Never Let You Go (a modern fairytale) (22 page)

He didn’t want to go fast with her—he wanted to savor every moment—but the way she writhed under him, and the way his dick pulsed with every movement, made him rethink his plan. She needed him and he needed her. Romance could wait. Right now, he just needed to be inside her.

“Gris, I want you,” he said, stroking her intimately and looking up to watch the play of pleasure and emotion on her beautiful face. She was so fucking perfect, the muscles in his stomach clenched and his chest hurt,
hurt
, with how much he felt for her.

With his fingers still lodged inside her, she leaned up, reaching for his jeans and pushing them down to his hips. His dick—long, thick, and hard as a rock—caught on his boxers, and he slipped his fingers out of her to reach down and release himself from his clothing.

She gasped, either from the loss of his fingers pleasuring her, or because he was finally naked before her. His raised his eyes to hers, watching her lips drop open as she stared down at him.

“Holden. Oh my God . . .”

He was big. He knew this not because he’d seen a lot of naked men with whom to compare himself, but because her reaction was fairly commonplace for him. The follow-up ranged from delight to fear, but the initial reaction was always one of mouth-dropping surprise.

He watched her face as she stared at him, trying to read her reaction, his heart throbbing with hope, then swelling with relief as she looked up at him with dark blue eyes. She licked her lips and demanded, “Get my jeans off. Now.”

She lay back, and he reached for her fly, yanking it down. Slipping his fingers into the waistband of her jeans and panties, he pulled both down her legs with a jerk, throwing them to the floor.

Settling back over her body, naked together for the first time in their lives, he lined up his heart over hers, his hands sliding down the sheets to find and bind their fingers together. He looked deeply into her eyes, and she parted her legs so he could settle between them.

“I was tested six months ago,” he said, hating that he had to mention it, but anxious for her to know that he was careful.

“Gemma?” asked Gris.

“We use condoms. But I . . .” He paused, feeling a little like a selfish prick without knowing her birth control situation. “I don’t want to use one with you. We
c-can
. . . but, I just—”

“I don’t want to either. I have an IUD,” she said, raising her knees and locking her ankles on the back of his ass. “I want to feel you.”

“Are you sure, Gris? I fucking w-want you right now more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. But unless you’re sure . . .”

“I don’t know what will happen after this,” she said, her dark eyes full of tenderness and uncertainty. “What happens after this?”

“I’ll make you come. I’ll hold you while you sleep. I’ll change for you. I’ll live for you. I’ll never let you go,” he promised, capturing her top lip between his and kissing her.

Her eyes glistened with tears when he drew back, and she squeezed his hands. “Promise me?”

“I p-promise, Gris.”

“Breathe,” she said, arching her pelvis into him to let him know she was ready.

He braced himself over her, positioning himself at the slick, pulsing opening of her sex, then paused, holding her eyes. “Gris, ask me if I’m whole or broken.”

She gasped as he pushed slowly, inch by inch, into the heaven of her hot, wet sex. She panted softly, “Holden, are you . . . whole . . . or broken?”

He clenched his eyes shut, his arms shaking as he tried to control himself. The sensation of her sucking him forward was fucking unbelievable, but he moved as slowly as he could, savoring every moment of their joining, of the moment he became one with Griselda in every possible way. And finally the tip of his erection could move no farther. He was fully lodged inside her. He was one with the only woman he’d ever loved, could ever love, would ever love.

His dick pulsing, his heart throbbing, he opened his eyes and found her dark blue ones staring back at him with such trust and tenderness, he flinched and almost wept.

“I’m whole,” he whispered. “
You
make me whole.”

Tears filled her eyes, spilling out of the corners and into her hair as she palmed his cheeks, frantically pulling his face down to hers. He pulled out to the entrance of her sex, then plunged forward again, moving slowly and gently, anxious not to hurt her, reveling in the tender nerve endings of their bodies, stroking and kissing as his lips devoured hers.

Her palms smoothed over his rough back, and he felt her fingers curl into his skin, her fingernails making him flinch as he pulled back slowly then pushed carefully into her again with a groan of pleasure, a sheen of sweat breaking out across his brow.

