Sail (The Wake Series Book 2)

by M. Mabie

  Sail: The Wake Series, Book Two

  Copyright © 2015 M. Mabie

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of the material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is coincidental and not indented by the author.

  LICENSE NOTICE. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book man not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  DISCLAIMER. This is a work of adult fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The author does not endorse or condone any behavior enclosed within. The subject matter is not appropriate for minors. Please note this novel contains profanity and explicit sexual situations.

  Cover Design Copyright © 2015 by Arijana Karcic, Cover It! Designs

  Book Formatting by Stacey Blake, Champagne Formats

  Editing by Marion Making Manuscripts, Marion Archer, and Bare Naked Author Services, Claire Allmendinger

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Also by the author

  Fade In

  The Wake Series

  Bait, Book One

  For my moms,

  Linda and Lucille

  Friday, January 1, 2010

  SHE WAS SO TIGHT.

  Concave and convex, we fit together like two praying hands. A prayer that begged for absolution and time. We were both sinners and the truth of that hurt. But having her in my arms, her mouth on mine, I couldn’t understand how I’d ever be forgiven. And I didn’t want to be.

  Her hands met my flesh and searched for something lost. She pulled at my hair and her lips met my neck. Hot and greedy, she sucked and bit at me.

  Our sweat mixed. Our breaths shared.

  I hovered above her on my elbows, my hands cradling her head to ensure she was really there. Ten fingers scored my back. One pink nose encouraged me. Two clear eyes penetrated mine, conveying everything I knew was true.

  Her guilt.

  Her pain.

  Her love.

  And I fucking owned all of it.

  “I love you,” she said. Or maybe she didn’t, but I heard it anyway. She was terrible at loving me. Never getting it right, but she tried. She fought hard, usually with herself, and that alone gave me hope.

  At this point in the game, if she didn’t love me, she was plain crazy. The heaven she helped create. The hell she’d put us through. They were one and the same.

  Our bodies moved together. Old hat. They knew this dance. We left them to it. The mechanics of fucking like we did came naturally. It was the feelings we had the hardest time navigating.

  “Just stay this time,” I said, knowing she didn’t have a choice. “Don’t go.”

  Her eyes met mine with a fire in them and I recognized the hint of guilt. The ebony-colored irises melted into the deep black as they dilated. Her honest pink nose told me the truth.

  My lower back tensed as I pushed into her slowly, a rhythm too intense because it was barely there at all.

  Her hands rounded my ass as it clenched, and she pushed against me, inviting me to give her more. Her hands knew more about her heart than she realized.

  “I never leave you. Even when I’m gone. I’m here.” She didn’t indicate exactly where here was, but the expression on her face told me it was the place where we both belonged.

  I buried myself and held still inside her, only rocking my hips a little, creating a friction between us. A move I was well-practiced in, and knew all too well how it affected her. Her legs wrapped around me, and she held on tight, pressing herself against me, building an orgasm that would go off at any second.

  She fucked me like it gave her purpose. She always had. Fast. Slow. Gentle. Rough. Standing. Lying down. Bent over. Front. Back. Every way we knew. She loved it all. She responded to soft kisses on her neck as much as she did when I pulled her hair.

  I moved my hand in between us and traced the pad of my thumb over her, rubbing Os that matched the one on her face.

  “Tell me you love me,” she begged. Those precious words were not often shared between us, but who needed words? Not us. Our talk was cheap and sometimes saying them felt like much less than what they really meant. But my honeybee wanted to hear them. From my lips to her ears, I’d wash her body with them and every other word in my meager vocabulary, if it meant she was really mine.

  “I’ve loved you,” I whispered, as I pressed into her, deeper than I’d allowed myself until then, “and I’ve hated you, too.”

  She flexed around my cock, my words jarring her. It felt so fucking good, and I bowed my head moaning a slur of expletives.

  “You’ve hated me?”

  “I had to. Ah.” She flexed again, but the look on her face wasn’t one for poker; instead it showed amusement. She tightened once more around my dick, and I instinctively rolled my hips. “Ah.” I wanted so badly to thrust into her over and over until we were both screaming and satisfied. But I held firm.

  “Why? Why’d you have to hate me?”

  The small sliver of light from the other room hit her eyes just right and they appeared to be glowing. She was lit up. Cheeks flushed. Fevered skin that matched the heat inside me.

  “Because it was too much—too much to figure out. If I didn’t hate you at times, I would have hated me, and that wouldn’t have done either of us any good.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her body to mine as I sat back. Her legs remained curled around me, and when I sat back fully, she sank down on me, allowing me to feel the end of her. Blake’s head tipped back, rolling from side to side.

