Worthy of Redemption (19 page)

“You sonofabitch!” she yelled. “Someday the universe is going to repay you for all of the pain and trouble you have caused! And
you
!” she pointed to my mother, even as I carried her struggling body away. “When this blows up in your face again, you better hope that I don’t convince your son to leave you to rot!”

“Take your little, low class, punk whore and get out,” Walter snarled.

I released Lily so quickly, she fell on her ass. Before she could get up, I was already throwing my first punch, making Walter eat my fist. My mother screamed for me to stop as I threw two more punches. The second punch opened his bottom lip and blood started streaming from it. Walter wasn’t a pussy, he wasn’t going to just sit there and take a beating. He threw a punch that connected with my jaw, but that didn’t slow me down. I punched him twice more before he lunged at me and threw me against a couple of stools. The stools crashed to the floor as my back rammed into the island. He tried to throw another punch, but I blocked it and then planted my fist right between his eyes. He fell to the ground hard. His head bounced off of the floor, but I had only knocked him down, not out.

My mother shoved me, slapped me in the face and shoved me again. “I hate you! You r
uin everything!” she screamed before racing over to Walter.

“Time to go,” Lily said, pulling me away from the scene on the floor. “Come on, baby, let’s go.”

I allowed her to pull me out of the kitchen, through the house and out the door. Once we were outside, she reached into my jacket pocket for the keys and unlocked the car. She opened the passenger’s side door.

“Get in,” she commanded.

Without argument, I got into the car. She quickly buckled me in before closing the door and rushing around to get in behind the wheel. She turned the car on, buckled her seatbelt and took off like a bat out of hell down the driveway.

We didn’t speak for the ride home, nor did we speak when we first got into the penthouse. Lily held my hand and I allowed her to lead me upstairs into my bedroom and into the bathroom. She kicked off her sneakers and quickly stripped out of her clothes before stepping into the large stall to turn the shower on. Once she had that going, she returned and started to strip me out of my clothes. I helped her by kicking off my sneakers, but I let her do most of the work and then pull me into the shower.

Under the water, Lily wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my chest. I held her close and rested my cheek on the top of her head. We stood there silently like that for a long time, but we weren’t close enough. I tilted her head back and looked into her sad eyes, reflecting what she saw in my own eyes no doubt. I brought my mouth to hers and kissed her tenderly at first, slowly stroking her tongue and lips with my own. The kiss soon turned feral as I pushed Lily up against the wall and took total possession of her mouth. I kept my tongue tied with hers as I put my hands under her ass and lifted. She locked her hands around my neck and wrapped her legs around my waist. I grunted and she cried out into my mouth as I drove my cock inside of her with one hard thrust.

Reluctantly, I stopped kissing her so I could look into her eyes as I thrust i
nside of her again.

“Don’t hold back,” Lily whispered, before softly kissing my lips. “Give me your pain.”

I looked at her with doubt as I moved slowly inside of her.

“Give me your pain,” she whispered again, before squeezing her legs tighter around me.

I stopped thinking about the consequences and slammed into her as hard as I possibly could. She cried out and her face pinched, but she panted “Don’t stop. Don’t hold back.”

I lost my fucking mind as I pounded into her harder than I could remember ever pounding into anyone. My anger. My frustration. My pain. I gave it all to her as I literally nailed her against the shower wall. I slammed into her so hard, that it hurt my pelvic bone every time it hit her body. Years of turmoil went into every thrust. Everything I had ever suffered or lost went into every thrust. I realized I was probably hurting her, but she again begged me not to stop. Even with the water spraying on us, I could see the tears filling and then spilling out of her eyes.

