Violet Addiction (18 page)

“I’m sorry,” I breathed, wiping away my tears.

“I told you, no guilt.” Cain’s eyes narrowed, and he tried to look menacing which he actually pulled off rather well.

“If I wasn’t such a mess, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Cain shrugged. “Everything happens for a reason, right? We’re on the path we are meant to be on for one reason or another, to make us stronger, more humble, more grateful.” He waved his hand around with nonchalance. “Anyway, I love you just the way you are, and I wouldn’t trade the Violet Trivoli who sits before me now for all the perfectly, neat, pretty packaged lives in the world.” My heart did that funny little flip again.

“You love me?”

Cain rolled his eyes. “You know I do.” He pulled me into his lap. “But I’m going to tell you every chance I get anyway. And do you know how I know you love me?”

I considered him for a moment. “Because I gave you the last of my cheesy fries last weekend?”

He chuckled before kissing my cheek. “That, and…” He took a deep breath. “I let you go and here you are, back in my arms.” He kissed me on the lips this time, his warm breath tangling with mine. “And you let me go down on you,” he added with a wink which made me blush. A bang on the door made us both jump.

“Sorry, kids, I went out to use Mrs. Wicker’s garden and discovered it’s freezing out there. Not a chance in hell I’m dropping trou when it’s zero degrees outside.” I climbed off Cain, and he tugged on my arm.

“Didn’t you forget something?” he asked. I glanced at the toilet. Nope, I’d flushed. Washcloth was rinsed, toothbrush back in the toiletries bag. With gentle fingers, he forced my gaze back on him and he seemed a little disappointed. “I’ve always believed that actions speak louder than words; that last cheesy fry screamed love, even if you can’t say it.” He shrugged and went to walk away, and I realized he had been waiting for me to tell him I loved him. I pulled on his hand and dragged him forward for a kiss.

“I want to say it, but if I say it now, you’ll think I’m only saying it because you asked me to.”

Cain mulled over my words. “Okay, baby. Ball’s in your court. Spring it on me when I least expect it.” With a final lingering kiss, my dad thumped on the door once more.

“I’m not a young man anymore, kids, leaks spring way too easily to deny this kind of need.”

“TMI, Dad,” I said as we left the bathroom. He raced in behind us.

“Eggs and bacon?” Cain asked.

The glazed over look of hunger in my eyes obviously said it all. And just like that, my guilt was placated, for now. Like Cain had said, everyone slips. Now was my chance to show everyone I could pick myself back up and stand a little taller, a little stronger. Now was my chance to prove myself.

“So fucking beautiful,” Cain murmured at my mouth, his teeth gently grazing my bottom lip before he kissed me long and hard. Cain had never been afraid of a little PDA. As friends, he was always eager to hold my hand and had hugged me often. Since we had officially become a couple, he took the liberty of bringing my world to a halt with mind blowing kisses often. It was his way of reminding me where I stood in his life, and I think he was making up for the last twelve years of indecision and built up sexual tension. His hand stopped at my ribs, just shy of cupping my breast.

“Cut that shit out. You’re mauling her right in front of my nephews. My fucking sister is going to beat the shit out of me for your R rated show.” Harry stomped past us. Cain smiled against my mouth before reluctantly pulling away.

“We got bored. We’ve been waiting for twenty minutes.”

Harry stopped and turned to face us, a shocked look on his face. “You’ve been sucking face outside my sister’s place for twenty fucking minutes?” he growled.

I couldn’t help but laugh at Harry’s appalled look.

Cain scoffed. “Of course not, I’ve only just got to her face. I spent the last fifteen minutes paying homage to those beautiful breasts.”

Harry looked like a fish out of water until Cain started laughing.

“You dirty little fucker, next time you get arrested, don’t bother calling me. I’ll leave you there to rot.”

We followed Harry into his sister’s house. It was Thanksgiving and we had planned on spending it alone, just the two of us, but Harry and Mya wouldn’t hear of it. Since we were spending Christmas with our families back in Seattle, this was a pre-Christmas celebration with the one man who had gone above and beyond for both of us. Harry was a foul mouthed bulldog who had a nose for business and music, but to me and Cain, he was a friend first and foremost.

“Janie, I’m here, and I’m sorry about the porn in the front yard,” Harry called out as we entered the house. A set of identical gangly, dark haired twins paused in their wrestling to glance in our direction.

“We saw,” laughed one of the boys.

