Yours: A Forever After Novella

by Thomas,Natasha

  Harleigh’s eyes widen, boring into mine, assessing the truth of my words. Her mouth gapes open, but seconds later, she snaps it shut and frowns.

  “There may have been a time when you could say that shit to me and get away with it, but not now. Not anymore, Lyric. For all intents and purposes, we’re separated, which means you don’t get to make those kinds of decision for me.”

  Wrapping her fingers around my fist, Harleigh pries it from her hair ad extricates herself from my grasp, leaving me cold and feeling more bereft than I did the last time she walked away from me.

  “I have my own life now, Lyric. An apartment, friends, and a job I love. Things I didn’t have in Furnace. Things I don’t want to let go of now,” she murmurs quietly.

  Her admission hits me like a ton of bricks, knocking the wind out of me and leaving me reeling. Is that how she really feels; that she didn’t or couldn’t have that with me? Thinking back to the life we began together and I thought we both desperately wanted, I can see how Harleigh would believe what she’s saying to be true.

  How I was brought up, the way my parents were together and with us kids, no doubt shaped who I am today and how I see relationships. I always figured as the man it was my job to be the provider, that the most important thing I would ever do is make sure my wife and children (when we eventually had them) were well taken care of and protected. However, what I didn’t factor in was that my smart, independent, firecracker of a wife would want to share in that role with me.

  My mom stayed at home for the vast majority of my brother and two sister’s childhood. Right up until, Piper, my youngest sister went away to college four and a half years ago, mom was there for every football game, dance recital, skinned knee, and after school pickup.

  Dad did his best to be there as often as he could, but running the most sought after tattoo shop in Colorado made it difficult for him to take time off. Especially since there are four of us. That’s not to say he didn’t do it, though, because he did.

  I can remember dad cheering me on as I threw the winning touchdown pass as a starting quarterback in my junior year, and again the year after as a senior. Dad was front and center for all of Skye’s dance recitals, and Luca’s gigs when he started playing at Hounds on Thursday and Friday nights.

  Dad was there every morning to remind Piper to take her medication and again at night before she went to bed. To this day if we’re at home, he still comes to check in on us before he goes to bed, even though, Piper is the youngest of us at nearly twenty-three.

  That said, it was still mom who had our house running like a well-oiled machine, regardless of us all pushing and pulling her time and attention in different directions. Which is a big part of the reason why I never recognized how unhappy Harleigh was with the roles we’d both taken on in our relationship.

  Scrubbing my hand over my face, I sigh.

  “Harleigh? Babe, look at me please.”

  When I’ve got her attention and her big green eyes lock on mine, I can finally breathe again. Being so disconnected from her is fucking killing me. Literally tearing me apart from the inside out. I’d give just about anything to close the distance between us and erase her fears and concerns, but I can’t.

  For starters, I don’t know how to fix what’s broken with us until Harleigh spells it out for me in black and white. My assumptions have gotten me into trouble with her before, so that’s the last thing I need to be doing now; assuming anything. No more fucking guessing. No more beating around the bush. No more fucking games. All I want is the truth from her, no matter how hard it is to hear.

  “You know you can tell me anything, don’t you, baby? Whatever it is nothing could ever make me stop loving you. If it’s me, something I’ve done or fucked up, you’ve got to let me know, though. As much as I’d like to say I can read your mind like I used to be able to, I can’t.” Seeing the wariness in her eyes, I add, “This conversation has been a long time coming, Harleigh, and despite claiming you’ve got a life here, friends, and a job, you’ve got a husband too. A husband who wants his fucking wife back.”

  I push Harleigh backward so that her gorgeous ass is planted on the side of the bed and her eyes are focused on me and only me. Dropping down to a crouch in front of her, I run my hands up the outside of her thighs, raising her tight as fuck skirt to half way up her long, lightly tanned legs.

  Then, using my shoulders to part her legs wide enough to accommodate my frame, I situate myself between them and take both of Harleigh’s hands in mine.

  “Four years, Harleigh. You’ve been Mrs. Williams for eight goddamn years, and I’ve only had you beside me for half of them. I played by your rules by keeping our marriage a secret from our folks, but it’s time the rules changed, babe. We’re going to do shit my way now. No more secrets or hiding, Harleigh Belle. You’re my wife and I’m your man, and I don’t give the first fuck who knows it.”

  “No,” she practically screeches. Harleigh’s face has paled, her eyes are wide and frightened, and if I didn’t know my girl better, I’d say she’s genuinely terrified.

  Sucking in a deep breath, she tugs her hands from mine and wipes her sweaty palms down the front of her skirt.

  “I mean, please don’t. At least, not yet. Give me a week. A week to sort all this out in my head before you do anything that can’t be undone.”

  “What the fuck for?” I growl out. “You’ve had plenty of time to sort out whatever’s been fucking with your head. There’s no sense delaying the inevitable, Angel. This is going to happen, people are going to find out you’re mine, both legally and because I fucking claimed you as such over twenty years ago.”

