Chapter Seventeen
My sanity is hanging on by a thread. Skye is looking inside herself, learning about herself, and I…
Fuck.
I just want to take her. Hammer her. Pound her. My cock is fucking granite inside my jeans, and my heart is nearly beating out of my chest.
“What if I said I wanted to fuck you right now, Skye? Right here, against this pole that frightened you so long ago. I’d like to blindfold you, tie you to it, and take you from behind hard and fast while forcing you to stay quiet the whole time.”
“I’d say do it.”
I groan. “You have no idea how much I want to.”
“No one’s stopping you that I can see.”
“Only you.”
She widens her eyes. “Did I not just tell you to do it?”
“You did, and I’m tempted.” I grab her hand and lead it to the firm bulge below my waist. “You feel what you do to me? What you always do to me?”
She nods, shaking.
“But if we go back there—back to that place we both desire—you will still want things I can’t give you. Until you can tell me why you want those things, I can’t go there.”
“I can live without it.” She gulps.
“Can you?”
“For God’s sake, Braden, I’ve lived without all of this for the first twenty-four years of my life. I’ve had sexual relationships before. Satisfying sexual relationships.”
I wrap my arms around her, pinning her to the scarecrow post. “As satisfying as ours?”
She slumps against me, her body like jelly. “Well…no. But that’s because I love you. I didn’t love any of them.”
“Is that the only reason?”
She doesn’t reply right away. Instead, she reaches forward, squeezes and rubs my erection.
I steel myself and whisk her hand away. “Stop it, Skye.”
“We both want it.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Why? I can live without the choking, okay?” She gasps back a sob. “I don’t know why it spoke to me so much. Maybe if I knew why you won’t—”
I place my fingers over her lips. “Knowing my story won’t change yours.”
“But—”
“It won’t, and it shouldn’t.”
She doesn’t reply.
“This place doesn’t scare you anymore.”
“No.” She gives me a mischievous smile. “It would scare me less if you fucked me here.”
I touch her cheek. “Nice try. Let’s go back now. I’ll buy you lunch in town, and then I need to get on my way to New York.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too. Take some time for yourself. I’d like you to be able to answer my question when you return to Boston.”
She nods. “I will, Braden. I promise.”
I believe she wants to keep that promise.
God, I hope she can.
I need her too fucking much.
“I’d like to take you to lunch,” she says.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. There’s this great little Italian place called Luigi’s. We can walk around town a little, have some lunch, and then you can catch your ride to the airport.”
“I’d like that.” I kiss her lips. “I’d like that a lot.”
…
Skye drives us into town in her mother’s hatchback again. I saw the whole place this morning on my run, but I want to see the Kansas farm town where she grew up through her eyes.
She parks behind the hotel.
I’m tempted to take her up to my room and spend the rest of the time in bed, but that would be missing an opportunity to know her better through her roots.
We leave the car, and she points out the water tower on the edge of town, its paint faded.
“It’s the Liberty Bell,” she says. “Or it used to be. The paint is all worn. But the town was named after the bell.” She grabs my arm. “Come on. I want to show you one of my favorite places.”
We walk down the street and enter an old bookstore. It’s quaint and charming, books stacked from floor to ceiling with no apparent order. “If Dad came in town for the day, I’d hide out in here,” she says, a soft smile lighting up her face. “I love books.”
I remember well how I caught her in my library at my New York penthouse, thumbing through a book of bondage photographs.
“May I help you find anything?” a clerk asks.
“We’re just looking,” Skye says. “But thank you.”
She leads me through the rows of high shelves. The store houses the latest bestsellers along with used books and an antique book section. I inhale the earthy aroma of leather and parchment.
She sidesteps a stack of books, her hand never leaving mine, and we wind our way to the back of the store. The space here is more open, a welcoming corner set up with a couple of worn couches, a pair of armchairs, and a coffee table stacked high with glossy magazines from years past.
“This is where I used to sit for hours on end,” she tells me, her voice just above a whisper. She releases my hand and sinks into one of the couches, patting the cushion beside her. “Running away from home without ever stepping a foot out of town.”
I sit beside her. She seems distant for a moment, but then she smiles at me.
“We didn’t have a lot of money, so I couldn’t buy many books. But Mr. Lambert—he owned this place back then—let me read them here. He even saved some books for me if he knew I was coming. Once, he had an old copy of Jane Eyre that he gave me. I’ve re-read it so many times. It’s one of my favorite stories of all time.”
The softness in her voice moves me, and I place my arm around her. She leans into me and rests her head on my shoulder. I inhale the raspberry fragrance of her silky hair.
“When I was older,” she continues, “I would ride my bike over here during summer break and read all day until the sun set, and Mr. Lambert would have to remind me to get home before it got too dark.”
