The Truth About Him (Everything I Left Unsaid #2)

by M. O'Keefe

  “Don’t you want something else?”

  “No. I got what I want. I got exactly what I deserve.”

  And then he was gone, back around the corner. I heard someone shout out to him and Max shouted back and the world just kept on spinning.

  DYLAN

  The whole drive home I told myself I would stay away from Annie.

  That seeing my brother had made me raw. Too raw.

  Unfit for her.

  I walked directly from my car to my trailer. I even kicked off my shoes. But when I went to charge my phone, I could not resist looking at the picture she’d sent.

  And looking at it, her pale flesh, her hands between her legs, only made me worse. More…dangerous.

  But in the end, even while I was telling myself not to, I grabbed two condoms from the stash in the bathroom and walked straight to her trailer door. In the darkest part of the night. The darkest thoughts running through my head.

  You’re gonna scare her, I told myself. Knocks on the door in the middle of the night never bring good news.

  Well, I’m not fucking good news, am I?

  I knocked and waited, my hands braced on the cool metal of her RV. I heard a small thump and the sound of her padding to the door, and I hung my head.

  Resigned to this dark thing.

  The door opened and there she was, rumpled and sweet. Her hair messy, her eyes barely open.

  “Dylan?”

  “Open the door, Annie.”

  Something in my voice, some command, some need I was barely keeping in line, must have penetrated and her eyes opened wide. Her mouth, those sweet lips, opened, revealing the wet edge of her tongue. The shine of her teeth.

  Fuck. That mouth…

  “What are you going to do, Dylan?” she breathed back at me. A challenge. She was not scared and she was not unaware.

  “I’m going to fuck you.”

  Her pale hand, hazy through the screen, reached forward and popped open the door. I threw it open and then slammed it shut behind me once I was inside. Both doors, until it was just us in this trailer.

  She wore a tank top and underwear. Nothing else.

  I was in jeans and my bare feet. Two condoms in my back pocket.

  She stepped back. And then again until she bumped into the kitchen counter and stopped.

  Our eyes locked in the darkness, the heat around us thick. I kept coming at her until my belly was touching hers. Her breasts, so small and perfect, were against my chest. Her breath in my mouth.

  I wedged my thigh between hers, pressing the harsh denim into the soft skin at her crotch. Her underwear didn’t even register. I could feel her heat through the fabric. Her wet. I pushed harder, lifting her onto her toes, and her eyelids fluttered.

  “You like that?”

  She didn’t answer and I applied more pressure.

  “Answer me.”

  “Y…yes.”

  I’d had this vision of coming in here and pushing her on her knees in front me. I imagined cupping my hand around her head and forcing her to suck my cock until she took every inch of me. Until her eyes watered and begged me to stop.

  But I wouldn’t stop.

  I would use her, like the whores I used to pay after the fire. That’s how I would treat her.

  That’s what I thought I’d do. That had been my plan walking over here. The thoughts made my cock pound.

  You think you deserve this? I would ask her, pushing my cock against the back of her throat. You think you want this?

  But, looking at her now, her total acquiescence, her utter willingness and trust, I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even want it anymore.

  Looking at her, so ready for me, so damn willing, I didn’t know what I wanted.

  As if she knew I stood on the brink and didn’t have the balls to do anything, she took over.

  Her hair fell into her eyes as she unbuttoned my pants, lowered the zipper. I wasn’t wearing underwear, and my cock and the dark hair around it sprang up.

  She jacked me slowly in her fist and I put my hand between her legs, shoving aside the cotton of her underwear with rough, clumsy fingers, to get to her.

  I scraped a blunt nail over her clit, making it hard. Making it stand up against the wet flesh of her pussy.

  She gasped, her hand a sudden clenching fist around me.

  My eyes met hers and with all that willingness, I saw a familiar darkness. Mine. My darkness. Or at least a darkness that looked like mine.

  I couldn’t shock her. Not if I tried.

  “Get on your knees.” I groaned, and she did it with graceful surrender. “Suck me.” My hands braced against the counter while she sucked me back into her mouth.

  And it wasn’t my shitty, mean little fantasy. It was better. Because it was real. And she was giving it to me with her whole damn heart.

  She took me all the way, until I could feel her throat. Until I could feel her gag.

  I pulled back, not wanting her to really hurt herself.

  Her mouth popped off me and a line of saliva went from the head of my dick to her mouth and I was insane for her. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t pull away.” She sucked me back into her mouth, her lips spread wide and pressed tight around me.

  I pushed harder, farther. Her blue eyes watered and I pulled back, just a little, just enough.

  And then she sucked me back again.

  Without words we mapped that dark edge between not enough and too much and then, her hands on my ass, my cock in her face, we blurred the line. We made our own rules.

  “You like that.” I growled, watching her. “You fucking love it. Touch yourself while I fuck your face.” I felt the vibration of her throat as she moaned and slipped her fingers between her legs.

  It was too much, and I lifted her up onto her feet and spun her around so her hands were braced against the counter. I yanked down her underwear and popped her hips out. She got the message and braced her hands, stepped wider.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her voice husky from the abuse I’d given her throat. “God, yes. Please, fuck me.”

