by Abbie Roads
“Your father is the one who did all this to you.”
All this… Two innocuous little words that represented so much pain. All this—she referred to the scar over his heart, the puckered scars from cigarettes being extinguished against his flesh, the slashing white scars that covered his arms and torso from his father’s version of knife play. And suddenly none of it seemed important. The only things that mattered were her and what was to come.
“Are you…” His words came out with the same level of sound as a silent movie. Jesus. He needed to remember how to fucking talk, but he didn’t quite know how to ask what he needed to ask. “Are you…”
She stepped close until only a thin strip of air separated them and then leaned her body into his, keeping her hands over his heart. She looked up at him and smiled so brilliantly he could have been gazing at an angel. “Am I sure I want this? Hell, yes. I’m hornier than a teenage boy on prom night. You realize it’s been five years since I’ve had sex. I’ve got some serious sexual energy to work off.” She paused, some of her brightness dimming. “Are you sure?” She pulled away from him and stepped back a few feet.
A grief so heavy and so severe it threatened to bring him to his knees hit him from the loss of contact. He felt as though he’d lost something vital to his existence when she stepped away. He wanted to cry, or maybe fling himself on the floor and throw a toddler tantrum.
“I should’ve asked before now.” A slight tremor sounded in her voice. “You’re not dating anyone, are you?”
Her question struck him as stupid. Him? Dating? The son of Killer Killion? The only people interested in him were Killion’s Kissers, the hybristophiliacs, or those who had a death wish—as in death fascinated them and the idea of sleeping with him seemed dangerous.
A smile tugged at his cheeks, feeling weird and wonderful. When was the last time he’d smiled? He knew the answer. When she’d had that bout of diarrhea of the mouth back in the cabin. Since he met her, he’d smiled more than in the past two years combined. “Not dating anyone. And more than sure that I want you.”
Even though he spoke the words, he couldn’t believe they were exiting his mouth. Just minutes ago, he’d been convinced he’d never see her again. Sometimes life granted the most amazing gifts.
She jumped on him. Actually jumped on him, wrapping her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. He caught her, his body tuned so perfectly to hers it anticipated her every move. She weighed nothing. Or maybe she just made him feel strong.
Every inch of her skin touching his was a miracle of sensation. He wanted to squeeze her tighter to him, to bring her inside him and make her a part of him. He closed his eyes and just let his body map the sensation of her against him. She felt so right, so perfect, that it hurt.
Her lips landed on his neck, sucking and nipping and kissing a trail toward his mouth.
And all he could do was stand there holding her. This was enough. More than he’d ever dared to dream. More than he deserved.
She found his mouth, her lips plush and warm against his own. And then her tongue was inside, stroking his, and a surge of white-hot desire crashed through him. He thought he knew desire and longing? Nope. This was a whole new level. His dick throbbed, aching with the knowledge that her warmth hovered mere inches above him. He needed to get her to the bed before he turned and took her against the wall. He liked the idea, but not for their first time.
Sunshine gilded the room in ethereal light. He started to carry her toward the bed, but paused to turn in slow, lazy circles and kiss her.
And kiss her.
And kiss her.
His hands slid lower down her back, underneath her ass, palming those wonderful globes. Lower and lower his fingers dove until he felt the sweet center of her and dipped a finger into her. Wet. Dripping. Her juices slid down his hand. She was primed and ready to go, and he hadn’t done anything.
She gasped, a small, wonderful sound, and shifted her hips on his waist, seeking to take in more of his small offering. He had a lot more to give.
He moved to the bed, kneeling over it while she stayed locked around his body. He stretched out on top of her, feeling the heat of her center open to him but denying himself. There was time. There would always be time for this. He pulled back from her and stared into her eyes. They were such a beautiful color. Looking in them was like floating on a raft in clear tropical waters. Relaxation and contentment and—something altogether weird for him—connection.
She’d said before that they were connected. He’d always felt it, and maybe so had she. Who knew that out of the horror they’d both endured, this one good thing would arise?
“You’re looking at me funny.” She reached up, trailing her fingers along the ridge of his jaw.
“I…” Yeah. He didn’t know how to put into words what he felt. It would sound crazy and stupid if he tried to say it out loud.
A look of knowing covered her face. “I know. Me too. It’s like we were meant for this. Like no one fits me but you.”
He nodded, taking in every word she spoke as if it were the Gospel According to Mercy.
His erection throbbed. The urge to shift forward into her nearly overtook him, but he wanted more from this than just a quick lube. He wanted long and slow and savoring.
She wrapped her hand around his shaft. Her fingers were cool where he was an inferno. She positioned him at her opening. All his good intentions of going slow turned to vapor.
“Cain…please…”
Her words of need and pleading were a command he couldn’t refuse. He slid into her. His eyes rolled back in his head. A moan of sheer pleasure erupted from him. Oh. God. She surrounded him, welcomed him into her body in a way none of his other partners ever had. He seated himself deeply and decided he was never leaving. Nope. He’d just stay right here for the next fifty years and die a happy man.
