Unattainable (38 page)

My tears fell faster.

“
And I was tryin’ to get
out of bed,” he continued, staring down at me. “But I was in too
much pain and then they were restrainin’ me but I was fightin’ them
off, yellin’ for you.”

I couldn’t breathe now; I was crying
too hard.

“
And then my old man is
there and he’s tellin’ me you were just fuckin’ fine and you
weren’t comin’ to see me.”

He paused for a moment and I blinked
furiously, trying to clear my eyes.

“
You tellin’ me he lied to
me? You tellin’ me you were there, that you wanted to be there and
he wouldn’t let you?”

A sob erupted past my throat. “Yes,” I
choked out.

For a long time we just stared at each
other.

“
You tellin’ me anything
else?” he asked quietly.

“
Yes,” I sobbed. “I’m
telling you I love you. That I’ve loved you since I was eight years
old and I’m telling you that I never stopped. Not once.”

Cage’s eyes closed and he shuddered
through his next breath. Then his face dropped into the crook of my
neck and his body went limp, falling heavily over top of
me.

“
Don’t leave me again,” he
whispered.

I didn’t even have to think about
it.

“
I won’t,” I whispered
back.

“
This shit between us
ain’t ever gonna be perfect,” he said hoarsely. “People ain’t
fuckin’ perfect, meanin’ love ain’t perfect. But fuck,
bitch…”

He lifted his head and looked into my
eyes.

“
I love you,” he said. “I
don’t want nobody else. And that should be enough.”

“
It is,” I whispered
tearfully. “It really fucking is.”

And it was. It was enough because he
was enough. It was enough because I was enough for him. My faults,
his faults, and all. We were enough.

Suddenly, I felt ready for whatever
life was going to throw my way. I wanted to meet it head on and
beat the holy fuck out of it, because this man was mine, he’d
always been mine. I’d known it the day I met him and nobody,
nothing, was going to keep me from him any longer.

• • •

Cage was praying to what-the-fuck-ever
was up there that this wasn’t a drug-induced hallucination. That
she was really here, telling him she fucking loved him, looking
like…

Looking like Tegen. She looked like his
Tegen, his Teacup. Her red hair was cut short, not nearly as frizzy
as it used to be; it was wavy and he liked it. She was wearing her
glasses again, thin black rectangular frames, a smaller version of
the pair she used to wear.

She had on a simple black dress, not
quite formfitting but tight enough that he could see the outline of
her curves. They were small, but they were there, and she was
fucking beautiful.

Gone were the lip and nose piercings;
gone were the hemp necklaces. All that remained were the ear plugs
and the tattoos, which he loved.

He’d loved all of it, actually—the
Tegen he’d grown up with, the Tegen who’d come home from San
Francisco all grown up, and the woman she was now, a sexy, yet
quirky combination of both.

For the first time in a year, Cage
wished he wasn’t high but at the same time if he wasn’t all
fucked-up, he might actually break down and cry like a little girl.
And he really didn’t want to do that.

So, in order to avoid all that
bullshit, he bent his head and tried to kiss her, but she turned
her head away. Panic raced through his overheated
system.

“
Tegen,” he growled.
“Don’t play fuckin’ games with me.”

Her tear-filled eyes filled with angry
accusation. “You just fucked that girl, Cage.”

His nostrils flared. “It’s been a year
since I’ve seen you.”

Closing her eyes, she shook her head.
“I know,” she said. “I just…no more girls, right?”

“
You mine?” he
asked.

Her eyes flew open, green and shining
with emotion. “Yes,” she whispered.

“
Then yeah, no more
girls.”

“
And no more drugs?” she
continued.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“
Just me and
you?”

“
Babe,” he said, his heart
pounding. He needed to kiss her now. Right the fuck now or he was
going to freak the fuck out.

“
Just me and
you.”

“
Forever.”

“
Fucking shit, Tegen, yes,
forever. Now shut the fuck up and let me kiss you.”

She shut the fuck up.

And he kissed her.

“
I think that’s it,” Ellie
called out from the hallway.

Jesus fucking Christ, he hoped so.
Dirty had never seen so much shit before in all his life. Who would
have thought one woman, a single woman without children, could have
accumulated so much fucking shit. He didn’t have half as much shit.
Not even a third.

Maybe Ellie moving in wasn’t the best
idea. Maybe being with Ellie wasn’t the best idea. Maybe having
anything at all to do with Ellie wasn’t the best idea.

“
Michael?”

Dirty’s eyes flew open and he found
Ellie standing in front of him, holding a large box of books,
peering up at him

“
Yeah?” he asked, his
voice hoarse.

Ellie bent down and set the box near
her feet. Standing back up straight, she grabbed both his hands and
knowing they were sweaty, clammy with fear, he closed his eyes
again, embarrassed.

“
Michael,” she whispered.
“We don’t have to do this.”

His eyes flew open. No. They did have
to do this. He had to do this. He couldn’t sleep even knowing she
was at her parents’ house; he was constantly worried about her.
True, he laid to rest the threat on her life but there could be
another. Someone could snatch her up, hurt her, take her away from
him and he wouldn’t even know it was happening, so yeah, he had to
do this. He had to have her here with him, living alongside him,
sleeping beside him. He had to know where she was at all times and
when she wasn’t working, she damn sure needed to be right next to
him.

“
He can’t hurt me
anymore,” she continued. “And if you’re not ready for
this—”

“
No,” he growled, shaking
her grip off him and grabbing her shoulders. “We’re not out of the
woods yet. People are fuckin’ talkin’ ’round town. His family’s got
money. They keep diggin’, who knows what they’ll find
out.”

