29. Laney
Over the next few weeks, things seem to settle down.
On the outside, it probably looks like I’m doing well. I’m learning how to fake being better, though some days are more of a struggle than others. Things are good between me and the guys, but I’m still hurting inside.
To ease my emotional pain, I’ve grown addicted to causing myself physical pain. I’m ashamed of what I’m doing, and I try my hardest not to do it, but whenever I find myself sinking into a hole that I’m not sure I’m going to be able to pull myself out of, I go back to the razor again.
It feels safer to give in to the cutting.
Darius hasn’t made any plans to try to play in public again. I feel bad for him, but I think it’s the right choice. I’ve noticed Cade is also quieter than normal, though when I ask him if he’s all right, he brushes me off.
I don’t think I’m the only one who needs therapy.
Though I’m putting on a good front, when I’m not with the guys, I take to my bed.
The hours seem to bleed together, and I don’t even care. More and more, I find myself in this position, lying curled on my side on the bed, staring into nothingness. What happened haunts me…
A flash of cold gun metal pushing up inside me, of the pressure internally, of my body reacting….
I squeeze my thighs together and my eyes shut, willing the memory away. I don’t want to replay it in my mind, but it’s as though my brain wants to torture me.
A knock at the door is the only thing that pulls me out of it, and I go to find Cade on the doorstep, holding a brown paper bag filled with burgers and fries. The scent of it is enticing, but I still don’t have much of an appetite.
He doesn’t wait to be invited in, but brushes past me. “Have you eaten today?”
I haven’t. “Of course.”
“Don’t lie to me, Laney. You need to eat. You’re wasting away.”
He grabs plates out of the cupboards and sets them down on the table, then proceeds to dish out the meal.
He grabs a French fry and holds it to my lips. “Eat.”
Obediently, I open my mouth and take a bite.
“Good girl. Now sit down and eat the rest.”
There’s no point in arguing with him. He’ll force feed me if he has to.
I sink into the chair opposite him, pick up the burger, and take a bite. Ketchup drips out of the bottom and ends up all over my sleeve.
“Shit,” I say, picking up a napkin to wipe away the sauce. The movement pushes up my sleeve slightly, exposing the Band-Aid across my forearm.
Cade spots it, his brow creasing. “You’re hurt.”
I glance down at my arm as though I’ve forgotten the Band-Aid is there. “Oh, that. It’s nothing. The knife slipped while I was cutting up an apple.”
His eyebrows draw together. “A knife slipped, and you cut your arm? How is that even possible? Your finger or hand, I can understand, but not your arm.”
“I wasn’t paying attention. It was stupid of me.”
He holds out a hand. “Let me see.”
“It’s covered. You can’t see anything.”
“So I’ll take off the Band-Aid.”
I put my arm behind my back. “No, Cade. It’s fine. You’ll only make it bleed again if you start messing around with it.”
Mentioning it bleeding doesn’t help. He’s got that fierce look in his eyes—the one that makes me think he’s about to go around setting fires to people’s houses if he thinks they might have done something to hurt me.
“Let me look, Laney,” he growls. “Now.”
“Jeez. You’re making too big a deal out of it.”
“Now,” he repeats.
With a sigh, I hold out my arm. Carefully, he picks off the bandage. Dark blood has seeped through and dried.
He inspects the wound and shakes his head.
“You should have gotten stitches. That’s going to scar,” he says.
I close my eyes briefly then open them again to study his face. “Do you really think I care about a scar, Cade? Because I don’t. A scar is just a scar. A white mark on skin. It’s proof I was alive, that I was hurt, but that I healed. I’m grateful to my body, at least, for being able to do that.”
Maybe I want to see physical marks to see the pain I’m going through. There are times when I look in the mirror and expect to find my reflection shattered like glass, only to find the same old me staring back, a little thinner, a little older, a haunted look in her eyes, perhaps, but still me.
He runs his thumb along my skin, adjacent to the cut, and all the individual hairs on my arms slowly rise, one by one, prickling across my skin.
“I care,” he says softly.
“Why? Because it means I’m not perfect anymore?”
Not that I believe I’ve ever been perfect.
Maybe when I was a little girl, still innocent and believing her mother was the most amazing person on the planet.
That was until I got older and understood that normal people didn’t live how we did, and, when she brought men home with her, she wouldn’t protect me.
I want to cry for that little girl now, how much potential she had.
But the cruelness of the world tore strip after strip off her, until she became the ruined person I am now.
He shakes his head, his thumb still touching my arm. “No, Laney. Because I hate to see you hurt. Because whenever I see you in pain, it’s as though I’m feeling it for myself. I’d rather cut out my own heart and stab a knife through it than see anyone or anything hurt you ever again.”
I close my eyes. “Oh, Cade…”
He means what he says—at least he believes he does.
I want to give in to him, to allow him to carry me, but he’s so dangerous.
So volatile. He could hold my heart in his hands one minute, place it on a pedestal, but if something didn’t go his way, I’d be terrified he’d knock it right back down again.
The wound has started to bleed again. It trickles down my arm, winding and weaving its way across my skin, curving to my inner wrist and into my palm.
“You’re bleeding,” he says.
I nod, dumbly.
I did tell him that would happen.