“He’s got technique,” giggled the other.

“Fabulous, my balls are as good as gone,” Harry said sarcastically, walking away, leaving Cain and I with the teenage boys who untangled themselves off the floor.

“I’m Lucas,” said the one wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt with a skull on the front. His hair was black as night and styled over his eyes in an emo fashion.

“I’m Levi,” said the other, who was a more conservative version of his brother, in shorts, a blue surf brand shirt, and neatly cut, dark blonde hair. Apart from their different styles, they were identical in every way, height, weight, eyes, and lips.

“Levi was hoping for a little girl on girl action tonight. We heard Mya has a crush on Violet.”

Levi slapped Lucas on the head and the wrestling began again. Cain chuckled as he drew me away from the living room.

“That was a little disturbing,” I murmured.

“They’re teenage boys. I was one once, or have you forgotten.” Cain was mischievous now, but as a teenager, he was mischief times a thousand.

“I haven’t forgotten, and you better pray you and Annabelle don’t have a boy. It will come back to bite you on the ass.” Cain stopped walking and turned to give me a quick hard kiss, his tongue delving deep into my mouth.

“Don’t worry, baby, if I don’t get a boy this time around, I plan on trying with you until I do.”

I shook my head, my mind a little foggy from the wicked kiss he had planted on my lips. “What if we only produce girls? We might end up with a minivan full of them.”

Cain winked at me. “We might as well keep going and get ourselves an entire roller derby team then.”

“Janie, Kyle, I’d like you to meet Violet and Cain,” Harry introduced us as we walked into a large kitchen that was full of warmth and the wonderful smell of turkey. Mya sat at the kitchen table by Harry, showing him something on her phone.

“It’s wonderful to finally meet you. We were beginning to think Harry made you both up,” said Janie, Harry’s polar-opposite sister, as she moved forward to shake our hands. She was petite with curves and a head of dark curls. She had a gentleness about her with a genuine smile. She looked like a modern day Betty Crocker, the complete opposite of Harry, with his dark smooth hair and immaculate business suits.

“The fact he has friends at all is pretty astounding,” teased Kyle as he also shook our hands.

“Fuck the both of you,” growled Harry.

“Watch your language while you are in my house, or I will divest you of those balls.” Harry’s little sister pinned him with a serious stare.

Harry held his hands up in surrender. “It’s disturbing you want anywhere near them; you’re my sister.”

“I wouldn’t touch the disgusting things. I’d get Kyle to cut them off.”

Kyle offered Cain a beer, and he politely declined. He didn’t offer me one, and I wondered if Harry had forewarned them.

“I’m not touching Harry’s balls.” Kyle grimaced. “Harry told us you don’t drink, Violet. Would you like something else? We have Coke, orange juice, water?”

“Orange juice would be fine,” I said as I arched a brow Harry’s way. He smiled and winked back at me.

“Cain?” Kyle asked.

“Orange juice will be fine, thank you, Kyle.”

I leaned into Cain and whispered in his ear, “You can have a beer. I can drive. You don’t have to not drink because of me.”

Cain kissed my forehead. “I don’t want a beer. And what kind of a man makes his woman drive his drunk ass home after dark.”

I snorted loudly which caught the attention of everyone in the kitchen. “Sorry,” I blushed.

Janie and Kyle gave us a confused smile over our private conversation. Harry and Mya, who knew us better, completely ignored us, turning their attention back to their phones.

“It’s not the eighteen hundreds, Casanova. I can drive a car after dark. And believe it or not, women can vote, too.” Cain silently chuckled into my hair. “Thank you,” I said, taking my drink from Kyle.

Cain took his with a polite nod before leaning into my ear again. “I don’t care if I sound like an antiquated old fart. I’m a man who takes care of those I love, Violet, and I honestly have no desire to drink alcohol.”

With Cain’s staunch presence and easiness around strangers, the night went mostly smoothly. Whenever conversation fell into a lull, or more often than not, into an argument between siblings—both older and younger—Cain was there to quickly redirect it. When we left a little after ten, I was surprised blood hadn’t been shed. Between the lesbian jokes the teenage twins not so subtly directed to a fresh out of the closet gay woman, and Janie’s mortification over Harry’s potty mouth, it was an interesting Thanksgiving, to say the least.

