Madeline Sheehan - Unattainable

My body, despite the horror I was feeling, was slowly adjusting. Wet warmth flowed through me, and when he slid back inside, this time there was no pain, only a slight discomfort.

“ Fuuuuuuck,” he groaned, grinding his hips, a movement that made my stomach flip with a brand new feeling. A good one. One that had me forgetting what was really happening between Cage and me; fooling me into thinking this was going to go the way I’d planned. That I was going to give Cage my virginity, something that was going to make him realize that I was the girl for him. That no one would ever love him more than I would.

His hand slid into my hair, tightly gripping a handful, while his other hand clamped down on my hip. His face dropped into the crook of my neck and I turned my head, seeking him, needing to see him, needing to confirm that my feelings were reciprocated, but his grip on my hair tightened, holding me in place.

Then his hips pulled back.

I gasped as he slammed back inside of me. Our bodies slapped together, my breath returned and…

He pulled back. And slammed back into me.

“ Shit, Teacup,” he muttered, increasing his pace. “I can feel everything. Your pussy is a motherfuckin’ vice.”

Which, judging from his tone, was obviously a good thing.

And stupidly led me into further believing Cage would want me past tonight.

“ So good, babe,” he breathed against my skin, his body repeatedly meeting mine, his movements growing faster and faster. I held my breath against the onslaught of what was happening inside me, both physically and emotionally.

Cage was everywhere now. He was inside of me, inside my body and my heart. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing but it didn’t really matter. Because it was Cage and it was me and I’d wanted this for so long, wanted him for as long as I could remember, and so awkward and uncomfortable were small prices to pay for finally having what I’d always wanted.

And then, almost as soon as it had begun, it was over. Cage was groaning, having pulled out of me and I felt him finishing, felt the moisture on my belly as his body jerked above me.

It took all of a minute for him to roll off me, to turn on his side, to breathe in deeply and breathe out heavily.

And then he was snoring.

“ Cage?” I whispered.

I lay there unmoving for several heart-pounding minutes, not knowing what to do until what he’d left on my stomach had begun drying, making the tiny hairs on my body feel stiff and pulled.

Rolling out of bed, wincing as I did, sore, feeling my pulse pounding between my legs, I walked stiffly to the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Swallowing hard, I glanced down at myself.

Gross.

Not only was I covered from breast to pelvis in half-dried semen, but my own blood was smeared across my inner thighs.

It was then I realized he’d never kissed me.

Which, in the end, killed the girl I’d once been. It left me broken, stuck, unable to move forward. And no matter how many years had passed, I was unable to let go.

When it came to Cage West, my mistakes were plenty and my regrets were numerous. If my past were a person, I would grab the throat of that motherfucker, drag her ass down Re-do Street, and once I’d beaten the ever-loving shit out of her, I’d stand over her beaten-down, broken body and say:

“You stupid bitch. You ignorant, stupid bitch. Love isn’t a fucking answer. It hurts more than it doesn’t, it’s harder than it is easy, it takes work, guts, and perseverance.”

Most importantly—what I would stress the very most—is that love doesn’t solve a goddamn thing. Love doesn’t erase a broken heart, and it sure as fuck doesn’t change people.

But no matter how old, how flimsy, how frayed the rope of love is, it does keep you tethered to the people you love.

And I was forever tied to Cage.

Would I change it if I could? Hell fucking yes, I would.

But we don’t get to pick our families or choose who we fall in love with. And we all have our crosses to bear: our stories, our loves, and our losses.

And this is mine.

Well, ours actually.

“Either you answer that fuckin’ thing or I’m throwin’ it out the window, Tegen.”

Blinking sleepily, I focused on the angry face mere inches from mine, wondering what the fuck he was talking about.

“Piss off,” I muttered, turning my face into my pillow. “It’s not morning yet.”

This time when my phone started both ringing and vibrating from its place on my nightstand, I heard it loud and clear.

“Tegen! That’s the fourth call in a fuckin’ row!”

“Shit!” I yelled into my pillow. “Stop bitching and just answer it!”

“I can’t!” he yelled back. “It’s your fuckin’ mom!”

The phone stopped ringing and I heard him let out an angry sigh.

Almost instantly, it started ringing again.

“TEGEN, ANS—”

Cursing, I jumped up, grabbed my pillow and swung it up in the air, then slapped it down over his face.

“Shut. Up,” I hissed, already reaching for my phone.

Pressing Answer, I lifted the phone to my ear. “Hello,” I snapped.

“Tegen?”

“Mom.” I sighed, instantly feeling bad. “Is everything okay? It’s not even light out.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just…I wanted to catch you before you made plans for the long weekend. I thought maybe you could come home for a few days.”

Reaching up, I rubbed the heel of my palm over my eyes and sighed.

“Hawk’s coming home, isn’t he?”

James “Hawk” Young, lifer in the Hell’s Horsemen Motorcycle Club, was the father of my half brother, Christopher Kelley. Christopher was four years old and nearly two decades younger than me. Despite his dark red hair, green eyes, and freckles—traits our very Irish mother had given us both—he looked just like his extremely good-looking dad. Right down to his brooding eyes and the hard line of his mouth.

“He is,” she said softly. “And I’m just not ready. I just…I have enough to deal with, with Jase. Please come home, Tegen.”

Herein lay the problem. Despite how good-looking Hawk was, my mother wanted nothing to do with him. She couldn’t bear even the brief encounter to hand over Christopher for a few days. One might think that my traveling all the way from San Francisco, California, to Miles City, Montana, just to hand my half brother over to his father and comfort my mother in his absence, was a little extreme…it actually wasn’t. Not after what my mother had gone through.

When she was nearly nine months pregnant with Christopher, my mother had been shot in the head by her boyfriend’s wife. Not Hawk’s wife; Hawk wasn’t married. But Jason “Jase” Brady, also a member of the Hell’s Horsemen, was.

Actually, my mother had still been married to my father when she’d met Jase.

My mom, Dorothy Kelley, had gotten pregnant at fifteen, given birth at sixteen, and was forced by my grandparents to marry my father. My father, a truck driver, was rarely home and when he was, was more interested in television and beer than my mother and me. When I was four, my mother met Jase.

She fell in love with Jase almost instantly, unconcerned at first that he was married with three small children, because she thought he’d eventually leave his wife.

It didn’t happen. But my mother stuck it out. She worked at the Hell’s Horsemen clubhouse, cleaning up after the boys, cooking for them and doing their laundry, enabling her to carry on her affair with Jase as discreetly as possible.