Steve went back inside, and Kayla let out a sound of utter frustration that he kept after her.
“Stop following me!”
“Hey, you started this, now you don’t wanna finish it?!”
“I don’t know what you want from me!”
“I wanna know how you could just get over me so goddamn fast!”
“You were gone for more than a year!”
“Ok, so when you think I’m dead you go 16 years not getting over me, but when you know I’m alive, it only takes you one?!”
“Fuck you!”
That hurt Steve, but he went back to his roots in response. “Ooh, touch a nerve, baby? ‘Cause if you wanna talk dirty to me I can light that nerve right on fire for ya.”
“You really need new material,” Kayla tossed back at him with the skill of the expert she was, “‘cause that one was right out of the Steve Johnson playbook.”
“Ya know what wasn’t in the playbook?” Steve roared, “You and Justin! So, yeah, fuck me, Kayla, that’s right! Fuck me! I got fucked! I was being held captive, and you were finding comfort with Justin! YOU WERE SLEEPING WITH ANOTHER MAN!”
Rage like she had never known ripped through Kayla like electricity through lightening. “YOU SLEPT WITH AVA!”
Steve was stunned. “Don’t you throw her in my face! That’s not the same!”
“No, it’s never the same with you, is it? There’s always some good reason for you, but I don’t get any good reasons!”
“SHE WAS GOING TO KILL YOU! THAT’S NOT A GOOD REASON?!”
“Well she did! You slept with her, and part of me died!”
Steve advanced on Kayla. “How many times do I have to spell this out for you, Kayla? I was coerced!
It-wasn’t-fun-for me!” He pounded his chest between every word to drive the point home.
“And being alone and unwanted when I got signed divorce papers wasn’t fun for me!” Kayla turned and tried to run back up the stairs, but Steve caught her by the arm and turned her back around.
“No, you don’t get to run away!”
“Like you do?!” Kayla wrested her arm out of his grip and pushed him away from her hard against the chest. “Like you always do!”
Steve shot her a look so filled with acrimony that he felt it like a slap in his own face. He didn’t know how to feel this way about Kayla. He’d never felt this angry at her in his whole life. He’d never let himself.
“Is that look supposed to scare me?” she dared him, her heart pounding.
“Why?” he growled. “Does it? Are you scared?”
“No. You don’t scare me, and you know it!” Once again, Kayla turned and this time successfully ran up the stairs.
“Then.Why.Do.You.Run.AWAY.FROM.ME?!”
The cancer inside of Kayla’s soul knew the answer, but she wasn’t letting herself know it yet. Instead she did exactly what Steve accused her of. “I’m leaving!” she shouted down to him.
Now Steve ran up after her. “No, you’re not.”
“You promised to let me make decisions!”
“Not this one!”
“You can’t stop me!”
They were halfway up the spiral staircase when Steve grabbed her by the wrist. “Where the fuck do you think you’re gonna go?!”
“Away the fuck from here!” she insisted.
“No,” he said, pulling her back.
“Stop it!” she shouted, twisting herself from his grip again.
“I said no!” Steve pulled at her again, his desperation to keep her in the room driving him into a frenzy of fear.
Kayla pulled so hard this time that her momentum tumbled her onto her ass. Steve stumbled and tripped up into her.
“I’m leaving!” she repeated as she squirmed out from under him.
He crawled back to cover the distance. “What are you afraid of?!”
Noooo, Kayla shouted to herself in her head. No, no, no, no, no!
“I’m not afraid!” she lied. “Now just let me go!”
“You are afraid, Kayla! You’re afraid of me!”
Kayla tried to push him away with her foot, but Steve kept her pinned beneath him and wouldn’t let up. Kayla went to slap him, instead, but he dodged. “Let me go!”
“No!”
She tried to slap him again but again missed her mark as Steve caught her arm mid-air.
“You’re not afraid of me?!”
“No!”
“You wanna hurt me?!”
“Just stop!” she seethed.
“Oh. So you just don’t want me.” His voice cracked despite the wrath.
Breathing hard and fast, they stared each other down in stubborn refusals to yield, their anger, fear, and jealousy all raging into perfect storms of fury.
