Craving Redemption (30 page)

“Sugar, you can’t keep beating yourself up over that shit.” He came toward me, putting his hands on each side of my face. “There was nothing you could have done and it’s over now.”

“Yeah, well, I’d feel a whole lot better if I could return the favor for a while without you on my ass all the time,” I answered, trying to turn my face away from him.

His hands tightened on my head and he lowered his face to mine, his jaw clenching. “How am I supposed to keep you safe when you’re hundreds of miles away from me?”

He didn’t expect an answer, because he kissed me punishingly, not allowing me to pull away.

“You can’t keep putting this off, Callie.” He kissed me again, “It’s one thing after another.”

I bit him in frustration the next time he pressed his lips to mine, causing him to drop his hands from my head.

“You want an angry fuck, Callie?” he asked me, nostrils flaring as he took a step back. “’Cause I can give it to you. I’m done with your procrastination bullshit.”

“Fuck you,” I sneered, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “It’s all about you, right? The whole world revolves around
Grease
.”

I knew what I was doing. The anger, guilt, and frustration over our situation had me snapping at everyone I came in contact with, and I felt myself slipping into the same building resentment that had plagued me for months. I hated the club and everything it represented, but I was in the untenable position of loving one of its members. I’d somehow become a fighter, but there was nothing for me to fight against.

I needed him to snap me out of it before I ruined everything.

His eyes closed into slits, his chest heaving, and I froze for a moment, thinking I’d gone too far. Then suddenly, without any warning, he bent at the waist and shoved his shoulder into my belly before standing straight so I was hanging down his back.

I pounded against anything I could reach as I screeched, but he ignored me as he calmly made sure the door was locked before walking us into the bedroom. His lack of concern with my fit made me even angrier, so I pulled up his shirt and leather vest to dig my nails into his back in frustration.

“Knock it off, Calliope!” he growled at me, turning his head to bite my thigh as his hand slapped my ass hard.

He tossed me onto the bed and I scrambled off, expecting him to catch me at any moment, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood in front of the door, my only means of escape, and slowly started undressing.

“You gonna make this easy and get undressed?” he asked in a bored tone that had my stomach turning in uncertainty. “Didn’t think so.”

I stood at the opposite side of the bed, watching him like a cornered animal, as I rethought my approach. I wasn’t feeling fierce anymore. The only thing I could feel was a nervousness that didn’t have anything to do with physical harm. What if I was too much? What if he decided that he didn’t need my shit anymore and left me? The old fear of being too needy rose up until I felt tears stinging my nose.

“Come here, Sugar,” he called softly.

I shook my head and backed into the wall, practically hyperventilating. I wanted to go to him, be accommodating and sweet instead of hissing and scratching, but I didn’t know how to change my emotions. My heart was still racing with a frustration that made me want to scream just to let some of it out.

“I need to come get you, Callie?”

He wasn’t interested in a stand-off because he started toward me, his steps measured but never faltering. When he reached me, I pushed at him, making low noises in my throat, but he stripped me anyway until I was standing naked with hands fisted.

“I love you,” he told me gently as he pulled me toward the bed and sat down.

He pulled me between his knees and kissed me sweetly, rubbing his thumbs against my cheekbones until I melted against him. Then he wrapped one leg around both of mine and pushed me face-first on the bed so I was bent over one thigh, his hand heavy on the small of my back.

Smack.

I screamed, pissed that I’d been tricked into compliance.

“You call me
Asa
,” he rumbled, smacking my ass again. “Though you know that, so I’m guessing this is what you were angling for.”
Smack. Smack.

“Get off me!” I bellowed, pushing as hard as I could with my arms but getting nowhere.

He rubbed my sore cheeks for a moment, quiet, and then started the spanking again.

“You need me to spank your ass?”
Smack
. “You can just fuckin’ ask for it.”

“I can’t.”

He paused for a moment, quiet.

“Why can’t you ask for what you need?”

