Unleashed (5 page)

Possession and jealousy flash
through me like a hot knife. The one time I’d seen Adelaide touch Ezra, I’d wanted to bloody her, and that was just a palm on his shoulder. It killed something inside me when I saw them in bed together. But I want to outright kill Adelaide for laying any claim on my daughter, even the title of stepmother.

A thou
ght pings in my head, what if Ezra is planning on keeping our daughter a secret? Are we both his dirty little secrets, being kept locked away from prying eyes? A sob crawls up my throat. The agonized sound shocks me back to normal.
Pull it together, Katya, this isn’t just about you anymore. It affects the both of you.

Av
a just sits, calmly gazing at me. Sometimes I think that even at her age, Ava is stronger than me. She holds an inner-strength and calm I can never tap into. “It’s going to be alright, Mom. I know it is. I can feel it.” She doesn’t pat her heart. No, not Ezra’s daughter- she taps her temple.

“The foods here,” Cortez
yells from hole between the apartments. “Ava, go on and join the others.”

The instant Ava is in the
other apartment, Cort is on me. His arms engulf me as he sits next to me on the sofa. “Shh… let it out. I’ve got you.” He tries to hold me and I push him off. “Hey, I know you’re not about the cuddling and coddling, but I need it, too.”

“I…I can’t,” I cry out,
and it’s no longer
can’t
. I break down in his arms. My fingers twist Cort’s shirt as I sob into his chest. I turn into a pitiful mess.

“I can promise you this, Kitten, that bitch will never touch a hair on our girl’s head. Ezra will never marry her. I promise y
ou. I know Ezra better than anyone on the planet. But sometimes he does shit that confuses the hell out of me.”

“That scares me,” I grumble into Cort’s shirt, still holding on to him for dear life.

“As it should, and it’s better that it does,” Cort warns. “We’ve never talked about Ezra and me, about what we mean to each other. Ezra had Aaron tell you because he is a coward. But Ezra and I used to be together before the abduction, as in, he was my boyfriend. We loved each other, and we still do. A lot of bad shit wrecked us, and a lot of it was Ezra’s doing. But recently, we’ve been trying to get back there, to that place where we were before everything happend. But sometimes, there is too much pain and hurt, and you don’t know if you can give your trust to the other person. What we saw the other night wrecked me, too. I bought us some time, so we could lick our wounds without an audience.”

“I’m sorry,” I sniffle.

“Me too… Me too. But you don’t worry about Adelaide, leave that to me. You just worry about getting Ava settled and bonded with her father. Ezra is a good man. He does what he feels is right. But he’s too arrogant to see when he’s wrong or too mentally ill to admit it. But we all have flaws, so I just deal.”

“Did what Ezra and I did
break you two up?” I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s heartbreak.

“No, Kitten. It happened
a few years before that, back when we were teenagers. I don’t want to explain it, I’m not ready. But we’re still committed to each other. I know you see me as a married man and a cheater. The only person I’m committed to is Ezra. I’ve never cheated on him. But Ezra has betrayed me many times, and I’ve retaliated when I shouldn’t. I am a lecher, and we all accept that. Emotions are different. Sex is sex, but I find the emotional attachments as the ultimate betrayal… and the lies.” 

“You guys confuse me,” I mumble. But Cortez doesn’t confuse me. He is an open book. He does what he does and makes no apologies for it. He will tell you to your face if he plans on screwing you
over. Cort’s bad behavior is severely honest, in a strange way. 

“You’ll get used to us
, eventually. After how you acted about Ezra’s impersonations, I thought you’d kill me when you remembered. I was worried about how you’d look at me when you saw me again. I feared you’d never speak to me again.”

“I don’t blame any of you. I was there, remember? I saw the look in your eyes. I rememb
er how badly it affected you. I only blame Ray,” I say with conviction. 

“Me too. I
remember everything. It haunts me at night. Everything Ray made me do, haunts me. I can’t even look at Aaron without feeling sick,” Cort groans. I hold him as tightly as I can. Cort’s arms enclose me as he hides his face in my hair. I don’t know how long we stay like this, but when the air charges with something other than grief and remorse, I pull away.

“I hope
you don’t feel sick when look at me,” I tease to lighten the mood.

“Oh, Kitten,” Cort
moans. “That’s never going to happen. When I look at you, all I feel is want. There is so much I need and want from you. I look at you how I look at our Ezra, and I didn’t think that was possible. I was so frightened that I’d be jealous of you like I was the others, but I’m not. I want you with us, I don’t want to push you away.”

I didn’t like the way Cort sounded when he spoke of jealousy and
the others
. But neither of them are my concern when it comes to relationships and sex. “Ezra may be
your
Ezra. But he’s not
ours
,” I tease Cort to wipe that depressive expression off his face. I’ve never had anyone look at me that way, and it’s unnerving in its intensity.

“Sure,” Cortez
dismissively says. “I love looking at your lips and remembering our time together, the way those hot lips felt wrapped around my cock. You can deny it all you want, but you loved it. It put fire in your veins. It made you feel alive. And you want to do it again,” he taunts.

“You’re
so full of shit!” I hop off the couch, and it’s hard to deny the flush that creeps over my skin and the thoughts that echo in my mind. That bastard has me pegged. Cort taunts me with that toe-curling laugh of his- bastard.

“What Ezra
does to me, do you consider that cheating on you?” I ask in all seriousness.

“No, never
,” Cort breathes the word like a benediction. “Every touch with that bitch is cheating. We can touch each other, he can touch you, I can touch you, and you can touch us. Everything else is a negotiation. He never negotiated with me about Adelaide, so it was wrong… and it wasn’t the first time Ezra’s done that to me,” Cort’s voice breaks in anger and betrayal. 