  I rise to my full six-foot-three height, towering over her and groan when I realize from this angle I can see straight down the front of her shirt. Harleigh’s ripe, full tits are practically spilling out of her matching lacy pink bra. Her nipples are beaded into tight little points, reminding me that’s it’s been too long since I’ve taken them in my mouth.

  Blinking up at me, Harleigh stands with her arm wrapped protectively around her middle.

  “Please, Lyric,” she says, her voice cracking on the last syllable. “Just one more week. We’ve kept it a secret this long, what difference will seven more days make?”

  My temper simmers back to life. The fact that my wife doesn’t seem to understand the torture I’ve endured day in and day out having to live without her by my side, and in my bed everyday guts me. She might not have felt the same, the desperate loneliness that comes from missing the other half of your soul, but I felt it enough for the both of us.

  Every fucking morning, I was reminded by cold sheets and a heavy heart that my reason for breathing was missing. When something happened during my day, I reached for my phone to call her, only to remember she wouldn’t pick up. I must have left her hundreds of voicemails, sent thousands of texts, most of them about random shit, but all of them because I just needed that connection with her.

  But the worst part of my day, the part I dread the most is the nights. Coming home to an empty house sucks. Coming home to silence where there used to be music, laughter, the sounds of Harleigh banging shit around in the kitchen while trying to make us dinner is even worse. But crawling back into bed, the same one Harleigh and I shared for months, the one I fucked her raw in every night until we both passed out from exhaustion broke the little that was left of my heart.

  It took a while, but when I knew I was on the verge of losing my ever-loving fucking mind being without her, I came to the conclusion that nothing could be worse than this. The yearning, the ache in my heart that seeped into my bones made it impossible not to do everything in my power to convince my girl to come home. Not just because I need her to be able to take a deep breath, but because that’s where she belongs; with me.

  So fuck Harleigh’s week. Fuck what people think. Fuck the fact we’ve kept secrets from everyone who loves us and each other. There are things I have to tell her; changes I’ve made to make sure she comes first
from here on out. Big things. Things I should have done in the beginning but didn’t. But first, I’m going to take care of my wife, however she’ll let me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ~ Harleigh ~

  He’s right; the years we’ve spent apart should have been more than enough to prepare me for today. Rationally, I always knew it would come, that Lyric would demand answers as to why I left him and why everything changed between us so quickly with little to no warning. And rationally, I know he deserves them. But my heart isn’t rational; far from it. Especially where my husband is concerned. The predatory gleam in his eyes as he stalks toward me confirms that.

  Loving Lyric has never been the issue. I do, probably too much if I’m honest with myself. I love him enough to overlook almost anything. Almost. The one exception, however, is what relationships are built on; trust.

  It might not be fair, actually, I know for a fact that it isn’t fair for me to hold Lyric accountable for somebody else’s sins, but I can’t help it. Moreover, I can’t stop it; I’ve tried. On top of that, every time I see my husband, I’m reminded of why we can’t be together; why it’s not safe for either of us.

  “Don’t take another step, Harleigh,” Lyric warns. “Don’t run from me, baby. I’d do almost anything for you, but I can’t bear to watch you walk away without telling me why. I love you, Harleigh. I fucking love you so much, that it kills me to see you like this. Talk to me. Just talk. Please.”

  The ultimatum Spike gave me rings in my head and has my blood freezing in my veins. My heart stutters at the memory of his coarse words and the way he gripped my upper arms so hard he left bruises behind that I had to hide from Lyric for days.

  *****

  Shaking me so hard my head snaps back, hitting the corner of the refrigerator, Spike’s hot, rancid breath washes over my bruised and battered skin.

  “You’re going to keep your pretty little mouth shut about this, aren’t you precious?”

  It’s not as if he’s giving me a choice in the matter, but Spike seems to need my agreement so I nod my head, hoping he’ll let me go and leave. He doesn’t, though. Instead, Spike digs his fingers into my biceps and dips his face close to mine as he studies me intently. No doubt he’s looking for any trace I’m lying, but I’m not. I won’t tell anyone. Not now. Not ever.

  Apparently pleased with what he sees, Spike runs his nose down my cheek followed by his tongue. I shudder, disgusted that he’s touching me at all, but repulsed because there’s nothing I can do to fight him off.

  I could scream and one of the brothers sitting in the main room of the clubhouse would come running in an instant, but I won’t do that either. The humiliation that another man other than my husband has touched me intimately, put his mouth on places Lyric has cherished so many times before, is overwhelming. I feel dirty, useless, and utterly helpless.

  Ghosting his mouth over mine, Spike bites down on my lower lip hard enough to draw blood. The coppery tasting liquid fills my mouth as I swallow it along with the bile that has been clogging my throat since Spike first began his attack. But a little blood is the least of my concerns right now.

  The skin on my inner thighs is rubbed raw from the coarse hair on his legs and the friction of his thrusts as he forced himself inside of me. My breasts hurt where he pinched and squeezed them over my bra. I know I have marks on my wrists, on the side of my neck, across my back, and most probably the backs of my thighs if the sting radiating from them is anything to go by, but I can’t bring myself to look. For that matter, I don’t know if I will ever be able to look in the mirror again without seeing what he did to me.

