“Looks like this will be my last visit. The case is cold and being shelved unless any further information comes forward.”
“Thanks for the information. If we hear anything, you’ll be the first to know.” Trent shuts the door with no further formalities.
We enjoy a brunch with no worries and full hearts. Katch’s boner must still be live and active, since he does his best to rush us out. It’s natural to hug my mom and tell her that I love her. Trent, on the other hand, is more complicated. The saying ‘time heals all wounds’ has true meaning behind it. And the time has come.
“Dad.” I hold up my arms. The look on his face is priceless and one I’ll never forget. He remains rigid during the hug, but it doesn’t stop me. “Love you, Dad.”
“Those words,” he lightly whispers. “I never thought they’d come.”
“It’s time.”
“I love you so much, Caitlin.”
I refuse to let tears control me any longer. I’m choosing to live free and happy.
“Will that tide you over, baby?” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, while Katch tucks his dick in his pants.
“Fuck no. Need that pussy.” He remains staring at the open road ahead of us. “Meeting will be quick, and when I get home, you’d better be lying naked in our bed with those legs spread wide open for me.”
I clench my legs together, growing wet and needy. Licking my lips, I decide I could use a bit of release and waiting isn’t going to cut it. I slide my hands down the front of my pants. The car swerves and Katch punches the steering wheel. He glares at me to stop. My fingers find the delicious ache and begin to move slowly. I throw my head back as I work to get myself off.
The car accelerates, as does my release. I’m playing with fire and loving it. The car slams to a stop in front of the house with my hand still down the front of my pants. There’s no warning when he rips it from my pants. His mouth sinks around my fingers with his tongue lapping all of my juices from it. His teeth sink down, flashing a bit of pain before he releases.
“You’ll be paying for that little stunt. Now, get your ass out of here before I decide to whip it.” His eyes shine with darkness and a hunger that could destroy anyone.
“Hurry back.” I wink at him and then hop from the car before he does spank my ass for disobeying just because he can.
Katch revs the engine then hollers out my name.
“Naked in bed. Be back in twenty minutes.”
“Maybe.” I twirl my hair around a finger, baiting him even further. Playing with fire can be so fun with a delicious outcome.
“Code.” He stares me down. “The fucking code, Hollywood.”
“0109112316.”
“Good girl. Now, go get naked.”
“No promise, big guy.” I turn and walk in with a huge grin on my face.
After Katch cleared the memory away from me by putting me back together, he forced me to sit down and memorize a code. It’s a combination of special days and years in my life that I’m unable to forget. He’s still insistent on the house being alarmed around the clock because of his job. I never thought he’d send Brick and Snake away, but he has.
I don’t care for his job but know it’s something that makes his blood pump through his body, and I’d never take that away from him. Crawling into bed with a killer every night isn’t something to take lightly and can wear on the best of people. But he’s my killer, my man, love, and life, and all of that erases everything else. Clean slate.
Naked will have to take a backseat right now. Katch needs some brownies. He’s going to be wound up tight when he gets home; between family time, my stunt in the car, and business on his mind, he’ll need to relax. I put my new shiny iPhone on the speaker dock and crank the tunes. I lose bits of clothing as I mix up the batter, just in case Katch walks in while I’m still baking. At least I’ll be naked or on the way to being so.
Once the brownies are baking and the kitchen is cleaned, I pick up one of the several bad habits I’ve picked up from Katch. In my bra and panties, I waltz out to the back patio and light up a cigarette. The smoke billows from the seam of my lips. My body relaxes, and my mind floats. The sun warms my skin while I zone out for a moment.
I giggle when a John Mellencamp song fills our house. Entering the kitchen, I unclasp my bra and toss it on the floor. One step closer. Katch should be walking in anytime. I begin singing the words to the “Authority Song.” An automatic smile graces my lips every time I sing about fighting the law and it always winning. Not in my case…I beat the system.
The timer goes off, the brownies slide from the oven, and then off go the panties. Damn, I’m on the road to being one hell of a housewife. I sing louder in excitement. I don’t hear him come in until I’m pulled back into his body. My ass colliding with his jean-clad straining cock.
“What do we have here?” His growl is deep. It would come across as a threat to anyone else.
I spin in his arms, placing my arms around his neck and then gently swaying to the song. He remains still with a deadly stare. I finish singing the final words and then am hoisted up onto the counter. My bare ass meets the cold surface. Katch rips the cord of the speaker dock from the wall.
“Brownies?” He cocks an eyebrow.
My legs spread to allow him room. He takes advantage of it, leaning in close enough to kiss me, but turns his head. I watch him pick up a knife, slicing into the brownies with ease. When I lean up to lick his neck, he pulls back, punishing me. His sexy lips sink into the first bite of the brownie. He repeats the action over and over until he has my core dripping wet.
“Share?” I finally ask.
This gets his attention. He places a bite of brownie on my bottom lip then feeds me. My eyes flutter closed, enjoying the taste and his scent controlling me.
“I ain’t the kind of guy for you.”
