My eyes found his and I was anchored. He lifted his charcoal-stained fingers to my face. I closed my eyes and let my body incline to his. His citrus scent was mixed with earth and rain. And, as he held my cheek, I licked my lips, ready to feel his mouth on mine, ready to feel awakened, ready for him, but his hand fell, and my eyes opened as he eased the drawing from my hand.
“Are there parts of you that are still his?” Declan’s voice was a deep whisper and it hit me hard in the chest, cracking me open.
I shook my head, but I knew it was a lie. There was so much I still needed to work through. A marriage to a man like Clark didn’t just fade away.
“I want to wash him away, make it as if he never existed.” I stood, my knees aching from the chill of the concrete.
Declan sat completely paralyzed.
“Nothing of Clark remains here.” I pointed to my chest.
But there were some things I thought would never go away.
My eyes closed as his body hovered over me. The weight of him was suffocating. The damp feel of his breath on my neck curdled my stomach. I wanted to lose myself in something else, thoughts of Declan, thoughts of his mouth on mine, his hands on my hips, but Clark had robbed me of that. His brutal grunting distracted me from the fantasy, keeping me chained to the present. The painful pinch of his body moving inside of me had to be a sign this wasn’t right, this wasn’t love. Clark’s eyes avoided mine as he growled through his release. I should pray that this time his seed would take, but God doesn’t listen to liars.
“Nothing of mine was ever his.” The memory turned my heart to ice.
Declan stood, closed his sketchbook, and then held my face with his free hand. His thumb moved with a gentle touch across my cheekbone. “I’m sorry that you ever thought you had to give yourself over to him.”
“I lost sight of myself, Declan, but I’m getting better. I’m still in here…” A nervous laugh erupted from my lips. “At least I think I am.”
“You are, I see it sometimes. When your guard is down, the Paige I’ve always known… she’s still there.” His smile was comforting as he lowered his hand from my face.
“‘I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart; I am, I am, I am.’”
“The Bell Jar,” he said with a sideways smile.
“You remembered?” I shook my head in disbelief.
“It’s your favorite book, Paige. How could I forget? You know, you could get that quote as a tattoo.”
“No way.” I laughed again, but this time with feeling.
“No?” He quirked his eyebrow. “I could do it for you, if you wanted.” He ran his hand through his hair and dropped his gaze as he grabbed his satchel and placed his pad inside.
My heart flapped out several shuddered beats before it found its proper rhythm again. “Maybe?”
“Tonight?” He grinned and I laughed once.
“I’d rather see your paintings, if that’s all right with you.” My smile was brightly woven within the words.
“Then let’s go.”
He’d said he lived walking distance from The Gallery, but I’d driven us to his apartment anyway. I’d had a small panic attack when I’d first seen the tattoo shop because I was certain Liam would most likely hate me. We’d pulled around back, down a narrow alley and parked. The shop was closed and when I’d ask Declan if Liam would be home, he’d said he’d texted his brother earlier and he’d gone out with some girl. From our conversations at the studio, I knew Kieran lived at home still, so when Declan lead me up the rickety and rusted stairs behind Avenues Ink, I had a small wave of relief that we would be alone. Declan’s hand was wrapped tightly in mine as he opened the apartment door. Once inside, he flipped on the lights, and the shade of the night evaporated, illuminating the entire space in a white glow.
The ceiling was high and, from what I could see, the apartment was very modern. Everything felt cold except for the beige area rug. I only glanced around the place briefly before my eyes landed on Declan’s paintings. They were in various sizes, hung in steel frames against the exposed brick of the industrial-themed apartment.
“Declan, this place… it’s like your own personal exhibit.” I couldn’t hide the wonder in my voice as I pulled him to one of the paintings.
My eyes devoured the linear form of the triangles and circles clashed together in black paint. The shapes seemed to bleed in white lines down the canvas.
His laugh was soft and he squeezed my hand. “Liam lets me hang most of the stuff I do out here. The weird shit is reserved for my room.”
