by Lana Hartley
"Is he..." Leah starts to ask, and I pry one of my arms away from her to close the door.
"Cleanup crew is taking care of him," I say, swallowing. I know this is the end. She's going to run from me. She's just relieved that he's not attacking her. "He's very painfully dead." I'm a bastard. I can't resist. I'm glad that fucker is dead.
"Good." I hear her words, and I'm shocked. "He was going to rape me, Jacob."
"I know, that's why I killed that fucker," I say.
"Thank you," she says. She's still squeezing my body so tightly I can feel my heart ripping apart that I'm going to have to let go of her any second. Let her go when she lets go of me.
I don't know what to say to her thanks. I remember that I wanted to ask her why she came, but it is like I'm underwater and thoughts are too difficult to form. I remember that I'm covered in blood, and now it is all over her, and I recoil. I don't want this asshole's blood on my perfect girl. I have to erase every moment of this from her mind, clean every inch of it from her body and soul.
"Let me get you something clean. Get you in the shower."
Fuck.
Well, of course, I want her in the shower, but now she's gone from one cage to another. One asshole who was raping her, to another. I want her, and I want to take her. Her arms are around me now as I'm carrying her to the master bathroom, and I could get so caught up in this. Fuck. I walk out of the master bedroom and head to another room, a guest room, so she doesn't feel like I'm just taking her all over again. I set her on the bed.
Leah looks worried she'll get blood on the bedspread, and she jumps up and pulls off her shirt, drops her pants quickly and gathers them into her arms.
"I don't care about it staining," I say, more gruffly than I meant to.
I can't look at her eyes now. I just want time to stop. I want her with me, and I don't want to lose her.
"Leah, I'm sorry-"
"Don't." She interrupts my shitty apology.
I'm sorry hardly seems like an adequate thing to say to someone when you are talking about killing someone. I care about what Leah feels. I want to apologize for that. But of course, she interrupts this bullshit.
"Leah," I say, quietly. I know she stopped me, but I have to say something to her. I know I shot Willoughby but my guts are the ones exposed. Every second, I'm tearing my own fingers through the holes and twisting every darkness inside of me into more pain.
Leah walks toward me, dropping her clothes to the side of the bed and standing close enough to me that her bare nipples are pressed into the fabric of my bloodied shirt. I can feel her heat through my clothes, her presence a maddening necessity for my breathing. "Don't say anything. Don't apologize. I can't bear it," Leah says, her voice constricted with pain.
Why is she so close to me when she must not be able to bear the sight of me? I don't know, but she's touching me, and I need her desperately.
"Leah," I say, despite what she's asked, and she pulls my face to hers and kisses me. It is more passionate and needy than anything that has ever passed between us, and I'm desperate for her. She breathes me in and sinks into me, wrapping her legs around me and grinding her hips against mine. I can breathe her again. My heart is beating so hard it feels like it will rip through my chest with the fierceness of how much I need her. My hands sink into her skin, pressing her so tight to me that her skin will bruise from how I'm holding her. I can't stop. I remember how beautiful her pink, reddening flesh is and I want her. I want her marked as mine. I want to feel her. I need this to be real. She's quenching the thirst of everything I couldn't have. I desperately need her. I'm moaning in her mouth as she starts to run the slit of her wet pussy over my slacks where my cock is painfully tented. Fuck, I need her. The way she's touching me, she needs me.
Leah can't need me. She escaped me. She wanted to escape me. She needed to. But still her body is matching my every need, and we're melting into one. I step us back to the bed, and I lay her down, lifting her legs up high and sinking my face into her pussy, kissing that place I've missed more than anything. Her arms wrap around me, and I groan, so hot for her to hold me on her pussy like this. "Fuck, I need you, Leah." I know she didn't want me to talk, but the words come out like a prayer more than anything. A prayer for this moment to be real because it is everything that I need. I lap at her clit, stroke her folds with my tongue, kiss everywhere. I sink my tongue into her and feel those tight walls welcome me like I haven't been missing her like crazy for all this time. Like just moments ago we did this, and we're doing it all again. Her legs are shaking and I know she's coming. I circle her clit in slow drags with my thumb because I need to her to come for me just as I know she likes. "Come for me, baby girl." Come home. I want to bury myself into her now, and when I look up at how she's squeezing her breasts, I'm fucking undone. I need to tear off my bloody clothes first, but I give that a half-ass attempt, tearing down the fabric of my shirt before freeing my cock. She leans up and grabs my erection, scooting her ass up closer and pulling me inside her.
