Echo

by E. K. Blair

  My head drops in embarrassment, not wanting to add another layer of disgust on top of everything else he knows about me. With my hand still in his, he takes his other and covers my wrist with it. When I look into his eyes, he urges, “I want you to tell me.”

  So, I take a hard swallow and muster up what strength I can to confine the pain. It takes me a moment, and after a measured breath, I cut through another wound and allow it to bleed out for Declan. “When I wasn’t in the basement, I was in the closet. My foster dad would tie me up with his leather belt to the garment rod in the closet beneath the stairs and lock me up.”

  “Jesus,” he mutters in disbelief. “How long would you . . . ?”

  “Every weekend. I’d go in on Friday and come out Sunday. Sometimes I’d be in there during the weeknights. But during the summers, it was constant. I’d be in there three to five days at a time. He’d let me out long enough to go down in the basement, but then he’d tie me back up and lock the door again.”

  I feel numb when I tell him this, caging off the emotions I fear. The horror splayed across his face is hard to look at, so I keep my head down, but he picks it up. Moving closer to me, with his hands on my cheeks, he angles me to look up at him. My jaw is locked tight while I continue to hold myself together.

  “Why?” he scolds harshly as he holds me in his hands. “Why didn’t you tell someone? Why did you let that happen to you?”

  His words rankle my nerves, but instead of blowing up at him in a rage, I narrow my eyes, and seethe, “You don’t know shit. You had a home, you had a family, you were safe. So don’t you dare sit here and question my actions. You don’t know fear like I do. I may be fucked in the head, but one thing I do know for sure . . . I didn’t let those things happen to me. What happened wasn’t my fault, so fuck you for blaming me.”

  I jerk away from him and stand up, but he’s quick when he meets my moves and grabs my arm. He pulls me back to him, and when I try yanking out from his hold, he tightens his grip.

  “Let go of me!” I yell, but he says nothing as I struggle my arm free. I don’t wait another second and start walking down the hill away from him. I don’t expect anyone to understand my childhood, but to think a little girl would allow someone to debase her like I was is fucking crazy.

  “I’m sorry,” his voice hollers down to me, but I keep walking. “Elizabeth, stop!”

  I do. I instantly stop the moment I hear his voice break. When I turn to look up at him through the trees, I exhaust in a softer tone, “I was just a little kid.”

  With hurried steps, he makes his way down, and when he’s standing before me, he says, “I’m sorry. My words came out wrong. I’m just angry.” He grabs on to me. “I’m so fucking angry when you tell me these things. I feel helpless.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to take it away from you. Because somewhere inside my hate for you, a part of me still cares.”

  Staring up at him, I know better than to leech on to the goodness and hope of what he just said, so I ask, “Which one is it? Do you care more than you hate?”

  I watch the tension strain through his eyes, and a moment passes before he answers, “No.”

  His honesty burns and sinks down inside of me. I question why I’m even here if he hates me so much. I feel like a game to him, but I don’t even know what he’s gaining from playing with me like this.

  Shrugging out of his hold, I take a couple steps back from him before demanding, “Take me back to Isla’s.”

  “No.”

  “It wasn’t a question, Declan. I’m leaving,” I tell him and then turn my back and rush towards the house, fuming mad.

  I move quickly, doing my best to avoid ice patches, when I hear his heavy footsteps behind me. Looking over my shoulder, he’s moving fast, but I’m too angry to face him right now, so I pick up my pace and start running from him.

  “Elizabeth, stop!” he shouts from behind me, but I don’t, and with each of my strides, my armor cracks.

  His words just reminded me how alone I am in this world. Foolish of me to think maybe he wanted me here for the sake of wanting to be near me.

  When I finally reach the house, I make my way around the back, but he catches me. His hand locks around my elbow, and when I stumble over my feet, he swings me around to face him and loops his arm around my waist. I cry out when he picks me up, lifting me off the ground.

  In a flash, he has my back pressed against the side of the house, his body pinning me to the stone. With him flush against me, both of us panting heavily, I don’t fight him as emotions overflow between us.