He waited for me to answer, then sighed deeply when I didn’t, smacking me again.

“Answer me.”

Smack.

“Because it’s not the same,” I sobbed, pulling my arms under me so I could cover my face with my hands. “I want you to be as mad as me! I want you to be frustrated! I’m afraid you’re going to leave me if you aren’t!”

“Sweetheart,” he whispered tenderly, letting go of my back so he could rub it gently.

I scrambled away from him, hating the fact that I was naked in front of him with my words between us. I pulled the blankets to my shoulders, but didn’t turn away from him as I watched him run his hand down his face.

“I love you, Calliope,” he told me softly, crawling under the covers with me and pulling me into his arms. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I was silent as I watched him, tears blurring my eyes.

“You’re my family,” he mumbled, kissing me and then rubbing his lips down my neck. “You’re everything.”

He took one nipple into his mouth and sucked gently, pushing the covers to our knees before grabbing the back of my leg and sliding it up his hip. He ran his fingers between my legs lightly, barely touching me before sliding it up to rest on my stomach. He let go of my nipple and ran his tongue around it once before raising his eyes to mine and leaning up on a forearm.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised as he shifted his hips and pushed inside me. “You belong with me.”

My back arched and I lifted my hand to his hair to pull his face to mine.

“I love you,” I whimpered, my body feeling almost weightless in relief.

His jaw went tight at my words, and he leaned back so he could slide his hand between us, hitting the perfect spot with his thumb.

It didn’t take long for me to come, taking him with me.

I barely made it to the bathroom to clean up afterward before dropping with exhaustion. He pulled me on top of him like a blanket when I made it back to the bed, and I pushed my face into his neck. I couldn’t get close enough to him. Neither of us said a word about our lack of protection. We were forgetting as much as we were remembering the condoms, and I knew I needed to get on birth control, but every time I’d used it in the past it had been non-stop periods for me.

I wondered how long we could play with fire before getting burned—but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

Chapter 50

Callie

I didn’t realize that it would take almost a year for Farrah to come back to herself. I should’ve known. I should have guessed that years of abuse ending in a beating so bad she’d forever carry the scars would take a long time to recover from. But I’d optimistically thought that when things settled down, she would turn back into the snarky girl I loved like a sister.

That year was one of the longest of my life.

Gram brought Cody with her to visit a few times, but the brother I knew was nowhere to be found.  He was quiet and intense in a way he’d never been before, and his body had changed so much since I’d seen him last that it was startling. His shoulders had broadened and his jaw was sharper, making him look more man than boy. But when he smiled at Gram, his eyes crinkling, I couldn’t help but notice the little boy I’d chased around the house with a tube of my mom’s lipstick when I was six years old.

I hadn’t kept in touch with him the year before like I’d promised, but it was as much his fault as mine. We’d seen each other on his school breaks, but in between those times, it had almost seemed as if he was avoiding me. That all changed the year he graduated from high school.

He became a repeat visitor to the apartment in Sacramento, spending his time equally between Gram’s house and mine whenever he was home. The minute he finished his classes each term, he’d be on the first flight to California, even refusing to attend graduation. I loved it. It made me feel like my family was back together, finally.

I was happy to be reconnecting with my brother, but the rest of my life seemed to be in some sort of limbo.

Asa had stopped asking me when I was moving, but he visited more that year than he had before, averaging about six weeks between visits. It had to have been exhausting, making that drive so often, but he didn’t complain and he wouldn’t let me drive north instead. He said he wasn’t comfortable with me driving so far by myself, which I thought was ridiculous, but not worth causing an argument over.

Those visits were also different than they’d been before. In the past, every visit had become an event that I planned for, but I no longer had time to worry that the apartment was spotless or his favorite foods were in the fridge. Farrah took up all of my extra time, stopping by the house at all hours to do nothing but watch TV or help me make dinner.

I slowly watched her heal, and refused to allow myself to become impatient at her progress.