It was Steve who finally blinked. He didn’t know what else to do.
He pushed himself up from the stair Kayla sat on to release her. The moment he did she grabbed him by the back of the neck and crushed her lips to his. Her kiss was hard and angry, and he responded in equal measure. Neither of them felt like this was right, but neither of them were willing to stop. Steve parted Kayla’s legs with his hips, desperate to be inside her, getting her validation, feeling the connection that seemed to have evaporated. Kayla opened to him so she could feel the full weight of his body on top of her. They continued kissing with carnality and unqualified hunger. Kayla hadn’t let up the grip on the back of his neck, and Steve had her firmly around her shoulders.
Steve tore himself from her mouth to trail his tongue hotly down to her neck. When he found her shoulder he bit at her until she yelped. She held his head there for him to do it again. Instead he denied her even when she arched her back for more.
Steve moved down to her breasts and buried his head in them. He pushed up her v-neck tee shirt, pulled down her bra, and lifted her right breast into his mouth, sucking it savagely. He tugged at the waistband of her jeans. She lifted her ass up off the step as she unbuttoned them, which was enough for Steve to get them to give way over her hips. He pulled them down far enough to get her legs to spread, then released her hardened nipple from his mouth to quickly undo his own jeans. As soon as Kayla yanked them down over his ass, he pushed himself inside her. The penetration was hard and fast and they both gasped with the sensation.
This was not lovemaking. This was mutual possession.
Instead of loving strokes, Steve drove his cock into Kayla with single thrusts, grunting hard with each one. Kayla pushed him into her every time, the need to get off immediately consuming her. Steve shifted his right knee for better purchase, but Kayla objected to the brief pause with her own grunt of reproach. She needed to feel him, but it wasn’t enough.
“Fuck me!” she demanded.
“Like he did?!”
“Shut up!”
Steve thrust at her. “This what you want?” he panted.
“Yes!”
“This what you need?!”
“Yes!” And she really did. She needed the sex to keep at bay what was trying to escape from inside of her.
Kayla stuck one leg through the slats of the bannister and wrapped her other leg around Steve’s waist. She desperately thrust her hips at him, needing release.
Steve shifted again then sped up his movements, his naked ass flexing with every lunge inside of her. His arms clutched at her beneath her shirt, his fingers holding tightly to her shoulders as he pulled her into him with his thrusts. Just a few strokes later Kayla started to come.
“That’s right,” he goaded arrogantly as she jerked beneath him. “I’m the only one who makes you come, Kayla!” She threw her head back and cried out at the gratification that didn’t feel the least bit gratifying. “Just me! I’m the only one!”
Kayla clutched on to him as her body finished its climax. She didn’t look at him; she couldn’t. She kept her eyes closed as she slowly let go, panting as she came down. Steve slowed but did not stop. This time when they kissed, there was a tenderness beneath the carnality. Kayla let herself feel the love she knew was there – was always there – but only for a moment, because otherwise she’d lose her mind. When she opened her eyes, Steve thrust into her again with another single movement. “Just me,” he repeated.
Fight or flight ignited inside her. Not from Steve, but from herself. She pushed him off of her. This time he let her. Kayla stood up and finally made it all the way up the stairs.
When Steve entered the bedroom she’d already pulled her jeans back up.
“Feel better?” Steve spat.
“No,” she sniped back.
“Oh goodie, a new problem.”
“Sex was never our problem, Steve.”
“That sex was nothing but a great big problem.”
“Because you didn’t finish or because I had to be reminded who gets to fuck me?”
Steve flinched at the bite of her words. He wanted to cry. Instead he glared at her with demand in his eye. Demand that she love him.
Kayla walked right up to him and whispered with no less anger for the tone in her voice, “Fuck me like you fucked her.”
“Stop it,” he seethed.
Kayla stroked her fist over his slick cock as she pushed her jeans and underwear down to her ankles and stepped out of them. “Fuck me. Like you fucked. Her!”
Kayla watched Steve’s eye darken and knew she’d hurt him. Steve roughly removed her hand from his erection and silently walked Kayla backward to the bed, standing there until she sat down upon it. He’d pushed Ava with hatred, but he refused to do that to his wife. There was wrath here, and there was pain; but there was no hatred.
