Sliding (The Stone Series) (35 page)

I start to laugh when he says that but he
quickly interrupts to finish the story knowing that he is helping me through the
worst pain of my life.

“I only had one more left but I was desperate
to come deep into your ass. I had been waiting to have that ass for so long it
just didn’t seem fair that I wouldn’t be able to finish. I pumped into you for
the last time.

“I’m about to come, I just need a few more
pushes, please I want to come in your ass” I told you and you reached around
and dug your nails into the back of my thighs. I thrashed into you deeper with
each additional thrust that you gave me and just as I got into you all the way
I exploded and came so hard deep inside you. I had my finger inside your pussy
by then and felt you tighten and come with me. It was so fucking tight and you
were screaming and yelling my name, I just couldn’t hold it anymore. I felt my body
explode and I screamed out your name too. I’m sure your roommates heard the
whole session.”

“Argh, Tate I need to push right now. Call for
the doctor” I cry. Tate gets the nurse and when she checks me I am finally ten
centimeters and ready to push. “You did a great job through the worst part of
labor. I never heard a peep from you. What method did you use?” the nurse asks
and Tate and I smile at each other, laugh and Tate says, “I kept her
distracted” as he wiggles his eyebrows. That look from him makes her unable to
think so she forgets to continue her inquisition.

Tate climbs back onto the bed behind me pulling
my flexible legs back when Dr. Baxter comes in and tells me to start to
push.
 
I am covered in sweat, crying with
my hair pushed back but still Tate is telling me I am beautiful and sexy and
the love of his life. He cheers me on better than I did for him all those years
on the field or the court.

“I see our first head Brook. You’re almost
there. Now when the next contraction hits give me one more really strong push
and we’ll have a baby” Dr. Baxter instructs.

When I feel the pain build I push down as hard
as I can while leaning back on Tate. I can feel his sweat soaked shirt on my
skin, his hard pectoral muscles tightening because he is trying to push for me.
He would do anything to take the pain away from me and suffer through this
agony instead.

Up until that moment I thought the sweetest
sound in the world was hearing Tate say he loved me but I was wrong. The best
sound in the world happened right then when I heard Zach cry and breathe his
first breath.

“It’s our boy” says Dr. Baxter “and he looks
perfect.

Tate kisses me and says, “I love you baby. Now
come on, give me my daughter. One more big push.”

Zoe takes about five more pushes and by the
time I finally hear her scream I am done for. I hear Dr. Baxter say, “Welcome
to the party Zoe” but after that everything goes black.

I want to
go to my babies but I can’t leave Brook who has just collapsed in my arms. At
first I thought it was just exhaustion from the hours of labor and then the
pushing but now I realize something is seriously wrong. I have never been a
religious man and I have no idea who I am making this bargain with, maybe my
father but I promise to be a better man if she’s okay. I promise to be the best
father to my babies, I promise I will never drink or look to drugs to solve my
problems, anything as long as I can have Brook, as long as I can have my wife.

As they
are rushing her out of the room leaving me on my knees in a pool of her blood
screaming out her name our life flashes before my eyes. I see us as middle school
students dancing that first night in the gym. She’s wearing that half shirt
with the hearts on it and swaying back and forth with me even though I know
she’s the best dancer at school. I see us in high school the night of my
sixteenth birthday when we lost our virginity to each other. The way she looked
so surprised at the felling when I was inside her for the first time. I see the
locket that she still wears around her neck “First, Last, Only”. I see us in
college at a dance club laughing and dancing with each other like two people
who were hooking up for a one night stand instead of a couple who had been
together since they were thirteen. I hear “Now and Forever” playing and I see
myself on my knee holding a ring box up to her.

“Brooklynn
Adams, I have been in love with you and only you my entire life. Would you
please make me the happiest man alive and agree to be my wife, Brooklynn
Taylor? My first, my last and my only?”

We are
both crying and she rushes to me saying, “Yes, my first, my last and my only.
Yes I will be your wife. Yes, I will marry you, Tate Taylor”
 

I see us
at Taylor Studios before that name meant anything to anyone but me. I see her
dancing on stage after stage and with me at our wedding. I see her accepting
awards and cheering for me as I win mine.

This
woman is all I have ever needed, all I have ever wanted. She should be holding
our babies and I should be the one crashing on a table in an operating room not
her. If I could change spots with her right now I would gladly lie down my life
to save hers.

