Illusive

by Nina Levine

  She seemed disappointed. “So it’s not all shoot ‘em up and hookers and drugs like they show on television, then? It kinda sounds boring the way you put it, dude. Why did you join Storm rather than one of those other clubs?”

  His shoulders eased and a smile twitched at the corners of his lips. “Storm was the right fit for me.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s a very cryptic reason, but I won’t push you. I know you bikers are the guarded type and all.”

  I stifled a laugh. Magan was trying so hard to be cool around him, and he was making an effort to let her get to know a little about him. It made my heart happy.

  “You’re still in school?” he asked her.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll be in year twelve this year and then I get to escape this living hell at the end of the year.”

  “I take it you don’t like school?”

  “Did you, dude?” she threw out as if the answer was a no-brainer.

  “I liked school,” he said, stunning her.

  “What the..? No way. You don’t seem like the type who would have liked school.”

  He raised his brows. “There’s a type who doesn’t like school?”

  She gestured at him. “You know…your type is like the people who give society the middle finger and tell them to eff off, you know? Like, you don’t put up with bullshit, and I bet you didn’t put up with the bullshit at school.”

  “I did well in school, Magan. And, yeah, I’ve always been the type to tell people to eff off, but the type you see sitting in front of you today? That’s year’s worth of work. You’ll learn as you get older that you grow into yourself as you go. And part of that is taking all the steps through life that lead you to discover who you are.”

  “Ugh, I hate steps,” she complained.

  Griff chuckled. “Yeah, you and your sister, both.”

  My tummy fluttered that he’d remembered our conversation when I’d told him of my strong dislike of working through steps to get things done.

  As I watched the two of them begin to get to know each other, I couldn’t help think what a strange world this was, bringing three people together like us.

  Three people who truly needed what the others had to give – friendship and acceptance.

  * * *

  Griff dropped my car keys onto the kitchen counter and reached for my hand as I walked past him. Pulling me back to him, he said, “I like your sister.”

  We’d just dropped her at her house after dinner. She had planned on calling her boyfriend to come get her, but Griff had insisted on driving her in my car. I was pretty sure that made her feel special, and I loved that he’d given her that.

  “I can tell that she likes you, too.”

  “How?”

  “You’re clueless on teens, aren’t you?”

  “Can’t say I spend any time with them, sweetheart.”

  I laughed. “She spent the night talking to you, and asking you about yourself, and the conversation never felt stilted after the initial meeting. That’s a sure sign a teen likes you.”

  He gave me the tiniest smile. If I’d blinked, I would have missed it. I felt for sure he was about to say something, but he didn’t.

  Frowning, I said, “What were you just about to say just now? It was like a thought ran through your mind and you let it go straight away.”

  He stared at me in silence until his chest rose and fell quite hard. Blowing out a long breath, he let me go, and ran his fingers through his hair. His eyes revealed a hurt or a pain that hadn’t been there earlier, and I hated that I’d brought that on, but maybe he needed to talk about it.

  “Griff?” I pushed him.

  “This time four years ago, I thought I was gonna be a father…” his voice drifted off.

  The pain was clear in his voice now. “What happened?” I asked softly.

  “Turned out it wasn’t mine after all. I was the fool who stuck around to see if it was mine, even after the bitch told me it probably wasn’t.” Hatred sliced through the pain in his voice as he spat his words out.

  “Was this a woman you were dating?”

  “We’d been together for two years. I thought it was more than just dating…I mean, fuck, when you share a house together, furniture together and a fucking bank account together, tell me you’d classify that as more than just dating.” He stopped talking and waited for me to give him my thoughts.

  I nodded. “Yes, I would classify that as a relationship which is a lot more than just dating.”

  “Thank you. So, one day, I see her out to lunch with this other guy…kissing and flirting, and when I confront her, she admits that she’s been seeing him, too, for over a year. A fucking year.” He paused, gathered himself and then continued. “Hedging her fucking bets, she told me. Said she’d been burnt before and wanted to make sure she chose the right guy this time, so she dated both of us.”

  My anger rose. I could hardly believe women like this existed. “Wait…was she living with him, too? And had a bank account with him, too?”

  He shook his head. “No, I was the only motherfucking idiot who gave her that.”

  He’s still mad, and not just at the woman.

  He’s so mad at himself.

  “So, did you kick her out when you discovered all this?” I wasn’t sure where the baby was going to fit into all this.

  “No, before I had the chance to do that, she left and took all my stuff with her. I came home after work one Friday and the house was empty. Cleared out our joint bank account, too.”

  Oh. My. Goodness.

  “People actually do that?” The words fell out of my mouth before I could stop them. Of course people did that…he’d just told me they did. But, damn, I struggled to comprehend how anyone could do that to another human being.

  “Yeah, Sophia, people do that shit.” His voice was hard and so full of hurt.

  “Where does the baby fit in?”

