Chapter 8

Priscilla

L ying in bed, I’m truly shaken, not just about the rabbits but about the headstone, Conrad shooting me and getting killed by the SWAT team… just everything. It all feels surreal, like I’m a stranger standing outside my life watching one depraved thing after another take place. It’s too much and I’m glad Mia isn’t here to see this latest round of what the fuck.

I pull the blankets over my head and just let it all out. I cry so hard I give myself hiccups.

Eventually, after I’m all cried out and sobbing, the hiccups slowly diminish and go away completely. I hate that I lost control of my emotions but at least no one saw me breaking down. Deep down inside, I know I needed a good cry to purge all those negative feelings before Mia comes back, I need to be strong for her.

I lift up the blanket, making an opening between my face and the room because if I don’t get some fresh air, I’m going to pass out. I close my eyes and try and think positive thoughts. Mia’s smiling face floats to the forefront of my mind. That little girl is so resilient, the way she’s coped with everything that’s happened over the last few weeks is nothing short of amazing. Though I know I have Rage to thank for that too, the way he stepped up to take care of her when I couldn’t.

Seeing them together is startling, the similarity between them is unmistakable and my mind goes back to what Meli said to me at the restaurant—and once more I wonder if it could be true? It’s something I wished for, for so many years, but I always told myself that it couldn’t be.

I tried to blank out that awful night when Mia was conceived, but I’m living with the consequences. Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter with all my heart but only I know the truth, her father is a monster. Rage and I were in love, we might have been childhood sweethearts, but it was real. I had been secretly hoping that he was going to ask me to marry him, I was heading to college in the fall, but I knew our love would survive the distance. Then my world was consumed by evil. I had vaguely known Conrad, we attended the same high school though we moved in different circles and took different classes, however his older brother Ashton was a creep. I’d mistakenly thought him harmless until one night when I was on my way home from a friend’s house and he attacked me. I tried to fight him off, but I was powerless. I’d told my parents, but they said because the Whitmores were so wealthy I couldn’t go to the police. They told me I had to put the whole incident out of my head, but how could I? I was a wreck.

I couldn’t face Ray, I couldn’t bear to see the look on his face, so like a coward I ran off to college. It was when I started vomiting six weeks later that I realized the truth. I was pregnant and it was Ashton’s baby. It had to be, because Ray and I had always used condoms. I returned home on winter break not knowing what to do. I needed to speak to Ray and tell him what happened and see if he would take me back, that’s when my parents told me he’d died. I’d refused to believe it until they showed me his grave.

No matter how my daughter came into being, I loved her with all my heart even before she was born. It wasn’t her fault that her father was a psychopathic rapist. I told my parents I was pregnant, insisting it was Ashton’s baby. But they said I was wrong, that it was Ray’s, but they had a solution. I was to marry Conrad. If I agreed, then he would look after my daughter as if she were his own. His family was rich, and we’d be taken care of, my parents said I had no choice and I had to do as they said. In my messed-up state of mind I found myself agreeing and so I left college and returned to Las Salinas and became Mrs. Whitmore.

It’s only in hindsight I realized what must have actually happened, my parents had gone to Malcolm Whitmore and told him that his son raped me. The monthly stipend they received was hush money, and the arranged marriage with Conrad was to keep the evidence of that rape close. However, they couldn’t acknowledge that Mia was their granddaughter, so they kept up the pretense that she was Ray’s. It was around the time of my marriage to Conrad that his brother went into a long-term psychiatric care unit, I suppose that was my father-in-law’s concession to admitting his son was disturbed and a rapist and to ensure he received the treatment he needed. Things hadn’t been bad with Conrad, there was no emotion in our marriage, but he never hurt me, it was only in the past year leading up to the night he shot me when his behavior changed. A change that coincided with his brother being released.

As soon as my mind goes back to that night my breathing quickens and I realize I’m hyperventilating. I try and take a deep breath, but then suddenly I catch the rancid stench of those dead rabbits mixed with the scent of moist earth from the cemetery and Rage’s grave. I’m shaking and crying as I pull off my clothes as if they are contaminated. Flipping the shower on hot, I can barely force myself to stand there adjusting the temperature. When it’s as hot as I can stand it, I step into the water and close the door. I scrub myself so hard because I’ve got to get this smell off me. I feel disgusting, I am disgusting. What the hell is happening to me? I don’t know why I’m doing this, and I can’t seem to stop. Dark thought crawls forth from the back of my mind that if I scrub hard enough, I can wash away all the heartache and bad decisions I’ve made over the years. I can wash away the memory of that night. Wash it away and replace it with something new.