“You’re with people all the time, though,” I question.

“And that was nego
tiated a long time ago,” Cort firmly says. Slowly his scowl turns into a wicked grin. “If you won’t let me feed you my cock, then at least let me feed you the pizza I ordered.” 

We all crowd around the dining table
, eating pizza. Aaron, Kayla, and Ava happily chat about a recent movie release that I didn’t know existed. Ezra and Cortez openly stare at me as I watch the single slice of pizza on my plate as if it’s going to eat itself.

“You
do like those toppings, right?” Cort asks. “I’ll come up with something for Ava if she lied to me.” Cortez’s smirk tells me he is cataloging all the interesting punishments for my daughter.

“Yeah, it’s just been a long day. A lot has changed, ya know?”
I toss a piece of pineapple into my mouth, but I don’t taste it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ezra’s voice sou
nds hopeful that I will open up to him.

“I’d
kind of just want to take a long bath and get some sleep,” I mutter in exhaustion. “I have to get back to work tomorrow or I’ll never catch up.”

“You can take more time. Start back on Monday.” Ezra looks at me
, hoping I’ll agree to everything he ever says without question. Not happening. 

“I’m disrupting everyone. If I don’t go back, Kayla doesn’t. By the looks
of them,” I say in the direction of the lovebirds chatting with my daughter. “If Kayla doesn’t, Aaron won’t. Tomorrow is Friday, so it’s just one day that Ava won’t be in school while I work. She can sit in my office while I get caught up.”

“Okay, but Cortez and I will entertain Ava on and off throughout the day. We’ll take shifts.” Ezra looks pleased with h
imself.

“Ava’s
a child, not a puppy. Don’t you have some work to do?”

“Being the boss do
es have its benefits,” Ezra cockily says.

“Being a writer does have its benefits. If I don’t feel like writing- I don’t,” Cort
ez answers when I look at him.

“The pair
of you are incorrigible- a very bad example.” I give them both a small smile. They really are rather entertaining when I need it.

“I’ll see you both in the morning,” I say to the Ezes. “Night guys,” I say to Aaron a
nd Kayla. They both look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It looks like the beginnings of love to me. I smile widely at them.

I kiss Ava on the forehead and leave the guys’ apartment.

Chapter Four

After two hours of bathroom time, I wander into my pitch-black bedroom. I see a little lump curled up in the middle of the bed. I silently laugh at the sight. So much for the sleepover at Kayla’s place. I curl myself around my daughter and enjoy the closeness. Neither of us are super cuddly, and as Ava has grown, she refuses the attention more and more. It makes me sad and proud at the same time. I lay for a while trying to shut off all thought to my mind. I can’t grasp just one thought and concentrate. It’s like cockroaches flitting away at the first flash of light.

“I can’t sleep,” I whisper to the shadow in the corner. “How long have you been here?” 

“Not long,” Ezra whispers back as he creeps to Ava’s side of the bed. He lifts her arm and pushes a stuffed animal under it. Ava cuddles into the toy without waking.

“What’s that?” I ask
of the toy.

Ezra
slowly walks to my side and kneels beside me. I roll to face him. I can barely see the outline of his face in the dark of my room. Not long ago, Ezra would have been upset with this amount of light hitting his face- fear it would ruin his game, the therapy session from hell. I can see his smoky eyes and the curve of his mouth, but nothing else.

“It’s a stuffed monkey Cort and I share
. I thought Ava would like it. It smells like us.” The curve of his mouth tilts into a smile.

“You have a monkey
?” I try to keep my laugh quiet. I don’t want to wake Ava.

“
We do, and his name is Monkmee.” I can hear laughter in his voice. “Our mothers took us to a toy store. I think we were four, maybe three. We both wanted the same monkey, and there was only one.” Ezra bites his lip as he relives the memory. He flashes me a dazzling smile- white teeth glowing in the night.

“So you share the toy?”
My fingers itch to touch him. I curl them into my palm to fight my need.

“If there is one thing Cortez a
nd I do well, it’s sharing.” Ezra’s expression turns serious.

“Do you easily s
hare with each other or with everyone?” I ask, and I feel like we are no longer talking of the stuffed monkey.

“Come,” Ezra
says as he takes my hand in his.

“Where? I can’t leave Ava. If she wakes
, and I’m not here, she may be frightened.” My voice breaks with panic.

“Ava will
be fine. She’ll do what all kids do when they look for their parents.” He sounds amused.
“And what’s that?” I say as I tug my hand, trying to get out of his grasp. But his fingers intertwine with mine. He isn’t letting go so easily.

“They will look i
n their parents’ bedroom. Come,” Ezra says as he pulls me again.

“I’m not sleepin
g with you, Ezra,” I firmly warn as I crawl out of the blankets.

“I just want to talk- nothing else,” Ezra promises.
He walks us through my apartment and into his, and we reach a room I’ve never been in. It’s dark, but I can tell it’s empty. “Well, what are we missing here?” He says to himself, but I can hear a note of amusement and pride.

“What are we doing? This isn’t your room,” I whisper even though the room is empty.
It’s nighttime, and you just can’t help but whisper as if you’re going to wake whoever is asleep.

“Ya know how you have some
OCD issues? Well, so do I,” Ezra admits. I just look at him in confusion and he sighs loudly at my ignorance. “I have to check to make sure everyone is safely tucked in bed or I can’t sleep. Sometimes I have to check more than once.” His voice sounds hopeless.

“Doesn
’t that make you super tired?” I say in awe. “Your body need at least a four-hour block of uninterrupted sleep to remain healthy.”

“Yeah,
super tired and unhealthy sounds about right… but usually people accommodate me and stay in one place so I can easily find them. Come on, we have to find Aaron,” he is exasperated.