Darker the Release (12 page)

She kept walking, barely seeing what was in front of her. She was panting so loud it felt like it could be heard through the whole forest.

Eventually she was so far in that she couldn’t see the end of the trail that led back out into the sunlight. It was nothing but trees and shadows and twisted memories and dark secrets hiding behind every trunk. All around her. Surrounding her. Swarming in on her.

She choked on the fear and bent over at the waist, trying to draw in a full breath.

Caleb was pulling her up, pulling her against him.

“I can’t breathe,” she gasped, burying her face in his chest, trying to drown out the knowledge of the woods all around her.

“Yes, you can,” he murmured. “Take a breath right now.”

She did as he said and was surprised to feel air filling her lungs. She let it out in a gust and sucked in another breath. She was shaking helplessly and would have fallen if Caleb hadn’t been holding her up.

Surely he would let her go back now. He wouldn’t want her to suffer like this.

“Let’s go a little farther,” he said. “You’re doing fine.”

“I’m not doing fine. I can’t.” She literally couldn’t make herself move.

“Yes, you can. Walk with me.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and forced her to move with him, her legs barely keeping up with his stride.

Then they were even deeper, and she couldn’t breathe again.

She finally had to stop because her ears were roaring with fear and her feet were so cold she could no longer feel them. “Please don’t make me go any farther,” she gasped, collapsing against his chest.

He felt strong and stable and confident, and she was none of those things. She was a blubbering mess who could barely even stand up.

He kept his arms around her to support her, and he let her hide her face in his shirt for a minute. But then he pulled back and made her stand on her own. “What do you remember?” he asked.

There was something strange about his face, something almost unnatural. She didn’t understand it, but her mind was such a tangle of desperation that she was probably projecting onto him.

She knew what he was asking. He was still trying to help her. Trying to get her to face things she just couldn’t face.

“I can’t,” she gasped, hugging her arms to her belly since he wouldn’t let her cling to him anymore. There were tears streaming down her face, but she had no idea where they’d come from.

“Yes, you can. Tell me what you remember.”

“I was…” She closed her eyes and squeezed herself with her arms. “I was with my dad. I’d run ahead. He was telling me to wait.”

“And you wouldn’t wait?”

“No. I didn’t listen to him. He finally had to yell at me.” She was practically sobbing now, bent over from the weight of the emotion, the memory, the crippling fear.

“Then what?” Caleb’s voice sounded almost merciless, but that would have been a projection too.

“Then I heard…I heard…”

“What?”

“A shot. A loud noise. I didn’t know what it was.”

“What did you do?”

“I waited for a long time. Then I went to find him.” She rubbed her ears and her nose with her sleeve, but there was nothing she could do to stop herself from crying.

“What did you find?”

“He was shot. His head was blown off. He was…” She choked. Literally choked. The force of the air strangled in her windpipe pushed her to the ground, and she kept gagging on her hands and knees in the dirt.

“Take a breath, Kelly. Take a real breath.”

She tried. She really tried. But she couldn’t. She just kept choking. She wanted Caleb to help her, to take her in his arms, to carry her out of the woods. But he didn’t.

He just stood beside her, not making a move to touch her, and he said again, “Do it now, Kelly. Take a full breath.”

Something in the authority of his voice triggered an innate instinct to breathe. Her throat relaxed enough for the next breath she attempted to work. Her lungs filled with air again, and the strangling eased in the aftermath.

She stayed on her hands and knees on the dirt trail, as broken as she’d ever been in her life. But she could breathe again, so she did.

“Tell me what happened to your father,” Caleb said, after giving her a minute to recover.

“He was…he was shot. He was…he was killed.” With one last, desperate effort, she managed to stop herself from blurting out the whole truth, giving away her last hidden secret, the one she could never tell Caleb. She kept herself from saying he was murdered.

“Why was he killed, Kelly?”

She was sobbing helplessly, and she huddled down into the fetal position. If she didn’t get out of here soon, she was genuinely afraid she might die. She managed to remember the story she’d told Caleb before. “Hunting…accident.”