This causes me to shoot upright, frantically searching for meaning in the depths of his whiskey eyes.
“And I’m also a greedy motherfucker, Hollywood.” His fingers dig into my flesh, then his head dips to nibble a crumb off the swell of my breasts. “You aren’t living with his last name one more day.”
He reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a silver band. “Marry me.”
I shove hard against his chest. “Asshole! First off, you just scared the shit out of me.”
Katch tries to push my arm away, but I keep the resistance strong.
“And two, I don’t even know your name, big guy. I’ve searched Katch Sterling on every single database possible, and no hits. You, my mystery man, DO NOT EXIST!”
He grins slyly.
“There’s no way in hell I’m marrying a man whose first name I don’t even know. So spill.”
“You got in my car, then my bed. Your lips have been around my cock, and I’ve fucked you every which way,” he counters.
“Name.”
“No.” He steps back, running his hands through his hair, leaving it standing up on end.
I hop from the counter and close the distance between us. My palms rest on his chest, and I refuse to back down.
“You are going to give me a new last name, erasing the remnants of the nasty past.” I rise on my tiptoes until our lips are mere inches apart. “Let me wipe your slate clean, so you have nothing left behind haunting you.”
He’s silent for several long beats before letting out a pained exhale. I don’t quite catch it the first time he says it.
“Come again?” I let my lips linger on his, giving him the courage to tell me the name his parents gave him.
His birth name. The one he carried for years throughout the abuse and heartache. The one that shaped the man I’m wildly in love with.
“Ernie.” It’s barely a whisper.
“Ernie,” I reply.
He nods.
“Ernie.” I bite my bottom lip, stifling the laughter. “My big badass is named Ernie, as in Bert and Ernie.”
He slaps my ass, only causing me to roll into a fit
of hysterics. This man who could snap a person’s neck with his bare hands is named Ernie. I shouldn’t be laughing, and that fact only makes me laugh harder, nearing the edge of peeing myself.
Katch apparently doesn’t appreciate my laughter, even though he has a grin on his face. In a flash, I’m whirled around, pressed into the counter. The sound of his zipper flying down is the last thing I recall before he’s trying to fuck the laughter out of me. Thrust after thrust doesn’t do anything to tame down the laughter. It’s not until Katch reaches around to pinch each of my nipples that the laughter dies and the passion takes over. It’s a coil of tension that threatens to slice me in half. I scream out then collapse on the counter.
Katch isn’t finished. He uses my body until he’s growling and throbbing inside of me. I’m confused when he stops, pulling himself from my body and spraying his hot cum all over my ass. He runs his dick through the wetness, working himself all the way.
“Shower, and then we’re leaving.”
“Uh? What? Where?” I have no energy to stand up.
“Vegas.”
“You don’t’ even know if I said yes or no.”
“Don’t have to.”
“Now, Ernie, this is supposed to be all romantic and shit.”
Katch reaches down between my legs, cupping my pussy. “I’ll Ernie your ass, Nadine. Now, fucking shower and get dressed.”
And that’s how my happily ever after started. My own fairytale comprised in this large world full of opposites. It just so happens our opposites collided in the best possible way.
BLANK CANVAS
Blank Canvas
“Where Opposites Collide”
**TRIGGER WARNING** **TRIGGER WARNING** ***TRIGGER WARNING***
This book contains graphic violence and talks in detail about rape. If these are triggers or in any way are not for you, please know that we ask to you read at your own risk.
Dedication-
To the hitchhikers who started this crazy journey with us. Your heart, dedication, and drive shock us on a daily basis. There will never be enough “thank yous”.
Blank Canvas
Copyright © 2017 by Torrid Timbre Press
Edited by: Julia Goda, Diamond in the Rough Editing
Cover Designer: Just Write Creations
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of HJ Bellus.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Prologue
Counting. It’s what I do. It numbs my mind, dulls the pain, and is my only saving grace on the nights they choose to enter my room. Counting reminds me there’s an end to the pain. Whether it be the proverbial sheep, a bright orange sunrise, or a colorful mixture of pinks, reds, and shaded hues sunset. It always seems to help.
Devastation settles in whenever I’m finished counting, they leave, the door clicks shut, and my body has been abused. But there’s silence in my room, no counting in my head and no peace left in my mind. I’m visibly numb. A little bit of heaven in this hell I live in.
The nights my door doesn’t open are few and far between anymore. I lie there afraid to sleep, afraid to close my eyes. Those are the days I wish I would die.
You see, I may be a young woman, but I’m smart in certain ways, far from an idiot. The older I get, the more they want me. My breasts are growing larger, my legs longer, and me blossoming into an adult is the carrot dangling in front of their faces. I’m trapped. A young girl who is living a nightmare inside of a place called home.
