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"You have no idea," I grind out.
There are a hundred other words I could say. I'd regret none of them, but Jesus, she'd never look at me again.
I leave before I irrevocably fuck something. My life. Her life. Just her. Suddenly, they all feel like the same thing.
***
For the rest of the day, desire haunts me. It started the moment I laid eyes on Leo, grew thicker as I stroked her through those thin mesh panties, and now it curdles into obsession as the hours go by, lining the back of my throat so viscously that I can almost taste it. Cherries and alcohol. Jesus. I'm not averse to masturbating in my office but my schedule is about as forgiving as a Playboy model with a paternity suit.
I sit through a conference call with my newspaper editors like a zombie, listening to them argue back and forth and pretending to be interested in the plethora of broadsheets and tabloids splayed before me. Normally, I lay into them about something like headlines or ad space sales, or the sheer snail's pace at which they appear to be gathering news—not today. I just let them get on with pissing each other off. Not one of them is getting a Christmas bonus for forcing me to listen to a diatribe on Kardashian versus Bieber column inches.
After that hour of fail, I sit through a briefing with Carson about some of the stories we need to run, reply to emails through lunch, and then do a walk-around in the main news room just for an excuse to go past Leo's offices. Fortunately, there's nothing like an extremist beheading video on a massive screen for getting rid of a hard-on.
I have my vices, but trust me when I tell you that religious bullshit mutilation isn't one of them. (Does this make me a better man, grasshoppers? I suspect not, but then I also find myself all out of fucks for the giving).
By two o'clock, I'm aching in all ways possible and can't stand the blood in my own veins. I call Tommy Chavez on my cell three times, pacing my office when he doesn't pick up and growing more irate every second. I'm about to put my fist through one of my plasma screens when the bastard finally calls me back.
"Where the hell have you been?"
"Sorry, chief. I gots to have lunch like the rest of you, right?"
I press my hand over my face. "Tell me you have something on her. Anything." I just want...God, I don't even know anymore. Information. A reason to feel close to her because she's not fucking here.
It seems he's still eating. Wet smacking sounds squeeze around his words. "Miss Reeves, or the other chick?"
"Reeves. Leo."
"Unless she's grown a pair of wings, I'm pretty sure she's in your building, chief."
"I know that," I snap. "I meant in general. Whatever you have."
"I got nothing. Otherwise you woulda heard." He slows, slurping up a drink. "She goes to work, stays late, comes home. Kinda boring if you ask me. Although I saw you took her out last night—nice place, that Blue River Kitchen. I'mma take my momma there when I get off this case."
Don't count your chickens, you blasé fuck. "What about Rachel?"
"Ain't seen her. It crossed my mind though, I could track her down separate. See what her game is. I got time, what with your lady's little relocation."
"No." Provoking Rachel in any shape or form is the last thing I want to do. If she's talking, it's too risky, and I've already done enough damage control to last me a lifetime. "Stay away. Just let me know if she shows up, is all."
"It was just a suggestion."
"I make the suggestions. Is that clear?"
"Crystal." He slurps again. "Hey—there's a picture of you going 'round the Twitter, you and blondie leaving the restaurant last night. You seen it?"
"No, I haven't seen it, and no, I don't care." A lie. I should keep a better eye on this stuff—I meant to leak a few stories into my own media. What the hell is up with my memory?
Obsession eats everything that desire leaves behind.
***
I don't really deal with the rest of the day; I just survive it.
At four thirty, without making a single excuse, I waltz out of the Lore Corp building and drive myself home amid the first congested thickening of rush hour traffic. It's cool outside, but the air is like a pillow in my face regardless. I'm strung up and edgy and on a warpath to absolutely nothing. Nervous. Aroused.
This cat and mouse game with Leo has gone on too long. Somehow, I need closure. Resolution. The kind that won't land me at the precinct for another couple of days of questioning while fucking Montgomery plays out a defamatory circus. For the first time, I wish to God that Leo was just another screwed up little pickle and not an architect of secrets and lies. For all that her complications thrill me, they're inconvenient. Dangerous. More dangerous than she knows.
