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“Help me,” he says, gesturing to the chair opposite his desk.
I search his eyes, wondering if I really want to get into this with him now. If I don’t, he’ll never let me go to Chicago. “Fine. But just listen, okay?”
He nods, miming zipping his mouth shut. “I’m all ears.”
My heart pounds unevenly in my chest as I sit down again. “All this time I’ve been trying to keep the darkness inside of me under control, but really, it just needed an outlet.” I rub a hand across the back of my neck. “Suppressing it was only making it more difficult to control. It felt like it was trying to eat me alive.”
Oak nods as if he understands, but he can’t understand this. He may have had a dark past, but not like mine. It doesn’t even come close.
“Camilla is that outlet. She fits me like a fucking glove and although I feel like I’ve lost control of the darkness, it doesn’t need controlling when I’m around her.”
He arches a brow. “Sounds like you are in love.”
My stomach flips at that word. “Love isn’t in my vocabulary.”
“You are in denial, then. I know what it is to suddenly feel whole after years of feeling empty.”
He’s talking about his relationship with Eva. I must admit, he was a bit like me when it came to dating, although he never even had relations I knew about with women. He was like a fucking monk, as far as I was aware.
And then suddenly he’s married to a student. It was totally out of the blue, but I can’t deny that he seems far happier ever since they got together.
“That’s what you are describing, isn’t it?”
Is it? I guess in a sense, but it’s more complicated than that. Not just a sense of being whole, but a sense of acceptance of who I am.
All this time I’ve been fighting it, trying to satiate my needs with fragments.
Camilla lets me be who I am, and she fucking loves it. Even subs that I’ve been with before have been weirded out by the extremes of my sadistic needs.
Gail, for example, only let me do things to her because she had fallen for me. It wasn’t because she enjoyed it the way Camilla does.
“It’s not that simple.” I run a hand through my hair. “All I know is I have to go to Chicago. They’re going to try to take her from me.”
“Fine, you can go. I’ll have to get someone to cover for you.” He gives me a piercing look. “How long will you be?”
I shake my head. “It’s impossible to say until I get there.”
He sighs. “This year has been the craziest fucking year yet.”
I purse my lips together, knowing that Archer is also off his rocker right now, but think it best not to tell him.
After all, he’s taking this badly enough. If I tell him Arch blackmailed his student into having sex and is now in love with her, I think he might have a heart attack.
“I know, but at least it’s almost over.”
Oak nods, loosening his tie. “Yeah, I can’t wait.”
I can wait, as it means working out what the hell is going on between me and Camilla. Love is a word I can’t quite get onboard with, but all I know is I can’t live without her.
She’s the light to my darkness. A star in my pitch black night sky. And without her, I’m not really living. Without her, it feels like my heart won’t be able to keep beating—a heart I believed had turned to stone forever, but Camilla defied all odds and melted it.
* * *
“Gav, wait up,”Arch calls as I chuck my holdall into the trunk of my car. Anyone who sees me would think I’ve just packed a few things for a few days away, but actually the bag is full of guns.
I’m not leaving Chicago without Camilla. Those fuckers think they can steal her away from school early and force us apart, well they’re wrong.
“What is it, Archer?” I slam the trunk shut.
