Love Shadows: Part 3

Lena's pain always tasted the same. It was the perfect melting pot of gut-wrenching loss and a bitter debilitating longing for something she'd never be able to have again. It was her favorite kind of motivation. The weight of it could either drag her down, or tempt the fighter in her to suit up, and push through the day, as if her heart weren't consistently breaking with every breath she took. Once Tony came along, she’d had no time to fall apart. Being away from him temporarily had been the tipping point of her surpression, causing it to hit her all at once and with full force.

Three years ago today, she'd made the conscious decision to give up on an illusion she'd worked so hard to bring to fruition, and she'd be fooling herself if she said she regretted it. Emmett had deserved everything she'd done to him and more, but she'd been too focused on ending her own suffering, that she wasn't thinking of the nightmare their son would go through when he was finally old enough to understand what had happened.

Emmett had been a lousy husband, but Tony had taken her place as his most prized possession. Lena felt the shame of being envious of him wash over her, as she noticed her phone light up and saw the picture of her son she had as her wallpaper.

"Mama, is everything alright?" Lena answered the phone, holding it up against her ear as she finished unpacking more of her boxes. She was finally cleared to move in today, and had asked her friends Carter Murphy and Elle Dubois to help her organize her new furniture at her new place. She relieved them of their duties about an hour ago and she was now unpacking everything else she had bought from the nearest interior decorating store in town. No doubt her mother had been waiting for this moment, so she'd be free of her grandson and her once and for all.

"Yes, everything is okay. I'm two minutes away from your new home." Josefina answered stiffly, causing Lena to roll her eyes. She never expected any warm greetings from her mother, but she was a dreamer. It was her biggest flaw and when things crashed down and reality smacked her right in the face, she could always count on her mother to make her feel worse. Lena was trying to live. While her mother preferred the silent suffering that had given her two strokes in the past year, Josefina had been heartbroken for as long as she could remember. Lena took tremendous solace in knowing she was nothing like her. She was trying. Her mother never bothered to.

"You drove here? Did you forget your license is suspended and has been since Daddy died?"

"I have a gift for you." Her mother changed the subject and Lena raised a skeptical eyebrow as she rose from the plush carpet on the living room floor and ran towards the door when she heard a car enter her driveway. Lena cursed into her phone and could practically feel her mother's glare even before she exited out of the car. She'd brought Leo with her, which meant something big was going on and she needed her brother to soften the blow.

"Mami!" Tony shouted as he shot out of the car and ran up the steps, straight into her arms. Lena smiled and closed her cellphone, placing it in her back pocket as she hugged her son. He smelled like greasy pizza and chocolate pudding. Her two favorite guilty pleasures.

"Your room is just about done. Go on up and start your homework." Lena ordered her son and he used his brilliant smile to attack and make her change her mind. Just like his father used to do.

"He wants to spend time with you. Not homework, Lena." Emmett's voice erupted from her subconscious again, prickling at her patience and she tried to ignore it.

"Homework then we get to try out the trampoline I bought for us in the backyard. How does that sound?" Lena offered with her own flashy smile and it made her son nod with excitement as he hugged her again, kissed her cheek and ran into the house.

"He can't stay with Mom anymore, Lena," Leo mentioned as he helped their mother up the steps and ushered them both inside the townhouse. Lena locked her door and turned to face what was left of her family.

"I know he's a handful, but I've been sending money and making sure her medical bills are paid." Lena reminded her domineering older brother. He just got back from his fourth tour in the middle east, oblivious to the hell she'd been going through since he left for military school her sophomore year of high school. Lena had asked their mother to hold back on telling him what happened with Emmett until he got back from his third tour. Distractions got good men killed in the battlefield and she didn't want anyone else to become a casualty because of her. When word did get out of Emmett's demise, Leo had been furious enough to kill. She had to go into details in order to calm him down and in the end, it had all worked out. He stayed overseas to keep himself out of the aftermath, and Lena kept pretending she was fine. Bad habits ran in the family after all.

"You look like you need a nap," Leo observed rudely, as he helped Josefina sit on her new white leather sofa.

"How about you try being a single parent then?" she countered.

