by Sienna Blake
I’m startled out of my thoughts when Caden’s breathing deepens into the rumble of a light snore. He has fallen asleep before me. He has never fallen asleep before me. He’s a light sleeper and he always seems to wake as well if I ever wake in the night. Suddenly I’m completely aware of him behind me. I can feel his chest pressing at my back with every inhale and his breath moving my hair with every exhale.
I want desperately to know what he looks like when he’s sleeping. I could turn and look at him. Just look at him. Just one look. No harm in looking, right? I wouldn’t be breaking any rules…
I start to turn, slowly, shifting minutely so as not to disturb his arm laying over me then pausing so as not to wake him. I tense up when he shifts. My heart is beating heavily but steadily. He mumbles something. I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. He’s going to wake any minute now. Any minute now.
I hear him mumble again. He seems to settle. He didn’t wake? When I hear his breathing even out again, I count five full excruciatingly slow minutes before I open my eyes and start to move again. Slowly, slowly, he comes into view as I turn to face him.
If it’s possible, he’s even more beautiful when he’s asleep. The hardness of his jaw has softened and his lips fall into a relaxed pout. He looks young and vulnerable. I can’t help the smile that pulls at my lips. This big loving bear of a man is mine. My Cade. I want to press my lips to his. I want to touch his face. I want to brush the hair from his forehead. But I don’t. Surely it will wake him.
My gaze travels down his thick neck and to his wide chest. I have never laid my hand on his chest but even through this thin dark t-shirt I can see the fullness of his solid muscles. The skin that peaks out from the top of his shirt teases me with the start of dark curls. My fingers flinch out, but I hold them back. I am aching to touch him. But I can’t. I shouldn’t.
Rule number two: He can touch me, but I can’t touch him.
Why the hell not? a voice in me demands. He’s mine, surely I can touch what’s mine.
No. No. Those are the rules. Remember the rules.
I stare at the patch of skin I can see at the top of his shirt. I wonder what the skin there would feel like. Hard yet smooth, I imagine. I can’t tear my eyes from his skin. Do I dare?
Just one touch when he’s asleep. Just one. There’s no harm in that, is there?
I check his face. His eyes are still closed. He sounds like he’s still asleep.
Just one touch. He would never have to know.
I’m barely breathing as I bend my elbow and lift my hand. My movements are torturously slow, a contrast to the rapid increase of my heartbeat. Slow. Controlled. Closer. Closer. I pause an inch away from his chest. Did his breath hitch? My eyes flicker between his face and his chest. No. I don’t think he’s awake. His breathing is steady and he hasn’t moved.
I uncurl my fingers and brush the collar of his shirt, lightly. I thrill with the forbidden contact. But I still haven’t touched him. I reach out further until my fingertips brush at the hair at the base of his neck.
He moves so fast my body jolts. His fingers clamp down on my wrist so tightly I swear it almost breaks. His eyes open before they narrow.
“What the hell are you doing?” His voice pools like blackened liquid in my ears giving me chills.
I gape but nothing comes out of my mouth.
“I said, what the hell are you doing?”
For a moment I can’t speak. My body and my heart are frozen in ice and I’m numb except for where he’s gripping me. Gripping me tighter than he has ever gripped me before. I try to pull away, but his grip tightens.
“You’re hurting me,” I whisper as I fight the urge to cry. He’s hurting me. He means to hurt me.
“You’re hurting me, Jacob.”
“I’m hurting you? You’re fucking hurting me, princess.” He slams his left hand against his chest and it makes a sharp deep thudding noise. “Right here. You’re hurting me right fucking here.”
Caden looks down to my wrist. As if he just realized it, he snatches his hand away. “I didn’t mean to.” The darkness fades from his eyes. It’s replaced with a ghost. The glare he gives me is so unkind it crushes me. “What were you doing?” he asks again. The volume of his voice has lowered, but his words are short and clipped and it pinches at my heart.
“I just wanted to look at you. You look so peaceful when you sleep.”
