She raised her head and looked at me.
“I can’t just abandon her,” she stated definitively. “I can’t, not when they’re going to…”
“Going to what?” I asked when she didn’t go on.
“I’m not supposed to tell anyone,” she said. Her voice was reserved, but I wasn’t going to give in that easily.
“What the fuck?” I snarled. “You can’t say something like that and then not finish.”
“I know,” she responded quietly. “But I think I heard it about five thousand times when I was growing up. No one outside the community was ever supposed to hear about the legends and rituals of the area.”
“About what?” Nothing she was saying made any sense.
“Well, she and Brandon have been married almost two years,” Tria said. “They’d been trying to have a baby, but nothing has happened.”
“Okay.” I frowned. I understood why that might be upsetting for a couple, but that shit happened all the time. Usually it wasn’t anything serious.
“The doctor doesn’t think there is anything wrong with her, so they checked Brandon out. He has low sperm count or something. He isn’t going to be able to father any children.”
“Well, there are other options, right?” I had the sinking feeling I was missing a major point.
“I told you,” Tria said, “the community is shrinking. She has to have a baby from the Beals community.”
“So, who is going to father the kid?”
“All of them.” Tria’s eyes met mine, and she nodded to me slowly as I comprehended what she was saying. “They’ll just keep going until she’s pregnant.”
The implications of her words slammed into me, and images from a website Wade had found once rocketed around in my brain. It featured this chick lying back in a chair while a line of guys waited to fuck her. What I had considered kind of interesting at the time now seemed thoroughly sickening.
I was never one to bash another culture, but this was just fucked up.
Chapter 17—Kiss the Girl
For the next hour, Tria explained how the Beals council had determined the best way to make sure their culture and way of life continued, which was to make sure every couple had many children. There was a minimum of three required because you couldn’t just replace yourselves. You had to add to the population. Since then, any couple who didn’t have the allotted number of kids was “helped out” by the rest of the community—either by making a surrogate mother available to carry a child for a woman who wasn’t fertile or by making sure any fertile woman was impregnated by some man from Beals.
Husband or not.
Apparently they had been doing it for generations, which meant more and more often, the children they did have were more closely related to each other than the generation before, and their numbers were beginning to dwindle again. Cousins marrying cousins was common enough, but they were starting to have other relations intermingle as well.
“Brandon is technically Nikki’s uncle,” Tria told me. She sat down opposite me on the couch and handed me a refilled glass of apple juice. “They aren’t so far apart in age—her grandmother had him just a few years before Nikki’s mother gave birth to her. She says she loves him, but there is part of me that thinks it’s just because she was brought up there.”
“You were brought up there, too. So why aren’t you doing the same thing?”
“I certainly heard it enough,” Tria said. “But things were always different for me.”
“Because you weren’t born there?” I asked.
“Well…partially,” she said as she cringed. “I mean, I obviously didn’t fit in with everyone else. I was…accepted…but with reluctance, you know?”
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.
“Leo is the leader of the council, so whatever he says goes. He said I was his daughter, so everyone kind of had to accept me. Still, I knew I was different, and even though I was young when it happened, I still remembered living outside of Beals with my mom and then in foster care. Even my dad was more a fringe member of the community.”
“What would your dad have thought of all this?” I wondered aloud.
“I don’t think he would have approved,” Tria said as she shook her head. “I know there were a lot of things he and Leo disagreed about, and sometimes they even argued. I don’t think Dad knew about a lot of the things the council decided. It doesn’t matter now, though. I have to go back.”
Tria had to physically stop me from grabbing my jacket and heading out the door.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
“I’m going to find that fuckhead Harrison and do what I told him I’d do—shove his severed dick down his throat!”
“Liam! You don’t even know where he is!”
“I know how to read a fucking map!” I shook my arm to get her hand off me.
“You can’t just drive up there and beat him up!”
“Why not?”
“Well,” Tria said as she tilted her head to the side, “you don’t own a car for starters.”
Ok, I had to give her that point. I ran my hand through my hair and huffed out a breath. I let her take hold of my arm again and lead me back to the couch.
“I can take care of it,” Tria said.
“How exactly are you going to do that—blunt object or firearm?”
“Keith doesn’t matter.” She shook her head and looked down at her hands in her lap. “This is about Nikki. I have to go back. I need to be there for her.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. I placed my glass on the coffee table and sat on the edge of the couch cushion. I turned myself sideways to face her. “Don’t go back.”
“I can’t just ignore what’s going on with her,” she told me. “Nikki is going to go through with this, and she wants me there.”
It all sounded like a bunch of bullshit to me.
“It’s just that douchebag’s way to get you back there so he can keep you from returning.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” she agreed. “I’m sure he knows I would do anything for Nikki. Still, it’s not like he can keep me from leaving.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. She didn’t believe a word she was saying, and it showed.