  She was already wet. Already hot.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  I got down on my knees behind her and licked her. Sucked her into my mouth. I found her clit, and I rolled it with my tongue. Her legs started trembling and shaking. But I gave her no break. No chance.

  She came once and then again. And she was lying against the counter now, unable to hold herself up with her arms. The muscles in her legs twitched under my hands.

  I pulled one of the condoms out of my pocket and kicked out of my pants.

  A good guy would take her to the bedroom. Make sure she was all right.

  That’s what Hero Cop would do.

  But Hero Cop wouldn’t even be here right now.

  I put the condom on, grabbed her hips, and drove into her. As deep and as high as I could, and her hand smacked against the sink as she braced herself to take my thrusts. Immediately, she came again. Her muscles clenched down hard on me, her cries loud in the dark trailer.

  Five strokes later I was bent over her back, coming in waves. In great, huge spurts that felt like they were being dredged up from my feet. My legs were numb, our bodies covered in sweat.

  Her shoulders beneath my chest were shaking and I stepped back, away from her.

  Part of me was convinced I’d hurt her. Despite her willingness. Despite her welcome. I’d been too hard. Too rough.

  “Annie?”

  She stood and slowly turned around. Her tank top was twisted and one breast was revealed, the dark nipple just peeking out. Her face was totally and completely blissed out.

  “Was that a booty call?” she asked.

  I didn’t want to laugh. It didn’t seem right. But I couldn’t quite stop it. I laughed and took off the condom, tying the end in a knot.

  “Here,” she said and opened the little cupboard under the sink. I tossed the condom in the white plastic garbage can she had under there.

  “Who knew sex
in the kitchen would be so practical,” she said. She took a deep breath and then another, before reaching down and rearranging her underwear. She winced.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Sensitive.”

  “I didn’t hurt you?”

  “I’m fine. I may not walk straight tomorrow, but I’m fine.”

  I zipped up my pants, that second condom burning a hole in my back pocket.

  “Do you want to stay?” she asked.

  “I should probably get back.” Oh, that was a shit lie. Get back to what? “But I wanted to tell you…ah…my brother is back.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Yeah. At the club.”

  “Dylan,” she sighed, and I could hear a world of sympathy in that sigh. I had no barriers against it. Nothing with which to protect myself. So, I just turned my face away, running my hand over the counter.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. Still she didn’t touch me, and I wanted her to as badly as I couldn’t stand it if she did.

  “Fine.” A lie so worthless there was hardly any point in it. She could see how not fine I was. How broken and shaken and fucked up I was.

  It astounded me sometimes how changeable her face could be. And perhaps it was because our relationship started on the phone, that I got to know her so well, so completely, without ever once seeing her face, that now I was fascinated by it. The fleeting reveal of her moods. Her old soul eyes. The skin like moonlight. I could watch her for days and not tire of it.

  She seemed to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to talk about Max. That I wasn’t ready. That I would never be ready, maybe. And I was grateful.

  “Do you really want me to do this with Grant?” she asked, stabbing me right in the heart.

  Fuck, the idea of that man’s hands on her was unthinkable. It broke my brain.

  “No.”

  “Then stop saying stuff like that.”

  I had a million reasons why that was a bad idea. But none of them seemed to matter.

  You’re the only one I want.

  I didn’t know what to say. How to hold that in my hands.

  “Dylan?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “I won’t say that anymore.”

  “Good night,” she whispered, and stepped forward and kissed me.

  I had no grace. And very little generosity. But what I had, I tried to give to her in that kiss.

  I was not the right man for her, but I wanted to be.

  And I was humbled by her choice.

  ANNIE

  In the morning, she left her trailer to find her car’s engine in pieces on Ben’s picnic table.

  “What are you doing?” she cried, utterly aghast at the engine wreckage.

  “You wanted me to fix it,” he said, wiping his hands off on a filthy rag. She couldn’t see any improvement in the cleanliness of his hands.

  “I thought you would…I don’t know, change the oil or something. Not take it apart. I need my car.”

  “Well, you can’t have it,” he said, and fished his own keys out of his pocket. “Take mine. Where you headed?” he asked.

  “Into town—I need to run some errands.” It was a lie, not a big one, but still a lie, and she didn’t tell it very well.

  “Where’s Dylan?”

  “Sleeping, I imagine.” She wasn’t sure if last night was a victory for her or not. It felt like it was, like they were inching back to the place where they should be.

  “Well, I…I have some errands, too. You care if I tag along?”

  It was so obvious what Ben was doing, and she was so touched that she would have hugged him if he weren’t so filthy.

  “Max is back,” she told him, and his relief was obvious. He nearly went white with it. “Dylan saw him last night.”

  Ben blinked and scrubbed at his hands like getting them clean was all that mattered. “Is Dylan…all right?”

  “No,” she answered truthfully. “But he’s trying. And we can all stop worrying about Rabbit.”

  Ben didn’t say anything, just looked over her shoulder at Dylan’s trailer before bending back over her engine.

  That’s all? she thought. You don’t want to say anything else?

