The Way Home (Lights of Peril Book 2) (17 page)

“I don’t. I don’t want anybody else to touch you. I’m silly. I get furious if they touch you.”

--Ernest Hemingway

I’ve been ignored for the last hour.
Sadey won’t look at me, won’t listen to me, and she sure as hell won’t let me touch her. Hell, I may as well still be dead. I’ve had a few drinks, but I don’t even feel ‘em. Everyone knows I love my whiskey, but right now I only thirst for the feeling or taste of my girl.

“Peyton, finally!”

I hear Sadey greet her friend along with most of the brothers, and Mace as she leaves me sitting in my chair to go greet her. Peyton is young and she’s a cute little shit. Derek though, a fuckin’ real live cowboy in a biker club, looks completely out of place and nervous. The scene would be hilarious if my heart didn’t hurt as it does right now.

Sadey can’t stop hugging her.
Finally, though, Peyton’s eyes meet mine. She freezes in my girls grasp and gasps. Guess Sadey wasn’t exactly the last to know of my change of living address, from grave marker to club.

“
Sadey … is that … oh, God ... you didn’t tell me. Sadey?”

“Oh shit, honey, I didn’t.
It must have slipped my mind.”

Sadey has Peyton in a side arm hug and they are coming right towards me
, so I need to stand up to wish her safe a trip and say goodbye. After that, I’m going to my room for the night to end this miserable state of loneliness. It hurts watching how much Sadey’s life has moved forward without me being any part of it.

Mace
walks toward us. She’s lit with alcohol, and since she chose not to nurse Ryder, she’s taken a liking to vodka for the night, causing her stumble a bit.

“Peyton, you remember my brother, Hem?”

Peyton doesn’t know what to say, but she gives it her best shot. Sweet girl. Not so good with words, though, other than spelling them out loud as I recollect another trait of hers.

“Yes, I remember, but I thought
... I thought ... didn’t he … I mean…” I smile at her to help ease her worry. She sure as shit wasn’t expecting to see my mug looking at her when she walked in.

Sadey jumps to aid her
process in thought … and fails …
miserably
. “You thought he was dead? Yes, well, me too. Welcome to the club. Your membership card is in the mail.”

Sadey turns to me and glares before she continues
her tirade and I feel the kicker even before delivery.

“In all my life I’ve had things;
I’ve had a dog, I’ve had a cat, a rabbit, and even a bird, when I was growing up, but never did have a walking corpse.”

That’s it.
I’m done with this fuckin’ play.

“Fuck it
, Sadey.” That’s all I say before rushing her, grabbing her by the back of the legs, and throwing her over my shoulder. “We are going to sort this shit out now, woman.”

She’s screaming bloody murder and pounding my back so damn hard
that I think I feel a kidney shift, but no one says a single word to me as I walk past the commons into the mouth of the hall. No one, that is, except big brother Shame.

“Easy with her, Hem.
You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing and you are, once again, not thinking. She needs time to process all this shit raining down around her. Easy, man.”

“Fuck
‘easy’. My girl doesn’t respond to ‘easy’. I’ve been back a day and she won’t even
look at me
, Shame. The train to ‘easy’ left the station hours ago. She wants reminding of how much I love her, then damn it, she’s about to fuckin’ get the invite.”

I would stay here and argue with him, but she’s beatin’ my back blue.
No one else in this room moves. They’ve seen this show between her and me before.

Once I get her upstairs
, I honestly don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do with her. She calmed a bit on the way up; probably afraid in my broken form I would’ve dropped her if she kept squirming. I have to say I’ve lost some mass, but being away from her broke me. I’ve lived my life in solitary, lost in a bottle.

After I lock the door, I stand in front of it with my arms crossed
, hoping she’s not going to challenge me, too much.

“
Hem, move. I’m not staying in here with you. Move your ass away from the door. Your big head is blocking my way.”

I don’t say anything to her
. Since I’ve been home this is the first moment alone we’ve had together. She was understandably freaked-out when she first saw me, but that didn’t last long, and she went straight to pissed. I haven’t gotten to really look at her like I want to look at her. She’s so beautiful, even when she’s about to bust on my ass.

“Hem, is your hearing not back from the grave yet?
I said move, now
move dammit
. I don’t want to be near you.”

Her
shell of contempt for me on her face is starting to break. She doesn’t know what she wants and it hurts knowing my role in making her feel this way. She’s insecure and is second guessing everything before she says it. Even as a kid, Sadey never thought before she spoke, but she’s hesitating now.

She walks towards me with
uncertain purpose and reaches behind me for the door. She wants out of my presence. Well, I’m done hesitating, waiting, and allowing her to live alone in her own head.

“Sadey Girl, just wait.
Give me a few minutes to talk, would ya?”

“Talk?
You want to talk? About what? What is there to...?”

God
damn, the woman just needs to shut up.

My hands make it to her waist and her initial reactio
n is to struggle from my hold. My grip on her tightens; holding her back into my front, both my arms are wrapped around her middle, trying to hold her still while she continues to reach for the door handle.

Feeling her body pressed against mine and smelling her
strawberry-vanilla scent under my nose; my body can’t help but react to her and I want my release, need my release…she is my release. I need her right now, not only physically, but I need to know she’s still mine. I don’t want to think about any another man that may have had her in my absence. The thought scares the fuck out of me, but for my own sanity, I have to know.

“Sadey,
did you fuck him? Ace, I mean…did you sleep with him?” She doesn’t answer; she’s stopped with her struggling motions. “Sugar, tell me. You let him inside you?”

