Disengaged: A Dangerously Forbidden Love Affair (22 page)

I was staring at everything I had ever wanted, so it was hard for me to argue the path his fears had thrust us down. To curse him for guarding his heart from me all because he knew if he gave into the pull we had that he might understand the man Odin was. That he might let himself believe that there was a chance his parent’s love affair mattered to them.

“I can’t explain it any better,” he said like a curse not liking that I might disagree with him. “It wasn’t fair to you. I couldn’t tell you everything, and I couldn’t lie. I refused to hurt you.”

“But you did,” I rebutted so quickly that it jarred him. “I grieved for you from the second I laid eyes on you. I knew we didn’t have a chance. And when you didn’t come for me, not even to say goodbye, I grieved. I was determined to come back to you as soon as my dad was right.” My voice hitched as I grazed against the reality that I had not yet really grieved for my own father. “And for the last months of my life, I grieved so hard for you that I was sure I was dying.” I glared. “You need to learn to fucking communicate with words, Slayton Winslow.” I lifted my chin. “Don’t you ever fucking shelve me again.”

He went to argue. I saw it in his expression, how tense his muscles were, how fierce his eyes were but I held my hand up. “Where is here?”

He furrowed his brow. “You said Channing brought you here—me here, where is here?”

Slayton’s gaze softened. “Alaska.”

TWENY-FOUR

Alaska.

One word, one I said to him in passing just before one of the most beautiful moments we had shared commenced. Staring at Slayton now, standing in the middle of this snow covered terrain, I could still feel the thick air of the attic, the ice slowly gliding over my sweltering body, the look in his eye.

A night that never had an end, our moment was stolen from us, and we quickly realized that what we thought was hell was nothing compared to what was waiting on us.

The corner of his lip drew upward, even though he fought it. He was reading my thoughts. We were both standing in a memory together. Hesitantly, I stepped closer to him. Daring to grin or not, he was still tense, and as always ready to explode.

He fiercely stared down at me as I placed my hands on his chest, and like the scared girl I was when I first laid eyes on him, I lifted my gaze and met his. I sighed when his trembling hands landed on each of my cheeks, and his eyes searched mine so deeply that it was downright unnerving.

I couldn’t handle the suspense any longer, I rose to my tiptoes and kissed him. When a growl left his chest, and he finally opened for me, the zing, the rush this boy always gave me washed down me like a perfect high. Eager as ever, I pulled him down to me knowing I wouldn’t know if it was snow or hot coals at my back.

He refused to give in to me. Instead, he lifted me around him and charged toward the cabin. At the door, he stopped and pressed me against it, even when it swung open he didn’t move us from it, and I’d be damned if I wanted him to. I could feel his rock hard erection pinned against the seam of my jeans. With his hips holding my weight as my thighs clung to him, his hand made quick work of ditching my jacket. I don’t even remember my shirt leaving, just that in my drunken haze of lust I looked down and saw his hands chasing snowflakes across my pointed, begging, nipples.

His hot mouth landing on my flesh had me crawling up the door with my back, fighting to feel more of his lips, of his touch. With a snarl he gripped me around him and carried us inside, slamming the door with his foot as he did.

I wasn’t positive, but I thought he set me on the back of a couch. Finding my balance, I went to war with his clothes. He had far more layers on than I did on, but shirt by shirt left him and I found his chest. I giggled celebrating my victory of feeling his flesh against mine. My playful mirth faded when his hands gripped my ass and pulled me to stand so he could push away my jeans he’d unbuttoned. Hungry and fearful something would stop us, more than likely him, I had his jeans unbuttoned, and his throbbing cock in my hand before my clothes hit the floor.

I moaned a complaint when he lifted me again, but gave up my protest when I felt him lay me down. He stopped kissing me and I felt his lips leave mine, and when I didn’t feel them land anywhere on my body, I slowly opened my eyes. We were in front of a fire, the glow on his skin had to be the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. His hands slowly eased over my chest, down in a sensual circle around my belly, then as he held my stare his strong fingers slipped into the soaking heat of my core.

