A tired sigh seeps from my chest. “No, ‘Lise. That’s not what I wanted you to do. And it doesn’t fucking matter anymore because she’s so fucked up from being so fucking miserable for so FUCKING long that I can’t even find a single semblance of the woman I… Of the girl I fell in love with and hung on to for twenty goddamn years!”
“Oh, and when the hell were we happy while she suffered in her own self-created misery? Huh?”
This entire part of the trip was disaster waiting to happen. This whole conversation and tying up of loose ends was doomed from kickoff.
“‘Lise, the day I asked you to marry me, I meant it. I didn’t ask you because you were knocked up. I asked you because I loved you and I truly thought you were the only one in this world for me. Lil was proposed to on the day she found out she was pregnant at seventeen. The day I married you… Annalise, I was happy as fuck the day I married you. The day Lil married Nick, she cried the entire day and her daddy had to drag her ass down the aisle. I was also happy as fuck being married to you for five years. Now…where your happiness lies in all of that completely depends on how much you allowed your guilt to overshadow your happiness. BUT I DID MY DAMN JOB AT MAKING YOU HAPPY! Tell me. Was it hard keeping the truth from me?”
“You tell me first. Did it hurt holding that shit in for all these years?” She peels out into traffic, heading towards the airport. “You know what? You’re right. It doesn’t fucking matter. I know just like you do that the answers to both of our questions are the same.” She glances over her shoulder at me with a smirk on her face. “We all lost here, Leo. Bottom line.”
She pulls up to JFK but neither of us moves or speaks more several minutes.
“Look, ‘Lise, I’m sorry. This isn’t the way… I didn’t mean… I didn’t come here to fight with you. I came to check on you and Adam, tell both of that I love you, and tell you that I’m fucking sorry for everything I put you through. I mostly came to tie up loose ends, ‘Lise. That’s all.”
Her hand brushes my check before sliding into my hair, and I look up at her. “Baby, any loose ends we had…we tied up years ago. And as for you being sorry, there’s nothing to be sorry for. Competitions aside, we both loved and we both hurt.” Her hand tightens in my hair. Bringing me in and hugging both arms tight around my neck, she whispers against my temple, “I know you love us. I’ve always known. But right now it’s time for you to make sure she knows that you love her.”
‘Lise pulls back to look me in the eyes. “Hey…” She smiles and nods towards the airport. “It’s time, Leo… Go get your Lil, and fucking hold on tight. You make goddamn sure she knows that you love her. If she’s been in Hell since she was seventeen, then you go bust your ass to drag her out of it.” She reaches over and opens the passenger door. “As nothing more than a person on the sidelines watching the Lil and Leo story unfold, even I know… You both need your fairytale ending.”
I grab ‘Lise’s face in my hands and bring our foreheads together before I brush my lips against hers. “Annalise, there’s no such thing as fairytale endings or happily ever afters. You know that.”
“I’ve learned that if you want something bad enough, you’ll get it.” ‘Lise softly kisses my lips and pulls away, looking up at me while she snaps her seatbelt on. “You’re the one who taught me that, Leo.” She looks at the airport sliding doors and nods. “Go… Go get your firecracker, Leo.”
I go…
I HAUL ass.
I go fucking hauling ass from New York to Louisiana.
Told you, motherfuckers. When I finally went after my girl, I wouldn’t possess a single fucking thread of restraint… Didn’t I?
So…by now, I’m sure you get the gist of how much of a fuck-up I am.
You also know I did just what I fucking said I would. I got my firecracker back.
It took me less than two weeks to get Lil to marry me.
And it only took me less than a day to fuck it all up. As I lie next to Lil watching her sleep, I can’t stop my fingers from tracing the red, bruising handprints laced around her neck. Something primal and instinctual snapped in me once we crossed the threshold of our suite.
I can barely even fucking explain it.
I was struck by this carnal need, this overwhelming feeling, to fuck all the pain and anger she’d made me feel for so long out of her. On some level, I was testing her as well as punishing her. I tested that, as my wife, she not only accepted her punishment, but liked it—no, loved it—as well.