I close
my eyes and I see her again in her cheerleading uniforms, the one she wore
before we were even dating, her high school uniform, her college uniform. I
picture her in my mind in every costume she’s ever worn on stage and in shows.
I even see her in what she had on that night at Pussy Cats. I see her in her
wedding gown and in her maternity clothes.

I picture
what she must have looked like sitting home alone all those nights I was out
getting drunk and high, the night she had her miscarriage. I picture her
sitting home alone for those six months that I left her in Connecticut.

************

When images start to reappear I see myself at
my college graduation. Tate is there and after we sneak away from my family to
make love in my apartment one last time before we pack my things up. Then I’m
at Tate’s graduation and then in his empty apartment. He already packed and his
parent’s have left for home. Tate, Bobby and I will drive home together after
they say good-bye to their other roommates. When I hear “Now and Forever” I
turn around to find Tate on his knee holding a ring box up to me. “Brooklynn
Adams, I have been in love with you and only you my entire life. Would you
please make me the happiest man alive and agree to be my wife, Brooklynn Taylor?
My first, my last and my only?” Tate asks while tears stream down both of our
faces. I rush to him and pull him to his feet, throw my arms around him; jump
on him with my legs encircling him. I grab his face and kiss him while I say,
“Yes, my first, my last and my only. Yes I will be your wife. Yes, I will marry
you, Tate Taylor.”
 

I see our wedding day and our first apartment
in New York. I see Tate and I on our first day in our New York offices. Then I
am working on a music video set choreographing for a Pop Princess. But then I
hear voices that don’t belong with the images. Voices saying things about blood
lose and people shouting orders. I hear Tate screaming. But as quickly as those
sounds start they disappear and Suddenly I flash to the Super Bowl Half Time
show I won an award for then I’m on stage accepting that award, thanking my
family and my perfect husband and business partner. Other award shows flash
before me, dancing on stage, accepting awards, cheering for Tate as he wins an
award. The voices resurface and I hear them yelling, “She’s crashing, get him
out of here!” My mind takes me back to my time working on Broadway then working
with my dancers at the workshops I hold, training the dancers of the future. A
voice says, “Clear” before I feel a sharp pain in my chest. The next thing I
hear is, “Get her in the OR she’s going to bleed out. We need to do a
hysterectomy now.”

I feel like a ghost floating above my life when
I see Tate at Jeff and David’s funeral then his father’s funeral, the look on
Michael’s face when my parent’s refuse to accept his homosexuality. I see
Katrina crying when her first marriage breaks up and then her second. The voice
calls, “Clear” again and I brace myself for that pain in my chest. I see myself
laying in bed in a pool of blood after my miscarriage. I see a faceless baby
wrapped in a blanket. I feel a heavy pain in my chest then I see Asia in her
cheerleading uniform. I see Missy, Annie, Asia and I dancing around my bedroom.
I see Tate in his black shirt and black jeans at that first school dance with
Bobby, David and Jeff.

“We have a pulse” I hear the voices in the
background say and I wish they’d be quiet. I am so tired and I just want to
sleep. I’m in a hotel room in New York City and Tate and I are kissing. I see
Tate and me at the State Championship game, and then when we lost our virginity
to each other in his bed on his birthday. I see myself in my University of
Kentucky cheer uniform hugging a sweaty Tate in his UNC basketball uniform when
we played them. I see my babies crying then being swept off by a nurse and I
finally decide to fight through the darkness. I need to hold my babies, feel
their breath on my face. The last image I see before I open my eyes is
myself
 
looking into the mirror in
the bathroom of my Connecticut home knowing that I am faced with my destiny and
a choice to make…do I get on the plane and fly to California to be with Tate? I
understand that it is the parallel tracking of two possible destinies, essentially
the what-if scenario staring me right in the face. I could be entering into the
center of two significantly different trajectories.

As I am contemplating my decision I hear Mac honk the horn at the same
time as the house phone starts to ring. Are these my two choices in life…answer
the phone and miss my flight, stay in Connecticut possibly losing the only man
I have ever known or leave the phone and run like hell to the car? I figure
everyone has these little moments in time when they question which decision is
right and which is wrong, both can change your life forever, leading you down
different avenues. Times like the one staring me in the face that is impossible
to go back and change. I see myself make my decision and run like hell leaving
the phone to ring.