She grabbed his ass, her fingernails digging in deep. Damn, if that didn’t feel like the most carnal of pleasures. She tilted her hips, and he slipped impossibly deeper. He lost himself—unable to tell where he ended and she began.
He almost couldn’t move. The pleasure was already off the charts, and if he lost one second of self-control, it’d be all over for both of them.
She rocked her hips underneath him, setting the rhythm. He followed her lead. Gritting his teeth. Concentrating on not coming. Do. Not. Come. Not until she’s ready.
Her pace went frantic and furious. She bucked against his body. Her back arched, her head flung back on the pillow, and she moaned a sound that went straight to his balls.
The orgasm exploded through him, shattering everything he’d ever known about life and love. His world tilted, like everything had been a few clicks off the norm his entire life and now had suddenly slipped into its right and normal place. And his new world was good. Oh so good.
Chapter 13
This week on Murder Book: The Girl Who Lived. If you missed it before, we are replaying our documentary Mercy Ledger: The Girl Who Lived. Follow her life before, during, and after the brutal murder of her entire family. This special anniversary edition has an update: Where is Mercy Ledger now?
—News Channel 5
Exquisite pleasure echoed through Mercy’s body, its reverberations pulsing outward until her fingers and toes tingled with the power of it. She’d thought she’d had good sex in the past. Nope. What she’d just experienced with Cain ranked up there as an F-5 orgasm. The kind she’d never recover from. The kind she’d crave from this moment on, and there’d be no going back to those paltry F-1s or F-2s she’d lived off in the past.
Cain’s breath came in hard gasps that mirrored her own. He slumped over her, still inside her, and the way he filled her—fulfilled her—changed her.
Her eyes went watery. She blinked rapidly to fan the tears away, but they came too fast and too hard to contain. Crying right now, after the best
damned sex of her entire life, was the gold medal of bad timing. An award she didn’t care to win, but couldn’t prevent because every stolen moment put his life at risk. When she left him, she’d be leaving the best parts of herself with him.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that the best sex of her life happened to be with him. Why couldn’t he have been some anonymous nobody who didn’t matter at all to her? Somebody she could walk away from and never think about again. It wasn’t fair. But then, nothing about her life had ever been fair.
“Damn.” Cain chuckled, his voice lighter and more carefree than she’d ever heard it. He nuzzled the skin of her neck, his caress so sweet her eyes grew wetter.
She tried to say something back, to tell him just how powerful their connection had been, but a suppressed sob had lodged itself in her throat. The tears overflowed. She didn’t want him to see her like this. He would blame himself. And the truth would only hurt him worse. She should’ve left while he slept, and she certainly shouldn’t have let things go this far. But she’d been too caught up in him to think clearly.
She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly to her so he couldn’t see her face.
“Everything okay?” he whispered against her neck.
She nodded. Couldn’t speak.
He stiffened, tried to pull back at the same time she tried to keep him from looking at her.
“What’s wrong?” The concern in his tone tore open the fragile control she had over the storm rising inside.
A sob ripped out of her before she could catch it.
He jerked out of her embrace to look at her. His face tightened with horror the moment he saw her. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He tried to pull away from her—pull out of her—but she wrapped her legs around him, locking him to her. Telling him with her actions what she couldn’t say with her words.
Tears obscured her vision of him. She wanted to reassure him, but she couldn’t figure out how to say it. “Please.” That one word carried so much meaning. Please, don’t blame yourself. Please, don’t think I’m crazy. Please, just hold me.
“Anything you need.” He understood and gathered her to him, then turned them on their sides, tucking her face against his chest, his arms and legs wrapping around her like he was shielding her body. But even he wasn’t strong enough to protect her from the tsunami of emotions flowing over her. Emotions that had everything to do with Cain.
The stark loneliness of her life. The inability to let anyone in, to let anyone know her. The constant vigilance of being on guard against people who wanted to capitalize on her tragedy.
“Whatever hurt you, whoever hurt you will never get the chance again. I will protect you. I will keep you safe.” He sighed. “Even if it’s from me.” He spoke the last words so quietly she barely heard them.
What if it’s you who needs protection from me?
He stroked her hair, her back, and kept the assurances coming. And she believed him. Believed his promises of safety and security. But that only made her cry harder.
The emotions slowly ebbed, like thick, cold molasses, leaving her coated in them but no longer drowning in them. When she found her voice, she spoke against the wet skin of his chest. “That was the exact wrong reaction to have after the best sex of my life.” She tried to laugh, but it sounded hollow and flat.
She pulled back to see him. He rested his head on the pillow, his face inches from her own. A deep gash of worry marred his forehead.
He looked so much like his father in some ways, and yet so different. His face had the marks and lines of worry and stress. His father’s face had been too beautifully smooth—a sign of no expression. No emotion.
She reached up and massaged the worry from his brow with her thumbs.
