by M. Leighton
Mutely, he takes my hands and brings them to his face, fluttering my fingertips over his jaw and chin, his cheeks and nose, to his eyes. He circles them with my fingertips, round and round, and then closes his eyes and lets me feel them without his help.
I do, memorizing every fine detail of his face, committing it all to its own separate room in my mind, giving him his own dedicated space, afraid that this will be the last time I’ll touch it, that I’ll touch him.
Emotion flows through me, what’s in my heart starting to tingle at my fingertips. I turn back to my canvas and reach for my paints, but before I can sit on my stool, Levi stops me.
He scoots in behind me, perching on the stool and pulling me onto his lap. “Paint from here. Can you?”
I wiggle, letting my legs fall over his when he puts his feet on the bottom rung of the stool. I sit back a little, noting that he’d make a very comfortable recliner. That is my last thought before a drop of oil paint touches my finger. From that moment on, I’m lost.
Levi is utterly soundless at my back. I can’t even hear him breathing. I can only feel his warmth, his presence, his solidness beneath me, his hands resting lightly on my bare thighs.
Several times, without thinking about getting paint on him, I reach back to touch his face, outlining his perfect mouth, tracing his perfect cheek, charting his perfect jaw. My fingers tremble as I work. I’ll feel it every time I come back to this painting, too. I’ll feel every waver, every shudder. Everything that I’m feeling now, the pleasure and the pain. The good and the bad. The hope and the hopelessness.
I don’t know how much time has elapsed when I pick up two shades of blue along with black and white, but I’m almost done. The only thing I have left to paint are his eyes.
Carefully, I begin mixing. I start with cerulean and add Prussian blue. I dab in black, but too much so I add back some white. Back and forth I go until the color feels just right, until the consistency matches what I think I see in my head. Only then do I turn around and hold up my finger. “Levi’s blue,” I say of the denim color, but knowing that I’ll forever think of his eyes when I feel it, when I paint with it.
Levi grabs my wrist and brings my finger to his cheek, slowly dragging it from the corner of his eye down toward the corner of his mouth.
Like a tear.
When he releases me, I turn, hesitantly, to finish my work. It takes me the longest to do his eyes, to get right what I believe I see, what I hope I see in my mind. But I’ll never know. I’ll never know what they look like right now, what expression they’re wearing on this night as he watches me paint.
After I make the last swipe of color on the canvas, I lower my hands to the sound of a crescendo in my head. It’s as though this represents the height of our relationship, the best of what we’ve had in this short amount of time, and from here it’s all downhill.
The ebb.
The fade.
The decrescendo.
Behind me, Levi nudges me until I start to slide off his lap. Rather than letting me go, however, he lets me find my feet and then turns me to face him, picking me up under my arms and setting me back onto his lap, straddling him.
His hands come to mine, rubbing through the oily paint that coats my skin before dropping to the first button of his shirt that I’m wearing and loosening it.
When he releases the second button from its hole, my breathing starts to pick up. I realize that it matches his, breath for breath, as desire stirs between us, growing as quickly as a flame in the presence of an accelerant.
He is my accelerant.
And, for the moment, I am his.
My nipples are already hard when he unbuttons the last of the row and parts the folds of expensive linen, baring me to his eyes, to his hands. I feel the heat from his mouth seconds before it envelops my breast, sucking hard at the plump tip, then biting softly until I’m dragging my paint-covered hands through his hair.
Still he says nothing. In the hush of the night, without words, he teases and coaxes my body to life. I rock against him, and he reaches behind me to press my hips into his, stoking the fire.
The only sounds in the room are wet mouths, hungry gasps, muted moans. And my heartbeat.
With one big hand, Levi pushes at my chest, urging me back over his arm until my chest, my whole body are his to do with as he chooses.
He laves at my nipples, and I claw at his shoulders. He nips at my neck, and I scrape at his back. When he reaches between us to flick open the fly on his jeans, I groan with the anticipation of what’s to come, of feeling so completely filled by him, like I can’t hold anything else. Like nothing can come between us.
There’s the quick rattle of a condom before Levi brings his hands to either side of my face. He kisses me softly and then urgently, but then he releases me. Perfectly still, we sit like that, bodies begging for release, hearts listening to something else entirely.
“Watch me while I make love to you,” he whispers, releasing my face to lift my hips.
I know what he’s asking—for me to look into him, to watch what can’t be seen with eyes. So I do.
I cup his face in my hands, and when I feel his thick head prodding at my entrance, I hold on, eyes closed and facing him, as he lowers me, inch by delicious inch, onto him.
I exhale, a mewl of pure ecstasy slipping out unbidden when I’m fully seated on him. He’s so big, so perfect inside me.
I hear him grunt, want to hear his words, but still he says nothing. So I feel.
I feel his every breath. I feel his every motion. I feel the passion on his face. But more than that, I feel his eyes. I feel them with what my hands could never feel, and I feel what’s in them.
Face to face, nose to nose, Levi moves me on him, up and down as he flexes his hips up to meet mine, driving his body deeper. When I would kiss him, as though he feels me giving in, he murmurs again, “Watch me.”
