Ella Frank - Veiled Innocence

Her eyes found mine as she bent her legs so her feet were flat on the wooden surface and then she parted them. She placed her hands behind her head and let a sigh slip free, and that was all I could take.

Temptation be damned. I’d given in long ago. She was now my very own personal sin.

I crawled up over her and she speared her fingers through my hair, pulling on it as her legs wrapped around me. There was nothing shy about her, and I knew it was on purpose when she rose up and bit my lip hard enough to draw blood.

“There, now you have a reason.”

Grabbing her head, my fingers tightened in her hair.

“A reason to what?”

The cunning smile that twisted her lips made me more than aware of exactly which part of the good and evil we were now dealing with.

She placed her mouth by my ear and whispered, “A reason to make me scream.”

What? How did she...?

“You said you wanted to. Now you have a reason. So fuck me, and make me scream.”

I was losing my fucking mind.

I didn’t even remember saying that out loud, and as she began to laugh, I felt my sanity snap and shoved my hips forward—entering her with one hard thrust.

“Stop it,” I demanded as I hovered over her, my breathing harsh.

Her eyes met mine and she taunted, “Make me.”

My mouth crashed down on hers, and I knew I had to be hurting her lip because mine was now throbbing as hard as my cock. It felt like the room was spinning as I began to move inside her. Her hands slid down my back as her fingers dug into my skin, and I was convinced she was drawing blood with every rake of her nails.

Was this what it was like to fall?

Fall from grace? Fall victim? Or fall in love with Addison?

I wasn’t sure, but as I continued to move in and out, violating her and every ideal I held true, I knew something was happening to me.

Placing a palm beside her head, I pushed up and looked down at the cause of my life’s upheaval. As she rolled her hips, she cupped her breasts, and I knew I wasn’t the one doing the corrupting.

I pushed on her cheek, turning her face away so I no longer had to bear witness to my weakness. I found myself studying the long line of her neck, and for the first time—I felt the urge to really hurt her. To snap her in half.

Addison had come into my life and was single-handedly ruining it. Wasn’t she?

I looked over her bruised face and swollen lip, and suddenly, all of the anger I was feeling drained away, and in its place came exactly what my father had predicted—love.

What the fuck was I doing?

As she turned her face back to me, I moved to cradle her cheek.

“Why would I ever want to destroy what’s keeping me alive?” I asked as my mouth found hers and our bodies began to move as one.

* * *

My heart was pounding so hard I was certain Grayson could feel it as his body pressed against my own. With my legs wrapped tightly around him and my fingers clawing his back, I made him as much my prisoner as I was his.

Grayson’s muscles flexed with every thrust of his hips, and each time he drove into me, I felt as though he was branding my body. His hands found their way into my hair, and as his mouth tasted mine, I reveled in the way he was losing himself.

For a brief moment, I’d witnessed the anger he’d kept at bay. Even though I knew he’d never hurt me, the second he’d pushed my face away, my heart had fluttered with fear.

Intoxicating or disturbing?

I couldn’t decide. But not once did I question what would happen.

If anything, I almost welcomed the peace I would gain from this man’s hand.

“What’s happening to me?” His ragged voice broke through my thoughts and then he buried his face into my neck.

I stroked my hand over the back of his hair when he started to fall apart, and I could have sworn I felt tears on my shoulder. His hips picked up the pace, and as I held onto him, I let him slake his lust, need, and desire inside of me.

He pounded out a punishing rhythm and when I felt his body tense above me, my own responded—as did my heart.

Right there on his dining room table, I shattered around the man who had given to me his very being.

Present…

Today’s session was draining.

Reliving memories from the past is not something I enjoy. It’s actually the one thing I’ll do anything to avoid under normal circumstances—but nothing about this situation can be called normal.

Sitting on my temporary bed, I pull the black-and-white photo from the wall and study Psyche.

Maybe it would have been easier to be taken by the monster in the long run.

Closing my eyes, I bring the picture to my chest and lie down, thinking of the man who’d given this to me. It’s the first time I have given myself permission to remember. Every other memory has been a rude flash of what everyone is calling wrong.

But what we had wasn’t wrong. Was it?

They are so busy trying to fix the problem, to calm the turbulent waters that we stirred—but what they don’t realize is he was the calming force, and without him, the waters will always be rough.

How do I move on and accept that he is—no longer?

They want me to close the book and be done with this chapter in my life, and while I agree I need to forget…it is to protect, not to banish.

The hurt, it never goes away. I can tuck it into a part of myself, the part where Daniel hides and hope I don’t ever lose it. But if I stay here, if I stay broken, I will eventually forget him. They will make me.

Sitting up in my bed, I reach for the nightstand beside me and touch the pen. Then I glance at the watch around my wrist.

Maybe? Just maybe…

I unfasten the timepiece and lay it on the stand before picking up the pen and tucking it into my nightgown pocket.

No counting, no ticking, no anxiety.

God. What I wouldn’t give for a minute, just one more minute, with him.

He was always the one who grounded me, who made everything seem…right. How can it ever be again?