When I get home, Ash and Ethan are out; probably at Little League practise. Or maybe he found a Karate group to try already. I leave a note on the kitchen table—an amusingly wholesome, outdated act—swipe a few things into a bag, and head back out again.
No time to eat, but no matter. I'll eat at Leo's. I'm sure she won't mind.
A girl who didn't want me would have changed her locks already, wouldn't she, sports fans? A girl so paranoid would hate the thought of her personal space being violated in such a fashion, and yet my key clicks easily into her lock, and her alarm accepts the code I type in with a resigned little beep. God, I love the smell of her apartment; Leo, gone up in soft smoke. Will it be on her towels and sheets? Probably. Every cell in my body warms at the thought.
I dump my bag in her bedroom, undress, throw my shirt and suit over the back of her plush vanity chair and then walk through to her little bathroom with its marble sink. While the shower heats up, I go through her medications again—just to be sure. I like the way the ridges of the pill jars feel against the tips of my fingers; child proof. Heh. As if the worst thing that can happen with medication is that it falls into the hands of a kid.
Steam clouds her bathroom mirror, sits in a damp mist on its burnished copper frame. I watch my face slowly dissipate in the reflection. There are dark circles hanging beneath my eyes to match the fading bruise under my bottom lip, and my cheekbones sit atop hollows I don't remember carving. My abs and external obliques are more prominent, and my shoulder muscles are bulbous and bunched. This obsession thing is eating more than my brain; its teeth work at my flesh, too. I look like I've been carved out of wax. Normally, I go for a healthier look; it comes naturally from my gym work and diet. I guess I've been neglecting my belly a little lately. I'm not the kind of man who can eat and masturbate at the same time.
Maybe it's knowing that there's a little less fat over my muscles, but the hot water of the shower seems to penetrate quicker, ushering this slow, acrid ache. Various products hang in a wire basket over the glass wall of the shower, and I select a musky, floral body wash called Midnight Tuberose, cover her still-damp flannel with it, and massage it over my skin. The air grows swollen, feeding on the undernotes of her mulled wine scent; the steam is thick and bitter-tasting. When I reach my cock—which has been left untouched today, but strains like it's been far longer—I wrap it in the warm flannel, fist myself, and take long, slow pulls. Jesus. I fall back against the cold glass wall and press my spine into the chill, desperate for something to take the edge off. I can't come yet. Won't. As much as I love the idea of plastering the wall of her shower and even leaving the mess for her to accidentally brush through, it would be a waste.
An image alights in my steam-addled mind: Leo, making her way into the subway station, still coming down from our shareholder meeting earlier and picking things apart. Warm, stale bodies crush against her in the halls, on the elevator; she floats along oblivious. Plays on her cell. Perhaps there's a little black gift box in her handbag—for her sake, I hope so, because it's always messy when I have to improvise. Perhaps she thinks about the way I touched her this morning and her panties stick to the lips of her pussy. She knows what I want, that I've given her the chance to refuse me; she doesn't know I'm waiting, sick of offering any choice at all. Ill with it. Poisoned. Preoccupied. Ready to hold her down and rip out the kind of virginity that most girls take to their graves.
Does she wonder how rough I'll be when I fuck her?
Does she forget to breathe when she contemplates the tip of my knife on her skin?
Does she stand in this shower each morning and slip soapy fingers over her clit, gasping as she imagines an orgasm conjured by my hands?
I've never made her beg, grasshoppers. Oh, I've tried—with a gun, no less—but even then, she resorted to sarcasm before giving in. Tonight, she'll need stronger weapons. Let her maim me with them, slice me open, tangle her pink tongue in my veins. I want all of it. No more seduction, no more vague menace in the cracked mess of a chocolate or the blunt scrape of a thorn.
