Release Me (13 page)

Let her cry

If the tears fall down like rain

Let her sing

If it eases all her pain

Let her go

Let her walk right out on me

Chapter Twelve

Cal

I take a seat at the little wooden table inside and look around at the true comfort of Tayla Livingston. It is soft and cozy with that little touch of wild that makes Tayla so fucking irresistible to me. There is a very country looking plaid couch with throw pillows that have fish on them against the wall beneath the only window in the living room. Photos from various rivers and lakes and I can only imagine they are from her farm in Georgia, but nestled in all this country is that spice I love about her. The coasters on the table have skulls and crosses. The kitchen has all modern appliances sheik and black with pops of red on a coffee pot or the pans hanging on the rack. This place is all her and I feel so fucking amazing seeing her, the real her. Regardless if it is choice or happenstance that I made it to this point doesn’t matter to me. I meant what I said and I wasn’t leaving without her.

What I didn’t expect was her to ignore me. Literally all fucking day. By the first hour I was still pumped and even excited watching her sit on her porch and ignore me.

By the second hour I was still okay to watch her ignore me, because she is beautiful doing it, but I was a little bored. Maybe I was a fool to think it would be easy to walk in and give no choice, I was still keeping to my plan of waiting her out but she had to crack sometime because it would be dark soon.

On it went for four hours, me sitting at the table watching and waiting, me standing in the kitchen watching her ignore me, me sitting on her couch, the table again, at the fucking window and even some soft pacing.... and nothing.

Frustrated and bored out of my mind I can’t take it anymore. I have never seen her like this, so calm and resolved to wait me out. I am not calm or patient and she knows it. This little shit was going to make me beg and at this point I would rather get to it before I am eighty.

I open the door and watch as she stiffens her spine a fraction, but relaxes and goes back to reading her book. I lean against the door frame, once again frozen at the sight of her. Her hair is up and only a few strands have fallen from the messy bun on the top of her head. I can see the little goosebumps along her neck and shoulders and I know it’s because it’s even colder than it was when I got here.

“Want to come inside where it’s warm? I can start a fire for you?” I don’t move, no sense crowding her considering the minute she is in this cabin she won’t have far to run. When she says nothing I want to scream, but I keep my cool and go for broke. Leaning out a slowly trace my finger along the exposed part of her neck where the flannel jacket doesn’t hide her sensitive skin. “You can ignore me in here too.”

She says nothing and I cannot stand it anymore. “Tay, tell me to go fuck myself. Tell me you hate me, just say something please.” I lean my back against the frame of the door, cross my feet and fold my arms. I will freeze beside her if I have to because I am done sitting alone.

“Oh you want to talk?” She says each word slowly and with the precision of a surgeon’s blade. “You come here, to the only place I truly feel peace and calm and now you tarnish it!” She stands and chucks her paperback book at me. “This is the only place I am free of you Cal.”

I smile and I know that it pisses her off even more. “Baby you can’t get free of me. The sooner you realize that the better we both will be.”

“What is with the dominant act
?‍
” She asks me and pushes past me to get in the cabin where she goes right to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of Modello.

“You leave me no other option that’s what.”

She shakes her head and places her palms on the counter and drops her head in frustration. “Okay. You want to talk?” She raises her head and pins me with the scariest glare I have ever seen on her pretty face. “Why now? Is it because of Sam? Is the thought of me desperate to move on so offensive?”

“Sam is a small piece of this Tayla. I hate that he touches you and makes you smile, but I know you and you aren’t feeling him. He is a warm body that curbs your loneliness. And that I completely understand.”

“I have never been anything but Sam’s friend Cal. We flirt and joke and push your buttons but that is as far as it has ever gone.” I can see the guilt on her face as she comes clean with the game she has been playing.

“So what? You think it’s funny to watch me suffer?” I don’t hide the anger from the little bomb she dropped.

“No I think it was addictive because it finally forced you to see me.” She says and it feels like a knife in my back.

“Seeing you wasn’t the problem!” I snap.

She laughs but there is no humor in it. “Are you really going to try and sell me some story that you have been here in love all along? Because if so you can save it. You don’t hurt the ones you love. You don’t deny them the comfort. You have done nothing but deny me for three years!" She was screaming, her hands flailing about.

I roar out in the same frustrated anger. “I know God damn it! How fucking long do I need to repent for it?”

I watch her flinch at my outburst and try to reel in my anger because I know damn well I don’t deserve her forgiveness, but I still ask like a fucking bigger.

And then she just started crying. Big fat tears falling from her violet eyes, spiking her lashes and blushing her cheeks and nose. I see her fall apart, her eyes on me and it is sadness that has undone her. This is the moment I realize how far I pushed her away from me, how deeply I have hurt her. All I can do is go to her and try to show her how sorry I am for it all.

My arms go around her and she fights me, not hard mind you, but enough to tell me how shattered she is. “I know baby.” I say and hold her to me as tight as I can because she is trying to get away from me. “Shhh, Tay. Let me hold you baby.” I say and kiss her softly on her temple.

I don’t know how much time passed with me holding her. We moved to the table where I sat in a chair with her cradled in my arms and I let her cry.

I feel her breathing even out and I know she is asleep. I carry her with no effort and lay her on the bed. I watch her sleep for a few seconds before I go back out and lock up the cabin and shut the lights off. I stand in the hall and see the two bedrooms and this is the fork in the road isn’t it? Do I go to her, to lie beside her as her man, or do I chose to be the right man and go to the room and sleep alone?