  “You feel so good,” she said. “Don’t hate me.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  She rode me like she had many times before. I was in heaven.

  Then, it was hell.

  “I’ll never leave you, Grant.”

  Grant? What the fuck?

  Everything got cloudy and warped. I shook my head to clear the words I thought I’d just heard her say and when I did I saw everyone in the room. My family. Her brother, Reggie. My ex, Aly. And Grant.

  They all watched.

  Grant said, “I
know, Betty. When you’re finished playing with your toy, let’s go home.”

  Then, I woke up. My stomach tied in knots. Alone.

  Friday, January 1, 2010

  I DIDN’T REST THAT night. Sleep came and went. So, early to rise it was for me on New Year’s Day.

  As I studied the letter she gave me that was written on a hotel notepad, my mind raced with what happened. I read the words over and over. That tormenting fucking piece of paper. Why had she never mailed it to me? Or better yet, said the words out loud to me? She’d come to me after my mother died and never once told me these things—at least not in so many words.

  But did I know them anyway?

  It was clear to me she loved me, but simply saying words can’t always prove it. Words can be erased or unspoken. Our love never was. Months and years apart didn’t fade our love, and all of the things that should’ve been said, we were never fucking brave enough to, but we’d still heard them in our hearts.

  The more I read it, the more power it gave me.

  She was still fighting.

  I’d fight too. But differently than I had before. I’d be what she wanted—what she was never able to ask of me. I’d be the dependable man she desired. I’d be the stability she craved. I was ready for that. I was ready for whatever it took to have her.

  Fuck, if she told me to be a tree, I would’ve figured out a way to sprout limbs and branches. I’d find a way. I’d be the motherfucking tree of all the other trees if that was what she needed.

  I was responsible, not that I’d ever made a point to prove it to her until now. If she was looking for stability, I had full control of my work schedule. I could balance travel and home however I needed to. I was ready for those changes. She wanted a man, and I’d only shown her a boy.

  The coffee maker beeped, and I realized I’d been standing there the whole time, watching it fill.

  My house didn’t feel like a home, not like it had when my mother was alive. Or how it did again while Blake had been here. The sun didn’t warm the floors like it had last October. Cooked food didn’t linger in the air.

  Instead, it felt stale; it even smelled stale. Only glasses, from those select few times I actually took the time to pour my poison of choice into them, filled the sink.

  My house wasn’t a particularly great place to come back to—not in the state it was. It wasn’t somewhere to seek refuge. And by the grace of fucking God himself, if she came back to me, I wanted her to have a warm place to run.

  I poured a cup of black coffee and sat at the bar making a mental list.

  There were many crimes that I committed against us, too. I couldn’t continue blaming only her. I had made my lion’s share of mistakes as well. Never telling her how I felt. Never asking her what she wanted from me. Fucking Aly.

  I’m not sure how she knew about that, but I guessed a little birdie told her. A hell-bent, blonde birdie. The same fucking birdie I paraded around in front of her to intentionally make her jealous. I didn’t think Aly would tell her, but maybe, in the back of my mind, I was glad she did.

  I didn’t find any pleasure in hurting Blake. Love. Hurts. If we measured our love by the pain we felt, we’d be certified masters in the art. I only hoped that made us stronger.

  Another cup of coffee and another thousand missed opportunities to tell her I’d give her anything, all slipped through my fingers.

  But the more I thought about the words, the more I felt like a hypocrite.

  Words. Words. Words.

  It wasn’t the words that ever created results. It was our actions that paved the way through this. It would be my actions that would prove to her she could have everything she wanted. From me.

  I wanted to be the man who provided for her. To build her world around. To rely on. Me.

  My cell rang. I prayed it was her.

  That prayer went unanswered, but my phone didn’t.

  “Hey,” I said to Troy when I picked up the call, hitting the speakerphone button and letting my cell sit on the counter.

  “Dude, what the fuck happened last night? Where’d you go?”

  I ran my hand through my hair and leaned against my palm. I ran my thumb around the rim of my coffee.

  “What didn’t happen?”

  “Well, you held your fucking own. That’s for sure. I would have beaten the shit out of that drunk bastard. I still can’t believe she brought him. I guess that was one way to break it to him,” he scoffs, chuckling awkwardly. “Man, she’s heartless, isn’t she? Good for you for leaving her there. I bet she got the fucking message. You’re with Aly. Speaking of Aly, she got pretty torn up after you left. I think Nick had to take her home. But hell, I was pretty tanked too, so I’m not really sure.”

  Heartless?

  “Watch your fucking mouth, dude. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not with Aly. God. Is that what everyone thinks?”

  “Well, you sure did make a show of being there with her.”

