My heart breaks a little after hearing that, because I never wanted him to change, especially if this change has anything to do with me. “It’s so great to see you and to know that you’re doing well; but if you don’t stay away from me, you’re going to get yourself hurt,” I warn him.
“You think I’m doing well? I’m not. I haven’t been doing well for two years! Do you have any idea how much it hurt me to stay away from you?” he asks, eyes narrowed in anger. “How much it hurt to know that you were with him, that you married that asshole after the night we were together?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You got the worst end of this deal,” he says. “I may have been alone, but that has to have been better than being his captive.” Letting go of my wrists, he reaches up to my cheek, his thumb stroking gently over my skin and sending chills down my spine. “You’re beautiful, Ev, always have been. But you look awful. What the hell has he done to you?”
“He’s helped me. He’s helping my mother; he’s paying for what she needs to get by while waiting for a new kidney. We should be getting the call any day now,” I explain. I can’t bring myself to tell him the rest. How do I tell him the truth about what my life has become? About how many pills it takes for me to be able to get through each day? Even right now, while I’m away from Lowell, there’s still a part of me that yearns to go back, to seek the sweet relief only he can give me. He recently started keeping his stash locked up since he knows how much I need them, and he likes making me earn them. I ‘earn’ them through favors, doing whatever he wants me to do, because I can’t resist the escape the pills provide. It’s a vicious cycle, and not one that, combined with my mother’s financial dependence, I will ever be able to break.
That’s why no matter how badly I miss Cedric, I can’t be with him.
“I should go,” I tell him. “We’ve been gone longer than we should’ve been for a simple blood draw.”
“How can you live like this? With him controlling every part of your life? I’ve seen how he treats you. I’ve watched you with him for two years, and soon you won’t need his help anymore.”
“What do you mean you’ve seen how he treats me?” I ask.
“I never forgot about you. I’ve been visiting your mom every month since you left me.”
“But…she never…”
“I made Rita swear not to tell you. I knew he would be pissed if he found out, so I didn’t want you to know either. But I can’t stay away much longer. Soon, I’m going to earn the money your mother needs and take care of you and Rita both, the way you deserve.”
“Cedric–” I start.
“Are you happy with Lowell, Ev? Honestly?” he interrupts.
Lowering my eyes from his, I shake my head no.
“That’s what I thought. Here,” he says when he grabs my hand. While still holding it, his other hand reaches inside his leather cut, pulling something out that he places in the center of my palm. It’s a tiny, white, fan-shaped bay scallop shell. “Here’s another seashell for your bracelet. You still wear the silly thing, so I know you still care about me.”
He’s right. I’ve never been able to take it off. It’s a symbol of our innocence. Even though mine is long gone, it’s still the sweetest, most thoughtful gift anyone’s ever given me. The bracelet doesn’t have any monetary value, but to me it’s priceless. Which is why, when Lowell and I first started dating, I lied and told him my father gave it to me right before he and my mother got divorced. If Lowell had known that Cedric made it for me, he wouldn’t have just told me to stop wearing it. He would’ve destroyed it.
But if I admit to Cedric how much the bracelet means to me, he could do something foolish…like try to sneak and see me again.
“I forget I have it on most of the time,” I lie to him.
“Bullshit,” he says.
“It’s true,” I say as I shove the new shell into the tiny little pocket on my jeans that I never had any use for before, and then run my fingers over the shells that have been my comfort blanket for years. It’s an absent gesture I probably make at least a hundred times a day.
“Then give it back to me.”
“What?” I ask.
“If the bracelet doesn’t mean shit to you, then give it back to me and I’ll throw it in the trash. You’re a twenty-year-old woman wearing a cheap piece of crap made for a ten-year old girl.” He holds out his hand, palm up, and waits.
Parting with the small token feels nearly impossible. Just the thought makes my stomach clench. The ‘silly bracelet’, as he called it, is one of the last good things I still have in my life, other than my mother, who gets sicker by the day while she waits for a new kidney to replace her two failing ones.
But if I refuse, I’m almost certain Cedric will do something stupid.
Still, I can’t part with the sweet token.
“No,” I tell him. “I, um, I have to go. Please don’t try to see me again.”
When I start to leave, Cedric lunges for me, clasping my face between his strong, warm palms and slamming his mouth down over mine. He steals my breath and my sanity, because I move my lips over his as the force of his attack flattens me against the wall. I cling to Cedric’s shoulders, digging my fingernails into the leather fabric as his tongue invades my mouth in such a rough, dirty way that a moan escapes and is drowned out by his brutal kiss.
Cedric doesn’t make a sound as we kiss, but I feel him grow long and hard in the front of his jeans. His steely shaft is so substantial it could probably keep me pinned to the wall all on its own. Cedric’s hands squeeze my hips, and then his thumb moves underneath my shirt, stroking the sensitive skin of my stomach. His teeth nip at my bottom lip before his mouth moves down to my neck.
“I am going to see you again,” he says, his warm breath coating my neck between damp kisses. “Soon.”
“Okay,” I agree, because my entire body has gone limp and compliant after that head-spinning kiss and the feeling of his hard body pressing into mine.
“And I’m going to kiss you again,” he informs me. “The next time you see me will be the last time you ever have to see Lowell again.”
“But…my mom–” I start.
“She’s going to see the best doctors in the state, and I promise I will do whatever it takes to get her a kidney, even if I have to cut out Lowell’s to give it to her.”
There must be something seriously wrong with me. Hearing Cedric threaten violence against the asshole I’m married to is the biggest turn on I’ve ever experienced. I reach around to give the back of Cedric’s hair a tug to bring his lips to mine again, and then my hands are roaming urgently over him. Starting at his shoulders and down to his chest and his flat stomach and around his back…Holy shit! Feeling the gun tucked into the back of his jeans is so much hotter than it should be. The weapon is dangerous, but necessary in the new world I live in. The old Cedric never would’ve touched a gun. But I’m guessing that the new Cedric doesn’t just carry it but knows how to use it. That sort of show of confidence and strength is hot. The urge to tear my clothes off and beg for Cedric to take me right here, right now is strong. So strong.