I honestly couldn’t hate or despise myself any more than I do in this moment. Tears begin falling as I wrap Lil up in my arms. Fear creeps inside and settles in my chest as soon as the realization fully hits me. I hurt her—hell, I fucking choked her out—pounding into her from behind, shouting at her to tell me she liked it.
I whisper kisses along the bruises on her neck and shoulders my hands caused, my tears falling faster and faster.
It took me less than twenty-four hours to fuck up the most sacred thing in my existence.
Lil stirs awake, and almost instantly her hands cup my face, her eyes searching mine. “Baby, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
My arms tighten around her waist. “I fucking love you so much.” I’m shaking like a damn leaf, and a sob escapes my throat before I can finish. “I fucking love you so goddamn much, Lil. Please don’t let me fuck this up again, baby. Please.”
Her beautiful blue eyes are sparkling, looking into mine. “Baby, hey…” She’s running her fingers through my hair and over the planes of my face, whispering softly to me, “It’s okay, baby. We have each other. We’ll never be apart again, baby. Shh…”
I’m confused by her words. She doesn’t understand how much I fucked up. Hell, maybe she doesn’t remember.
As soon as she sees the marks around her neck, she will.
I push the words out. “Did I hurt you? I went too far this—” Lil’s finger on my mouth stops me mid confession.
She knocks the breath out of me at the same time she wipes fear clean from my mind when she whispers, “No, baby. It was perfect. It was passionate. It was hungry. It was you… My lion. My Leo.” She nuzzles her face in the crook of my neck, making my cock twitch with her little kisses. “There is no other way I would want to make love to my husband for the first time, baby, than with that much need and urgency.”
She nips at my mouth and smiles. “It was fucking hot as hell and I loved it.”
An hour later, when I hear her breathing even out, I feel the remaining tension leave me and relax enough, allowing sleep to consume me.
My firecracker is pregnant! Holy mother of God, Lil is pregnant! It wasn’t something I was trying to do, but it for damn sure wasn’t something I was trying to prevent either. I remember being so adamant against ‘Lise getting pregnant. I also remember the pride I felt when I was sure Lil was pregnant with my baby when we were teenagers and how devastating it was when I realized she wasn’t.
Lil and I are in the shower. I’m standing behind her, washing her hair. She loves when I wash her hair. When she moans and leans her head back against my shoulder, I slide my hands from her soapy blond locks around to her front, cupping her growing, sensitive breasts in my hands before pulling on her peaked nipples and rolling them between my thumbs and forefingers.
She pushes her ass up against my hard, aching cock like a damn little wanton minx. One of my hands moves from plucking her nipple to between her legs and starts circling her swollen clit, causing her breathing to turn ragged.
I bite the flesh of her earlobe and suck it into my mouth at the same time I slip a finger into her tight, wet pussy, and before my finger is even knuckle deep, I feel her already quivering and contracting muscles tighten around my finger.
Of course, like always, the beast inside takes over. I wrench a fistful of her soapy hair and pull her head back, plunging a second finger hard and deep inside her , continuing my thumb’s movement on her clit.
Once I have her head arched back as far as it will
go, I bite into her neck and growl around my teeth, “Every fucking time. All your body needs, craves, fucking lights up like a goddamn firecracker for is barely a touch of my hand. Isn’t that right, baby?”
She’s so close. I feel her entire frame shuddering against mine, causing me to immediately pull my fingers from her and place both of my hands on her shoulder tops. I know her protests and begs are coming.
I want them to come.
I want her on the brink, willing to do anything and everything I demand for the release that is just out of her grasp.
“Leo, please… I’m so close, please…”
I spin her to face me and smile like the wicked motherfucker I am. “Well that isn’t fair. You’re already close? I’m nowhere near close.” My hands push the tops of her shoulders down. “Now, whatcha gonna do to fix that, Lil?”
I push her to her knees, slide my fingers into her soapy hair, and grasp the hair at the back of her head. Her lips part as soon as I thrust my hips, shoving my cock into her mouth until I feel it hit the back of her throat.
