by Bella Love
I was drugged. I was alive.
In Trey.
We moved around the puppy, who didn’t even seem to notice us,
Trey pulled me on top of him, his hands around my hips, dragging my body forward, then pushing me back, lifting into me slow and languid, like we’d been making love for lifetimes, and had lifetimes yet to go. Our bodies were slick with sweat. It was glorious, gorgeous exhaustion, this endless fucking that had become our life, and I couldn’t stop. Clearly Trey couldn’t either.
We didn’t talk. We just looked into each other’s eyes. He wasn’t teasing me. He wasn’t testing me. He was taking me. Owning me.
I was his. Fully, entirely.
I leaned down to him, my hands on the mattress beside his head. “Hey Trey?” I whispered, my voice raspy.
His dark blue eyes met mine.
“I know you don’t want to hear this but….” I dropped to my elbows, my breasts skimming his chest, and put my mouth beside his ear. “I think I love you.”
As I said the words, I came, almost painfully so. It rolled out like a sonic boom, spreading in undulating ripples that rocked my body so hard I dropped to his chest and lay there, shuddering on him.
His hands tightened on me and his head jerked back and he came too, spilling hard and hot into me.
Alive in him.
As we slept, the puppy dragged himself up and snuggled in between us. I slitted my heavy eyelids open and saw Trey’s big hand come down soft over the puppy fluff, holding him there.
I smiled and fell back asleep.
16
NEXT MORNING I WAS UP EARLY, showered and dressed before Cass even stirred. I got the pup out to take care of business, then went back and dragged the big chair from the sitting area into the bedroom, pushed it beside the bed, sat down and kicked my feet up on the mattress, and watched her sleep. I set the puppy on the bed and he curled up against her neck.
Outside the snow had stopped, but it would be a tricky ride down the mountain. My truck could handle it. Not sure about my heart.
A family was walking down the hallway outside. A few sets of feet made a raucous, carefree hammering as they ran down the hall. Kids. A woman’s voice said something about Santa and being good. The kids hooted, their feet slowed, and they broke out in a Christmas song.
They went off down the hall and it got quiet again.
Cass rolled over in the bed and made a sweet little sound, a sleepy, feminine, well-fucked sound.
She stretched an arm out from under the warm pocket of blankets, then the other, and curled her fingers. I pictured them curling around the edge of the table last night. Around the pillow she’d smashed her face into when she came. Around my forearm when she laughed up at me a dozen times since last night.
Last night.
It felt like half my lifetime.
She pushed up on her elbows, the sheet draped at the small of her back. The puppy shook himself and rolled to his feet, then fell back down again. Cass smiled at him, then turned and blinked at me sleepily.
Her cheek had a red crease from how she’d slept on the sheets, and her hair was all wild from last night.
She was smiling at me.
Time to go.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered.
“Merry merry.”
“Why are you up?” She lay back down, arms folded under her chest, hands by her chin. “And dressed?” Her eyes tracked down my body. “Wearing shoes?”
“It’s eight.”
“Oh, okay. That’s nice—” She jerked into the air, pushing herself on her palms. Her breasts swung down as she looked at me in horror. “The breakfast is at eight-thirty!”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“That’s not what you said.” She gave my thigh a slap as she leapt over me and ran to the bathroom.
The pup hopped down too and began sniffing out the room.
I watched her get dressed. Listened to her chatter as she got ready, washing her face and fixing her hair, washing armpits I knew were sweaty with female musk because of what we did together. Watched her brush her hair back in that long ponytail. Put on make-up as she peered at her reflection in the mirror, telling me all the things we could do today.
I didn’t say a word.
I just wanted to watch her as long as I could.
“I thought maybe we could go skiing?” She looked out at me, her face lit by the wash of neon bathroom lights. “Or stay in…” She looked at me uncertainly when I didn’t reply.
“I gotta go.” The words were like pellets of steel coming out of my mouth.
Her face fell. “Go? Why? Where?”
“Destiny Falls.”
“Oh. But…so soon?”
I just looked at her.
She stepped out of the bathroom. “But Ben—”
“Will understand.”
“You’re not even going to say goodbye?”
I said nothing.
Her face took on a firm look. Not one I’d seen a lot. “No, he won’t. He’ll be hurt and confused and—”
“We all get hurt, Cass. He’ll live.”
My voice was hard. Matched the way my heart felt, like it had been crystallized from the inside out, cracks like pond ice going all the way through.
“So you’re just going to walk out on…him?” She meant ‘me.’ Walk out on me.
“I gotta go,” I ground the words out again. “I can’t do this.” I swung my hand toward the hall outside, the wedding breakfast. The people. The normal conversations. The happiness. “And you deserve…” I pointed again. “That.”
“And what if I don’t want that?” She mirrored my point toward the world and came a step closer.
I got to my feet. Start walking, dude. Start walking now.
“Stay, just a little while.” Her voice was soft, coaxing. She bent a little to peer up into my downturned face. Our eyes met. Hers were so hopeful, so full of whatever lies she’d told herself about me.
