Underneath It All (14 page)

“No! Stop! Don’t!” I cried, but they kept punching him. Reeve fell to his knees, coughing violently and clutching at his stomach. He stood up again, wiping his bloody mouth.

“Is that the best you got?” he mocked, and Kyle punched him so hard in the jaw that he fell to the floor.

“No!” I shouted and started beating Kyle desperately while tears stained my face.

“Hold her back; I’m gonna teach this shit a lesson,” Kyle spat and one of his friends grabbed me by the arms. I struggled against his grasp and I screamed for them to stop but they didn’t.

“Stop! Please.” I sobbed but they kept punching and kicking Reeve. “Stop! You’re killing him!”

Kyle punched him in the jaw with utter fury in his face. Reeve scrambled up again just as quickly. One of Kyle’s friends kicked him in the stomach and he grunted in pain. The other hit him hard on the chest and Reeve cringed, clutching at his chest then he got another blow on his back knocking him to the floor.

I couldn’t stand it anymore; I threw myself at Reeve, trying to stop them from beating the remaining daylight out of him.

“Kyle, stop! Please!” I dropped to my knees beside Reeve, who was all bloody and full of bruises.

The bell on the bar started ringing and the bouncers started throwing people out.

Next thing I knew there was a scramble. Bodies were being shoved around. There was shouting and swearing. Stools were flying and tables were being shoved around violently as a mass of bodies collided to get out of the club.

“Reeve, are you okay?” I asked, startled. He stirred and sat up slowly, wincing at each movement. He looked at me with his one good eye and wiped his bloody nose with the side of his hand. “Fuck,” he growled.

“Oh my God,” I shrieked. My hands trembled; I didn’t know what to do. I started crying into my hands.

We got into his black Hummer. Raven got behind the steering wheel, Apple took the passenger seat while Tats, me, and Reeve sat in the back.

I laid him down and put his head on my legs. He winced every time the car made a sudden turn.

“We have to take him to a hospital,” I whimpered.

“No.” Reeve refused.

“Dean, you don’t look so good,” Tats said.

“You look like shit,” Raven added, glancing from the rearview mirror.

“Reeve, you need to go to the hospital,” I insisted.

“We will go home.” He snapped and moaned in pain when he moved.

Chapter XVI

Oedipus Complex

Reeve got into the driver’s seat after we dropped off my friends at our dorm. He kept his eyes on the road as we glided smoothly on the street. The drive back to his house was filled with silence, except for the music coming from the radio.

I was jolted out of my reverie when my phone vibrated in my front right pocket. After a little shifting, I retrieved my phone and saw a message from Tats. Sliding my thumb across, then tapping in my passcode, I read her message:

Tats:
Hey, if you need reinforcement call us ASAP
.

Agata: There’s nothing to worry about.

I looked up at Reeve. His eyes were fixed on the road, both hands gripping tightly onto the steering wheel. It seemed like he was in deep thought. His jaw clenched and his eyes were darker than ever. He was undeniably furious.

He disappeared just like that and I was left in the dark with all the bullshit in his past. He was not the only one who had the right to be mad.

But how could I be mad at him when he looked so defeated? His nose was bloody, he had cuts on his face, and a bruise forming around his right eye.

I wanted to reach out and hug him but he looked so upset.

I couldn’t grasp, for the life of me, how I could have been so stupid. I should’ve not danced with Kyle. Damn alcohol; it screwed with my mind.

He jerked his head to the side when he veered to change course. He looked at me, his jaw making a movement that clearly showed he was angry.

“Damn, Agata!” Reeve groaned and punched the steering wheel. He pulled the car over to the side of the street.

Staring up at him through tear-stained eyes I opened my mouth to speak but faltered under the intensity of the anger in his eyes. He took in a deep breath, every muscle in his body tense as he demanded flatly, “Agata, what were you doing?”

Meeting his glare, I simply replied, “You were acting like you didn’t care, so I did the same.”

“Fuck that’s supposed to mean?” he growled.

“You ignored me! Damn you! The least you could do was send me a text. One single fucking text so I’d know we’re all right. Was that so hard to do?” I hissed, my voice was hard, laced with bitterness and covered in ice.

His eyes were hardening in fury and jaw clenching tightly as the words registered with him.

