Lovely Wicked

by Kari Gregg

  His father told him so and proved it every fucking day.

  But he could remember the very first time he hadn't believed it. He'd been ten. Rita had just moved in. Gary wouldn't marry her for several more years, but she hadn't sharpened her claws on Mitch yet. She hadn't even seemed to notice him then.

  He'd been lying on his mattress in his room, listening to the night sounds. The shouted curses from the Winslow trailer down the road had almost drowned out his father's grunts, as he fucked Rita on the other side of the paper-thin walls, but not quite. Somewhere in the lull, some odd moment of quiet between Gary's thrusts and Bert Winslow's screams, he heard something outside his window. A sly rustle. Then, a stifled sob.

  When he'd gotten up to peer over the window ledge, Olivia Winslow crouched beneath, her white nightgown as good as a homing beacon in the darkness. His head had whipped toward the road where he heard Bert and his sobbing wife's voices coming closer.

  "Psst! Liv."

  She'd looked up at him then, her dark eyes wide, streaming tears. He'd meant to warn her to hide. Run into the stand of trees behind the trailer park. If she didn't, she'd be done for as soon as Bert Winslow stalked beyond the corner of the next trailer, but the reddening finger-marks he spotted around her thin neck caught him by his own throat.

  Instead of telling her to run, he'd reached his arms through the hole gaping at the bottom of his window screen, yanking it wider. "C'mon, Livvy. Hurry." She'd lifted her arms and he'd pulled her in.

  A jagged corner of the window had cut her arm. He remembered that. Bled like a son of a bitch. When she'd whimpered, he'd whispered, "Quiet! Your daddy or mine catches us, we'll both wish we were dead."

  The too-old glint in her young eyes had told him she was already there, but she'd shushed for him. He'd snagged a ratty t-shirt from the floor, used it to doctor her arm, as best as he could, had stopped the bleeding.

  Outside, Bert Winslow shouted, his slurring threats retreating down the street. When she'd flashed scared, reluctant eyes at him, he'd told her, "You'd better stay. Sneak back in the morning when he's sleeping it off."

  In the room next door, his father had chosen that exact moment to groan, low, loud, and hoarsely.

  Her eyes had widened. "What's that?"

  "Nothing."

  His father was done, at least for a little while, and ten year-old Mitch'd had zero desire to explain the mechanics of fucking to an eight year-old, even one whose eyes were every bit as old and tired as his were.

  "Come here."

  And she had.

  She'd curled up with him on the stained mattress, laid her head on his bony shoulder. She'd smiled up at him then like he'd hung the moon and all the stars in the sky. "Thank you, Mitch."

  He'd laughed. "Go to sleep, baby."

  In that one moment, that one brief moment, Mitch had known he wasn't worthless. He wasn't lazy or stupid or a fag.

  For the first time in his life, his value had surpassed nothing. Looking back on it as an adult, Mitch recognized that what he'd done was a small thing. Bert was so drunk, he probably wouldn't have spotted Liv cowering at the back end of his trailer, and even if he had, she was quick. She would've outrun him. Liv had been a survivor. She'd never needed him, not really.

  But just for that one moment, he'd felt like a hero. Her hero. He'd believed that he'd saved her. That he'd made a difference.

  It'd changed his life.

  And hers.

  After that, Liv came to his bedroom window often, whenever her dad got liquored up and mean with it. Sometimes, he pulled her inside, but later on, when Rita had finally noticed him, he'd crawled outside with her. They sneaked the blanket he'd stashed under the trailer's dented underpinning to the willow in the stand of trees beyond the trailer park. They'd pretended to be on an adventure. They were pirates or mercenaries. Or outlaws forced to make camp for the night. They'd made a game of it, even though they both kept their voices down and they didn't light a fire no matter how cold it got. God help them if Bert Winslow ever found them and even God wouldn't have been able to help if Gary or Rita had.

  He hadn't saved Liv.

  She'd saved him.

  And now, she was gone.

  Oh, sure, her things were here. Her clothes, her books, all the pretty crap women collected. If he walked into the bathroom, he'd still smell her raspberry shampoo. He stared at the bottle of whisky, eyes burning, his throat tight. And wondered how in the hell it had all fallen apart so fast and so completely. He didn't look up when he heard her car out front or when she came through the back door behind him moments later. Why?

  When her eyes, glistening with tears as she'd driven away from him, had etched into his memory like sulfuric acid?

  When he'd hear the hurt, bewildered horror in her voice echoing in his ears for the rest of his life?

  She glided around him without touching, faced him. The violent blue scrubs from the hospital filtered through the cheap glass of the bottle, tearing his guts out, but he didn't force his gaze up. Couldn't.

  Jesus, hadn't he suffered enough?

  "Did you come for your things?" he said, finally, his voice breaking. She sighed, crouched on the floor beside him. She took his limp hands in hers.

  "What other secrets have you kept from me?"

  Throbbing pain flooded his heart, his body. Obliterated everything else. "Does it matter?"

  "Do you want me to stay?"

  His eyes snapped shut. Christ, she was killing him, slicing off pieces, bit by bit. He couldn't trust his voice to speak so he nodded.

