Complicated: A Tainted Love Novella (9 page)

His fearful eyes stare back at her and I feel his helplessness, I feel the war raging within him. If this were Rachel, I’d be the same way, maybe even worse. He and I are the same on some level. When we fall in love, it’s in its fierce entirety. But the difference between Ben and me is he let those bastards live.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Rachel whispers to him, and it really wasn’t. If anything it was mine.

The realization hits me square in the chest and I breathe out, on the verge of panic. Oh God, I should have done more for her instead of just hide her away. I should have made perfectly sure that Rick didn’t find her or let him get out of my sight.
Fuck.

Ben stares back at us, his sad eyes flickering down to Rachel’s before moving back up to mine. We all three are a sad bunch. I wish I could be strong, take charge, but the guilt I’m swimming in is so fucking overwhelming. I’d be damned if he’ll see me cry, though. Rachel had seen enough of my tears last night.

I see the moment the storm clears for him. His shoulders rise from their beaten down position and his face slips into a steady resolve. He clears his throat and speaks, words falling from his lips that I wish he didn’t need to say. I knew it was a matter of time before I had to call them. I was hoping it would have been when she was fully recovered and before news reached New York, but by the look of her bruises – I can’t even imagine the ones we can’t see – she won’t be recovering any time soon.

“Rachel, I think it’s time her parents knew what’s going on.”

Rachel and I both look at him as if he’s lost his mind. Not caring one fucking bit, he forges on with his orders, “Marshall, you make the call and Rachel, you need to go home and get her some things.”

We stand staring at him for a beat and figuring he won’t budge, we nod and leave him in the hospital room, a sense of dread tagging along behind me. How do I tell my parents that the daughter they’ve always wanted, and finally got almost fifteen years ago, and loved with every measure was kidnapped and broken, all because of me? This would not go over well with them, I know it.

“Marsh,” Rachel cuts into my thoughts, lacing her fingers with mine.

I look down on the woman who has my heart and it swells even more with what I see in her eyes. She is staring at me with look of support, a look of strength, despite their tears now silently running down her face.

And she’s beautiful.

“I’m here,” she says simply and in that sentence is everything I need to make the phone call I have been dreading to make since Rachel first called and told me what had happened.

I nod once and pull out my cell phone, deciding to call Dad since he’s the more calm and rational of the two therapists. Just my luck, however, it rings with no answer. I hang up knowing that it would be fucked up to leave him a message telling him his daughter was in the hospital.

“Willy?” Rachel asks, knowing how she is. I sigh and nod and she squeezes my hand.
I’m here
, she communicates.
I know
, I silently answer back with a smile.

I dial her number slowly, dragging out the inevitable. My mom is going to fall to pieces at the news. I just hope Dad is nearby to hold her when she does.

The voicemail kicks in and my mother’s cheerful voice chirps out a greeting. It is both a relief and a disappointment, wanting to get it out, but not wanting to have to tell my parents that my sister’s been hurt because of my failure to effectively protect her. A pit forms in the center of my chest as I clear my throat to leave a vague message.

“Mom,” I start, tears clogging my throat as my mind flashes to a helpless Delilah on her hospital bed, looking small and broken.

I feel Rachel squeeze my hand and her courage bolsters me, even as tears silently leak from my eyes. She doesn’t know how beautiful she looks being my rock right now. She is my fortress.

So, like a Band-Aid being ripped off, I delve into it. “Mom, Dad, I-I’m sorry. It’s Delilah.”

Rachel

I
t was a tough call that Marshall had to make, but I held his hand through it all. They hadn’t been home, so he had to leave a message and that in itself was tough for him. I can’t imagine the warring within. The aftermath was him hanging up and crying in my arms. He hadn’t told them everything, of the gravity of it all, and it still must have felt like a weight on his shoulders.

He’d started to blame himself – if he had been more vigilant, if he had told his parents what was going on from the beginning, if he had been here – blame unwarranted. None of us could have thought that this would happen, well, maybe Delilah did. She was always good with intuition. Maybe this time she was so preoccupied with falling in love with someone that she forgot to watch her own back. Whatever it was, Rick caught every one of us off guard.

We’re at the apartment right now and I’m packing a bag of things for Delilah. I should be happy, she’s alive –
broken, but not destroyed
. As I shove underwear and her iPod into her carry-on, I can’t help but tear up. I saw the needle tracks in her arm and that can only mean one thing: either she’s been using again on her own accord, or it has been forced on her.

