Chapter 29 #2
“The night of the party,” he says, tilting his head.
“I got a call from the sheriff. My dad had been picked up for a DUI. He relapsed, and I knew right then and there that everything was going to go back to the way it was. He’d be my monster again, and I would inevitably be yours.
But I couldn’t have you close to me because I needed to protect you from him and from me, especially since I had fallen for you. ”
“You never fell for me, Blake.” Tears start to build, and I take a couple of quick deep breaths, holding them in.
His hands grip the bars of the cell, and he bobs his head up and down, signaling that it’s the truth.
“Yes, I did, and that’s why I had to push you away. I needed you to hate me so much that you’d stay away from me for good, because I didn’t trust myself to stay away from you.”
I believe what he’s saying, but I hate him for making me love him, and I hate him even more for making me hate him.
We were basically kids, and I’m sure he had the best of intentions, even though I don’t agree with them.
But what he endured, between the loss of his mom and his father’s downward spiral, I can’t imagine.
I understand the pain of watching a parent struggle with the loss of the person they loved most in this world.
I witnessed my own father swallow his sorrow and put on a brave face for me, knowing that I was grieving too.
His grief was masked by a hyperfixation on preparing for the worst-case scenario—the end of the world.
Despite hating what my childhood became after my mom passed, I can’t imagine my dad not having been there to protect me, guide me, and love me—the only way he knew how.
I want to forgive Blake and absolve him of his guilt.
If I were on the outside looking in, I would.
It would be easy to rationalize his actions with his circumstances, to see and understand exactly how it all played out.
But I’m not on the outside. I’m in here with him.
My lip trembles. “You shouldn’t have done that, Blake.”
“Done what?”
“Made me hate you.”
“Why?” he asks.
Blake stares at me with so much intensity, it feels like he could burst right through the steel bars separating us.
“Because you succeeded.”
He lowers his head and turns away from me. “It’s the one thing I wish I would have failed at,” Blake says, his shoulders slumping forward. He rubs at his face like he’s trying to wake himself up from a bad dream.
I fall silent, letting the words hang heavy in the air.
Although I’m standing still, my heart starts to pound, beating faster and faster, like it could shoot right out of my chest, splat onto the concrete floor for Blake to see.
It’s as though it’s trying to speak louder than my brain, trying to be the voice inside me that cuts through it all.
“Well, you’re failing now,” I say softly.
His breath hitches and the air in the room all but evaporates.
The moment feels frozen, like an entity in the sky hit pause on a remote, stretching out time to allow it to process what’s happening.
The air slowly returns, passing through Blake’s nose via a sniffle.
He turns and stands taller, as though a burden has been lifted from his shoulders, making him lighten.
“Blake,” I whisper, not wanting to ruin whatever this is. Maybe it’s a preamble or maybe it’s closure. It may even be both. If my words are small and meek enough, perhaps I can avoid having this moment come crashing down on us. “I don’t hate you anymore.”
He’s unable to hide the growing smile spreading across his face. “So, does that mean you like me?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say with a laugh.
He grins, unable to take his eyes off me, until reality dawns on him, the ticking countdown. Blake clears his throat, his face turning serious. “How much time is left?” he asks before twisting his mouth to one side.
“Oh, you’re in the clear,” I say nonchalantly, as if sharing the weather forecast with him.
“What?” The word comes out breathy and quick, having left his mouth faster than his lips and tongue had time to form a thought. He rushes to the cell door, seizing the bars like a caged animal ready to burst out. “Are you serious?”
“Yup.” I nod.
“Since when?”
I glance down at the watch, pretending like I’m calculating the delta of time. “Uhhh, about twenty minutes, give or take.” I smirk.
“So I didn’t need to confess any of that?”
“Nope, you could have kept all that to yourself,” I say, stretching my arms up over my head. I clasp my hands together as I arch my back. Cracking my sternum, I let out a sigh of relief at the sound of my vertebrae crunching.
The confused look on his face tells me he’s rapidly contemplating his decision, balancing the raw vulnerability with the catharsis of the lessened guilt. I reach into my pocket and retrieve the metal key to Blake’s cell. Inserting it into the keyhole, I pause and lock eyes with him.
“So, Blake, I guess there’s just one last thing I want to know.”
“What’s that?”
“Are you still my monster?”
A small grin starts to grow at the edges of his mouth, barely curling his lips, not even lifting his cheeks high enough to squeeze against his eyes. “Always,” he says.
I give the key a heavy twist and pull open the cell door, gazing up at him through my lashes.
He’s not the same man who went into that cell, at least not to me.
Blake’s eyes bounce rapidly from side to side, scanning my face, searching for a shared feeling that he knows was there once before.
I know it’s there too, and I don’t think it ever left.
It was just camouflaged with hate and resentment.
The rush of joy and anticipation, mixed with a new level of understanding, lures his lips to mine like a magnet that’s finally found its counterpart.
We breathe in one another as we kiss, like we could suck the life out of each other, but even then, it feels like we’d have another one to live.
I unlock our lips, gliding my cheek along his and then biting the bottom of his earlobe. He moans, and his hands firmly cup my ass.
“I want you,” I whisper, hot, heavy breath in his ear.
It’s true. I want nothing more in this moment than for Blake to take me.
