Brutally Beautiful

by Christine Zolendz

  And, of course, there was the little fact that I liked it. I sighed into the silent darkness.

  “You left me with that creeper last night. I couldn’t find you. I knocked on your trailer door almost all night and I just came back here to sleep,” he whispered hotly in my ear.

  “Creeper?” My stomach flipped. He had looked for me?

  “Yeah, what’s her name, Natalie, I think,” he replied, pulling the warmth of his face away from mine. I could still feel his breath on my skin, but I couldn’t make out any of his features. “She was one of those touchy feely, be my baby daddy, gold digging, online pussy showing creepers.”

  “I figured you’d enjoy her company,” I laughed darkly.

  “Seriously? Did you get dropped on your head as an infant?” he asked dryly.

  “Yep, into a large puddle of glitter, glorious intelligence, and flawless awesomeness. What happened with you, did you get left in the mud?” I heard him chuckle. “Oh, God. Look, I didn’t quite think it fully through. I just wanted to get away from Fran, so I went back home and went to sleep, had my earbuds in listening to music and I might have taken two sleeping pills.”

  Against my ear, I felt him take a deep breath and exhale slowly with the smallest tremor. “Didn’t affect you one bit that I might have fucked Natalie, huh?” he asked.

  “I didn’t think about it. Why would I care? You threw me out of your car last week and I haven’t seen you since,” I said in a low voice.

  “Okay, then. I’ll just grab my phone here…” he whispered, and there was a loud thud as, what I believed was his elbow, whacked against the wall. A string of murmured curses hissed under his breath. Then, suddenly a bright light illuminated the small dark closet, reflecting the planes and angles of his face. “And I’ll just call Dylan and tell him to tell Fran where you are.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Fuck yeah, I would. Or you could tell me how you really felt about the stripper and me.” A smirk lit up his face. “You never know, Fran could go all caveman on you. Get all possessive, seeing you talk to me this close in a closet. Grab you right out of my arms.”

  I leaned my back against the wall and shrugged my hands in my front pockets. “He could be a bad ass tree hugger. Very dangerous. What if he grabs you instead of me? You might want to rethink this plan of yours.”

  Kade leaned in, smiling. “Yep. I bet he could be very scary to a few dust bunnies under a chair somewhere.” Taking in a long breath, he sighed, “Tell me how you felt.”

  I laughed, and looked down shaking my head. We were getting too close to each other in here. “I’ve been to his place; he lives in harmony with his dust bunnies.” I looked up as a dangerous flash of something flickered in his eyes.

  “You’ve been to his place.” He leaned away. He looked down at his phone, closed it, and then leaned quickly back into me, his lips whispering against my ear, hot breath tingling down my neck. “I hate thinking that he’s been inside you. It makes me want to hurt him. And I’m sorry for being such a mean dick the other night.”

  My breath caught from his closeness, “He was never inside me.”

  A small movement and the phone illuminated the closet once again.

  “Okay. So you didn’t fuck him, and now you know I hate thinking you were. What did you think about me and Natalie?” He flicked the phone off again and total darkness engulfed us.

  “I didn’t like it.”

  Light flooded my eyes again. His eyes looked menacing, intense. “Why?” He raised the phone.

  “What, are you twelve? You shut that phone off one more time; I’m going to kick you, Kade.”

  “How about you kiss me instead?” The tension thickened, the small space turned humid, hotter…slicker. Scents of cinnamon apples against worn leather saturated my senses.

  “I don’t think that would make me smile half as much as kicking you right now!”

  “Seriously?” He flicked the phone off again. Darkness.

  “Kade,” I hissed smacking my hand against his chest. The light on the phone flickered on again and we both watched the phone tumble out of his hands and land amongst the clumps of boas and costumes at our feet.

  “Tell me how you really felt,” he said, eyes softening, face moving closer to mine. “I need to know,” his warm breath fanned across my lips. Eyes so painfully, savagely grey that they looked lost and colorless, starving.

  Fuck, his words made sweat break out on my skin. Primal. Heated. “Yeah, why is that?” The phone’s light blinked out.

  “I want you to hate the thought of it.”