This is not good. I can only imagine the shitstorm this will cause. Delilah going through withdrawal was hard the first time round. At times I thought she’d never come back from the darkness it plunged her into. The vomiting, the nightmares, the sweats, the shakes, the anger, the sadness…everything rolled into one made for a challenging few months. By the second month, she had made a concerted effort to stay clean and that made everything easier afterwards. I don’t know what it will be like this time. She’s tried so hard to keep clean, to stay away from any kind of drugs, and now her hard work has been dashed. I don’t know what that will mean for her mental state.

I exit Delilah’s room after stuffing a towel of hers into the bag and zipping it closed. In the living room, I see Marshall sitting on the windowsill, staring out unseeing at the Philadelphia skyline – one leg propped on the sill with his elbow resting on it and the other leg planted on the floor.

We really scored with that view. Jared, Delilah’s former boyfriend who’d died in a plane crash, had sourced the place for us and had gotten us a discount because he knew the landlord. The upside of Delilah dating rich men was that they, too, knew rich men and the perks of all of that was what we’d come to survive on. It wasn’t nice, using men for money, but it was something Delilah had perfected over the years and that I, too, had come to benefit from in small ways.

I smile. Delilah is alive. There is no greater gift than that. As I stare at Marshall, however, I see that sadness has enveloped him. His shoulders are hunched in defeat, no doubt thinking about the fight he’s going to have with his parents. I want to protect him from all the blowback he’ll receive because of it. It has nothing to do with being in love with him; I’m not, of course. I am just proud of him for protecting his sister the way he did and I think he deserves to be thanked for it in kind.

Even in my own head that sounds like bullshit, but I’m not going to explore why it does; not right now when his despair is sucking the very air out of this vibrant room, not when my heart aches at seeing him so lost. All I know in this moment is that I want to take away what is bothering him. At the very least, take his mind off it for a bit.

I saunter over to him, my movements slow and measured, careful not to scare him off. He looks so tortured, so vulnerable, and it is in his vulnerability that I find him most beautiful. My stomach clenches and my heart flutters, but I shake off the depth of feeling that threatens to drown me, threatening to cause me to burst. God, I adore this man.

Setting the carry on down, I stand in front of him and he brings his attention around slowly, his eyes a chasm of fear and helplessness. My heart leaps and I fist my hands at my sides to restrain myself from reaching out for him and bringing him to my body, so that I can hold on to him and assure him with my entire being that everything will be okay.

Instead, I drop to my knees, his eyes widening as I inch my hands up his legs. His breathing becomes labored when my fingers land on his belt and I start to unbuckle. Eyes flashing with warning and danger, he stays my hands, worrying his lip and furrowing his brows.

“Rae,” he says, voice hoarse with need.

“Let me take care of you, Marshall,” I beg, feeling the bulge of his masculinity intensify.

My core tightens and my mouth waters thinking of what I want to do to him. The yearning, ever-present desire swirls inside me and I long to wrap my lips around his cock, to feel him shudder from my lips sucking him, to feel my power over him.  The more anticipation swells inside of me, the more I realize that this is as much for me as it is for him. I want to know that I can consume him the same way his has consumed me.

Licking his lips and swallowing audibly, Marshall lifts his hand and plants his perched leg on the floor giving me better access to him. I continue with my task, undoing his belt slowly, hands trembling. The sound of his zipper and our labored breathing shatters the otherwise quiet room and when I pull his hardness out of his boxers, I have to fight to tamp down the mischievous smile that creeps across my lips.

He is so thick, so long and beautiful; so hard that the veins carve into his cock like an intricate art piece. His cock is art and I staunch the giggle that threatens to surface. I marvel, wrapping my fingers around his tumescent rod, feeling like the luckiest bitch in the world. I have had this inside me. I have come on this thing. I have enjoyed every stroke of pleasure from this thing, and I am going to get to suck this big, thick, pleasure pole, hell-bent on giving me pleasure beyond my wildest imaginings.

Fuck!

Yes!

I descend on his cock like a hungry lioness, slipping his length into my mouth and swirling my tongue around the head. Marshall groans long and low, almost guttural, and he squeezes his eyes shut, his hand coming up to thread urgent fingers into my hair. I draw his cock deep into the warmth of my mouth and pull off, sucking on the head, before sending it back to the back of my throat.

Bobbing my head up and down, I get lost in the sounds ripping from Marshall’s throat. It’s almost as if he’s being torn apart, decimated, and I am loving it. I feel powerful, as if I could bring him to his knees.

“Jesus, Rachel. This is so fucking good,” he pants. “Just like that, Rae. Get that fucking dick, suck it hard.”

