The Debt

by Karina Halle

  “Get the fuck out of here!” I rage, stumbling out of bed, naked and ready to strangle him.

  “You shouldn’t have fallen in love,” he says with a smile just before my hands close around his throat and I push him back into the wall.

  Only there is no Lewis.

  He was never here.

  This was all in my head.

  I fall over into the corner, smacking my head on the edge of the closet doors.

  “Keir!” Jessica is yelling. “What’s going on?”

  Someone in the room on the other side of the wall bangs on it, telling us to shut up.

  I get up, holding the side of my head, trying to catch my breath even though it seems my lungs are missing. I am just heart beats, loud and rapid in my head like gunfire, like bombs, like missiles rattling against my skull. I have a war inside me and the enemy is winning.

  “Keir,” Jessica says again, quiet, panicked. Her voice is shaking so much she can barely form the words. “Please sit down, please. Everything is okay. It’s okay, we’re okay.”

  We’re not okay.

  I’m not okay.

  I don’t know where to go, what to do. I want to burst out the doors and run, maybe into the harbor until the water shocks me. Maybe Jessica had the right idea after all.

  “Please,” she says again and I finally look over to her, to see her reaching for me with her outstretched hands so helpless it both breaks my heart and makes me rage.

  Look what I’m doing to the woman I love.

  I come back to the bed, slowly, as if in a dream. The blood running through me is so hot I break a sweat. I am anger, I am fury, I am about to detonate and I have nowhere safe to go.

  Then it seizes me. My love for her, my need for her, my rage, my desperation.

  A tornado tears through my soul.

  I grab the corner of her blanket and throw it back, then yank her toward the side of the bed, her breasts jostling as I bring her to me.

  “Keir!” she cries out softly. “What are you doing?”

  I put my hand at the back of her neck, squeezing her tight before I kiss her, my tongue and mouth frenzied as I push between her lips.

  She opens in response, gasping as our mouths move together. There is nothing sweet and sensual about this kiss. It is angry, messy, wild. Our teeth bang together, mouths wet, the force hard. We are short of battling each other.

  My hand slips down to her breasts, I take a rough hold. She cries out softly as I bend over, taking her nipple to my mouth, pinching it between my teeth.

  I’m on fire everywhere. Her moans pour gasoline on the flames.

  My mouth takes small quick bites of her breasts, traveling up her chest to her collarbone, where I take the bone between my teeth before moving onto her neck.

  She gasps again, pained, as I suck and bite my way up toward her ear, nipping at her skin, but before long her moans are melding into something warm and wanting.

  I push her back onto the bed, driving my knee between her legs. She cries out over her bad leg. I’m being too rough, I know, but I’m too far gone to care. The need, the deep burning fuel is running through me, threatening to incinerate us both.

  I want to watch us burn together.

  I climb on top of her, pinning her arms down, my cock startlingly hard and pulsing. I push into her – hot, bare, raw – with one solid thrust. Her name is ripped from my lips as I shudder through the push, lost to the feeling before I grab her hips, my fingers pressing in so hard I’ll leave bruises and start pulling her into me, pumping wildly.

  I’ve never felt her like this before, so real, so tight and wet, it nearly makes me delirious. It makes me want more, each sensation that ripples through my cock, to my balls and up my spine. I’m starved at my very core and each push gets me deeper inside, further, further, until there is no coming back.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  My pumps get quicker, fueled by this lust, a desire so feral that I’m not even in control anymore. It’s instinct and it’s running through my veins in a hot, liquid rush.

  I fuck her so roughly that sweat is pouring off my brow and trickling onto her, making her breasts glisten. The bed moves in the same steady, frantic pace until the paintings on the wall come crashing down, narrowly missing us as they bounce to the floor and shatter.

  It’s a fucking war zone now, this bed, my cock, her cunt, a war I created, the one war I can win. She tries to raise her hips up, to grind into me, but my hips are merciless, brutal, loudly pounding against her thighs. I’m fucking her with all my strength and the strength of all my demons.

