Eluding Nirvana (The Dark Evoke Series Book 2) (23 page)

My nipples strained
painfully against the satin, my hands caressed at the heavy, tightening burdens on my chest before skimming down my sternum, my stomach, to the summit of my inner thighs. Back arched, I thrust my hips up as my hand plunged under the band of my panties and glided downward over my core, drawing a small gasp of pleasure from my lips. My middle finger swept along the damp heat and creamy slickness as my thighs fell further open, a current of desire and need shooting from the tip of my clit through my entire body as I shuddered.

What was I doing? What was I thinking? This was…it was…fuck it was nice…

Rough, baited pants were passing my lips while my pelvis gyrated under my touch. Slow fingers orbited over the swelling peak of my core at a leisurely pace, and it was exhilarating, feeling the evidence of what my private touch was instigating. All the while, a certain pleasant, seductive brogue was rounding my mind, his scent and his innuendos. Oh God, the feel of his body as I accidentally grinded against him, the bulge in his pants, the image of that final position we took atop of that table, teased my mind as I continued teasing my seeping core.

Eyes screwed
tightly, I licked my lips, my hand relentlessly worked on fueling my body, my hips circled, my shoulder raised. I felt my wetness coating the material of my panties while I stroked myself inside of them, tiny bolts of electricity firing from that nub of nerve endings that the tips of my fingers were stimulating at an agonizing slow pace. I was in no rush. I needed an intense, body shaking orgasm. I knew it wouldn’t be as pungent as the ones the man down the hall could give me, but I needed it as powerful as I could give myself.

‘When I said focus on the balls, Kady, I meant the ones on the table, darlin’,’
his words tormented my mind as I envisioned his scruff pressing between my thighs, his tongue taking the place of my fingers. With round, sweeping motions all I could focus on was the image of his tongue doing what I was doing to myself, tasting the juice of my core
escaping
at the mere fantasy of him here with me.

Sweat beaded on
my brow and down the crevice of my spine, and soon, every muscle in my body began to stiffen and contract. My lower back and abdomen surrendered to the weightlessness of bliss as the pressure behind my touch gained, my speed rapid. I chewed on the edge of the comforter to stifle my cries as my body erupted, trembling and tightening as my synapses sparked and fired, then traveled through my entirety with heady jolts of bliss.

Breathless and wasted, I allowed my body to sink into the mattress, and as I spiraled down from my release, I was caught
by a generous amount of guilt.

I just fantasize
d about another man, a fantasy that brought me to orgasm, when
my
man was less than thirty-five feet away. What the fuck was I doing?

Have you ever experienced those moments when you’re caught between dream and reality. You know, those moments just before you flutter your eyes and prepare yourself for the day, when you forget everything? That’s what I felt when I woke the following morning.

I was stretching my body, alleviating the tightness in my muscles and joints with a smile on my face, when I fluttered my eyelids and came face-to-face with that damn phone on the bedside.

That damn phone was the trigger to my shit awful day.

At some point during the early hours the thing had started ringing. It shocked me awake. Disorientated, I clambered over Liam’s empty side of the bed and picked it up. It somehow connected to phone in the home office, and like some masochist, I deserted slumber and allowed myself to listen to the voices on the other end.

The voice of Liam…the voice of Liv.

“Liam, I’m not sure how that would work. We’ve pushed it a few times,” she giggled, practically uncaring.

“Trust me, it’ll be fine. Come on, we have to, Liv.”

As the words played havoc with my mind, gut-wrenching tears sprang to my eyes while fury and betrayal became my morning wake up call.

“Good morning,
Kady baby,” Liam was standing in the doorway, already dressed in his light gray suit and blue shirt. The mattress swallowed in my hands as I pushed myself up to sit. “I brought you breakfast.”

Breakfast, I inwardly scoffed. He thinks breakfast will help diminish a guilty
fucking conscience?

The
distance between us was closed. The bed plunged as he set the wooden tray on my lap and took a seat against the lower left post of the bed. I examined the contents of the tray: bacon, pancakes, scrambled eggs and ketchup, with a glass of orange juice and a cup of coffee, the full-bodied aroma traveled along the steam as it danced and spiraled into the air. At least there was no blood sausage or mushrooms on it this time. So I knew this wasn’t a punishment breakfast at least.

“What’s the matter, baby? You look a little pale.”

Sitting in silence, I didn’t dare look at him. I knew I’d break if I did. How could I have been so naive? I’d listened to her for hours gushing over this new man in her life. Her words continued a haunting tune in my mind as I stared blankly at the array on the tray.
‘It’s not my fault that she can’t see what’s happening in front of her eyes, Kady. Why should I feel guilty? If it was a happy home, then he wouldn’t have come to me in the first place.’

The mental fog began to lift. Was that the reason why Liam made it his mission to for all this time to keep us separated?

“Kady?” the voice laced with concern reeled me back. I lifted my head. “What’s wrong baby? You’re worrying me.”

“What’s going on with you and Liv?” The words tumbled unbidden from my lips. I couldn’t
suppress this. This was something that needed to be said, that needed to have place in the open air so we knew where we both stood.

His face fell and a scowl appeared. Usually,
that expression of his would’ve had me cowering. But not at that moment. At that moment, I was making it my mission to find out exactly what the fucking Hell was going on behind my back, with someone who was supposed to be my best friend and my partner. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. What is going on with you a
nd Liv? And don’t lie to me Liam. I deserve that much at least.”

“Kady,” he sniggered, which didn’t sit well with the tight ball in my belly that was increasing as my adrenaline rose. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. W
hy would you think there was anything going on anyway?”