The slow glide over my clit, the unexpected plunges of his fingers had my hips lifting and meeting him as I rushed my hands over his shoulders and his chest. When my hand settled over his heart, when I felt it thundering under my touch, I’d never been so grateful in my life. I’d never felt more blessed or less deserving. This was all I ever wanted.

For months, I’d relived every moment we had together searching for a way where I would find an end like this—feeling the pulsing rhythm of life under my hand. I wanted a thousand tomorrows with him. To know what it felt like to not brace for an end.

My pause didn’t go unnoticed by him, his lips slowly fell to my chest, right above my heart. A warm rush exploded through my soul. I struggled to gain some control, to pull him in closer and finally I had him in the cradle of my legs, I felt his engorged head grazing my entrance as his fingers kept to their enticing glide over my clit.

I reached for his back, and as delicately as I could I traced my hand down his spine as I pulled him closer to me. I wanted him. I needed him inside. When I saw him reach down to guide himself in, when his eyes met mine, the first quake of a tremor rushed through my core. I made myself push the sensation back, to wait for him.

I hissed as soon as I felt the head of his cock slide in, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t my first or even my second, he sure as hell felt like it. The groan he let out as he pushed his entire length inside took any sensation of stretching for him away. His satisfaction, how he stilled and quivered for precious seconds was breathtaking. It made the wait worth it, the hell worth it. For the first time, I understood this right here didn’t mean shit, that it didn’t feel as right as it was supposed to unless there was emotion present. If there was anything the pair of us had in abundance, it was emotion.

I moved my hips spurring him into action, every thrust had me crying out his name as I felt it all building deep within. I fought it because I wasn’t ready to become boneless yet, I wasn’t ready to let the first wave of this end. Clutching him as tightly as I could with my thighs I pushed him to his back.

His surrender wasn’t easy to claim; even when I managed to get him to his back and I kept our chests flesh to flesh as I kissed down his neck. The feel of his long, powerful arms encircling me made me feel safe, safer than I had ever felt.

Loving the hisses of breath coming from him, and wanting to drive him wild, I slid further down, taking every inch of his shaft as deeply as I could when I rose from his chest. Holding my stare, he arched his hips up, and I yelled out as my nails gripped his chest.

“Close?” he grunted like he was in pure agony.

I could only nod as I met him thrust for thrust. “Now, now,” I panted as an unexplainable rush burned through my body, instantly taking all the vigor out of me as I became boneless. He gripped my hips as he rose, plunging himself deeper. I loved the feel of his hands cupping my breast, his hot lips on my neck, how his hips only barely paused from moving.

My core gripped him tighter as the height of my climax made itself known in both of our ruthless moans. The explosion of power I always felt pulsing under his flesh erupted. In the next beat of my heart, I was on my back as his hands rushed up my sides, then over my chest before gliding up my arm and pinning it above my head.

I only wanted to feel the downhill ride of my climax, the utter satisfaction that had been withheld from me my entire life, but he was relentless. He pushed harder, and deeper. The pressure only milked the convulsions my body was enduring, soaking us both.

My free hand dashed over his chest as I lifted my hips and moved them in half circles as I purposely flexed around him. Every growl, how hot he became, the intensity of his body only pushed me to keep at it. We had all but crossed a savage line laced with a mix of tender and primal touches when I felt another orgasm reach out and inhale me.

I was floating on a high when I felt him shake; begin to still the power behind his thrusts. I reached my arms around him with all the strength I had left in my body. The feel of his hot breath across my neck as he relaxed above me was most assuredly an undefined bliss.

Neither one of us wanted to divide and were slow to do so. Even when he was at my side, the idea of moving felt like the weight of a mountain was on me. I didn’t want to leave the bubble we were in.

His still calloused hands rushed over my raw flesh. “I loved you that dawn...”

Lazily I lolled my head toward him—he wasn’t really looking at me. His gaze had the same glaze mine had, but he focused and drew his brow together. “I think I prayed for you,” he rasped. “I mean, I didn’t come out and say it, but I always figured I didn’t have to...that I couldn’t ask for something I’d never felt, or believed in, but needed.”

