the staff knew who we were. Not like you could hide being the owner’s kids, especially not when Duke worked here.

  I dug into mine whilst Duke continued to stare at me, waiting for an answer no doubt. What did I even say? I didn’t have an answer. I wished it was as easy as just clicking my fingers to make all of my doubts about myself go away. Didn’t work like that though. Accepting myself was nigh on impossible. I wished it wasn’t.

  “How did you leave things with Jonah?” Duke asked after a minute of me remaining silent.

  With a major make-out session that had almost escalated into sex again, before I’d left with a promise I’d be in touch. No doubt he’d be wondering when I was going to text or call him.

  “He said he’d give me time to think about it.”

  “And have you been thinking about it?”

  I sighed, placing my fork down.

  “Only every second of every fucking minute of every damn hour since it happened.”

  Duke picked up his knife and fork, giving me a look.

  “That says a lot.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He pointed his fork at me.

  “It means you want him, but you’re too chicken shit to admit it.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “The truth hurts, little bro.”

  I gave him a dirty look before picking my fork up again, watching him dig into his food. I did want Jonah. It’s not like it had changed in the past three years even though I’d buried my feelings for him deep inside me.