  He nodded, eyes glazed over, as if he was remembering his devastation. “I tracked her down the next day and she told me she’d chosen the other guy and was having a baby with him. I asked her how she knew it was his and not mine. She said she wasn’t one hundred percent but believed it to be his. She refused to take a paternity test, and being the dickhead I was, I stuck around that shithole town until she gave birth and I could see for myself whose child it was.”

  My heart cracked a little for him. And for his loss – not only of the child, but also the loss of his belief in love thanks to that woman. I could wring her neck for what she had done to this man.

  Staring at me, he said, “Clearly the child wasn’t mine, and here I am four years later, childless and still pissed off.” He shoved his fingers through his hair again. “Fuck!”

  I moved closer to him and touched his cheek. “You obviously wanted the child to be yours?”

  “I did, even though the relationship with the mother was fucked up. I had always wanted children.”

  “You don’t want them anymore?”

  “Fuck if I know. The thought of bringing children into this world and subjecting them to the hurt that people will inflict on them…that doesn’t make me want to have children.”

  “I understand that…God, do I understand that, but, Griff, there’s so much love to be had, too.”

  He didn’t reply to that straight away. Rather, he let it settle for a moment. And then he shared another piece of himself with me, and it broke my heart. “My grandfather used to beat the shit out of my father when he was a kid. And then my father beat my brother and me when we were kids. He did take to my mother occasionally, too, but mostly he focused his anger on us. I grew up surrounded by violence, and violence lives in me, Sophia. I’m not sure I know how to love enough to have a child.” Eyes full of anguish and torment stared at me as he bared that piece of his soul.

  I wasn’t sure what he needed to hear from me in this moment, so I just went with the words in my heart. “I’ve seen a little piece of your violent side, but I’ve s
een far more of your caring side, too, and let me tell you, the care and kindness you’ve shown me so far is more than anyone in my life has ever shown me. You might have a gruff way of expressing yourself, and it’s clear you hold yourself back from most people, but none of that means you’re incapable of giving love. You have love to give…I mean, look at the way you love Josie. Love isn’t grand gestures and fancy declarations; it’s getting your hands dirty, and being there, and opening yourself up for the people you love…and letting them give all of that back to you. It’s about being honest and handling their hearts with the amount of care you want yours handled with.” I pressed my finger into his chest. “And you do all of that. I hardly know you, but even I can see that you do all of that and more.”

  He sucked in a breath. “How the fuck…” He didn’t finish his sentence, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

  “How the fuck, what?” I asked, dragging his attention back to me.

  His hand cupped my cheek, and when he spoke, his voice was ragged. “How the fuck was I given you? Out of all the men available, you were led to me…you could do so much better, Sophia, and yet, I can’t bring myself to give you up. I never wanted another woman after Charlene burnt me, but hell, I want you more than I want my next fucking breath.”

  I leaned closer to him. “You seriously underestimate yourself, handsome. And for the record, I don’t want you to give me up so just get that thought out of your mind if it ever enters it.”

  His lips crashed down onto mine, and he stole my breath with a kiss that felt like he’d put all his emotions into. We were a tangle of arms, legs and bodies pressed hard against each other, hands all over each other, and mouths desperately seeking what we were both looking for in our lives – love.

  When he pulled away from me, almost breathless, and eyes crazy with desire, he growled, “I need you in your bedroom, naked and kneeling beside your bed, waiting for me.”

  As he said the words, his hands moved to my t-shirt, and he pulled it over my head, and discarded it on the floor. His eyes shifted to my breasts as he undid my bra and removed it, too. And then his gaze moved lower as his fingers deftly undid my shorts and slid them down. He helped me step out of them before dropping them on the floor. I watched his face as his fingers slipped inside my panties and he removed them. I loved watching his eyes flare with desire for me, and tonight it was clear how turned on he was. My own desire sizzled through me like a heat that only he could cool.

  He brought his eyes back to mine, and rasped, “Go.”

  I did as he said, and a few minutes later, I kneeled naked next to my bed, waiting with anticipation for what he would do to me. When he entered the room, my pulse quickened at the sight of his powerful body. He was in the middle of taking his t-shirt off as he walked through the door, and my eyes were drawn to his broad, muscular chest.

  He dropped his shirt on the floor and flicked his jeans button to undo them. A moment later, the rest of his clothes fell to the floor, and he came to me, naked and ready. He held something in his hand, but I couldn’t work out what it was. A ball, perhaps.

  I faced the bed, and he stood behind me, and placed his hand on the top of my head. He ran his hand gently down my long hair, and then gathered it all into his hand in a ponytail. Pulling gently, he tilted my head back to look up at him and asked, “Do you know what this is, Sophia?” He held the ball up for me to look at.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  Heat flashed in his eyes as if my answer had pleased him greatly. “I’m going to put this inside you. It has a bead in it that moves when you move.” He crouched and dipped his face to mine so he could speak close to my ear. “I am going to make you move so fucking much that this little ball is going to get you so goddamn wet that my dick will slide through you without even fucking trying.”

  My breath caught, and my core went into the kind of meltdown a girl has when she feels like all her Christmases have come at once and she can’t believe her good fortune.