“I have to go,” she whispered. “Nikki risked everything for me. I owe her.”
I stood up.
“I’m going with you.” I felt myself stand just a little taller, the decision solidifying my resolve. There was no way I was going to have her go halfway across the country on her own. There was no way I was going to let her be that far away from me with that asshole in the vicinity.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tria muttered as she shook her head.
“Don’t fucking say that!” I exploded. “I fucking hate it when you say that! I’m going with you!”
“You most certainly are not!” she yelled right back at me. She stood up and placed her fists on her hips. “I’m not going to go there to help Nikki just to end up having to play interference between you and Keith the whole time!”
“I won’t start anything,” I promised. I might not start anything, but I’d end it, and “starting” was kind of a subjective thing. If he happened to look at me wrong, well, that would be like him starting something.
“My ass,” Tria replied. She grabbed both empty glasses and headed into the kitchen.
I followed her and watched her carefully wash each of the glasses before she grabbed a towel to dry them inside and out. She seemed to be taking extra care to get every single drop of water off of them before putting them in the cabinet. When she turned to me and glared with her arms crossed, her breath came out in a huff that moved her hair around.
“I’m going,” I repeated.
“No.”
“Not up for debate,” I told her. I crossed my arms over my chest to show her I could be just as damn stubborn as she was. “I swear, I’ll be something that vaguely resembles a gentleman up until he starts acting like a douchebag.”
&
nbsp; I hoped and prayed that he would act up because even the smallest excuse would allow me to beat the ever-loving shit out of him. That thought put a genuine smile on my face.
“I can already see you plotting inside that head of yours,” she told me. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not? Give me one decent reason that isn’t outweighed by the dozen I can come up with that will tell you not to go by yourself.”
“Liam!” Tria threw her hands up in the air and turned around to walk back into the living room. She stopped at the juncture between the two rooms and leaned against the wall there with her arms still crossed. “What am I supposed to say? My roommate followed me across the country to pay his respects to someone he never met?”
I hadn’t really considered what they might think of the whole thing because I didn’t give a flying fuck. Tria, of course, was concerned. Her concern was going to be enough to convince her I shouldn’t go. If she wouldn’t let me go with her, and she ended up back there alone, I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of her. She might be brainwashed into staying with them, marrying Douchebag, and having his demon spawn.
Fuck no.
“So, tell them something else,” I heard myself say.
“Like what?” She snorted. “That you just stopped by to pick up some fresh lobster?”
While I was ignoring the obvious sarcasm, my mouth took off without consulting me first.
“Tell them I’m your boyfriend.”
Holy shit.
From top to bottom, my body stilled completely.
“Don’t be ri—”
I tilted my head to one side and glared at her, halting the rest of that hated phrase. Tria bit down on her lower lip like she was trying to hold in whatever she wanted to say next by sheer force of her teeth. When she did speak again, I could barely hear her.
“I can’t just…just…”
“Just what?” I asked. I managed to remember my feet were mobile, and I took a step toward her. As I moved forward, Tria took a step backward until she was pressed firmly against the wall.
“I can’t just lie to them!” She looked distressed at the very idea. “Besides being a shitty liar, I can’t act to save my life. I can’t pretend we’re in a relationship when we’re not!”
I moved forward again, and she tried to move back but had nowhere to go. Her heels were pressed against the baseboards, and her fingers touched the pale drywall behind her. In the back of my mind, I realized even when I made the suggestion that she wouldn’t be able to do it. I knew she couldn’t lie. You couldn’t live with someone for a month and not figure that out.
“So don’t lie.”
My skin tingled as if I were on the edge of a storm front. Hell, maybe I was. I could have been standing at the top of a fjord or the edge of the Grand Canyon. I could have been stepping from Apollo 11 onto the surface of the moon.
She didn’t move but stared at me with her eyes widening as I moved closer. Slowly, I placed my hands against the wall on either side of her head. My body angled over the top of hers, and I bent my elbows to bring myself closer to her face.
“What do you mean?” she asked in a choked whisper.
“Don’t lie,” I repeated.
I leaned in closer to her. My gaze drifted from her eyes to her mouth and then back again. I waited for her lips to part to tell me to stop, but all she did was moisten them quickly with her tongue. I brought my head close to hers—almost touching—and paused again. She lowered her eyes to my mouth, her lips parted slightly, and I could see her chest moving faster with her rapid breathing. I didn’t need any further prompting.
I pressed my lips to hers, and everything else in the world ceased to exist.
There was no kitchen or living room in a crappy little apartment on the shit side of town. There were no roommates for the sake of financial security or convenience. I wasn’t a fighter ignoring life around him, and she wasn’t a college student trying to make the world a better place. There was no sordid background, no fucked up customs, no douchebag ex-boyfriends.
There was me, and there was her, and there was us.