My climax hit me suddenly. Without warning, I was growling and groaning as my seed spilled into Lily’s womb. She clung to me, sobbing into my shoulder as her own orgasm coursed through her body. When I had given her every drop, I didn’t release her. I let my emotions flow through my body into hers. I held her as she did the one thing I wouldn’t allow myself to do. I held her tightly and let her cry for me.

~~~

“Who is Miranda?” Lily asked later in bed.

My head rested on her belly as I held her and her fingers leisurely ran through my hair.

“My sister.”

“I thought so. When I was unpacking some of your things last month, I came across some pictures. She’s pretty.”

“Yes, she’s very pretty,” I agreed.

“Where is she? What happened to her?”

I hesitated before answering. I never had to answer to anyone about Miranda. Jess knew I had a sister, but she didn’t really care enough to discuss her. Em knew I had a sister, but sensing the sensitivity of the topic, she veered away from discussing her and I didn’t have the desire to talk about her either. Lily was different. She knew it was a sensitive topic, but she wanted to know me inside and out, even if it meant that she had to experience some of the madness that was my life and make me talk about something that hurt to talk about.

“Miranda is ten years older than me,” I started. “By the time I was born, she had enough sense to not only go to boarding school, but to stay there through the summers and most hol
idays. She only came home two or three times a year, and never for very long.

“When I was eight and she was eighteen, she finished school and decided to come home for a while before venturing out on her own. There were some legal things she had to handle – like getting her college fund switched primarily into her name so she could pay her tuition, and take care of any paperwork she needed for her trust fund. She didn’t spend much time with our parents, but she hung out with Walt and I at the pool, played games with us, drove us to amusement parks and a
rcades, and the beach.”

I paused at the memory of Miranda’s smiling face in the sunshine at the beach. She really was pretty with her long dark hair and sparkling
brown eyes, so much like our mother’s, and she was fun, and kind despite who her parents were.

“That was the best summer of my life,” I murmured. “After all of her affairs were settled, she still stayed for some time. I think she was just trying to make sure that my brother and I were going to be okay. One day, all hell broke loose. I don’t remember what sparked it, but she started fighting with Walter. I had seen my mom beat her before when she was little – my mom beat all of us when her em
otions were out of control. But I never saw Walter hit Miranda, not until that day. He not only hit her, he
beat
her.”

I heard Lily’s sharp intake of breath and her fingers stilled in my hair.

“I followed Randi to her room and watched her pack up the few things she had brought with her from school. I begged her to take me with her, but she said she was just a kid herself and she couldn’t take care of me. She made me promise to take care of my mother, gave me the biggest hug I’ve ever had in my life and then she left. I never saw her again. She called me after my brother died, and sent letters and postcards from time to time, but by the time I was eighteen, it ended.”

“Baby I’m sorry,” she said and rubbed my back. “But I can’t believe that you didn’t stalk her once you learned how to. You’ve stalked less important pe
ople.”

I managed a small smile. “You’re not less important, and yes, I did ‘stalk’ her, but this was a different situation. I didn’t want to be rejected by her. I don’t think I would have handled it well.
You can understand that, because of your father.”

She
nodded solemnly. “I can understand that. What did you find out?”

“She’s an obstetrician. She shares a practice with two other doctors. She lives in North Carolina with her husband Chad, a decorated police officer, and her three children, two boys and one girl. The oldest is almost thirteen now, and the twins are ten.”

“Are you still afraid of being rejected?” she asked quietly.

I was silent for a moment as I considered it. When Emmy rejected me, it hurt pretty damn badly. I don’t know how I managed to push myself to go to work and function, because I felt like I was unhinged. How the hell I managed to fall in love with Lily while I was still reeling from Emmy, I don’t know, but the pain was still there, under everything. I wasn’t sure if I’d e
ver get over Emmy. With that said, if Miranda were to reject me, it would hurt ten times worse than it did with Emmy. I was sure it would alter me significantly, and not for the best.

“Yes,” I finally said to Lily.

She remained quiet, but her breathing changed. Her breaths were faster now, as if she was climbing towards panic. I sat up to look at her, but the moment I released her, she jumped off of the bed.

“I have to pee,” she said and dashed into the bathroom.

I looked at the bathroom door for a moment before getting up. I stood outside of the door for a few seconds, listening to her cry softly. I pushed open the door and found her sitting on the edge of the tub with a towel up to her face as she cried.

“Hey, look,” I said, kneeling in front of her. I pulled her hands away from her face. “I’m not crying for myself. You don’t need to cry for me either.”

“I’m not usually a crier,” she sobbed. “But…I’ve been so fucking lucky in my life and I’ve taken it all for granted. I didn’t have the money that you had growing up, and I used to think that money would have made things better for us, but it didn’t make it any better for you or your brother and sister. My mother spanked my ass when I was little, slapped me in the face once when I came home drunk, but I was never
abused
. I never lost a sibling in death, and even the shit with my dad and Nina doesn’t seem as bad as all of the shit you went through with that jackass faux father,” she spit out the last part as if it burned her tongue.

“And my sister…” she sobbed harder. “She screwed me over, it’s true, but she never r
ejected me. I rejected her, and I have been rejecting her despite the hard time she’s already having. I’m such a douche puddle! If she feels even half as badly as you must feel, maybe someone should kick
my
ass. Oh, my god, I just made this about me,” she said, holding on to my hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I’m really crying for you, Kyle, because despite everything, I still have what you’ve never had, and it just makes me so damn sad.”

I sat down on the floor with my back against the tub and pulled her down i
nto my lap. I used the towel to wipe her face.

“Don’t cry for me, Lily,” I said and kissed her forehead. “You have to stop crying or I won’t snuggle with you.”

A laugh escaped through her tears. “I thought you don’t snuggle,” she said.

“You are repeatedly making me love the things I don’t want to,” I said as I grinned down at her. “I didn’t want to love your tattoos and piercings and style. I didn’t want to love your skills at work. I didn’t want to love the way you drive me fucking crazy with that obnoxious mouth of yours. I didn’t want to love
you
and I do. Now I love snuggling, but if you repeat that to anyone, you’ll never get snuggles again.”

She laughed again, even though her body still shook with her crying. “Okay. I won’t r
epeat it.”

We sat there silently until Lily was able to stop crying. Her body still shu
ddered from the sobbing, but the tears had ended.

“What are you going to do when Walter screws your mom over again?”

I sighed. I know she wanted me to say that I would write her off, but I couldn’t do that. “I will help her pick herself up again, hopefully avoid any suicide attempts, and help her carry on until the next time.”

“She was so mean to you,” Lily frowned.

“It’s the bipolar talking,” I sighed. “When she’s on her meds and the meds are working well for her, she is a different person.”

“Will she apologize to you for all of the things she said?”

“Not directly. She’ll take me out to lunch or dinner and we will talk about everything else except for what happened. That will be her apology.”

“That’s not an apology. That’s
a lack of admission of guilt.”

“It is the only way she knows how to say sorry,” I said. “I’ll take what I can get. Now,” I said, patting her leg. “Let’s put the events of the day and the past b
ehind us. Let’s go get some dinner. My appetite is back. Are you hungry, my little bully?”

She looked up at me with mischief in her eyes. “I’m hungry,” she said with a funny smile. She crawled out of my lap and onto her knees. “Pull your pants down and sit down on the tub,” she commanded.

“Whoa,” I said, holding up my hands. “I’m a virtuous person. I will not be taken advantage of by some…some…”

“Low class, punk whore?” she asked, with her eyebrows raised.