“Come on,” she said. “It’ll be fun. You can watch me fall on my ass on the slopes. We can eat burgers and make fun of the sheep and I don’t know…watch movies. We could—”
“That’d be a bad idea,” I interrupted coldly.
What could we do? Fall in love? Fuck. That’s all it was going lead to, I could see it now. Cass wasn’t bed-and-wall material. She was heart material. If I stayed, my heart was going to get involved, and things would get bad, fast.
Love was beyond the realm of ‘normal.’ It was some fucking distant dream, and I wasn’t there yet. I didn’t think I would ever be there. I wasn’t made for anything that serious. Anything that good.
Not with someone this good.
“What’s a bad idea, Trey?” She took a step closer. “What’s so bad about that idea?”
She knew. She fucking knew it as well as I.
“Cass, just…stop.”
She rested her hand on my face and I flinched. She took it away, looking stunned. She looked at her hand a second, then at me, like she was trying to see how she’d hurt me.
“Okay,” she whispered, backing up. Her eyes were hard but I could see them getting wet with tears. “Okay, fine. I said everything I had to say last night.”
She said she loved me last night.
Her eyes were red and wet, but her chin was up. “I know I look simple and naïve, Trey, and all those things you don’t want to mess up, like new snow, but I can take it. I can take you.”
I stepped back and gripped my duffle bag like the dick I was. “I’m too dark,” I said roughly, and turned away. I flung the door wide and walked out.
“Not when you’re with me.”
Her words followed me down the hall.
I went down the elevator and through the lobby, my boots echoing on the gleaming floor. I walked through the huge glass doors into the sunlit, snowy world.
A few inches had fallen during the night, and the sun smashed into it, shattering the snow into thousands of sparkles.
I squint
ed into the glittering world and started walking. My pickup sat high above the snow. Nothing could stop her. Nothing could stop from me getting the hell out of here.
I swung my bag into the seat and climbed behind the wheel. Gunning the motor, I put it in gear and slung my arm over the back of the seat, looking behind me to back up.
I hit the brakes. That stupid puppy was sitting there, all alone, at the corner of the hotel. I swear he was looking straight at me.
A family, maybe the one I’d heard going down the hall earlier, was crossing the parking lot. Three kids were hop-skipping through the snow. Their parents brought up the rear, bundled in coats and carrying brightly wrapped packages.
The kids circled back, running around their mom like electrons circling their nucleus. One of the older kids fell backward into a pile of snow and started making snow angels, while his sister stood above him and pointed, clearly making suggestions.
Mom smiled at them as the littlest kid ran back to her. He said something, then went up on his toes. She bent to give him a kiss, and some of her hair spilled out from her hood. It was blonde, but all I could see was Cass’s long, dark hair.
A second later, dad scooped him up, then he and mom each took a hand and started swinging the little guy between them as they walked to the car. The other kids, now covered in fresh snow, ran after, their mittened hands waving wildly as they talked and talked and talked.
The family climbed into their SUV and drove away.
I sat there, staring through my back window for a long fucking time, hot steam rising from my exhaust pipe, melting the snow all around me.
17
I SAT BESIDE BEN in the lavishly decorated room that hosted the post-wedding breakfast. Morning sun poured through the windows, Christmas music was on, champagne was flowing, and everyone was in high spirits.
A beautiful Christmas, a beautiful day for Ben and Amber to begin their new life together.
I felt like I was being stabbed by knives.
It was a purely physical pain—I was too numb to experience emotions—but the physical part ripped through my chest at regular and sometimes unexpected intervals: when someone threw a balled up napkin at someone else and the two broke up laughing. When a man reached over to pour more coffee into his partner’s cup.
A couple times, the pain sawed so hard I gasped. When Ben looked over, I disguised it as a failed sneeze.
I could barely hear the voices around me for the ones in my head. Scolding, bracing, angry voices.
After all, what had I thought would happen? Trey hadn’t come for me. And of course he hadn’t stayed for me. I wasn’t enough, and had I really ever thought I was capable of being enough, for that guy? Trey owed me nothing. Just because what we’d shared meant more to me than him, that wasn’t his fault.
He’d done nothing wrong.
Still, I wanted to run after him and club him with a baseball bat.
After the clubbing, I wanted to curl up in a ball under one of those stupid towering evergreens like a forest creature, wrap my arms around my body and sob. For days. Weeks.
The rest of my life.
How was a person to live knowing the only man you’d ever loved, the only one you would ever love, had walked out of your life?
Hot, stabby tears pushed at my eyes. My chest contracted. I couldn’t inhale for a second. I bent my head, my face fixed, chin crumpled, trying to hold all the tears inside.
It was going to be a long life.
Peacock the Pup had left too. He must have slipped out when Trey walked out, and I’d been staring dead-eyed at the wall.
At my side, Ben stirred. “Puck?” he said quietly.
I started fussing with my napkin, keeping my face down. “Dropped some omelet here,” I said, stiff and bright. “You can’t take me anywhere.”
He leaned closer. “Cass, I’m truly fucking sorry.”
“You warned me,” I said, staring at my napkin.
