Callahan
“Callahan – ”
I hear the gasp, but it takes me a long time to come back to the present. For my brain to make sense of who it is. And all that time I have her back to the wall, my forearm at her throat cutting off her air.
She makes a gurgling sound, and her hands fall away from my arm. She was clawing at me.
I look at her. At what I’m doing. I blink. Draw back a little.
Portia.
Not a threat.
Just a Little Kitten who needs my protection.
Something crunches underfoot as I move back, shift my hands to her arms to keep her from dropping. I look down, smell whiskey, see the shattered glass, the liquid already absorbed by the stone.
Portia is coughing, almost doubled over. I return my gaze to her. I was choking her. I didn’t even think. Just attacked. It’s dangerous for her to be around me.
“What are you doing down here?” I ask, my voice hoarse, my mind split between past and present.
My father. Michael.
I want to see them again. I’d give anything to see them again. Even if it’s just for a few minutes. Is that so much to ask?
At least Antonio is alive. He needs me too.
“What are you doing down here?” I demand, angry now, shaking her. What else would I have seen if she hadn’t interrupted?
Her eyes are wet and red when they meet mine.
“I needed to talk to you, and I saw you come down here.”
I shake my head trying to clear the thoughts.
She coughs again.
“I didn’t know it was you,” I start, releasing her. I give her a little more space and run a hand through my hair.
She stares up at me and I wonder what I look like.
“Are you okay?” she asks me.
I look away from her, look into the tunnel.
Her gaze follows mine. “What is this?”
I walk a few steps into the tunnel and pick up one of the flashlights. It goes on instantly, the light it casts down the tunnel strong. I check the date on a couple of the cans of food, the water. All up to date. I wonder if Antonio been keeping the supplies fresh like our father had shown him. Like Michael should have been doing.
“Come here,” I tell her. She comes and it surprises me when I feel her little hand slip into mine.
“It’s cold down here,” she says, shivering, leaning into me a little. Her gaze is wide in the darkness that goes on for miles.
I watch her in that leftover, shadowy light of the flashlight. She shifts her gaze to mine as if she’s oblivious to what she just did.
“What is it?”
“Tunnel. It leads to the mainland. I just remembered it.”
She stops walking. “What do you mean you just remembered it?” she asks, her forehead wrinkling.
I study her face in the dim light. Her whiskey-colored eyes. I feel her warm hand in mine and hold it tighter.
She trusts me. Whether she realizes it or not, she trusts me.
“Portia.” I touch her cheek, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Did my uncle give up her location? Did he know what they’d do to her? Is that why he came with me to rescue her? To keep an eye on things? He’s never been involved in anything outwardly criminal. It had surprised me he’d wanted to come.
Her hand comes to my face and she wipes something off my cheek. We both look at her thumb and see the smudge of red. The small but sharp shard of crystal.
“What did you do?” she asks.
I lean in and kiss her. She’s safe. She’s here. Safe and warm in my arms.
“Callahan?” she asks when I pull back.
“Doesn’t matter.”
I kiss her again and this time her eyes close and she kisses me back. I set the flashlight on the shelf beside us, knocking two bottles of water to the ground. They make a thump then roll away into the pitch-black dark.
When she looks back up at me, I take her face in my hands and kiss her deeply. Sliding one hand beneath her top, I slip it up over her belly to cup her breast. She’s not wearing a bra. She’s in an emerald-colored slip. She must have just come out of bed.
I slide my hand lower into her panties as I deepen the kiss. My fingers weave through the mound of soft hair to cup her sex.
She moans into my mouth, hers going slack for a moment. I love how she responds to my touch. How she gives herself to me.
With my other hand, I undo my jeans, push them and my briefs down. I draw back to look at her, brush her hair back from her face again with both hands now.
“I need you,” I say as she raises one leg to my waist.
I lift her up, so she wraps them both around me, the wall at her back and me at her front. I kiss her again while with one hand, I push the crotch of her panties aside and draw back a little to look at her as I take her.
She’s wet. Ready. But the thrust still forces the air from her lungs. Cupping her ass cheeks, I kiss her, watch her take me, our lips or tongues and teeth in constant contact. I listen to the wet sounds of our bodies coming together, hear our combined breaths sharp and
broken with the thrusts.
She feels good. So fucking good. Warm and tight and like home. Like I belong here. Right here with her. Here inside her.
“I’m going to come,” she says against my mouth. “You’re going to make me come.”
Her mouth goes slack as soon as she says it. I hear her moan and feel her walls throb around me. When they do, I come too, letting the pulses milk me as I watch her.
Beautiful Portia. Beautiful, scarred Portia.
My Portia.
I love her.
I know it in that instant. I know it as I empty inside her. I know it as I hear the breathy whisper of my name on her tongue.
I love her.
And this moment, now, us here like this, it’s honest and perfect while everything else is so utterly imperfect. While everything else is a lie.
Her legs go weak around me so I’m holding her up, kissing her as I draw out of her.
She’s out of breath and sweat beads her forehead. I rest mine against hers. I’m breathless too.
“Everything is fucked up. Everything.” I cup her face, kiss her cheek, never taking my forehead from hers as a tear slips from her eye.
“Shh.” She cups my face too, wraps her arms around my neck and buries her cheek in the crook of my neck.
“Everything but you,” I tell her but I’m not sure she hears.