Unravel

by Tara Lynn

“I don’t understand the MC, but I get it’s deep in you,” I said. “But I know there’s things you care about deeper than that. Things you truly love. Me, for one.”

  His face edged up towards me, my heart fluttered and I found myself beaming. “You’d get to be with me. And you’d get to do the other thing you love almost as much. You’d get to play for one of the best teams in the country, at one of the best schools in the country. Even if one thing doesn’t work out the rest will. There’s so much possibility.”

  He took deep scooping breaths. His eyes flickered to mine, but kept landing on the bed. “I made a promise to the MC,” he said. “I can't just walk away.”

  “Promise? They're not the freaking US army. They have you deliver drugs. You didn't sign a contract.”

  “No, no paper. But there are deeper commitments out there.”

  “Deeper commitments.” I gripped Rett's hands. “What about me? You were committed to me. You fought to protect me.”

  The edges of his face grew darker.

  “Why do you care so much about me?” he said.

  “What?”

  His eyes glowed. “I wanted to help, yeah. But then I hurt you. And now you're out here batting for me. You don't even know what I did, and you're trying to fix my life. Why? What changed?”

  “I...I don't know.”

  “You don't know why you forgave me.”

  His look wasn't burning now, though. It was pleading, as if I could grant him some absolution. From what?

  “There isn't a reason,” I said. “Maybe I'm just being stupid. I just saw you were still in there. I thought you’d come back to me.”

  Rett shook his head. “I can’t come back, not as who I was. Things happened that I can’t take back. You shouldn't want me around.”

  His whole body looked slumped. I grabbed the sheet and flapped it in his face. “It doesn't matter. You don't even have to think about me. Do this for you.”

  He took the sheet and read it as if it was news to him. He slowly shook his head. “I don't deserve this.”

  “We don't get what we deserve,” I said softly. “Did I deserve what happened to me?”

  I thought that would reach him, but it didn't. He sat heavy at the edge of his bed. “You don't,” he said. “But I do. I don't deserve this. And I don't deserve you.”

  I sat next to him, and curled up. “But you have us both,” I said.

  We sat there silently. I didn't understand why, but I understood his darkness all too well. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it wasn't about him at all.

  I shut the door and came back in front of him.

  “Fine,” I said. “Don’t think about what you deserve.”

  He looked up, eyes dimmed against hope.

  “Do it because I need you there.”

  I sat in his lap facing him, nuzzling deep into his neck. “I don't want to go there without you, Rett,” I said.

  “You'll be fine,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through my chest. “You're strong as hell, baby.”

  “I don't want to be,” I said. “I love you, Rett.”

  I kissed him lightly on the mouth.

  His eyes were dimmed with something other than darkness when I pulled back.

  “I want you to be mine,” I said.

  “I am yours,” he whispered.

  “Then come with me.” I reached and rubbed the crotch of his jeans. “Don’t you want to be with me every day?”

  He breathed, and then his arms curled around me. I shrieked as he scooped me around and landed me gently back on the bed. His kiss smothered me.

  “I want to,” he whispered harshly.

  “Then come.”

  “I want you,” he said.

  My legs parted so fast at the longing in his voice.

  “Come with me, Rett,” I said. I wasn’t talking about Austin anymore.

  And he did. He kissed me and he unwrapped me and he was inside me.

  He hefted me up, mouth pressed over mine and pushed my back against the door. When it shut, he turned me around and fucked me right up against it. I bit my lips and felt him eagerly find his home in me over and over, and when I couldn’t stand, he put me right back on that bed, clambered over and consumed me.

  Without more than the hard wet sounds of us smacking together, we brought each other release. Over and over again.

  But through it all, the only promise he'd make was “I want you.” In between vast lights of pleasure, I wished that he'd say more. Hours later, as we lay sweaty and clutched to each other, he said it one last time through parched lips.

  “I want you.”

  His eyes shut, and it came to me that maybe that wanting was just the first step.

  Even if it wasn’t the hardest one.

  Not by far.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Everett

  The light crossed us, her rich body still enmeshed in me under the sheets. I didn't dare move much, but I gazed down, stroked a couple stray strands across her head. She looked like salvation in that morning light.

  She had asked me to save her, to come with her. As if she were in trouble again. As if I hadn't fucked up her rescue royally last time she'd needed it.

  Still, my throat caved in on itself remembering the way she had pleaded last night before lust overwhelmed it.

  Come with me, Rett.

  God, did I want to, just to make the tremor in that voice vanish forever. Of course, she didn't need me. She had faced all her horrors alone. She had earned her escape.