I open my eyes to see Tate with Zach in his arms sitting on my bed while
Katrina is holding Zoe with her girls look over her shoulders. Taylor Swift’s
“Never Grow Up” is playing quietly in the background.
 
Heidi, Dominick and Bobby are on the other
side of the room. I notice Bobby is staring at my sister with a baby in her
arms and Heidi is on Dominick’s lap. They all look so happy even though they
look scared to death. I can’t help but think that I made the right decision
getting on that plane, the decision that affected all of these lives here with
me in this room.

Tate notices that I have opened my eyes but before he can speak I say,
“There’s something that’s been driving me crazy. I can’t stop thinking about
whom that was that called me when I was leaving for the airport to come to
California.”

Tate kisses me long, deep and hard making me forget everything else.

As I stand looking into the mirror in the master suite’s bathroom I am
faced with my destiny and a choice to make…do I get on the plane and fly to
California to be with my husband and save my marriage or …what? We’ve lived
apart for six months now and we will not survive living apart another six. It’s
the parallel tracking of two possible destinies, essentially the what-if
scenario staring me right in the face. I could be entering into the center of
two significantly different trajectories.

As I am contemplating my decision I hear Mac honk the horn at the same
time as the house phone starts to ring. Are these my two choices in life…answer
the phone and miss my flight, stay in Connecticut possibly losing the only man
I have ever known or leave the phone and run like hell to the car? I figure
everyone has these little moments in time when they question which decision is
right and which is wrong, both can change your life forever, leading you down
different avenues. Times like the one staring me in the face that is impossible
to go back and change. Well, I guess this is what awaits me behind…

    
Door #2

Chapter 9: The Betrayal

I take one last glance at myself in the mirror, not too bad. I have
somehow managed to be a size two, so it’s not the size zero of my youth but I’m
still firm and young looking. Botox, daily doses of yoga, Pilates, jogging, and
weight training sessions with my trainer help. Being a seasoned borderline
anorexic helps a little too. I am wearing Tate’s favorite dress. It’s short and
black and it looks great on me, if I do say so myself. The highest heeled shoes
that I own each with a little pink bow on them make the dress look even
naughtier. I grab my shades and over sized bag to complete my look and head for
the door taking one last look back at the phone ringing on the bedside table.
Who the hell can that be and why aren’t they calling me on my cell? The
suspense is too overwhelming and I lunge to grab the phone at the last minute.

“Hello?” I answer expecting a telemarketer.

“Brooklynn, its Ted. You need to sit down, we have to talk.”

It’s my best friend, Asia’s husband. I try to tell him that I’m on my way
out the door but he interrupts me with his news.

“Asia and Tate have been having an affair. They started fucking each
other about a year ago and it kept up until Tate left Connecticut six months
ago. They were hooking up in some hotel room where they went after getting
drunk and coked up together.”

Silence fills the air and the phone lines as I try to comprehend what I
am hearing. My body begins to grow cold and I feel a shiver run through my
blood. I grasp onto my bed to support myself. My legs have gone to jelly and I
am going to collapse.

“Before you go and think I’m out of my mind, I’ve had them followed and I
have pictures and other forms of evidence to prove I’m right. Is Mac there with
you? He’s my private investigator, he knows everything…”

I hang up on him and somehow manage to stagger to the front door. I open
the door and find Mac standing in my driveway. Mac has my luggage packed in the
trunk of our silver
Porsche Cayenne
and he smiles when I step outside saying, “Hello Mrs. Taylor”.

Mac only started working for us shortly before Tate left for California.
In that short time he has been a very loyal employee but now I find out he’s
been working for Ted and spying on Tate and I the whole time. Apparently he’s
been working for Ted much longer than us? I thought Mac was an ex-Marine who
worked Special Ops but now I have no idea who or what he is or if I should
trust him.

The news Ted shared finally gets the best of me and I hit the hard
concrete with a thud. I don’t know if I bang the back of my head or what
happened but everything went black.

When I come to I am in Mac’s arms on the ground and he is shaking me back
to consciousness. “I assume by this reaction that Ted reached you? I’m so sorry
Mrs. Taylor, I can explain but we’ll have to sit down, it’s a long complicated
story and I think it would be best to get you inside.”

“I don’t want to go inside, take me to Asia and Ted’s right now or is
your responsibility no longer to me? Was it ever Mac?”

