Chapter 25 #3
“Don’t patronize me, you oversexed son of a bitch.”
“I love it when you’re stern,” he crooned.
That pushed us over the top again, even worse this time. The harder we tried to stifle the laughter, the worse it got. When the paroxysms finally petered out, we just lay there, facing each other, staring into each other’s eyes, just drifting.
Such a strange, wide-open feeling. As if we were having a conversation without words on some level far removed from our conscious minds.
I felt naked, intensely seen, as if my soul had its doors flung completely open.
And he felt the same. I knew it, because I could see inside him.
I could see all the way to forever. And it was beautiful.
Who knew how much time passed, in this strange floating state. I certainly couldn’t track it, and I wasn’t even capable of looking at a watch or a phone.
Finally, he reached out, very slowly stroking my cheek with a tip of his finger, with reverent tenderness. “Hey,” he said. “Frey. Who’s Aunt Jean?”
I flinched as if he’d slapped me. “What the fuck, Jed?”
He just waited. “Who is she?”
“None of your goddamn business!”
“I told you the truth,” he said gently. “Now tell me yours. When I came in the door, you screamed this woman’s name. Who is she? What did she do to you?”
I rolled over so my back was to him. I couldn’t bear to be seen. It took me several minutes to come up with an entry point into that tangle of dark memories.
“Remember Sandee’s mean foster parents?” I asked. “The ones who locked her in the basement?”
I heard his sharp intake of air. “Oh, shit! You’re telling me that part of it was real?”
“Yeah, for some reason, I gave that same story to Sandee. I guess I figured it would explain her many character defects, all at once. I wasn’t really thinking about what that meant for me. I was just trying to put together a believable personality.”
“You succeeded,” he said, his voice wry. “So, she was a relative?”
“Yeah. My aunt. Jean Winters. She and my Uncle Orren Winters. Jean was my mother’s older sister, but they weren’t close. Of course, you knew my parents died in a car accident when I was seven years old, right?”
He nodded. “Your brothers told me about that.”
“A drunk driver,” I said. “They went out to a blues festival. Never came back.”
“I know how that is,” Jed offered. “I was ten when my dad smashed up in his truck coming home from the bar. Except in his case, he was the drunk driver.”
I winced. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded acknowledgement. “So tell me about Aunt Jean and Uncle Orren.”
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling. “We got sent to live with them after the accident,” I said. “I was seven, Shane was almost thirteen, Ethan was fifteen.”
“And they were both bad? This aunt and uncle?”
“They were terrible. Their house was a nightmare. Aunt Jean was insane. Being married to my uncle might have been what did it to her, but she couldn’t have been too stable to begin with, to marry him.”
“What happened with them?”
I blew out a long, calming breath. All of the giddiness from the intense closeness and the laughter had drained away, and the filthy, jagged garbage underneath was starting to make itself felt.
“They were super religious, but in that toxic, scary way,” I said.
“They wanted to control what we thought. They hated us. The boys scared them, not that I blame them. Ethan and Shane were pretty scary. And I think Jean had been jealous of my mother, for being smarter, prettier, happier. So she hated us by reflex.”
“Did they hurt you?” he persisted.
“Not at first,” I said. “The situation with Ethan and Shane went south pretty fast. Uncle Orren had them accused of some stuff they never did, and got them locked up in a juvenile detention center. I tried to run away. When they brought me back, they chained me up in the basement. They left me down there in the dark. For days at a time. Weeks.”
Jed looked at me in horror, but I was careful not to turn my face his way. It was hard enough, just staring up at the burnt-out lightbulb. Listening to the silence.
“Jesus, Frey,” he said quietly. “That’s horrific.”
“Yes, it was, because then they got a taste for it. It was supposed to make me pray. Because I was such a bad girl, going straight to hell. Sometimes Orren beat me.”
“Did he ever….” Jed’s voice trailed off, afraid to ask the question.
“No,” I said. “But I think he was working up to it. If he was down there with me alone, he would get that look on his face, and I’d start screaming for Aunt Jean. I figured, he wouldn’t touch me if she was there with us. Even if she was hitting me.”
