Redemptive (Combative, #2)(62)

*

Bailey was sitting at the top of the basement stairs when I got home. She stood as soon as she heard me, her hands grasping the hem of the too-big shirt she was wearing. She wiped her eyes as if she’d been crying, and lifted her chin, her shoulders square. For a moment, I thought it was anger I saw in her eyes—frustrated, built up anger that I was no doubt responsible for, but then she smiled, her breath shaky when she exhaled.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She shrugged, her voice almost a whisper when she said, “Waiting for you.”

“Oh yeah?” I stepped forward, and her hand claimed mine as soon as I was close enough.

She inhaled deeply, and looked up, her tear-coated eyes meeting mine. “I’ve been waiting for you to come home because I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about… just… about everything, Nate, and I—” She broke off on a sob, one that pierced my already breaking heart.

I released her hands and cupped her face, tilting her head back. “Bailey, it’s fine.”

She shook her head, her hands grasping my wrists. “It’s not fine, Nate. You don’t deserve the way I’ve been treating you, or the way I’ve been acting and I’m so sorry because you’ve done nothing but take care of me since the moment you found me. I’m just lost at the moment, so lost, and I have been for a while, but every night you come home to me, and you’re here… you’re here with me, and you don’t have to be and I don’t know why I’ve been acting like that isn’t enough.”

Because it’s not, I wanted to tell her. And she was wrong. She had no idea how much I had to be with her.

“Do you remember our first fight?” she asked, wiping her cheeks with her forearm. “The one where I was insecure about what you did out there and jealous of all the—”

“Yeah,” I cut in. “I remember.”

“You remember what you said? About how we end all our fights?”

I nodded.

“I need you to end it, Nate,” she cried, moving her hands to my shirt, fisting and tugging harshly. “God, I need you to end it,” she repeated, and so I did, right there on the stairs with a million emotions fleeting between us, I gave her what she needed. I inhaled her cries and let them consume me, I tasted her tears and let them destroy me, I gave in to her pleas and let them control me, and then she did the same with me. We used each other, physically, emotionally, it didn’t matter, because when the pink of her lips spread thin around my cock and my hands fisted her hair, she looked up at me with love and appreciation in her eyes, and for a second, one split second, my heart stopped hurting. Then I was inside her, the sounds of my pain and despair muffled by her neck while she panted, promises and declarations of a forever that didn’t exist whispered into the still, dead air around us. But it wasn’t until it was over, her in my arms and our bodies still connected, drowning in the evidence of our pleasure and pain that reality hit, and hit with a force I couldn’t ignore… our actions hadn’t ended it. If anything, it just restarted the cycle. And I guess she must’ve felt it too because when I woke up the next morning, she wasn’t in our bed, she was on the bathroom floor, and I felt the shift in both our presence, like a tidal wave of doom. For minutes, I just sat there watching her, until she turned to me, her eyes hopeless and tired and then she said the two words that sparked the flames, the two words that ruined me for all of eternity. “Thank you.”





39




Bailey


“Get up!”

My eyes snapped open, and my hand reached out, grabbing the arm of the person shaking me. I knew it wasn’t Nate. Even in the darkness of the room, I could tell.

It wasn’t his voice.

It wasn’t his touch.

Adrenalin pumped through my veins, mixing with my fear and the only thing I thought to do was scream. I turned over in bed, and I screamed and cried for Nate, but he wasn’t there.

Hands grasped my shoulders while a cloth was put over my head, and then the same hands were on my waist, lifting me in the air. My stomach landed on a shoulder, my body folded in half, and I thrashed around, my fists thumping the person’s back while my legs kicked out and I screamed, and I cried for Nate.

Doors opened, doors closed, footsteps thudded across the floor, and I wept, tears falling in all directions. My throat closed up, the shock of fresh air filling my lungs. I heard the thunder, felt the rain on my legs and my back while a car door opened, and I was released, landing harshly on my side and I screamed, and I cried for Nate.

I kicked again, hands pulling the fabric off my head at the same time the engine started. I found the door handle, and I pulled, and I pulled, but it was no use. The car moved, tires spinning against loose gravel and I screamed, and I cried for Nate.

Then I looked out the back window, past the tears and the darkness and the rain and the lighting surrounding me, to Nate’s house, the only light source coming from his open front door, and I banged my fist on the window as I screamed and I cried for Nate.

And then he appeared, the outline of his frame standing in the doorway, and everything in me froze, just for a second, before my mind reeled, and my tears fell, and my heart broke, and I slumped in the seat.

And I cried.

And I cried

For Nate.