  Just as I had surely earned the life I held now. Even this one, with the girl I wanted warming up at my side, I'd earned by defiling the laws that bound us together as family. No one outside this room would look on us with anything but disgust.

  That I hadn't dragged her into this messed up relationship unwillingly was small comfort.

  She would keep pressing me, and I couldn’t hide from her forever. She’d have to see who I’d really become. It wouldn’t absolve me, but maybe it would set me free.

  The thought sent my heart racing. Damn, I was edging toward just telling her.

  I nudged back into the blankets and hugged her into me. Her lush body enveloped my caged muscle. Her cute face nuzzled deeply into my neck, slowly smothered the tightness from my chest. I drew her closer.

  Of course, I drank too deep from the well. She stirred and looked up.

  “It's hot,” she said into my face.

  “Sorry, baby,” I murmured, releasing her a bit, hating doing it.

  “Don't be.” She leaned up and kissed me, her breath tasting like her mouth had never left mine. “I’m fine making it hotter too.”

  She draped a leg over me, bring a deeper heat right above where I was hardening. All I had to do was enter her.

  She sighed as I slid in. Her head dipped into my chest and she clutched herself to me. I was her medicine, necessary in a way that I didn't even understand. It made me thicken, but my heart beat with more than desire.

  Could I really let go when the time was ready? Or was I gonna fuck her up this time by not leaving her?

  I gave all my agitation to her, clutching her as tight as I dared, spreading her legs open wider and slamming deep into her until her voice rose, and I had to kiss it to keep it from reaching the rest of the house. Her lips moved uselessly against me, her moan breaking on my tongue. Her pleasure ran up into me, built me up. Each thrust became agony.

  I wanted her, and I didn't want it to end, but taking care of her meant it would all come to an end. This was our story, right here in this bed.

  Her leg wrapped around me and she came, squealing into my mouth, raking my legs with her toes. It set me off like a spark and I exploded deep in her warmth. Just feeling my heat fill her, made me speed all the more, until I was spent and she had every drop of me.

  My head was a glowing buzz, and we lay panting for a bit. We'd have to deal with what I did, have to deal with every bit of it. Reality stayed mercifully distant though.

  “I'll get you somet
hing for that,” I said.

  “For what?” Her eyes were still shut.

  “You know what I mean. The last thing you need is to be the girl who was knocked up by her stepbrother.”

  “There’s no rush. It feels kind of nice to feel part of you in me.”

  “Gonna tell the whole town that when they ask?'

  “I'll tell them to go fuck themselves. It still won't make them feel as good as you just made me, but it'll get them gone.”

  I chuckled. “Damn, when'd your mouth become so dirty.”

  Her eyes fluttered open, a dancing blue. “Guess I've been hanging around too many bad influences.”

  And just like that, the haze was punctured. “Yeah,” I said.

  “It was a joke.” She wagged her nose against my chest.

  “It's not though.”

  I ran a hand through my hair as if that would sieve out all the bad that had taken root in my head. I wasn't Liza's medicine. I was a drug, and every time I fucked her she tolerated more that I did. Who knew? Maybe she'd be as reckless as I'd become.

  I should rip the mask away. I should show her how deep I’d fallen before she slipped in with me.

  I tugged out of her grip, lay on my back, staring at the stucco print on the ceiling, feeling the thousand points like stalactites in a cave, poised to fall.

  “Hey.” She lay a soft palm on my chest, but it barely registered. “I didn't mean any of it. You're a good man, Rett.”

  “I'm not.” I looked at her, her tender eyes and softly raised brows suddenly irritating. “You don't know a damn thing about what I've done.”

  She blinked. “Like what?”

  Like what. As if the things I'd done were just fears I held. As if I could make her see how righteous I had felt committing them, how wretched the memories seemed now. As if I could make her understand.

  But suddenly the words were at my mouth.

  “I help hurt people,” I said to the ceiling. “I help keep them in line. I destroy things, I break lives, and tell myself it’s ok, cause they’re not part of this town, cause I don’t know.”

  She shuffled in the bed. I thought she was leaving, but her next words came clearer. “Tell me.”

  I glanced over. She had curled up into me, her face blank.

  “You don't want to hear it all,” I said. “You'll never look at me again.”

  “It's already keeping you from coming with me,” she said. “It's keeping you from doing what you’re good at. Can it really do much worse?”

  I was supposed to have a few more months of purgatory, a few last tastes of her, but, hell, I'd opened the door. I was tired of running. Let her see me. If she escaped, all the better.