He looks to me with sadness in his eyes like I’ve branded him somehow.
 
He stands me up. He leads me to the car and
opens the back door. When he climbs in the front seat he turns and hands me a
folder. ”I’m sorry” is all Mac seems to be able to manage. It’s filled with
pictures and receipts. I can barely bring myself to look at them. The pictures
are of Tate and Asia at a bar with drinks in front of them. They look like they
are sitting close together but nothing unusual; they’ve been friends for close
to thirty years. Then there are pictures of them snorting coke off a table
clearly in a hotel room. The pictures that are the hardest for me to see are
the ones where they are naked and engaged in sex acts. There are tons that
depict Asia in different bondage scenarios. She’s blindfolded in many of them
and tied up either with rope or handcuffs in almost every one. Tate is clearly
spanking her in many and in others he’s using sex toys on her. In all of them
Tate has this faraway look on his face. He looks nothing like he does when we
have sex.
 

“I want to explain things to you in further detail. There are things Ted
doesn’t know, that Ted can’t know about” Mac reports as we pull up in front of
Ted and Asia’s house. By this time I am sick to my stomach. I no longer feel
brave enough to confront my best friend. I know what ever happens this will be
the end, the last time I will ever see her.

I pause before I get out of the car and I remember the first day of
kindergarten when we met. She has always had this fire red hair so she was the
first kid I spotted when my mom tried to drop me off. I was scared and didn’t
want to go. I started crying when the bell rang knowing my mom was going to
walk back home with the other mothers and leave me at school alone while my
sister and new baby brother got her undivided attention. I cried the whole way
in line standing behind Asia and by the time we got into the classroom I had
peed my pants and thrown up. All the other kids were laughing at me but not
Asia, she was the only one who didn’t laugh. When the teacher asked for a
volunteer to bring me to the nurse only Asia offered. We bonded that day in the
nurse’s office while I waited for my mother to get the call from the nurse so
she could turn back around and come get me. While I waited for my mom Asia told
me that her sister’s went to school there and that she’s not afraid of school
because they’ve told her all about it. She asks me if I play with dolls and
what kind I have. We talk about our Barbie’s and she touches my curly hair. I
tell her that I wish I had straight hair like hers and red too. When my mom finally
comes to pick me up she asks who my new friend is and says we can have her over
to play sometime. Asia and I are inseparable from that day forward.

I am snapped back to the present when I hear four loud popping sounds and
Mac jumps on me tackling me to the ground. He pulls his cell out of his pocket
and orders me to use the number one on speed dial and tell them Asia’s address.
He takes off towards the house while pulling a pistol from his waist and
yelling at me to stay behind the car.

Tony Macintosh has worked
undercover for the government since ending his numerous tours as a Marine in
the Special Operations Department. He is well over six feet tall with muscles
trained to kill. When he hears gun shots fired his instinct is the opposite of
every normal persons, he runs towards them. When he reaches the front door he
discovers that it’s still locked. Upon further inspection he discovers that
someone has entered the home through a basement window that has been smashed.
He surveys the property and enters the home through a back window that is open.
After checking the main floor of the premises for the perpetrator he climbs the
stairs to the second floor where he finds the home owners in a bedroom. The
male has been tied to a chair and gagged facing the bed where his wife has been
bound and gagged in a standard bondage hold. They have both been shot twice,
once in the chest, once in the head. Mac can only speculate what happened
before he arrived and every thought that comes to mind turns his stomach. As he
is trying to process the scene in front of him he hears the faint sound of a
clock ticking. He quickly scans the room for the source and when one is not
located he runs out of the room, leaps down the staircase onto the main floor.
As he is running out of the front door the bomb detonates and the explosion
catapults him onto the front lawn. He quickly gets to his feet and runs to
Brooklynn Taylor.

As Mac is approaching the road he
sees the familiar government issued cars pull up. He runs past his colleagues,
throws a screaming Brooklynn Taylor over his shoulder without a word and
carries her to an Orca Black Metallic Audi Q7 and tosses her into the backseat
with an aggressive instruction to buckle up.