Fuck, I'm nearly ready to come the way she sinks my cock all the way inside her tight little pussy and rolls her hips to take me. I grab her calves and press them up. Leah spreads wide for me and lets me take her so much deeper.
"Jacob!" she moans out, and I know she's about to come again. She says my name. Leah looks into my eyes and never breaks contact while her body shakes around me. I wrap my arms around her and pull her toward me until we're both upright and I'm holding her, standing with her. Leah's body is jelly, but I'm holding her up for both of us. I'm just the bastard that can't resist how she feels when she fucking needs me. Her body is flushed, and she's so hot. We're slick with sweat and sealed together in how much we need each other, glistening with the perspiration of our desire. Her body is goddamn magnificent, and I want to worship every inch of her.
Holding her tight to me, I kiss her like this is the first kiss, the last kiss, every kiss. I am kissing her to know her, to love her, to hold her, to have her. To keep her. I'm so fucking lost for her, and I'm kissing her this way because I'm finding myself in her. My life changes every time our lips meet, when our tongues touch. I breathe her in and am consumed by how much I need her.
I want to kiss her until we both can't take it anymore, but I'm close to coming. I trail my lips down her neck, growling hard into her collarbone as I lay her down on the bed and I slam as deep as I can into her, almost completely pull out of her, and slam my cock in so deep again. I need the sweet, torturous surrender of filling her so completely each time. It means I won't come yet, and I was so close. But I just want to be inside her forever. I want to feel her just out of my grasp and my touch and then dive into her, find a home in her. I'm filling her up, and she's moaning, her breathing is sped up, and she's panting out my name. This is too good to end, and I'm going to make us both want to come again so much that it hurts. That's what our love is. We need each other so fucking much at this moment it will hurt when we don't have everything.
Because I can't fucking have her. This is an illusion, and she'll be gone soon. I can't fucking stand it. I slam my body over hers on the bed, grabbing her wrists and holding them over her head. I close my mouth over her breasts, first one and then the other. I fucking need her to suffer so good like I am now, and I bite down on one wet nipple enough to make her writhe beneath me. Then I capture the other nipple. Torture them both with my flat lapping tongue. Suck them and release them with two wet pops. I hold her wrists in one hand and bring the other to tease her clit. She's crying out my name in staccato moans, desperately begging. Leah wants to come so bad she's shaking, but she doesn't. I keep her so close but not quite there, just like I am now. My thumb is working her clit, and the rest of my fingers are pressing on her abdomen, tightening the pleasure between us. I pick up the speed on her clit and bite down on her nipple, us both so close we are shaking together, but we're not quite there yet. Fuck, this is torture. Perfect torture I never want to end, and I'm desperate to come as she is. Leah is screaming my nam
e. Her hips are bucking beneath me, and mine are pinning hers, keeping the rhythm exactly the speed that keeps us on edge.
I moan her name against her nipple. Her pussy is squeezing my cock so tight I can't breathe for a moment. I flick my tongue over her other nipple, then kiss between her breasts. I let go of her wrists, intending to flip her, but both of her hands capture my face. I think she's going to beg, demand answers. Anything. All she does is gaze in my eyes and then kiss me so slowly, so sweetly, so achingly pure. I fucking come when her tongue slowly laps over mine. We keep kissing and now that I'm coming, she's got to as well, and I finally let her hips meet mine exactly as they want. She's holding me so tight, kissing me so hard. I have no idea where Leah begins and I end, but at this moment, we are the same. She is everything. Never in my life have I come so hard, and while kissing Leah so tenderly. She is my undoing. Leah is my everything. We stay entwined, stay kissing like that, for so long that when we finally break to breathe, I feel how exhausted I am for the first time. Leah lays her head against my chest, and her breathing is so still, I realize that she falls right to sleep on my chest. I hold her and all I want to do is the same. My eyelids feel like they've been glazed in cement, they're so heavy, but my arms are vigilantly aware that Leah is held in them. I can't focus on anything but holding her. I love Leah more than I love breathing, comfort, anything. She's sleeping in my arms, and I'm holding onto her like I'm drowning.
