Chapter 72
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
Good god.
That was… fuck.
I stare at the stunning woman draped over Gage’s chest. Watching them was the most intoxicating thing I’ve done in a long time, and I wasn’t even the one fucking.
My chest is tight, and my pants are tight, too. There’s an ache in both places, but my chest hurts more. It’s a bittersweet ache. Gage deserves this. I’m not so much of an asshole that I can’t admit that. But… I can’t help but feel… lonely. I rub at it.
Gage shifts, looking down at the woman in his arms. It’s then that I notice her shoulders are moving. They’re hitching.
Is she… crying?
“Raven?” Gage asks.
She doesn’t answer, just burrows in further, her shoulders shaking harder.
“Raven?” This time, Gage tries to move to see her face, but he’s still tied down. He throws a look my way. “Untie me.”
I frown, moving to do as he asks, trying to see Raven’s face. She won’t let me look at it.
Gage strains impatiently.
“Hold still, fucker,” I hiss, the ropes getting jerked out of my hands.
“Are you hurt?”
More silent crying.
Alarm rips through me as I undo the knot. Then I look Raven over, looking for any injury. She doesn’t seem hurt.
Gage tries to get up, but the ropes Raven tied around his chest are still there. He cusses as the chair jolts, then scrambles to untangle them under Raven’s body. She just brings her hands up to her face.
“Ax,” Gage says, and it’s panicked.
“Easy,” I mutter. “Just… get her to her room.”
Gage does, finally standing and carrying her down the hall and into her room. Then he puts her down. “Are you hurt?”
Raven shakes her head, throwing her hands in front of her face. “Don’t look at me.”
I do, scanning her for injuries on her front or blood between her legs. Nothing. I feel helpless, and it makes panic send adrenaline through my body.
Gage is panicking, running his hands all over her.
I grab his shoulder and pull him back. This could be something like ‘sub drop.’ I’ve seen it happen to the women I’ve messed with in the past. Even felt it myself after inflicting something particularly violent or bloody.
It feels like the cocktail of emotions and hormones all spill over, and you’re left… empty.
“I’m fine.” Raven dashes away the tears, and now that I can see her face, I see the numbness creeping in. The disconnect.
“You’re not fine. What’s wrong?” Gage is all up in her face, brushing her hair away, looking intently at her as if he just looks hard enough, he’ll be able to see her. She swats at him numbly, but he doesn’t back off. “Tell me.”
She crosses her arms over her chest.
“Raven, I swear to god–”
“It was too much,” she blurts. “I… I made you. I made you do it.”
There’s a stunned silence. Gage looks back at me, and I just frown.
“Yeah, that was… kinda the point.”
“No! I mean, I made you. And now I’m using you.” Her eyes well with tears again, and she dashes them away. Then I see that detached look come back in her eye. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”
“Made me? You didn’t make me do anything.”
But Raven has turned and is headed to bed.
With a snarl, Gage grabs her arm and whirls her to face him. Then, he shoves her back on the bed so she’s lying back, then steps over her. “You didn’t make me do shit.” Then he presses his body over her, pinning her to the mattress.
“Gage.” She struggles weakly.
“No, Raven. You really think you could make me do something I don’t want to do?” He drops his face in hers, and he’s angry. I see it in the tense lines of his body. “Make me get off you.”
“Gage!” She’s still trying to hide her face.
“Make me,” Gage hisses, angry.
“Gage,” I say.
“Make me, Raven.”
She thrashes now, completely unable to move his big body. There’s a flash of fear in her eyes.
“That’s enough.” I grab Gage’s shoulder roughly and rip it back. It throws him off balance for a second, then he’s back on top of her.
“You proved your point.” I try to rip him off again, but Gage is fucking strong.
“Fine!” Raven spits. “You want to know what’s wrong so bad?” Her face twists in hate. “I forced you, and I liked it.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence.
“What?” Gage growls.
“I did exactly what Max did to me.” Suddenly, the hate is gone, covered by a blank look that scares me a lot more.
“Get the fuck off her.” This time, I put the palm of my hand under Gage’s nose and shove back violently. It has the intended result. Gage clutches at his face, tears welling in his eyes.
Raven immediately curls up, covering her face.
“Look at her,” I hiss.
Gage’s eyes go from angry to watery and scared.
“Fucking oaf.” I shove him back. “Get out.”
“Raven, I didn’t mean–”
“Get out. You can talk about it later.” I push him until he’s almost out of the room, and this time, he lets me.
“Wait, I need–”
“Give her a goddamn second.” I shove him out and shut the door. For a second, I stand there, unsure if I should leave as well.