  But he remained silent and she got in his truck.

  A half hour later, Annie found the diner Joan wanted to meet at on the far side of Cherokee.

  Once she was parked, she glanced down at her phone to see if Dylan had texted, but the screen was dark. She’d left him a text, telling him not to worry, that she was only running errands. More of those half-truths they were so good at telling each other.

  Somehow she got the sense that he was hitting bedrock. Not rock bottom, but the hard reality of who he was. She’d done it, or was in the process of doing it.

  And maybe that was the only way they stood a chance. If they burrowed down through the lies they told themselves, through the doubts and the fears, through the remains of the life they’d been living before—if they got down to the bedrock of who they really were—maybe they stood a chance.

  Everything else—it was a lie. Maybe not one that they said out loud.

  But one that they lived.

  Day in and day out, a series of lies about who they were that made their lives livable.

  And clearing that out of the way, getting down to the very heart of their own truth—it was uncomfortable. And it was hard.

  But it had to happen.

  The Butterfly Diner was one of those places that looked like it had been locked in a time capsule. The waitresses all wore pink polyester dress uniforms with maroon aprons. A pie case rotated slowly by the cash register, showing off about twenty different kinds of pies. It smelled like coffee and fried bacon.

  Heaven.

  One of the waitresses, a blonde with an affection for black eyeliner and a full pot of coffee in her hand, smiled at her.

  “Go on and sit anywhere, hon. Someone will be right with you.”

  “Thanks,” Annie said.

  There was no sign of Joan. All of the booths were filled with men in construction gear or hikers fresh off the trail, gobbling down giant plates of food.

  “Hey,” a voice said, and she turned to find another section of booths down the back wall. An old smoking section. In the far corner was a woman with short brown hair covered with a baseball cap.

  “Yes, yes, it’s me,” the woman said, waving her over. It took her a second, but then, with a start, she recognized Joan.

  “Hey,” Annie said, sliding into the booth opposite this new version of Joan. “You…you changed your look.” It wasn’t just the hair, though. She had in colored contacts and her eyes were a strange, muddy brown. And she was all covered up. Annie was used to seeing lots of Joan’s skin, between the tiny robes and the cleavage-revealing tank tops. But today Joan was wearing baggy jeans and a zipped-up sweatshirt.

  She looked older.

  And exhausted.

  “Split ends,” Joan said in her familiar rough, who-gives-a-shit voice. “You enhanced your look.” She pointed at Annie’s face, the bruises she couldn’t quite hide under the big glasses she wore. “Dylan didn’t do that, did he?”

  “No. It’s…it’s a long story.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a regular story hour here today, ain’t it?”

  “Are you…okay?”

  “Peachy. Fucking peachy.”

  Annie laughed. “It’s good to see you.”

  Annie could see her fighting it, but then Joan smiled, too. “Glad to see you’re still alive,” she said.

  A waitress came by with a coffeepot.

  “The coffee is actually great,” Joan said. “And so is the pie. Everything else is shit.”

  “Can we put that on our advertising?” the waitress asked her. She was young, the waitress. She looked like a college student.

  “Free of charge,” Joan shot back.

  “I’d love some coffee.” Annie flipped up her cup. The waitress filled Annie’s expertly to the br
im without spilling a drop.

  “How about me?” Joan asked, though her mug was full.

  “Suck it,” the waitress said and walked away.

  “She loves me,” Joan joked.

  “You want to tell me what is going on?” Annie took a sip, burning her tongue. But it was great despite that.

  “I can’t tell you much.”

  “Because you’re undercover?” Annie whispered over the table.

  Joan stared at her and then laughed. “You do not have a future as a spy, in case you were wondering. But no…I’m not undercover. Not anymore.”

  “Because of the other night? Because of me?”

  “No.” Joan was quick to assure her. Joan threw a napkin up on the table that she had folded into a very small, very intricate fan. Annie realized there were at least six other napkins folded the same way stacked next to her plastic water glass.

  “Joan?” she asked, the sight of those napkins vaguely concerning. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. I’m on leave.” She put her hand down over the napkins like they didn’t exist if Annie couldn’t see them. Or maybe if Joan herself couldn’t see them. “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time.”

  “I don’t.” Her fake muddy-brown eyes were dead serious and Annie let it go.

  “So why are you still here?”

  “Vacation. I’m thinking of going camping.”

  “Did you bring me here just to make jokes?” Annie asked.

  Joan blinked up at her. “Wow, look who found her backbone.” She leaned forward across the table. “I brought you here to tell you The Velvet Touch is the central meeting point for a man named Mr. Lagan.” Joan said the name with a slightly French accent. “Zo, the owner of the strip club, who frankly is a bit of a psychopath, and the Skulls motorcycle club, which would be Max and his little band of brothers. Including one asshole named Rabbit. Max has apparently split, which frankly is the smartest thing he’s probably done in his whole life—”

  Annie’s heart rate doubled and she tried to calm it down with long, slow breaths.

  “He’s back.”

  “What?”

  “He came back. Last night.”

  Joan closed her eyes, as though the news actually hurt her. “Well,” she breathed. “What’s one more dead biker?”