Love Shadows: Part 9

A warm and soft touch pulled Lena away from her deep slumber. Her vision was out of focus, but her body was on high alert as her visitor began to caress the tender flesh between her thighs. She grew wet instantly, allowing herself to indulge in the dream her subconscious surrounded her with. The lights were still off and the blinds covered a good portion of light, but her internal clock told her it was already morning in the real world. Still, she swam in the darkness of her room and felt her body come alive as Quinn's hands continued their quest.

She didn't have to turn on the lights to know it was her. Her skin responded to Quinn differently than it did with her previous sexual partners. It released the tension coiled up in every corner of her being, then charged it up with gentle but tactful strokes against her wall of resistance, destroying the fear she held around most men.

Quinn used her lethal lips to tease her this time. Leaving a scorching trail of wet kisses leading up to her wet opening. Lena's body was betraying her mind as she spread her legs further, to give Quinn more access. All she wanted was for her fear to disappear in Ethan's presence, just like it did in Quinn's. He understood her just as well as the woman she spilled her heart out to in Sylvia's brothel. Her anger had ruined their friendship. She knew the memory of her hands wrapping around Quinn's throat, and getting off on her pain would never allow for anything more to grow between them.

Still, she enabled herself to enjoy the memory of Quinn as she moaned deeply, thrusting up against her eager tongue, the sound itself causing her clit to throb impatiently. Quinn took her aching nub into her mouth soon after, sucking and using the tip of her tongue to make her arch her back and gasp loudly. Her hands grabbed a handful of strawberry-blonde hair and pushed her head closer into her mound, as she rode her mouth. Her climax erupted from her core, her juices spilling inside the walls of Quinn's mouth. She drank from her in silken strokes, still dipping her fingers deep inside of her as her writhing slowed down.

"I forgive you." Quinn's words echoed within the walls of her mind as she re-entered reality and stirred awake for real this time. She watched the light peak through from the blinds in her room at the lodge while she yawned and stretched her limbs.

"Did you like my gift?" her husband's voice resurfacing caused her to frown, ruining her mood instantly as she got up and headed towards the on-suite bathroom.

"Don't you have other women to haunt? You sure had plenty of them when you were alive." Lena mumbled underneath her breath, as she turned on the shower and ditched the clothes she had slept in last night. The pounding warm water against her skin felt refreshing and inviting. She grabbed the unopened bar of fresh linen scented soap and began to scrub her body. It was still tingling from the orgasm her dream had left her with, and she smirked as she remember her sultry hallucination, and how pissed off Emmett had gotten while she let Ethan fuck her right in front of him.

Did she feel awful about using Ethan to get back at Emmett? Of course she did. But it wasn't as if she'd actually done it. Unfortunately for her, she was afraid her subconscious was trying to tell her something. Something along the lines of stopping the concept of trying to replace Emmett, instead of embracing the new beginning Ethan had to offer her. And she wanted to. More than anything. But fear was a nasty bitch. It hindered her throughout her relationship with Emmett, causing her to surrender instead of allowing it to motivate her into standing up for herself. Not that she didn't try. She did. Often. At the beginning anyway. He enjoyed it then, the challenge she offered to him on a silver platter. She would excuse his unacceptable behavior, forgiving him with just one stroke of his tongue on her naive skin and slowly began to lose her own idea of what love was and embraced his instead.

In the end, the nightmare she helped create bit her in the ass and she was the only one to blame.

"Do you remember the night I told you I loved you?" her ex-husband was incorrigible today. If she wanted any peace at all, she'd have to play along.

"You mean the night I caught you fucking another woman in your car? Yeah, I remember that perfectly." Lena fired back as she turned off the water in the shower and stepped out, reaching for a fresh towel underneath the sink to wrap it around her shaking body.

"Well then, you also remember what I told you right after." he added, and as her memory brought her back to that night nine years ago, she could practically feel the same rain on her skin again. It'd been raining hard that night, but she had forgotten a key ingredient she needed for Emmett's favorite seafood dish, Salmon, and she had decided to brave the storm, insisting she could make it back in time from the store before he got home.

She got halfway down the block in their old neighborhood before she realized Emmett had already arrived and his car was parked just around the corner. She'd been so elated to greet him, she hadn't realized what was happening inside that car until she saw the woman's hand pressing against the backseat window of his car, and heard the noises he caused her to make while she rode his cock.

Their perfect world had taken its first hit at that moment, but she held her ground, and pretended her heart hadn't cracked a single inch as she marched over to them and banged on the window, forcing them out into the pouring rain.

"Nothing turned me on more than to see the anger I planted inside of you that night. The hatred I saw in your eyes was enough to make me fall in love with you." he paused as he stared at himself in the mirror beside her with disgust, then continued, "This absurd notion that someone like you could love someone like me that much allowed me to get comfortable with the illusion of being anyone but myself. Someone who deserved your love."

Lena took in his words as she snatched herself out of her memories and continued brushing her teeth. Along with the three hour fight they'd had after she caught him in that car, the hours following consisted of rough makeup sex and his adulterous confessions featuring the women who he'd been sleeping with since they decided to make their relationship exclusive, ending the night with his final admission of love, or what he perceived it to be.

"You were my first, Emmett. I gave you more of myself than I've ever given anyone and you tainted that to fit your sadistic way of life. That's why I decided to stay by your side through it all. I had this desperate need to penetrate your heart until you gave in, until you realized I was the only one who could bring you peace. I realize now I never actually did. If anything, I made it worse." she claimed with sadness, and stared at the hallucination of her dead husband in the mirror in front of her.

"That's when I decided I needed to wake you up. So I hurt you until you broke, until you felt just as empty as I did. I was aiming for the same thing you were, Lena. It just took you longer to realize I was never worthy of it." he reasoned, turning to face her and she felt her skin flinch and her eyes close at his caress until he disappeared back into her realm of grief.

His words had caused an epiphany inside of her and it lifted some of the weight she'd been clutching against her chest all these years. Lena decided then, she wasn't going to lay in bed all day and sulk about her horrible experience with love again. She was stranded at this lodge, thanks to Elle, and she planned on seeing what else it had to offer, other than a comfortable bed and a peaceful ambiance that made her crave a life with Ethan Cavalier now more than ever before.