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This next kiss surfed currents of confused desire in both of them; a riptide of emotion compressed into open mouths and the touch of tongues. Drum leaned on the closed door and brought her closer, moving his hands on her body to anchor them, hunger in his kiss making desire swell in her till she drowned in the want for him, swept out beyond the place where good intentions and sound reason lived, to an island of blue calm where all that mattered was this swirling connection, this desperate attachment to him.
He broke the kiss, but not the ties. “You make me forget. You make me want, Foley. Want so many things I don’t deserve.” He stroked her back, her arm, raising goosebumps with his words. “I don’t want to let you go because I’m scared I’ll never see you again. I can hardly believe you’re here now.”
He traced a finger around her ear to cup the back of her head. He brought their foreheads together and closed his eyes. “Obsession, compulsion, they’ve wrecked me, they’ll wreck me again over you.”
“Let me help you.” If she could help him, she could help herself, because it was impossible to tear away from him.
He brushed his nose against hers. “I saw you in that crowd and I thought you hated me, thought you’d come to make sure I paid.”
Her throat closed up, her eyes flooded. “I don’t understand. I didn’t want to believe it, but you didn’t defend yourself. I had to … I had to.” How did she make him understand she couldn’t protect him, she’d had to give him up.
He released her. “I understand.”
He left her rocking on her feet, cast adrift, seasick. “I didn’t want to believe you’d hurt someone, but you …” it was hard to say it.
“I told you I did. I’ve hurt many people, but not like that, not like they thought, like I let you think.”
She put her palm on his chest. “That woman is sick. She has to be to accuse you, to accuse five other men of the same thing.”
He centred his palm over hers. “She needs help, it’s not her fault.”
“No, you’re confused, you’re—”
She studied his face. He was sick too, she just didn’t understand what made him this way, but then she understood so little about mental illnesses, and she didn’t know him before whatever incident changed his life.
He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “Whatever you want to know I’ll tell you, but I understand if it’s too much, if you’d rather go.”
She shook her head. She needed to hear his story, she needed to stay close to him, feel him. Whatever made him this way, she’d help him get past it.
“Ah, Foley, I should send you away.”
She almost smiled, his voice had gone deep with longing, but it was edged with a remnant of the authority he wore so easily. He had dark smudges under his eyes, and the tension in his face put creases at their corners. He was unarmed and exhausted and utterly open to her. She put her hand to his face. She had doubted him, given him up and she loved him without reservation.
“Try it and see where that gets you.”
26: Payment
Of all the agonising moments of the last few days, watching Foley sit in her car with the engine running, knowing she was debating coming or going, was one of the worst. He’d managed to keep his identity contained, but there was nothing Drum could do to save himself from losing her, and he didn’t know if he’d survive watching her drive away.
But now that she’d made the decision to be here with him, he’d give her all the information she needed to choose freely for herself.
She was pale, her face pinched from the stress he’d put her through. They both needed food, sleep, time, and he needed to find a way to make it all make sense to her.
They kissed again and it was almost enough to take the place of nutrition and rest, almost enough to be everything he needed.
“You’re going to fall down if I don’t feed you.” He wanted to protect her, but the time for that had passed, the only way to keep her safe was tell her everything.
He used her phone and called for a pizza. It made her laugh. She was the junk food nut, not him. It made him forget he needed to talk to her, it made him pull her close again and kiss her till neither of them wanted to remain standing.
He should’ve quit then, but her lips were red and swollen and her hair undone, and at some point she’d moved her hands under his shirt, against his skin, and it shut down the part of his brain responsible for thought and reason, left him with the motor skills to get rid of her coat and jacket, get them to the stairs where she could recline and he could brace above her, run his hands from knee to hip to waist and fill them with the swell of her ribs and the rise of her breasts.
The gate buzzer had been pressed more than once with impatience before either of them heard it. He left her to get the pizza and salad while he let himself in to the cellar to get wine. They could both do with a drink.
They picnicked on the stairs and he loved her for that, for not insisting on using the perfectly good kitchen upstairs. He would’ve done it for her, like he had the morning he’d made her breakfast. The rules didn’t apply to her and she shouldn’t be disadvantaged because of them. The food gave them back their separateness and he was going to need that too, because that was his future.
“Alison Villet spoke to me once.” He’d work backwards; lead Foley to where she needed to be to understand. Foley’s tired eyes worried that so he went on. “In the park, the day I moved back to the cave. We were watching your Natalie interview the protest leader.”
“You were watching Walter. That’s cheeky. He was trying to evict you.”
