Releasing Keanu

by Davis, Siobhan

  I twist around so I’m facing her and take her hands, grateful when she doesn’t resist. I need to be looking at her and touching her when I tell her this. “I know all that, but I still should’ve told you. I was going to, I swear, just not yet. We were only finding our way back to one another, and I was terrified my past actions might ruin everything. I don’t want to lose you, Sel. I couldn’t bear it again.” I palm one side of her beautiful face. “I love you. More than I love anyone or anything in this world. Please tell me you know that?”

  “I do.” Her fingers curl around mine, and it’s the encouragement I need to go on. To get this out.

  “When we broke up, I was devastated, Sel. Heartbroken. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. I was a wreck.” I wet my dry lips, wishing I had done things differently. “But then, I got angry. I was mad at you for leading me on. Furious with myself for buying into your lies.” Even though I know now they weren’t lies, I was so confused back then. It was the only logical conclusion.

  Fuck, this is so hard to tell her.

  Although I want to avert my eyes, I keep them fixed on her beautiful hazel ones. “I got fed up feeling too many emotions, so I started going out with Kent, drinking to numb the pain. To help me forget.” I could blame my brother for encouraging me to get under someone else in order to forget about Selena. But only a coward would do that.

  It’s all on me. And I need to own it.

  “I always thought I’d lose my virginity to you. It’s what I wanted. But then you broke up with me, and I was losing my mind, and I thought it would be a fuck you to you if I gave it to someone else, so I hooked up with this girl I met at Torment.”

  Tears well in her eyes, and I have a physical pain in my heart.

  “She meant nothing. It meant nothing. And I regretted it straight away.” Truth.

  She swipes at her tears. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.”

  “Don’t, Sel. Please.” This time, I do look away. I’m disgusted with myself. And I wish this was the worst of it, but there are more damning revelations to come. “I fucked up. I know I did, and I’m not proud of myself. I hooked up with other girls, thinking it would help me feel better. It didn’t.”

  “And those girls downstairs?” she whispers.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’ve had a few threesomes and foursomes with Kent.” I wince as the words leave my mouth, knowing how awful this is for her to hear. “We were with those girls one night, months ago. I told Casey I wasn’t interested, but she doesn’t take no for an answer.”

  “I see.” Her eyes drop to her lap, and she tries to wrest her hands from mine, but I’m having none of it. I clasp her hands firmly, and she stops fighting.

  “None of them mattered. I never dated or slept with anyone more than once. And I stopped it altogether after our family vacation to Nantucket in July because I realized how unhappy it was making me. It wasn’t helping. It was having the opposite effect, because all it did was reinforce that they weren’t you. And seeing my brothers in love—while I’m happy for them—only made me sadder. Made me miss you and our relationship so much. I felt even more lonely.”

  Silence engulfs us, and I couldn’t hate myself any more in this moment if I tried. “Say something,” I whisper.

  “I will never be good enough for you,” she says, and my heart cracks wide open. “How can I compete with girls like Casey?” She lifts her head, and tears spill out of the corners of her eyes. “I’m all screwed up, and sex will never be that uncomplicated for me.”

  “Sel.” I cup her face, but she averts her eyes. “Please look at me, baby.” Her tormented gaze slowly rises to meet mine. “You’re not in competition with Casey. With anyone. Because there is no competition. Every girl pales in comparison to you. You are all I see. All I need. All I want.” I press a fierce kiss to her forehead. “And I’ll take complicated over any other girl any day. Even if we never have sex, you are the only woman I want. Please don’t let what happened downstairs, or what happened while we were apart, ruin what we share. What we are building here, because that would kill me, Sel. I can’t lose you again.”

  I pull her into my lap, relieved when she doesn’t struggle. “I’m not proud of my behavior, and I wish I could go back in time and undo it all, but I can’t. All I can promise you is that it’s in the past. You are my present and my future. My everything.”

  20

  Selena

  I wake up the next morning before Keanu, and I stare at his face for a long time while my mind churns with all he revealed last night.