  “Here’s how this is going to go down, precious. Your car’s parked around back which means there’s a good chance no one even knows you’re here,” he grins evilly. “I’m going to drive your car down to No Man’s Gap where unfortunately for you, your car’s going to have a little accident. Nothing major, just bad enough to explain where the bumps and bruises you’re sporting came from.”

  Another shiver wracks my body at the depth of thought Spike’s put into this. It hadn’t occurred to me before now that he may have planned this. From cornering me alone, which I very rarely am, to knowing how to write my injuries off as an accident, Spike has considered everything.

  “Why?” I rasp.

  My throat is hoarse and dry from trying to contain my screams of desperation and pain, but I have to know. Why me? Why would he do this to his best friend’s wife? Why after all the years we’ve known each other, been friends, the things I’ve done to help his ailing mom would Spike turn on me like this?

  For some reason, my question makes Spike chuckle. It isn’t a pleasant sound; it’s as dark and evil as he is.

  “Because I saw you first,” he replies cryptically. “Me, not Lyric. Fucking me.”

  Furrowing my brow at him, I try to make sense of his words. However, I’m no closer to understanding them before he clarifies them for me. And what he says sickens me to my core.

  “He always looked at you like a friend. A good friend, but nothing more than that. Lyric’s been protecting you since the day you were born, everyone saying how cute it was, how fucking sweet that you followed after him like a little lost puppy dog. No one else existed when you were with him, least of all me. When you started looking at him differently, I saw it. I saw it the day you realized you were in love with him, and it made me sick,” Spike snarls, once again tightening his hold on my arms.

  “When Lyric was out sticking his dick in anything that moved, completely fucking blind to your feeling for him, I was at home stroking my cock to the memories of you in your hot pink bikini bent over the edge of the pool. I’d get so hard it only took a few minutes of jacking myself to come all over the pictures of you I had in my room.” Bending to whisper in my ear, Spike admits, “I had hundreds, precious. A few you knew about, but plenty I took when you weren’t watching. Photos of you in your bedroom changing and ones getting in the shower when you forgot to close the window. Those were my favorite. I used to imagine how soft your skin would be, all wet and slippery, just waiting for me to touch you.”

  I can’t help it, I gag a little, fighting off the urge to vomit all over the floor. At this point, the fact that Spike invaded my privacy, my private space that I thought was safe shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. I mean, how long had he been watching me for? How long had he been amassing a collection of photos so that he could use them as jerk off material for his sick, twisted fantasies?

  Stepping back, Spike folds his arms over his chest and leers at me.

  “Years,” he answers my unasked question, confirming my suspicions. “But that isn’t the half of it, precious.”

  I stand frozen against the refrigerator because honestly, at the moment I think it’s the only thing keeping me upright.

  “Every girl I’ve fucked, I imagined they were you. Went as far as to call out your name when I came all over them too. You ever wonder why I haven’t had a girlfriend?” He asks, not expecting me to answer. “Most women don’t take too kindly to being told I’ll only ever fuck them on their hands and knees and being called another woman’s name. If I didn’t have to look at their faces, it was easier to pretend they were you. Your hair. Your eyes. Your moans as I fucked your ass, pulled out and came all over your back. It was always you, precious. Always.”

  Gathering up reserves of courage I didn’t know I had, I ask,

  “Then why would you hurt me like this? If you claim to care about me, you wouldn’t do this. You couldn’t.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Spike snaps. “You told me once that you care about me, but you’ve been hurting me for fucking years, Harleigh. Every time you look past me to him, it burns in the pit of my gut. Every time I have to watch you kiss him when you think no one can see you, my heart breaks. And every goddamn time I see you after I know he’s just fucked you, another piece of my fucking soul dies. So you tell me; if you can’t hurt someone you care about, then how the fuck can you keep hur
ting me like this?”

  “I-I, you never told me. You never said anything,” I stammer.

  “Of course, I didn’t. It wouldn’t have changed shit if I had,” Spike laughs darkly. “Lyric thinks he owns you, that you belong to him. He’d lose his motherfucking mind if I told him I’ve wanted to fuck his girlfriend since I was a kid.”

  Cocking an eyebrow at me, Spike looks almost charming as his lips tip up at the corners into a grin. Yeah right, I mutter to myself. As charming as a fucking shark. As deadly as one too.

  “See, I figure that if I couldn’t have you forever, I’d see to it that you’d think of me as often as I think of you. Now every time Lyric puts his dick inside you, you’ll remember my hands on you, my cock, my mouth. It won’t be his lips kissing you, it’ll be mine. It won’t be his hands squeezing your tits, twisting your nipples, they’ll be mine. And it will be my goddamn cock thrusting into your tight, wet cunt you’ll have the memory of when you’re letting him take his pleasure from your beautiful body. Because mark my words, Harleigh, it will be all his pleasure, not yours.”