It was odd, but Farrah and Cody rarely crossed paths. She seemed to know that I needed time with my brother, and would make herself scarce whenever he was in town without my Gram. I hated that she was so weird about it, but I didn’t push it until one summer night when she was almost back to normal and Echo called and asked me and Cody to go out with them.

The bar we went to was run by the Aces; I swear they had their hands in so many things I didn’t know how they kept them straight. I wasn’t complaining, though, because Cody and I walked in without one person looking our way. It was in a strip mall, one of the old ones built in the seventies, and the floor to ceiling windows in the front made me assume it had been a Laundromat at some point. It just had that look.

I greeted Chucky and Echo, introducing them to my brother while I searched for Farrah. She was standing near the bartender with a hand on her hip, the pose making me smile. I was so glad that she finally resembled the girl I’d met two years before, that I was grinning wide as she handed something to the guy behind the bar.

The music cut off with a screech as she made her way to the middle of the floor, and men around the room yelled out their annoyance as the music started again. It was some sort of Pop music that I hadn’t heard before, but the beat blared out of the speakers so loudly that I could feel it in my chest. It wasn’t something they wanted to listen to, and they were complaining loudly, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Farrah, and soon everyone else was staring silently, too.

She was dancing.

Her hips shook as she put on a show for the guys at the bar, and I glanced across the table nervously, imagining how Asa would feel if I were shaking my ass in the middle of a bar.

Echo was relaxed back in his chair, a little smirk on his lips as he took a sip of his beer. He must have felt my eyes on him, because his eyes shot to mine for a moment, winking, before going back to Farrah.

“Holy shit,” Cody sighed next to me, making me laugh.

“Close your mouth, little brother,” I teased him as Farrah bent at the waist so her hair was brushing the floor.

His chair screeched across the floor as he ignored me and tried to stand, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“That one’s mine, son,” Echo told him with a smile, standing up from his own chair. “Get your own.”

My eyes had moved back to Farrah as Echo sauntered up to her, and I couldn’t drag them away as she started dancing on him while he stood relaxed, still drinking his beer. He wanted her; I could see his struggle to let her dance instead of dragging her off. But the pride in his gaze was apparent as he let her do her thing.

“Why are you crying?” Cody asked, perplexed. “That’s hot as hell.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled back, never taking my eyes off the couple on the dance floor as I smiled. “She’s back.”

Chapter 51

Callie

I loved it when Cody stayed with me. He not only did things around the house like take out the garbage, but it was nice to come home to
someone
—even if it was my stinky brother with his feet on the coffee table. Our shared history was like a security blanket for both of us, and we understood each other in a way that no one else ever would.

We were packing up my apartment, laughing over kitchen gadgets that looked like torture devices, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so happy. I was giddy with excitement to be moving to Oregon after so long, one of my favorite people in the world was sitting on the floor of my kitchen, and my best friend was on her way over. It was bliss.

Some people go their entire lives without facing tragedy. They live every day as if nothing bad would ever happen to them, because they have no experience to draw from and no reason to be weary. Others are always waiting for the other shoe to drop. They don’t assume that nothing bad was going to happen, but wonder when it would.

I forgot for a moment that I was one of the latter.

When I heard a bike pull up, I ran to the door and flung it open, racing down the stairs so I could walk Farrah up. I didn’t
need
to do it, it’s not like she needed the direction, but I wanted to say hi to Echo before he took off to take care of some club crap. Farrah smiled at me, pulling off her bright pink helmet, and I waved as I jumped down the last two steps of the stairs.

I didn’t notice the car at first. I wasn’t paying attention to the road, because even though it was a quiet street, cars passed by all the time.

It wasn’t until Echo shoved Farrah at me that I realized something wasn’t right. I caught her and we went stumbling into the stairwell, barely catching our balance before hitting the stairs. I watched over Farrah’s shoulder, my arms wrapped tightly around her waist as Echo glanced over to where we were hidden by the wall of the stairwell and met my eyes.