He takes my hand and lifts my wrist to his mouth. His lips part, the pinkness of his tongue exposed. Then he flattens his tongue to my wrist and licks a smooth, deliberate line up my inner wrist, taking the trail of blood with it.
I shouldn’t be turned on, but something deep in my belly tingles, and heat condenses between my thighs.
He keeps eye contact with me the whole time, watching for my reaction.
My nipples tighten beneath my shirt, my lips part, my cheeks flush.
This really shouldn’t be hot—him licking my blood—but it is.
He’s dangerous. He can hurt me.
But the way I’m feeling right now, pain is good. I deserve pain.
He can hurt me all he wants.
“I want to lick every part of you,” he growls. “Right now.”
I can barely speak, but I manage a whimper, which he takes as consent. He yanks me to my feet and lifts me. My legs wrap around his hips, and he carries me into the bedroom, the food and my bleeding arm forgotten.
He throws me onto the bed, and then kneels at my feet. His hands go to the button and zipper of my jeans. I’m already bare-footed, so it only takes him seconds to whip me out of both my jeans and panties. Then he pushes my thighs apart and buries his face between them.
His hot, wet mouth covers me. He licks me from my asshole, right up, across my slit, to my clit.
Then he hardens his tongue and pushes it inside me, as deep as it’ll go, licking my inners walls, drinking my cream.
He makes a low growling sound as he tongue-fucks me, sending the vibrations right up through me.
I grip his soft hair in my fist, grinding up on his face. There is zero chance of me not reaching orgasm if he keeps this up.
“Fuck, I love how your pussy tastes. I could die happy with my tongue buried inside you.”
I thought I’d probably die happy that way, too.
He uses his fingers in a V to part my pussy lips and make my clit pop, then he latches on to me, suckling my clit in a rhythmical pulse.
“Oh, God,” I cry, bucking my hips.
He pauses long enough to say, “Tell me how that feels.”
“It feels fucking incredible,” I manage, each word punctuated with a gasp.
My inner walls clench, desperate for something to grip on to.
He rams two fingers inside me, hard and fast. Then he adds a third. Cade does not have small hands, and I feel myself stretching. There’s some pain, but mostly it feels good.
“You’re taking my fingers like a good girl,” he says. “Think you can manage one more?”
I don’t know if I can, but I want to try. I want to please him.
“There’s my good little stepsister. Stretch around my fist. I know that sweet pussy wants me.”
I’m wet, so wet. I can smell myself on the air and hear the squelching of his fingers inside me.
I twist my face away. “Oh, God, those noises…”
“Don’t be embarrassed. I love those sounds. I love how wet you get for me. You’re fucking dripping, Laney. If you gush, even better. I’ll catch every drop in my mouth and drink you down.”
He has to pull out of me to readjust the positions of his fingers. Without him inside me, I feel like I’m gaping open. Will I be swollen and bruised after this? I don’t even care.
He pauses long enough to reach into my bedside drawer, where I keep the lube. He takes out the tube and squeezes it onto his hand. Then he pushes my legs even farther apart and slides three fingers back inside me, before adding his pinky finger to the mix.
Strange mewls and whimpers escape my throat. My head is spinning. All I’m focusing on is the sensation of my pussy stretching to accommodate him.
“That’s right, my beautiful girl. Take my whole hand inside you.”
“I can’t, I can’t.” The sensations are too much for me to take. I think my head is likely to explode.
“Yes, you can. Trust me.”
He goes back to sucking on my clit, while he carefully edges his hand inside me.
I stretch and clench around him. I buck my hips and grab for something to hold on to.
My back arches, my thigh muscles tense. My whole body is a quivering mess that’s centered purely on what’s happening between my thighs.
The noises I’m making don’t even sound human, guttural and raw.
“Oh, fuck, I’m gonna come.”
I literally see stars, my vision blackening around the edges. My climax shudders through my whole body, and I jerk and convulse, my eyes rolling, my toes curling. The wetness between my legs is embarrassing—did I pee myself?
I realize the cut has also made a mess of the sheets. There’s blood streaked across the material.
God, I could die.
“You squirted for me, little sis,” Cade says. “Now let me clean you up.”
He slides his hand from my body, and his mouth is back on me, his clever tongue licking me again, but differently this time, lapping up my juices like he can’t get enough.
Then he moves up my body, using his arms to hold himself above me.
“Think you can take me?” he asks, “You’re not too sore?”
“I want you,” I tell him.
“Good.”
He kisses me, and I can taste myself on his tongue. It fires something inside me, and I kiss him harder, our tongues tangling. He rests on one arm to open his jeans, and I reach for him.
I’ve missed his cock. It’s big, and long, and hard. I thumb the piercing through the tip, spreading the slick pre-cum I find there.
He groans, and I run my hand up and down his length, keeping my grip firm.
We’re face to face, nose to nose, body to body. He pushes into me and moves slowly at first, his strokes deep and deliberate.
“Fuck, I love you so much, Laney. You’re everything to me. I don’t want anything or anyone else.”
“I love you, too.”
He speaks to me as he moves inside me. “You’re my whole world. I don’t ever want to be apart from you. If things change between us…”
I wonder where all this is coming from. “They won’t,” I reassure him.
He stares deep into my eyes, and I feel like he’s trying to tell me something via telepathy, but then his hips move faster.
His jaw clenches, and the act of fucking me absorbs whatever it was he’d been about to say.