My forehead rests
against the back of her head as she stands under me, my face lost in her strands of auburn. I’m waiting for the inevitable bomb she’s going to drop on us. Closing my eyes, leaning down towards her shoulders, I can do nothing but wait for the explosion. Hell, I can even hear it whistle as I feel my stomach also falling.

“He loves me, Hem.
Did you know that? He is
in love
with me. He was here. He came back
for
me. I wanted you, but
he
was here. He took you away, helped hide you, or whatever, but, knew what he was doing. Even then, he still came back
for me,
asking me to love him.

“
Ironic really, because I swear to you on all that we had, I would have slept with Lucifer to bring you home to me again. There were times, Hem, I tried to negotiate deals with the devil, offering to sell my soul to have you back for just one afternoon, if only so you could calm me and tell me I would be okay. I’m a mother, Hem. What kind of mother would think of such things, no matter if it were possible or not?”

She looks down to the floor, avoiding my eyes.

“
Here you are now and… I don’t know what to do with this. You’ve always been the person to help see me through the rough patches. Now that
you
are
my rough patch, you can’t help me.”

Jesus Christ, she is
breaking my heart as my chest feels like it might burst. My Sadey girl, I’ve ruined her.

I move her hair from the inside of her neck and bring it to her back, gripping it
and pulling her head up towards mine. Her pale skin is warm to the touch. I know she’s feeling what I’m feeling. She still loves me, even if she won’t openly admit it. She’s falling apart in my arms, ready to break down into heavy sobs. I’m at a total loss with no idea how to save us from this.

S
he starts to cry. I can feel her tremble under my arm still gripping her waist.

“
I love you. I promise you I never stopped, Sade. My heart has been with you this entire fuckin’ time, and I swear to you, I feel it beatin’ inside me again. I get close to you and I finally feel alive again, I’m no longer dead when you look at me. I’m right here.”

She turns around in my arms,
grasping my face in her small hands. She is staring through my eyes with such intensity, I feel her touch my soul; her light, my darkness; in a battle for parity.

“I don’t
know if I can do this, Hem. You weren’t here. You didn’t see how…”

“Let me have you, Sadey
girl. I will make you remember us again. Let me have this.”

My nose is buried in her neck and I’m using my tongue as a means
to navigate her to where I want her to go. I want to light her up and let her be lost in the fire of our lighthouse. She’s unmoving, but she lets me explore her body, the harbor that I’m so desperate for during this time of uncertainty.

I push her towards my bed while
lifting her shirt up, exposing her to me, letting me feel her body. Her full breasts sit in my hands as my own body ignites. I turn to her and sit on the bed; she’s standing in front of me between my legs.

As I look up
at her, I feel the tears that are falling across my temples. I don’t reign them in because this just hurts. My arms wrap around her waist, embracing her tightly. She’s holding my head into her body, letting me hear her heart beat.

Before I can
offer her a choice to stay or go, she reaches to my face again with her hands and cups my cheeks. Looking down on me she whispers so softly, yet impossible that I cannot hear every heartbreaking word.

She’s not talking
directly to me. She’s talking about me as if I were still gone. “I don’t want to hurt anymore. Everything is so dark and I can’t breathe without you. Why did you leave me? I can’t see through this, Hem. I don’t know what’s real.” These words sound tiresome and rehearsed. I know she’s said them before.

“Sadey Girl, I’m here.
I’m right here. God, I’m sorry, baby. I’m so fuckin’ sorry. C’mere, into me.”

Without hesitation she climbs on top of me and sits
straddling herself in my lap. Fuck, I’ve missed having her so close to me. I grab her waist, knowing I’ve trapped her in my embrace. She’s gripping my shoulders as she stirs slowly on top of me. She can feel my response to her motions underneath and she’s playing on it.

Her hands are exploring my body as she starts
touching my neck, face, back, and chest. I don’t know what is going on in her head, but I’m not going to question her aloud. Maybe she’s taking inventory of my body, locking down a mental picture into her memory.

“Hem, I need you to be real.
I’m scared I’ll wake up from this. I’m so fuckin’ scared that my mind is bringing me through the loss by creating this. That’s what’s been happening to me, ya know? I used to hear you. I would plead for you to come to me in my sleep. I don’t know about tomorrow, Hem, but tonight I want you to make love to me like you never left. I want you to make me the same girl I was, before…”

I stand up
with her in my arms and she wraps her legs tight around my waist. I sit her on top of my now empty dresser and I catch the light from outside as it hits her eyes. It’s taking every ounce of control that I have to take this slow. Being without her has been unbearable. I want her to feel the loss I have also suffered while I was gone and then I want to take the loss she felt away from her, completely.

She’s unbuttoning my jeans and before I can take a moment to enjoy t
he vision of her in front of me, she’s so turned on she is ripping at my shirt to get it off. I help her by pulling it over my head. She’s scratching viciously trying to pull me closer to her and she’s biting my chest, trying to satisfy her hunger.

“
Sugar, relax, I’m right here.”

She’s ignoring my plea as she continues her assault on my body.
I’m not against strong arming the situation, but I want her to own this and take control. I can see, after our brief talk, she hasn’t felt in control of anything since I left, so this is hers to take.

Her hands make their way to mine
and without hesitation she moves them to her breasts. I grip them hard and then pull her shirt over her head. Even before the shirt hits the floor she’s removing her bra.

Her body is smaller
than I ever remember and her piercings are all gone. Her breasts are heavy in my hands and I hate myself for forgetting how perfect they are. Giving birth and nursing hasn’t distorted her body. She’s breathtaking. When I start to pull her right breast into my mouth she shocks me with her words.