  “Kade, I hated the thought of it. I hated it so much I didn’t even want to know. I want to get out of this closet and away from you. Your mood swings are giving me whiplash.”

  “I didn’t,” he whispered, pulling me closer. “I didn’t touch her. I ran out of there and looked for you. All I wanted was you.”

  For a few slow heartbeats, the only sound was our breathing, soft hot breaths against each other’s skin.

  “I read your book,” I whispered.

  His movements stilled for a moment. I feared he stopped breathing, yet just underneath the tips of my fingers, I felt the erratic acceleration of his heartbeat and I knew I had somehow affected him.

  My hands closed over the material of his soft cotton shirt, fisting it in my fingers. I wanted him to know that I didn’t want to let go. In the pitch-blackness, I had shaken off all my inhibitions, all my fears of not being good enough for someone.

  “Dedicated to me,” I whispered. Light fluttery touches, brushes of heat against my skin caused shivers that made my whole body tremble.

  Thick heavy hands slid slowly up the flesh of my neck, rough fingertips sending shivers up my spine, both of us breathing loudly into each other. In the dark, my senses exploded. My pulse raced, my body melted into his. Powerful.

  “Cliffhanger almost killed me. How does it end,” I whispered against his lips.

  “Comes out next month,” he said, as warm lips brushed past mine.

  “How does it end?” The tension coiled around us thickening, expanding, and absorbing us. In the darkness, it was a tangible smell, feel and taste. Our bodies were touching, pressed close together in the dark. I could feel him everywhere, leaning against my knees and thighs, his broad thick chest rising and falling heavily against mine.

  “Brutally beautiful.”

  The gasp that escaped my lips caused my own breath to quicken. His hands lay on my collarbone, hot and heavy and I wanted more. I wanted to feel them slide across my skin, every last inch of me. This was so different, so different from how I’d ever felt with a man before. This was more than want, this was more than lust, this was…pure need.

  “Fuck this. I’m not staying away from you for another second,” Kade growled. Hot hands grabbed the back of my neck, our lips collided, and my legs just gave out from his touch. Kade groaned softly, low in his throat as his taste flooded into my mouth. I could have measured the moments in heartbeats, because in the deep darkness, our beating hearts was all I heard. Loud. Pounding. Rising. Twisting together.

  Heavy lips opening mine, the wet swell of his tongue had me falling, falling into him. Tumbling gently at first. Then plummeting, pulse thundering in my ears, hands tangling in strands of hair, fingertips slipping…sliding. Our lips circled and nipped. His lips pulled at my bottom one, tugging and sucking. Our tongues slid against each other’s, dancing and thrusting. The kiss made me dizzy. He drew me in closer, arms tightening around me, hands gripping flesh harder, and the erotic sounds of our whispered moans vibrated between our lips.

  When our lips finally parted, we were both panting, tangled in each other’s arms, fisting silken handfuls of one another’s hair, holding on to each other like lovers. In the darkness everything outside just faded away, just us existing together, all the heartache and all the suffering gone in an instant, in his kiss.

  I didn’t want it to end.

  A sudden rustle of the costumes below
and Kade’s body slid down mine, his fingers wrapping around the waistband of my pants, “I need you, Lain.” His words tore an ache through my body that tingled through the muscles and flesh of the warmth in between my legs. I moaned faintly in approval, covering my hands on his, helping to slide down the material. Gently, with no light to help guide him, he unwrapped one leg out of my pants as his lips brushed my skin and a trail of wet fire was left from his tongue. His hands, warm and heavy, slid up the bare flesh of my thighs to cup my behind and squeezed with slick intense pressure. His hot breath fanned out across my thighs. “I’ve wanted a taste of you since the first time I saw you,” he mumbled hotly against my skin, his lips and fingers reaching their goal and the long wet lick of his tongue sent me reeling, arching my body into his face. "Fuck, you’re as smooth as silk. Wrap your leg over my shoulder," he whispered. Flinging my leg over his broad shoulder, his fingers reached deeper, his tongue dancing eights along my clit. Oh my God, I can’t believe we’re doing this. His faint silhouette knelt before me, my thigh against his face, his lips and tongue exquisitely torturing me. My hips rolled into his mouth and the pressure started immediately building, coiling tightly as his thick fingers moved rhythmically inside me. Sweet waves of aching heat skittered up my skin, over my belly and spread across my chest. My muscles tensed, tendons pulsed and vibrated. He’s going to make me come like this. He’s going to make me come harder than I ever have before. I could feel it, the explosion riding me, pushing me, taking me. I arched my back and jerked, shuddering against the heat of his mouth. Trembling and moaning, I melted back against the wall panting. To me, in that very instant, in the confines of the small dark closet, a Supernova was created, exploding with force under my skin, annihilating me, sending my thigh muscles into clenched quivering flesh. A tiny nip of his teeth and I moaned out in delicious agony. Shuddering, panting, I swore under my breath and arched my wet flesh up to him to take more. A future in this closet with Kade Grayson was all I wanted. “Kade, I think I just kind of fell in love with your tongue.”