"Lena, I know it's been tough having Tony around since-" Leo started and Lena chuckled humorlessly at his attempt to understand even an ounce of what she'd been going through recently.

"No, you don't know. I'm doing the best I can without having a fucking mental breakdown," Lena claimed angrily, and watched their mother glare at her choice of foul language. She didn't care. This was her home. And she could curse as many times as she damn well pleased.

"You're such a little-"

"That's enough. Both of you, sit down," Josefina commanded, gesturing to both sides of the sofa beside her and they both followed her order. While Leo gave her a disapproving glance, Lena felt the need to flip him off as their mother began speaking.

"I think your brother should move in with you," their mother stated firmly, and Lena looked up at her brother, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Mom, we're not that kind of family," Leo reminded her and Josefina sighed before she started coughing. The woman looked even more exhausted than she did, and judging from the sound of her nasty cough, her mother's respiratory issues that were caused by her cigarette abuse were catching up to her. Her health was declining fast and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

God, she was tired of feeling helpless. She detested it. And she suspected her mother did too, if she was asking them to make amends before she decided to leave them in a world she never prepared them for.

"Be better. This life isn't worth living if you have nothing but silence to keep you company."

Lena felt her brother's intimidating presence as he entered her kitchen and helped her put the dirty dinner dishes into her dish washer.

"She came to say goodbye." Leo broke the silence first and while Lena wanted nothing more than to be unbothered by their emotionally absent mother, she'd started carving out another hole in her brittle heart the moment the doctors called her earlier to tell her she didn't have much time left. Her struggling lungs were just about done waiting for her to change.

"Can we be better?" Lena asked her brother, as she finished drying her hands with a paper towel and handed him one as well. He'd grown into an honorable man, someone this country should be honored to have, just like their Dad had been during his own army days. But just like so many broken soldiers that came home when the war was over, Leo was fighting a war against the normal reality surrounding him. Most didn't make it, but she knew Leo would. Pain was ingrained in them just as much as loneliness was, and if their mother taught them anything, it was to use that anguish to survive this distorted and complicated life.

"Do we have a choice?"

Lena didn't feel up to sharing anything at her group meeting the following night. Her mind was still trying to grasp the idea that her mother was dying and her son was back in her care, full time. Not that she didn't enjoy the time she spent with him, but he was at the age where his curiosity seemed endless and Lena was running out of sugar-coated answers to give him.

Her mind was a breath away from shutting down when the tingle of someone's presence behind her caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up as she walked to her car. She was too tired to think straight, which had caused a spike in her adrenaline and made her turn to face and drop kick the stranger in the middle of the quiet road.

"Not into surprises, are you?" Ethan Cavalier asked, groaning in pain as Lena glared at him and dug her heel into his chest.

"You should know better. What do you want?" she snapped as she helped him up but never bothered to apologize. His smirk wasn't motivating her feel anything but anger towards him.

"I'm sorry. I should've announced myself in the hopes that your biased hatred towards me would dissipate easily with my charm," he teased, and Lena ignored the need she felt to laugh at his sarcastic sense of humor.

"I'm sure you've had women hate you for no other reason than your ability to look just as pretty as they do," Lena fired back, crossing her arms at her victorious come back while Ethan did nothing but laugh at her.

"If that was compliment, thank you."

"It wasn't," she snarled as she turned towards her car again and felt Emmett pushing through her mind once again.

"Who is this guy? And why do you like him so much?" her husband's voice sounded ominous and dark, just like it'd gotten moments before she ended his life.

"Can I have just one day of peace and quiet?" she asked him in a whisper and heard his laughter vibrate throughout her body.

"You were never the quiet type. It's why I fell in love with you," Emmett reassured her and Lena couldn't help but rub at her temples as the pounding headache pulsated against her skull, and her heart continued to crack.

"You shouldn't be driving like this. Let me drive you home." Ethan's voice filled her ears again as she rested on her car door.

"I'm not going home just yet," Lena answered, cursing when she remembered she needed to be at Sylvia's soon.

"Well, at least let me help you with that headache," Ethan offered, not bothering to ask if he could touch her and resumed to use the pressure points around her skull to release some of the tension. Her body immediately began to relax, and her clit began to throb rapidly. Her goddamn hormones needed to get a grip already.

