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I shove the book in my hands into his. “Goodbye, Garin. Keep this until I see you again.”
“I will.” He holds it against his chest. “Tell me the page of your favorite poem.”
“Forty-two,” I whisper just as his phone sounds again.
“I have to run.” The words leave him as he sprints to my apartment door.
We don’t exchange another word, just a look into each other’s eyes before he’s out the door and gone again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Gaines
I readover the text I just typed out and then press send.
Gaines: Her eyes are the color of the sky when the clouds have cleared.
Her response is almost instant.
Eloise: But it was her lips. Oh, those red-stained lips. They charmed him so.
I step onto the subway platform a block from Eloise’s apartment with her poetry book tucked under my arm.
I didn’t have to look at it to know what poem I’d find on page forty-two, or the first line of it, which I sent to her just now.
I own this book too, although mine isn’t a first edition and I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the poet whose name I’ve adopted for what I do in the dark, and in the burgeoning light of the day as I did this morning with my lamb.
I toss my head back to chase away the lingering image of that picture tucked in Eloise’s nightstand.
She didn’t have time to hide it after I arrived at her place in the middle of the night so that offers a small degree of comfort. It was stuck in that drawer before that.
Still, I have no claim to her, and as angry as I was when I fucked her, it was incredible. It was so goddamn intense that my legs are still shaking.
She makes me weak in a way I can’t afford to be, but the thought of never touching her again makes me fear I’ll collapse.
As the train approaches, my phone chimes.
I drop my gaze to it and chuckle.
Eloise: Be honest. Did you have to look in the book to recite the first line of the poem? No judgment here, sir.
My reply is on its way to her before the subway slows to a stop.
Gaines: You know I didn’t. I should punish you for questioning my love of Garin’s work.
By the time I’ve settled on a torn leather seat amid a crowd of New Yorkers all rushing somewhere, her response has hit my phone.
Eloise: Or I could just keep questioning it and make you ANGRY because that fuck was out of this world.
My cock stirs inside my jeans as I read it once, and then again.
I was angry when I fucked her, and I sure as hell hate that whoever the guy is in that photo likely has had his hands on her, too.
“Oh, my,” a woman’s voice says from my left. “You must be a lot of fun.”
“Jesus,” I whisper.
People in this city need to keep their eyes to themselves and off of other people’s phones.