  His lips smiled against the flesh of my thigh, wet fingers slid across smooth lips and dampened skin. “Then I can’t wait to introduce you to the rest of my body.”

  Tugging him up by his hair, we heard the low murmur of voices and the shuffling of footsteps just outside the door. Bree’s voice called out my name, as Kade slipped my undies and pant leg over my ankle, softly yanking them up my leg.

  “You okay?” Kade whispered against my temple.

  “If I say no, will you stay in here and introduce me to your other parts?”

  Chuckling, lips brushing past my ear, “Fuck, Lainey. I want to taste you coming again. Next time, I’m going to bury myself in you and I want to hear my name on your lips when you come.”

  I was too stunned to realize he called out to Bree right after that, my body was still trembling and in between my thighs was a tingling throb that drummed the rhythm of Kade’s name, and my panties were damp from the most intense orgasm I’d ever felt.

  Blinding bright light made me squeeze my eyes shut as soon as the closet door swung open. Knowing giggles flooded from Bree’s lips when she noticed how disheveled Kade and I looked, but thank God, she had the manners not to say anything. I leaned my back against the closet door, trying to adjust my eyes to the light, but my head still seemed foggy.

  Dylan and Bree were explaining how they got rid of Fran; at least I think that’s what they were saying. The only sounds that reached my ears were the recollections of Kade’s heavy breathing and soft guttural moans. It took every ounce of restraint I had not to drag him back into the closet with me.

  Kade’s eyes were wide, too. He looked ravaged; stunned. His eyes locked on mine and I was utterly swept up in Kade, in his eyes, drowning, drowning, not hearing or seeing anyone else in the room. I wanted to drown in him. I wanted to feel every inch of that look against my skin. I wanted to touch every last part of him. I wanted to make him call out my name.

  Standing there in the office with Bree and Dylan still talking about Fran, I felt faint, surreal.

  Still feeling his kiss burn against my lips, I covered them with trembling fingers. His voice, deep and husky, still echoing in my mind. Nobody ever kissed me like that, with force, with need, with fucking power. Nobody ever paralyzed me with one single look. Some nameless undiscovered organ in my body had opened and Kade Grayson was pouring himself inside me, seeping into my flesh, my veins, my cells, taking over my body. I was torn between wanting him to and not.

  This man pierced my soul with his eyes. I feared he was seeing too much in me, peeling open my skin to try to find all the secrets within. However, the truth still remained that I wanted his lips on me, I haven’t been kissed well in ages. I hadn’t felt wanted and excited about a man in forever. I knew I shouldn’t want him. He was wrong for me. He was someone I could never be real with. Shit…I’d never be able to be real with anyone for the rest of my life, would I?

  Bree and Dylan ended their sentences and walked out. I wondered vaguely what was said, but I was too Kade-induced to care.

  “Kade?” I walked closer to him. The only response was his eyes following me. “Kade?” I whispered. “Talk to me.”