Ellie pressed her lips together and
averted her eyes. She knew he was full of shit. She knew that there
was no way anyone was ever going to figure out what had really
happened to the good chief of police. Not that there was anything
left to find.

“
You’re not ready,” she
said softly, backing away from him. “And that’s okay.”

Suddenly, Dirty found himself really
motherfucking pissed off. Was she fucking scared of him? Was she
trying to back out of moving in together? Had this whole thing just
been some sort of ploy to get him to break it off because she was
scared of what he would do to her if she tried to break it
off?

Not that he blamed her. What good
woman, or any woman with half a brain, would want to end up with
him? He couldn’t even fuck her properly.

“
Fuckin’ leave then!” he
shouted, kicking her box of books and sending it sliding across the
floor. Books flew from the tipped box and ended up scattered across
his living room, which only served to piss him off even
more.

When she didn’t as much as flinch at
his outburst, he grew even angrier. “Get the fuck out, Ellie!” he
yelled. “I know that’s what you’re wantin’, so fuckin’
get!”

“
That’s not what I want,”
she said, staring directly into his eyes, her expression serious.
“So stop acting like this.”

Why the fuck was she so fucking calm?
He was freaking the fuck out and here she was a picture of cool and
collected. That wasn’t fucking fair! Why couldn’t he be normal too?
Why couldn’t he be the sort of man, a normal one, a good one, one
who deserved to have a woman like this moving in with him, sharing
his bed, giving him all sorts of shit he didn’t deserve and never
fucking would?

“
Get out!” he yelled,
sounding every bit as hysterical as he was feeling. He advanced on
her, towering over her, and bore down into her personal space. “Did
you fuckin’ hear me? I said get the fuck out!”

She didn’t even blink.

“
GET OUT!” he
roared.

Ellie spun away from him and
immediately bent down, reaching for her box. Dirty stood there,
shaking, watching as she hurriedly began picking up her books and
tossing them into the box. When she was finished, without looking
at him, she brushed quickly past him, headed for the
door.

No.

He didn’t want this…but he did want
this.

He didn’t know…

Shit.

Fuck.

“
Fuck!” he yelled, sending
his clenched fists into his forehead. “Fuck! Ellie,
wait!”

Ellie stopped walking but didn’t turn
around and he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m just, I
don’t know, I don’t fuckin’ know, everything is—”

The box fell from Ellie’s hands with a
loud thud and then she spun around. Before Dirty had any real time
to process what she was doing, she was halfway across the room,
unbuttoning her shirt as she stalked toward him.

By the time she reached him, she’d lost
her shirt and was in the process of unhooking her bra. Standing in
front of him, she tossed the black lace aside and went to work on
her black dress pants.

“
Sit down,” she ordered as
she stepped out of her pants. Her underwear was next and then she
was standing before him, naked. He took his time looking down the
full length of her, feeling all sorts of ugly thoughts rear up
inside of him, mixed in between how beautiful he thought she was,
and how desperately he wished he could be with her the way a man
was supposed to be with a woman, before meeting her eyes once
again.

“
Michael,” she said
forcefully. “Sit down on the damn couch!”

He didn’t know what she was doing, but
he didn’t want her to leave, so he backed away from her slowly
until his legs hit the couch. Once he sat down, he looked up at
her. Now what?

Now what became suddenly clear when she
followed him over and bent down in front of him. Dirty went stiff
as her hands reached for his leathers and he fought the urge to
slap her away.

“
You want me to fuck you,”
he said, clenching his teeth. “You coulda just said so.”

Ellie yanked down his zipper. “I don’t
want you to fuck me,” she said, sounding angry. Freeing his cock
from his boxers, she grabbed hold of him. “I want to fuck
you.”

Dirty’s chest heaved hard as fear
exploded inside of him. His hands flew to his sides and his fingers
dug into the couch cushions. He was getting hard, he didn’t want to
be, he would have given anything to cut his own dick off, yet still
he was growing harder in her grip.

“
What…the…fuck…are…you…doin’,” he said, sounding breathless as
if he’d just run a marathon. She knew he couldn’t play it this way,
she fucking knew.

He did not want to hurt her. He did not
want to hurt his Ellie.

Ellie ignored him as she straddled him.
He gripped tighter to the couch cushions and squeezed his eyes
shut. “Don’t do this,” he gritted out and then, rather weakly
added, “Please.”

But she didn’t stop and once he felt
her positioning him at her entrance, he knew she wasn’t going to
stop and suddenly it wasn’t just fear that was red-hot, pulsing
wildly through him, but it was pain, and he couldn’t breathe and he
couldn’t think straight.

“
Look at me,” Ellie
demanded and when he didn’t, she repeated, “Michael, look at
me.”

His jaw locked, his body strung tight,
he opened his eyes and tried to focus on her.

“
I am not going to hurt
you,” she said forcefully.

His vision swam. He needed her off him.
Away from him. He needed her to stop fucking touching
him.

“
Michael!” she yelled.
“I’m not going to hurt you! I am not her!”

No. No, no, no, no. That’s what she
always told him, that she wasn’t going to hurt him. She promised
every time, swore she wouldn’t hurt him, and then she did. She
always, always did, she hurt him over and over again until he was
crying and screaming and begging her to stop and she never
did.

Dirty let out a ragged gasp as Ellie
pushed down and he slid slowly inside of her. He was going to kill
her; he didn’t want to, but he was going to. He was going to let go
of this fucking couch, wrap his hands around her neck, and wring
the fucking life from her. He just had to let go of the
couch.

“
Michael,” he heard her
say, her voice soft. “Please look at me and let me show you what
love is.”

Air shuddered from his lungs in loud,
noisy spurts.