Only him.
“Look at me,” he murmured again when her lids drooped low. He wanted to tell her. He’d been waiting two years to do it, and when he said it, he wanted to see her face when he did. He slowed the rhythm of his thrusts until he was barely rocking inside her.
She reached up, cupped his face in her hands. “I am looking. I see you, baby,” she whispered, her voice soft and sweet.
“I love you, Taige.”
Her eyes widened. Then her hands went around his neck, and her arms tightened. Willing, Cullen sank down against her and hugged her tight. Her lips brushed against his ear, and she murmured, “I love you.”
They held each other like that, tight and close, Cullen rocking against her with those slow, easy thrusts. They came together, and it was so damned perfect, when it was done, Cullen could feel tears burning his eyes. But he didn’t want her to see them, so he kept his face buried in her hair until he felt level again.
When he pulled out of her a few minutes later, he realized he hadn’t put a rubber on. Taige pushed up onto her elbows, staring at his penis, still half erect and wet. “Shit,” he muttered. A rueful grin curved his lips. “We sort of forgot something.”
“Yeah, I’ll say.” Taige could feel him, wet on her thighs. She studied his face, tried to figure out what he might be thinking. He didn’t seem mad or really even worried.
He blew out a breath and dropped down to sit with his legs drawn up. They stared at each other, and finally he asked, “Think you can get pregnant?”
Taige rolled her eyes. “I’m a girl, aren’t I?”
“I meant . . .” He waved a hand toward the tangled quilt on the floor. “From this. Today.”
She shook her head. “Probably not.” Then Taige narrowed her eyes. “But what if I did?”
He reached out and snagged her wrist, jerking her into his lap. “We’d deal with it.” He rested a hand on her belly, frowning a little. “Don’t think I’m ready to be a parent. But we’d deal with it.” Then he looped his arms around her and just held her.
You’re the amazing one, Taige thought silently. He’d said that to her on the beach last weekend, but he’d been wrong. She wasn’t amazing. A bit of a freak, for certain, but not amazing.
Cullen, though, was. He had his whole life ahead of him, and it was the kind of life she hadn’t ever dared to dream about. Rich, smart, and capable, he could have anything he wanted. The thought of an unplanned baby thrown into the mix ought to terrify him.
We’d deal with it.
“Yeah,” she murmured against his neck. “Yeah, we would.”
“IT’S the same girl.” Taige met Cullen’s eyes over the thick mug of tea he had made for her. “I keep dreaming about her. Pretty little thing, black hair, green eyes, has these Shirley Temple curls. She was sitting in an airport this time.”
“How many times now?” Cullen asked, puzzled.
She shook her head. “Too many. For nearly two years now. Always the same thing. She’s sitting there. Then she’s gone. Just . . . missing.”
He started to respond, and then his phone rang. He looked at it and swore. “Shit. It’s my dad.”
Taige looked up at the clock hanging over the sink. It was red with little roosters in place of numbers. She’d bought it for Rose years ago, and it had been hanging on that wall ever since. Right now, the hour hand was on rooster number ten. Almost ten o’clock. Cullen had told her last night he had to get home by nine thirty so he could pack his stuff.
They were leaving today. It left a cold knot in her chest. His leaving always hurt, but this time was harder.
He spoke to his dad, promised he’d be there soon, apologized. Then he hung up the phone and looked at Taige. “I have to go,” he murmured.
She forced herself to smile. He came to the chair and crouched down beside her, resting his head in her lap. “I don’t want to leave yet,” he murmured. Then he turned and kissed her belly.
“You have to.” She wouldn’t let herself cry. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. Just need a few minutes to settle.”
He lifted his head and stared at her. “It’s not just that.” One big, warm hand rested on her thigh, and he squeezed gently. “And it’s not just this, either. Leaving you gets harder and harder every time.”
“I hate it, too.” Then she grinned weakly. “But knowing it sucks for you, too, makes it a little easier.”
“Will you come to Georgia? Come for Christmas.”
He’d asked her before. She’d always said no. But this time . . . She leaned in and kissed him. “Maybe.”
Grabbing her in his arms, he stood, lifting her out of the chair and spinning her around. “You’ll come.” Then he lowered her feet to the ground, his smile fading. He placed his hand on her belly. “You’ll call me and let me know, right?”
She didn’t need to ask him what about. She nodded. But she already knew she wasn’t pregnant. She hadn’t gotten her period or anything, but she just knew.