  I’m not an idiot.

  Keanu is hot, sweet, sexy, and, most of all, a guy. A guy who has been deprived of sex and intimacy during his horny teenage years. I knew when I cut him loose that this would happen.

  Releasing Keanu was not just for me.

  It was for him too.

  I was holding him back in a lot of ways but especially when it came to sex. I knew, deep down, that letting him go meant he would experience other girls. Experience sex without me. And I thought I’d made my peace with that.

  But I haven’t.

  And I can’t blame him. I don’t. Like I told him repeatedly last night, he hasn’t done anything wrong. I should be grateful all his hookups were casual and meaningless.

  But I’m not.

  For one, I’m jealous. The thought of other women with their hands on him makes me green with envy. And all night, as thoughts of him having sex with other girls taunted me, I’ve been red with rage. Chastising myself for not being strong enough, brave enough, to have sex with him, at least one fucking time, before I let him go. Because those other women have experienced a side of him I don’t know, and I hate that they shared that with him when I haven’t.

  But there’s another part of me that’s sad that all his experiences were meaningless. Because I didn’t want that for him either.

  Ugh. I scrub at my forehead, wishing I could yank all these thoughts out and make sense of them. I’m confusing myself, upsetting myself, when I’m the one who set this in motion. I’m conflicted and emotional, and today is the worst day to be dealing with this shit.

  I stare at him again, watching his chest rising and falling, as he sleeps. I want to grab hold of him and keep him close. To lose myself in him. To experience what those women experienced. To show him I’m better than all of them. That I can pleasure him far better than they can. That I know everything there is to know about how to turn a man on because I was trained from age ten to please men.

  And I need that affirmation to know I’m good enough for him.

  My inner voice whispers my mind is warped for thinking these things, but I banish that voice, shutting off logic and acting on instinct.

  Because I’m afraid now. Afraid I’m never going to be good enough for him. I know the kinds of needs men have. I stupidly thought it didn’t matter when I was with him before because he was a virgin and he didn’t know any better.

  But he does now.

  And I need to show him I can fulfil all his needs. That I’m the perfect girlfriend. That I’m not broken and vulnerable. That I’m strong and sexy and willing.

  Before I overthink it, I slide down the bed, carefully pulling Keanu’s pajama pants down, freeing his penis. All week, we’ve made out like demons, and he’s gone down on me a couple other times, but he hasn’t let me touch him.

  That stops now.

  His erection juts out proudly, and I lower my head, curling my lips around the tip and licking his slit. I take him deeper into my mouth as he stirs, hollowing my cheeks to take all of him into my mouth, feeling him hit the back of my throat as I suck his hard length in and out of my mouth.

  He groans, and his hips thrust forward as he slowly starts fucking my mouth. I reach my hand under him, playing with his balls, and his entire body stills. His hips stop bucking, and I glance up at him, panic welling in my chest at the look of abject horror on his face. I loosen my grip on his erection the same time he pulls back with so much force and urgency he fall
s out of the bed.

  My heart is pounding, and a thin line of sweat glides down my back. I gulp over the painful lump in my throat.

  “Selena,” Keanu rasps, pulling up his pants and slowly rising to his feet. He stares at me like I’ve just sprouted horns. “What…what are you doing?”

  I sit up on my knees. “I want to make you come.”

  His Adam’s apple jumps in his throat as he sits on the edge of the bed, turning to face me. “Why?”

  “Why?” I frown, because isn’t it obvious? “Because I want to please you.”

  He grimaces, and my heart lurches to my toes. “You didn’t like it? It wasn’t good?” Rejection takes a bat to my body, slamming into me and knocking all the air out of my lungs.

  “Selena. No.” He reaches for my hands, but I scoot away from him on the bed, swiping at the tears leaking from my eyes.

  “Baby.” He climbs over the bed, kneeling in front of me. “Don’t think that. Of course, I liked it. I woke up to the love of my life sucking me off. And it was so fucking good.”

  “Why did you stop then? Why did you look at me like that?”

