Pulled Within (39 page)

“Coffee?” she asked.

Hart and I moved over to the table, and Mom followed right
behind us with a tray. Hart mixed my coffee the way I liked it and placed it in front of me.

I watched her sip and swallow, taking in her face and all its detail.
There were black bags under her eyes, and her cheeks were too
thin… just like mine.

“It’s been hard, hasn’t it?” I asked, breaking the silence.

She slowly looked up from her mug, her brownie colored eyes
meeting mine. “I think it always will be.”

She was right. I thought about telling her that Gerald had come to the cemetery and everything I had learned from his visit, including his health. But there was no point. He was a pathetic man
and it wouldn’t
change anything between my mom and me. If he wanted her to know his confession, he would have told her, too. For all I knew, he
had.

“Rae, I need to tell you some things,” she said, suddenly turning serious, as if she’d read my mind. Her eyes began to fill, her hands
straining around the ceramic cup. “When you told me what had
happened, what you’d seen…” She paused, her chest rising and falling even faster than before. Her knuckles turned white, and her teeth
pressed into her lip to keep it from trembling. “You have to
understand,
a police officer called and said my son was dead, and my daughter was on the way to the hospital where I was working. Then I learned that the man I’d trusted with the most important things in my life
had left them
broken and disappeared. It was too much to process. All the guilt, all the pain. I couldn’t protect you, and I couldn’t deal with the
aftermath. And then you told me about Grandpa…”

It was so familiar; I’d been doing the same for the last five years,
refusing to visit Darren’s grave or his bedroom, hiding those
thoughts in a cloud of smoke. I was trying to fix and protect others because I hadn’t been able to fix and protect him.

She was caught in the storm as much as I was.

“I understand,” I said.

Her fingers reached across the table and tangled in mine. “I know
you weren’t lying…I know you wouldn’t have done that.” Years of
pent-up pain poured out in our tears. “And I don’t want another birthday to pass without having you here to commemorate it.”

“I don’t want that either,” I said.

She came across the table and clung to me, sobbing. We had come to an understanding. An unspoken promise. We were no
longer going
to look back; we were moving forward—finally—and we were going to
do it together. I doubted the month of December would ever feel
normal again. And I knew there was no possible way that the hole Darren’s absence had left in our lives would ever be filled. But if we helped
each other through it, maybe it didn’t have to be so destructive anymore.

Without realizing she had done it, Mom pressed her cheek against my scar. I was filled with a comfort I wasn’t expecting. There
was no
anxiety, no dread. Just the healing warmth from my mom, which
had
been missing for so long. The silence between us was peaceful and
calm.

We lingered in that for a while.

And when I finally walked through the house on my way to the front door, Hart clung to my hand. I paused at the bottom of the steps
and slipped off my shoes. Then I let him go, and I carefully strolled
over the grass. In the places where the snow had melted, I could feel the
frozen blades between my toes. He didn’t ask what I was doing. He knew. I had to experience
all
of that night, each moment lived anew, all leading to an outcome that didn’t leave me battered by my own torment.

He opened the passenger door for me as I hopped over to the curb. “There’s a towel in the backseat. You can use it to dry and
warm your feet,” he said.

“I know. Don’t ask me how, but I know.” I seemed to know where
everything was in Hart’s life. It reminded me that he was always
taking care of me. And it made me smile, a genuine smile, not the
kind
that clouded over a long-held pain, but to my commitment of
finding real
happiness.

I fastened my seatbelt and leaned back into the headrest,
thinking
about my future with Hart. Once the spa in Bar Harbor was
complete,
we’d be heading up to Bangor. Then we’d move on to Portland
where
we’d rent an apartment downtown. We hadn’t spoken about that
part
yet; it was something I had just decided. I’d never lived in a city
before;
I’d never lived anywhere except Bar Harbor. Suddenly, I had a
desire to
change that. Maybe one day we’d come back here to run the spa. Maybe we’d stay in Portland. Or maybe we’d move into his condo in
Boston.

It didn’t matter where we lived. Distance wouldn’t take my
family away from me, or my home. Like Darren, it all lived inside me, and something as basic as geography couldn’t change that.

Hart started the engine and shifted into reverse, staring through the glass before he turned toward me. “Looks like a storm is coming in.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. Of course it was. Rain would be so fitting for Darren’s birthday. Maybe it was a sign.

Maybe it was tears.

Or maybe it truly was just rain.

WE’D STOPPED
at a pub for dinner and didn’t get back to the
house
until after nine. I hadn’t smoked all day. I hadn’t ordered a drink at the restaurant, even though Hart had a few beers while he ate. I didn’t want any of it. I wanted to keep my mind completely clear
and remember every detail of Darren’s birthday. So much had happened, more than I ever expected. Surprisingly, I was calm.

Still, it didn’t seem right to end the first day of my new beginning in
the same way we spent most of our evenings, flipping through a
magazine or zoning out in front of the TV. I wanted to peel back what had kept me from being fully honest and intimate with him. I wanted to
show him every part of my skin, to be fully naked before him and
know that he loved me as I was, scars and all.

He leaned against the kitchen counter, swiping his finger across the screen of his phone. I lifted it out of his hands and brought his fingers up to my lips. “Thank you for today.” I kissed his knuckles,
one at a time.

He smiled. “You don’t have to thank me. I’ll do anything for
you. You know that.”

He had proven that to me again and again. But that didn’t mean
I would stop thanking him. I wasn’t just grateful for what he had done today, but for all the different ways he had changed my life since he’d come back into it. I had almost not let him in. Thankfully, I had…and he was here.