I barely pull back before plunging in again. When I feel the tip of my cock enter the ring of muscles in her throat, my head falls back and I stifle a groan. The muscles of her throat contract as she chokes around the head of my cock. My need and raging lust consume me so fiercely that I’m barely aware of her gagging on my cock. My fists tighten even more in her hair, yanking her head towards me, fucking her mouth and throat as hard as I can.
Her nails sink into my thighs, and the bite of pain has me at my breaking point. I have Lil’s back slammed against the shower’s marble wall and my cock slamming into the end of her drenching wet cunt, lunging into her over and over.
Lil’s head lolls back and her eyes close seconds before arching her back. Her body seizes and her hot little pussy clamps down around my cock, her orgasm rolling throughout her pefect fucking body. Her screams echo against the walls, and I sink my teeth into her nipple before sucking the marked flesh into my mouth.
My hands are braced against the wall on either side of Lil, her legs are draped over my forearms, and I continue stabbing into her, rubbing my pelvic bone against her clit with every plunge. When her second orgasm clamps her tight fucking pussy around my dick like a damn vise, my cum pours stream after stream, bathing the inside of her.
Her husky cries are like fucking music to my ears when the third orgasm tears through her unexpectedly.
“Fucking love you.” I rain kisses across the tops of her shoulders and up her neck until my mouth claims hers.
My tongue plunders into her mouth, catching her moans. I gently set her on her feet and wrap my arms around her waist to steady her on weak knees. I pull my mouth from hers, swollen and red from my abuse on them. Hey eyes look up to mine, drunkenly smiling so bright she takes my fucking breath away.
“So goddamn beautiful, firecracker… You know it?”
Her voice is still husky from her screams and my cock. “Only because you make sure I know it.” Her eyes close and she slides her arms around my waist. “I love the way you love me, Leo.” Her face tilts up, leaning back into the spraying water to rinse the shampoo from her hair.
“Damn. Sorry, babe.” I chuckle against her arched neck then run my nose along the curve of jawline before I whisper, “I guess as soon as I heard you moan and felt your sweet little ass rub against my cock, I got sidetracked.”
She laughs and hands me the conditioner. I squeeze some into my palm then look down at her as she turns around, telling me over her shoulder, “I know for a fact you were hard before we even walked into the bathroom, baby. Don’t try to blame that on me. Now…finish your damn job.”
After I’ve run my conditioner-covered fingers through her hair, I lean her back against my chest and direct her head into the water. As the water rinses her hair, I slide my palms around her waist to cover the basketball-sized bump my son rests in.
Pride implodes inside my chest at how big he’s gotten.
Do you have any idea what a beautiful emotion it is to feel with your own two hands your wife’s belly growing with your son?
By the grace of God, I have conquered many things that others would deem impossible feats. Not a single one of my feats could ever be measured against my finally having my soul mate become my wife.
That is, until I felt my son moving, growing inside the only woman on this planet truly made for me and me alone.
It’s more beautiful than a thousand sunsets, a thousand and one lightning storms. It’s so utterly astounding it can fucking shatter the earth.
I have completely and totally fallen in love with my son and I haven’t even seen his face or held him in my arms yet.
I already know, without a shadow of a doubt, that my boy is going to be the most precious, fucking kickass baby this world has ever seen.
I lose not only every living shred of my wife and her sanity, I lose my sweet baby boy, my strong and perfectly healthy son, on Valentine’s Day along with Lil.
My cell starts lighting up with missed calls and voicemails as soon as I turn it back on when the plane lands. I am dialing my voicemail as I make my way off the plane and into the airport when call waiting beeps in. I immediately answer and hear David as he tries to calm a sobbing Katie in the background.
“David?” I ask.
“Leo, you need to get home as soon as possible.” His voice cracks and I hear the phone shuffle. Then I listen as David falls apart with his wife.
Nick’s stern voice blocks out the commotion in the background. “Hey, man. Where are you at?”
“I just… I’ve just landed in Dallas. Nick, what the fuck is going on? Is Lil okay? Why hasn’t… Where is she at? Why hasn’t she tried to call?”