“So you’ve got your license to be with some douchebag at the bar and grind on his crotch while he whispered nonsense in your ear with his hand on your thigh,
huh?
” he barked.

“Where the hell were you? You were gone for almost a week! No calls, no texts, no nothing! You just left, Reeve! If you think you have some God-given privilege to show up whenever you feel like it and everything go back to the way it was, you’re wrong!”

Reeve frowned. “I need to think, Agata.”

“Think of what?” I asked and cut my eyes at him.

It took a lot of courage and rage to rile him up. Reeve’s self-control with me was amazing, as unstable as he could be at times to others.

“Everything.”

“Does that everything include Lucy?” I blurted. He met my tear-filled eyes with his stony gaze, but he didn’t answer my question. His eyes went back to the road.

All traces of emotions were gone and his face was impassive and unreadable.

“It is because you see Lucy’s face in me?” I asked, pulling ragged gasps of air into my lungs as my mind refused to accept that fact.

“Where did you get that?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied, blinking back my tears.

A strained silence reigned between us.

He continued to drive. I just stared straight ahead, watching the scenery go past. I noticed we were heading out of the city. The green landscape flashed by as we drove down a much quieter country road.

“Where are we going?” I asked and the silence was shattered.

“Home.”

“Home? This is not the way to my parents’ house,” I demurred.

“It’s home wherever I’m with you,” Reeve simply replied.

My heart bled to see the sadness written all over his beautiful face.

“Let’s go home, then,” I mumbled.

His face and shoulders relaxed as if I had melted his tense muscles with my words.

After driving through the small towns and past all of the homes on the outskirts, Reeve turned down a long winding road. We drove in silence onto a rural highway. The land opened out into gorgeous, hilly country.

We pulled up in front of a grand and stately house. He turned off the engine of the car, plunging the area back into silence.

“We’re here,” he announced.

I got out of the car and walked up the front steps leading to the large front porch.

The house itself was postcard beauty. It was nothing more than an old Victorian house. The front of the house looked over a large lake that sat still under the starry sky.

Reeve grabbed a house key from a hanging flower pot and unlocked the door. He led me into the house, switching on the lights as he went.

I glanced in awe around the house. I truly felt transported to another time in history when I walked into his breathtaking mansion. Its period staircase, stained glass window, beautiful oak woodwork, raised inlay ceiling in the entrance hall, and hardwood floors welcomed me as I walked in the stately front door.

I heard barking, followed by two giant dogs racing around the corner. They were charging toward me. I laughed as they jumped up on me and started licking my face. I started to giggle as their tongues tickled my cheek, “They missed you,” Reeve said.

“I wonder if their master missed me too,” I muttered underneath my breath.

He cocked his head to the side slightly and looked at me curiously. “I never stop thinking of you, Agata.”

“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”

“That’s the truth and I want you to hear it.”

My head was spinning with thoughts; I didn’t know what to believe.

“Do you want a beer or coffee?” he asked as I walked over to the couch and he into the kitchen, immediately going for the fridge.

“Coffee.” I plopped down in the empty place on his couch, putting my feet up on the coffee table. I patted the seat next to me when Reeve returned and beckoned him over. “Come here.”

I studied his expression and found something far away in his eyes, and he quietly settled down next to me, our arms touching.

The last few days had been hell without him, and the only way I had gotten through it was counting down the days until I saw him again.

I looked up to see his face. The face with cuts, bruises, and a black eye but all I could see was the sorrow in his eyes weighing him down. I put my hand on his cheek and rested it there, drawing miniscule circles with my finger. He leaned closer to me and tilted his head down, leaning his forehead on mine. I held his gaze, a slave to the blue storm clouds in his.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled.

“What do you mean ‘I don’t know’?” His voice rose a little.

“I don’t know! I don’t know how I feel. I do know that I feel something for you, and I’m not going to give that up. I love what we have, I love it when we’re together. But I don’t know how I feel about Lucy, the fact that my brother has your sister pregnant and this huge mess!” I burst out. I buried my face in my hands, shaking my head vigorously as my body shook with sobs.

“I’m sorry that you seem to be in the middle of it all. You spoke with Rufus, didn’t you?” he asked and I nodded my head. “You deserve better than being involved in this relation-shit that I have with my father.”