  "Then it matters." She laid her cheek against his thigh. "You have to meet me halfway."

  He lifted his hand to stroke her hair, not daring to hope. Not daring to breathe. "I was a whore. After I ran away."

  She stiffened.

  "I was a lousy thief and I didn't want to be shot so selling drugs was out. Whoring wasn't all that different from what Rita and Gary had been doing to me for free. At least, on the streets, I got paid for it."

  She shivered. "I'm sorry."

  "Artie found me squatting on his job site when I was sixteen. If I hadn't been so sick, I would've run, but . . . . He saved me. I was too feral at first, though. I kept running back to the streets." He looked at her. "Vice picked me up during a sweep when I was seventeen. Soliciting and prostitution. When Artie came to bail me out, the juvenile court judge made living with him a condition of my release. I haven't whored since."

  "That's it?"

  Emotion clogged his throat so he couldn't speak. He nodded instead.

  "Okay." She lifted up from his thigh, offering her mouth to him. Something tore loose inside him.

  He didn't know what it was.

  It hurt.

  It hurt worse than anything Mitch had ever felt in his life, surpassing all the sweaty scared hours in the trailer with Rita and Gary, outstripping the string of nameless, faceless johns who'd used him on the streets. The agony was so excruciating, the loss of their baby even paled against it.

  Hope.

  What he felt, when her lips rose to meet his, when she kissed him, was hope. Cruel hope.

  He thread shaking fingers into her hair, holding her still under his mouth as he slanted his across hers, stabbed his tongue inside, just one last time. One last taste before she left him.

  "I'm not leaving you, Mitch," she said, when she tore her lips away. "Stop being so melodramatic."

  He frowned, his mouth eating at hers. He hadn't realized he'd spoken out loud. Maybe he'd finally gone crazy.

  She grinned at him. "You aren't crazy, either. Or if you are, I am, too; in which case, we belong together."

  He lifted his mouth from hers. "Why in the holy hell would you ever want to waste your time on a sick bum like me?" he asked, his mind reeling. Was she staying?

  There was no way she could still be staying.

  But she climbed into his lap, laid her head on his shoulder. "You're not sick, Mitch. A little bent in bed and a lot fucked up when you're out of
bed. But being with you is never a waste of my time." She sighed against the skin of his neck. "I love you." Mitch's heart lurched in his chest.

  He couldn't breathe.

  He found his voice. Finally. "W-what?"

  She smiled at him. "I said I love you."

  The agonizing pain that had held him immobile ripped free, finally. Replaced with indescribable joy.

  Because . . . .

  He believed her.

  Laughing, his lips descended to slant over hers, his arms tightening around her like steel bands. "I'll never keep anything from you again. I promise. No more secrets." He kissed her, hard, loved the greedy warmth of her, the soft weight of her body, the eager clutch of her fingers on his shoulders. "What did I do to deserve you?" She grinned. "Nothing."

  He chuckled, hugging her tightly to him.

  "I drove around for hours, wallowing in my self-righteous hurt. After all we'd been through as kids, I couldn't believe you'd kept what Rita did to you from me. It tore me apart, Mitch. It really did."

  Mitch's body trembled at the pain that darkened her eyes. "I'm sorry." Her lips thinned. "I stopped at a light and when I glanced over, there it was. Lambini, Gilbert, and Platte. Sam's advertising agency."

  Mitch nodded. He'd driven by Sam's work more times than he cared to remember since the man had left them. "The offices on Sycamore Drive."

  "Sam's car was in the parking lot." She sighed. "And I realized . . . you held part of yourself back from me, but we both held back from Sam. We kept him at a distance, wouldn't share our past and what we came from with him. I've kept secrets, too, Mitch. I'm just as guilty as you are."

  "I miss him. Even after everything the three of us did to each other, I miss him." Mitch kissed her. "It kills me that he didn't trust us." Liv smiled against his lips. "Why should he when we never truly trusted him?

  We expected him to commit to us, but we hadn't committed to him."

  "But we learned. I've learned." He touched his forehead to hers. "We'll win him back, babe. If that's what—" Mitch hesitated, wondered if he was doing the right thing.

  "If that's what you still want."

  Her smooth cheek slid against his. "I love you. We belong to each other, but he belongs with us, too."

  Love lit his heart. "We'll give him time. And freedom. To heal the damage." He smiled into her eyes. "Deep down, Sam knows we love him and he still loves us. We just need faith. We'll build our home for him. And someday, Sammy will come back to us both."

  She brushed her lips over his. "Until then, we'll have to love each other twice as much."

  Mitch stroked her cheek with his finger. "Honey, I already do."

  ~The End~

  About the Author

  Kari Gregg lives in the mountains of Wild and Wonderful West Virginia with her Wonderful husband and three very Wild children. Once Kari discovered the fabulous play land of erotic romances at RWA's National Conference in 2009, the die was cast. Finally! A market for the smoking hot stories she loves!

  When Kari's not writing, she enjoys reading, coffee, zombie flicks, coffee, naked mudwrestling (not really), and . . . coffee!

  If you'd like to keep up with Kari, caffeinate yourself then head on over to her website at: http://www.KariGregg.com