Numb and full of contentment, I reached to trace the features of his face as he spoke. “I hated Him for giving you to me, though,” he admitted searching my eyes. “Before I was ready, before He made it right.” His hand glided over my heart. “How could He put an angel in my world?” he asked anyone but me.

I still felt inclined to answer. “Angels are divine warriors...they’re created to protect what He deems most precious.” I bit my lip hoping it would hold back my tears, but it didn’t. “I loved you then, too, Slayton.”

He playfully glared, his way of calling me out on my lie. In his mind, he had terrified and insulted me seconds after we met, which he did. But still. “You awoke me,” I whispered. “Only love could do that.”

The smile he gave me changed his entire visage, it washed years away, and somehow I saw a glimmer of a boy that never had a chance alongside a man who was grasping endless unwritten tomorrows.

TWENTY-FIVE

I want to say that was our happy ending. That some greater power decided that the pair of us had lived through enough hell in our short lives, and now we only had to live in bliss. Make love all day long, watch the snowfall, and shut the world away.

The truth is, there are no happy endings, only happy moments. How many you have and how often they come may feel out of your control, but they’re not. You decide what you can handle and what you can’t. You decide if you’re brave enough to see what’s on the other side of the storm or if you’re content to stay where you are.

My grandmother always told me ‘
the only thing unchanging was death, and until such time each day we become a new person.
Every day we change, and every day we grow, as do those around us. We can clutch all that we care around us. Love endlessly and unconditionally, but we cannot command the will of others, the heart of others. No matter how hard we try.’

The first year was the hardest for Slayton and me. It was impossible for either of us to truly feel safe. I’d blurted out the word Alaska forever ago with the reasoning that you could always see your enemies coming, what I didn’t anticipate were the enemies lurking inside us both.

Yes, I had grief to deal with. I managed to make peace with my grandmothers passing rather quickly. I don’t think there was much room for the pain any longer and peace was my only choice. My father’s death was harder than I expected it to be. And I don’t think it was because I arrived seconds too late, or that I saw his murdered body.

I’m more than positive it was because I was grieving for what he took from us—all the stolen days when he was happier with his demons than me. All the promises he made that he’d change, the on£s he stopped bothering to utter just before I came to live with him. I ached because I wasn’t reason enough for him to clean his shit up and live a good life. Because no matter what I said or did, he still died.

One day, I finally grew out of room to hate him, to hurt for him and set his memory aside so I could pick up the broken pieces that I’d become.

It stings my mind to think, much less, say such a thing, but I was blessed when it came to the sexual assault that happened to me. I don’t say so because of how it ended, but because I mean it. Seconds before my father was murdered, I was almost raped. How many girls can say ‘almost’ before raped? In my darkest moments, I let myself realize what would have happened if the door opened a minute later. It is never pretty.

Yes, I was touched and abused when I was taken, violated and arguably, stripped of my humanity. But I wasn’t raped. A pretty face, a gleam of good health...those things might’ve saved me. I could count them as a win. But who would? Did it really matter that other girls had it worse than me? One second I didn’t think so, the next I was sure it did.

The night with Channing was just as haunting. At times, I wish I never knew he and Slayton were brothers. Every once in a while, the resemblance comes through a bit too clearly. It didn’t matter that Channing had treated me with more dignity than any other girl in the room. It still happened.

What could have happened in the box, what Slayton had no choice to do to me, the fear I lived with—it was impossible to find the blessing one day, and easy to find it the next. I had to look back to see the angels my grandmother always told me about had stepped in when I needed them most. I had to look back to understand I was never alone.

I had it easy. Yes, I’d bare my scars for the rest of my life, and when I least expected it they would flare up, but I had it easy. Far easier than Slayton.

I spent less than a year in the life of the cities underworld. I was protected and guided the entire time. Slayton served twenty-one years in that hell. There was no quick fix, no fast way to rewire his distrust and anger.