What gave him the right to escape this life and leave me behind?

Doc is trying to tell me something, and I’m trying to understand. He’s prompting me to remember the good. He’s encouraging acceptance of what we did.

But why?

Yes, there were moments of madness, but what is love without some madness?

It wasn’t wrong.

No—it was just misunderstood.

* * *

Past…

“What are you thinking about?” I asked as I studied the man lying beside me.

Grayson and I had moved from the dining room to his bedroom and were now stretched out on his stark white sheets. He had the arm closest to me bent back and angled behind his head and the other was resting so his palm was over his chest.

He shifted his head on the pillow, and instead of answering me, he asked, “What are we doing here?”

I sat up beside him, bringing the sheet with me and holding it over my chest. I didn’t have an answer for him, not the one he wanted.

He seemed so unlike himself. Not only in appearance, but emotionally as well.

“I just don’t know where you think this can go,” he stated, seemingly surprised at his own words.

He was ending things. The tone of his voice felt final.

When he turned away, I heard myself ask softly, “Do you want me to leave?”

“I should.”

His answer wasn’t a yes, but it certainly wasn’t a no. I knew he was conflicted, and at that moment, I would have done anything to ease him. I’d never known this need to reach out and unburden another. But how could I help him when he seemed so tormented?

Clutching the sheet to my chest, I stood and looked back to where he’d reached out an arm across the empty mattress.

“I don’t know what you want, Grayson.”

With a humorless laugh, he placed his other arm over his eyes. “Yes, you do. But you should walk through that door, put your clothes back on, and get the hell out of here. You should have done that the first time.”

“Why would I do that when everything I’ve done has been to get closer to you?”

Dropping the sheet and proving my willingness to be there, I walked over to the large photo of Cupid and his love, and then I glanced back at Grayson.

Was he my love? Would I do anything to follow him like Psyche had?

“We both know that I never do what I should.”

Grayson’s eyes found me where I’d stopped and then he placed both of hands behind his head. “That’s true. You don’t, do you?”

He wasn’t giving away anything, only offering up what he needed to in order to act civil. Deciding it was up to me to keep him engaged, I pointed to the black-and-white image hanging on the wall.

“You really love this one, don’t you?”

Nodding, he looked to the three on the opposite side of the room. “I like those too. But something about Psyche calls to me. Do you like it?”

“Yes,” I replied wholeheartedly. “You’re really good. Those are amazing, but this one…”

“Yes?”

I faced the photo once again. “It’s the way he’s looking at her, as if—”

“—there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to save her?” Grayson ended my thought.

“Yes. She’s hanging onto him as if her life depends on it.”

“It did. She just didn’t know it…”

The final word trailed off to a whisper and had me returning naked and unashamed to the end of his bed. “Maybe that’s why she’s hanging on so tight, because she knows more than he thinks?”

“Maybe she needs to learn to let go,” he suggested unflinchingly.

I wasn’t going to make this easy for him. If he wanted to end this, he would have to be the one to do it. He’d have to say the words.

“So where’s your camera, or are you just a lucky shot with a phone?”

“No, no phone. Old-school, Addison. It’s in the cabinet behind my desk.”

I walked around to the wooden cabinet, opened the doors, and saw the Nikon camera sitting there with a zoom lens beside it. Feeling a grin tug the corners of my mouth, I picked it up and looped the strap over my head so the camera was sitting between my breasts, then turned to face him.

Walking over to his side of the bed, I trailed my fingers along the sheets and watched as he brought one of his hands down from behind his head. I put my knee on the mattress and when it dipped, I shifted my other leg up and over his waist until I was straddled above him.

“How old are you, again?”

As his eyebrow winged up, I wondered if maybe I should have broached that question differently.

“Thirty-two, why?”

“Who doesn’t have a digital camera?”

Grayson rolled his eyes and shook his head against the pillow. “I do own a digital camera. I just own a film camera too.”

Kneeling up, I brought the Nikon in front of my face until I was looking through the viewfinder at him.

“Don’t,” he said in a voice that was soft but adamant. His troubled expression reminded me that I was not the calming force in his life.

I was the exact opposite.

Moving the bulky camera aside, I asked, “Don’t..?”

“Don’t look too close.”

Lowering the Nikon, I touched the stubble on his jaw. “What are you afraid I’ll see?”

Without touching any part of my naked body, he still managed to slay me.

“Everything I’ve become.”

* * *

Present…

“So, Addy, what are we going to talk about today?”

I raise my brows and point to myself. “I get to choose?”

“Sure. I’ve asked a lot of questions the past few days.”

“So have I,” I remind him.

“How are your studies coming along?”

I shrug. “They’re coming.”

“So you think you’ll be ready for the test?”

The minute I’d been dropped off here at Pine Groves like an unwanted thing, I swore I’d never let anyone dispose of me again. Plus, even though it feels like a lifetime ago now, I’d once made a promise to graduate. This was the closest I could come to fulfilling that promise.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“I never asked, what made you want to complete your GED here? Why not just go back to school? They would have allowed it.”