Kayla scooted backward and parted her legs, but Steve stopped her with a hand on her knee. He turned her over and removed his jeans again before kneeling behind her and pulling her toward him by the thighs. He placed a single hand on the back of neck but put no pressure there. Kayla was stunned at this position. He’d never held her down like this before, and she didn’t know how to feel about that.
Steve refused to penetrate his wife this way.
“Just do it,” Kayla huffed. “Show me!” But her voice had lost its edge.
“No,” he rasped. “I won’t.” Steve stroked his hand down from her neck to the center of her back, the warmth she felt there a comfort to Kayla that made her feel worse. “This is how it was. But I won’t do it to you.” Steve turned her back over. She looked up at him with a face he hadn’t seen on her before, and it cut him to the core.
Still kneeling, Steve pulled her up over his thighs. “Don’t you ever put yourself in her shoes ever again.” Then he entered her one last time and pumped in and out hard and fast.
Kayla wanted another orgasm to push away the darkness in her soul as soon as he filled her and arched her back in encouragement. She spread her legs, and Steve held on to them as he pistoned hotly. She let her left leg fall over his shoulder and used it as leverage to meet his thrusts. His orgasm started just as he looked down upon Kayla’s beautiful and so very troubled face. They locked eyes for the first time since this horrible sex began. And in that instant, Steve’s anger drained out of him. It disappeared so quickly that it left an ache in his heart. He just wanted this fight to be over. He wanted the angry sex to be over. And if they were really done, then he wanted his life to be over.
Before she could reach her second peak, Steve exploded inside of her. His semen left his body in powerful lurches that made his dick feel good but the rest of him feel awful. His orgasm should have felt like rapture, but instead it left him feeling the worst kind of melancholy. His eye stung.
Steve pulled out of Kayla and fell onto his back beside her. They panted silently for several moments. No loving kisses. No post coital caresses.
When Kayla finally spoke her voice shook. “That was …”
“the worst thing we’ve ever done,” Steve finished.
“Which time?” she asked.
“Both. All of it.”
Kayla nodded then added a quiet, “Yeah.”
Several moments went by as they continued to stare at the ceiling, then Steve repeated, “Don’t ever compare yourself to her again. I hate her. I was forced.” Kayla felt a tear escape the corner of her eye. She knew what being forced felt like. “I’m not saying she raped me,” as if he could hear her thoughts. “But you are not her. I can’t hear you say that ever again.”
Kayla exhaled deeply as she tried to control her tears.
“I fucked her. You and me? We don’t fuck. What I did with her was one of the worst days of my life. I won’t do it with you.”
“What we did just now—”
“That wasn’t fucking,” he insisted.
“Then what was it, because it sure wasn’t making love.” Steve said nothing. “You like when I tell you to fuck me.”
“It’s not the same thing. And you know it.” He took Kayla’s hand in his and held it to his heart. “We didn’t make love just now,” he agreed, “but it wasn’t fucking.”
Kayla couldn’t take it. He was right, but she just had to feel something replace the horrible guilt that was threatening to envelop her, even now right here on this bed. She pulled her hand out of Steve’s and got up. He leaned up on his elbows and watched her gather her clothes and go into the bathroom.
It took only a minute to clean herself up and dress, but that was all it took for her to realize she was losing the war within herself. She thought she could tamp down her guilt for her role in all this. For not realizing her husband was in trouble. For letting it all get so far. And for hurting Justin as collateral damage. But she couldn’t. It was here. And it was about to erupt.
Moments later when she came back, Steve was already dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed. “If you want to go, I’m not going to stop you,” he said.
“I …”
“I never loved Ava; I hate her. But you did love Justin. Do,” his voice cracked. “If you want to be with him … or even if you just don’t want to be with me, I’m not going to stand in your way. But I won’t stay in Salem and watch you be with him.
“So … so you’re leaving again?”
Steve cocked his head in absolute dejection when she didn’t say she didn’t love Justin. “If you’re asking me that, then I guess you really have changed your mind.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I think you did. Don’t tell me you don’t miss him.”
“I don’t miss him.”
“I caught you two texting, Kayla!”
