Page 20 of Injustice and Absolution

Like a fucking teenager getting his first glimpse at sex.

But I’m not a teenager. I’m a grown ass motherfucker who can control his urges better than this. Who can treat women the way they deserve to be treated.

Releasing her lips, I grip her forearms and pull her hold from around my neck. As surprise mixes with hurt in her eyes, I gently push her back to the other side of the threshold.

“Stop,” I insist. “This... This is a mistake.”

I meant it as a lie to get her to leave before I lose it, but as I say the words, I know them to be true.

Embarrassment shadows her gorgeous face, and I want more than anything to reassure her that she’s not alone. That she’s not the only one suffering this unyielding need.

But I can’t.

She deserves a normal life after what she’s had to endure. And normal isn’t fucking your best friend’s father. She deserves better than that.

She deserves someone much better than me.

“Go,” I command before closing the door on her pain and locking it again.

After all that... The taste of her, the feel of her hands on my body... It was the sight of her filled with hurt that finally tore the pain from my cock.

And forced it into my chest.

I lay down on my bed once again, my dick now flaccid with the knowledge that I’m even more of a son-of-a-bitch than I originally knew.

These feelings for Delilah must come to an end.

Now.

Before they cause even more damage than they already have.

CHAPTER EIGHT

DELILAH

Present Day | Age: 20

It’s hard to believe that the massacre that occurred on this battlefield so many years ago hasn’t tainted its beauty.

Perhaps if the outcome of the battle of Gettysburg was different, if the wrong side won and it didn’t serve as the turning point of the Civil War, this place wouldn’t hold as much peace for me as it does.

It’s why I choose to come here when I need to escape. When I require silence from day-to-day life that sometimes feels like it’s too much to bear.

Like today.

It was an ordinary day for most. The showroom at the quarry was a flurry of customers, each with varying stone needs. Home improvement projects, landscape design… Someone even came in asking if we make custom tombstones. In the two years I’ve worked here, that’s the first time I’ve heard that specific inquiry.

Draven and Chubbs manned the sales floor while the rest of the guys were running around the quarry fulfilling orders.

When Draven called the quarry office to request additional assistance, I was the only one around. So I joined them in the sales room. I didn’t want to, but there’s no way I was going to tell them no.

That’s not a word I’m used to saying … still.

I spent today trying to keep myself from a panic attack that hummed loudly just under the surface, threatening to suffocate me. There were too many new people. Even being outside felt almost too confining to bear.

I don’t handle being around unfamiliar faces very well. It took me the entire first year I lived here to warm up to the members of the club. Before that, I’d hide in solitude in my room or in Maggie’s with her until she left to go somewhere. Then I’d follow her around until I felt like a needy, life-sucking pest and return to my room again.

Taking a deep breath of the cool night air, I lay back on the surface of the boulders at Devil’s Den and let myself get lost in the sea of stars a million miles above me. So vivid, their brilliance isn’t hindered even in the bright glow of tonight’s full moon.

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