Page 59 of The Caretaker
Through the increasing rapture taking over me, and the mind-blowing and near-violent fucking, his love smothered me as he promised it would. Still, I managed to make a vow of my own. “I promise to always find you when you get lost. I…” I paused to let loose a moan. “I promise to fall for you hard and fast every day, and I promise to appreciate all the big things, because nothing you say or do willeverbe small.”
Noon chiseled away at me, punctuating each promise with a hard drive of his hips. I wanted to come up with more, if only to see how much harder and faster he could go. To see if he could fuck me until we merged and became one.
We were at the end of a road paved in pain, the kind that came from not being loved properly, because with proper love and respect, all of life’s other pains could be faced down and survived.
“Now comes the hard part, beautiful,” he whispered before pulling out and forcing me onto my stomach. Noon sealed my legs together, the pillow beneath me keeping my ass propped in the air.
I scrambled to my elbows as he straddled me, straightening his legs until they bracketed mine, keeping them closed. His cock nudged at the tight crease of my ass. “Noon,” I gasped. This would be more than I could handle.
Fisting my hair, he pulled my head up and to the side so I could see him. “You can take me,” he said. “Relax your muscles and take me, beautiful.” Noon encouraged me as he went, inch by inch and sweet word by sweet word, he surged through my snug opening. My cock strained between my abs and the pillow. One wrong move and I’d blow.
Noon still held me by my hair, his face close to mine as he held himself up on a flattened palm. Strangled breaths were the only sounds to leave our parted mouths as his cock dove deeper and deeper into my channel…and then I had all of him.
Cursing, Noon kissed me as he began a bloodthirsty pace. The kiss was awkward, with one half of our mouths being neglected due to our position, and sometimes we missed the mark altogether because of his height. We were mostly reaching tongues, animalistic grunts, and clashing breaths. We didn’t care.
The couch scraped across the floor until it banged into the iron end table. The scattered pillows cushioned the porcelain lamp’s fall. Noon let go of my hair, sending me crashing chest-first onto the couch before he released all two-hundred-plus pounds of muscle on top of me.
With me now completely pinned, and his cock plundering and conquering my hole, all I could do was pray I didn’t splinter under the force of his brutal thrusts. The pleasure was almost too much for me to withstand, as it should’ve been.
He’d asked me to take him. To accept all of him. So I did, and I always would.
Noon
Now
SOLACE REACHED FORme from his spot in the middle of the bed. He resembled a porcelain doll, and the pain etching cracks along the corners of his eyes made him appear as fragile as one too.
“No,”I mouthed, yanking my arm away as I stumbled from the bed. I’d sat immobile as he walked me through what he and I meant to each other; and while he’d explained what my wife had done to me. What she… Whattheyhad done tous.The two people who had promised to love us unconditionally, till death do us part. “Sh-she wouldn’t do that to me.”
“I know you want to believe that, Noon, but you don’t remember the facts,” he said in a gentle tone, but the truth of it still stung.
“And yet I’m supposed to believeyou,” I shot back with disbelief in my voice, even while knowing I could. I withdrew further from him until my back met the wall. I’d prepared for this. I’d braced myself for it the whole ride back from Pauly’s. Yet having a strong suspicion that my child—that mywife’sunborn child—wasn’t mine, and receiving confirmation were two different things. I’d fooled myself into thinking I was ready for this level of pain.
And the rest of it? This wasn’t some one-night stand or a fling that led to an accidental pregnancy. Our spouses hadbeen engaged in a prolonged affair with one another. Had been planning a life together and were prepared to step over our broken bodies without looking back.
The real strike to the chest came when Solace announced how little they’d thought about our feelings after the truth had come out. They’d dropped a bomb on our lives and then immediately rode off into the sunset together.Cowards.
Maybe Solace was the liar. Maybe he’d fed me nothing but lies all this time. Stacey wouldn’t have done that to me. She couldn’t have. Yet in my heart-of-hearts, I knew she had. I was angry and confused and hurt, and so clinging to denial seemed like the best solution. My grasp on it was slipping, though. It hadn’t been a solid hold to begin with. Not when faced with the beautiful man in front of me.
“Yes, you’re supposed to believe me,” he said, voice brittle, “because you know me. The mind may not remember, but the heartneverforgets. Your heart knows me, Noon. I’m its only source of solace in this world. Listen to it.”
I couldn’t move if I wanted to, because the love emanating from his blue gaze nailed me to the wall, even as it tugged my heart forward. It was that same tug I’d been experiencing for months now. That feeling of knowing, even while my mind kept me in the dark. I’d mistakenly attributed it to Stacey. The pull hadn’t been toward her, though. I’d been drawn to Solace. That feeble tether to denial snapped, but there was still so much rage and pain in the way. Still so many unanswered questions. It was time to ask them.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, fisting his hands in the sheet swathing his hips. “So much.”
“Then why was I the one who had to find you?” I bit out. “Why have I been living my worst nightmare for months while you’ve been enjoying life on your own?” It wasn’t true, and it was far from fair. I’d felt his despair since the day I arrived in HaleyCove, but I needed an emotional punching bag and he was the only thing there. Solace nodded, as if he knew my reasoning and was willing to take whatever I tossed his way.
“I thought you’d taken her back,” he admitted, his eyes a chasm of regret.
“What? Why?”
“We were so happy here,” he said. “Too happy. We were making plans fast, and sometimes I asked myself if that was because we somehow knew we were on borrowed time.” He dipped his head, and it took everything not to lunge for him, not to plead with him to never take those gorgeous baby-blues off of me again. They were the only thing keeping me glued to reality because everything they conveyed felt real. Felt like the only real thing in all of this. I was willing to admit that to myself now.
“Please look at me,” I whispered.
“They’d reached out to us,” he went on, holding my stare. “They were coming back and wanted to meet. To…talk.”
The way he hesitated made me assume there was more to their request than that.
