Jesus Fucking Christ.
What the hell had just happened?
My head was in pieces, but I didn’t regret stopping her. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She would have regretted it, and that would have killed me.
We hadn’t spoken in a week, and I couldn’t…I couldn’t just take her on the fucking floor, like she was some sort of fucking buddy.
‘Make it all go away,’ she’d asked me, begged me. I knew I couldn’t, not with sex, at least.
I wanted to make it go away for her, but, shit, I didn’t want to take advantage of her vulnerability, and I didn’t want to be used.
And for the first time in my life, I found myself questioning the power of the opposite sex.
I’d always been a firm believer that women had it harder than men when it came to pregnancy and parenting; my own mother’s experience being the driving force behind that concept.
Sarah Carter had been alone in the world, a teenage girl, brought up in foster care, duped by a married man, impregnated, then abandoned, to grow, give birth and raise me alone.
As a child, my mother’s drug induced suicide had almost destroyed me. But as I got older I’d learned to accept it, and eventually, understand it.
She’d had me when she was just a kid herself, and I knew exactly what it felt like, to be utterly alone in the world and it fucking hurt like hell. I didn’t blame her for her choices, those were hers alone.
And every foster family I’d lived with throughout my childhood, had not only proved, but reinforced my belief in the concept, that women were infinitely dealt the shittier hand. I’d always believed and respected that.
But for the first time in my life, I understood the other side.
I was living it.
What happened to the men who wanted to be involved? No one ever talked about those guys.
If Lee pushed me out, would my son or daughter grow up feeling the same abandoned hatred towards me that I had towards my father?
I knew I couldn’t live with that, which left me with the ultimate question; if Lee didn’t forgive me could I fight her?
Fight the girl I loved more than life itself, for a child, I wasn’t sure I deserved?
Or walk away from an innocent baby, I’d fathered?
I had two choices and I was ashamed of myself for considering either one.
****
Lee
I ran until my legs grew stiff, and breathing became difficult.
Slowing to a walk, I made my way back to the house.
It was dark when I reached the front door.
Turning my key in the lock, I quietly walked upstairs to my bedroom.
Mortified, didn’t come close to expressing how I was feeling.
Appalled, embarrassed and humiliated weren’t enough of a definition, either.
Shame encompassed me.
Throwing myself on my bed, I screamed into my pillow. It didn’t help, so I did it again.
“I need to talk to you.”
Oh god, why?
I slid my pillow off my face slowly.
Seeing Kyle towering over me, I covered my face once again.
“Come on, get up,” Kyle said, pulling my pillow away from me.
“No,” I moaned, covering my face with my hands. I was too ashamed, to look at him. “I’m sorry, okay. Can we please just not talk about it?”
Kyle snorted. “Oh, because that’s your answer to everything, isn’t it, princess?”
He pulled my hands away from my face, and pulled me to my feet.
“I’m embarrassed, Kyle,” I growled. “I’m not in the fashion of begging men to have sex with me.”
I cringed, hanging my head.
“Okay,” Kyle said, clearly agitated. “First, I’m not just any man, so get that bullshit out of your head.”
He sighed, and paced my modest-sized bedroom. “And second, don’t think for one fucking moment, that I didn’t want you.” He stopped pacing and ran his hand through his hair. “Christ, Lee, I’m still fucking hard thinking about it.”
“I said awful things to you. I slapped you,” I whispered guiltily, addressing the worst thing I’d done.
“And I lied to you, repeatedly, kept you in the dark, and fucked up with Rachel. I think I outweigh you in the prick count.”
“So, what are you saying?” I asked, utterly confused.
“I’m saying, I’ll give you that one, princess.”
Kyle strode towards me.
Grabbing my hand, he pulled me up against his chest. “You only get one, get out of jail card from me, baby.”
He stroked my lip with his thumb. “The next time you ask me to fuck you, I won’t say no.”
I gaped at him, speechless, as he sauntered out of my room.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lee
I pottered around the house, bored out of my mind.
I cleaned my room, vacuumed the downstairs, did two loads of laundry and took a ridiculously long shower in the downstairs bathroom, before trudging back up to my room, depressed.