His eyes narrow even further. He knows I’m lying.
“Turn around.”
I do. He doesn’t throw his arm around me or tuck me into his body like he usually does.
“I thought you understood the rules. I thought I could trust you.” His voice is hard and devoid of warmth. I fight the urge to shiver.
“You can.” Shit. I’m an idiot. Stupid, stupid girl.
“Why would you try to go against me?”
I want to scream at him, “Because this urge to know you grows with every night we spend together. Because I wear this curiosity under my clothes and it’s rough and itches at my skin. Because I burn with unfairness that you can see me and touch me but I can’t see or touch you back.” But I don’t.
“I would never deliberately hurt you. Never. But if you break my rules again… it would have to be over between us.”
“Over?” My voice shakes. No. Over a stupid rule? That doesn’t even make sense.
“How can I be with you if I no longer trust you?”
I go cold with fear. He can’t leave me. He can’t. I’ll die. The emptiness and loneliness that was there before he came into my life will yawn wide open and swallow me and I’ll starve in this desert of my own making.
“I won’t do it again.” I squeeze my eyes shut and pray that I can keep this curiosity at bay.
“Go to sleep.”
I don’t argue. I lay there terrified. Terrified because I can feel that this need to uncover Caden is growing into something I can’t contain anymore. Even at the risk of losing him forever. Am I sadistic? Am I so messed up that I am trying to sabotage the only happiness in my life?
Strangely enough, the risk of losing him just makes the need to get inside his life that much stronger. The more I know about him, the more I need to know. I can see this vicious cycle tunneling out into my future, turning back upon itself over and over until it disappears into a single point. A single fixation.
I can only pray that the next time I break his rules, I won’t get caught.
Chapter 4
By morning, like always, Caden is gone. As I wake alone in this Midnight Falls cabin, I am left scrabbling for a ghost and clutching at sheets that have already gone cold. For a moment I wonder if I have dreamed him up, if Caden is only a figment of my imagination. I feel the lovely tenderness between my legs and the slight soreness around my wrists and I know he’s real.
I shut my eyes as the wave of emptiness rushes in. I miss him already. I try to force myself to sleep so I can go a little longer without the sinking, bludgeoning knowledge that he has gone and that I don’t know when I’ll see him again.
Sleep doesn’t come, not when the pillow smells of his hair and the sheets smell like us. The scent of rose petals release into the air around me as I roll over them and crush them. A sharp need tightens my belly as I remember how the roses came to be scattered around the bed last night.
I wonder if I’ll ever be able to smell roses again without thinking of Caden. Even if it was someone else giving me those roses. He didn’t lie when he said he would ruin me for all other men.
After four months of our own version of togetherness, what do I know about Caden Thaine?
I know that he loves architecture – Baroque and modern but not art deco. I know he can’t sing to save his life. I know he drinks single-malt scotch neat and shakes his head with sadness at anyone who taints the scotch with coke.
I know that he doesn’t believe in God. But he believes in the existence of evil. I know, just like me, he has seen pain in his past that would make the pages of a horror nove
l bleed. I know, just like me, he is always looking over his shoulder, and sometimes he flinches at shadows.
I know when he touches me his palms are large and rough and calloused. I wonder if he does woodworking or carpentry. He definitely works with his hands. I know that his body seated behind me on his motorbike is hard and strong. Maybe this is just from the gym. Maybe it’s not.
He’s an enigma. On one hand he has the charm and conversation of a well-bred gentleman. He has more money than I could ever fathom, evident by the fact that part of my wardrobe is worth more money than my yearly salary working at the bar. But his hands and his body are rough and thick and well used. He is my enigma. I wouldn’t have him any other way.
I don’t care about the dresses or the money or the nice places he takes me. Some of my favorite dates have been where he has spent nothing on me and it is just him and me, hidden from the world.