  He brushes tears away from under my eyes. “You shocked me, baby, and it worried me.”

  I blink at him, not understanding. “Why? And were you like this with the other girls you slept with?”

  He grimaces again. “Selena.” He presses a lingering kiss to my forehead. “Firstly, you’re the only woman I’ve ever slept in a bed beside. And, secondly, I’m not opposed to being woken up with your mouth on me, provided it’s for the right reasons.”

  “I wanted to make you come. Isn’t that the right reason?”

  “C’mere, baby.” He opens his arms and pats his lap. I crawl onto him, wrapping my arms around his neck and resting my head on his shoulder. “I need to ask you a question, and I want you to answer it honestly.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you blowing me have anything to do with last night and what we discussed. Yes or no?”

  I pause for a few beats. “Yes.”

  He tilts my face until we’re eye to eye. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going through that beautiful head of yours.”

  I lift my head up fully, shifting on his lap so my legs are stretched out to the side. His penis is hard underneath me, reminding me of my epic fail. “I’m jealous of those girls,” I admit after an eternity of silence when I’ve been battling with my response. But I won’t keep secrets from him. I won’t hide the truth. Even if I’m scared to admit my thoughts. “Because they’ve experienced parts of you I haven’t.”

  “And what else?” he coaxes, threading his fingers in my hair.

  “And I wanted to make you happy. To show you I know how to please you. That I can do it a million times better than they can.”

  Color leaches from his skin as pain washes across his face. Tears pool in his eyes as he moves closer, pressing his forehead to mine. “Jesus, Sel,” he rasps, his voice cracking. “I don’t need you to prove anything to me.” Then he breaks down in my arms, sobbing as he clutches on to me, and I freeze. The only other time Keanu has cried in front of me was the night I told him what had happened to me.

  And now, I feel like shit for upsetting him.

  “I’m sorry, K,” I whisper, as tears roll down my face. “I didn’t want to upset you. I just wanted to make you happy.”

  “Selena.” He lifts his head, peering at me as we both cry. “You make me happy every second of every day that you’re by my side. You don’t need to do…that, to do anything sexual, to make me happy.” He chokes on a sob. “I love you!” he cries. “And getting to love you and to feel loved by you is all I need to be happy. I…” He wraps his arms around me, holding me close, and his body heaves underneath me, shuddering with gut-wrenching sobs. “God, Sel. I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s my fault for not saving myself for you. If I had, you wouldn’t feel like this.”

  “No, Keanu!” I cry. “It’s not your fault.”

  “But it is!” he says. “Now, you feel like you have something to prove, and I never want you to feel like you’re forced into having sex with me!”

  “I don’t feel forced. I love you, and I want that with you. I want to make love to you.”

  He clasps my face firmly in his palms. “And I want to have sex with you. I want to make love to you. I crave it. But not like this! Not because you feel like you have to!”

  “It’s not like that!” I plead.

  “Isn’t it?” Pain shimmers in his eyes, and a wave of guilt sweeps over me.

  I’m making a mess of everything. “No.” I shuck out of his embrace, climbing to my feet. I pace the floor. “We’re never going to get beyond this, are we? What’s happened to me is always going to come between us. I will never be normal!” I cry out as tears stream down my face. I bend over, clutching my stomach, and my body throbs with pain. I feel it in every cell, every nerve ending, every molecule. “I will never be good enough for you.”

  I drop to my knees on the floor, sobbing.

  Keanu is beside me in a heartbeat. “Baby, don’t say that.” He bundles me into his arms, and I collapse against his bare chest, crying tears all over his warm flesh. “We love each other, and we both want to take things to that level, but not like this.” He kisses the top of my head. “It’s going to work out, I promise.”

  “I feel like such a failure as a woman,” I truthfully admit, snaking my arms around his waist and clinging to him. “Like I’ve failed you. I pushed you into those other women’s arms because I couldn’t give you what you needed.”