  He doesn’t speak, and neither do I, and before I know it, without thinking, my arms wrap around his neck. Our eyes are locked, never straying. He rests his forehead against mine, and my heart beats uncontrollably when he moves his hands to my pants. With our heads pressed together, staring into each other’s eyes that reveal the unfamiliar emotions we’re both experiencing, his cold fingers press against my stomach as he unzips my pants. He shoves them down, and I fumble, kicking off my rain boot, and working my one leg out of my pants as he unhooks his slacks.

  The foggy vapors from our heavy breaths swim between our mouths, and suddenly, his hands wrap behind my knees, lifting me up. I lock my ankles around him, and the instant I feel the heat of his cock against me, a couple tears escape and fall down my cheeks.

  He grips himself in his hand and presses into my folds, wetting his dick as he runs his burning tip through the slick warmth of my pussy. My arms cling tightly around him when he barely pushes the head of himself inside, teasing me, tugging at my opening. Clenching my thighs around him, a few more tears fall when he finally pushes himself inside of me.

  I moan in carnal heat when he buries himself in my body. My heart leaps at the connection that soothes all the friction away. I’m finally pacified and free. I revel in knowing he has the antidote to clean the rot in me. I’m like the angel of martyrdom and he’s the bezoar that purifies.

  “Tell me you’re not leaving,” he says on a heavy voice that edges on violence, and I yield to him, saying, “I won’t leave,” because I’d do just about anything for him in this moment to keep his touch.

  And with my words, he takes my mouth in a savage kiss as he begins fucking me with powerful, deep strokes. His eyes blacken in primal lust as he takes me, driving me back against the wall with each of his urgent thrusts. The sounds of my moans mixed with his heady pants fill the air around us.

  His body grows rigid when he moves his hand to my throat, wrapping his fingers around my neck in a light choke. He releases a husky growl, and I can feel his cock strengthen and throb inside of me.

  “Touch yourself,” he orders, and I obey.

  Licking my fingers first, I drag them down to my swollen clit and begin rolling them in soft circles. My eyes swim out of focus as our bodies reunite consensually for the first time in months.

  His grip constricts around my throat, depleting the amount of air I’m able to take in, but I don’t panic as my body finds comfort in the familiarity of his tender force during sex.

  “Put it inside of you so you can feel me,” he instructs, and I reach down a little further, my neck pushing against his hand as I slip my finger alongside his cock, sinking it in my pussy at the same time he slams inside of me. I pump my finger in rhythm with him. Touching us in this way, feeling the warmth of our mended bodies, slick in arousal, it’s too much.

  “Oh, God,” I mewl loudly as I feel my walls pulse around my finger and his cock.

  “Don’t ever walk away from me again,” he scolds.

  “Never.”

  “You wanna come?”

  “Yes,” I strain around the cords of my throat that he continues to hold hostage.

  And in his feat of control over me, he orders, “Ask permission.”

  “Please.”

  My body rises in a fiery storm amidst the nearly freezing temperature.

  “Ask!”

  “Please,” I repeat in a b
reathless whimper. “I need it.”

  “Don’t do it. Don’t defy me,” he warns, and when I reach the brink, I clamp my thighs to his hips with as much strength as I can to slow him down.

  Holding on to my breath, I fight with everything in me to ward off the orgasm that’s about to erupt.

  “That’s it,” he delights in his power over me.

  But I can’t hold on. Looking in his eyes, I give in, “Can I come? Please, I need it.”

  “You want it?” he taunts.

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck yourself faster,” he instructs, and I do.

  I lose all control and begin fingering myself against his cock that swells inside of me, spurring my explosion.

  I come.

  Hard and wild.

  Every muscle in my body tightens in spasms of euphoria, bucking my hips into Declan, greedy to keep the pleasure going. And then I feel his release. He soaks my finger that’s still inside of me, fucking myself while he fills me up. I don’t stop moving as his cum seeps out of me, running down my hand.