She was too overwhelmed to sense anything from Caleb. He was just an unmoving presence nearby. But he felt strong in a way that contrasted sharply with how she was feeling herself, so she finally lifted her head and looked at him blindly. “Please, Caleb. Help me.”

She heard a strange sound. A guttural sound that must have come from Caleb, although her mind wasn’t working enough to begin to process it.

Then she was being lifted up to her feet.

Her knees buckled immediately and she fell back down.

“Damn it, Kelly,” he muttered. “Damn it all to hell.”

She had no idea what he meant. What anything meant. She just reached out to him because she needed him, and he was right there beside her.

He lifted her to her feet again, and this time he didn’t let her go. He swung her up into his arms, and he started to carry her back down the trail, out of the woods at last.

She buried her face in his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him as tight as she could get. And then, finally, they were breaking out of the trees, back in the sunshine again. She expected him to set her down on the ground, now that they were out of the woods, but he didn’t. He carried her off the trail and down the hill and into a secluded little hollow out of sight where there was a stream and several large rocks.

Only there did he lower her to the ground. He lowered himself too, sitting on the grass where he could lean against one of the rocks. He pulled her toward him, and she came willingly, taking comfort in him, in the sunshine, in the safety of the fresh air and clear sky.

Eventually she stopped crying, but she couldn’t pull away from him. She felt so battered that she couldn’t move. She just lay in the grass with her head in his lap.

He stroked her hair and didn’t say anything.

She had no idea what he was thinking, but she was really glad he was here.

After what felt like a really long time, her trembling had stopped and her tears had all dried. She still couldn’t raise her head, but she said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Caleb.”

“What are you sorry about?” His voice sounded weird and cracked.

She was sorry for everything. Absolutely everything.

“I…” She couldn’t say it, not if she had any hope of making all of this worthwhile. “I tried to be strong enough, but I’m not.”

He didn’t say anything. Just kept stroking her hair.

“Maybe eventually I’ll be able to face it. Thank you.”

“For what?” His voice still sounded strange, but everything seemed strange to her at the moment.

She took a deep breath and managed to sit up at last. “For trying to help me. For caring about me that much.” She leaned toward him, reaching out to pull him into a hug.

He returned it, his arms so tight they were almost painful.

When they finally pulled apart, it didn’t feel like enough, so she pulled his head down into a kiss.

“Thank you,” she murmured over his lips. “I love you, Caleb. I love you.”

He made a hoarse sound and started to pull away.

She didn’t let him. “I love you,” she said. “Please let me show you how much.”

“How?” he breathed, their faces a breath apart, his brown eyes intense and questioning and almost wild. He stroked his knuckles down her hot cheek. “How will you show me?”

She gazed at his face—the strong, well-chiseled features, the powerful jaw, the deep eyes. Before she knew what she was doing, she put one hand on his chest, stroking it down over his gray T-shirt.

She stared at her hand as it caressed lower down his body and she saw that he was looking at her hand too.

Soon it was at his belly. Then at the top button of his jeans.

She paused there intentionally, giving him a chance to stop her if he didn’t want to do this too.

He didn’t stop her.

So she lowered her hand even more and cupped his groin.

He was partly erect already, and it must have happened suddenly, since she knew very well he hadn’t been aroused earlier, when she’d been a broken mess. Her head had been in his lap. She would have known.

His response now must have happened quickly. As quickly as her desire to show him how she felt.

Her pussy clenched as she palmed him, a deep intensity of feeling building up inside her.

When she glanced up again, she saw his gaze was devouring her with an aching intensity that was somehow different from what she was used to seeing from him.

She squeezed his erection gently and saw when he sucked in a quick breath.

“Kel—” He broke off when she squeezed him again, his expression twisting in pained pleasure. Then he continued, “Are you sure? After what just happened, you want to…”

“Yes. I’m sure. Let me show you.”

“Kelly,” he repeated on a taken breath, his eyes falling closed as she massaged him. “Show me.”