“It’s okay,” she panted, releasing his lips and bending her neck so her head strained back into the pillow. Her dark eyes owned him. “I won’t break. I want you, Holden. I need you. Take me home.”

He bent his head, his damp forehead landing on her shoulder as he moved faster, the friction from his movements and the hot fucking noises from the back of her throat making him swell inside her. Her legs locked around his waist, and her arched body took him deeper and tighter with every thrust. He felt the swirling beneath his abs, the way every muscle bunched and tightened, the way his dick started vibrating inside her, and then she screamed his name, the walls of her sex pulsating around him like fucking heaven.

Staring at her beloved face, contorted in ecstasy, he felt it—the marriage of past and present, the walk on a country road, fairy tales told on a crowded cot, her eyes in the sunshine, her parted lips, stubborn heart, gentle soul. He paused at the precipice for only a moment before stepping forward into forever, letting go, opening his heart and releasing his body as her name passed his lips and he surrendered to the inevitability that was his deep and eternal love for Griselda.

“Do you know what ‘Griselda’ means?” he asked her, stroking the hair from her forehead, as they lay tangled together.

“No,” she said, smoothing her hand over his chest and breathing deeply. The small room smelled like sex, and she wanted to memorize the smell of her body belonging to his.

“It has two meanings. One is ‘dark battle’ and the other is ‘gray fighting maid.’”

Kissing the warm skin between his pecs, she rested her lips on the tiny foot of the angel inked there.

“You’re both,” he continued, his fingers making leisurely runs from her temple to the ends of her hair, then back again. “You won the dark battle because you’re a fighter.”

Griselda took a deep breath and thought about his words. “I don’t feel like much of a fighter.”

“Why not? You’re the strongest woman I ever met, Gris. Ever.”

She rested her arms on his chest, her cheek on her forearm, gazing up at him. “My life . . . it doesn’t look so good.”

“Hey,” he said, his eyebrows knitting together as he slipped his hands under her arms and dragged her up his body. “D-don’t say that.”

She gave him a small smile. “I admit, it’s improved quite a lot in the last few days, but . . .”

“But what?”

She tilted her head to the side, her smile fading. “I was in a shitty relationship with a pretty awful person. I have no ambition, no future, no education, no prospects. I have one real friend, and she doesn’t even know . . .”

“…what happened to us?”

Griselda shook her head. “People know what they read. ‘A girl escaped her abductor after being held captive for three years. The boy she was with is still missing.’ After I escaped, they took me back to D.C., but other than giving them the approximate location of Caleb Foster’s farm, I didn’t tell them much about our time there. They sent me to a therapist, but I just . . . I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to relive it all. And then when they came and told me you were gone without a trace? I never opened my mouth about it again. To anyone.”

“Why not? Might have been good for you to talk about it.”

“I left you, Holden. I left you there. I left you with a monster, and I ran away.”

“I told you to run. I’m glad you ran, Gris.” Holden paused for a moment. “He shot at you, didn’t he?”

Griselda’s eyes welled as she remembered. “I told him he was going to hell. He said, ‘You first, Ruth.’ I was screaming at him that you weren’t Seth and I wasn’t Ruth, but he raised that gun and fired . . . and I ran.”

“You didn’t run when I told you to run?”

She shook her head. “No. Not right away.”

“J-Jesus, Gris! He c-could have—”

“I’ve thought about it a million times, Holden. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think he wanted to kill me. He shouldn’t have missed the shots he took, but he did. I just think he had this crazy notion that he could save you from me, and needed me out of the way.”

Holden took a deep breath and sighed. “I figured it all out, you know.”

“Seth and Ruth?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I put it all together. He talked about it a lot, but it wasn’t as crazy as when we were at his place. Not as much Leviticus,” he said, laughing softly and bitterly. “More just . . . his memories. All mixed up, though, thinking I was really Seth.”

“They
were
his brother and sister, right?”

“Yeah,” said Holden. “Several years younger than him. Twins. When we left, he brought this old box of pictures with him. I looked through them a lot, piecing it all together.