  The sheets pop off, I clamp my hand over her wrist and hold it above her head, pressing her down into the bed so we won’t fall off and I keep thrusting, grunting hoarsely in her ear. My arms are shaking, my neck corded and tense but the drive inside me won’t dissipate.

  Jessica lets out a groan that reaches into me and I feel my balls tighten. I’m close to coming.

  Breathlessly I keep pounding her, pulling back enough to watch her breasts bouncing, her eyes pinched shut, her wet, red mouth open as she cries out, coming hard. I’m fucking her until there’s nothing left of me.

  My skin is tight, burning, the tension curling up my spine. I have enough sense, enough strength, to grab my cock and pull it out at the last minute, my hand jerking it up and down, my shaft hot and slippery from being inside her. The slapping sound it makes is explicit, nearly crude.

  I come with a choked-off sound, my mouth frozen open, my leg muscles cramping as I pour out fast and hard, my cum shooting all over her stomach, breasts, neck, in spurts. I try to appreciate the sight of her all wet from me but I can barely breathe, barely move, barely think.

  I’m spent.

  Sated.

  Bloody exhausted.

  And, for once, at peace.

  She groans, her voice lazy from her orgasm. I quickly get off of the bed, careful to miss the broken glass on the floor from the fallen paintings, and grab a towel from the bathroom.

  I take my time gently wiping the cum off her chest, my breath slowly coming back to me, the sweat on my body cooling. The room smells like sex and I breathe it in deeply.

  “Are you okay?” I whisper to her.

  She stares up at me with soft eyes, sated and concerned all at once. “Are you okay?”

  It seems a rough fuck can’t erase what she witnessed earlier.

  I nod, swallow. “Yeah,” I say thickly. I clear my throat. “I’m okay.”

  I love you. Just thinking the words makes my heart feel weightless.

  I love you and that’s not okay.

  “Good,” she says and looks around her. “Shit. It looks like we fucking trashed the place.”

  “We’ll pay for it,” I tell her, kissing her on the forehead, tasting her sweet sweat. “It’ll all work out.”

  But as I crawl into bed, my arm going around her, my demons still dance with me.

  It will all work out?

  I have a hard time figuring out how that will ever happen now.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jessica

  Keir is keeping something big from me.

  I’ve known that from the very start. I’ve decided I could live with not knowing, that he could keep his secrets secret. Who was I to say otherwise? I’d been keeping the knowledge of the baby secret for so long, it was nearly a secret to myself.

  But after last night…I don’t want to be in the dark anymore. It’s not the night terrors that he has, or the fact that he yells at no one and attacks the walls. I’m not afraid for myself, because if his anger and strife is being translated into hot raw sex, then I’m not going to complain.

  I am afraid that he doesn’t trust me enough to let me in. That if I can’t get in, then I can’t become a part of his heart.

  I crave his heart. His beautiful, giant heart. I want it all to myself, I want to hold onto it and worship it and love it with all the power of my own. Keir is such an enigma, such a deep, c
omplex man and I respect that and whatever he’s gone through. But he needs to let me be a part of that pain. I have my own to carry – it would be nice to take on someone else’s burden for a change. Anything to release that pain he holds deep inside him.

  We’re both tired again, but at least we’re talking. We’re on a different level than we were yesterday. As rough and spontaneous as that middle-of-the-night, post-nightmare sex session was, it brought us closer. Keir mentioned once that we all have wars inside us. Keir doesn’t fuck me to escape the war in his heart. He brings the war to me, so we can fight it together. Lips, tongue, hands, teeth – last night we grappled for freedom with each thrust, each kiss, each moan. It’s a battle with no defeat and endless victories.

  I confessed some major to him last night but he has yet to confide in me. I still have something close to my chest, maybe that’s why. Maybe I need to finally let it free.

