I nodded as I drank, wishing it were scotch rather than water.
She continued to wash the rag over my body, taking away all the signs of my body’s reaction to my nocturnal hell. “What was it about?”
I placed the cup down on the bedside table and put my hand on the rag to stop Fallon from her mothering touch. “I’m fine. I’m used to them. It’s just the same dream I’ve had ever since…”
“Timothy,” she answered for me.
She put down the rag and crawled back into bed beside me. Replacing the rag that was on my skin with her fingertips, she began running gentle and soothing circles on my bare back.
“I relive the night we were told he died,” I confessed. I had never told anyone but my therapist about this, but it didn’t feel wrong telling Fallon. She had always been my confidant before… well, before my life fell apart.
“That must be awful.”
“My penance I suppose.”
“Penance? Why would you have to pay penance? It’s not your fault your brother died.”
“I could have prevented it,” I admitted, realizing I had never spoken those words that I truly felt to anyone before.
“He chose to drink and get behind the wheel, Rafe. You couldn’t have stopped that. It was a terrible accident. An accident where no one is truly to blame. Sure as hell not you.”
Her words should soothe but they only festered the wound that was already carved into my soul. Nothing could take away the pain, the guilt and the feeling that it should have been me in the coffin rather than Tim. He should be here in the Oleander, not me.
The devil swapped us as a sick joke.
“You know what’s so fucked up?” I said as I stared straight ahead into the darkness. “I can’t get that night out of my mind. It haunts me. And yet, I can’t remember the days following at all. It’s like I completely blocked out the aftermath. It’s a void, a blur. I can’t remember much of anything for a long time. I think I just operated on auto-pilot or something.”
Fallon’s hands continued to caress my skin which now went from sweaty to chilled.
“And yet, I can’t ever forget the sounds of my parents’ screams. I will forever hear that,” I added.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I wish I had been there more— I’m sorry…”
I didn’t want to talk anymore. I couldn’t. I had to do something to stop the screams in my head. I had to silence them.
Now.
Taking hold of Fallon’s arm, I pulled her to me and into a kiss.
It was bruising, dominating, and uncontrolled.
I didn’t ask. I didn’t seduce. I didn’t even think.
I needed to feel her lips against mine as if it were vital to keep breathing.
When my tongue danced with hers and I heard her breath hitch, I nearly exploded. I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t deny.
“I need you now, Fallon. I need to feel you.”
I stripped off my sweatpants and shed her of her nightclothes and panties with zero thought or hesitation.
“I need you, too,” she rasped as she kissed me again with more force than the first one.
“I need it to just be you and me. No one watching. No one dictating. No canes, no chants. Just us. I just need you in the silence of this room.”
“Just us,” she agreed, the determination in her eyes as unrelenting as the tone of her voice. “I want only you. We’re all that matters right now.”
Our lips met again, a pull neither of us could resist any longer. Our hunger never satiated. Time and distance had kept us apart for too long, but our souls never parted. Her heart beat against mine as I arranged our bodies closer, and we kissed again. But this time… this time…
The single kiss had the power to bond us forever. It could make everything right again. The kiss was the cure for the nightmares. One kiss had the power to chase the ghosts away.
I wanted her in more ways than one.
I wanted her this very second… and every day from this point on.
Now. Forever.
I sucked her breast, then moved to the other to give it equal attention. Lowering my hand to her mound, damp with fresh arousal, I dipped a finger to her clit and applied pressure as she roused in me an overwhelming longing that had me gasping for air.
Moving from her clit, I pressed my fingers past her silky folds and pushed one, then two, digits into her sex. She forced her hips up to drive them inside her pussy even deeper.
This wasn’t enough. I wanted to feel my cock stretching her as I claimed what was now mine. I wanted to feel myself in her so badly that the hunger changed who I was.
I was an animal.
I was a stalker in search of its victim.