Her cell was ringing from somewhere in the house, but it sounded distant. She looked away from, her eyes scanning the room until she eventually saw it, and she reached over to pick it up. Panic slammed in my gut and I gripped her wrist tightly and pulled her back to me.
“Don’t answer it,” I pleaded, my voice harsh and threatening.
A tear slipped from one of her eyes and she nodded quickly. “Okay, okay. Just come here.” She pulled me back up the bed and I lay down next to her, putting my head onto her stomach.
My whole body was tense, through anger and grief and realization. Because Casa wouldn’t have made that shit up. There was just no way he’d do that. I clutched onto her body tighter, feeling the tremors running through her as she tried to conceal that she was crying, and I buried my face against her stomach as she wrapped her arms around me.
“I’m here, I’ve got you,” she whispered, her fingers stroking my hair. “I’ve got you, Jesse, always.”
Always, I thought bitterly. I had never believed in always, because always didn’t exist in my world. Always was merely a fleeting moment, or a splash in time. That was the longest thatalwayswas in my world.
Always was just like forever: a vicious lie upon an angel’s lips.
Because always died just like everything and everyone else.
Always was never forever.
I don’t know how long we lay there for, but neither of us wanted to move because we knew that once we did, we’d let the nightmare truly in. At the moment it lingered on the peripheral, scratching against the doors and begging to come in. But we fought it for as long as we could.
We fucked six times that morning, until my dick was sore and Laney winced with every thrust of my hips. We fucked away the pain that we knew was coming. And we fucked in the hopes that we could keep our world together. We fucked, we didn’t make love. It was raw and rough and dark, and more to do with pain than pleasure, especially toward the end.
Our bodies were covered in slick sweat, the sheets crumpled underneath us, as I lay back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, my dick flaccid against my thigh. We lay naked, side by side, both of us too scared to speak in case we let the world in, pushing it away with every beat of our hearts and every thrust of our hips.
But nightmares, just like dreams, eventually seep into the blood.
And there they find you, no matter how much you hope and pray they won’t.
The sound of bikes outside, roaring in a chorus of throaty metal and anger, woke me up from my daze. I reached over to Laney and grabbed her hips, my dick already hard at the thought of having her again, even as it burned from the constant fucking. The day had seeped into night, and shadows clung to the walls. Laney opened her thighs to me without question and I pushed myself between them, watching as she bit her lip when I entered her, sliding in deep. I didn’t want to hurt her, but fucking her was the only thing keeping me sane at the moment. She knew it and I knew it. So we fucked and we clung to each other, knowing that our world was about to be blown apart.
A heavy thumping came at the door, my name being called out as I slid in and out of her, and tears trailed out of her eyes. She held my face in her hands and wrapped her legs around my waist, pulling me closer to her whispering that it was going to be okay. I leaned over her body, burying my face in the crook of her neck and I thrust fast and deep, needing the release of pleasure before I let the world in. Before I let the pain destroy me.
I came, suddenly and unexpectedly, and she held me while I squeezed at her ass cheeks and kissed her neck. The thumping downstairs continued, both of our cells illuminating the room.
“Jesse, you need to go now,” she whispered in my ear sadly. “It’s time.”
I nodded, hating her in that moment for making me do that. Hating her for making me face the unfaceable. I kissed her, sucking her bottom lip into my mouth as I slid my flaccid dick out of her. She was crying and I wiped her tears away with my thumb,
“Don’t cry,” I murmured.
She blinked back her tears. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”
“Jesse!” Dom yelled from outside, his fist hitting the front door again. “Open the door, brother.”
I nodded, finally accepting it. Destiny, fate, whatever the fuck you wanted to call it. It had caught up to us, finally. “Yeah, baby, Butch’s gone,” I said.
Something broke inside of me once the words left my mouth. Something I didn’t know I had until it broke away and turned to dust.
“I’ll get the door,” Laney said, but I shook my head and pressed a kiss to her bruised lips.
“I’ve got this.” I slid off the bed and pulled on my jeans. When I turned to look back, Laney had wrapped the bedsheet around herself and tears were trailing down her cheeks. I gritted my teeth and vowed to be strong.
I wouldn’t cry. Not ever. Butch wouldn’t want me to.
I headed down the stairs, my jeans hanging at my hips, and I opened the front door. Outside Casa, Dom, Gauge, and Rider stood, their faces painting the look of horror that I had dreaded.
“What happened?” I asked, feeling numb, the anger merely a spark in my gut for the moment.
“We should come in,” Rider said, and I nodded before walking back inside.