I am goddamn drowning. The emotions swirling within me are going to crush me from the inside out when she wakes up ready to leave me. Fuck. I let Leah go once. I tried to stay away. I cannot fucking deal with losing her again. I'm holding her so tight against me I worry I might crush her at this point, but the pain crushing me makes me wish we were both cinders and ash, forever together and strewn through the wind. I thought I was devastated before, but if she left me now, Leah would leave me hollow. I can't lose her again.
I look at her, and she's sleeping so soundly. Her body is so still for a moment I think I have crushed the air out of her. But she's perfectly still in a calm sleep. I kiss her hair, inhaling the scent of her, closing my eyes, content that she's not, at least for a moment, going to disappear from my life forever. And somehow I can fall asleep now. Though I am not calm. My sleep is fitful. I dream about shooting Willoughby, but when I stick my fingers in his bullet holes, Leah is screaming, and she's bleeding before me. I try to pull my fingers out of the wound she now has, but she holds my wrist and looks at me with heartbreaking eyes. "You're killing me," she says in a slow, soft voice. But it is ice in my veins. I am screaming in my mind, but no sound is coming out. I'm shaking, but I'm still. I'm sweating and struggling, and I'm stuck, in a loop, living this moment again and again. I can't save her. I can't stop hurting her. Each time she says "You're killing me" it is like it echoes again until her pain is the quietest, stacked scream.
"Jacob!"
Leah -- real Leah -- wakes me up, still in my arms. Her hand is cupping my face. When my vision goes from blurry to clear I see that I'm holding her so tightly that she has fingerprint bruises on her. This is almost worse than my nightmare. It is because this is real. I couldn't be worse at letting her go if I fucking tried.
"Leah, I'm sorry," I say, releasing my death grip on her arms and rubbing where I've bruised her. She reacts when I touch there, and I know she's sore. Fuck.
"Jacob, I," she starts and stops. I swallow everything in my brain and tell myself not to interrupt her. To listen to her.
To let her go.
I stop rubbing her arm and put my hands to my sides.
Her eyes search mine. I have no idea what Leah hopes to find, or what I'm seeing in her own gaze. I have no idea what is happening. I, Jacob Renaud, who can make anything I want to happen when I want it, have no fucking clue what is happening. What I am supposed to do?
"I...Inspector Willoughby...I don't know..." Leah starts and stops. Of course, this is difficult for her.
My urge to ask her why she came to my house is no longer stifled, though my thirst for her is not fully quenched. I'm painfully aware that she's naked, in front of me, after all this time. I want to touch her and forget about everything. Want her to forget about everything. But that's not how this works. Fuck.
"I'm not in prison because you underestimated my ability to make anything I want to happen," I speak up. I wanted to let her speak simply. I wanted to say anything that wouldn't make me sound like the manipulative evil bastard that pushed her to run to Interpol in the first place.
Leah's lower lip trembles. "I know I betrayed you," she whispers, her eyes meeting mine with such sadness I feel like my heart literally goddamn breaks at the sight.
Betrayed me? Fuck.
What the fuck does Leah think is happening?
Why is she here?
"You turned the criminal who bought you into the authorities. You took care of yourself. I'm an infectious disease on your life," I tell her, and I'm standing, walking to the guest closet. I have a robe in there to give her for after her shower. I'm bitter at the idea of putting clothes on her fucking body, but I need to stop taking from her everything that I want.
"Jacob, please, look at me," Leah pleads, closing the distance between us. I'd be amused that she managed to practically shove me in a closet if I wasn't so fucking stunned by the pain in her voice. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know how to undo what I did." Tears are streaking down her cheeks at a fast clip.