“The pictures were square with muted colors, and old. They were stamped with dates from the seventies. An older brother standing beside two younger siblings, you know, like headed to church on Easter or something. The three of them in a backyard. On the porch of that house. Caleb was the oldest and tallest, and then Seth and Ruth would stand beside him, always holding hands.

“I noticed something, Gris. In every picture with the three of them, there was a small gap of space between the twins and Caleb, like a boundary. And in every picture, Seth stood in the middle beside Caleb, never Ruth. There were several pictures of Caleb and Seth together, and in those pictures, Caleb looked like a totally different person . . . like, resting his elbow on his little brother’s head, or his arm around Seth’s scrawny neck, smiling down at his little brother with, like, pride and love. And you know, Seth looked happy too. Not joyful, and maybe a little wary, but okay.

“But, Gris, in the pictures of Seth and Ruth? Seth
glowed
with happiness, his eyes soft with secrets, or with adoration or something, when he stood beside Ruth. Their hands were always bound together, and nine times out of ten, Seth smiled at Ruth while Ruth smiled for the camera. She was real cute. Like you. Full of life and hope with big wide eyes. He was . . . crazy about her.”

Holden paused as Griselda wrapped her head around this information. “Do you think they . . .”

“Yeah,” Holden breathed. “I think they were in love with each other. I’m sure of it.”

Griselda winced as she digested this. A brother and sister in love with each other? It was unnatural. Wrong. How had it happened? Or was that a mystery that would never be solved for her and Holden?

“C-Caleb caught them.”

“What?” she gasped, her mouth dropping open as her eyes cut back to his.

Holden nodded. “He caught them having sex. I don’t know how old they were . . . teenagers, I guess. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. They were a churchy family, very devout, strict parents. From what I could gather, I’m pretty sure he kept it a secret for Seth. And I think it destroyed something inside Caleb. Seeing them together. Knowing about it.”

“And he killed them.”

“I don’t know.” Holden shrugged. “The box with the pictures had an old clipping about it. That barn we did the canning in? That was rebuilt after the original barn burned down. They found a bracelet of Ruth’s in the ashes. ‘They were burned in the fiery pits of hell.’”

Griselda shivered as Holden’s eyes held a faraway look for several more seconds before coming back to earth and focusing on her.

“Holden . . . you sounded just like him.”

“He said it all the time,” said Holden dismissively.

“He killed them,” she said. “I know he did.” She rested her cheek on his chest, just below his neck, and wrapped her arms around his chest. “We were next.”

“Maybe. Probably. Which is why I’m so glad you ran, Gris.” He leaned down, pressing his lips to her head. “I’m so fucking g-grateful you got away.”

Griselda took a deep, shaky breath as she closed her eyes. “He killed them. He killed his own brother and sister, and he would’ve killed us too.”

***

As she settled back down on his chest, Holden resumed stroking her hair, and soon her breathing was deep and even, and he knew she was asleep.

The warmth of her skin pressed against his made him want her again, but he didn’t want to wake her up. She needed sleep and he needed to let her sleep because he intended to have her over and over again until he was so far under her skin that she wouldn’t be able to leave him at the end of a month. That was his plan anyway.

Making love to her had rocked his world, shifting it on its axis, and making his life without her wither away like an untended garden. She was his light and water—his sustenance and hope, and he wanted to forget the years that came after the Shenandoah and before yesterday. He ached from so much lost time when he could have been with her. Glancing at his arm, he winced, imagining the tally marks magically floating off his skin and dispersing into the wind like dust, until only one remained—the only one that would ever matter.

He hated that he’d shared that experience with so many before her, and yet, in a strange and twisted way, he’d always shared it with her. Because she was whom he wanted, dreamed of, longed for. He’d always dreamed of her at the moment he fell apart. And now the dream had come true. It was her hot sweetness surrounding him, her lips moving under his, her soft breasts crushed under his chest. She was real, and she was his.

She moaned in her sleep, and his hand, which had stilled, moved quickly to her crown, smoothing her amber hair lovingly, and she snuggled closer to him, knees bent against his hip and breath fanning his chest.

He loved her.

