I look away from him because his answer hurt. Not because of me, but because he doesn’t want that kind of love. He doesn’t want to experience falling in love, settling down, and starting a family of his own.
I push him off me, and thankfully, he moves away easily. I get off the bed and walk out of my room. All of a sudden, I need a shower. I feel dirty.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CASE
I fall down on the bed and look up at the ceiling. I let out a growl in frustration, fisting my hands in the air. Fuck, this is fucking with my mind. Now, what am I going to do? How much longer can I lie to this woman? The bigger question is why do I fucking care that I’m lying to her? She’s nobody! She’s just another woman who I’ve taken to bed and now I’m letting her fuck with my head.
I told her that she was mine. And that I was hers. And I don’t even regret that. I don’t know what happened last night, but something changed when we went out.
When we are at the club and both working, I don’t have time to sit down and watch her. Touch her. Last night, I felt every time she stiffened. I could feel every time her body shook when she was scared or even just uncomfortable. I hated myself for putting her in that situation, but it had to be done. I had to parade her around like my faithful little pet. And I did; the only thing she was missing was a collar and leash. I felt proud when she clung to me as Rox looked at her as if he wanted a fucking piece of her. And I was telling her the truth a while ago about wanting to fuck her right there to prove a point. I was just as jealous as she was.
Hell, she drank so much her true feelings came out about me. And jealousy was the last thing I expected her to feel for me. Grossed out. Ashamed. Instead, she showed how much she wants me.
I look over at her dresser and see the picture of her family. My chest tightens at the thought of her asking me if I ever wanted that. I did at one point in time, but guys like me don’t do families. Don’t settle down. As I look at her family picture, I see Taylor standing there with a son, a daughter, and a husband by her side, and my jaw clenches. I can’t imagine her with someone else. Just the thought fucking kills me. So what are you gonna do, Case?
I slowly get up and place my jeans on followed by my shirt. I leave it undone because she ripped all of my buttons off it a while ago. Once dressed, I sit back down on the bed not really knowing what to do next.
“I figured you would be gone.”
I look over where she stands in the doorway. Her hair over one shoulder still wet and her towel wrapped around herself. And my cock starts to harden. Just as it did the first time I saw her naked in that hallway behind her.
“I didn’t know you wanted me to go,” I say as if I couldn’t care less I’m still here.
She sighs. “It’s your choice.” Then she turns, giving me her back, and walks away.
I jump out of bed and run after her. I come up behind her in the hallway and turn her around. I look down at her narrowed eyes. “This is why you don’t share your past. This is why you don’t ask questions about future plans,” I growl. “This right here is why you say fuck all that and just worry about right now.”
“I’m not like you, Case,” she snaps.
“I know,” I say softening my voice. “And that’s what I like about you,” I say honestly. That is what makes it so hard to walk away from her. She’s fresh air. She is a new beginning. She makes me feel like I’m not pretending to be something I’m not. But of course, I can’t tell her any of that. She would just have more questions that I could not answer.
“This is stupid.” Her eyes fall to her bare feet. “I’m arguing with you about something that shouldn’t even matter.”
But it does matter.“I agree,” I say lifting her chin. “So can we just forget it?” You do know this means you can’t ask her questions about herself, right? You can’t want to know about her if you can’t tell her about yourself. That realization hurts.
“Sure,” she says with a careless shrug. I’ve pissed her off. Again. “We’ll play by your rules, Case. But when I decide to quit playing, you can’t blame me for it.” And with that, I let her walk back to the bathroom.
I hang my head like a fucking whipped dog and walk back into her room. I sit on the end of her bed and place my head in my hands. Every part of my life is a secret. I couldn’t even tell her much about Brecken. I couldn’t tell her that he is the best friend I could ever have. That he has saved my life more times than I can count. And more importantly, I wouldn’t be here today if he hadn’t saved my life back when I was seventeen.
My body silently shakes from the cold rain that pours down on me. I hang my head and close my eyes as I pray for it to drown me. Pray for it to pull me deeper into this ocean of madness. The only people who could save me, who give me a reason to live, have left me behind.
You weren’t worth it, Case!
I reach up, dig my fingers into my hair, and grip it tightly. I pull on it as hard as I can making my scalp sting as I scream out. The sky decides to scream with me as thunder booms so loud the ground shakes. I drop my hands. Too full of shame. Guilt. Why didn’t you save them? How could you let your family down like that? You’re such a disgrace. You don’t deserve to live!
I feel nothing but pain. Nothing but stinging, mind-numbing pain that is literally ripping me in two.
I lift my head, and it falls back as the rain now hits my face. My chest heaves as I try to breathe from the tightness I feel knowing I’m alone. Tears roll down my face, but the rain washes away the evidence of my brokenness. I just want to be numb. I just want the hurt to go away. It’s so hard to breathe. So hard to get out of bed in the morning.
I drop my head in shame as if I don’t have the strength to hold it up. I open my eyes and I look down at the gun sitting on my lap. My chest tightens and my breath catches as I think about what this gun represents. I close my eyes as I reach down and wrap my hand around the grip. This was my dad’s gun. I’ve seen it every day for as long as I can remember. He always kept it on his nightstand. “Safety,” he would say when I asked about it. He told me it would ‘protect our family if someone ever tried to rip us apart.’ I bet he never guessed it would be the very thing to do just that.
I was taught to respect guns and never to touch one unless I intended to shoot it. ‘Shoot to kill,’ my dad would say. ‘Wounded men have a chance to fabricate a story. They can make you look like the bad guy when they were the ones who had bad intentions.’
It’s crazy; I never thought I would need to hold this gun. Now, I can’t imagine what my life would be without it. It’s my demon. But it’s also gonna be my saving grace. It’s gonna save me from a life of mind-blowing pain. It’s gonna save me from a lifetime of nightmares.
I jump off my tailgate and stand behind my truck in the rain in the middle of nowhere. My shoes sink into a puddle and my heart pounds so hard in my chest it drowns out the rain and it’s all I can hear. It’s all I can feel. My right hand taps the gun against my right thigh. The gun feels like it weighs fifty pounds in my hand. But somehow, holding it calms me. Just the feel of it lets me know it will all be over soon.