I licked my
lips and grit my teeth so hard I was sure one was going to chip. “Don’t. Fucking. Lie to me!” I screamed. All logical thought sailed out the window to be replaced by sheer wrath. In a blur, the tray was picked up from my lap and hurled across the room, narrowly missing Liam’s head, before smashing against the doorframe of the en-suite and crashing to the flooring. “I heard you on the fucking phone last night!”

Each unsteady, quivering breath had my chest heaving. I watched on as all dry amusement dissolved from his features to be
superseded with sheer antagonism, while the severity of my actions was concrete at my feet, pulling me down as I crash-landed back to reality from my moment of sheer rage.

“N
o, no, no, no…” I shook my head frantically with each beseeching syllable that was drawn from my lips. Jaw sturdy and tight, eyes hard and uncompromising, with the swiftness of a hunting lion he jumped up, the back of his hand connecting at an angle across the left side of my face. The bitter, metallic taste seeped from my lip to my tongue as I fell backwards. Wild, brutal hands grabbed at my legs and yanked me back as I tried to escape from his clutches.

But it was
a wasted effort.

He finally
fisted his hand in my hair and dragged me out of the bed.

“Liam, no please,
let me go, I’m sorry, I’m sorry––” I yelled as I struggled to find my feet all the while being pulled across the floor with my hand clutched at the back of my head, in a futile attempt to stop him from yanking a fist-full of blond hair out from the root.

I was
hauled kicking and shouting to the end of the room where the food and drinks laid dispersed over the ground.

As if I was worshipping the chaos on the floor, I was positioned on my hands and knees before it, his hand still gripping forcefully in my hair while he stood behind me, my hips
trapped between his legs. “If you had let me fucking explain,” he hissed and unexpectedly, my face was being buried and scrubbed into the mess that I had created, like some puppy having her nose rubbed in its own piss after an accident. “I was talking to a client. He wants my company to design a casino. He said about life being short, and I said that we have to
live
life.”

The fraught sounds of me spluttering and choking were masking his intimidating words.
The heat of the coffee had absorbed into the carpet, and with each merciless plunge he made as he held me there, face first in the disarray that was supposed to have been breakfast, my face was getting burned. The fibers of the carpeting scoured at my flesh as he unrelentingly scrubbed me across it.

Finally, I fe
lt his death grip leave my hair and my hips were no longer trapped between his legs. On shaky arms, I pushed my face away from the floor, tears streaming down my cheeks. Sobs escaped my throat as I spluttered the chunks of food which found their way into my mouth after his assault.

Liam remained in my
peripheral vision. “This,”––he screamed, pointing at the remnants of breakfast––“was a fucking apology because I have to go on a fucking business”––his words were getting tighter as he reared up and out of view. Before I could intuit his next move, his leg came back and a swift kick in my ribs was issued upon me. I called out on a gasp, the tears coming faster and harder, making my stomach tense painfully. “Trip, and I won’t be here,”––leg pulled back, my ribs suffered the brunt end of another ruthless strike. I bowled over struggling for breath, a face smothered with food, hot coffee and orange juice, while I supported myself on a shaky left arm. My right folded over my middle to the battered area seeking protection. “For your birthday next. Fucking. Week.” As he punctuated the final two words, another two swift kicks were delivered.

Somehow as I fought for breath, I managed to cry out, feeling my lungs being compressed by the
string of kicks while my ribs throbbed and smarted, drawing gasp upon gasp from my winded body.

Whe
n he finally moved away, my frame gave in and I fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. I watched through my tears as his hands raked back in his hair. I didn’t care that mine was getting matted and dipping in the shit on the floor. I just held my ribs, crying inanely.

How he
could’ve been be so composed after doing that, I have no idea. But he waltzed to the doorway like he had just given me a kiss before leaving for work.

He turned on his heel
and straightened his tie, commanding one more thing of me before he left me a winded and damaged heap, at his hands, on the flooring of our bedroom. “Oh, and clean up your damn mess once you’re done with the crying.”

15
th
May, 2012.

Thirteen months b
efore the accident…

The week passed in a blur of pain relief, tiptoeing on eggshells and
utter silence. Unlike past incidents, Liam never attempted to right this wrong. He never offered any affection or comfort. Striving to regain what we were before that day apparently wasn’t on his list of endeavors, either.

With a bruised ego and
equally bruised ribs, I continued to go about my daily duties, gasping and panting, wincing and scowling all the while I was doing them, but I did my utmost to remain the good little housewife. I didn’t bother going to the emergency room. There was no point.

On hands and knees, I scrubbed and scrubbed at the stain on the bedroom floor. Six stain removal treatments later, and the
traces of that monstrous morning were near enough erased. If only there was a solution to remove it from my mind, I thought to myself more often than once.

The silence
that chased over the days which followed that Friday morning, was temporarily disrupted when Liam stepped through the front door the following Thursday. He slammed it behind him, causing the walls to shake under protest, and me to jump out of my skin with the vacuum in hand, cringing as I did so, as I made my way up the staircase.

“What the fuck have you said to her?” he shouted, his face contorted like some demon was pushing to break free from his flesh. His briefcase plummeted to the hardwood flooring in the hallway.
The thunderous din made me jolt farther, until I felt the rigid lip of the stair above burrowing into the back of my leg.

“What did I say to whom?” I shook my head
, my heart beating faster than humming bird’s wings while my body temperature rocketed, resulting in a bead of sweat filtering down my spine. “I haven’t been out anywhere.”

Liam wrapped menacing fingers around the balustrade
and began to snarl. “Don’t. Fucking. Lie. To. Me. Steinbeck just cornered me when I was getting out of the car.”