“The weird shit?” The swear word sounded foreign on my tongue and he laughed a little louder.
“Yeah, it’s more personal, and I don’t know, I’d rather it not be on display for just anyone.” He tugged me away from the abstract painting. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
He led me past the kitchen and down a short hall. There were only three doors. One of which was open. The bathroom was small, and it, too, was decorated in mostly gray and black. Declan opened the last door and it felt ridiculous to be nervous, but I was. Fear and excitement, though fear was winning, covered my skin with expectant goose bumps, and I wished he hadn’t released my hand as we walked through the door. Declan pulled his phone from his pocket and placed it in a docking station. He turned on his stereo, flooding the room with a smooth rhythm. I should’ve kept my eyes on him, I should’ve known what was coming, but I was barely able to conceal my gasp as I took in my surroundings.
Every wall was covered with us. Me. Him. Memories. Most were twisted into painful images. There was only one painting that stood out from the anger, the hate, and the sadness. It exuded light and the entwined forms were in love, and kissing, surrounded by a buttered warmth of yellow. If I allowed myself to close my eyes, I’d hear “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” playing in the background. I’d smell poultry spice and my mother’s yams. I lifted my fingers to my lips and I felt his mouth on mine as if I was in that hallway again on Christmas day.
“That’s a new piece.” Declan’s voice sifted through the memory pulling me back to him, to the present. “I painted this a little while ago. I’d had a nightmare, and then I fucking blacked out, and when I woke up the next morning…” He pointed to the painting. “I was covered in paint.”
“It’s our first kiss,” I whispered.
Declan didn’t confirm my statement, he just sat on his bed and watched me as I stared at each painting. My eyes always present in each. Sometimes I could sort out the memory and some I couldn’t. I wanted to ask him about each one, but it felt wrong to do so. Each piece was a private moment, a secret thought carved out by his hand, and the torment… I felt it to my very core.
“I can see your suffering.” I turned to look at him. “It haunts this room.”
His eyes focused solely on me. “It was the only way I could exorcise the demons after you left. I had to paint them, Paige, I had to set them free anyway that I could, or I would have lost myself to my psychosis. Liam encouraged it, cheap therapy.” He laughed without humor.
I sat next to him on the bed. “I’m glad you had Liam.”
He moved just enough that he was facing me. “You didn’t have anyone, did you?”
I shook my head fighting back the tears. He shouldn’t have to pity me, he had enough misery of his own. I lay back, my arms at my sides, closed my eyes, and let the smell of Declan’s black comforter pull me under. His room was saturated in the scent of him, of paint and his detergent. “When I married Clark, I deluded myself into thinking it could work. I ignored how he treated me, how his touch made me physically ill. I forgot what it was like to feel real love. Declan, I just let it go. It hurt too much to remember. I was lucky not to have anyone, because I’d been able to pretend it had always been that way.”
The bed shifted, and I felt the weight, the heat of his body settle next to me. His fingers dusted along mine, and each breath I took became a fight for survival. My heart hummed out uneven beats as
our fingers danced and teased and then finally wound together. I felt the bed shift again and I opened my eyes. Declan was lifted on one elbow looking down at me.
“You deserved to be loved, no matter what you thought of yourself then, you deserve to be loved.” His voice was low and rich, and I held my breath as he leaned forward.
He hesitated, just above my mouth, and his eyes watched me cave to his will as our breath mingled for two agonizing heartbeats before he stilled my shaky lips with his own.
He kissed me with a gentle edge. My lips rediscovered his, starting with the top and then tasting the bottom. He groaned as my tongue licked at the seam of his mouth, and his hand moved from my cheek only to cradle the back of my head. He deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding easily into my mouth, just like always, as if we’d never parted. He still tasted of spearmint, and the bristles of his beard against my skin had me begging for the burn. I twisted a hand into his hair and I pulled him closer, kissed him harder, as I placed my other hand on his chest curling the fabric of his shirt with my fingers. The beat of his heart drummed just below my fist and its tempo matched mine. Fast. Wanting. Free. Two people finding their way home.