THREE
November 1996
LATE one night, right before Thanksgiving, Taige rolled out of bed, hit the floor on her hands and knees, and puked. She puked until she had emptied her stomach right there on Rose’s worn, polished floors. She puked until she had nothing left inside her, and then she just dry heaved until she almost choked with it.
Rose came running in, woken from a sound sleep. “Damn, girl, what the hell . . .”
She took one look at Taige’s face and spun around. Taige continued to hover there on her hands and knees, unable to move, frozen inside. When Rose returned with a wet rag, Taige couldn’t even take it. The older, smaller woman had to strong-arm Taige into a sitting position, and she ended up wiping Taige’s face like a child’s.
“Cullen . . .” She forced the words out.
Rose shook her head, her eyes going wide. “No, baby, please don’t tell me . . .”
Taige shook her head. “Call him. It’s . . . it’s his mother.”
There was no answer though, not through that long night. Not the following morning. By ten, she was itching to be with Cullen, and Taige couldn’t wait anymore. She convinced Rose to let her borrow the Jeep. The drive to Atlanta was long and agonizing. She pulled over three times to try calling him again on pay phones, but there was no answer. She hadn’t ever wanted a cell phone, but on that long, dreary drive, she wished she’d gotten one.
She ended up lost and had to pull over and ask for directions to Georgia State University. Then she had to ask for directions to his dorm. But he wasn’t there. His roommate, some vacant-eyed weird guy with a grunge thing going on, answered the door and mumbled, “He left for home. Dunno when he’ll be back.”
So she had to leave again, get on the expressway and head north, going to the little town where she’d been invited to spend Christmas. She hadn’t ever been to Cullen’s home where he lived with his parents, but she recognized it from some pictures. It was huge, a sprawling three-story building made from what looked like creek stone, with huge windows and a driveway full of cars. She had to park at the very end, and she made her way up the driveway on legs that shook.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
She knocked, and when Cullen answered, she didn’t know what to say.
“You knew.” His voice was stark and harsh, and it hit her like a slap on the face.
“No.” She licked her lips and shook her head. “Not until yesterday.”
“She was killed two days ago.” He reached out, grabbed her arm, and pulled her inside, pulling her along behind him, ignoring the people who called his name as he led her up one flight of stairs and then another. When he finally stopped, it was inside a huge room that was nearly as big as Rose’s entire house. “Two fucking days ago, Taige. Some sick fuck grabbed her outside the mall, forced her into his car, raped her, and choked her to death. Why didn’t you help her?”
Taige shook her head. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she felt sick inside. Useless . . . “I didn’t know in time, Cullen. I
swear, if I had . . .”
She reached out for him, and he pulled back. He shook his head and said, “Don’t. Okay? Just . . .” He turned away from her, and his broad shoulders slumped as he covered his face. A harsh sob escaped him, followed by another and another.
With timid steps, she moved toward him. She touched his back, waited for him to pull away. When he didn’t, she slid her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his back. “I’m so sorry, Cullen.”
He reached down and grabbed her wrist. She waited for him to push her away, but instead, he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face against her neck as he cried. “Shhhh . . .” she murmured against his hair, rocking him and stroking his back, his neck, wherever she could reach.
His hands roamed restlessly up and down her back as he cried. He clutched her to him, almost desperately. But as the storm of grief eased, he pulled back. Pulled away completely. “What are you doing here, Taige?” he murmured, easing back from her. He walked away, disappearing through a door on the far end of the room. She trailed behind him, uncertain how to answer that.
“I . . . I wanted to be with you.” She peered around the doorjamb into a bathroom that was easily three times the size it needed to be. It had a huge sunken tub on one end underneath a huge window. There was a separate shower that had two showerheads. The toilet was behind a little wall. Cullen stood at the sink, his hands braced on its smooth, glossy black surface.
He laughed, and it was a hollow, jagged sound that hurt her just to hear it. “Be with me. Why?” he asked, lifting his head so that he could meet her gaze in the reflection. “You want to comfort me? Make me feel better?”
Taige didn’t have any answer for him. She stood there, staring at him and feeling so damn useless. Useless. It was worse than evil sometimes. At least evil accomplished its goal. Useless didn’t accomplish anything.
“You knew she was already gone, didn’t you? When you headed up here?” He looked away from her, as though he couldn’t even manage to look at her reflection.
“Yeah.” She had to force the word out, and it was like squeezing it out through a pipe lined with rusty nails.
“When it was too late. Why couldn’t it come sooner, Taige? You’ve saved little kids right in front of my eyes. People that were total strangers to you. Why couldn’t you save my mom?” he asked quietly.
He turned to stare at her, and his eyes seemed to burn clear through her.
