Page 44 of Wicked Lies Grow Wildflowers

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

MAEREN

My mind is fuzzy with so much grief and yet the only thing I want to do right now is melt into Xander.

I can worry about the rest later. He breaks our kiss to prop me up on the table, throwing dishes onto the floor and out of my way before gently laying me down.

My heartbeat picks up as I anticipate his actions.

He climbs over me and licks across the cut on my neck, moaning as he does so. “You taste so fucking good,” he groans.

His hands rove along the bottom hem of my stained and ruined sweater before slowly crawling up to touch my breasts. He pulls me up to sit and removes my sweater and bra before reaching for the pie. “What are you doing?” I ask, eying his every movement, unsure of where this is going.

“I was late to the celebration, but I can still have dessert.” His eyes hold a wicked gleam and I’m not prepared for it when his scoops up some of the pie and spreads it on my nipples.

He sticks his fingers in my mouth, making me suck the filling off of them.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned on in my life.

I think this is the pinnacle, and how fucked up does this all make me?

I don’t have time to ponder it much before he takes a can of whipped cream and trails it from my sternum all the way down to the waistband of my jeans.

“Xander, what?—?”

“Shhh…” he cuts me off, “Just trust me.” I watch him as his blood stained mouth closes around a nipple, lapping all of the pie filling off of my breast, moaning as he does so.

He then works the other one before trailing his tongue down my body, licking up all of the whipped cream.

I could almost orgasm from the sight of that alone. Almost.

When he reaches the end he unbuttons my pants and pulls them down along with my underwear.

He grins up at me, looking as sinful as the devil when he says, “Now for the best part.” He spreads my thighs and coats them in bloody handprints before delving in.

A few laps of his tongue later and I fall off the edge, briefly forgetting all of the horrors of tonight.

Xander made a few phone calls after turning me into a buffet and then took me home.

To his home. For the first time, I’m staying the night here.

He buzzes us through the complex’s security and carries me inside to his bathroom.

My mind is still ten steps behind, trying desperately to make sense of everything from tonight.

Trying desperately to keep myself together.

Xander sits me down on the edge of the sink and helps me out of my clothes, dropping the bloody garments in a heap on the floor.

He turns on the water in his large walk-in shower, and when it starts to steam he takes his own clothes off and helps me inside.

I zone out a bit as the water beats down on my skin, running red as it washes all of the blood away.

I stare and stare as it drips down the drain, my eyes unfocused.

Xander wordlessly and with so much tenderness scrubs me head to toe.

I continue to stare at the water, watching as it turns from bright red to clear, all evidence of the night gone from my skin except the shallow cut across my throat, still red and angry.

My mind zeros in on that, on knowing someone hurt me, cut me, someone aside from my mother.

I feel violated—I was violated. I start to panic and I can’t take in enough air.

I back away from Xander and sink to the floor, a sob caught in my throat, my fingers itching to scratch at my arms and I’m too tired to resist the urge, so I tear into myself, ignoring Xander’s muffled pleas begging me to stop, begging me to come back to him.

I’m pulled into his lap and he wrenches my hands away from either of my arms and holds them in a vice as strong as steel.

He rocks us back and forth under the stream of water, muttering my name over and over and over, leaving gentle kisses on the back of my head until I’m lulled to sleep from the beating water and my bone deep exhaustion.

When I wake, I find myself tucked safely beside Xander in his bed. I take in the scent of him, having missed it so much, all the while hating the whispers of it that were left in my own apartment. I turn my head to face him and the arm he has wrapped around me tightens.

“We need to talk,” I tell him. I don’t want to have this conversation, but it needs to happen.

“Yeah. I suppose we do.”

I sit up in the bed, noting that he has me in one of his t-shirts, I smile at that. “No lies,” I tell him. “I mean it.”

“I will never lie to you, Maeren, ask me anything you want. I’ll always tell you the truth.”

I scoff a little at that, but while I’m angry I’m also so fucking tired, my words coming out soft.

“The truth. What exactly is the truth? Why did you just show up at my mom’s house?

How did you know where she lived? Why were you after Simon?

How did you know who he really was? Why the fuck do you have a gun and why are you so okay with killing and then flaying the dead bodies? Who are you, really?”

He chews on his lip for a minute before proceeding, “You know I have my own company, I told you that much and it’s true. I really do work on website building, but I do more than that, too. I do a lot of . . . freelance work, you could say.”

“Freelance work. Right. That’s why you’re just equipped to kill people including serial killers , on a whim.” My words are accusing. Good.

“Yes, freelance work. Under-the-table freelance work. I am contracted out when someone needs a hit taken care of.”

“I’m sorry, are you telling me that you regularly kill people for a living ?

!” I shriek. I don’t know what I assumed when I watched him kill my mother and her psychotic lover in front of me, probably because I was traumatized and in shock, but it wasn’t this.

“You’re an assassin! ?” Unreal. This has to be unreal.

A one off occurrence to save my life is one thing, this is another beast entirely.

“Assassins are motivated by politics. I’m motivated by money and the desire to rid the world of trash, and I work on a much smaller scale.

” I shoot him a look that says why the fuck do the semantics matter?

and he takes that as a cue to get on with it.

“Look, I was always good at computers and I loved fighting. I trained in martial arts and still do, I crave violence. I decided I could put both of those skills together in a way that benefits me and society in general. So, I entered this line of work, and my shop is legitimate, but it also serves as a front, gives me an alibi, keeps people from suspecting anything of me,” he explains.