Every single night he woke with a nightmare. His body covered in sweat, his fists clenched. Sometimes it took me a second to wake him up, and when he did wake and figured out he’d hurt me we weren’t right for days. More than once, he swore he was going to those who had placed us together to tell them to move him or me, one of the two—that he was dangerous.

Everyone wants a bad boy until they realize they aren’t really bad—some unattainable alpha—but just a boy with layers and layers of hell that have to be dealt with. I wasn’t afraid of the layers, what I’d find under them all. But he was. They downright terrified the fuck out of him.

Slayton had told me my first night in Alaska that he took Channing’s invitation to the underworld because he wasn’t built for anything else. I believed him. Alaska was becoming a cold prison to him, an isolation that was making him even cagier.

We were young, and we were alone. Most kids our age were at school, or some dead end job. They had bills, social media, date nights, clubs. Family and friend drama, they were fluttering through what they thought was a hard life.

We didn’t. 

Because of the degree of the witness protection program we had landed in, we didn’t have the bills, the family, or the friends. Just each other, and a therapist we were obligated to see. Sometimes by gunpoint. Not me, but Slayton. I was terrified the first time I saw them take him. The second and third were easier, but it still scared me.

I was sure they were making it worse and complained to the liaison who made sure we had what we needed. It was then I figured out those sessions were not always just about Slayton, getting him the help he needed. They were still getting information from him. Getting names, asking for names to go with faces, and about strategies. Each time they did they drug him back to the world we escaped and we went back to square one.

We were only good, perfect, when we were touching, when he was seated deep inside of me covered in sweat, exhausted from the chase and emotions between us. Sex was our own personal therapy. We were more than right then. Those were the moments when we both could convince ourselves not to give up.

The second year wasn’t as bad. We started to pick up the habits of ‘normal’ people. We were both in school. I was horrible at it. I could never focus. He ended up doing half of my work for me, because when it came to the black and white text, he could devour it. His memory was a blessing and a curse.

It was hard for us to have friends. Our fake backstory was unpracticed. Even when we succeeded in getting our story right and stepped out into the real world, before the night was over, we managed to take three steps back in our relationship. Slayton could be a jealous, quick-tempered asshole. He didn’t want any man near me, and I swear he hated every female on the planet but me.

It wasn’t until they put us in sessions together one explosive afternoon, that I understood the most tragic part of his past. The sexual abuse he endured. His pretty face earned him every kind of favor he didn’t want with women three times his age when he was way too young. The attention the men gave only taught him to fight as well as he could and landed him behind bars he should have never been put behind.

His time in Malcolm’s circle didn’t do anything but add gas to the fire of who he was. I was told to perform. He was told to accept. I can’t tell you how much I hurt for him when we finally confessed it all. The anger inside of me was unprecedented. For once I saw the world through his eyes, and I hated it.

Even without the twisted sexual demons in his past, he had the gladiator fights to contend with. Slayton told me once he always knew when his hit was lethal, that he felt a part of him die before they ever fell to the ground. I didn’t know how to help him come back from something like that.

Year three, the nightmares were more random for both of us. We fought less, sometimes we could make it a whole week without me calling him an asshole and him telling me I was an irresponsible child. The sex was still amazing—a church we found each other in every chance we had. There were days when we didn’t even bother to put on clothes. When the isolation of our middle of nowhere cabin and long nights no longer seemed like a prison but a precious reward.

Year four, we learned the names of our closest neighbors and had dinner on the regular with couples from school. Slayton started hunting and fishing. It was a newfound passion for him. Sometimes he would be gone for days, and when he came back I’d swear those few days helped more than years of therapy. I fearlessly teased my street-smart boy about becoming a backwoodsman. At the same time, I yearned to find an escape, a way to heal the way he had.

Over and over Slayton would push my journals closer to me, silently asking me to write, to let that be my escape. I just couldn’t fathom putting it all into words. It would be real then. I wouldn’t be able to go hours, maybe days, pretending it never occurred. I was my own worst enemy, and I was good with it.