“Leo, listen to me. I need you to take my fucking word when I tell you that Lillian is going to be okay. I also need you to take my fucking word, as a man, a father, I am telling you to either get a damn car or catch a flight back here, which ever gets you here faster. I swear to God I’ll be at the airport to pick you up and explain what’s happened. But, man… Please don’t make me fucking say it over the phone.’
The icy panic that burns, bleeding its way through me, is so foreboding that evil begins to lurk into the darkest recesses of my mind, folding in on itself to hide until the time comes to attack.
I do nothing to push it away. I welcome evil’s presence; I welcome it to stay, hidden and dormant, waiting for the moment I will need evil, to fucking wage a goddamn war with the evil motherfucker, be him incorporeal or of corporeal form, who laid this tragic catastrophe upon my happy, content, and beautiful life.
“It’s the baby. My boy isn’t going to make it. Or has he already died?” My voice sounds sinister even to my own ears.
“Get on a fucking plane right now. I asked you nicely. Now I’m telling you. Hang up the phone and get on a damn plane, Leo. I’ll meet you at the airport.”
I’m a split second from shattering my phone against the wall. Thank God I remember all the pictures I’ve taken over the months of Lil’s belly growing with my son.
I stalk towards the ticket counter, and thankfully I’m boarding a plane within forty-five minutes headed back home.
I see Nick as soon as I pass the security checkpoint gates. I flinch when he grabs for me, hugging me with one arm and slapping my back with his other hand. Reflex has my fist plowing into his gut before I realize he isn’t trying to fight me.
He shakes it off fairly quickly and we walk side by side towards the exit. “I left my luggage, I only had thirty minutes in Dallas before the next flight took off.” I glance over at Nick, and he nods with a grim expression.
“I’m sorry, Leo. A father shouldn’t ever have to fucking hear this.”
“Nope. I don’t think that there is an ounce of sanity left in my mind after having just the suspicion that I’ve lost my son. Then after those crippling thoughts flit through, shredding my fucking mind, it dawns on whatever smeared and corrupted pieces of brain matter that remains�
�”
I stop outside of the airport before lighting a cigarette and narrow my eyes on Nick’s as I pull in my first drag in fifteen years.
“You, her brother dying, her guilt, her painful, agonizing guilt of being the failure of a mother she believes herself to be… It all but killed her, all but fucking drove her mad by the time I made it back into her life. By the time I could reach the soul of the woman I loved for more than twenty years, Nick, I was fucking shocked to find her with any spirit left.”
We find a nearby bench and sit before I say, “You know Lil, Nick?”
He nods.
I nod as well. “You loved her. I know you loved her. I watched. Fuck, I’ve seen so much, Nick. It’d fucking surprise the shit out of you to know how I know that you did love her at one time. The reason I’m saying all this, Nick, is so you understand, so you can fully grasp the concept of this, when my son died, my wife, my fucking world died with him.”
“Leo, man, it’s bad. No…bad isn’t even the right word.” He releases a sigh and leans over, resting his forearms on his knees before running his hands in his hair.
I cough to conceal the painful groan that tries to escape and feel tears bite behind my eyes. “Just fucking tell me, Nick. Just fucking say it.”
When he glances up for a split second, I see his own tears before he looks back down. He coughs before speaking. “Paramedics found her. She was in the kitchen.” Nick groans before leaning back against the bench, his head falling all the way back, looking into the sky. “She’d poured Betadine… Goddammit, sorry, man.”
He chokes on his tears. “She’d fucking poured Betadine all over her stomach, had a fucking paring knife gripped in one hand, some sewing scissors in her other. Paramedics broke both her fucking wrists…” Nicks eyes meet mine, causing his tears to spill over. “When she cut her abdomen, they said she kept ticking off minutes incoherently, but once she cut, they… Their options were gone. It took over four paramedics restraining her, breaking her wrists, and she still fought. They tried using meds to knock her out.” He shakes his head. “Her fucking adrenaline… She was already mentally checked out. Her fight or flight was too strong. They couldn’t even get her knocked out enough so she couldn’t feel the c-section.”
Holding Her in Madness Page 19
