Never Been Loved (41 page)

“What the fuck?” She slams her fists on the table, and I can’t hide my shock. “You do
not
lead with that fucking little fact three weeks after you
cheated
on me with
her
, MacLaine,” she says through a clenched jaw.

I want to be Hunt again.

Why the hell is she calling me MacLaine?

I get my arms tighter around my chest and force myself to focus. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I fuck up a lot, and I don’t want this to be another score against me.

“I miss you,” I say, but it comes out strangled.

She snorts. “Yeah, you look real broken up.” She shakes her head. “What’s going to happen to Matty now? Why didn’t you just take the money? Jesus, why are you here? I was having a good time. And you ruined everything. Matty’s not my problem.
You’re
not my problem anymore.”

“You’re not getting me, Sera.” I don’t want to be angry. I don’t. But how in fuck could she think I did that to her? With Aly? When I told her that she was out of my life, that Aly isn’t her?

Take to bat for me, Sera. Believe in me. Is that so fucking hard?

“I miss you, Matty misses you. I want you back in my life. I need you back in my life.”

“Well, I don’t want you back in mine, all right?”

I lean in closer to her and get her hands in mine before she can pull away. This has to work, it just has to. I’m desperate for this to work, and I settle my forehead on our joined hands. I’m begging with every part of me.

“What... what are you doing? Hunter? Hunt?” Sera tries to pull away but I can’t let her.

I look up at her, jaw clenched tight and I’m being torn apart by her. “I swear on my sister’s life that nothing happened with Aly that night. I swear I didn’t do anything. I fucking swear.”

“Swear on your life. Swear on your life you didn’t touch her, you didn’t kiss her with the same mouth you kissed me with.”

I curl my lip. “I swear on my life I didn’t touch her. I just needed a ride to the hospital. Aly’s not for me, baby. You’re for me, and Matty. You’re it.”

“Sera,” I say, watching her breath come in short rasps and her eyes shine bright. She’s holding onto my hands, too, now, and I move in to kiss our tangle of fingers.
Just say it MacLaine. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

What if she never says it back?

It sure as shit won’t change how you feel about her.

“I love you.”

“You- you don’t mean that,” she mutters, breath hitching again.

Not this shit again. “I love you, Sera, and I’m going to keep saying it until you fucking believe it.”

“Say it again,” she orders me.

“I love you.”

“Again.” She’s twisting our fingers now. “Say it again.”

“I love you, baby. I bloody love you.”

“You’re only saying that because I lost weight.”

No. Just… no.
“You sure don’t look like you could haul my ass to the hospital now. Too scrawny.”

“Are you making a joke? At a time like this?”

I grin, and press my mouth to our hands again. “I’m going to start feeding you pancakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next few weeks. We’ll sort you out.”

“What? You can’t just expect that you tell me you love me and everything is okay? Why didn’t you come with me to the hospital?”

Goddamn it, I’ve hurt her so bad.

Winging it, I lean forward and land a kiss on her mouth.

“I was pissed. Thought I would cool off. I was wrong to yell at you. But fuck, you shoulda seen you, giving it right back to me. We’re going to have problems whenever you get mad at me, baby. I wanted to haul you on my bed, and let you use me. I was wrong to yell at you, I was wrong to get pissed at you wanting to take care of Matty when I didn’t want you to.

“I promise for the rest of my life, I will show you how much I love you, how much I want you in my life, in my... son’s.”

“Why did you lie to me?”

“I never lied to you. I told you I don’t lie. You forgot. I never called Matty my son. That first night, when I came to get the movie – I told you he was my nephew. But I’m the only parent he’s ever known. I’m his dad, even though I’m really his uncle.”

“You could have told me. You should have told me.”

“I couldn’t talk about it. My sister... she died because of me.”

Do it. Rip it off like a Band-Aid. Just get it over with.

“I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was eighteen. She thought she would get it, too, but she didn’t. She didn’t need to follow me around, you know?”

“After the first month of taking injections, of getting beaten up daily with the sugar spikes and lows, I went to a Timmy’s and bought a dozen donuts. I took them to my room in my parent’s house and ate every single one.”

“You wanted to kill yourself?” Thank Christ she still cares.

I give a shake of my head. “It wasn’t about ending my life, it was about showing the doctors, my family,
myself
that I was okay. That I didn’t have diabetes. I ended up in the hospital, nearly went into a coma because of it. The whole thing ruined my sister. And I didn’t help matters. She was my twin.

“I got into drugs, drank heavily, just punishing myself for not being normal, for being sick. Diabetes... you can’t even imagine what it’s like to have a part of
yourself
give up on you. It screws with your head, just fucks with you in ways I didn’t even know until my sister died. Jules.... she tried to get me out of it, tried to get me clean until one of my druggie buddies took a liking to her and ruined her life.

“She was so smart, hilarious and sweet. She would’ve been a great mom once she got clean. And she would have loved you, loved the way you take care of her son.

“Because she followed me around—because I was a spineless fuck who thought drugs and drinking were a better way of dealing with my fucked up body—I got my sister hooked into drugs. I was out of my mind with my own misery, I couldn’t see what was going on around me, I wouldn’t see because I was a selfish kid who should’ve known better.”

I struggle to keep calm, trying not to get sucked into the past. I want to be here, now, with my girl.
Sera’s eyes are huge in her face, and her mouth is opened in that waiting-for-a-kiss look that has a burning pain torching me from the inside out.

“By the time she was twenty-five she was a full-on junkie until she OD’d in an alleyway while Matty was in his crib at my parent’s place. That night I became a father and I wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing at all.

“I was so fucking angry. Why couldn’t I have gotten her help, why didn’t she just
listen
to me once I got clean?”