  Today we’re heading to the Isle of Skye, but Keir is determined to take an even more scenic way there, as if that’s even possible. I don’t care, to be honest. I’ve been taking enough photographs this trip to drive anyone insane, the whole north coast has been an overload for the senses, but what it comes down to now is that my eyes are drawn to the sight inside the car, not out.

  He is so, so beautiful. I’m studying him closely; the faint scars on his cheekbones, deep scratches on his knuckles, a deeper scar on his thick forearm as he drives with his sleeves rolled up. The more I look at him, the more I see new things. I wonder if I’m doing this because I’m trying to discover what’s hidden underneath, as if there are clues. The scarring on his ribs is definitely one, but it’s been there from the start.

  I also wonder if it’s because I’m memorizing every inch of him, afraid that at some point, we will part and my memories will be all I have left.

  My stomach sinks at the thought, a cold drop into the abyss. As exciting and refreshing – and yes, at turns terrifying – as this trip has been, I’ve been ignoring the little voice inside me that tells me that something isn’t right. It picks away at me, filling me with doubt and a foundation of dread. It’s not a lot but it’s there.

  And I ignore it because I don’t want to face any hard truths. I want to believe that in time, Keir will be mine, more than just body, but in heart and soul. That he’ll trust me with all his darkness. I want nothing more than to shine light on it and love him anyway.

  Love.

  That’s the real issue here. The real problem. The real reason why I’ve been ignoring my intuition.

  I’m in love with him. One hundred per cent.

  I can’t say if it happened last night. Maybe at the ruins. Maybe after he risked his life to jump into the sea and rescue me.

  Maybe it was the first moment we met, when he looked at me and liked what he saw. He saw all that I was and ignored everything that I wasn’t.

  It doesn’t matter when it happened but it happened. It’s a confusing, maddening and excruciatingly joyful. It’s such a new, virgin feeling to me, something that eclipses all else. I love him like I’ve never let myself love anyone.

  And with that thought comes terror. Because my heart is beating for him and if anything were to happen…I’m not sure I’d have a heart left.

  That’s why you shouldn’t ask for the truth, I remind myself. Let it be. The truth might ruin everything you have.

  It’s true. But I’m not sure how much longer we can go without it coming out in some way. And no matter what Keir’s done in the past, that’s his past, his point of reference. It doesn’t involve me and it can’t affect us.

  “You’re missing the scenery,” Keir notes, a half-smile quirking up his handsome lips. It’s hard to recall how rough he was last night, how those soft full lips could leave so many bite marks and bruises all over my body. Those, combined from the bruises from falling down the castle stairs, and I look like I’ve been beat up a few times.

  “I’d rather look at you,” I tell him. “Do I make you uncomfortable?”

  He grins. “As long as you’re checking me out and thinking how bloody sexy I am, I don’t have a problem with it.”

  Even so, I turn my attention back to the drive for a bit. The peninsula we’ve headed out on is unlike anything I’ve seen on the trip so far. We started off taking a side road heading west, which put us in the shadow of Quinag, a giant monolith with steep, craggy sides, its top perpetually buried by cloud. It has this primal, almost prehistoric feel to it, like it’s remained untouched since the dawn of the planet. Beneath it, roaring rivers flow, flush with the heavy rains, and the heather and peat roll for miles and miles. Like the rest of the North Coast 500 journey so far, the road is a single lane, though we haven’t passed a single car.

  This truly is like no place I’ve seen, just the way the scenery varies from minute to minute. At one part I’m guessing we’re on a plateau of moors so bleak it resembles the Arctic tundra, so high that clouds are kissing the road. The next we’re cruising down a twisting road toward the sea, where little stone houses line water so clear and aquamarine that it looks straight from the tropics.

  I’m not ashamed to admit that I make Keir stop a million times and each time he patiently obliges. I know he wants us to get to Skye before nightfall in order to take in some of the sights there, but he doesn’t say a word. I take pictures of everything from sheep scratching their butts on bus stop benches in Drumbeg, to the white sand beach of Clashnessie, to the cutest little bright blue café that ever was (literally the size of a closet and the only place to get food for miles) in the busy camping spot of Clachtoll Beach.

