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The glass turns in his fingers, round and round, the cut crystal spinning slowly, as if he’s using it as a tool to keep his composure in check. I look back at his eyes, watching them for signs of detonation, as they watch me. I remember that about him, can still feel it on my skin. The soft and then the hard. The holding back and then the eruption into me. I miss it.
I miss him on me and in me.
My own drink goes to my lips, one more swallow for Dutch courage. “No more, Gray?” My legs uncross, body leaning forward to stand. “Hmm? You don’t want the things you did to me?” Slow movements towards him, the full extent of the bruising he caused still evident on my flesh for him to see. “Because I miss you on me.”
I sweep my gaze around, looking at all the things that make him him, and return my gaze to the only thing that makes him him. “You really don’t want me?”
My fingers graze trails over my skin, nails indenting on places he touched, marks he made, until I’m a foot away from something I remember so vividly. His tongue licks over his lips at my proximity, eyes hardening just as they normally do when he’s becoming provoked.
“I didn’t say that. I said that it wasn’t reality.”
“It could be, though. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“I’m not, though.”
A sharp tug on my wrist has me landing in his lap before I’ve caught breath or realised what’s happened. And then another yank to my hair, twisting my face towards his, makes me gasp at the ferocity in his hands.
“Do you know why I’m not here, Mrs Tanner?” My lips tremble slightly, body trying to get somewhere near comfortable on the hard plains of his ridges. He doesn’t let me. I’m held fast, gripped tightly until it’s barely bearable on my muscles and bones. “No? Let me explain clearly enough that even you understand.”
I’m pushed, shoved off his lap onto the floor without a chance to respond, and his body is large and looming above me before I’ve righted myself. “We are nothing, Mrs Tanner. You were a diversion for me. An amusement to be experimented on. Could I fuck you again? Yes. Should I? No. No matter how appealing you are.”
I start pulling myself up, only to have his hand slap me back down to the ground again. “Stay still. Listen and learn. I will not do this again.” He moves away from me, picks up the drink I was drinking and downs it. “I’m unable to give a damn about you out here. Do you understand that? That is the reality we are now in. The reason I left you with Malachi was so you would fuck something else because you couldn’t help but do so, forget me and move on.”
My eyes crawl up to his at that, an irrational fury surging through my bones. I didn’t fuck anything else. Didn’t want to after him. My mouth opens to counter his argument, give something more of myself to him so he understands. “There is nothing here for you.Iam not here for you. Never will be, Mrs Tanner.”
I feel small suddenly. So very small and insignificant. It’s intolerable even to my own sense of reasoning, of needing to be beneath him, under him.Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap.I sneer at the ground I’m on, remembering myself in the same position when I was at the wake. Him above me whilst I was down and dejected - lost and faltering. I’m not doing that now.
Not ever again.
The thought makes me move, ready for the slap that might come if he hasn’t finished his speech. Pain doesn’t hurt me anymore, not from him. As proved by the body that’s still heaving under the torment of past bruises. And this is lies, all of it. I know it. So does he. Unable? What does that mean? And even if he was able, if he’d reacted differently, I didn’t come to beg him – I came for him to beg for me. I am more than I was that morning when he left me.
Harder, stronger. More formidable.
“You’re a liar, Gray,” I pull my body upright. “A fraud.”
My chin lifts, neck cracking around to ease the tension he’s just put me under, and I stretch each of my limbs in turn. “And I wouldn’t know that if I hadn’t felt parts of you that you’re denying. I don’t like liars.”
I turn to walk away from him, letting my body casually sway through each room I choose to pass by. My fingers push at another small piece of sculpture on a pedestal, sending it tumbling and smashing to the ground along with the one already there. “You will always be here for me.” I look over my shoulder, watching him as he watches me move to another dark and torrid object. Again, it topples easily, splintering shards around his marble floor. “Because I’m a part of you now. You let me in. No one has been inside you like I have. You know it as well as I do.”
A sigh falls from me as I reach the stairway, eyes looking up at the possibilities available there. Fucking. Lots of it. Albeit – I roll my shoulders - that could happen anywhere. This floor. That wall. The dining table I passed by earlier. I giggle and keep walking, climbing the steps as if it’s my route to hell. Maybe it is.
I don’t care.
I want my truths.
Chapter 7
Gray
Ignoring the broken sculptures, I follow the path of shattered remnants slowly through the rooms and then watch as she begins climbing the stairs. Tight. Firm. Everything always damn well is on her. Dark, loose curls spilling down her back. Provocative black lingerie. Lace on top of sheer material. High black heels elongating limbs I can remember wrapping around me.
My dick’s hard, muscles harder.
And now I have insolence to contend with.
Not that she ever wasn’t, but this new version of self-possession she’s presenting is both fascinating and torturous to me. Her hands run along the bannisters, trailing softly, as if caressing the woodwork is the beginning of her seductive dance. It isn’t. She was as tempting the moment I smelt her in my home as she is now.
A few moments is all it took. I paced the kitchen. Held the gold chin in my grasp. Pocketed it as I considered my options, and then she was in front of me drinking my scotch and tapping a key-card as if she had some divine right to be in my space. She doesn’t, but the sad reality is I’d never seen anything as beautiful in my home as that vision. No sculpture. No painting. Not anything other than her and exactly what she is.