I didn’t want to wake up from this new dream. I’d been stuck in a nightmare for almost ten years, but the landscape of it had changed with this kiss and its splashes of red mixed with the pink sweetness of remembering.
He pulled away, but not before nipping at my upper lip. His eyes were alive, his pupils fully dilated, almost completely eclipsing his flawless shade of blue. He kissed me again, but this time the urgency was gone. He painted my lips with soft strokes of heat as I brought my hands to his face. The coarse feel of his scruff was different under my fingertips and, as I kissed his upper lip one more time, I smiled against his mouth. He leaned back and gave me a smile of his own before he buried his face in the space between my neck and shoulder. His lips trailed a short path before he exhaled. The combination of his breath and his beard tickled my neck and I giggled.
I giggled. I hadn’t giggled in forever.
“Fuck, I missed that sound.” His voice vibrated against my neck and down every limb, and echoed in every pore.
“Me too.”
Breathe.
The tip of my nose trailed along the deep hollow between her shoulder and collarbone.
Breathe.
She’d left me fucking breathless.
Paige’s nails scratched at my hairline and I let my eyes fall shut. I’d surrendered to the moment. She’d tasted different. The sweetness of youth had become something more feminine, more real. I couldn’t describe it, but if I could paint it, it would be in a vibrant purple. Lush. It’d been the only word that spun through my head as my mouth consumed hers.
She giggled again, and I lifted my head once more to look at her face. Her chin was red from my beard and her lips were swollen. Even her nose was pink. The blue in her eyes turned to shadow and smoke as she waited for more, waited to see what I would do next. Every muscle in my body wanted her, needed to feel the release only she was ever capable of giving me. My hand rested on the flat plane of her stomach, my thumb just under the hem of her sweater. Her skin was too soft, inviting me to taste it, to do more than I knew either of us was ready for. I tried to ward off my thoughts, calm my raging pulse, and cool the need that was building quickly.
Breathe.
She’s so close.
I lowered my mouth to hers again and let the ache snap at the flesh of her lips. Her moan increased the drive as I inhaled her and pulled her closer… too close… until I lifted my body over hers and braced myself with my hands on either side of her head. She whispered my name, and without thinking, I pressed against her seeking relief. Wound up and hard, the friction nearly set me off. She gasped and I pulled away rolling onto my side to face her. I’d gone too far. Paige’s cheeks were crimson as she panted through each breath.
“Why’d you pull away?” she asked and raised her fingertips to my mouth tracing a line across my bottom lip. “Tell me what’s going on in your head, Declan, you look… sad.”
I lay down on the pillow, removing myself from the temptation. She moved with me, resting her cheek against the right side of my chest and placed her hand on the left. I covered her hand with mine and draped my right arm over her hip keeping her tight against me as I spoke, “I don’t want to push you.”
“You’re not.” Her voice rumbled in my ribcage.
Paige’s jeans were a size too big and, as I ran my fingers along her hip, her sweater began to rise up. Her skin prickled under my touch and I followed a path to her bottom rib.
You can feel her bones.
You’ll break her.
The image from my nightmare, my fear, the blood and gore, flashed behind my eyes. My breathing increased and she noticed.
“You’re not pushing me, Declan, I chose to come over here.” She made a move to lift her body from mine, but I held her tighter. I didn’t want to see her face when I told her what I was about to say.
“I have this nightmare, where you’re naked and all I can feel is the pull to be inside you, but each time I take a step toward you…” I swallowed past the thick silence between us, “Your ribs pierce through your skin and you bleed out right in front of my eyes.”
I felt her lips quiver against my chest. “I bleed out?” she asked quietly, tentatively.
“My head’s a fucking horror show.”
“Don’t be afraid of me,” she said as she wiggled out of my hold and leaned up on her elbow.
“I’m not.”
Her brows furrowed as she scanned my face, as if she could feel the lie, and after a moment, she shook her head. “You are, that’s what the dream is about. I hurt you, Declan… and maybe it’s your head’s way of telling you to be careful.”
