“Dar, that’s not ridiculous. It’s a trauma response. Marie would tell you the same thing. And I hate that I wasn’t here to help you. I’m supposed to make you feel safe, and you don’t feel safe here.”
“I do feel safe here,” I insisted. “I know my dad doesn’t know Kate, but it’s like…how long before he just starts randomly banging down every door in Charleston trying to find me? He won’t give up, Brendan. He won’t.”
“I think he will. Once he realizes that you were smarter than to go to anyone in the church for help.”
“No, you don’t understand. My mom tried to take me and leave him once, when I was about three. It lasted less than twenty-four hours, and he dragged us both back to the house. I don’t remember it, but she said that he hurt me in front of her just to torture her, then beat her up and told her it was a warning. He said the next time she tried to leave, he’d kill me in front of her and then make her beg for death before he killed her too, and that they’d never even find our bodies. I left, Brendan. I left, and now he’s going to find me and he’s going to kill me.”
Brendan pulled back from the hug and put a hand on my face, looking me right in the eyes. He looked heartbroken and terrified, but also…determined? Was that right?
“I will never let that happen, Dar,” he gritted out, his voice shaking a little. “Do you hear me? Never. I will fight until my last breath to keep you safe.”
Before I had time to come up with a response, he crashed his lips to mine in a desperate, manic kiss, pulling me close against him as our tongues met. I whimpered into his mouth, and that just made him hold me tighter, slipping his hand under my nightshirt and sliding it up my back. I could feel his arousal growing beneath me, and rocking against it wasn’t even voluntary. It was automatic.
I knew this wasn’t the time. We still had to talk. I still had to open that stupid shoebox that was sitting here on the bed. And I was in my best friend’s guest bedroom, for God’s sake. But everything I’d ever known had just been turned on its head this afternoon. I needed one thing I still knew was the same. One thing that would never change, no matter what. And that one thing was him.
“I need you,” I confessed. “I know it’s not the ti—”
He cut me off with another kiss as he slid my shirt up my sides, only tearing his mouth away briefly so he could pull it off. Then his lips were back on mine as he stood up and turned around, depositing me on the bed and crawling over me. He kicked his shoes off and shed his shirt, then pulled his wallet out of his pocket and retrieved a foil packet, setting it on the nightstand.
I giggled. “Expecting to get lucky?”
“Maybe,” he chuckled. “Or maybe I’m just always prepared.”
“I’m not complaining,” I breathed, pulling him back down for another kiss as I wrapped my legs around his waist and rubbed myself against the growing bulge in his pants.
“Christ, Dar,” he mumbled against my lips while palming one of my breasts and pinching my nipple.
I whimpered, biting my lip to contain my cries, and he trailed kisses down to my chest and replaced his fingers with his mouth, sucking hard on the hardened peak. It was all I could do to suppress a moan as I ran my fingers through his hair, trying to keep his mouth where it was. He slid his other hand down between my legs and cupped my core, kneading softly, before tugging my panties to the side and starting to rub me right where I needed it.
“Ohmygod,” I gasped. How did it feel even better this time than it had the past two times?
Brendan raised his head, and I wanted to cry at the loss of his mouth on my breasts, but then he kissed me so thoroughly that I forgot why I’d ever wanted his mouth anywhere but on mine.
“Can I try kissing you down here, baby?” he asked as he pressed his fingers down just a little harder. “You can say no.”
The pressure inside me coiled up even more just thinking about what it would feel like to have his mouth there.
“Yes,” I said, so quietly it was barely audible.
Please, I added mentally.
“Stop me if you don’t like it. It’s okay.”
I melted a little. Being intimate was still so new for both of us; after only having made love two times, we’d barely begun to scratch the surface of exploring each other’s bodies and learning what we liked. But I honestly couldn’t imagine ever not liking anything he did. He took cues from every moan, every gasp, and it was like all he cared about in the world was making me feel good. Like his own pleasure was just an afterthought.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I told him. “I love everything you do. I just love being this close to you.”
“I just love you,” he murmured, giving me another kiss. “And I love watching you come apart and knowing that I made it happen.”
Um, had someone just turned the heat up in here?
No, seriously. Had they? Because…wow.
With one more soul-searing kiss, Brendan’s lips started traveling down my body, stopping to pay extra attention to my breasts before trailing down my stomach. I sucked in a breath as he planted a kiss right above the hem of my panties while hooking his fingers under the fabric. I lifted my hips and let him pull them down, and then he spread my legs apart, lying on his stomach between them. He pressed soft kisses to the inside of one of my thighs, and I sucked in a breath in anticipation and fisted the comforter as he got closer and closer to my center.
“Brendan,” I breathed. “Oh, God.”
His lips touched my outer folds, and my hips arched off the bed. I grabbed a pillow and put it over my face, trying to muffle my cries as he used his fingers to spread me apart and planted a soft kiss right on my swollen and needy nerve endings. This was torture, but in the best possible way. Like he was just hinting at what it would feel like if he really put his mouth on me.
“More,” I whimpered, lifting the pillow just enough to speak. “Please.”