  “Stop it, Sel.” Keanu forces my face up to his. “That is not what happened, and we both know it.” Air whooshes out of his mouth as he stares at me. “I love you so fucking much. I wish I could open my chest, open my heart, so you could see how much. So you could know I would go to the ends of the Earth for you. Please don’t give up on us, Sel. Please believe me when I say you are everything to me. You are the only woman that matters. And I want everything with you, but when it’s right for both of us.”

  “Okay,” I mumble, because I know he’s right.

  He carries me over to the bed, lying me down on top of the comforter. Brushing hair back from my face, he looks at me with so much love there’s no doubt about the extent of his feelings. “I’d like to talk to Denise about this,” he says. “Together.” He links our hands. “Let’s arrange a couple’s session. We need to talk this through, to find our way to a place where we’re able to make love for all the right reasons. Please?”

  “You want to talk to her about something this intimate?”

  “Yes. I trust her. And I know you do too. She’ll help us figure it out.”

  “Okay.” I nod. “I’ll set it up.”

  21

  Selena

  “Morning,” Kent mumbles when I arrive downstairs in the kitchen. Keanu is taking a shower, so I’m cooking us a decent breakfast, because I don’t know how long we’ll be at the FBI offices for today.

  “Morning,” I reply, moving to the refrigerator.

  “I’m sorry about last night, Selena,” he says, watching as I remove eggs, onions, tomatoes, garlic, grated cheese, and spinach from the fridge.

  “It’s okay, Kent,” I say even though it’s really not okay.

  I’m not okay.

  Keanu’s not okay.

  But it isn’t Kent’s fault.

  All of this would’ve come out anyway.

  Although, having a visual of two of the girls Keanu slept with is something I could do without.

  Nausea churns in my gut, but I force it away. I’ve enough anxiety about today as it is, without adding to it.

  “No, it’s not.” He straightens up, pushing off the counter and grabbing a mug from the cabinet. “Coffee?”

  I nod. “Thanks.”

  I start peeling the onion, chopping it along with the tomatoes and the garlic.

  Kent hands me a steaming mug of coffee, and I force a smile out. “I’m making omelets. Would you like
one?”

  “Ugh.” He rubs a hand over his flat stomach. “I’m sure it’ll be delicious, but I’ll pass. I’m a little delicate today.” He waggles his brows, and this time, a genuine smile dances across my lips.

  “I figured,” I say, whisking eggs in a bowl. “I could smell the alcohol and weed the instant we stepped foot in the door last night.” I worry about Kent. Especially with the drugs. I know how easy it is to become addicted, and that’s not something I want to see happening to him.

  “Not my finest hour,” he admits.

  “From what Keanu told me, that kind of stuff was a regular occurrence.”

  Kent has the decency to look sheepish. “Yeah.”

  I sigh, chopping the spinach more vigorously than necessary.

  “Hey.” Kent’s voice softens. “What did the spinach ever do to you?”

  I bark out a laugh, placing the knife down and rolling my shoulders, hoping to ease some of the tension sitting there. “Things are a little strained right now,” I admit, sighing again as I clasp the mug between both hands. I lean back against the counter, mirroring Kent’s position.

  “That’s my fault.”

  I shake my head. “It’s not your fault or Keanu’s. It’s mine.” I shrug even though I’m locked up tighter than a bank vault. “It is what it is.”

  “If it’s any consolation, he was miserable as sin the whole time he was apart from you. He adores you, Selena. You were all Keanu thought about that entire time. Trust me, he wasn’t into any of those girls he hooked up with. Like, at all, and, to be honest, I pretty much pushed him into a lot of it.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m a shitty brother.”

  “You’re not a shitty brother.”

  He drops his eyes to the floor. “I am. For a variety of reasons.”

  “Well, if you’re a shitty brother then I’m a shitty girlfriend,” I blurt.

  “Why would you say that?” Kent asks, genuine curiosity evident in his eyes.

  I take a sip of my coffee, wondering if I should say this. But I’m guessing he already knows anyway. “If Keanu had been going out with any other girl, he wouldn’t have still been a virgin at eighteen.”