She was the one who needed to be careful, it’d always been that way. My sickness could turn on me. I’d be a monster without meds.
“I just don’t want to rush this. I haven’t been with anyone since you… and maybe—”
“You haven’t?” The set of her mouth was skeptical.
I ran my hand down her arm. “No, not really. I’ve kissed a few girls, but nothing ever panned out.”
Nothing ever compared.
She dropped her gaze and the color left her cheeks. “You really have been so alone.”
It drove me fucking crazy thinking about her with another man, thinking about her trying to give him a child, thinking about what he’d done to make her so timid. From the little she’d shared with me, he’d been a prick, and as much as being isolated from others, from touch, almost brought me to the edge of my sanity, I somehow think I’d had the better life.
“It was better that way for me, no one would ever understand me.” I tugged at her hand and she lifted her chin. “No looking back, right?” I gave her a sideways smile, and she exhaled an unsteady breath.
Paige’s eyes gleamed as she met my stare. “I let him have my body because it was all I had to offer him. I was the sinner, and he just took what he wanted, justifying it by saying it was my place as his wife.” My jaw clenched and fury clouded my vision. She placed her left palm on my chest as I sat up. “Listen.” Her voice was a calm, pale green. “I want you to know, you need to know, I never really wanted to have his child. And even though I struggle between my own salvation and whether or not I think God, or whoever is up there, has forgiven me, I thank him every day that I never got pregnant.”
It was selfish, but I was thankful, too.
She shed one tear and I watched as it dripped down her cheek.
“I’m not looking back, Declan, all I want is to move forward, and I needed you to know I never stopped loving you, and being here with you again, it’s the absolution I’ve been begging for since the day my father sent you away.”
My heart punched out loud, rushed beats and trapped itself inside my throat. I needed to hear her say it, to hear her say she still loved me. I’d been without feeling for years. I’d caged it inside
of my head, let the voices coil any emotion I’d had into knotted branches of self-loathing.
“When I said you were poison, at the time I meant it. I meant it because I never stopped loving you, but I’d let myself, let my sickness turn what we had into something twisted. Since you’ve been back, the voices, they’ve diminished. My meds, they’ve been working, but it’s you, Paige… you’re the remedy and you always have been.”
Her lips parted with a faint breath, and I leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. She closed her eyes, and I kissed her wet lashes first, her forehead, and then her mouth. My fingers held her at the nape of her neck and my thumbs found their place along her jaw. She opened up to me. This kiss wasn’t about physical need. This kiss was an affirmation.
She was the first to break away. A few inches separated our lips.
“Should I stay?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“What about Liam?”
Liam could fuck right the hell off. “Let me worry about him.”
I lay back onto the pillow and she followed, placing herself in the exact same position as earlier.
“Okay.” She yawned.
“Do I need to set an alarm?” I didn’t have to be awake until eleven so I wasn’t worried about me, but I wasn’t sure if she worked tomorrow.
“Mmm?” She nuzzled closer aligning her body along the side of mine, and the hand she had on my chest curled around the fabric of my shirt securing her hold on me.
I chuckled. “Do you work in the morning?”
“No.”
I reached to the left and hit the light switch on the wall next to my bed, hardly moving her at all.
“Goodnight, Paige.” I kissed the top of her head.
“Love you.” It was just a murmur, but the heat of her breath saturated through my t-shirt and hit me square in the heart.
“She’s a good girl, Declan.” My father’s speech was slurred as I walked past the couch.
He was wearing his uniform still, his boots were covered with filth and sat on the coffee table without care. His legs were crossed, and he seemed at ease, even though the color of his skin around his left eye was turning an angry shade of blue. I’d just came in from saying goodbye to Paige. Liam offered to give her a ride home this time, so we wouldn’t have to take the bus. She’d said her parents could come get her, she said it every time, but I wasn’t ready for them to see this shithole, or even worse, ask to meet my parents. Besides, Liam needed some time away to cool off.
Possession Page 14