I can’t miss the nostalgic glint in her eyes. “This is a great place. I can see why you spent a lot of time here.”
“I loved it. It’s not the same since Mr. Lambert passed away, but I still like to hang here for a few minutes each time I come to town. I don’t get back here often.”
“Why not?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. My mom and I…”
“What about your mom and you?”
“It’s nothing. We were just always kind of like oil and water, you know?” Then she gasps. “Braden, I’m sorry. I’m whining about my mom when you lost yours. Please forgive me.”
I kiss the top of her head. “Nothing to forgive.”
In fact, I just learned something more about her. And maybe she did, too.
She leans forward and then stands. “Come on. There’s a great antique shop and an ice cream parlor that still makes everything from scratch from recipes from the 1950s. Then there’s the grocery. I can’t believe they’re still in business since the Super Walmart opened on the outskirts of town, but they are.”
I follow her out of the book shop, and we amble farther down the road, passing the shops she mentioned until we get to the restaurant called Luigi’s.
The place exudes old-world. The building itself is modest, and the space is cozy, with checkered red-and-white tablecloths draped over wooden tables that have probably seen generations of family meals. The scent of garlic, simmering tomatoes, and freshly baked bread wafts toward me. I inhale deeply.
Framed black-and-white photos line the walls, and an old jukebox in the corner softly plays. The menu is handwritten on a chalkboard, offering simple, hearty dishes like spaghetti with meatballs, lasagna, and homemade cannoli for dessert.
“Just sit anywhere you like.” A young woman dressed in jeans and an apron smiles and gestures to us.
Skye leads me to a table by the window, where I hold out a chair for her. She points me to the chalkboard. “The pasta here is to die for. They make it all from scratch. I usually get the spaghetti and meatballs, but there’s always a pasta special.”
I take a seat across from her. “It smells amazing.”
“They take garlic seriously here.”
A server walks to our table. “Skye, is that you?”
“Yeah. Hi, Maralee.”
“I didn’t know you were back in town.”
“Only for a few days. This is Braden. Braden, this is Maralee. We went to high school together.”
From Skye’s tone, I gather they weren’t exactly friends. “Nice to meet you,” I say.
“Our pasta special is penne arrabiata,” she says. “I’ll be right back with some waters.”
“Friend of yours?” I ask once the server is gone.
“Not really. She was a townie.”
“Meaning?”
“She lived in town. Probably still does. The townies tended to look down on the rural kids.”
“They did?”
“Yeah. Not all of them. But Maralee was a little too big for her britches. I’m honestly surprised she recognized me.”
“I get it.”
“Do you?”
“I grew up on the south side. Of course I do. Ben and I were expected to go straight to the construction site and help our father after school. Plus get our homework done and pull in straight A’ s. Sleep was a commodity for us back then. So yeah, we were looked down on, but we didn’t have the time to worry about it.”
“It doesn’t sound like the same thing to me.”
“I’m not saying it was exactly the same. But I wasn’t one of the popular people, either, Skye.”
She says nothing more until Maralee returns.
“Sorry it took so long.” She places my water in front of me first. “What can I get you, sir?”
“It’s customary to take the lady’s order first, I think.”
Skye’s cheeks redden.
So do Maralee’s. “Oh. Of course. What’ll it be, Skye?”
Skye meets her gaze, burning two holes in the waitress with her eyes. “The special.”
“Make that two,” I say.
“Sure. Do you want anything else to drink?”
“Just water,” I say.
“Yeah, water’s fine,” Skye agrees.
“You want to tell me more about your high school days?” I ask once Maralee is gone.
She smiles, and for a moment I think she may, but then she shakes her head. “Not really. Maybe someday. But honestly, Braden, high school wasn’t anything to me. I did well, and I got into BU. So Maralee didn’t lower herself to talk to me. I wasn’t bullied, just ignored. It’s not something that lives in my soul or anything.”
“What does live in your soul, Skye?”
She breathes in. “A lot of things. I’m figuring it out, Braden. I’m figuring it out.”
Interesting. I believe her. I’ve gotten pretty good at reading her, and I don’t think her issues stem from any high school experience. Time will tell if I’m right.
After a tasty lunch—Skye was right; the pasta was to die for—we head back to the hotel where my ride is waiting. I go up to the room, grab my luggage, and give Skye a long, open-mouthed kiss. My cock is ready to take her here and now, but I force my other head to rule.
It’s time for me to leave.
“See you soon,” I say. Then I get into the cab.
As we drive away, I watch until Skye is no longer visible.
Back to New York for me.
Back to work. I pull up the Zoom app for my meeting with Dimitri and Lizzie.
And tonight?
Back to Black Rose Underground.