We had my apartment to ourselves. Mya was spending the night with her family even though the look she gave me was one of desperation and pleading as we left. Her family was still adjusting to her recent confession that she was gay. Her parents seemed to be accepting it well enough, and the boys were accepting it in their own warped way. The time spent together would be good for them all, so I didn’t offer her the escape I knew she was searching for.

Later that night, I lay in a contented, post orgasmic bliss, the muted light of my lamp casting a warm glow across my darkened bedroom. I was stretched out, completely naked on top of my tangled sheets. Beside me sat Cain, also naked as the day he was born. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong serenaded each other in the background with “Dream A Little Dream Of Me”. Tossed carelessly on the bed beside Cain was an array of Mya’s paint pens that she usually reserved for her woeful attempts at art. Right now they were being used for a different kind of art. One of my legs was stretched out before Cain, and from my ankle to hip, he had painted the keys of a piano. His fingers stroked the false keys lovingly, probably with a little more devoted attention than he normally would. He sung softly, the words spilling from his lips in perfect harmony. Cain had a beautiful voice, wasted with the vocal silence he preferred in front of a piano or with a guitar in his lap.

“You’d really have a roller derby team with me?” I whispered.

Cain’s lips twitched with amusement. “Baby, I’d have an entire damn league with you.”

I smiled as he resumed singing. “What if we have kids and I slip again?” I wondered out loud. It was a real fear, having grown up in a house where syringes were left lying in the kitchen sink and alcohol filled the fridge and cabinets. The thought of inflicting the same desolation and fear I had grown up with on my own children terrified me.

“I honestly don’t think you would, but if you did, I’d be there to pick you up and dust you off and stick you back in the kitchen where you belong.” I reached up and slapped his arm, hard. Cain laughed and leaned over me, forcing me back on the bed. “I’m here to protect you, Violet, even if it’s from yourself. When we have children, it will be when you are ready, and you won’t slip; I won’t let you.” He kissed my lips, barely a feather touch before resuming his place before the leg piano. “You know, I think if they taught all boys to play piano this way, the world would be full of budding musicians,” he mused.

“You are quite the ideas man,” I said sarcastically.

“I am, aren’t I?” His smile lit up a place inside my heart, the same place that always felt a warm glow whenever Cain was near. He eyed my body with a hunger that made my pulse race. Leaning forward he dipped to one breast and licked around my nipple before slipping the dusty brown peak into his mouth.

“Again?” I whispered breathlessly.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “I don’t want to break you, so I’ll just play for a bit.” He resumed his loving attention to my body, turning me into a panting mess of lustful woman. Finally, he rested his forehead on my stomach, breathing heavily.

“You won’t break me,” I said with a smile.

“No, I won’t.” The seriousness in his eyes forced my own smile away. “I won’t break you, I won’t bend you, I won’t even bruise you, Violet, and that’s a promise. I’ll spend my entire life putting you on the pedestal you belong on.”

I ran a finger down his cheek. “Where’s that coming from?” I asked him. The mood had been light, teasing, and suddenly he appeared heavy with emotion.

“I just need you to know that I would never hurt you, and I won’t allow you to hurt yourself anymore. You are in my hands now, baby, and I’m going to handle you like spun fucking glass.”

“I banged myself up pretty good in the past, and I came out the other end mostly intact. I’m stronger than I look, you know.” I loved his devotion to keeping me safe, but I had defeated my demons on my own this time. I wasn’t a wilting flower in need of a man to coddle me.

“You are the strongest person I know, Violet. I’ve seen you at your lowest, I’ve seen your tears, and I’ve seen your hate for yourself. And you beat it, but I’ll be strong for you on the days you can’t be.” Taking my hand, he placed a kiss on my fingertips. Tears gathered in my eyes before one rolled carelessly down my cheek. Cain reached forward and wiped it away, and without a word he took hold of a red Sharpie and nudged my legs apart to lie between them.

“If you think for one moment I am going to let you draw anywhere near that region of my body…” My voice was rough with emotion.

“Shhh, I’m saving that region for a midnight snack. Be quiet for a moment.” He began writing on my stomach, most of the words too small under the dim light for me to make out. ‘In your smile I saw pain’…‘shade of Violet’… poetry perhaps? I sighed and laid my head back while Cain stopped and pondered something before he started again. If I wasn’t so tired, physically and emotionally, the pen on my skin might have kept me awake. All worry of how easily it would rub off in the morning disintegrated into carefree background noise. While Cain amused himself with his body art, I drifted to sleep.