For the first time since I lost my vision, I do see. I see Levi for who he is, for what he wants, and who he is to me. I see him for someone I could lose myself to—heart and soul—but who won’t let me for one reason or another. I see it all.
This is the end of something beautiful. Whatever happens, whatever comes, we won’t ever have this moment, this perfect peace and happiness back again.
My heart tears in two.
When it becomes too much for both of us, Levi lifts me and stands, walking to the nearest wall and puts my back to it, pressing me against it so he can hammer his body up into mine.
His face is buried under my hair, his breath hot on my skin. Within seconds, I’m flying, falling over the edge, soaring past the point of no return. And seconds after that, he comes with me, following me down, down, down.
I cry out, in pleasure and in pain, a collision of emotion that leaves my soul a mangled mess and my body a quivering heap. If not for his arms, I would fall to the floor, unable to move.
I don’t remember Levi carrying me to my room. I don’t remember him taking his shirt off me. I don’t remember him putting me under the covers. I only remember his voice when he told me goodnight, and that it didn’t feel like I’d be seeing him tomorrow.
I only remember that it felt like goodbye.
CHAPTER 20
LEVI
LEAVING EVIE feels worse than I expected.
And I expected it to feel like shit.
I make it to the hotel by midnight. And I’m irate by the time I get to my room.
I’m not the type of man to be jerked around, much less blackmailed. If I didn’t care about Evie, I would never have even humored Julianne’s demands. I’d have told her to go to hell on the spot.
But I do care about Evie.
More than I thought I would. Damn sure more than I should, all things considered.
And Julianne must be able to sense that.
So here I am, marching to her tune for the moment. Pacifying her until I can tell Evie my way and then take care of Julianne the way I see fit. But even temporarily caving t
o her demands does not set well with me. Not one bit.
But that’s all right. Hers is coming. She’s messed with the wrong man this time.
The first thing I see when I walk into my suite is a bottle of champagne on the table near the entry. It has a note tied with a red satin ribbon around the neck. Stalking over to it, I rip off the tiny square and open it.
I decided to help you tell her. You can thank me later. J
My mouth goes dry, and my heart thumps heavily as I reread the note. I read it a third time to be sure I’m not misunderstanding something. I don’t think I am, but just in case…
Only I’m not.
I’m not misunderstanding anything.
My fury is the first thing to rise. I take my phone from my pocket and punch Julianne’s contact information so hard it feels like my finger might go straight through the glass screen.
She answers on the first ring.
“You did make it. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“What the hell did you do?”
Her laugh, the laugh that I once thought was sultry, is toxic. “What you should’ve already done. What you weren’t strong enough to do. I mean, really, Levi. I thought you were stronger than that. Stronger than me. But clearly, you’re not as strong as I thought. It didn’t take long for her to make you weak.”
“I don’t give a good godda—”
“But more than that, you were right. I don’t want you this way. I’d much rather wait for the day when you come begging for me to take you back. So I gave you a gift. Or, more specifically, gave her a gift.”
“What did you do?” I spit again, tired of her games.
“I just sent her a little present. Nothing too expensive. Just a trinket really. But with a note.”
I’m instantly relieved. “She’s blind, Julianne. Or did you forget? She can’t read your little messages.”
“I didn’t forget. Haven’t you seen recordable cards?”
My abs clench. With rage. And with concern.
I really had intended to tell Evie. Eventually. At least I think so. But I wanted to do it. I wanted to be able to tell her my way, in my time.
But if Julianne is telling the truth, that ship has sailed.
“Sounds like someone isn’t very happy with the news,” she purrs in a smug voice.
“You’re a scheming pathetic little bitch. I can’t believe I ever saw anything good in you.”
She laughs and it makes me want to reach through the phone and choke the shit out of her. “Who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself? Because I’ve always been this way. It’s what you love about me, whether you admit it or not.”
“You’re not just pathetic, you’re crazy.”
“You won’t always think so. You’ll want me again. I promise.”
“I’ll bury you with that promise,” I snarl scathingly.
“Don’t be so sure. Once little Evian gets my note, I think you’ll see things my way.”
I tighten my fingers around the phone in a grip I’m surprised doesn’t crush the damn thing. “I promise you that I won’t. If you ever, ever come near me again, I’ll make you wish you’d never met me. And as for Evie, you’d better pray to whatever god filthy whores like you believe in that she doesn’t end up hurt because of you. I’ll take everything from you. Everything you’ve worked for, everything you’ve ever loved, even if I have to make a deal with the devil himself to do it.”
After all my father has done, I don’t even hate him as much as I hate Julianne in this moment. I’m consumed with it, shaking with it.
Julianne is smart enough to know this is war. It’s there in the tightness of her next words. And it’s there in the card she plays, the only leverage she has to keep me from destroying her.
Evie.
She’s right in one thing. Evie really is my only weakness.
“If you don’t see things my way, I’ll tell the world that she’s a fake. A phony. And they’ll believe me, because a blind woman? Painting? Don’t be ridiculous. Her career, her life, and everything she’s worked for will be gone.” I hear the snap of her fingers. “Poof. Just like that.”