  His teeth grit as he keeps his eyes on me the whole time, and I watch him grunt in pleasure through the shatters of light that fracture my vision into a thousand prismatic flakes of pure ecstasy.

  When our bodies slow, he lets go of my neck, and my head falls to his shoulder as I allow my body to slack against his. He holds me for a moment while our hearts calm and we catch our breath.

  I wish for frozen time, forgotten sins, and never-ending love.

  But I know this isn’t love on his part. I’m not sure what it is, but I know it isn’t that. I want it to be though, so I keep my head tucked into the crook of his neck, scared to move, because I know the moment I do, reality will resume, and his loathing for me will continue.

  I wrap my legs tighter around him, wanting to prolong having him nestled inside of me, but my attempt at pushing time away doesn’t last. When I feel Declan pulling out of me, I slip my finger out and wrap my hand around his still hardened cock. But he doesn’t allow the contact, taking my wrist and forcing me to let go.

  With my feet steady on the ground, I watch as he shoves himself back into his pants. He doesn’t utter a word, and his eyes are no longer on me. And then he’s gone, turning his back and walking away from me, leaving me with my pants down, covered in his cum, in the bitter cold.

  Maybe I should feel used and dirty. Maybe I should hate him. Maybe I should give up and be done. But my heart won’t let me. Because in the end, I know I’ll always want him any way I can get him.

  I’m an epicurean for his pain.

  He’s my sadist, and I’m his masochist.

  We’re the reflection of each other’s monsters.

  I HAVEN’T SEEN Declan since he walked away from me, leaving me alone in the cold earlier today. But I haven’t been looking for him either. I’ve spent most of the day roaming around the house, taking in the history, the artwork, and exploring the books in the library.

  And now, as I lie on the chaise here in the atrium at the back of the house, I gaze up at the black velvet sky peppered with stars through the glass structure. With civilization sparse and the lack of clouds, you can see every star in the sky. Thousands of them, glittering in the obsidian of night, each holding wishes from foolish people and hopeful children. And I can’t help myself when I throw my own up to a few of them tonight.

  The house is dark, the only noise coming from the wind as it whistles through the bare trees. And with Declan’s constant push and pull, he reminds me of the wind. It blows, wrapping itself around me, but as soon as I feel it, it’s gone. It’s uncatchable, unstoppable, uncontrollable, and as much as I want Declan, all I’m really doing is chasing the wind.

  I turn my head to the shadow of Declan who stands in the open doorway. He wears only his long pajama bottoms that hang low on his hips. A warmth surges through me as I admire the deep cuts of his abs and the defined muscles that rope his broad shoulders and arms. He’s so beautiful that it pains me to look at him, but I can’t stop myself.

  “Are you okay?” he says after a long span of silence.

  I nod, but it’s a lie. I’m not okay. He fucked me like an animal and left me in the cold. One minute he’s caring and sweet, and the next, he’s transformed—angry and silent, completely shut down and wanting nothing to do with me. And now, here he is, and I wonder what version I’m going to get.

  He walks into the room, and I keep my eyes on him as he moves with ease.

  “What are you doing out here? Aren’t you freezing?”

  “I like the cold,” I tell him.

  “I know you do.”

  His words make me want to smile, but I refrain. Moving closer, he then sits next to me on the chaise.

  “Where’ve you been all day?” I ask.

  “In my office. I came looking for you because I have to leave tomorrow for London.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ll be gone for just a couple of days.”

  “What’s in London?”

  “Business,” he answers, offering no further insight, so I inquire, “Another hotel?”

  “Yes. I recently closed on the land. I’m meeting a few different architects tomorrow that I could potentially hire.”

  “That’s really exciting.” And when I sit up, I ask, “When will you be taking me back to Isla’s?”

  “I won’t,” he says evenly. “I would prefer if you stayed here where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “An eye on me?”

  He then looks away and nods his head in the direction of a small camera that’s attached to one of the steel beams that connects the panes of glass.