“I need you to talk to me. That’s the only way we’re going to be able to move past this and figure it out.”

He momentarily froze and leaned back onto the couch. He reached over to run his fingers through my hair.

“I don’t want to gross you out, Agata,” he said as he reached up and cupped my cheek.

“Then help me understand.”

“You just have to trust me,” he whispered.

“How?”

“Loving another person is giving them the power to break your heart, but trusting them not to. So please trust me…this relationship will never work if you don’t trust me.”

I forced a smile on my face, which he quickly imitated. A lone tear started rolling down my cheek, and he softly wiped it off with his thumb.

He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’ve missed you so much, sunshine,” he whispered against my lips, and my heart swelled in my chest at the heartfelt words.

“Do you want me because I look like her?” I asked him. My sobs ambushed my words making it hard to speak with the large knot in my throat.

“What?” His head jerked up, his burrows pulled in the middle.

“Do. You. Want. Lucy instead of me?” I repeated slower.

“I only want you,” he said. He looked me in the eyes again and I was sure that what he saw there was a reflection of every conflicted emotion I saw in his own. “Trust me.”

I took a deep breath and smiled nodding. “I do.”

I kissed the bruise on his face, moving down to get most of his bruises with the soft touch of my lips. I smiled as he lifted my chin up with his finger, having our faces so close to each other.

I felt his hands grasp my hips as he pulled me closer, I allowed him as I grabbed the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head. His muscles tightened as a few bruises showed along his side. I leaned my face closer to his body, kissing the bruises softly.

“Instead of kissing all the parts of my bruises that you can’t hickey-ize, kiss my lips instead. It’s well worth it,” he whispered as our lips connected. It was soft and unbelievably passionate. Breaking away for a second, he said “I should take a shower.”

“Let me bathe you,” I offered.

We took a step into the bathroom and got the shower running for a bit to wash ourselves off while letting the warm water fill up the bathtub with soap turning into bubbles.

Reeve was staring at me, admiring everything about me, body, and soul. “Don’t look at me like that, it does things to me. And right now you’re naked, that’s not helping. I just want you to relax. Give me the body wash,” I demanded.

Reeve reached behind him and grabbed a bottle from the corner of the tub along with a washcloth and handed them over to me.

I wet the washcloth and carefully squeezed the liquid soap out of the bottle. I gently ran the cloth down his arms, down his throat, over his collarbone, onto his chest and around his back, taking the utmost care over his bruises so as not to hurt him. I continued down and blushed when I came face to face with his throbbing erection. I grasped his shaft and began to stroke him. His lips parted and a low moan escaped him, but his eyes did not leave mine.

“Stand up babe,” he said.

I started to shampoo his hair; tiptoeing only to realize I was unfortunately rather small to reach his head.

After rinsing his body off he walked toward the bathtub. He helped me to step in before stepping in himself and sitting down. I sat in between his legs and sank down in the tub. I felt all my tense muscles beginning to relax.

“This was exactly what I needed,” Reeve sighed as he pulled me against his chest. He curled up into my neck and wrapped his arms around my waist. The water covered my breast, leaving my shoulders naked above the surface.

“Me too,” I said, leaning my head back against his shoulder.

We lay joined in the water, our hands on each other’s arms. We sat in comfortable silence for a while just enjoying each other’s company. I felt utter contentment as if just being together made everything all right. He sighed and buried his face in my neck.

“I never knew my real mother. Rufus sent her to jail when she attempted to kill him when she found out about his affair with Lucy. I was too young to form any memories of her.” Reeve broke the silence.

I moved, turning around so that I was straddling him.

“After several years with Lucy, Rufus screwed up again. For a while it was just Lucy, Rogue and me. He left me under her care.”

He was starting to open up to me and I was dying to know everything but I was afraid to find out.

“Lucy was devastated when Rufus left us.”

He let out a shaky breath and raised his hand to touch my face.

“I never thought I could experience a kind of pain like that. It didn’t just hurt, it burned.”

I jerked my head up and looked at him confused.

“I was fifteen the first time she asked me to sleep naked with her,” he confessed.

I gasped in shock. I stared at him and saw nothing but the pain filling his eyes.

“She wanted me to have sex with her every single day,” he uttered between gritted teeth.