I wipe them away and pull her to me. I cup her chin, so she looks me in the eye. "You didn't have to undo anything. I did. And Willoughby-"
"I didn't know what he was really like," Leah sniffled. "I thought he wanted to protect me...but I don't need protection from you, Jacob."
Like hell, you don't, baby girl. But she didn't want to leave me? "Why did you come back?" I can barely form the words, but I have to. I have to know. Because I think my princess is about to say the one thing I never thought I'd hear.
"Because I wanted you to forgive me!" Leah screams out, more tears falling her cheeks. "Because I love you."
There it is. The words that stun me. I stare into her perfect eyes, knowing that I don't deserve this angel. I never thought she'd say those words.
"I love you, too, Leah. I thought you wanted to run from me. I'm fucking lost without you." I cup her face with both hands. Treasure the feel of her, real, in my home, in my embrace. In my heart.
"I didn't think you'd forgive me. And now...you've taken care of Willoughby? Or have I managed to actually guarantee you'll be in prison?" Leah is sniffling again. Her faraway look tells me that whatever she's currently considering is eating away at all the soft, sweet parts of her soul.
"Don't go there." I press her head to my chest. I don't want her haunted. I don't want my Leah tainted by what a bastard I am. "And I ruined Willoughby before now. He's not even that expensive to disappear, to clean up."
As I say it, I know it is a horrific thing to say. But Leah is gripping me tightly, even though I'm the monster who said those things.
"He would have raped me. I would have killed him if I had to. I wish you didn't have to, but I'm glad that you did." Leah is shaking. She stops and looks in my face. "I think not knowing what he was really like made him more terrifying than anything I've ever faced. I don't know what he was capable of. And now I never have to."
Baby girl is telling me she's okay. For now, maybe she is.
Jacob
Leah had made me feel like I could really have her, be with her, be something other than the bastard inside of me. But that's the thing. Seeing what I really was? Seeing how much I truly cared about Leah?
There was no other option but to keep my toxic ass far, far away from her. She deserved so much better. I was too much of a bastard to say that I wished I could undo everything that I took from her. I didn't want her to remember me, or want me, ever. I wanted her to be free. Free of me. Free of men that tried to capture her, control her, dictate what she was going to do with her life. I wanted her to be free to be herse
lf without having to look up to see if she was allowed.
"May I?" the words from her lips echoed in my mind. Never again. I couldn't have her, no matter how much I wanted her. Not when being without her made me want to fucking die because I needed her so bad. Because for fucking once, none of this shit was about me. I had to let her go.
"Don't forget me, baby girl," I whispered into the darkness, grateful that she was asleep right now. Because she goddamn should forget me, but I couldn't subject her to me anymore.
I shouldn't fight this urge anymore, the bastard inside me says. I have her. I can have her. She truly wants to open up to me. Wants to be mine. So why does this horrify me? I don't want my strong angel to fade away into being just my possession. Which is so goddamn confusing because I want to own her everything. Body. Soul. Mind. Her very essence, I want to be mine. But I don't want to take her. I want to ravish every inch of her; I want to consume her. But it is more that I wish she were overtaking me than I was overtaking her. It makes no goddamn sense, except to say that Leah Waterson is a much better person than I could ever be. A much smarter, sweeter, stronger person than me. And she deserves more than me. So I have to let Leah go.
Soon.
I pull her sleeping body toward me, breathing in her innocent vanilla scent that entices me to taste her. I kiss her neck, and she curls against me. I can't stop looking at her beautiful, peaceful face. Unworried. Her body, so perfect, without any stress or tension. Here, in my arms, she's everything I've ever wanted. But I know. I'm going to let her go. She left me, and now she’s back…but I can’t be right for her.
Leah
I wake, and I see a brooding Jacob sitting up in bed. I reach out to him, nuzzling my face to his arm. Finally, I'm here with him. We can be everything that I've hoped to be and held myself back from. I search his eyes for the same happiness, but he's got such pain practically emanating from him. I have to make it go away.