“You think that just because I texted him it means I’ve change my mind?”
“I thought he texted you!” He hadn’t moved from his position seated on the bed and was now looking up at her in accusation.
Kayla fished her phone out from the bedcovers where it had ended up somewhere along the way and pulled up her text messages. “I wanted to make sure he was ok. I hadn’t said a single word to him since I left him there at the mansion to pick up the damned pieces, Steve! I was just making sure he was alright! Here!” she shoved the phone at him as she sat down. “Look for yourself!” Steve didn’t hesitate. He took the phone and looked through the conversation. “Satisfied?!”
The truth was that Steve was satisfied. And slightly abashed. But her reaction like she was being “caught” still rubbed him the wrong way. And worse, Steve was at his core, a jealous man. He’d matured into a very rational man. A man who could deal with his jealousy without flying off the handle or raising his voice like the world was on fire. But some things just stay with the foundation of who you are, and jealousy was one the things that stayed in his. And he was still mad that she was going to leave. Abandon them right now. Like she’d abandoned … him. So, Steve lashed out.
“Well if ya lookie real close, baby, you’ll see he says he still loves you. So if you really wanna leave, then you can help him pick up the pieces.”
“Go on,” Kayla said, standing up. “Push me away. I’m used to it. I’m used to you leaving instead of fighting for me. You didn’t fight for me when I told you I was staying with Justin. I knew deep down you didn’t want to, but you just let me go.”
Steve had reached a threshold he didn’t know was there until it was upon him. He felt something inside of him shift, and it felt terrible. Finally, he let out a sad laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“You’re such a hypocrite, you know that?” Kayla just dropped her jaw at him. “I didn’t fight for you? Kayla when Justin told me what I’d done to you when I thought I was Stefano, it was like EJ and his Tarot cards in my head all over again. That man makes me do things to the one person I love most in this world. I almost killed you then, and then I come to find out that even dead he made me almost kill you again. So, yeah, I made that decision and gave you up. I said I was sorry, and I meant it. But, Sweetness …” It was the first time he’d called her that since this fight began, and it brought that cancer inside of her just about to the surface, a single tear spilling out of each of her eyes. “… you are the one who divorced me. And it wasn’t even me!”
“All I knew w-w-was that you didn’t love me anymore. I didn’t know it wasn’t you!” Kayla was pacing now, anxiety coming off of her in waves. Her voice was trembling, and the cancer was strangling her. “I … I … you left! You said …”
“The last time I heard your voice was the day I got out of lockup. You’re the first person I called. The first thing I did. Call you. Told you I had to go after the truth. You think I didn’t hear in your voice how worried you were that I was mad at you?” Kayla put the heels of her palms to her temples. She was about to lose it. “I was comin’ back to you, Kayla, but they nabbed me before I could even board the plane!”
“The texts … the flowers …”
“They weren’t from me!”
“I didn’t know it wasn’t you!”
“WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER! Steve’s face twisted into the painful hurt from the betrayal he’d refused to allow himself to feel. Until now. The rock he’d been fighting in his throat finally won, and he let he let loose with his tears. “Look what happened to Bo!” he cried unabashedly. “After all that we all went through with him. He was in trouble, but Hope didn’t go after him. It took so long for anyone to go after him!”
“Oh God,” Kayla squeaked as she squeezed her eyes shut. “Dear God!” It was a prayer for succor.
“Then when the same thing happened to me, you thought I really didn’t want you. That I would just sign those damned divorce papers without a word? You didn’t think back and wonder. And no one came after me, either!”
Something inside Kayla’s soul broke free. It left a horrible wound that swallowed her in pain, but the cancer attached to her soul had broken free.
“You didn’t come after me,” Steve cried. “I would have come after you, Kayla. I would have known. Why didn’t you?”
It was the last thing Kayla could take before the room fell out from under her.
Kayla fell to the floor and let out the most gut-wrenching sob that Steve had ever heard from her. If they hadn’t been in the isolated suite someone surely would have heard them by now. Instead it was just Steve and it was Kayla, alone in this room, having finally reached the other half of the problem that had been poisoning their marriage from the inside out.
