Kisses and Lies

“I love who he is with me. He helps me when he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.”

“He lets you be silent,” she says, as I look up to her. “I can tell straight away he isn’t a man to push you for answers, or to give them.” Kat’s right about Marcus, he lets me be. “He would push you if he loved you. He would want you to be okay.”

“I am okay.”

“Why are you here, Rochelle?” She holds up her hands. “Not that I don’t want you here. I do. I really, really do. But I won’t be like Marcus because I need to know.”

“A man came to my work today, he grabbed my throat and scared me. I don’t want to be alone.”

“Oh my God, how can you just say that so blasé.” Kat shakes her head. “I’m calling the cops. You need to report this.” And that’s exactly what she does.

A man in uniform arrives quite quickly, and I recognize him. He coughs when he sees me and tells me he’s sorry for my loss. Yet again. Then I give him all the information and he leaves. Kat has put Annabelle to bed, so it’s just us now.

“Does Marcus know?”

“Know what?”

Her hand slaps my leg, and she pinches the skin as hard as she can. She’s frustrated with me.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You feel that.”

“I feel everything,” I scream at her. “I felt it the worst when Grandma and Grandpa died,” I say to her, my voice still loud. “I felt it when his lips touched me, and I knew I was falling in love with a man who couldn’t love me back, but I fell anyway.” Taking a deep breath, I continue, “Then I felt it even worse… hell, it ripped my soul out… when she jumped. When I watched my best friend dive off a bridge because her demons were too big to handle. How do you think that felt?” I scream. Pushing her hand away, I stand. “And I feel it in the way he touches me, as if I’m his everything. So that’s what I’m doing, letting myself get lost in the way he touches me. Letting myself lose myself in him. Because the pain… the pain of everything else is too much for me to bear.”

“Rochelle, you need to end this. I don’t know who you’re becoming with him. You need to end it.”

My phone rings, and I see his name come up on the screen, so I answer, “Hello.”

“I’m home now. You were looking for me?”

“I’m coming over.” I hang up and stand.

“You aren’t staying?” Kat asks.

“No, I need him.”

“No, no you don’t. You need you.”

“No, right now I need him,” I say, walking out and going straight to him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Marcus

When she turns up, I’m expecting a war. Harper told me what Misha did, and I know things will be a battle, but Rochelle does the exact opposite. She falls into my arms, wrapping herself around me and starts tearing at my clothes. Hands are going everywhere, and I try to stop her, but she’s on a mission. I don’t see her every night, and when I do, we hardly speak. I like it like that. I like that words aren’t needed as much anymore, and I also realize how selfish that is of me.

But I will take what I can from her.

Because soon she will crack, and when she does, I’ll have to set her free. A woman like her shouldn’t be tied to me. She has so much good, and I have none.

“Rochelle,” I say, pulling her back. Her eyes flash with hurt before they’re covered again in need.

“Since when do you call me that?” I’ve said it a few times, but she hasn’t been paying much attention to what I say.

“What do you need?” I ask her.

She pushes up against me. “You. I just need you,” she says, stepping back and removing her own clothing. I watch as she steps out of her skirt, leaving on her heels, so she can reach me. I’ve always liked her height, but with heels on she’s closer to my head, making our kisses perfect.

She is perfect.

I am not.

Picking her up under her ass, I walk with her. Rochelle’s kisses don’t stop, and her hands won’t stop roaming my body. I’m hard and I want in her, but first I need to take her to the only place I haven’t had her—the pool. Stepping in, she stops what she’s doing as the cold water hits her, and I stop on the step, depositing her on it. Stepping farther in, so my feet touch the ground, my chest is all that’s exposed.

“The pool?” she asks.

Rochelle comes out here in the mornings sometimes to watch me swim, or late at night when I can’t sleep and need the exertion of a good swim to exhaust me. She’s fallen asleep multiple times on those lounge chairs.