Mumbling under my breath and scalding myself is how Rage finds me. I didn’t even hear him come into the bathroom, must less come into the shower with me. I only realize he’s there when his arms come up behind me and gently lift me out from under the too hot stream of water cascading down from the showerhead and he wraps me in a huge white towel.

I freeze in place, humiliated that he found me falling apart. I have to face the fact that I’m in no way good enough for this man even if deep inside I wondered if we had a chance. He’s strong, smart, compassionate, and so attractive that women literally swoon over him. I’m now just another struggling single parent, mercifully freshly out of a messed-up relationship. The only thing we have in common is a history of heartache.

He turns off the shower, opens the door and helps me out.

“Sit there for a moment, darlin’,” he says as he directs me to the chair. When I’m seated, he strips the bed and makes quick work of changing the duvet cover.

“All good now,” Rage says as he pats the bed.

I get up and climb into the bed, savoring the feel of the clean sheets. Rage then gets up and leaves the room and I wonder where he’s gone.

I lay there for a few minutes in the darkened room, my panic gone and my mind calm. Still under the covers, I hear the bedroom door open and close. When a warm body slides onto the bed beside me on top of the duvet and pulls me into his arm, I know it’s Rage. I can tell by his scent and the way he touches me. I turn over, bury my face in his chest and wrap my arms round him.

“You okay, sweetness?” he whispers into my hair.

“Sorry, you didn’t need to see me like that,” I mumble.

“It was the smell, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I reply. That was part of it, that, and other things. At that moment I want to tell him about Mia, about how she was conceived. About the reason I ran away, but I can’t. I’m a coward.

“I noticed it too. Sometimes if I’ve had a hard day at work, or when things were… well, I was a battlefield medic, I don’t need to tell you what I’ve seen. Anyway, I get it, I get the need to scrub that smell off, even if the smell is only in your head.” He strokes my hair, and I lean into his touch.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak out,” I say and lift my head up. I’m under the duvet and he’s on top, he’s taken off his jeans and shirt which got soaked when he ran into the shower and is naked save for a towel wrapped around his waist. Suddenly I’m not feeling fear or guilt or anything negative. There’s a warmth rushing through my body that I haven’t felt in years.

“From now on if you start to panic, you call me, scream my name and I’ll come running. I don’t ever want you being alone when you’re like that. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Prissy?”

I nod. “It’s just embarrassing. I don’t like people to see me like that.”

“I’m not just anybody. I’m your best friend, your first love, and the man who will always be there for you when others let you down,” His finger trails down my cheek, before he checks himself and pulls his hand back.

“That felt nice,” I say cautiously.

“I missed you Priscilla, I missed the feel of your skin, your laugh. Everything. When you left it felt like part of me left too.”

“I’m sorry,” my voice is quiet.

“Don’t be, you told me what happened. I know my Prissy didn’t run out on me. I can’t imagine what it was like for you,” he shifts so he’s on his side looking at me. My eyes eat up his body in the soft light, the tattoos covering his chest, shoulders, and arms. The smattering of hair. His long hair curling at his shoulders, it’s drying in ringlets and for a moment my mind springs to Mia. My daughter’s hair does that too.

“I don’t think I ever stopped grieving for you,” I say as I lift my hand up and cup his cheek. His goatee is neatly trimmed, but I can feel the five o’ clock shadow on his cheeks where his beard is growing in. An image of kissing him flashes through my mind. I remember how soft his lips were.

His green eyes gaze into mine, and before I know what’s happening I find myself leaning up, searching for his lips. His lips are somehow soft and demanding at the same time. He slides one hand through my hair and gently tugs my head back as his tongue plunders my mouth. When I give in to his kisses, his hands drop down to explore my body. His touch is familiar and spikes my arousal something fierce.

I slide my hands through his shoulder-length hair just to feel the texture. It seems coarser and more masculine than it did when were teens.

Suddenly he pulls back.

I’m dazed with lust and glance up to see he’s wearing a similar expression.

“God Priscilla, I’ve missed you so much,” his voice is hoarse and when I look down, I can see his erection punching the front of the towel. “You’ve had a frightening day, when something like that happens it’s easy to misread emotions. I don’t want you doing something you’ll regret.”

I gaze up at him, my heart pounding. “I’ve missed you too, Ray. Yes, today was awful, it was terrifying. But I’m not scared now. With you I feel the safest I’ve ever been, it’s like coming home.” I realize that I’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster lately but here with Rage I know with absolute certainty what I want. I slowly push away the blanket, exposing my breasts, “I want this, I want you, Ray. It’s not adrenaline or fear or whatever talking. It’s me.”

