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It made me want to fuck again just to feel that rush of illicit love.
***
The drive home took time. John took the scenic route, which meant he drove all around LA. Trying to avoid having to drop me off. I got inspired halfway home and opened the container that held my leftover waffles, dipping my finger into some of the syrup and smearing it all over his cock. I licked it all off as he tried not to crash. I think he liked that. Sure sounded like it, and by the way he was pressing his hips up, his cock bottoming out at the back of my throat, I think I was doing just fine.
‘I meant what I said,’ I murmured, just as we were rounding the corner to my apartment block, John’s maple-syrup-covered dick securely back in his pants and my own panties back onunder my skirt. The clock on the dashboard said 3:48 a.m. I was into my first full day of being twenty-nine. So far, it wasn’t so bad.
I’d already kissed John goodbye in the parking lot of the diner. This close to home, it’d be foolish to do something so obvious. Emilio haunted these streets. Dornan lived here half the time. And while Guillermo might in theory be accepting of some relationship between me and John, I still didn’t want to give him, or anyone else, a reason to tear us apart before we’d even had our chance to get away from them all.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MARIANA
I was in the shower when I had my near-death experience. I mean, I almost had a goddamn heart attack. Washing shampoo from my hair, I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments, letting the suds wash down my face until the water ran clear.
When I closed my eyes, Iswearhe wasn’t there. But when I opened them again, I jerked back in shock, my ass and palms hitting the cold wall tiles behind me as Dornan stood in my bathroom, watching me like a fucking creeper.
He seemed slightly amused by myPsychovictim rendition. All that was missing was the shower curtain to wrap around myself while Norman Bates went to town. My bathroom was all tile and glass, but besides that, I hoped Dornan wasn’t in here to murder me.
‘Sorry,’ he said, a faint smile playing on his lips.
Jesus, John hadn’t been wrong. Dornan looked like someone had run him over, thrown the car in reverse, and driven over him again, paying particular attention to his head.
I shut the water off, taking the towel Dornan offered me.
‘What the hell happened to you?’ I asked, feeling genuine worry for Dornan in the sea of bitterness that was getting higher and more treacherous to navigate with every passing day.
‘John happened to me.’ He paused for a beat. ‘Did you speak to him?’
Well, damn. It wasn’t worth lying. I’d only be found out, wouldn’t I? And lying about John was going to arouse a whole lot of suspicion. I wondered, briefly, if Dornan could see the cogs turning in my mind the way I sometimes saw them in his.
‘He came around asking for a first aid kit,’ I replied. ‘His head wouldn’t stop bleeding.’ I drew a line down the middle of my forehead with my index finger. Fucking fuck fuck, it was harder to lie when you hadn’t come up with the lie in the first place. Could he tell? Dornan was as sharp as they come, but as I studied his bloodshot eyes, it was pretty clear that there was enough of something bubbling away in his veins to dull his ability to read me.
Dornan watched as I wrapped the towel around my torso, tucking it in tightly. Normally this was the part where he’d rip the towel from me and fuck me up against the wall, but tonight he made no such move. I knew my suspicions had been right. He was getting it somewhere else. So was I, so I didn’t exactly judge him, but it was one more nail in our coffin.
My hair hung around my face, soaking wet and straight. I stepped out of the shower, taking the hand that Dornan offered me. It was an odd gesture, almost gentlemanly. And my Dornan was anything but a gentleman.
‘And?’
‘And . . . he said you guys got into an argument,’ I continued. Jesus, the circles under my eyes were getting darker. Too much stress. Not enough sleep. The bottle of vodka probably hadn’t helped, either. ‘He didn’t really seem in the mood to talk.’
‘And?’ Dornan pressed.
Shit, shit, shit!
‘I asked him to take me to pick up waffles,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel safe by myself at night, and Guillermo said he was busy. And I wanted birthday waffles.’And I’m so fucking sick of having to explain my every move to you.What had once been concern and an overprotective instinct had morphed into an absolute need to control and micro-manage every facet of my life under the guise of making sure nothing bad happened to me. When the plain truth was, Dornan and his father WERE the bad that happened to me.
Dornan went to open his mouth again and without thinking, I pressed a finger to his lips. ‘Please,’ I said quietly, ‘do not sayandagain. It’s been a long day. Days. It’s a new day now, right? And I’m going to finish my birthday waffles.’ The birthday guilt trip was effective, at least. I walked past him, looking back as he stood mute. ‘You coming?’
He nodded, his dark eyes hooded, drawn. ‘Give me a minute.’
He closed the bathroom door until just a sliver of light could be seen at the sides, and I heard water running. I used the alone time to lose the towel and throw on the first nightgown I could find – something long, beige, and definitely not sexy. It was like a potato sack, only softer. I scooped up my wet hair, piling it into a messy bun on top of my head and using hairpins to keep it there. I padded into the kitchen, barefoot, and what Isaw took my breath away, replacing it with something between a hiccup and a sob.
There were candles everywhere. Dozens of them. They smelled like vanilla, the entire kitchen and dining area smothered in candlelight. I felt my chest crack open as I saw the way he’d arranged them. There were flowers in the middle of the table, white lilies. Something turned uneasily inside my stomach – they were death lilies. They were for funerals, not birthdays.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here,’ Dornan said at my back, his voice like gravel, even more hoarse than normal. I glanced at his throat, seeing red marks, wondering if they were from John’s hands. Funny how hands were so versatile. They could take you to the brink of death, or the brink of orgasm, just with the way you used them. He stepped closer, wrapping his arms around me, and a hard rock rose in my throat, refusing to budge. I looked up, tears burning my eyes and blurring the room into a garish caricature of candles and stucco ceiling.
He kissed the top of my head, one palm smoothing down the hair at the crown of my skull. Just like my mother used to do when I was a girl, but I wasn’t a girl anymore, and my mother was dead. The hard lump in my throat turned into a moan; the threat of tears spilling over became twin tidal waves pouring down my face. It had been less than twenty-four hours since the suitcase baby had been delivered. It played on a loop in my mind, no matter how hard I tried to switch it off. I couldn’t even replace the image of the little boy with one of Murphy’s face after I’d shot him. It wouldn’t go away.