Sera’s closed her eyes. “Sometimes, listening is the hardest thing to do when you don’t believe a word someone says.”

Oh, baby. Is that’s what been happening?

“I’m so sorry. About everything. God, I love you.”

Needing to move, I tug on our hands, round the table and get her standing in front of me.

“You can’t just show up and say a few words and expect everything to be okay,” she says “You need to get your life straight, Hunter, and I can’t do that for you. You need to help yourself first. I’m sorry.”

She’s fighting me again. Why is she fighting me?

Looks like you have your answer, MacLaine. You don’t deserve her, anyway.

I wanted to be given the chance to.

I don’t make eye contact with anyone as Sera walks away from me for the last time. Nothing I do will get her back to me.

You’re supposed to fight, asshole.

Not when she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I can’t force her to love me.

I contemplate going back home and drinking myself into a stupor. Maybe then I’ll forget about Sera for a while. Maybe then I’ll forget about her nerd references, her jokes, and the way she came into my life.

Maybe I’ll forget all about Sera being my superhero.

I don’t think I’ve got enough beer at home to deal with that.

I’m staring into my fridge. I resisted the urge to drop by the
dep
and get a two-four of Heineken on my way back home.

The thing is, I don’t want to forget about Sera. Maybe I’ll just numb myself out on shitty TV. Maybe I’ll watch an episode of
Supernatural
to finally figure out what the hell Sera was talking about.

Yeah, maybe I’ll swallow some bleach, too.

Idiot.

I’m making my way into the living room when I hear the knock on the door. I get over to it, practically braining myself on the fake wood, and open it, standing in the doorway in absolute shock.

Sera’s standing there, in that hot-as-fuck dress; her eyes are wide and her lips are parted like she’s waiting for my mouth. It’s enough to get all my blood flowing to my dick, and losing whatever I had in my head.

She falls forward, her hands going to my chest as she walks in, and thinking I’m dreaming, I wrap my arms around her, making sure she’s real and I’m not hallucinating.

“Kiss me, Hunter. Kiss me like I’m the only you’ll ever want.”

Thank you, Jules. I know you swayed the Big Man. Thank you.

I get my hands on her cheeks, tilting her face up and get her mouth against mine. It’s been three fucking weeks without her, without her laughing, without her vanilla sugar smell. It’s been three weeks without her smiling at me, or not even blinking an eye when I need a juice.

Fuck, I missed her, and without saying anything, I tell her.

I learn her mouth all over again, tasting, licking, figuring out what she likes but I never forgot. My arms are at her lower back, and I move a hand dawn to palm her ass, pressing us closer, and Jesus Christ, she hits me everywhere in just the right place.

“I love you,” I whisper, after pulling back, going for that spot at the corner of her mouth. “I love you.” I kiss her cheek. “I love you,” I say, kissing that spot underneath her ear.

“I know you didn’t cheat on me. I… I guess I used it as an excuse. This whole time we were together… I thought it was too good to be true, you know? That I was going to mess it up and you’d leave me,” Sera says, then reaches for my arm. “We’re all self-fulfilling prophecies. I’m sorry, too. I’m going to need to get used to this, to us. It’s your turn not to give up on me, okay?”

“Thank you, baby.” That weight on my chest takes a hike, and we’re back at it, kissing, and I’ve been starved for her, for every inch of her. I lift her so we’re the same height, and get more of her mouth, more of her little moans and purrs as she gives me everything back.

“Come with me,” I say, once I’ve got her on her feet, and got her hand and start dragging her to my bed. She looks at it like it’s going to eat her alive.

Go slow, asshole. Don’t ruin this.

“We go as far as you want, baby.”

“I want you to lie down, right here, next to me,” she says, after she’s gotten onto the mattress. I follow ’cause that’s what I’ll always do – I’ll follow Sera wherever she decides to take me. “Where’s Matty?”

I snicker and get that spot in the corner again. “At my mom’s. We’re alone tonight.”

I get on my side and do my best to calm her down – she looks about ready to jump out of her skin. I gather her close to me and just look at her – she’s a sight for sore eyes.

“I swear I’ll never hurt you again.” I vow it, moving her hair off her shoulder and leaning in to kiss her softly, gently. I want her to set the pace. When I get to the spot under her ear, she shivers hard enough to knock me out. “Fuck, everything you do gets me hard.”

“I didn’t even do anything.”

No more talking. We’re kissing again, and my hands are greedy assholes, keeping her dress on and trying to figure out what her skin’s gonna feel like. When her arms go around my neck, I roll us so I’m on top, pinning my leg between the both of hers.

I lean more of my weight onto her, practically hiss when my cock hits her thigh just right.

Pussy. I want her pussy now.

In a haze, I vaguely feel her yanking on the shoulders of my suit, her mouth crazy wild underneath mine. The swirl of colours is back, and they’ve never been more beautiful, more meaningless when it comes to my health. Sera’s just made my world come alive again.

Shit, the shirt.

I get the jacket off of me, heading up to my knees, watching her hair fanned along my bed, her breathing coming fast, her lips red and swollen. My dick throbs, and I need to be inside her right now.

“I... I did something dumb. Or genius,” I say, slowly going for the buttons on my shirt. “I was hoping you’d be in my bed tonight, so I needed some extra insurance. It just seems really stupid now, like you’d really go for it...”

I slowly reveal the Superman tee I was wearing under my suit. When I’m done, Sera’s hands are covering her moan.

It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

“Oh my God. Oh, God. Hunt-Hunter. What?” She’s on her knees, and body checks me before shoving her tongue in my mouth. I’m laughing between her kisses, legit laughing.