His eyes widen as he takes in my body. I’m not sure what he’s seeing, I’ve put on weight since I was a teenager and there’s no missing the healing bullet wound on my chest. But the expression on his face tells me everything I need to know. He clearly likes what he sees. “You sure about this?”

I move closer and rub his naked chest with my hands. “I’m surer than I’ve ever been sure about anything.”

“What about Conrad? If you need more time. I can wait until you’re ready.”

“I don’t want to talk about Conrad right now, but you need to know, we didn’t have a conventional marriage. I only slept with him a handful of times and not in the last few years.” Now wasn’t the time to tell him how Conrad barely showed me any interest, he had affairs, and he was discreet about them, but it was obvious to me that he didn’t find me attractive. Which had made me wonder why he’d married me —though knowing what I do now, he was obviously pressurized into marrying me to cover up his brother’s crime. That one night ended up ruining three lives, mine, Rage’s, and Conrad’s.

Rage’s mouth falls open, but he recovers quickly. “I’m glad you didn’t have to be intimate with someone you didn’t like. You deserve so much better than that.”

“For the first time in my life, I’m starting to think you’re right. I do deserve better than the hand I was dealt in life.”

He tugs me closer and murmurs, “You sure as fuck do. Conrad was a fool for not seeing how special you are. I’m not about to make the same mistake.”

Before I can respond, he maneuvers me down onto the bed and comes down beside me. I realize he’s intent on keeping his weight off my still sore body. Everything about this man is good.

His lips meet mine again and I get lost in the kiss, forgetting everything that’s happened and only concentrating on the moment. He kisses his way down my body, carefully edging around the bullet wound. It’s still a fierce angry red but the hole has healed over. It’s more unsightly than painful.

By the time his head is between my legs, I remember the reason sex with Rage was always mind blowing, he excels at foreplay and relishes in exploring my body.

Tonight is no different. He tries the things I like from when we were teens and a few techniques that are new. I like it all, so very much. It’s like my body is starved for the exact kind of pleasure he deals.

When he begins to lick my slit, I spread my legs wider, wanting to encourage him as much as possible. He gladly takes the space I open up for him, wedging his big shoulders between my legs as he fucks me with his tongue. When Rage concentrates all his efforts on my clit, I zone out, aware of nothing more than the man who’s giving all the pleasure a woman could ever ask for.

He traces around my clit in tight firm circles, and it drives me mad with need. Then his tongue dips down to thrust inside me. It feels like a sacred promise of what’s to come when he uses his cock. He’s making my pussy flood with honey just for him. I run my hands through his hair as he tongue-fucks me. “So, good,” I whisper.

I come around his tongue with his thumb on my clit once and again with mouth on my clit and his fingers deep inside me.

He moves up over me but doesn’t come down on top of me. Instead, he rolls us gently, pulling me on top. I’ve got one leg on either side of his hips, and riding his cock to oblivion is all I can think of in this moment.

He helps me lift myself up and onto his thick cock. He’s spent a lot of time stretching me out but taking him is still a challenge. I ease my way down, feeling the burn as he breaches the walls that haven’t seen any action for years.

“You feel virgin tight,” He whispers as if awestruck.

I know that if we continue fooling around, my body will retain a Rage-sized space in my core, but I’m willing to chance it for one more night with him where I can forget all my troubles.

As he bottoms out in my body. I feel so full and almost don’t want to move. I take a few minutes and then I snatch all my courage up and lift off him. Feeling his cock dragging through every square inch of my pussy is like no pleasure I’ve ever known.

He’s just as excited as I am because he helps me lift myself and then eases me back down slowly. We slowly increase our pace. When I want to go hard, he sets a gentler pace, not going as deep or hard as I want. It’s frustrating as hell but I know he’s trying to go easy on me, so I decide to play nice.

The result is pure magic. Intense pleasure flows back and forth between us as he tells me how beautiful I am to him, how good my pussy feels wrapped around his cock. He’s graphic and brutally honest. In this moment, I don’t doubt him at all. Finally I lean forward and take a little more control. We go at my pace, experimenting with long slow strokes and short slow strokes, I love it all and can’t wait to feel him come inside me.

We make love for what seems like hours and fall into each other’s arms, sweaty and spent. We used to wake up in the night and go another round or two, but I know Rage won’t allow that until I’m released from my doctor’s care.

When I see the pure unbridled happiness on his face, I know deep down in my soul that we were meant to be. Unfortunately, other people with bad intentions got in our way. I vow to fight the world to keep him this time.