“I will.”

He wrapped his arms around her and then kissed her, hard and fast and hungrily.

It felt like they were alone in the world, here by a stream in the middle of nowhere, all of the twisted brokenness that had made them who they were and brought them together lost in the blurred edges of the woods—woods that were too far away to matter anymore.

It was just them. Kelly and Caleb. Clinging to each other, finding a bond, a security that had never existed before they’d come together.

Caleb leaned back against the rock, letting her push him into a stabler position as they kissed deeply, urgently. She straddled him, never breaking their embrace. She rubbed her arousal against the hardness of him—the denim between them another layer of sensation.

Their kiss grew more passionate, and then both of them were fumbling at their jeans, taking hers off completely and unfastening his so they could free his erection.

Still in her panties, Kelly straddled his lap again. She let Caleb pull her up enough so he could kiss a wet trail down her neck to her right breast, taking her nipple in his mouth through her shirt. She moaned and let her head fall back as she felt tugs of sensation tighten between her legs from his suckling.

“Show me,” he murmured against her skin. His hands were stroking down the long line of her back, the tight curve of her bottom, and the muscles of her thighs. “Show me how much you love me.”

She gazed at him, living a lie and the absolute truth at the same time. Then she leaned down into another kiss, surrendering to it completely. To him. Completely.

“Oh, God,” she breathed, pulling back from his mouth just an inch. “I want you to make love to me, Caleb.”

With a guttural sound, Caleb readjusted, flipping them over so quickly she lost her breath. She was abruptly on her back with Caleb poised on top of her, supporting himself on one arm.

“You really want me to?” he rasped.

“Want you to what?” She was breathless and so aroused she felt almost dizzy.

“Make love to you.”

“Yes. I do. Please.” She gasped as he gave a little thrust against her center. “Yes. Please.”

He pulled aside her panties, and she felt his hand nudge between her legs, parting the folds of her flesh and stroking a line along the hot skin.

She gasped. Then gasped again when he sank two fingers into her pussy.

“You’re so wet,” he murmured, raising his head up so he could watch her face. He pumped his fingers. “You really do want me. Even now.”

She felt tight around his fingers, and she rolled her hips against the penetration. “Of course I want you. I’ve never not wanted you. Please, Caleb. Let me show you how much.”

He lowered his face to the crook of her neck, fluttering his tongue against her throbbing pulse. Then he suddenly gave her a hard nip, and the sudden pain caused a jolt of intense pleasure that made her clench around his fingers inside her.

He lowered his mouth to her right breast again, flicking her nipple with his tongue and then sucking on it hard. She writhed beneath him, torn between the sensations from her breast and the sensations from his fingers inside her. Then his mouth moved slightly and he bit down again—this time on the flesh of her breast, just to the side of her nipple.

She cried out again and bucked against his hand, her pussy clamping down in instinctive pleasure around his fingers once more. “Caleb, please.”

His mouth trailed down over her belly and lingered on the curve of her hip. After readjusting his weight so he could use both hands, he spread her thighs apart even farther.

Using his free hand to hold her open, he pumped his fingers a few times, curling them up to push against her G-spot.

Kelly reached out and grasped at the grass. Her mouth fell open in silent cries of pleasure as he worked her over with instinctive skill. She could feel the heat of the sun on her skin and hear the sounds of birds and the moving water of the stream.

When he parted her folds and blew on her clit, she choked out a few sobs, her body starting to shake and shudder.

Then he bit down again, this time on the tender flesh just beside her pussy.

She came, the spasms overtaking her before she knew to expect them. She hadn’t believed it was possible to come without stimulation to her clit. But he hadn’t even touched her there.

And she was coming. Hard.

Before she’d ridden out the waves of pleasure, he pressed his face into her pussy and sucked on her clit. The new stimulation sustained and extended her contractions, causing her pleasure to surge forward anew. She jerked clumsily, spasming around his fingers and against his face. She let out a long, anguished moan.