Let’s be honest, I know damn well I am not the commendable honorable type and I walk in to the room where she is sleeping. I take her feet gently and pull her boots off and then her jeans and she wakes a little to ask what I think I am doing.

“I’m just putting you in bed baby.” I say and she sits a little as I take her jacket off. I see her in a tight black t-shirt and her hot pink panties and it only reaffirms that I am not honorable. No way am I not sleeping next to this beauty tonight.

I skim down to my boxers and debate getting in in just them, but find a little piece of decency in the end and grab my flannel pajama pants and slip them on. I slide between the sheets, finding her warm small body and flip the light off. I curl my front into her back and rest her head on my bicep, not a spot on our bodies that isn’t lined up. I have never cuddled, never been the type, but lying here with her now I feel the piece that I have with Axe when he lets me love him.

“I needed this.” She says her voice scratchy from sleep.

I pull her closer and kiss her on the cheek. “Go to sleep baby.”

“I am not sleeping with you Cal.” She says and there is a hint of unsure in her voice.

I chuckle softly. “We’ll see what happens baby, I am not about to push my luck.” She doesn’t say anything to that and I can feel her body go soft and her breathing is even again. I lay there holding her unable to sleep for the bitch of a cramp in my arm where her head is laying, and the fact I am burning alive from the body heat.

I distract myself with thoughts of the night of the wedding. If I had done things differently that night, if I had faced what I was feeling and knew, the trip to the cabin would be us with Axe and I would be inside of her tight little body right now.

“I should have told you.” I say into the night. “I should have told you that you mean everything to me. I should have let you see my tears because they were yours.” It overwhelms me the way the wall holding my emotions in breaks and I wish she was awake to hear my heart because I can’t stop. “I have loved you for so long Tayla, I can’t even pinpoint a time I didn’t love you because I always have. I made so many promises to myself when we were a garage band and I knew how good we were. I made the band my world and I hurt a lot of people to get here. I hate what Jenny did to my son, I hate what she did to me keeping him from me, but I treated her like a whore and never once respected her, I never respected you either. I had this plan and nothing would take me from it. Then overnight everything changed. Cass and Shame broke up, Chad and Carrie were gonna have a kid and getting married, Noah was finally happy and I met you, it was too much change. Then once again everything changed with Cassa being abused and hiding so many secrets. Like falling for you, only ever thinking of you. The night of the wedding I had planned to walk away, I was saying goodbye to you and I was so fucking scared baby.

“I was so in love, I still am. I don’t know if the world is trying to teach me a lesson. I think of the time I wasted with you knowing Noah would give his own life for thirty seconds with Candey. I think of Axe and the only family I see fit to give him is you and me baby. I know this is killing you; it kills me to know that I can’t be all yours like I had planned. I had a plan, you were coming before everything in my life and the guys were backing me. If it meant less venues or a break in the next album so Noah had time to really make the choice. I was willing to walk away from everything for you, then my mom called and my life will never be the same again.”

I stop talking before I wake her because the way I am exposed right now I will beg for one more chance. I rest my head beside hers and vow to never give up on us.

Tayla

I don’t dare move because I don’t want to break this moment. He thinks I am asleep right now unaware that I am laying here hanging on every word. He isn’t talking anymore and I am overwhelmed with the need to do something to show him I need him. I nuzzle back into him, pressing my ass against his cock and I feel him harden at the way I press against him.

I feel him shift against me and press against me. I press back and I feel him shift and roll me to my back and then he is above me, his lips on mine in a soft sweet kiss. His eyes are on mine and I can barely see him, but I see enough with the help of the moonlight. He cups my cheek in his hand and places soft kisses on my lips.

“I love you Tayla.” He says and my stomach drops and flips and my entire body shudders with chills. I have waited my entire life for him to say this to me, even before I knew he was who I wanted and needed.

“Cal.” I choke on the sob I can’t hold back.

“So much.” He says and kisses me, stealing my response. I thrusts against me and though we are fully clothed I feel the heat of him against my wet panties. He places his thumbs beneath the band of my panties and slowly kisses down my neck and chest, pushing my t-shirt up so he can taste my skin.

I feel his mouth and breath against my bare pussy as he pulls my panties down. He opens my pussy and licks me and I arch against his mouth, my fingers scratching along his head desperate for anything to ground me.

“I love everything about you Tayla. The way you breathe and laugh and taste.” He licks me again and groans, slipping two fingers inside of me. “I have never loved as intense as I do you. I can’t go another second without you knowing that I love you.”

He says this against my pussy, his fingers curling inside of me making me crazy with need. I am beyond words, having lost all thought in the shock of his confession but also in the desire he is building in me.

“Make love to me.” I say as I pull at his arms to get him close to me. His mouth is on mine, I taste myself on his tongue but I don’t care.

“I need to get a condom.” He says and tries to get free of me but I don’t let him go.

“No Cal flesh to flesh.”

He doesn’t waste a second at my request and I feel him nudge my legs far apart as he lines up against me and thrusts inside. I cry out in passion I never thought he would give me. I have fucked him so many times but only once have we made love and he denied me when it mattered. I see his face as he holds still inside of me like he is taking in the feel of me, and I can see he is as desperate for this as I am.

His mouth falls to mine again and I am overwhelmed by the sensation of it all. Every time he breaks the kiss he tugs at my hair like he needs closer. “Fuck I love you Tay."

“Show me.” I whisper and draw my legs up so he can get deeper. He pushes into me, moaning at every thrust and his mouth is on mine, tasting every inch of my mouth and trailing his lips and tongue along my neck.