And he was all mine.

I tugged on his hand and pulled him up from the counter.
“Come with me.”

A wrinkle creased his brow, and his smoky stare intensified. “Is something wrong?”

I didn’t answer. I just turned my back toward him and led him
down the hallway to the bedroom.
Our
bedroom. Once inside, I
moved him in front of the mattress with the back of his knees resting against the bed and sat him down. Concern flickered in his eyes until I lifted my sweater over my head and dropped it on the floor.

“You don’t have to do this, Rae. I’m not expecting anything from you.”

“That’s not what this is about.” I removed the tank top that I wore
underneath. My shoes and belt were next. I continued to strip until I stood in front of him wearing only my bra and panties. “You saw all of me today, more than anyone has ever seen. Now I want to give you
the rest.”

His eyebrow hitched. “You haven’t given me this part already?”

I smiled, turning my head so my scarred cheek faced him. “Not like this.”

His hands slowly moved through the air and cupped my cheeks, gently pulling me down to the bed. I straddled his waist while I kissed
him, tugging off his button-down and the T-shirt he had on
underneath.
There was the faintest taste of beer on his breath…and something else. Something hot and erotic. Something I wanted to suck off his
tongue.

With his chest finally bare and only a pair of boxer briefs covering the rest of him, I lowered my lips. Licking my way across his defined chest, I was able to take in more of his scent. Cedar and
musk filled my nose, the smells I’d grown used to, and a subtle splash of his body wash. I could feel the pounding of his heart as I moved toward his nipple. Biting down on the end of the rod that pierced it, I held the little ball between my teeth, and gently pulled.

Air burst through his lips and ended in a moan. “God, I want you, Rae.”

I met his gaze. “You have me, Hart. All of me.”

My teeth released, repositioning to take his whole nipple this time, and then I used my tongue to flick the end of the rod. His hands went into my hair, pulling the strands while I sucked. I
opened my eyes and glanced up at him, watching the passion spread across his face as I
yanked down his boxer briefs. He needed more of my mouth, so I dropped my head until I reached the tip of his cock. I wrapped my lips around him, only able to take half of him in. So I used my hand
to cover
the rest. His hips jerked forward and rocked back. We were moving in the same rhythm, meeting for each stroke of my mouth as he filled
the air with the deepest sounds.

His hands suddenly found me again. “I can’t wait any longer. I have to taste you.” He cinched the skin under my arms and flipped me onto my back. His mouth devoured mine as he ripped my
panties off.
But he didn’t stay on my lips for long; he moved gradually, his
tongue
covering every inch of flesh until it rested between my legs, licking the spot that throbbed. I knew he took satisfaction in my sounds, and in the
way my body wiggled and bucked beneath him, so I made sure he
knew
exactly what he was doing to me. And though I didn’t use words every time, he understood what I was saying, and he didn’t let up for a second.

My thighs closed in response to the sensation of his fingers filling me and his tongue flicking across my sensitive spots. He pushed them open again. Just as I’d given into his horizontal licking,
he switched to a vertical motion, then he stopped and sucked the tight bead into his mouth. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Hart,” I panted. “I want to come with you inside me.”

Part of me thought I’d have to beg; he’d made me do that in the past. But in one swift movement, he slid up my body and wrapped
his
hands over my cheeks. His mouth found mine as his tip rubbed against my entrance. The slightest movement would have sent him in.

We both kept still.

His thumb ran around my mouth and stopped in the center of
my scar. “I love this.” He moved his thumb and kissed underneath it.
“And this.” His lips traveled to the corner of my eye where the scar
started. “And especially this.” He dropped down to the edge of my lip where the scar ended.

That was almost too much to take. “Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s where your strength lives.”

I knew then he had me forever.

He straightened, staring into my eyes, his mouth right above
mine. He slowly kissed me. “I love you, Rae.”

I remembered the last time his mouth had danced over my face. This time felt different. It was deeper, more intense. I was filled with a sincere longing that I wasn’t sure I had ever understood until that moment.

“I love you, too,” I whispered.

Nothing between us was rushed anymore, not even after he’d finally entered me. Our bodies moved together, our hips meeting in
the middle, briefly separating, and pushing right back. His lips never left mine, kissing me with such passion. It felt like he was cleansing my soul. His hands stayed cupped to my cheeks, holding my scar as if it was something sacred. The warmth began to spread through me.

I felt as if I’d finally stepped into the brilliant, beating light of the sun.

“THIS…” BRADY SAID,
pausing as he glanced at his dad. Hart, my mom, and I looked on anxiously. “This…tastes like
shit
. How the
hell did Darren eat this every day?”

I laughed and covered my mouth with the back of my hand to keep the vanilla lobster ice cream and gummy bears from flying out. Brady was right; it did taste like shit. The five of us had each gotten a single scoop in a small cup, along with Darren’s favorite topping. I
could tell it wasn’t just Brady who was having a hard time getting it down. Still, we’d all finish every drop.

We had to. It was Darren Day.

This was something Hart had invented shortly after Darren’s
birthday. December seventeenth was too painful of an occasion to celebrate the way my brother deserved. Hart thought choosing a different day would make it easier on all of us. The seventeenth of June
seemed to be perfect—not just because it was his half-birthday, but also because summer was Darren’s favorite season. Now that it had arrived, we were starting the celebration with vanilla lobster. Batting cages were
next.

He would have loved it.

Mom popped a gummy bear into her mouth and ground it between her teeth. “I’ll never forget how your brother used to beg
you and Hart to bring him here.”