  “That’s what it was. A fucking show.” Trying to make Blake jealous, I’d flaunted Aly in front of her like a trophy. It was wrong, but I was fucking desperate. At the time, bringing her felt like a sure-fire way to make it clear to Blake how I felt seeing her with him.

  Still, I hadn’t thought about what it would look like to outsiders. To my family. To Aly. To anyone else. My judgment was clouded; my focus firmly set on one purpose: Blake and making her crack. I wanted her jealous. I wanted Grant to witness it. I wanted everyone to see her falter. But she was strong and acted like nothing was wrong. I knew her too well. I could see all of the emotions I was trying to force her to admit in her eyes. She only showed them to me—and in the end to Grant, too.

  I don’t know what happened between them after I left, only that he went back to their room, got his shit and left. When she left Hook, Line and Sinker, I watched from the car. I wanted her to come to me and tell me it was over between them. And in a way she had, but that didn’t mean it was all buttoned up and in the past. It was far from that.

  Still, he knew. Then, she followed him after being with me in the car. I could still smell her on myself in my kitchen afterward. I could still feel her mouth on my neck, hear her breath in my ear.

  “So what?” Troy asked, not following what had actually happened.

  “So I took Aly to make Blake jealous, and it worked. I didn’t expect Grant to get drunk like he had. I didn’t think Aly would talk to Blake. And I sure as fuck didn’t think twice about Aly after I left.”

  “Yeah, that was kind of a dick move. What were you thinking?” he said, sounding annoyed.

  “I don’t know. I was tired of waiting for her. I just thought if I put enough pressure on Blake she’d finally make a move. She’d tell him.” I pulled at my hair and I scratched the top of my head. “You know what? It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t?” Troy was my friend, like a second brother, but he wasn’t one to sugarcoat things. “So let me get this straight. You fucked Aly the other night and brought her to your brother’s wedding just to get a rise out of some married chick? Fuck, Casey. Can’t you see how messed up that is?”

  “Yes! I see that, but I didn’t know what to do. Yeah, I fucked Aly, but it wasn’t like I went after her. Did she tell you that? Did she tell you she came to my house Christmas Eve when I was already fucking trashed? She walked right-fucking-in, Troy. So don’t spout off like she’s so fucking innocent. If it wasn’t for her nosy fucking ass, Blake wouldn’t even be married.” Which was only about half true, but that was just semantics. “Don’t judge me, you fucking prick. You. Have. No. Clue.”

  It was silent on the line and by that time, I had both hands in my hair as I was talking—or shouting—down at my phone on the bar. It was easy for him to criticize what was going on from the outside, but he didn’t know. It wasn’t fair for me to get pissed at him for trying to set me straight either. He was only trying to look out for a friend—me. He just didn’t know everything like he thought he did.

/>   “You only know part of it, dude. So just shut down the sermon, okay?” I said, leveling my tone.

  “It must be really fucking lonely in that head of yours,” he said, also taking it down a notch.

  “I have just as much blame in this as anyone. And don’t call Blake heartless.”

  “Listen, it’s going to be a nice day. Let’s take a bike ride and you can get some of this shit off your chest. I’m your friend, man. If you want me to quit thinking the worst about this whole thing, then you need to tell me what the hell is going on.”

  A ride sounded perfect. He was right. I needed to say it all out loud. Lay it out. Own my shit.

  And I’d start with him.

  My calves burned and the cool January air cleansed my lungs.

  Troy and I rode—in almost complete silence—for about two hours before we stopped at a roadside park, up on one of my favorite bluffs.

  I used my kickstand while Troy let his bike fall over. Some things never changed. He’d done that since we were kids, and it made me laugh every time he’d hop off, letting his bike fall over.

  “You know you wouldn’t have to buy new bikes all the time if you’d take better care of them,” I commented, as I sat on the bench facing the bay. It was still foggy and the water was hardly visible.

  As I took a swig of the water I’d brought, he snapped the sweatband I was wearing, repositioning it over my eyes. Then, climbing up on the bench next to me, he sat on the steel back, resting his feet on the seat.

  I pulled the band off my eyes and pushed my hair back with it.

  Troy grew up only a few blocks away from me and my family, but he didn’t have the same kind of home life we did. I remembered his dad from back in the day, and as the years passed, he began to look more and more like him. Shoulder-length, stringy-blond hair, a lazy beard, and bloodshot eyes. Half-hearted tattoos.

  Troy’s dad was a musician and had lived a hard life. On the road with bands frequently, he took jobs as a roadie or a guitar tech when there was an opening and a free bunk on the bus. His mother was just as rough as his old man. His parents divorced around the same time as mine did.