There’s a rustle behind me, then I hear Raven flick on the bathroom light. The shower turns on, and I wait for the bathroom door to shut, but it doesn’t.
I should go. I should definitely go. Run for the hills. Get the fuck out of here like I originally planned.
But that tiny part of me that knows how isolating it is to push people away because of what you’ve been through wants me to stay.
I shouldn’t stay. This is just going to hurt me.
And yet, I find myself being drawn, step by step, to the bathroom.
Raven didn’t shut the door. She knew I was in here and didn’t shut me out.
I stand there, fists clenching and unclenching. This isn’t me. I’m not the comforter. I’m not Gage.
But Gage doesn’t understand. I do.
I knock on the doorframe. “It’s Axel.”
I hear nothing. Just the water hitting the floor.
Totally stupid. I should go now.
What if she’s not okay? What if she’s hurting herself?
Concern fills me, and I peek around the corner. Raven is sitting on the floor next to the sink, legs curled up to her chest.
Fuck.
Slowly, so I don’t scare her, I move into the bathroom. She doesn’t tell me to go. Doesn’t make any indication that she sees me. Slowly, very slowly, I lower myself to the floor beside her. For a long while, I don’t say anything. We just sit there while the room fills with steam.
Finally, I say, “I also find the bathroom floor to be the superior seating. Often after too many drinks. It cools the asscheeks.”
Nothing.
Okay. Fine. I just let my head fall back against the sink.
I should go. I really should. Shouldn’t get myself messed up in these emotions. Especially since I know she’s about to leave.
But my body feels like lead. I can’t just leave her without trying something.
“You know,” I say. “Wanting to recreate experiences is the brain’s way of processing trauma.”
Raven doesn’t move. So I keep going. “You get stuck in this… loop. I don’t know. It’s like you can’t get out of it until your brain has solved every last piece.”
Silence.
I close my eyes. “Like, maybe if I hadn’t said this or done that, it would have been different.” Maybe if I had been more grown up, I would have known what was happening.
Finally, Raven huffs, “That sounds fake.”
The relief from hearing her voice makes me crack my eyes open. “It could be. I went to some sex therapy camp a long time ago, so it could be total bullshit.”
“You? Therapy?”
I shake my head. “I know. Wild, huh?” I went to try to figure out what was wrong with me. Why I couldn’t stop fucking every woman that crossed my path. Why I was terrified of intimacy. “I got kicked out,” I say.
“Why?”
“I fucked one of the teachers.”
Raven laughs a real laugh, but it quickly disappears.
My tone sombers. “You’re not like Max, Raven.”
“How do you know?” Her voice is full of so much sorrow, it hurts something in my chest. Because she’s like me. That’s how I know. Raven wouldn’t inflict the same pain on other people that’s been inflicted on her.
“If Gage was scared, would you have kept going?”
Silence.
“Answer me. If you saw fear, would you have kept going?”
“No.”
That’s what I thought.
The water continues to pound down. Finally, Raven huffs. “Guess I should turn that off.”
“Or get in.”
She glances at me.
I pretend to pull my glasses off. “I won’t look.” We both ignore the fact that she’s totally naked in front of me as we speak, and I just watched her fuck my brother.
“You’re so stupid.”
I know I am. I’m stupid, so no one sees the real me.
Although with Raven, it feels different sometimes.
Like it becomes less about hiding and more about making her laugh.
“Well, Mr. Stupid is telling you to get in. Gage is a bit of a hot water monster. After he hit thirty, he obsessively checks the thermostat and water usage like an old man.”
She gives a tiny smile. And it makes me want to smile. Not a fake smile. A real one. Then she gets up, and I have to physically rip my gaze away from her ass.
No. Be a gentleman.
Fuck. When did I sign up to be a gentleman? Oh god. I’m getting soft. I’m becoming Gage.
“Ax?”
I shudder at my nickname. “Hmm?”
“You’re not as big a dick as I thought you were.”
I bark out a laugh, unable to help myself. “You wound me.”
Raven smiles, and it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. It makes me want to see it more. I stand there while she showers, then realize that she’s okay now. I can go.
I don’t want to go.
Fuck, I don’t want to go. But this is my brother’s girl. As much as I like her, I won’t repeat that mistake twice. It broke Gage, and he wasn’t the same after that. We weren’t the same.
So I force myself out of the bathroom.
Once out, I keep walking despite the fact that I want to walk straight back in there and tell Raven how obsessed I am with her. How I’m not gonna let her run from us. And I’m going to keep her. Forever.
But I don’t. I keep walking into the hall.
Then I trip over something.