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I look up at him and slowly crawl back up the wall until I’m on my feet again. Can’t or won’t? Does it even matter? Malachi will. He’ll do whatever I want, perhaps whatever he wants. Gray is confusing. I know he wants me. I could feel it, ridged against me. Probably angry. Aggressive.
Hmm.
“You have no right to stop me then.” I pick up the chain dangling from my wrist and scrunch it into my grip, dismissing the rest of the pills for him to deal with. “I want sensation, Gray. Light and dark. Everything. It’s all so pretty here.”
I smile and turn from him, my feet wandering me back along corridors we’ve just come down and my hand dragging the wooden panelling.Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Lovely. All of it. This place. The people. Me. I’m burnt and heated from that lash that landed on me, body swollen and bruised from something I’ve yet to comprehend. And even the smell here is lovely. Old, aged. Attractive. Maybe it’s a castle.
I should go outside and look at it, stare up at the precipice and think about flying from it. Especially with all the snow. It’ll be pretty. Barren and cold maybe, but there’s something beautiful about that. Desolation seems appealing right now - wretched. I’ll find quiet in that. Amusement maybe. I need a door.
Castles have big doors.
Where?
Music starts playing somewhere after a while. Piano. Long notes. Morbid notes. I listen to them and keep tapping on the wood, letting my fingers find a new cadence to play with. Melancholy. Sad. But it’s calling me. Smooth and languid, as if played by someone who knows the ache of remembrance.
Each step in search of it becomes laboured by the gloomy outlook, and I sway to its rhythm, letting the feeling travel through me to my still tapping finger. Halls pass by me. Each one giving me a new era of age. Armour on the walls now. Cross swords as if lords fought battles to defend these boundaries around us.
Louder and louder it builds, until it’s only a wall away from me.
I stall in the large hallway, ears focused on the sound reverberating through the walls. Beautiful. Achingly sad and dejected. Whoever is playing it needs a hug. They need pulling into my arms and wrapping in care and love. My hand pushes on the door quietly so I don’t disturb the player, and I’m immediately stunned at the sight. Malachi sits there at a grand piano in the window, his fingers flitting over the keys as if they’re designed to flow as part of him.
My head tilts at the contradiction, feet walking me forward quietly. He hit me. Hard. He shoved and dragged me as if I was something to be discarded and toyed with under his hands. Veins in his face. And yet here he is – playing so beautifully.
“I thought this might tempt you back,” he murmurs. “Sad little Mrs Tanner. Unsure of her future.” I frown and move closer, wondering what that means. “Why fight him to stay when you don’t know what you’re staying for?” His fingers keep playing, his gaze directed out into the snow and ice, and he sighs. “There’s a robe on the back of the door. Put it on.”
I stop and look down at myself, a light giggle rolling through me. Near naked. I’d forgotten that. It’s felt normal for a while. Sexual. Real.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Robe?”
The piano comes to an abrupt halt, keys faltering notes, and his body swings to look at me. “Because I want to hurt you. I’m stopping myself.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s smitten. And that amuses me past my sordid thoughts.” He looks me over. Slowly. Head to foot. No particular interest in my body, or spark of life in his eyes given my naked state. Still nearly black orbs. Maybe endless. I step closer, drawn to their distraction. “I can only assume it’s because of this sad look you have. Or the sinister edge. Are you sinister?”
“Not that I know of.”
He gets up and slams the fallboard on the grand, enough so that I jump slightly and back off a few paces, as he passes me, heading towards the door. “Clearly not sinister at all. You should talk to my wife,” he says, coming back to me with a robe in his hand. “Put it on and tell me why you want to stay here with me.”
“Unusual. Different. New,” I reply, taking the silk and brocade robe from him.
He stares some more, as I slip into it, and then holds his hand out as if I’m supposed to take it. Why? We all know this isn’t a date. Nothing is here. I shake my head and wait for whatever he’s about to do, or say.
He snorts and walks away from me, crooking his finger to follow.
More corridors pass us by, as he walks through them, and I try keeping him fixed in my sights. He’s nothing like Gray. He’s languid, as if everything’s an amble to him. Maybe that’s me actually. I giggle at the sensations beginning to travel through me again. Everything is starting to feel like it’s floating, or I am.
My arms stretch out to the side of me, feet spinning me in a small circle as we keep moving. And nothing about him seems to fit with this place he owns either. Juxtaposed. I glance at his forearms, looking over the plaited bracelets and dark tan. He should be surfing somewhere. On a beach. My stomach hurts. Why does it hurt?
“Where did you leave him?” he asks.
“How would I know? I don’t know where anything in here is. Is there an outside?”
“What?”