  “They’re in all the rooms,” he states, and it makes sense that he would have that level of security in a home this massive.

  “Declan,” I hesitate, feeling awkward about staying here while he’s away.

  “I don’t trust you at Isla’s. Twice I’ve walked in on you hurting yourself.”

  “But it feels weird to be here if you’re not.”

  “You don’t like it here?” he asks, and I instantly respond, “No, it isn’t that. I do like it here. It’s just . . . ”

  “Then you’ll stay put until I get back.”

  “I don’t understand you,” I whisper weakly.

  And with my words, he exhales deeply, turning to look away from me, dropping his elbows to his knees.

  “Declan, please. Give me something to work with here. Tell me something to help me understand.”

  He keeps his head forward, and the tension and struggle is all over him. The muscles in his back flex, and I can see the rise and fall of it as his breathing increases. I know it’s a reflection of his building emotions, I just wish I knew what they consisted of.

  I want to touch him, but I’m afraid it will piss him off and he’ll leave again, so I keep my hands in my lap as I simply watch.

  When he finally speaks, his voice cracks, along with my heart, as he says, “Your voice . . . the moment I heard your voice after I was shot, I did everything I could to fight my eyes open just so I could see you. I’d already read the file. I already knew you had been lying about everything. But a part of me . . . ” His voice slips before he takes a hard swallow and looks over his shoulder to face me, continuing, “ . . . a part of me wanted to believe I had gotten it all wrong and that it wasn’t a lie. But when he said Go, and you did so easily, leaving me to die . . . ” His face contorts with the pain he’s fighting to hide. “ . . . No one has ever made me feel so worthless and disposable.”

  “I was scared.” My words tremble, not knowing what else to say. “I was so scared.”

  “I was too, and you left.”

  I hold my breath as I stare into his eyes that harbor the scars I inflicted. The burden of guilt that consumes me is paralyzing as I watch him expose the fragile pieces he hides so well. He’s a man who is nothing but strength and control, but in this quiet moment, he reveals just how broken he is. Broken and hurt, and it’s all because of me.

>   “When I came here,” he starts again, “I wanted nothing to do with you. I wanted you dead, but then I found myself outside with a shovel, digging up the flower bushes that surround the house like a fucking maniac losing my mind.”

  “Why were you digging them up?”

  “Because you told me you hated the color purple, and those shrubs bloom purple flowers in the spring.”

  And that’s the dagger that impales my façade of strength. Tears pool in my eyes, and my body restrains to not completely burst into tears.

  “My head has been so fucked up because I can’t get you out of it.”

  “When I was eight years old,” I begin, needing to speak because the sound of his voice is too upsetting for me. So, I distract myself and reveal another part of my past. Another denouement for him. “I wound up being moved to a different foster home. The one that would make me believe that monsters were real. I was terrified to the core, and when I was shown the room I’d be sleeping in, all the walls were painted purple.” Declan’s hand finds my cheek as I continue to talk. “All the years of torture and abuse were stained in purple.”

  His other hand covers my other cheek, and he holds me. I don’t want to lose the touch, but I need more to remedy the sour bile that ripples in my stomach. Mirroring his affections, I cover his cheeks with my hands. A rush of comfort wraps around me as I feel the crackle of his unshaven jaw under my hands. I tug him in and he comes to me willingly, touching his lips to mine. We don’t move as we rest peacefully against each other.

  The moment fractures when he abruptly pulls away. My hands fall from him as his clutch tightens around my face. I can feel the strain in his hands as their nerves vibrate against my cheeks. His body locks up, the corded muscles banded around his shoulders contract.

  “Why?” I breathe. “Why do you turn so cold?”

  He grinds his teeth, and his eyes flare disdainfully at me. “Because I don’t want to be this close to you. Because I despise you. Because you’re a scheming witch.”

  His tone stabs like an ice pick, and I wonder if it will always be this way with us. If he truly is incapable of allowing himself to ever be vulnerable with me again. Maybe he’s destined to be the yearning ache of my heart.