Even if the whole world were burning around me, I would stand in that fire and welcome the scalding heat if this was the last pleasure I felt.
I bring my lips back to his, parting my mouth as our tongues pick up right where they left off, swirling in a vortex of anticipated escalation.
“I thought you . . . told me . . . never to . . . touch you . . . again.” A couple of words at a time sneak out between the less-than-one-second intervals we’re able to stay apart.
“Forget what I said.” I grab his shirt, twisting the fabric in my hands, and pull him even tighter into my body. “Touch me everywhere, Blake,” I say when my mouth is free to speak the things my heart has been screaming.
For a brief moment everything stands still, our heavy breathing is the only sound in the room, our shoulders rising and falling in slow motion, and then in a flash, he’s pulling my shirt up over my head, unable to wait any longer.
We’ve waited long enough. Our mouths collide again, and our labored breaths are the soundtrack that plays as he unclasps my bra, letting it fall to the floor.
As I melt into him, I can’t help but be frustrated with Blake for messing everything up back in high school.
If he had just leaned on me rather than pushing me away, we could have had this moment long ago, and then a thousand more of them.
Blake pauses only to look at me, to really take me in.
He can’t help but smile as his eyes scan my body.
I tug off his shirt. I knew what was under there, but now it’s mine.
Blake pulls me into him, his hot skin pressed up against mine as he ravages me, unable to get enough.
He squeezes my breast, his grip hard due to his strength and longing.
I moan from the pressure and find his lips again, kissing and sucking, while my hand ventures down his rigid abs and beneath the elastic band of his joggers.
He’s rock hard, and it makes me grin, because I know it’s for me.
“God, I want you so fucking bad, Casey,” he says, breathless.
“I want you too. I want all of you,” I say in between kisses.
The palm of his hand slides past my pubic bone, curving under, two fingers disappearing inside me. He’s found a new place to touch, and fuck, it feels good. Once the source of my torment, Blake swings violently from the man who once ruined me to the man I now want to ruin me.
He undoes my pants and slides them down my thighs, eager to see and explore more of me.
Sinking to his knees, he kisses my most sensitive area through the cotton fabric of my underwear, licking and biting.
He’s only teasing me, and I’m already breathless.
The anticipation is killing me. It’s more dangerous than anything I’ve ever faced.
Because if I don’t get it, I might just die.
Blake looks up at me, an intensity burning in his eyes.
“Do you like me yet?” He smiles, still teasing.
“I’m getting there,” I say, biting my lip while my hands run through his hair.
Blake slides my underwear down my legs, so I’m on full display for him, and I can tell from the look in his eyes he likes what he sees. He licks his lips and meets my gaze again.
“Let’s get you all the way there then,” he says, burying his face into my center. The pleasure is immediate, rocking through my entire body. Every nerve is firing on all cylinders.
I assumed Blake wouldn’t be shy, that he would be happy to take charge and be full of passion, but I never assumed he would be this attentive to my needs, playing and teasing with the care and grace of a longtime lover instead of a one-night fuck.
He’s touching parts of me that I thought were untouchable, and none of them are on my body.
The way his tongue moves, I think he wants me to more than like him.
It flicks and licks and swirls, nearly making me scream.
I start to quiver, my legs becoming weak with the buildup of desire and the coming release.
Oh fuck, I don’t think I could ever hate Blake again after this, no matter what he did.
I can’t take it anymore, yet all I want is more.
I lean forward, resting my weight on his face as he cranes his neck back, devouring me without hesitation.
My breath turns to rhythmic moans, faster and faster, Blake’s tongue answering with more pressure and more speed.
My hand grabs the back of his head for support, clawing at his short hair as I rock gently on him.
Blake is unrelenting, and I have to pull his face away. He looks up at me, just as pleased with himself as I am with him. “So, do you like me?”
I grab him, pulling him up to me. “You know I do,” I say. “Now make me love you.”
He spins me around and presses me into the door of his cell. My hands grip the bars as I arch my back, lifting my ass and standing on my tiptoes, creating the easiest path for him. I need to feel him inside me. I need the fullness of him to occupy every inch of me.
Without looking back, I feel a hand gently grip around my throat, elongating it as Blake leaves wet kisses down my neck and shoulders.
“I’ll do anything you want me to, Casey.”
I lean my head back, twisting it to find his lips and kiss him as he guides himself into me, filling me with the pressure I’ve been aching for.
He doesn’t have to ask me if I love him.
He knows I do. He can feel it in the way my body reacts to his, my heart beating a little faster when he’s around.
He can see it in my eyes, the way they linger on him, not really wanting to look away even when I’m mad at him.
I step back, pushing him out of me and guide us to the floor.
I want to see his face, to get lost in his eyes, to kiss him while I can barely breathe, because he makes me breathless.
I straddle Blake, making him moan as I swallow the length of him.
My lips find his again. It’s like finding air underneath water.
We breathe each other in as we rock back and forth, melting together, becoming one.
We don’t stop until every muscle in our bodies gives out.
I collapse on top of Blake, laying my chest on his as he wraps his arms around me.
His heart races, beating through him into me, syncing with the rhythm of my own.
Right now, it doesn’t feel like the world ended, because mine is lying in my arms.