  “I was an athlete,” I said. “The guys in the MC, they're strong. They can fight, but they can't move like I can. So I became the go to guy for anything that needed speed. I run people down, Marlo does the dirty work – but that doesn’t make me any better.”

  “Everett Tull is a stubborn bastard. He doesn't do things he doesn't believe in.”

  “I believe in the the things I did.” I said dumbly. “I believed in them.”

  She just studied me. Her face wasn't cross though. “You never actually hurt anyone yourself?” she said quietly.

  “I did. A few times.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if it wasn’t with my fists then it might be with a gun, and they wouldn’t learn. They wouldn’t walk away. They just would cease to be.”

  “Hmm.” Liza nodded.

  And I hated that worst of all, the understanding. As if this made sense, as if taking a man to the inch of his life was so far removed from crushing out the last bit.

  As if I had never done the last bit.

  “The MC’s code isn’t clean,” I said. “But it's the only one left that makes sense for a man like me.”

  “Why?” She edged up closer to me. “Why would you choose that over the scholarship?”

  “It's not about the damn scholarship.” I covered my face. “It was over for me long before any scholarship.”

  “Hey.” Her voice pierced the descending darkness. “What are you talking about? What did they do to you?”

  “No one did anything. I was the one. I did it.”

  Her voice didn't rise again. I sighed and uncovered my face. She lay open with bright eyes, watching and waiting. There was one step, one last step, and it might change it all, but I didn't give a damn anymore. I was so tired of carrying this alone.

  “I killed a man, Liza,” I said.

  “What?” Her pitch was high and chilling. I’d known it’d be coming, but it was still a frightful thing to hear.

  “I was just supposed to pick up something from him, but he panicked, and I panicked more.”

  She hadn't moved but I sensed her shift. She felt the defilement. She could see how wrong a guy I was.

  “Was this after you moved in?” she asked.

  “No, it was at the beginning. It was the start of everything.”

  “What do you mean?” She propped up on her elbows.

  “It was –” I sighed, “the first thing I did for the MC.”

  “Why would you do that? Why did you even want to join them?” Her voice was rising, clear for anyone to hear.

  And suddenly, before I could stop the words in my mouth, three years of walls broke down. “I did it for you.”

  “What?” The fire went out of her voice like a blanket had slammed it down.

  “After our fight, I went to the MC to get them to do something about your stepfather. If they were his real boss, then they were the people to talk to.”

  “Rett...” her voice faded. “Why would you think that?”

  “Think? I didn't think. I just knew you were hurting, and talking to him and the police did jack shit. The only ones who stood a chance of standing up to the man doing the hurting was the MC.”

  She looked like she had been punched in the gut. Her mouth just lay open.

  “You joined them for me?”

  “No,” I said, though it suddenly didn't seem like anything else could be the truth. “I had no intention of joining them.”

  “Then why did you? Why did you kill a guy? That wasn't for me. Don't tell me you did that for me.”

  Her eyes were trembling now.

  “No, that was on me and me alone,” I said.

  Liza took deep breaths and sank back down to my level. “Tell me what happened.” She came close. “Tell me everything.”

  So I did. That moment never lay far from my mind.

  Night had fallen by the time I arrived. The address wasn’t really an address, just a little cabin down a long dirt road into the shrublands. Insects chirped and rodents skittered unseen in the brushes, as I got out, a fair distance from the cabin. I should have just rolled up, but I felt I should scope out the place. I tucked the gun into my waist, and walked up, doing a circle.

  No other cars stood in the sand. Black tape covered the few windows, and the crack around the door lay dark, too. I went up and knocked, but no one answered.

  I pushed though, and it creaked in. The air inside smelled like embalming fluid. I flicked on the light and saw why. Benches all around the end held what looked like a chemistry kit. Little digital lights counted down slowly on different panels.

  By the front were a stack of white packages the size of a kitchen flour bag. I peeked in one and saw white crystal. Everyone in Loving could identify that. I pulled them out and went for the car, when the floorboards creaked behind me. I looked back.

  A scrawny man with a scraggly blonde beard and a torn up orange T rubbed his eyes at the door across from the entrance. It took him a couple seconds to register me, but then his eyes popped open.

  “Who the fuck are you?” he said.

  “I’m just here to pick up. Clash sent me.”

  The insects chirped outside, and then he was reaching behind a machine. I saw the glint of a gun barrel.

  He was tweaked, but my reflexes were better. Wi
thout even knowing, my hand landed on the gun, I’d been wearing the whole ride over. The drugs crunched to the floor, and I tipped the gun up, shot. The man staggered back through the darkened door, toppled, his hand smearing blood on the sill, then flopping limp to the floor.