Taking the hint, he tentatively licked at me, and when I bit down on the pillow to suppress a groan while squirming in pleasure, he licked a little harder.
“You like that, baby?” he asked.
Maybe to some people, that would have come across as cocky, but coming from him, it wasn’t. This was something new and different, and he genuinely wanted to know if I was okay with it.
“Don’t stop,” I pleaded. “That feels so good.”
Apparently that was what he needed to hear, because his mouth was back on me instantly, and it was all I could do to suppress my moans with the pillow as he kissed, licked, sucked, and even gently nibbled on me. This was so different from anything else we’d done, and honestly, I couldn’t decide which I liked better: the way this felt or the way he felt inside me. And when he pressed two fingers into my opening without lifting his mouth, that was all it took for me to come undone, biting the pillow so hard that I was surprised I didn’t tear it.
When Brendan crawled back up and hovered over me again, I felt his bare legs against mine and his hard length pressing against me. I couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to have him inside me like that, without the rubber barrier between us. But we were still kids, and kids who were trying to figure out how to survive away from home, at that. We couldn’t afford to have a baby. Maybe once we got married and things settled down a little more, I could get on birth control and we could throw the condoms out, but until then, as much as I wanted to make love to him without anything between us, I knew we had to be smart.
He pulled the pillow out of my hands and his mouth descended on mine. I could taste the musky, tangy flavor of my arousal on his lips and tongue, and even though it took a second to get used to, I loved knowing that he tasted that way because he’d been doing something for the sole purpose of giving me pleasure.
“That was…” he trailed off, kissing me again.
“Amazing,” I mumbled, feeling my cheeks heat.
“I could have kept doing that forever.” He grabbed the foil packet off the nightstand and tore it open. “The wa
y you taste…feeling you fall apart under me…there’s nothing like it.”
That made me wonder what he tasted like. What would it feel like to have him in my mouth? To put all of my focus on him like he always did for me? I really wanted to find out.
But apparently tonight wasn’t the night for that, because he quickly rolled the latex down his shaft, then positioned himself at my entrance and buried himself to the hilt in one thrust, making all of the air leave my lungs. All I could do was hang on for the ride as he started to move with swift, deep strokes, bending my leg up slightly and tilting my hips upward so he could get deeper.
“God, Dar,” he groaned quietly. “I’ll never get enough of this.”
“I won’t either,” I panted, digging my fingers into his shoulders. “It just feels…right.”
“Because it is.” He kissed my neck. “There’s nothing more right than we are together.”
“I love you,” I whispered.
As his lips found mine again, his hand slid between us, starting to rub circles over the small bud that was begging for attention. I moaned softly into his mouth, and he pressed down harder and picked up his pace. Within seconds, I was straining up into him as I shattered into a million pieces, and he buried his face in my neck, groaning as he fell off the cliff with me.
Maybe my life was going to Hell in a handbasket, and maybe I was dragging Brendan along for the ride. But in moments like this, when it was just the two of us and the love that could move mountains, it was so easy to believe that somehow, everything would work out. Because as long as we had each other, we could get through anything.
Chapter 26
Brendan
Whispers in the Dark
My mind was going at a million miles an hour as Darla located her nightshirt and threw it back on. As much as we’d both needed that, it wasn’t nearly enough to calm me. I could have made love to her a hundred more times and it wouldn’t have gotten rid of the crushing dread that had settled in the pit of my stomach from the moment she told me that her father had threatened to kill her and her mother if they left him.
How was I supposed to function like this? How was I supposed to go to work and come home every day knowing that a man who beat his wife and daughter and had threatened to kill both of them if they ever left was walking around free, on the hunt for the woman I loved? I hadn’t wanted to let her leave my apartment to begin with, but now? I didn’t know how to let her stay here, even though I knew it was the safest thing for her. I couldn’t be here at Kate’s house every second of every day, and even though I knew Darla’s friends would fight just as hard as I would to protect her, they weren’t me. Keeping her safe was my job.
“I’ll be right back,” she whispered, giving me a quick kiss before walking out of the room.
I tried to ignore the tightening in my chest as I sat up and dealt with the condom, dropping it in the trash can next to her bed. I really wished there was something in there to cover it with so it wasn’t just sitting there alone in the bag, advertising to the world – or at least her best friend’s mother – what had just gone down in this room, but there wasn’t.
Sighing, I grabbed my boxers and t-shirt and slipped back into them, and a minute later, Darla stepped back into the room.
God, she was perfection. No makeup, the huge shirt I’d given her hanging loosely from her petite frame, wild hair that she hadn’t bothered to comb. She was better than anything I could have conjured up in my wildest dreams, and somehow, she’d chosen to love me. How had I gotten this lucky?
“What’s with that look?” she mumbled as she crawled back into bed and curled up against me.
“I’m not allowed to appreciate the most beautiful woman in the world?”
She chuckled awkwardly and buried her face in my shoulder, and I tilted her face up so I could kiss her. She let out a soft moan that I felt all the way down to my bones, and I pulled her closer, needing every millimeter of distance between us to disappear.
