Chapter Twenty-One #2
I narrowed my eyes playfully. He’d been trying not to curse in front of me since he’d kissed me on the balcony. It was sweet, but I still wanted all of him, the good and the gritty. “You mean piece of shit, don’t you?”
“I do. Who took care of you after your mom’s funeral? After the trial?”
“No one. No one stepped forward, and I was awarded to the state. Mom didn’t have a will to assign a guardian, so I went into a foster home, and they decided something was wrong with me.
I went into the hospital soon after that.
Stayed there a year, and it was awful, but I was out of control of my memories and feelings.
I’d shut down and wasn’t doing well with the therapy.
I was scared and confused, and every time it came up that I could be released, my doctors denied it.
Said I wasn’t ready. And maybe I wasn’t. I don’t know.”
“Do you still feel confused about what happened that night?”
He wasn’t asking because he didn’t believe me.
The earnest, worried set to his eyes said he asked because he worried about me keeping everything in.
“No. It all cleared up for me. I just needed time. I know what I saw. That memory never wavered. It was just all of the other stuff that became too much.”
He massaged the arches of my feet, and I leaned back into the dining chair.
“Do you wish things had been different?” he asked.
“Yeah. Of course I do. I fell through the cracks when my mom died. But then, I guess I’d be living in the city and Uncle Brady never would’ve taken me in. And I never would’ve met you.” My anger waivered, shifted. I’d been so deeply bitter about what Angus had done, it had tainted me. Jaded me.
But out of the muck, I got Caleb.
A distant smile tugged his lips. “My mom used to take us to this swimming hole in the summers when we were out of school. We’d spend the whole day there.
She never got in the water. Said she didn’t trust water she couldn’t see to the bottom of.
I think she was scared of the catfish we would catch out of the tank with my dad.
Anyway, I remember she used to collect bathing suits, and I never figured out why.
She’d wear a different one every time we went to the tank, but none of them ever got wet as far as I could tell.
And all colors, too. She liked bright colors, like Sadey does.
It matched her personality. She was happy. ”
“I wish I could’ve met her.”
“You would’ve liked her. My dad was really different when she was alive. He wasn’t so…hard.”
I tried to imagine living without Caleb and decided I’d be really closed off, too, if I sustained that kind of damage to my heart.
I was in awe of Caleb’s ease in his own space. It settled something in me, as well. The fire crackled as we cleaned the dishes and put away the leftovers. His hungry eyes fell on me as I emerged from the restroom, newly showered and wearing one of his old T-shirts that draped down to my knees.
I held up my flour dusted clothes. “You mind if I wash these?”
Caleb jerked his head toward the room off the kitchen. “Let me show you how to use the washer and dryer.”
I was grateful for his patient teachings. I hadn’t ever used a washer before. Uncle Brady had been more of a use-the-sink-and-line-dry type of guy.
While we waited for my clothes to finish their cycle, he turned on a movie, of which I couldn’t remember a single scene because Caleb-the-Adonis-McCreedy ran a light touch over the tops of my thighs, draped lazily over his lap for the entirety of the show.
He had worked me up to quite the inferno by the end credits.
His attention left the show as I parted my knees and grinned at him. His eyes went round and serious as he ran his hand up the inside of my leg.
“You said you wanted to wait to make our first time special,” I said.
“I did.” He hooked his finger on the lacy material and pulled my panties down my legs until they reached my ankles. Then, he slowly removed them like he had all the time in the world. I lifted up and pushed his shirt from his shoulders, exposing the long, curving scars on his chest and neck.
“I like the way you look.”
“Even marked up like this?”
I couldn’t take my eyes from him if I tried. “Especially marked up like this. They are a reminder of what you went through. What we went through the day we really met. These marks are part of our story.”
His abdomen flexed with every breath as he stared down at his torso with a frown. “I hadn’t thought of them like that.”
“How do you see them?”
“They always remind me of what I am now. They don’t let me forget the animal Eli put in me.”
“Caleb, I love you. And I love your animal, too. That part of you doesn’t bother me at all.”
“I watch you,” he said in a rushed voice. “When I change, I go to your house, and if you’re outside working, I watch you from the shadows. When I’m an animal, all I can think about is protecting you and being near you.”
“Of hunting for me?”
“Yeah, that too. You aren’t mad?”