His hand went to the back of my neck, holding me. “Cass, listen—”
“Please don’t,” I whispered. “Please stop talking. I’ll be okay in—” never “—a little while, but for now, please just …stop.”
He was quiet a second, then I felt him shift in his chair. “Cass—”
“Stop.”
“No, Cass, look up a sec—”
I was starting to get angry. “Seriously, Ben, can’t you just stop—”
“Seriously Cass,” he interrupted sharply. “Look at me.”
I did. He met my eye, then nodded over my shoulder.
A chill shivered across my skin. I turned slowly in my seat.
Trey was standing at the doorway. Peacock was in his arms.
I opened my mouth and stopped breathing.
Eyes dark, he came into the sunlit room and walked over. He drew up behind my chair. I stared at him, my eyes wide, my mouth still dropped. I probably looked like a baby bird.
He dropped the duffle bag on the floor. It landed with a thud. He set Peacock down.
“I have an idea.” His voice was low.
My heart punched against my chest.
“Have you ever seen Destiny Falls?”
I shook my head dumbly.
“Want to?”
A little sound burst from my frozen lungs. “What are you saying?”
“You have some time on your hands, right? How about you come with me?”
“For how long?”
“How long have you got?”
“How long do you want, Trey?”
His eyes met mine. “How long will you give me?”
My shoulders came forward on a gasped exhale.
“I’m saying why don’t we see if we can build a life together? At least, we should give it a try. Because I’ve never felt the way I feel with you, Cass, not my whole fucking life, and I don’t want to stop feeling it ever again.”
18
I THREW MYSELF AT HIM the way I had when I’d first seen him in the lobby, the way I’d been doing in my heart since the moment I met him.
But this time, I was holding on.
To communicate this fact, I actually leapt up on his body, sort of body slammed into him, so he grunted as I hooked my knees around his hips. His hands went to my bottom, holding me up, and I cupped his scruffed jaw and kissed him.
He kissed me back, then murmured against my mouth, “Do you care that people are watching?”
“I don’t care about anything but you,” I whispered back.
From somewhere behind us, someone started clapping. Others followed. A few hoots and catcalls broke out.
Okay, maybe I cared a little.
I let my knees unhook and slide back to the floor. My face was hot from my eyebrows to my chin, but Trey didn’t even seem to notice the clapping, beyond taking my hand and tugging me away from the crowd, back to the wall.
Peacock followed at our feet, somber for a puppy. He squatted on his haunches and peered up at us, looking between our faces as we talked.
“Ben was right to warn you, babe,” he said quietly. “You need to know that. I’m in a bad place.”
“He didn’t say bad. He said broken.”
“Okay, fine. He’s right about that too.”
“Trey, maybe you don’t know me, but I’d like to introduce myself. Cassidy James, father left when she was four, mother in and out of rehab. Skirted Child Protective Services until Ben was old enough to get us away. I’m not scared of broken.”
“My broken’s a little different.”
“Okay, fine,” I said, settling into negotiation mode. “Do I have to pass a test? ‘Outline the ways in which Trey Dante is fucked up: he rarely uses complete sentences; he calls people ‘sheep’; he has a dirty mind and mouth and isn’t afraid to use them.’ Like that?”
He smiled faintly. “No test. But you need to know what you’re getting into.”
“I’m getting into you.” I cupped his face and stared into his eyes. “Trey, I’ve been loving you since the day you walked into our
lives. So I guess the question is, do you want what you’re getting with me? Because…here I am, all ready.”
He wrapped a hand around the nape of my neck. “I’m ready, babe. I’m broken, but it’s better when I’m with you.”
“I’m good for broken,” I said and went up on my toes to kiss him.
“My own personal tape,” Trey murmured against my lips.
At our feet, Peacock’s tail started wagging.
“And you’re good for alone,” I told him. “This isn’t all one way. We’re good for each other. I’ve been alone my whole life, waiting for you.”
He cupped my face. “It’s a fucking reunion.”
“Well…damn,” said a voice behind us.
I looked over my shoulder at Ben.
“He’s mine,” I said, throwing myself against Trey again. “I don’t care what you say.”
Ben drew his hand through his hair, then down the side of his face, pulling it as he went, then flung it up in the air.
“Well hell, I sure don’t want him.”
I looked into Trey’s eyes. They weren’t tortured or dark or unreadable right now. They were clear and intent, and he was smiling. I gave him one more swift kiss then stepped back. He reached for my hand.
Hard, calm, dangerous, sweet, dirty Trey, taking my hand. Holding on.
“Let’s hang out for a little,” I whispered. “It’ll be okay.” I took a small step toward the table, pulling him with me.
“Yeah, I know,” he said, coming with me. “It’ll be okay now.”
Now.
Now meant me. Now meant us.
Now meant forever.
BEN SAT ME BETWEEN HIM AND CASS at the front table, like he was protecting me. Or keeping me close enough to kick my ass.
“Mr. Devoted, huh?” he muttered as waiters poured another round of champagne. He waved someone over and got me and Cass glasses.
I watched the bubbles sizzle up, then met his eye. “I hope this doesn’t ruin anything between us.”