I growl, a feral sound even to my own ears. “You disgusting fuc—”
She cuts me off before I can finish, ending the call with a satisfied, “Bye” and then she’ gone.
I stand holding the phone for a few seconds, literally quaking with rage, before I give in to my urge to break something. I throw the phone as hard as I can against the wall and feel a little bit better when it explodes into a zillion pieces right in front of my eyes.
Then something she said stops me.
Panics me.
If Julianne does get to her before I do, Evie will explode right in front of my eyes, too.
I run for the door.
CHAPTER 21
EVIE
I WAKE to darkness and silence. Nothing out of the ordinary in my life, yet something feels…off.
I slap the clock on my bedside table, and it tells me only thirty-one minutes after midnight. I must’ve just dozed off after Levi left.
Levi.
I frown.
Something in my gut tells me that we were on the brink of something amazing, something incredible. But somewhere along the way, some time in the last twelve hours, things changed. Something went awry. I have no idea what happened, but I know without question that things aren’t as they should be.
I shiver when I throw back the covers. I’m completely nude. Levi’s shirt is gone.
I rub a hand over my bare chest, my palm hovering over my steadily beating heart. There’s an ache there, a sense of grief, as though the disappearance of Levi’s shirt symbolizes a greater loss. And I feel that loss. All the way down into my soul.
I pad across the bedroom and take my robe from the back of the door, pushing my arms into it and making my way to the kitchen. Maybe getting something on my stomach will help relax me.
I put water on the stove and bring it to a boil for tea. As I wait for it to heat, I nibble on a cookie and rifle through the mail basket.
Cherelyn sorts our correspondence each day and then, if I’m not around, leaves me a voice message on the little recorder we keep in the basket, explaining what’s what. She worked out a nifty little system. She turns down the corners and explains what’s what on the recorder. Like the one with one dog ear is X and the one with two dog ears is Y. I don’t get that much mail, so we’ve never worked our way up to having four envelopes, therefore four dog-eared corners, but that could change any day.
Tonight, in the basket with the recorder, there’s a rectangular box that feels as though it’s wrapped in something slick, like maybe gift wrap, and a squarish envelope. I press play on the recorder as I let my fingers work their way curiously over the items.
Cherelyn’s voice comes on, echoing through the quiet kitchen with its cheerful lilt. “These came for you before I left. A box and a card. By special delivery. Nice!” I grin. It’s obvious she thinks they’re from Levi. She might as well have been singing, “Evie and Levi sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
Although the envelope feels fat, like it might be one of those recordable cards, I can’t be sure, and if it’s not, I can’t read it and will have to wait for Cherelyn to return anyway, so I open the box first. Carefully, I feel along the seams for pieces of tape, which I break with my short fingernail as I go. When the paper releases, I peel it back and feel for the opening to the box. It’s one of the type that the top is bigger than the bottom and it sort of slides down over it snugly. I grip the smaller half and pull up, and they come apart easily.
Inside is a hard…something. It’s smooth and cool, and I pull it out to turn it over in my palm, trying to identify the shape. It’s curved slightly in the middle, fatter on both ends, sort of like an hourglass. Or maybe a pair of sunglasses.
I detect hinges along one side and open it long ways. I grin when I feel a pair of glasses inside. They have to be sunglasses. I mean, why would anyone send me actua
l glasses? I can’t see a damn thing!
Gently, mindful of the lenses, I take them out and spread the arms, feeling along them for some indication of what kind they are. I feel the interlocking Cs that identify them as Chanel.
I smile.
Levi bought me Chanel sunglasses.
I put them on, even though it’s the dead of night and no one is around to see me in them. The fit is really good and wearing them makes me feel somehow closer to him.
I set the box aside and go for the card. Now I know for sure that it has a voice message in it.
I run my finger under the flap and take the card out, still smiling when I open it to trigger the message. My lips straighten and thin the moment I hear the voice.
It’s not Levi at all.
But it’s no stranger either.
“Hello, Evian. I thought these would look magnificent on you. I hope you enjoy them. Oh, and also, you might want to ask Levi where he was the night of your accident, when you lost your sight. You might find his answer interesting. He knows more about that than you think.”
Confused, I close the card and then open it again, listening to the message a second time. Then a third. Then a fourth, each time my heart sinking lower and lower until it feels that it has vacated my chest entirely and taken up residence in my stomach, where a sick feeling has started to live.
I sit holding the card, wondering what Julianne could mean. Something inside me cracks. Hope? Trust? Love? It becomes a cavernous crevasse, widening more and more with every second that passes. I know without a doubt that whatever she means, it’s not good.
Part of me, the cowardly part that would rather hide away than face any more pain or humiliation, says I don’t want to know anything more.
But the rest of me, especially the parts that mustered enough courage to take a chance on Levi, says I do.
I have to. I have to know. If he was somehow involved, I need to know that.
Rationally, I think to myself that he wasn’t. Surely not. That would be too coincidental.
Wouldn’t it?
I think back to that night. I heard a girl crying and an older man’s voice. I didn’t hear a third person. There was no third person.