  Thank you, God, for giving this man to me.

  I remained silent, and he gripped my hair a little harder. “I want you to move to the end of the bed. When you get there, I want you to stand with your back to it and place your hands out so they are resting on the mattress.”

  The control in his voice, and the commanding tone he took, turned me on and called to a need I never knew I had before I met him - the need to hand control over to someone else.

  I did as he said and waited silently at the end of the bed. He took his time, and when he finally stood in front of me, he held two pairs of my panties. Reaching for one of my hands, he tied it to one of the bedposts before repeating this with my other hand. Then he slid his hand around my neck and through my hair so he was holding my head. Dipping his face to mine, he bruised my lips with a demanding kiss. God, I loved the way he kissed me. It signaled his possessiveness over me, and while I knew a lot of women who weren’t into feeling possessed by a man, I now realised I craved a man who needed me in that manner.

  He ended the kiss, and brought his hands to my breasts. Massaging them, he said, “Fuck, your body is gorgeous, sweetheart. Why do you ever doubt that?” His eyes were focused completely on mine while he waited for me to answer his question.

  I swallowed back my hesitation. This part of my soul was a part I chose to avoid as best I could. “I don’t know,” I said softly, not wanting to admit to him the truth.

  His eyes narrowed on me. “I don’t believe you. Tell me.”

  Shame washed over me, and I wished I could break free of his restraints and run far away from this question. “I don’t want to.”

  He held his tongue for a beat, and then he kissed me again. When he pulled away from my face, his eyes were softer. Taking a step back, he let his gaze drop to my body and took it all in. Slowly.

  Usually, I liked his eyes on me, but today, I felt so self-conscious in my own skin now that he’d put the focus on me that I dropped my face and refused to watch him looking at me. I couldn’t do it. All my feelings of being inadequate and fat rushed at me – bad memories I wanted to bury deep and never think about again.

  And, oh God, then he dropped to his knees in front of me, put his hands on my hips, and pressed his mouth to my stomach, and kissed me. He spent a few moments kissing my stomach before moving his lips all over my body, kissing every inch of skin. His hands ran all over me, too, and he kept murmuring over and over how fucking beautiful I was.

  When he made his way to my mouth, he looked into my eyes and said, “Tell me why you believe what I see when I look at you isn’t a beautiful body.”

  He’s not going to let this go.

  I closed my eyes as my heart beat faster, and my breaths quickened. When I opened them again, tears sat on my eyelashes. “I’ve always seen myself as fat, even when I was a nine-year-old kid who was far from fat. My mother was always on a diet when I lived with her, and everywhere I looked on television and in magazines, they talked about counting calories and not letting yourself get fat. So I began counting calories at the age of about twelve. And then, I did become a little overweight, but instead of counting calories, I just kept eating.” My voice cracked as I admitted the sad truth of my hurt. “It made me feel good when nothing else in my life did. I don’t know why, and I’ve never worked it out, but it is what it is. About five years ago, when the doctor told me I was obese, I finally took control and lost the weight. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And the really shitty thing? When you’re fat, you think that if you could just get skinny, it would make your whole life better, and everything else would improve. Well, it doesn’t. And you have to keep on top of it just as much as when you were trying to lose weight. It’s fucking hard.”

  He listened to everything I said and didn’t say a word.

  I want to die.

  I’d just laid my soul out for him, and he wasn’t saying anything.

  I’d never felt so vulnerable in my life – naked in front of a man with my heart bleeding all ov
er the place.

  And then he placed his hand to my stomach. His face grew fierce, and his eyes burned with fire. “I don’t care what the fuck anyone ever tells you again, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on. Here,” he gripped my stomach, before placing his hand to my chest over my heart, “and here. You have that rare thing a lot of women don’t, sweetheart – an outer beauty that matches your inner beauty. I never want to see you counting fucking calories again. I want you to eat the goddamn fucking chips every fucking time I take you to that diner, and I don’t want you to put makeup on or do your hair when I take you there.” He paused for a moment before speaking in a forceful manner. “Please believe every word I am saying because they are all the honest fucking truth.”

  If I wasn’t tied to the bed, I was sure I would have collapsed onto the floor and sobbed. Instead, I sagged against him and he held me while I cried. He reached out and untied me before wrapping his arms around me and letting me get all my tears out.

  He thought he didn’t know how to love people. He was so wrong.

  Griff’s compassion and kindness blared from him.

  When I’d finished crying, I looked up at him and smiled. “I’m sorry, I kinda ruined the sex, didn’t I?”

  With one arm firmly around my back, supporting me, he used his other hand to wipe my tears away. “Baby, no way am I not fucking you tonight, but I’ll keep the balls for another time.” His eyes darkened and he said, “I want you on the bed.”

  I quickly scrambled onto the bed, and lay back as I watched him put a condom on. When he moved over me, my body fluttered with excitement. And then, when he planted his hands either side of my body, and bent to kiss me, I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I wrapped my legs around him, and took hold of his face with both my hands.

  He feels so good.

  I want to explore every part of him.