“How long were you stuck in their house?”
I thought about it for a while. It had been so long since I’d let myself remember anything about that period in my life.
“Maybe six months? They locked up the boys after about two months, and it took them about four months to break out of the Eagle Crest juvenile facility. Then they busted me out. Longest four months in history.”
“Your brothers never told me about that,” he said.
“Yeah, they’re still traumatized about it. They blame themselves. Macho idiots. They think they’re supposed to be superheroes. Sort of like this other guy I know.”
Jed smoothly ignored that. “So, that was a stress flashback, when I came in?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “It’s been a really long time since I had one. I was back in the basement, and I thought you were Uncle Orren. So I started screaming for my aunt.”
“God, Frey. I am so sorry.”
I turned and looked straight at him. “You should be,” I said bluntly.
He looked pained, but he didn’t push the reproof away. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “So are they still out there?”
“Who?”
“Your aunt and uncle. Are they still alive?”
“I assume so. Why do you ask?”
“I have a few things I’d like to say to them,” he said.
I shuddered. “I never want to see them again. I thought I’d put it all in the past. But they’re still in there, fresh as ever. Locked in that basement room in my head and just waiting to pop out, like a Jack-in-the-box.”
Jed seized my hand, pulling me toward him. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
I was too wound up and tense to give in to his pull. “Nobody means to, unless they’re a monster. It’s just what people do. People hurt each other. Even the ones they love.”
“You’re the one I love,” he said.
I opened my mouth, but had no words to respond to that. I started to shake. My face turned red, my eyes wet. My throat melted. Shivering too hard to speak.
I breathed carefully until I could control my voice. “Dude, please,” I said carefully. “You’re under the influence of a massive dose of powerful, largely untested drug. Maybe hold off on the big declarations until you’re straight again. It could get weird for you later.”
“Don’t push me away, Frey. Nothing will change.
It’s the way I felt before. I just couldn’t get the door unlocked on my own.
I needed you to blow it off with a shotgun.
But it’s open now. You’re incredible. You rock my world.
Tell me if you feel the same way. I know you can’t lie to me now. Give it to me straight.”
The words fell out. “I love you,” I said. “I always have. I love you more now.”
His eyes lit up, and he rolled on top of me.
Our bodies melted together, exquisitely attuned, yielding. We started shedding clothes. Unbuttoning his shirt, kicking off my shoes, unbuckling belts with breathless haste. Hungry to feel that sweet, shocking rush of hot skin against skin.
He jerked his jeans off, along with his underwear, and kicked them away. He helped me unhook my bra and fell back onto the bed, pulling me down on top of him.
I lost no time. The livewire rawness of this conversation was more than enough foreplay. I was desperate to have him inside me, already slick and soft and yielding. I petted myself with him first, sliding up and down, getting him wet with my lube. Then I nudged his cockhead between my pussy lips.
He gripped the base of his cock, holding it as I sank over the entire length of his stiff, hot shaft. Taking him in. All the way in. So full, so hot. So satisfying.
Jed clutched my hips, lifting me, dragging me close, and soon we had the perfect slow, surging, undulating ride established.
Rising and falling. Deep, heavy strokes, like the slow, tender lick of a hungry tongue.
Circling his thumb around my clit while stimulating that wild, live sweet spot inside me with his cock.
Driving me relentlessly to a long, pulsing climax that went on and on, until I was expanded, shimmering, liquid. Pure, shining bliss.
Jed slowly, carefully rearranged my limp body after, pulling sheets and blankets over me.
He pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me.
I pressed my ear to his chest, feeling the slow, heavy throb of his heartbeat under my cheek.
Tasting the salt on his skin. I felt so safe and warm, wrapped in his strength.
Really? You drugged the man, you dirty girl. He’ll hate you when he’s clean again. He’ll never trust you again, you dumb whore. Don’t get too comfortable.
Jean’s voice in my head. I pushed it away with all my strength. I did not have to listen to that poisonous bitch any longer. I would not let her pollute my good thing.
Whether or not she was right.