I gave up on school, but Slayton didn’t. The badge I found on him was no longer valid. It was the kind of badge they give untrained street warriors, informants that should not be, as far as I was concerned. He still loved the law, though, for the life of me, I had no idea why.

I almost thought it was the thrill of the chase, the ability to see what others couldn’t. Even in states like Alaska. He had a gift that allowed him to see both sides of the law and call every play each party would take as if he willed it into life.

At the end of year four, I was the only one not smiling when a badge landed in his hand again. I was proud of him, but all I wanted to do was find the happily ever after that kept fading every time I clutched it. I didn’t like that he had openly asked to dance with crime for the rest of his life.

Year five had been good. I had a job I liked, a friend I liked. And I only looked over my shoulder half as much as I used to. I both loved and hated the routine of life. One day, I was content to roll with the days. The next, I stared at Slayton like he was going to vanish. That was my biggest fear.

I wasn’t excited about coming home tonight; I knew he was working late which meant dinner for one. The only positive I was pulling out of the deal was it put another notch in my argument box for us to get a dog. Slayton had never had one. I was sure the second he gave in to my yearly plea that I could count on him being settled, content with the life we had. Stupid I know, but the man still had a ‘go bag’ for the pair of us in the front closet. He was always ready to run. Anything that even slightly resembled a settled life rattled him.

The cabin was dark when I pulled up front. I was shifting through the mail when I went up the steps, something Slayton would kick my ass for—he’d taught me for years to not only be aware of my surroundings but how to fight and use a gun.

I was at the door before I realized it was slightly ajar. Panic slammed into me, I was right back in the hell of survival mode. I reached in my bag and pulled the gun Slayton always made sure I was packing. I didn’t want to go in, but turning my back to the house, making it all the way to my car was a risk I wasn’t ready to take.

I was focused as I walked in, but my deepest thoughts were cussing Slayton and me. I was sure we had let our guard down, made one too many friends. That someone somewhere was hunting Odin’s prince, the one who had gotten away.

Flutters of snowflakes, ones so light they looked like dust, followed me. I checked the front room, moved through the kitchen, all of the downstairs. I was aimed to search the upstairs but not until I claimed another gun from our room at the end of the hall. A gust of wind pushed those twinkles of flakes down the hall before me.

I clutched the gun when I thought I heard a board creak. The further I moved down the hall the hotter it became. I was sweating under my layers of clothes and fearful it would mess up the grip I had on the gun. It wasn’t until I reached the threshold that confusion struck me.

Our room wasn’t massive, but the bed still set inside a few feet. At the foot of the bed on a trunk, there was a tin bucket full of ice that was almost completely melted—in the middle of it there was a smaller box, roses and chocolate were beside it.

I should have scouted the room before I stepped in, but my stare doubted what I was seeing. Just before I reached the trunk, I heard the creak of wood again but never had the chance to turn before I was seized. I lifted my armed hand but a perfectly placed grip not only turned the safety on but also had my weapon dropping from my grip. My other arm was pinned to my side, and I could feel hot breath skirting across my neck.

“So easily distracted...” The taunt in his voice grazed the wrong nerves. Nerves that would have exploded us both into a war of words if I was not still staring at the bucket of ice.

“Slay—” I breathed.

“It’s hot in here,” he said as he pulled my jacket from me. I’m not really sure when or how fast he removed all the other layers from me, but I was in my bra feeling his lips on my neck, feeling the addiction of him take hold before I forced myself to focus.

“What’s—what’s going on?”

With a growl he stopped. “This isn’t going to work the way I planned it.”

I leaned to the side and looked up at him. He was talking to me but his hands were not still, my jeans were unbuttoned, and his hand was dipping inside. He grinned when he felt the lace. “I was going to lay you down,” he began in a husky voice, “slowly glide ice piece by piece, over this body that I can not get enough of,” he said right as his fingers brushed my clit and a bit my lip, savoring the feeling.

My hand rushed to hold him in place, but then his other landed on me. “So eager,” he taunted. “I love it.”