He grips the strands of my hair tighter, pulling so that I’m looking up at him, and I suck him harder, enjoying the pain. His eyes have darkened, pinning me with their intensity. The raw power and pure need that I register in them makes me breathless. In those blue orbs of his I see our past and all that it was, all that we had, and I also see the uncertainty of our future. I can’t look away from him, and the longer he captures me in his stare, the more I see.

Marshall gives me a sad smile and cups my cheek. I see the sadness of our lost years and it’s too much. I close my eyes, shutting out the eagerness his eyes capture me with; because if I gaze into his eyes any longer, anything he asks of me I will do with absolutely no argument, and I need to hang on to my fight a bit longer. I take him deeper to the back of my throat and he groans long and hard, gripping my hair tighter. Chancing a peek at him, his head is thrown back in ecstasy and his all-seeing eyes are closed. His cheeks are flushed, breaths coming out in short, groaning bursts.

I’m doing this to him.

He presses down on my head as he groans, “That mouth…that fucking mouth.” It’s almost reverential the way he says it. Then, his voice becomes raspy as he commands – the hunger in it sending tingles shooting through my stomach, “Take it all, Rae, all of it. Suck it deep. Jesus, fuck.”

I decide to toy with his pleasure a bit, so I grasp his cock tighter, loving his moaned “fuck”. Circling the base of his erection, I bring my mouth away from him and start licking as if I am enjoying a treat. Marshall tries to force my head back down to business, but I smile, refusing to take him into my mouth. He finally looks down at me, snapping out of his Cloud Nine experience.

“Rae,” he growls. “Suck my cock or I’m fucking your pussy. Either way, I’m finishing in your mouth.”

He’s such an asshole sometimes.

“When I’m good and ready, asshole,” I shoot back.

Marshall, frustrated with me toying with him, pulls me up by my hair and spins me forcing me to let go of his shaft. A smile pulls at the corners of my mouth at his ferocity and my stomach flips with excitement. He positions me in front of the large, naked bay windows, and proceeds to strip me of my pants and underwear. Slapping me hard on the ass, he kicks my feet apart, and spreads the cheeks of my ass open before burying his mouth on my pussy.

I scream out as his fingers find my clit and his tongue spears into my wet center.

“Marshall, fuck!” I moan, slapping my hand on the glass and shaking the frame.

When he feels he’s gotten his fill, he straightens and lines his cock up with my entrance. Grabbing my chin, he forces my eyes open and I breathe hard and fast, marveling at the steam building on the window.

“Make sure your eyes are open, Firecracker,” he commands, before slamming into me. Marshall claims me, fucking me hard and fast.

For a moment, I feared that someone could see us through the window, could see my naked breasts from where Marshall ripped my blouse apart to expose my flushed globes; but it also filled me with lecherous hope. I hoped someone could see me being fucked like a savage by this man, this God, this sexual conqueror.

And true to his word, he finishes in my mouth.

At the hospital, Delilah is unusually quiet, but considering what she’s been through, I can’t imagine what’s going through her head. It’s so hard for me to look at her and not see a survivor. All her life, that’s all she’s been – a victim on one end, a survivor on the other. That’s why she took control of everything the way she did, never wanting to give up any kind of it for fears she might lose herself, lose her strength and become victimized all over again. She didn’t want to get raped by anyone ever again, so she spread herself wide. She didn’t want to feel like she was always looking over her shoulder, so she ran and kept on running. She’s been hurt by so many people, it’s a wonder she has the strength to go on.

Her bruises are testament that she survived, that she didn’t allow what they did to her to defeat her. Delilah is a fighter and I look up to her so much for always fighting through the crap to keep her neck above water.

As I whisper to her now, our tears flow. She says she feels weak, but I assure her that she’s not. Who survives their attacker twice and lives to tell the tale? She defended herself against a two men who could have and possibly would have killed her. The inner-resilience that takes, not many women have it. That tenacity that she uses as a cover is no more a cover than the thin material of her hospital gown. Her strength, resilience and tenacity are all a part of her. It is embedded in her veins
.

“Do you know how brave you are, Lilah?” I whisper to her as I stroke her knotted hair. I’m sure Ben is going to want to know about her ethnicity now with her roots showing. She hasn’t told him much about anything and I’m surprised and relieved that he is still around in spite of this fact.

He hasn’t left her side much, and even though he is still in the room with us, he’s allowing us a sort-of-private moment. I know he’s probably upset that she keeps shutting him out, but he just needs to stick around. I hate that she’s pushing him away, but if he sticks it out, I know she will eventually talk. She always does this when someone comes along who could break down every single one of her constructed walls. There has only ever been one other person who has done that, but Jared died before he could tear them down completely. He was dominant, much like I sense that of Ben.