  “I can’t control myself when I’m around you.” He stepped closer to me, face leaning down into mine, hovering over me, “You don’t make me crazy, you make me feel sane. Don’t ask me to stay away from you. I’ve been doing that for too many weeks now. I feel like I’ve been stealing from myself something I've been starving to have. And it’s you.” Damp sweaty hands cupped my face, “What happened in that closet is going to happen again, and again, and a-fucking-gain, Lainey. It’s never going to end.” He pressed his cheek against mine, the stubble of his unshaven face sent prickles of heat across my skin. The hands cupping my face shifted, and slid over my breasts and down my stomach. “This, Lainey,” he growled cupping in between my thigh, squeezing hard and releasing, “is mine. And, I’m yours. All of me. Destroy me, Lainey.”

  He shuffled backward, and walked out of the office, leaving me…breathless.

  Oh, my God…I was smiling.

  The Kade-coma didn’t release me from its tight grasp until late afternoon. We spent the day cleaning, me demonstrating to everyone how to sterilize and scrub the hell out of things, and everyone moaning and groaning about me being an anal-retentive crazy clean freak. Well, everyone but Kade. Kade understood and scrubbed harder than I did, and I know this sounds sick, but it made my muscles clench and pool with want.

  As night settled, and darkened the skies outside the bar windows, four men came in, a handful of regulars, and one of them, Bobby, dropped a few quarters into the old jukebox. Without looking, I could hear the familiar jingle jangle of the coins clinking against the sides of the metal as they slid in. It was so quiet in the bar that I heard the clicks of the buttons as his fingers chose the numbers to the songs, and soon after, the first guitar strums of Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones drifted eerily to my ears.

  Bree, Dylan, Kade, and I, were sitting behind the bar on our small booth. Bree sat next to me, the smell of lemons, limes and thick dark beer erased the clean sent of disinfectant, and I missed its calming sterile scent. I’d been staring down at the little square napkin I’d been unknowingly folding into one of those origami animals and thinking about the heat of Kade’s lips on mine, when I felt Bree shift to stand. She walked over to the group of four men as Dylan made his way to the other end of the bar. My stomach did a flip knowing Kade and I was alone at the table and just out of the view of everybody and my hands stilled their movements.

  My heart rate sped up when the small cushion I sat on shifted under more weight next to me. The warmth of Kade’s arm brushed against my skin and the slight touch made my body tremble. Leaning in closer, he brushed his knuckles along my jaw, immediately making my eyes meet his. So many thoughts were said between us in that stare, so many secrets were shared, so many strings were pulled that I lost myself a little drowning in those eyes.


  “You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” he whispered.

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “You haven’t looked at me all afternoon. Your eyes are constantly on the door, and you look ready to run…Please stay…I didn’t mean to scare you before…” Intense.

  “Kade, I’m not scared of you. There’s just…”

  An explosive gritty crack rocked through the bar, a bright flash of light and the sizzling sounds of showering sparks and broken glass shattered out across the room, landing at my feet, and the music died instantly.

  Even if I had never heard a gunshot before, it was not one of those sounds that you could mistake this close, but I knew for sure with every heartbeat what it was. That explosive sound that could deafen for minutes after, the slow motion of events right after, as chaos prepared its introduction. My heart thudded hard and all my muscles tightened into fight mode. For a half of a second, the room stilled and everything was bathed in thick silence. The smell of burning wires and acid filled my nose.

  “Now that I have all you redneck’s attention, where can I find Samantha Matthews,” the gritty voice said, and I felt it in every cell in my body. This was it. Game over. I’d been found. My muscles tensed. Would he kill me quickly or drag me back home and kill me slowly in front of a live audience?

  I still wore the stains of my decisions in slight white scars and discoloring on my skin. The strong feelings that I once had for my husband were locked in a small hidden box, and once that gunshot rang out, once the knowledge that his heart still beat somewhere, the lid of that box popped right open. My past exploded like warfare before my eyes. The feelings that I once had of love and comfort were twisted into hate and fear.

  Holding Kade’s wide stare, anguish tore through me. God, please don’t let him kill me in front of Kade. Please, don’t do this to him again. I slid down onto the floor, crawled in front of the safe, and focused on turning the lock without being heard, or missing a damn number. Kade’s eyes pleaded with me. His hands grabbed after me to stay. His body slid across mine to protect me. My heart surged in my chest. Tearing my gaze away from Kade, I focused on the lock to the safe.