“Cullen . . .”
He crossed toward her. When he reached for her, Taige held still, hardly able to move. That intensity on his face—it almost scared her. His hands came up, cupping her face and forcing her to look at him when all she really wanted was to look away. Hide. Hide from the shame that he had dragged out from inside her. Useless. Failure . . . “You have this amazing gift. But you hide from it, don’t you? You hide yourself and screw the people you could help.”
Taige flinched as though he had slapped her, jerking away from him. She wished he would have hit her. She could handle being hit a hell of a lot easier than she could handle this . . . this contempt. It cut through with laser-sharp acuity, tearing something deep inside, and she knew it was going to leave a scar. Some wounds didn’t ever heal, and this was going to be one of them.
Nervous, Taige backed her way out of the room with some barely formed idea of escape circling through her head. But Cullen followed her, advancing each time she retreated, and when she backed herself up against a fat, wide couch situated under yet another window, he lifted his arms, bracketing her into place. “Nothing to say, Taige?” he asked softly.
Digging her fingers into the plush padding of the couch, Taige stared at him. Her throat felt tight. There was a knot in it that felt the size of a golf ball. It took two tries before she managed to force any words out. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Cullen. I’m . . .” Sorry. It sounded so lame, so empty. His mother was dead, and she had nothing for him but some trite, meaningless phrase that anybody could say. Frustrated, she brought her hands up and smoothed them down over her hair. The wild curls sprang right back into place, but she was doing it more out of nerves than anything. “I’ve already told you how sorry I am. I know how this hurts—”
The completely wrong thing to say, she realized about two seconds too late. Cullen’s eyes narrowed. His hand flew up, this time fisting in her hair so that if she did move away, she was going to have to leave some hair behind. “You know how this hurts,” he repeated softly, his voice incredulous, as though he simply couldn’t believe she had just said that.
Her voice shook as she said, “I lost my mama, too, Cullen. I lost my mama and my dad, and I was just a little kid when it happened. I didn’t have anybody. So yeah, I do know how it hurts.”
Cullen shook his head. “You can’t know, Taige. Your parents died in an accident. Yes, a drunk driver killed them, but he didn’t do it on purpose. And they didn’t suffer. My mom? He raped her. He beat her. He choked her to death. The entire time, she probably knew she wasn’t going to get out of it alive. And I couldn’t help her; I didn’t know anything about it until she was already dead.” He dipped his head low, putting his face right into hers. His eyes were turbulent and angry, and they filled her vision so that she couldn’t see anything but that furious, tormented gaze. “And the bitch of it all, Taige? It’s that I could have done something. Could have done something to help her, to save her. You could have.”
“No,” she argued, her voice low, furious with denial. She shook her head. There was a scream inside her close to breaking free, but Taige wasn’t going to let herself scream. She wasn’t going to give in to her tears; she didn’t deserve that luxury. “No, I couldn’t, Cullen. I can’t control how it works; you know that.”
“What I know is that you’ve never tried,” he replied. “You don’t try to control it. You pretend it isn’t even there until one of those dreams comes on you. You don’t act—you react.”
Anger finally worked its way through the sense of futility. She placed her hands against his chest and shoved against him, but he barely budged. “You don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about,” she snarled. “You don’t.”
“I know I’m right.” He reached up and closed his fingers around her wrists and jerked her flat against him. “And so do you.”
“Let go of me.” Taige arched back, trying to work her hands between them and shove him away, but he held her so close, she couldn’t do much more than squirm against him.
“Why?” He dipped his head. She braced herself. She saw the fury in his gaze, and the pain. Emotions like that blinded people to everything but the hurt and the pain and the anger. None of them were gentle emotions, and Cullen was caught in the grip of them.
But he didn’t crush his mouth against hers. Though he held her tight, his hands were gentle. His grip was unbreakable, but he didn’t hurt her. He brushed his lips over the top of her shoulder then up her neck to her ear. “You want to make me feel better, Taige? Is that why you’re here?”
She swallowed. “I just wanted to be here for you,” she said. Oh, damn. Was that shaky, breathy voice really hers?
A broad, rough palm stroked down her side then slid under the plain black T-shirt she wore. “Then be here,” he muttered. “Right here.” He straightened and grabbed the hem of her shirt, shoving it up until it was trapped under her arms. He stooped and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her up and planting her butt on the back of the couch. He licked her nipple through the black cotton of her bra and then gently bit her. Taige arched, pressing against him. She reached for him, but he caught her hands, pushing them down and holding them at her sides as though he didn’t want her touching him.
“Cullen . . .”
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