I do as Mac instructs me, I call the number and report the address where
Ted and Asia live and I stay hidden behind my car. It feels like hours that I
am cowering there when I hear the sound of engines coming from behind me. Just
as I am about to turn and look an explosion shakes the ground under me. At
least ten black SUVs with government plates pull up and men dressed in black
jump out, run past me and take off towards Ted and Asia’s house or where it
used to be. When I peek around in the direction of the house all I see is Mac
with his cocoa colored skin covered in soot from the explosion. He is a sight
for sore eyes and it’s then that I realize for the first time that I am
screaming. Mac throws me over his shoulder and carries me to one of the
government SUVs. He tosses me into the backseat and commands that I fasten my
seatbelt.

“Give me your cell phone now” Mac orders.

I hand it over without question, not knowing if I’m being kidnapped or
saved. I watch as Mac tosses my cell phone through the window of my
Porsche then he returns and climbs in the front
seat. The ignition is turned on and we are speeding down roads heading to I-95
in an
Audi Q7
.

“Mr. Taylor has a GPS system on
your phone and in your car so he could monitor your whereabouts. That’s why I
needed your phone and why we left your car. I know this is all very confusing
but I am doing what I must to keep you safe. I will explain everything in good
time. Please don’t be scared, trust me I won’t let anything happen to you” Mac
tries to reassure me.

We are speeding down I-95 south
towards New York City when the news on the radio reports the explosion.

“We are live on the scene in Connecticut where there
has been a home explosion and it is suspected that the homeowners were inside
at the time of the explosion. No names are being released at this time. The
cause has yet to be reported. Stay tuned, as more information becomes available
we’ll bring it to you.”

Mac is now wearing dark mirrored
sunglasses so I am not able to gauge his reaction to the news on the radio.

“Is that true?” I ask Mac “Were
Asia and Ted in the house when it exploded?”
 

“I told you, I’ll explain
everything later” Mac snaps at me impatiently.

I sit quietly the rest of the
ride into the city, too in shock to even cry. We take the FDR to a heliport
where we leave the SUV and jump into a helicopter. I am not enthusiastic about
flying in this contraption but I realize I have no choice in the matter. Mac
and I are sitting with our legs touching in the helicopter and I feel safe in his
presence. When I glance at him I notice he’s still covered in soot from the
explosion. I’m starting to realize that I am being saved not kidnapped; I just
don’t know what I’m being saved from but I’m scared all the same. So much has
happened since I decided to answer that phone this morning. I wish I had just
ignored it and left for the airport. I wonder how different my life will be now
from just that one decision.

After what feels like hours but
is only minutes Mac apologizes and claims it’s for my safety when he asks me to
wear the blindfold he provides me. We land and I hear Mac greet someone then he
leads me onto another plane. Once on board he removes my blindfold and says,
“Sorry about that Mrs. Taylor, now we can talk. We have hours of travel time
ahead of us so I should be able to answer all of your questions in that time.
Where would you like me to begin?”

When Mac started this assignment, his last planned assignment; he never
planned to have feelings for the woman he is now protecting. He planned to do
this one last assignment figuring it would be quick and pain free then he could
retire to an island somewhere like his ex-partner and try to forget everything
he’d witnessed in his short life, all the pain and violence, all the trauma and
suffering. But feelings for this woman he does have. She is a tiny brunette
with a head full of wild curls that makes you want to lose your fingers in
them. She is high spirited and full of life. But as Mac looks at her across the
seat on the plane he notices that some of that life has been sucked out of her
already and she doesn’t even know the half of it. He knows the facts that he is
about to share with her will most likely take away the rest of that glow of hers
that he has become accustomed to seeing every day. Mac knows he should do this
like ripping a bandage off an exposed wound, in one fast pull but he can’t
bring himself to do it that way, not to her. Maybe if he eases her into the
story it will be easier on her psyche to process. He understands that he is
about to make her question her entire life and he’s seen women fall apart over
much less.

“How about we begin with you
calling me Brook? I think after kidnapping and blindfolding me calling me by my
first name is acceptable don’t you agree?” I sarcastically ask Mac.

A small chuckle manages to escape
him and he agrees. Mac suggests that we begin at the start. He tells me his
name is Tony Macintosh but his friends and colleagues call him Mac for short.
He went to military schools growing up then to West Point before the Marines.
Mac comes from a long line of born and raised Military men. Mac joined the
Special Operations unit shortly after 9/11 and went to work to conquer
terrorists in and out of our country. I can tell by the dark look that passes
over his face when he talks about his time in the military that he has demons
he is keeping hidden behind that tough guy armor.