Her mouth was warm, soft, and far more enticing than my fantasies had ever been. I felt her hand against my chest and feared she would push me away, but she didn’t. Her hand moved up slowly over the fabric of my T-shirt and rested against my shoulder as I tilted my head and kissed her again.
Gently.
Slowly.
Even with the unhurried pace, I broke away breathless with my head spinning. My eyes met hers, and I was sure she felt what I was feeling. Without any more pause, I brought our lips together again eagerly and opened my mouth to find her tongue with mine. I moved my hand from the wall to the side of her face, and I tilted her head to kiss her more deeply. She moaned into my mouth, and her taste was nothing short of divine. Finally I slowed, savoring the flavor of her mouth before stopping a moment. I didn’t open my eyes but leaned my body into her.
“Don’t lie,” I whispered against her lips.
“I won’t,” she responded, and her hand moved up higher to pull tightly against the back of my head as she brought us together again.
I reached down and lifted her up by her thighs so I was holding her against the wall where I could reach her better. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and I moved against her—no longer trying to hide the desire I felt for her as my cock grew and pressed between her legs. Her fingers gripped the back of my head as she turned to meet my lips from another angle.
Hoisting her up a little more, I leaned back and carried her out of the living room, into the hall, and through the bedroom door. In a single motion, I laid her down on the bed and covered her body with mine, never allowing our lips to part in the process. It was like curling up beside her while she slept, only better.
With her supported by the bed, my hands could occupy themselves with something other than holding her up. I slid them up her thighs and over her hips, and I realized just how long it had been since I had felt the smooth curves of a woman’s body in my hands. I felt the warmth of bare skin with my fingers as they reached the top of her jeans, and I slid my hand inside.
Tria moaned into my mouth, and her hands moved to my shoulders. She gripped me for a moment before her fingers moved down to my chest. I braced myself against the bed with one hand while the other moved up her side, feeling the soft flesh underneath her shirt and searching for more. I shifted my hips against hers in an instinctive rhythm.
She pressed her hands more firmly against my chest, and I moved to suck at the skin of her neck as my hand reached for her breast. I felt her breath against the side of my head as her fingers dug into my skin, pushing harder now.
“Liam, stop!”
I froze, and my blood pooled in my feet as I came to the understanding of where I was, what I was doing, and with whom.
She’s a virgin.
I had to lock every muscle to keep my body from continuing down the sordid path it wanted to take on its way to fulfill every shower-dream I had experienced since I met her. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced my hands flat against the mattress before I shoved up and away from her body.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be,” I said. “Just, um…give me a minute.”
When I pushed myself up and off of her, I rolled over to my back as she sat up and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. I could feel her looking down at me but didn’t meet her gaze. I willed my cock to stop throbbing both painfully and obviously in my pants, but the moody little bastard wasn’t listening. My heart was beating too fast in my chest, and my hands were aching to run over her skin, but I knew I couldn’t do that—I still couldn’t do that.
The thought was more than I could take.
“Going outside,” I said as I shoved myself off the bed.
I glanced at her long enough to see her nod her head before I left the room. I walked out into the living room and grabbed my smokes out of my jacket pocket before running out the door and down the sta
irs. I lit the cigarette before I ever got outside and then leaned against the edge of the fire escape as I blew the smoke up into the overcast sky.
I closed my eyes and tried to figure out how I had gone and managed to do exactly what I told myself I wasn’t going to do. I wasn’t going to put her in this position. I wasn’t going to get in the way of her life. I wasn’t going to make a move on her and fuck up this little arrangement we had.
I tried not to feel as if what she had done and said was a rejection, but the thought bounced around in my head anyway.
I tossed the butt into the street and started to run. As I ran, the skies went from overcast to raining down on me. First, there was just a sprinkle and then a downpour before I made it to the tree. Circling the tree made me think of Thanksgiving dinner, and that just pissed me off some more.
I’d fucked up royally.
Taking back what I had done was impossible. I kissed her. I didn’t just kiss her but hauled her into bed and would certainly be fucking her right now if she hadn’t pushed me away. This was everything I said I wasn’t going to do, and now it was too late to take it back. I couldn’t just pretend I didn’t want in her panties because I wasn’t much better at lying than she was.
Picking up speed, I turned the corner around an old steel plant and saw our building. The rain ceased as quickly as it had started, leaving nothing but cold mist in the air. The back of my thigh was cramping up, and I was breathing too hard. Smoking before running, combined with the lack of warming up, was not a great idea. I slowed before I got to the grate that marked three miles and coasted to a stop right in front of the building. I leaned over with my hands on my knees and coughed a couple of times before reaching behind my leg and rubbing at the cramped muscle.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered. I stood up straight, reached my hands up over my head, and then leaned against the broken security door so I could stretch the muscle. A crow landed above me on the ineffective streetlamp outside the building, tilted its head, and cawed at me.