“I love you,” I murmured. “So much. Thinking about anyone hurting you scares the shit out of me. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Dar.”
My voice broke at the end, and she gave me another kiss before grabbing what looked like an old shoebox – which I hadn’t even noticed until now – from the middle of the bed and crawling onto my lap. She laid her head on my shoulder and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing tight.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you either,” she whispered, like she was confessing her darkest secret. “Even though I hate that I dragged you into this mess.”
“You didn’t drag me into anything, baby,” I told her. “I jumped in willingly, because not having you in my life isn’t an option for me. You’re a part of me. You always have been, ever since I can remember. Everything might be up in the air right now, and we might not know how this is going to work out, but I have faith that it will. I have faith that God’s on our side and that He’s going to provide a way for us.”
“I have to believe that,” she sniffled quietly. “But I don’t know how.”
She ran her fingers along the worn edges of the shoebox lid and toyed with the half-dozen rubber bands that were keeping it shut, but didn’t make a move to open it.
“What’s that?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. My mom put it in the bottom of the duffel bag she brought me, under all my clothes, and told me not to open it until I was alone. She told me that she’s staying with him to try to keep me safe. My dad didn’t say anything about killing me if I left, just about killing both of us if she did, so I think that she thinks if she stays with him, it’ll be enough to get him to stop looking. That’s what I got out of what she told me, anyway. She was so scared, Brendan.” Her voice broke, and a few tears started to trickle down her cheeks. “I’ve never seen her like that. How didn’t I know that he’s been hurting her too for all this time? How did I go so long believing that what he was doing was just normal discipline and that it was my fault because I’d disobeyed? How don’t I remember her taking me and trying to run and him dragging us back home and hurting me in front of her?”
“You were too young to remember it,” I reminded her. “And honestly, I’m glad for that, because is that the kind of memory you really want to hold onto for the rest of your life?”
“No, but hearing my mom tell me about it and having no memory of it…it’s like I have amnesia or something. Like someone’s telling me about a life I don’t remember living. That’s how I feel about my whole life now. It’s like, everything I thought I knew about my dad is wrong. He wasn’t just hurting me. He was never just hurting me. But other than the day I left, I can’t remember a single time when I saw him hurt her. How is that possible?” she sniffled.
I squeezed her tight and brushed my lips against her forehead, wishing like hell that I knew what to say and how to help her through this. Really, I wished it was safe for me to suggest seeing if she could have a session or two with Marie. She loved and trusted Marie, and Marie was actually trained to deal with this. I wasn’t. Not really. She’d given me some pointers on how to approach it if Darla wanted to talk about any of this with me, but it was nothing I didn’t already know and hadn’t been doing for years anyway. That I just needed to listen and empathize with her, even if I couldn’t imagine what it felt like to have this happen to me. And I needed to remind her that none of this was in any way, shape, or form her fault.
“I don’t know,” I said, combing my fingers through her hair. “I think a lot of times, especially when we’re young, we block out things that are too traumatic to deal with. I’ve seen that a lot with Nate. Like remember that day we ran into you and the gang at the Rhees’ store, after you guys saw Titanic?”
Darla nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Well, he remembers meeting Kate and Ash for the first time and drinking Ramune and hanging out with all of us that day, but he doesn’t remember hearing our parents yelling at each other about how he was a mistake and how he was
the product of my mom’s affair. And he doesn’t remember them giving us the silent treatment when we got home that night. You probably did the same thing, a lot more than you realize. When something was too scary or didn’t make sense, you probably did your best to block it out. And I also think that your mom tried to shield you from as much of it as possible. Like running in the direction of their bedroom if she thought he might hurt her or telling him not to do it in front of you.”
Her eyes widened and started to tear up, and she covered a gasp with her hand as she nodded. “Oh, my God. I remember her rushing off to the bedroom when she interrupted him while he was yelling at me or hitting me with his belt. So many times. Why didn’t I realize he was hurting her when he followed her in there?”
“You didn’t want to think he was capable of it.” I kissed her hair. “It was probably easier to believe what he was telling you about it being discipline because you’d misbehaved than to accept the truth that he wasn’t what you thought he was. I mean, it’s hard for me to process the contradiction of the man who stands up at that pulpit every Sunday and Wednesday and acts like a man of God being the same man who was hurting you. The same man who dislocated your shoulder and broke your rib for the horrible crime of accepting a ride home from a school dance with a boy you’d known for your whole life, and the same man who would have…” I trailed off, not even wanting to think about what had almost happened to her less than a week ago. “But maybe whatever’s in that shoebox will help you make sense of it, at least a little. Why don’t you open it and find out? No matter what’s in there, I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”
She swallowed hard, like she was trying not to cry, and then kissed me with a passion and desperation that terrified me. Or maybe it was because I was still scared shitless as it was, and being able to feel and taste her fear too just magnified it. I held her tight, slipping one of my hands under her shirt and pressing it against her lower back, and that made her tighten her hold on me. When she pulled away, gasping for breath, I started to move my hand, but she grabbed my arm.
My Vows Are Sealed (Sealed With a Kiss) Page 29