God in heaven, how he loved her.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to love anymore, as he’d feared. It was that he didn’t
have
anyone to love until Gris reappeared in his life. And now that she had, his only wish was to never be parted from her.

Sighing deeply, he thought about their conversation, zeroing in her words—
He killed them, I know he did
—and hating it that his mind felt so conflicted about her conclusion. It confused Holden that he couldn’t immediately jump on that bandwagon. Caleb deserved accusations and hate—his behavior to them had proven him capable of atrocity—and yet Holden wasn’t actually sure that Caleb had killed his siblings, or if their accidental death had pitched him into a madness wherein he believed they’d gotten their just desserts for engaging in incest. Had he engineered the fire? Or had the twins been sleeping in the barn and died accidentally when a lamp got kicked over? Had Caleb murdered them willfully? Or had he been plagued with guilt for keeping the secret that killed them? Holden wasn’t sure. He never had been.

He’d thought about saying as much to Griselda, but she would never understand that his feelings about Caleb were less cut-and-dried than hers. He hated Caleb, of course, but he also felt a deeply unwanted protectiveness toward Caleb that he was ashamed of—that made him feel perverted and twisted and weak. Further, he felt a sympathy for Caleb that he couldn’t completely abandon either. It was deep-seated, maddening but constant. He felt guilty that he didn’t hate Caleb as much as he should. He felt sick with himself that he felt compassion for someone who was very likely a murderer and definitely a kidnapper. He felt disgusted that any part of him should feel protective of the man who claimed to have killed Griselda.

But Caleb had also kept him alive.

And once they left West Virginia—once Caleb perceived that Holden had been “saved” —he hadn’t been cruel to Holden anymore.

Caleb was a monster, yes, but he was a principled monster in his own way, which made it difficult for Holden to hate him with Gris’s blind fury. He wished he could because eventually she’d sense the conflict in him. She was already upset by his admission that he’d stayed with Caleb until his death. That wasn’t even the worst of it, because she’d probably decided that he was somehow coerced. He hadn’t been. He’d stayed because he had nowhere else to go, and because his life with Caleb hadn’t been as bad as it could have been.

Holden dropped a hand to his heart. He’d have to figure out a way to help her understand because if he couldn’t, surely he would lose her.

Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes, concentrating on the warmth of the beloved woman draped over his chest, and praying that when the time came, he’d be able to make her understand.

***

“Seth, you gonna call me?”

He finished zipping his jeans and looked up at her, trying to remember her name. Fuck. His dick was still slick, and he had no fucking clue what her name was.

“Uh, sure.”

She pulled up her panties and straightened her dress, crawling to the edge of the pickup and holding out her arms like she wanted him to help her down. He turned away from her, and after a minute, she got down on her own.

“Junior prom is next week. You taking someone?” she asked.

Fuck no.

“I’ll, uh, t-take you home,” he answered, ignoring her question.

She’d smiled at him over the Cheetos when he stopped in at the Super-7 Gas ’n’ Sip for a pack of Camels twenty minutes ago. All it had taken was a lift of his eyebrows in invitation, and she’d joined him in his truck, where they snacked on Cheetos and she told him her life story before he boned her senseless in the back.

“Maybe I don’t wanna go home yet,” she whined. “Where you from anyway?”

He got into the driver’s seat, opening the pack of cigarettes and shaking one out. Holding it between his lips, it took him two shitty convenience store matches to light it, and he sat back, giving her a couple of minutes to decide whether or not she wanted a ride.

He’d taken the truck from the parking lot of Grady’s, Caleb’s watering hole of choice, and he intended to have it back there by eleven, when Caleb generally started for home. Maybe tonight Caleb’d kill himself on the bridge as he made his way back to the double-wide they shared at a mobile home park just out of town.

Whatever-her-name-was decided she wanted the ride, and as she opened the passenger door, Seth looked away, taking a long drag on his cigarette. No matter how many girls spent time in this truck with him, only one had ever mattered: the first girl who ever sat next to him in the front seat. Blue eyes flashed in front of his face, and Seth winced, burying them.

“You gotta pick up your brother later at Grady’s?” When he didn’t answer, she decided to get mean. “My daddy says he’s real strange.”