“You—you kill people for money! ” I whisper-yell in shock, my mouth hanging open.

“Yes. I do, and I won’t feel bad about it.

No one I ever kill is innocent. I only hurt real criminals, people who rape and pimp out women, traffickers, rival gang members and drug dealers who go up against my main client.

The scum of the earth, people who don’t deserve the air they breathe.

I never touch women or children,” he swears, looking me in the eyes as he does so.

“Except for my mother.” The words come out thick and without thought. I swallow.

“Except for your mother, but she was far from innocent, Maeren, and I couldn’t just stand there and watch her try to kill you,” his voice sounds panicked.

“I almost lost you and I couldn’t let that happen.

At that moment I would have killed anyone who tried to hurt you.

And I’d do it again, and again, and again.

No one will ever hurt you, or try to take you from me, ever again or I’ll fucking drag them straight to hell myself.

” I soften at his words and the devotion in them.

He reaches out for me but pulls his hands back, thinking better of it.

“I know. I know. I just––she was my mom, you know? She was never a good one, I’ll say that much, and she made me feel so fucking low, but she was still my mother.

The only family I had left.” I clutch the duvet and swallow.

“She’s hurt me so much, so deeply, in ways I’ll never fully heal from, especially not now, but she was my mom.

I feel so much regret and sorrow over it, but I think I’m a little more relieved than anything else.

Does that make me a bad person? Am I horrible for saying this, for even thinking it?

” My words are dripping with guilt, because while I had every intention of ending things and walking away for good, I never would have wanted this.

Tears are streaming down my face now, my guilt at my warring emotions cutting deep. I’m more ashamed at how I feel over my mother’s death than I am with the fact that I watched Xander murder two people, listened to him admit he kills for a living, and then still decided to stay lying in his bed.

“No Maeren, you’re not horrible for saying that or feeling it at all.

She resented you, and I think in the end she hated you most of all.

You never deserved to be treated like that, you never should have gone through any of it.

You were abused your entire life by her, you have every fucking right to feel relief.

You’re finally free.” He winds his hands in my hair and tilts my face up to meet his eyes, and I let him.

I chew on my lip for a second before admitting, "You're right, I’m finally free.”

But I don’t feel like it, at least not yet.

I’m standing in the kitchen, grabbing another glass of wine when Simon comes up behind me.

He leans against me, pressing me into the countertop with his hips.

“Hello, Maeren,” he whispers into my ear.

My blood runs cold and I lose all train of thought, not understanding what’s going on.

I try to turn around, and as I do so he squeezes my ass. “Stop!” I yell.

“I’ll do whatever the fuck I want to do with you, Maeren.

You’re mine. Don’t you know that? I left you so many little gifts.

Tokens of my love.” His hands find my hips and painfully squeeze them, eliciting a small cry from my lips.

He takes that as a sign to seize me in a kiss, his tongue entering my mouth.

I bite him then, earning a slap across the face as he calls me a bitch. “Stop! Get the fuck off me!” I scream.

My mother runs in then, seeing the two of us, me backed up against the fridge now, his body locked tight against mine. “You stupid fucking bitch!” she seethes.

My mother yells at me—accuses me—as Simon tells her I'm lying. I can’t control the sob that escapes.

My own mother won’t believe that her boyfriend assaulted me.

She says it’s my fault. I’m just a whore.

I’m a whore I’m a whore I’m a whore. They laugh.

Taunting me. Every place on my body that Simon touches turns black with rot.

My teeth fall out, my lips shrivel up, and they keep laughing over and over and over.

I wake up screaming, my body slick with sweat, my legs tangled in the sheets. I feel an arm wrapped against me and I scream. “Get off me! Get the fuck off me!”

“Maeren. Look at me. Maeren it’s me. Look at me. Shhhh. Baby just look at me.” Xander gently shakes me out of the remnants of my nightmare and I throw myself against him, sobbing into his chest.

Shuddering I ask, “Why is this happening to me? Why me?”

“Because they hurt you, baby, they hurt you deeply. And those kinds of wounds take time to heal. They may never go away completely, but with time they shouldn’t haunt your dreams anymore.

And if they persist I’ll find a way to tear every last nightmare from your mind.

” And I know he would. “I love you,” he whispers, kissing my head over and over.

“I love you so fucking much and I’ll help you through it all, whatever it takes. ”

My heart swells at his confession and I’m at a loss for words, so I climb further into his lap and lose myself in him, the terrors held at bay by his confession and the tenderness he shows me.

Xander peels his shirt from my body and worships me, healing every part of my skin that was touched by hands that weren’t his.

His hand winds itself into my hair as he climbs atop me, making love to my mouth with his.

Every caress feels like healing and he alternates between kissing my mouth and pressing his lips to my forehead.

His eyes shine with emotion as he gazes at me, his hand snaking down between my legs and touching the arousal that is only ever there for him.

I reach down and grip his erection, lining it up at my entrance as we lock eyes.

I offer him a deep kiss and he slowly notches himself inside of me, inch by perfect inch.

I arch my back and gasp when he’s fully seated within me, wrapping my legs around his back and my arms around his shoulders.

I’m clinging to him like he’s the only thing keeping me grounded, and he is.

His thrusts are slow and purposeful as he continuously professes his love for me.

I can’t help but cry at the overwhelming amount of emotion I feel for him and I wish I could fuse my bones with his.

He strokes between my legs and it only takes a few movements of his skilled fingers before I see stars.

When I fall over the edge, I whisper, “I love you, too.”