Tonight’s shift at work just seems to drag. By the time the customers leave it is close to 1 a.m. I’m wiping tables and Jeff is behind the counter counting the till when Dixie and Robert, the chef, bust out of the kitchen together singing in an ear-splitting, off-key tone. It takes me a moment to realize the song is Happy Birthday to You. Dixie is out front carrying a small chocolate cake with a single lit candle. Behind her Robert carries a tray of small plates and a knife. I frown when I realize they are headed towards me.
I stare in bewilderment as the cake is placed down in front of me. By now, Jeff has joined in too. The three of them end their birthday serenade in a long melodramatic wail. I wonder if Dix is already drunk.
“But… it’s not my birthday,” I say when their voices finally fade.
Dixie slaps my arm. “That’s ‘cause you won’t tell me when your God damn birthday is, hon. Jesus, I can’t believe how young you look, you’re already hiding your age.”
I blink, still confused.
She continues, “Everybody needs a birthday celebration, and I figure if you won’t tell me when it is, then today is as good a day as any to celebrate it.” She grins.
I stare at their three faces, then at the small cake and candle. How long has it been since I’ve had a birthday cake? How long has it been since I’ve had anyone to celebrate it with? I clench my jaw to stop the prickle behind my lids. “Maybe there’s a reason I don’t celebrate my birthday.”
Dixie’s face drops. Robert frowns. I hear Jeff admonish me under his breath.
Shit. I’m a complete bitch. My anger dissolves under the heat of shame at my outburst. Dixie didn’t deserve it. And I don’t deserve this cake.
“Shit,” I mumble, staring at the table. I can’t even look at her at the moment. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I’m just…” …a messed up excuse for a human being.
She smiles and steps closer to me so she can hook her arm into mine. “Well, if you can’t be a moody cow on your birthday, when can you be?” She winks at me and I can’t help but crack a smile. She is too easy to forgive me. “So…” she beams her pink-lipsticked smile at me, “blow out the God dang candle then so we can eat this sucker. Robert came in early especially to bake it for ya.”
I stare at the flickering candlelight on top of the homemade cake. This is dangerous. I can’t let myself believe that this is real, that their friendship is real. I can’t get attached. It wouldn’t be good for me and it wouldn’t be good for them.
But there’s nothing much I can do except go along with this fake celebration. I lean down towards the candle and inhale.
“Don’t forget to make a wish,” she says.
I wish I didn’t have to be so alone.
I catch Jeff’s eyes.
“You can wish for me,” he says, “don’t fight it.”
The breath I inhaled huffs out my nostrils and I can’t help but laugh. He nods, looking pleased.
“Jeff.” Dix admonishes him with a slap to the back of the head.
I inhale again. And exhale, blowing out my candle. During that exhale, I let myself hope.
Dixie makes me sit while Robert begins to cut the cake. She won’t let me help serve or anything. “It’s your birthday,” she keeps saying. “Relax.”
Jeff disappears into the back for a moment. He reappears, clearly hiding something behind his back. He sits in the seat opposite me with a sheepish look on his face and his hands move quickly under the table.
I peer at him curiously. “What’s up?”
“Just a little something for you.” He pulls up an A4 envelope from under the table and pushes it across to me.
For me? I reach out and pull it towards me with the tips of my fingers, smiling. Until I see my fake name lettered across the front. My fake name. To go with this fake life. And this fake birthday celebration. It reminds me that it doesn’t matter how much I want to let myself be friends with these people, I can’t. Because it’s all a lie.
“It’s your birthday present,” he says.
“You shouldn’t have.” My voice sounds dull. I notice Dixie pausing as she fusses over the cake slices. Even Robert’s eyes are on me. God, I feel like such a shit.
Jeff shrugs. “Whatever. If you don’t like it just pretend you do and you can throw it away later, ‘kay?”
I stare at Jeff now slumped back in his chair, arms crossed. I recognize the vulnerability that he hides under the smirk. I hear the desperate need in his voice for me to like what he has given me, shrugged over with a mask of “I don’t care”. I know these things because I’m looking at him as if I’m looking in a mirror.
Suddenly I don’t feel so alone.
