Page 46 of Confessions of Pain

Chapter 12

Kelsey

I couldn’t believe it. He’d betrayed me. Again. He damned well knew I wouldn’t want him going to see Jax and there he was…seeing Jax. I knew what they were saying, what Jax would reveal to him. I knew it, and I was so damned mad that I couldn’t see straight. My head pounded with fury. As usual, I let my emotions take control of my actions. I’d fought with Titus and maybe even hurt him. Then I’d run away, even when I knew I had nowhere to go.

One of the workers from the plant happened to be driving down the road where I was walking toward town, and he’d picked me up. I was lucky. Even in my fury, I hadn’t wanted to face Ethan or Jeremiah. Titus was a lightweight, like me. Those guys…not so much.

“Just drop me off at my house if you don’t care, Mitch. I need to shower before coming into work.”

“It’s the weekend, Kelsey,” Mitch answered. “No work today. What were you doing way out here anyway? Walking? Barefoot? In the cold?”

Wow. I guess there really wasn’t any way to pretend like everything was perfectly normal. I started laughing and then quickly stopped, alarmed by the foreign sound. Fuck, it had been a long time since I’d laughed. Well, I’d laughed, but nothingreal. It had been so fucking long since I’d actuallyfeltanything, that it honestly felt strange. I liked it.

“Just take me home, Mitch. I’m in a mess.” I turned and looked at him, smiled, and said, “I guess that much is pretty obvious, huh?” I laughed again and decided I liked the sound.

“Yeah, no hiding that…with the hickeys on your neck.”

“Shit.” I flipped the visor down and did a quick look at what was visible. There were red patches on my face where Gabe’s stubble had rubbed my cheeks. There were hickeys, just as Mitch had teased, on both sides of my neck. My hair stood out in every direction, like somebody’s hands had played with it all night long. I looked…well-fucked. It was a look I wasn’t familiar with, but that wasn’t what captured my attention. There was a light in my eyes that hadn’t been there in years. Just like that…

One night of sex—one night of being in Gabe’s arms and the fire was back. Normally, under circumstances as critical as the emotional mess I currently felt, I would have been fantasizing about ending my life, slicing my skin until the pain of the cut made me forget the pain in my heart, or calling Daulton and begging him to whip and fuck me until my body felt nothing else except pure physical and sexual exhaustion. None of those things, however, had crossed my mind when I’d overheard Titus talking to himself, fussing about how stupid Gabriel was for going to talk to Jax without my permission. I’d been furious and it had felt fucking good. I wanted to punch Gabe and Jax. I might even punch Evie, pretending she was still Evan and give her a good solid punch to the jaw. No, I couldn’t do that. I’d have to stick with punching Jax and Gabe.

I smiled and laughed again. “Let’s not tell anybody about this morning, okay?”

Mitch laughed, even louder than me. “Sure, you can trust me, boss.” He turned his head and winked at me. “I’m really sorry, Kelsey, but I can’t sit on gossip like this. It’s just too good. Please don’t fire me.”

He looked so goddamned sincere that I couldn’t stop laughing. I felt amazing. I didn’t even care if Mitch told the entire town. Gabe had told me he loved me. We’d work our way through whatever he’d heard this morning. With Gabe by my side again, I felt like I could conquer the world.This. This was what I’d needed. No, I wasn’t miraculously healed of my depression, but being near Gabriel was a step in the right direction. It wasn’t a band-aid like it always was with Jax or Evie. I carried on through the really hard times because I didn’t want to hurt them. Hurting me? That was normally a habit of mine. But everything felt different now.

He’d said he loved me last night, that he’d forgiven me for what I’d done, but I wasn’t foolish enough to let myself believe all our troubles were behind us. If I’d learned anything over the years, it was that people lied to you. All. The. Time. Hell, I lied to people. I’d lied to Jax when I told him I wasn’t thinking of suicide as an option any longer, because suicide was always an option in my head. I’d lied to Evie when I said Gabriel didn’t possess the power to hurt me any longer. Shit, that had been a really big one. The Mack-Daddy of lies.

Gabriel Maverick. My Gabe.

It had always been him. It always would be him.

He either held me together or I fell apart without him. Yes, I knew that wasn’t healthy, and my therapist had told me that over and over again. Actually, she made sure to mention it every time I visited. She explained how unhealthy my obsession with Gabe was. Words. They were all words. There was no way she could have understood my feelings for the man.

No, everything wasn’t perfect in my world, but for the first time in a long time, I had hope. Even if last night had been nothing but a bed of lies and revenge sex to Gabe, it had been more to me. On top of that, when he’d looked at me last night, I’d caught glimpses of the old Gabe, the one I’d been in love with for years. He was the only man to hold my heart in his hands. This time, hopefully, we’d both be more careful with each other’s hearts.

“I can’t fire you, Mitch. I don’t own the place anymore.” Shit, we were almost to my house. That meant there’d been several minutes of silence while I’d been lost in my daydreaming.

Mitch grinned. “I know. I would have at least lied and pretended I wouldn’t tell if you’d still owned the place.” He pulled into my driveway. “I hope the night was at least worth the morning, boss.”

I grinned back. “It was worth every damned minute of it, Mitch. Every. Damned. Minute.” I opened the door and stepped out, wincing when my bare foot hit the cold ground. I’d been so mad earlier that I hadn’t really noticed. “See ya Monday.”

“Hey! My daughter uses a curling iron and puts fake little burns on her neck to try and hide her hickeys. Maybe you could go in that direction?”

“Ha-ha, Mitch. Very funny.”

After a quick wave, I sprinted for the front door. I was grinning like a fool the entire time. I was alive again.Alive. Yes, I was still kicking their asses, but I was fucking alive.

I stepped inside my small home, shut the door, and froze in horror. Wayne was standing in the hallway, holding Snowball. His hands stroked her slowly and I knew she was either dead or unconscious. The only people she allowed to touch her was me or Evie. Or Gabriel at one time. “What are you doing here, Wayne? Put my cat down. Now.”

“Now, now. Is that any way to talk to your favorite brother?” he asked as he tossed Snowball across the room. She landed with a heavy thud, but at least it was on a pile of blankets.

Her blue eyes blinked at me and a small sense of relief washed over me. Gabe would take care of Snowball and her kittens…if I couldn’t.

“I don’t have a favorite brother, Wayne. I hate you all. Why are you here?” My hand reached behind me, searching for the doorknob, but he pounced on me before I’d barely moved an inch. I fought him, punched him hard enough in the nose that I heard a loud cracking noise and blood spurted in my face. I shoved him away, grabbed the doorknob, and yanked the door open. I knew if I ran, Wayne would follow me. At least my pets would be safe, even if I knew I wouldn’t. I had a good chance, though. Wayne hadn’t run or even walked fast for at least ten years.

Blocking my path, though, was Daulton. I frowned, confused by the strange expression on his face. Daulton was my Dom, the man I’d selected to hurt me when I felt the urge to be hurt. I’d felt the urge often. When Jax had refused to abuse my body the way I craved, I’d found another man who would. Daulton loved hurting me. We didn’t, however, have a scheduled appointment and as far as I knew, Daulton didn’t have a clue where I lived.

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