He watched her, his gaze sad. “Do you regret—” He rushed on. “I’m clean. I swear. But I should’ve used a condom. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
A condom? Whoa. The thought hadn’t crossed her mind and normally it would’ve, but she couldn’t muster an ounce of concern. “No regrets. None at all.” She meant it too. No matter what happened. “I’m clean too. And I think we should do that again. I promise next time I won’t act weird afterward.” Damn. Damn. Damn. She shouldn’t have said that. She should leap out of this bed and run. Not have another go-round with him.
He dried her cheeks with his hands, his fingers rough and tender against her skin. “You want to talk about it?”
Did she want to talk about it?
Yes. It would be nice sharing the burden with someone who’d understand.
But no. That’d only cinch her all the more tighter to him emotionally.
She opened her mouth to tell him no, but that’s not what came out. What came out surprised even her. She told him all the terrible things she’d experienced after Killion. The string of foster homes, the lack of any true caring. Being an adult so completely alone in the world she might as well have been the only person on the earth. The Center and Dr. Payne and life in a giant cage where every look, action, gesture was monitored and scrutinized. Where Dr. Payne forced her to relive the worst moments of her life so he could get off on them.
Cain listened quietly, all his attention focused on her, and for the first time in her life, she felt really and truly heard. Everyone else—from the police investigating her case to the foster parents who wanted to sell her story—wanted something from her so they could capitalize on her pain. No one had ever just listened without expectation.
Never in her life had she lain in postorgasmic bliss with someone and talked. About important things. Being with Cain really did change everything.
“Did yesterday—what you saw at Liz’s—trigger your reaction? The bad memories. I never should have brought you there.”
“Me crying had nothing to do with that.” She hesitated, not certain if she should say more, but decided to anyway. “But I do have questions.”
“Ask me anything.” His words sounded sure-footed, but his tone tripped over itself. Openness of that kind didn’t come easily to her and probably didn’t exist for him either.
“What were you doing? Why did you have all that blood on you? Why were you sick?”
His eyes went unfocused, and she could tell he saw beyond her and into the past. “My father… He made me…” His body stiffened, as if bracing for an assault.
She hadn’t meant to bring up his past. She knew whatever she’d experienced with Killion had been fleeting—an endless evening—but what Cain had experienced had been an eternity. “You don’t have to tell me about him.”
“One of my earliest memories is…” He squeezed his eyes shut. The gesture reminded her of a little boy trying to hide under the covers from the monster beneath his bed. “…playing in…in…intestines.”
Flashes of color—red, pink, and white—speckled her vision. A gasp of revulsion slipped from her mouth. He flinched as if the sound were a physical blow she’d rained down upon him. Her soul wept for him. This powerful man, so feared because he was the son of a killer, had a hurt little boy inside him.
“I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.” Desperation dominated his tone.
“God, Cain. How could you know? You were a child.” She grabbed one of his hands and squeezed it between her own, offering every bit of reassurance she had to him.
“He just kept on…with the blood. My life revolved around blood. Mine. Or an animal’s. He killed my cat Boo Boo. Made me watch. Made me…” His voice was serrated with pain, then trailed off. “And then one day, I knew it wasn’t an animal’s blood.”
She was the world’s biggest wimp for having a meltdown over her life’s shit, when Cain’s life had been the epitome of hell from the moment he’d been born.
“I started seeing things, feelings things, hearing things when I touched blood. I saw through my father’s eyes, felt wh
at he had felt as he killed.” His eyes, squeezed so tightly shut, slowly opened. “All that exposure to blood, to my father… It did something to me. Changed me. Opened a connection that’s never gone away. When I have blood on me, I see, feel, hear, touch, and do what the killer does. I become a killer.”
“So yesterday at Liz’s, you…” She didn’t know what to call it. Didn’t have the words.
He swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet room. “Killed her.”
“You didn’t. You just saw it or… Wait. It’s kinda like you’re psychic or something.”
His expression turned questioning as if the thought had never occurred to him.
Had he truly never thought of that? “How else do you explain it?”
“I’m a monster. The son of my father.” The words sounded flat. Dead.
“Cain, no,” she softly scolded. “How could you think of yourself like that?” She clasped his hand that she still held to her heart.
His eyes, usually brighter than a blue sky, looked dull and sad and full of self-loathing.
She hated to see him that way. “You told me once you were a consultant. So you do what you did at Liz’s for other cases?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Why do you do that to yourself? I saw how sick it made you.”
“I usually just have a migraine. The severity of it depends on how deep I go. Most of the time I just see flashes of images and feelings, not whole scenes like I saw yesterday. The information I get from the blood helps catch killers and prevent more deaths. It’s worth it. Balances things out in a weird way.”
She understood—he was making up for the sins of his father. “You’re using something bad in your life for good. That’s noble.”
“Noble?” Undiluted shock sounded in his voice and fired on his face. “No one has ever called me noble.”
“Well, they should have. The sacrifices you make for others and get no recognition for—that’s noble. And courageous. Something to be proud of. Not ashamed.” She ran her fingers over the hard ridge of his jawline, the stubble teasing her skin. “Your ability brought us together. Isn’t that something? Something good?” Until she left anyway.