Mom: Good night, Sweetie
My fingers hover over my cell phone. I want to tell her ‘When is it ever a good night, morning, or day?’ Except, I don’t. I never do and I never will. I throw my phone down on my bed. My own mother can’t even be a mom by popping her head in the door and telling her only child good night. She knows what happens in here, always turns a blind eye and a deaf ear. Denial is an easier pill to swallow than facing the brutal truth. Secrets and lies are all around me, and I am suffocating to death. She barely speaks to me anymore. The greed has consumed her, taken over her life. Her social status, her diamonds, and her money mean more to her than what happens to her daughter. I'll never forgive her, in the same way I’ll never forgive them or myself.
Looking over at the calendar on my desk, I’m tempted to count down the days until I turn eighteen.
The evil souls are filling my brain, screaming that it will jinx me, because counting down from one thousand means being raped by my stepbrother and stepfather. Sometimes both at the same time. Sometimes one or the other. I’m not sure what is more embarrassing. The fact I’m raped night after night, or that I’m too scared to talk or run. To tell anyone what they’ve done. What I continue to allow them to do.
My stepbrother is four years older than me and following every step in life his father has taken. An evil bastard and his look-alike spawn.
Only six more months until I turn eighteen. Holding on is so important, because I need to graduate high school. It’s my only option in life. My key to escaping this prison. I used to have straight As; now I’m barely passing. Just another thing my mother doesn’t care about. I was overly active in extracurricular activities; my favorite was art class. God, how I loved to draw, paint, and throw those spectacular colors across a blank white canvas and turn it into something I was proud of. That all changed the moment my door creaked open one night. It was their first of many visits. I’d thought my world ended that night when they ripped me wide open and left me bleeding and raw.
I had no clue what the future held for me from that point on. I still don’t know. I’m a shell of a girl. Existing in this world but barely coherent or logically alive.
I was twelve years old the first time my stepfather, Salem, crept into my room. Shook me awake and ripped my panties from my body. He pulled his dick from his pants, while his son's strong arms pinned me to my bed. He tore through my innocence as if he was pressing on the gas of one of his sports cars. Hard and fast. Laughing and carrying on. I screamed, cried, and begged for him to stop. He slapped me hard across my face. Placed his hand around my neck and choked me until my teeth clenched. Told me to shut my fucking mouth or the same thing would be done to my mother. I panicked. Then he urged his son, Dexter, to follow suit. A sixteen-year-old boy and his father coated me in their releases that night. All over my stomach. It escalated from there, going from terrible to worse. From heaven to hell. From happiness to wanting to die.
They threatened me. Spit in my face after they told me they would kill me. That my mother and I were insignificant in this world. Dirty white trash they picked up only to play with. To destroy. I listened to them. Afraid for my life. For my friends’ lives they threatened me with, too.
I had to protect them.
I tried going to my mother once, only to have her shut me down. For her to tell me I needed to try harder to get along with my newfound family and to quit trying to destroy her happiness. I pleaded with her to listen that I was telling the truth and it was her responsibility to protect me. She blew me off as quickly as the cold gust of the wind that swirled through my body from her denial. I have hated her from that day on.
I quit basketball a few years after that horrible night. Even though I was a sophomore on the varsity team and slated to get a full-ride scholarship to likely any university of my choosing. My grades declined. I no longer have my friends, and my appearance is hidden behind bulky clothes and fake glasses. Now, the only thing I look forward to is my eighteenth birthday. To run. To hide and get away from them all.
The door creaks open, and my blood freezes. I remain as still as
possible in the bed I hate sleeping in, feigning slumber. It’s never stopped them before, but I always hope one night it will. My breathing shallows out, and I fight off the trembles threatening to attack my body. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
Their heavy, quickened footsteps grow closer. Their hushed whispers are louder. The click of the door latching shut is a startling, loud, echoing sound around the room. There’s no need to lock it, because the sad fact is, no one in this house cares enough to stop them. Not even my own mother.
A palm comes down hard on my shoulder, forcing me to roll over onto my stomach. Salem’s disgusting face smiling down at me as he flips me over is the only thing I can see through the darkness of my room. Bile rises up from my stomach. It coats the back of my throat. You’d think the more they attack me, the more I’d get used to it, but it’s the opposite. Each and every time nearly destroys me. Too much more of this, and I’ll never be able to run. I’ll be a mere ghost. A shadowless woman, and they will eventually kill me.
“Amelia, our pretty, pretty girl.” He unzips his pants and pulls out his dick, rubbing it along the seam of my lips.
I’ve never stopped fighting through all of this, and it pains me to understand why. Fear. Lack of trust. I really don’t know. I pull my head away only to be punished with my hair being ripped from the back of my scalp. This time he presses harder into my mouth. God, if I only had the courage to bite it off. It’s a difficult task to protect myself when my torturers are twice my size.
“Dexter. She’s being a little spitfire tonight,” Salem speaks and flicks on my light. Stares down at me with his seedy little eyes while he nods to his son.
Same game, different night. I don’t have to look to know that Dexter is obeying him like a well-trained animal, pulling his pants down and covering his cock with a condom. I squeeze my eyes shut and decide to count by sevens tonight.
When Opposites Collide Boxset Page 21