I stand up and walk over to Jeff. He watches me, suspicion clearly in his eyes. I lean down from behind him, wrap one arm around him and squeeze. “Thanks, Jeff. I love it already no matter what it is because you gave it to me.”
I hear him in my ear, “You so want me.”
I push him away and slap his arm but only half seriously. I sit back down in my seat and am pleased to see his demeanor has changed in a snap. He’s grinning at me and bouncing lightly in his chair. “Open it, open it.”
“Alright already.” I open the flap and peer inside. It’s just a single piece of paper. I slip two fingers in the envelope to grip the paper and notice it’s thicker than normal paper. I pull it out.
It’s a sketch of the four of us − Jeff, Dixie, Robert and me, our faces done in pencil. It is frickin’ brilliant. He has shadowed the sketch so well it pops out from the page. Along the bottom of the page he has written, “Your family away from home”. A small sob chokes me and I strain not to let it out.
“I love it,” I breathe.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
I do. But I can’t keep it. I have to throw it away as soon as I get home. I can’t get attached.
I can pretend, can’t I, just for the moment that I am part of this family?
I force a smile to my face.
Robert hands around the small slices of cake on little white plates with black and white dotted party napkins. I cut into my slice of cake with my fork and pop the first piece into my mouth. It’s moist and rich with a dark chocolate cream filling and a matching layer of icing. He has even added piped icing around the base and top edge of the cake and placed several pink marzipan roses with pale green leaves across the top. I wonder at how this giant of a man was able to produce such a delicate and pretty cake. The bar becomes silent for the moment except for little moans of culinary pleasure.
“Thank you, Robert,” I mouth to him when I catch his eye. He nods back.
Robert is a big man with a soft voice and skin as dark as night. He’s soft-spoken and loyal to Dixie, always guarding her like a bear. I often catch the edge of ink against his skin around his arm when his sleeves shift up. I know it’s jail ink. I have seen jail ink before. I wonder what he did time for. I wonder how he came to meet Dixie. I know not to ask. I just know that I feel an odd sense of comfort with Robert around. We both have a past, a story. Again, I feel less alone.
Everyone finishes th
eir cake in no time.
“Well, my honeys,” Dixie says, jumping up from her seat. “You know what we need to do now?” She makes her way to the bar.
“Go home to bed?” I offer.
Jeff nods his head enthusiastically at me.
I roll my eyes at him. “Our own beds, Jeff.”
He shrugs. “One day you’ll stop being so scared to admit what we have.”
I shake my head and turn my attention back to the bar behind which Dixie has disappeared. What is that woman doing?
“Dixie?” I call out. “What is it that we need to do now?”
Her head of flame shoots up from behind the bar like it was just fed a blast of oxygen. “Shots!”
I groan.
She returns to the table with a bottle of whiskey and four shot glasses on a tray. When she picks up the unopened bottle, I catch the label.
I gasp. “Dix, that’s an 18-year-old Macallan. You can’t open that. Not for me. It’s too much.”
She raises an eyebrow at me. “So… your man is a scotch drinker, hey?”
I feel my cheeks flush. “Why do you say that?”
She grins at me. “I notice that’s not a denial. Honey, when you first got here, you didn’t know your single malts from your blended. Hell, you didn’t know your rums from your whiskies. Now you’re familiar with high-end scotch brands?” She raises an eyebrow at me.
Rats. Under all that hair is one hell of a brain. Nothing gets past her.
I sigh. “Okay, so maybe he drinks whiskey. Macallan is one of his favorites.”
Dixie points the lid of the scotch bottle at me in triumph. “I knew you had a man. Didn’t I say she had a man, Robbie?” she nudges the big guy.
“Yes, ya did, Dixie. Yes, ya did.” Robert speaks in his low rolling tone.
“And he drinks Macallan, Robbie. That’s my kinda man.” She turns to me. “So when we gonna meet him?”
I cringe. This is exactly why I didn’t want anyone to know about Cade.