  If anything, he watches me with pride, taking amusement in my amusement, and dare I say it could be something else. Something I would die to have.

  We finally take a proper break after we pick up some savory pies from the town of Lochniver. We stop at the ruins of Ardvreck Castle, another place that takes your breath away. Here the narrow swatch of Loch Assynt runs alongside the road, the water reflecting the deep grey clouds, while a few lone outcrops of Scotch Pine stand on tiny islands, the only trees for miles.

  At the end of the loch is the castle, or what’s left of it. According to my Lonely Planet, it used to be an imposing structure, though now all that’s standing is part of the defending wall and one of the towers. The castle itself sits on a peninsula, a narrow neck of sandy beach with a ribbon of grass down the middle.

  While we cross over the peninsula, I decide to do something brash. Though he’s juggling the takeaway boxes, I hand Keir my cane.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “I want to see if I can walk without it,” I tell him, taking a careful step. Lately I’ve been pushing myself in little ways, like walking across the room without my cane, going to the bathroom without it, etc. The splint already does a good job of stabilizing my leg but I want to push it further. I want to be able to walk without it.

  “Shouldn’t we do this on flat ground?’ he asks, gesturing to the lumps of grass in front of me.

  I give him a brave smile. “If I learn to do it here, then flat ground is a piece of cake. Besides, it will hurt less if I fall.”

  He frowns. I can tell he doesn’t agree with this but it doesn’t matter. I’m doing this.

  And I am.

  I embrace the fact that I might fall, that I might embarrass myself in front of the handful of tourists taking photos of the castle ruins, that I might hurt myself.

  But it doesn’t matter. I’ll get back up.

  I make it halfway across the peninsula when my foot hits a soft patch and I pitch forward, this time managing to turn my other side so I don’t make the bruises worse.

  The grass is soft and cool and I land with an “oof.”

  Keir strides over to me. “Are you okay?”

  I glance up at him and smile. “I am.”

  He holds out his hand but I shake my head. “I have to do it on my own.”

  I get up on my good leg and use my abs to haul myself up the rest of the way. I r
est my bad foot on the ground, daring to put on full pressure. It hurts but it’s not excruciating. I don’t want to test it further and cause any damage but it’s a good sign. In time, there won’t be any pain at all.

  Relief floods through me. I turn and grab my cane with one hand and hold onto Keir’s hand with the other. “No problem.”

  He chuckles. “Glad to hear. Want to turn back?”

  “And miss this castle? I doubt there are any stairs here for me to tumble down and even if there were, I don’t care. Let everyone see. I got back up.”

  “That’s my fucking girl,” he says, pulling me to him and kissing me, the soft press of his mouth to mine. So simple but I can feel the pride through his lips. “Ariel got her legs after all.”

  “She did.” I squeeze his hand and we continue across the peninsula to the castle.

  I can’t climb up to the ruins and look through the windows – the path is rubble – but Keir does and I take a few photos of him as his silhouette comes through the frame. With the verdant hills behind him and the crumbling tower, he looks like he could be a Game of Thrones character, ready to fight, ready to fuck.

  And he’s mine.

  He’s mine.

  I smile into the cool, fresh wind and feel that relief pour through me, knowing that he’s not going anywhere.

  But then the truth from earlier slams into me like a cold fist.

  He’s not mine yet.

  Not with his past between us.

  I wait until he climbs back down and we find a soft mound to sit on and tear into our sandwiches, the loch lapping at the shore just feet away.

  “I want to ask you something,” I tell him, putting half the pie away in the greasy box, saving it for later. “And I want you to be one hundred percent honest with me, no matter what. Even if it hurts.”

  He stops chewing. Swallows it down his throat. “Okay.”

  I haven’t seen a lot of fear in Keir but I think I see it now. The tick of a muscle in his throat, tense lines forming at the corners of his eyes.