As soon as Kayla collapsed into a heap on the floor, Steve fell to his knees with her. He couldn’t let her lie there, emitting this pain all by herself on the floor like some kind of unwanted creature. He loved her so much that her pain was his. It was always his. And so was this.
Kayla wept in unmitigated grief. She felt so broken. And her cries positively broke Steve.
“I’m sorry,” Kayla cried so hard she couldn’t breathe. “I’m s-s-s-s-“
“Shh, baby,” Steve cried with her.
“You’re ri-ri-ri-ri …” Steve rocked her in his arms, and Kayla rocked him back. “…right! I sh-sh-sh …” she struggled to get her words out as she hyperventilated; Steve just wanted her to breathe. “…should’ve known! I failed you! I lef-lef-left you, too!”
They clung on to each other, truly terrified to let go. Terrified of the pain emanating from both of them, desperate to stop hurting not themselves but each other.
“I love you, Sweetness,” Steve cried so hard. “I love you so much!”
“I love you, too!” she sobbed. “I couldn’t love anyone like I love you!”
“Don’t leave me, Kayla! Please, baby. Please don’t leave me.”
Kayla shook her head as the sobs continued to assail her so viciously. “I won’t!” she promised. “I’ll never leave.” She moved her head from where it was tucked tightly into Steve’s neck to kiss his tattoo resting above his heart. “I won’t.”
They cried for a long time on the floor, holding each other and wishing none of this had happened. That their struggle for one another didn’t have to hurt so goddamned much.
Steve and Kayla didn’t know how much time had passed. The room was darkened from the stormy weather, and their sense of time had vanished amidst their emotional devastation. But the pain that had been living in their souls had been leached from them, washed away with the tears they cried.
Kayla finally disentangled herself from Steve’s embrace and held his face in her hands. She took a shuddering breath and really looked at him for the first time since she’d collapsed. His eye was so tender. So green with love and devotion.
“Can you forgive me?” Kayla whispered.
Steve held his hands over the tops of hers against his cheeks. He nodded and said, “Can you forgive me?” She nodded back.
“I shouldn’t have let you push me away. I was angry and stubborn. I shouldn’t have let it get that far.”
“I’m the one who just kept on pushin’. I was just as mad, and I just didn’t wanna face any of it. And I didn’t want to hurt each other anymore, so I pushed you harder.”
“I didn’t know how to forgive myself for not knowing it wasn’t you.”
“I didn’t wanna let you have a man like me. I wanted you to be safe, with someone dependable.”
“I don’t want safe. And you are dependable. I’ve depended on you with my life for 34 years, and you’ve never once let me down.”
Their tears had ebbed now to sniffles and swollen, red eyes.
“When I saw you texting with Justin, then that dress, I just … I lost my mind, Kayla.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just … I felt so guilty. First, I failed you, and then I ended up hurting him.
“You didn’t fail me.”
“Yes, I did. Everything you said is true. You would have come after me. I should have known.”
“I forgive you,” Steve whispered. He kissed his wife, and Kayla licked her lips of his kiss before continuing.
“I don’t miss him,” Kayla insisted. “I care about him, but I don’t miss him. Not like that. You’re the one I’m in love with. You’re the one I’m bonded to for the rest of my life. Whether I like it or not.”
Steve laughed.
“It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t … left.” There, he said it.
“You wouldn’t have left if I hadn’t gone behind your back.”
“If I hadn’t been wrapped up in the ISA missions – made decisions to leave when we should have made them together – none of it would have happened.
Now it was Kayla’s turn to give him the same absolution he’d given her. “I forgive you,” She said softly, her voice hoarse with the trauma of her release. “I love you, Steve.”
“I’ll never stop loving you,” he promised.
This bitter fight they’d incited with traded recriminations and indictments had now equally and oppositely unraveled with their atonements and exonerations.
The past hour was an emotional ordeal, and they were now exhausted. They crawled up into bed, held each other, and fell asleep.
Several hours later they awakened to clearer skies that were not far from darkening with dusk. They didn’t feel refreshed, but the heaviness that had been with them for so long was gone. Their souls felt freed of the stains that they’d placed upon each other.
