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“I never saw you that way,” she cried. “God, Rafe. You were the same age as I was when I—when I—” Her voice broke. “You were just my little giraffe. And every time I look at your face when we do it, it tears me up inside.”
His face shifted.
“Don’t look at me then.” He crossed his arms to pull his shirt off before kissing her again, harder. She shuddered when he put her hands on his body, and then tapped the rattling bracelets on her right wrist. “Let me take care of you.”
She heard herself make a raw sound.
“I’ll tell you something else,” he said. “If you keep worrying about what other people think—it’s more fun to be guilty of what everyone assumes you already did anyway. Take those officers down at the station. All that questioning. Doesn’t it make you want to kill someone?”
Donni stiffened, alarmed. Her eyes snapped open, half-expecting to see the look she’d spent the last ten years bracing herself for. But there was only dark amusement glittering in the depths of his eyes. And then the amusement faded, shading to concern. “What—”
Before he could finish that thought, she gripped him by the back of his neck and covered his mouth with hers, reaching between their bodies with her other hand to grip him through his jeans.
“Take me home and I’ll fuck your brains out,” she said, and he nodded tightly, letting out a guttural exhalation.
He floored it, the passing streetlights gleaming off his bare shoulders like polished wood. It took less than ten minutes for them to drive back to the house, where he dragged her into the darkened hallway. He tossed her bracelets on the counter, before stripping off her blouse. Then they were stumbling, like teenagers after a drunken night of fumbling.
“Lie down,” he said, groping for the braided cord that secured her drapes.
As Rafe tied her hands to the bedposts, a different set of hands reached for her discarded bracelets in the hall, unbeknownst to either of them. They turned the bangles over carefully, letting the small rhinestones studding their surface glint as they caught the light. And then, with a quiet snap, strong fingers methodically broke each one of them in two.
???????
They didn’t talk afterwards. When he tried, Donni sighed and rolled away, showing him her back.Not now, Rafe. She didn’t say it, but the rejection stung the same as if she had, and all those old childhood fears that he was somehow unworthy of affection and never would be bubbled up like dark poison. He hated seeing her dissociate from what they’d done, reducing him to a hard cock she’d used to get off as she closed her eyes to shut him out.
He lay back against the tussled sheets, hardly daring to move at all just in case the reminder of his presence was cause enough for her to run. As his heart gradually slowed, he played with the tasseled drapery cord. It was a bright metallic gold and wouldn’t have been out of place in a Nevada brothel.
I bet Dad picked it out, he thought. A grim smile surfaced briefly.I bet it never occurred to him that someone would end up using them like this.
As he wound the smooth cord over and around his fingers, he watched the rise and fall of Donni’s shoulders as she slept.Rafe the Giraffe. He’d forgotten about that. She’d used to pinch his cheeks when he was being sullen and call him that stupid name.You’re getting so tall and you have the prettiest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. Just like a little giraffe.
“Shut up,” he usually said, but he had secretly liked it.
And then one day she had stopped saying it, and he hadn’t realized how badly he’d missed it until now.I never saw you that way. You were just my little giraffe.
The denial of her affection had felt a bit like he was dying of thirst, and some cruel hand had shut off a tap of cold water after his first fleeting taste. He’d seen the games she played with his father; it had felt like she was playing another one with him.
And then she had kicked him out.
His books had started out as a means of bringing his twisted fantasies to light. If he couldn’t have his revenge in person, then he could vanquish her in his mind. At first, he hadn’t even planned on publishing the Madison Hawthorn books, until his roommate at the time had accidentally seen some of the pages and told him they were good.
After that, he used to imagine her reading them. Shocked and horrified and—yes, he admitted this to himself—even a little turned on. That filled him with a dark satisfaction, picturing her laboring beneath his father in their bed, thinking of him and whathe’ddo to her.
Because it had always been her.
He’d dated, of course, but nothing long-term. His lack of experience was an obstacle in his relationships, one that he wasn’t sure how to broach now that the intensity that had scared women off when he was younger now drew them in like moths to flame. He had brought a few of them as dates to the pretentious literary parties he got invited to where having someone on your arm was as essential as a tie, and then the evening would end in stymied disappointment that left him feeling coldly furious. Eventually, someone had pointed out to him that he seemed to have a type: tall and full-figured, with brown eyes and dark, curly hair.
When Donni had called to beg for his help, Rafe had been surprised. And then angry. Did she think he was still a pushover of a boy, eager to jump to her commands? If she wanted to use him, that was fine. But he was going to make sure she felt the pinch. He wasn’t a boy any longer, nor did he hand over his affection so willingly. Now—for her—it would come at a cost.
If she wanted to bargain with him like a man, then she could fuck him like one.
Now he’d gotten what he wanted, but there was a hollow, gnawing edge to his satisfaction. Whatever he had pictured for the two of them all those years ago, back when he still believed in love with the unequivocal ferocity of youth, it hadn’t been this.
You saw the writing on the wall, didn’t you?He ran the tasseled edge of the cord along the curve of her breast. Her breathing didn’t even change. She was peaceful, her face relaxed in sleep, lips slightly parted. The upper lip was slightly fuller than the lower one, and she had a slight gap between her front teeth, giving her a faint lisp when she spoke. There were lines that formed around her mouth like chevrons that deepened when she smiled, arching into her dimples in a way that he found nearly irresistible.
But it was her eyes he loved: a dark brown that was nearly black. You could only see the faint backlighting of their reddish base when she was standing in the sun, and then they glowed like polished bloodwood. They tilted upwards when she was happy or pleased, closing halfway like a cat’s. But when she was unhappy, she just stared at you balefully, letting the lines of her beautifully expressive face say what words did not. She’d been looking at him that way a lot lately and he didn’t know how to make it stop.
What had been that reaction earlier? Something he’d said had clearly alarmed her. It had made her afraid—but not of him. He didn’t think she’d have let him tie her up if she were afraid of him. Not unless there was something she feared more.