"He's not me, Lena. He never will be." Emmett's voice returned to annoy Lena further and it only motivated her to take the time to look at the attractive man giving her a head massage. His eyes were trained on her face, glancing briefly down towards her lips before he pulled away.

"Why'd you stop?" Lena asked him, stepping closer to him, fully aware of the sexual pull her body had to his.

"Because I know you won't be able to," Ethan replied, before he shoved his hands into his leather jacket and left her standing there to contemplate drinking her sorrows away.

"You're running the show tonight. I'd like to see what you've learned from me," her teacher announced, when she finally entered their reserved room, no mask in sight. Just the glow of her naturally pretty pale cheeks. Lena had experimented with women during her catholic school days. She'd been surrounded by them, captivated by their unbridled ways of rebellion and silent vulnerability when no one else was looking.

Lena tried to relax her thoughts, as she gripped one of the whips from its hanging position on the wall and traced the leather fabric along her thighs. Images of nights Emmett had spent teaching her how to use it on him consumed her and a rush of desire swam within her skin.

She remembered how he moaned deeply as soon as the leather straps made marks across her skin, and how he'd call her by a different name every time he came inside of her. Lena wondered if he ever whispered her name within the company of the other women he'd been using at the same time. Did they miss him just as much as she did when he left her side?

"Jealousy never looked good on you." Emmett's critical tone made her frown but someone else's touch was trying to make her forget he was stuck in her mind for the time being. Opening her eyes, she saw her instructor cupping her cheek, rubbing her thumb slightly across her skin.

"How long have you been hurting?" she asked in concern, her lips barely an inch away from hers.

"I'm sorry. We're not supposed to get emotional during these sessions," Lena reminded her as she blinked away the tears.

"Feeling something means you're alive. My job is to give you the tools to help you achieve that again."

"Even if that means breaking the rules?" Lena inquired and licked her lips as the woman's smile already made her feel lighter.

"Rules don't apply in your case. Now please let me fuck you with my tongue again. I've been thinking about it all week," she responded eagerly, but Lena felt the jolt of excitement breathe new life into her as she pushed the striking woman down onto the silky sheets of the bed.

"When you come for me, I want you to tell me your name," Lena demanded as she ran the straps of leather down the valley of the woman's full breasts. She groaned in her favor and looked at her in desperation, waiting on her next command.

"Now, take off your clothes. Then rub your nipples until they're hard enough to suck on," she ordered, repeating every word Emmett had drilled into her mind when he'd been too drunk and horny to realize how rough he'd been with her. Lena could feel how wet she was now, and her clit was pounding for attention now that his influence was slowly fading away.

She watched the woman follow her orders, bringing her flushed pink nipples to hard peaks and walked towards her, hitting her lightly across the chest with the whip. The groans grew louder and she grew even more wet. Lena couldn't hold out much longer, she needed him to leave her body as soon as possible.

As soon as her friend had stripped off her remaining clothes, Lena whipped at the woman's thigh, forcing her to push herself up further onto the bed. When she complied, Lena threw the whip across the room and climbed on top of her, straddling her face as she cradled her wet opening over the woman's eager mouth. Lena felt a burst of delicious stimulation as soon as she felt the warm tongue flicking at her clit, and began to move against it. Her teeth bit down on her lips as her walls clamped around her rapidly moving lips, and she decided to reach to dip her own fingers into the woman's wet folds. She felt warm, and she was dripping wet for her. Her fingers rubbed at her faster as her tongue increased its stroking and made her body convulse with a mind-blowing orgasm.

Once Lena's climax finished shaking her entire being, she turned so she could capture the woman's mound in her mouth, flicking the tip of her own tongue over her nub, using her natural lubrication to help her give this woman the best orgasm of her life.

Lena used her toes to tease the woman's nipples while her fingers dug deep into her core and her mouth sucked on her clit hard. The woman began to violently writhe underneath her, gripping her ass in the process, before she gasped loudly and squirted straight into her mouth.

She could no longer hear Emmett's voice inside her mind and Lena felt jubilant as she just figured out the secret to ending her suffering.

"Quinn. Oh, fuck! My name is Quinn!" her teacher shouted as Lena kept eating her out, and a smile spread across her face.