Summer nights this far north were not always warm, and tonight it was only a few degrees above freezing. So, they ordered room service and took their dinner in the dining room. Steve sat in the chair Kayla had made love to him in last week, and Kayla sat facing him across the small table. When they were done, they held hands as they finished this conversation that they should have had so long ago. It felt … good. Difficult, but every moment of discussion took away more of their pain.
“Steve?” They’d been silent for a bit, both of them satisfied that they’d reached a peace.
“Yeah, baby?”
“This was the worst fight we’ve ever had.”
Steve nodded. “It was.”
“I can’t ever do it again.” Steve gave her a neutral look she couldn’t read. “I’m not saying we’re never going to argue again. Or be mad at each other. I mean, we’re human.”
“We are?”
Kayla smiled. “Last I checked.”
“I thought we were superheroes.”
“Oh are we?” she chuckled. “What’s our superpower?”
“Our couply’ness. We’re a supercouple. We’re forever.”
“Hmmp.” Kayla licked her lips and smiled sweetly. “I think you’re right,” she said. Her voice still had a roughness that made Steve want to fix it. “I mean it, though, I know we’re not going to just be Ozzy and Harriet for the rest of our lives now.”
“You just dated us, baby.”
“But, Steve,” she said with absolute seriousness juxtaposed with his wit, “I can’t ever do this to you again. I can’t go through it, myself, again. We can’t fight like this ever again. Not like this.”
Steve dropped all humor and nodded in agreement. “You know what else we can’t ever do again?” he asked.
“What?”
Steve looked over Kayla’s shoulder at the spiral staircase. Then he looked pointedly back at her. Tears rimmed Kayla’s eyes. “Never again,” he rasped. Kayla shook her head as a tear spilled over her lashes. “It hurt so bad. I’m never doing that in anger ever again.” Kayla nodded. “Up there, too.”
“I shouldn’t have…
“I want you to know this, Kayla. I never let her touch me. I never let her kiss me. I did what I had to do, but I wouldn’t look at her. I didn’t wanna see her face. I know you saw the video. There was no affection. I hate her. And, I should never have … taunted you on the stairs … with Justin.”
Kayla looked directly into Steve’s eye and squeezed his hand. “I forgive you for Ava.”
Steve’s eye misted. “Thank you, Sweetness.
“With Justin—”
“Shh,” Steve cut her off. “There’s nothing to forgive, Kayla.
“No, I—I need to say this.”
Steve nodded. “Ok.”
“With Justin, what I felt for him—There was a familiarity and an attraction, and when you push those two things together … when someone comes along and offers you refuge from the loneliness, and they adore you and think you’re beautiful and make you stop doubting yourself … that feels a lot like love. And—it was love.” Steve did not react; he remained stone still. “It was a type of love that I could have been content with. But it could not hold a candle, Steve – not a candle – to our love. To what I feel for you. He was good to me. but he could never be you.”
The jealousy was there, and it never wouldn’t be part of him. But when it came right down to it, Steve was grateful to Justin, too. For giving her the affection she needed when she so clearly needed it.
“Thank you for telling me, Sweetness.” Then Steve leaned over to his wife and kissed her gently. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he repeated.
They both showered before they went to sleep, washing off the horrible day that had settled upon them. And for the first time since they reunited, they slipped into bed naked. They held each other, caressed one another’s skin, and felt the comfort of their damp hair in their hands. Steve stroked his fingers over the red bite mark he’d left on Kayla’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said tenderly.
She shook her head and kissed him. It was so tender, they couldn’t help but feel bathed in each other’s love. They kissed and held each other, and tangled their legs together as their desire grew.
Steve kissed her lovingly while he hovered atop her. Kayla wrapped her legs around his hips and felt lit from within when she felt Steve join with her. Steve didn’t remember a time he felt this happy to be inside of her. He felt her love as strongly as he gave her his. “I’m going to make love to you like a husband is supposed to make love to his wife.” Steve said. Then he took Kayla’s hand and placed it on his patch, removing it with her hand. “With nothing between us.”
Kayla felt cherished. “I am your wife, Steve.”
“I wanna fix the piece of paper. Because I am your husband.
They made love with tenderness, heat, affection, desire, devotion … and undying love.