Page 95 of These Tears

Good Lord… What is he planning to do to me?

Outrage climbs up my throat, but the wind takes that moment to whistle it right back down into submission. Heat floods the line of my spine, crawls up behind my ears and steals my next breath.

‘What the hell do you think this is?’ I snarl low, unable to keep it in.

And I don’t mean only this domestic illusion he keeps trying to make real—

The fury is aimed at myself too; at the gooseflesh spreading over the parts where the heat of his body is about to collide with mine.

‘My demons, you know,’ he says flatly, eyes on me. ‘They get volatile if they’re not fed regularly.’ He casts a flat gaze towards the window near the front door where the blizzard is punishing the glass. Then it falls to his hand resting loosely beside his thigh.

My teeth clamp together. I force air in.

There is no way for me to test what his limit is.

Swallowing the protest that starts burning beneath my tongue, I glance again towards the snowstorm battering the glass as if it were my spine instead. And my body sinks down in front of him until I can feel his breath at the back of my neck. His chest radiates through the space between us, warming my back. There’s no contact – just the suggestion of it. The threat of it. Like standing too close to the fire and pretending I’m not blistering.

He purrs over my shoulder, ‘I want you to read it aloud.’

‘You could get a telly and watch porn like every other decent psycho,’ I snap, but rein it in at the last second.

A low, rough sound rolls out of him. I flinch, not sure if it was a growl or a laugh.

‘I’m not very comfortable with observing such contact,’ he says in all seriousness.

There’s no smile in the notes. No hidden demand. Not even a philosophical quotation thrown in.

My mind slows. My heart stills.

It’s the first thing he’s offered me that isn’t a blade turned sideways.

I stare into the fire. Keep calm.

‘What I know about intimacy is… corrupted,’ he says quietly. ‘I’d like to understand it more.’

A cold sort of disquiet slides under my ribs.

I hate that part of me thinks I should feel lucky he’s choosing words over hands. I hate even more that another part of me wants to answer the pain in his voice.

The black rose blooming over the red cover invites my gaze. I’d placed it in his hands before I understood what I was really handing him. Back then, he’d approached the story with that strange dry humour of his, as if it only amused him.

But now… with this grave honesty spilling out of him, I wonder if he’d recognised something in those pages, took it as a study. Catalogued it. Measured it against himself. Tried to understand the desire from the pages.

My fingers tighten around the paperback as I stare at the illustration, roiling the questions in my head.

One beat. Two.

Oh God.

My lungs seize.

‘Has someone hurt you?’ I whisper without thinking it through. I regret it as soon as it’s out.

He holds his breath.

I hold mine.

In that space, the question sits between us live and writhing.