“Promise you’ll be careful. Sins of the father and all that.”
“Do you need anything, Mother? I’m tired. I’d really like to sleep.”
“Oh. I suppose not.” Her tone becomes saccharine. “I just wanted to check on my sweet baby.”
“Yes, thank you. I appreciate it.” I appreciate it about as much as a root canal. “Good night, Mother.”
“Good night,” she says.
I feel a thousand times worse when she hangs up than I did before she called.
-
Raoul is waiting for me in the living room. He’s alone now, standing in front of his fireplace. Seeing his body rimmed by firelight reminds me of all the times we camped in the woods outside Father’s house as children.
Now that the television is turned off and the others are gone, the silence weighs heavily upon me.
He drums his fingers on the mantle. “We need to talk, Christine.” The fact that he won’t look at me when he says it speaks volumes about what we’re going to discuss.
I’m not ready for this conversation.
“Yes?” I ask.
“I’m going to be blunt about this. I don’t like to upset you, and I don’t like to be crude, but there’s just no way to approach this without…” He trails off, glaring into the fire. “When Duke pulled you up front with him, your relationship didn’t look professional.”
Raoul’s not nearly as oblivious as my mother.
A shame.
I sink to the couch, lowering my face into my hands.
“It’s not just professional,” I say.
“Tell me, Little Christy,” Raoul says.
My eyes sting.
I’m going to tell him the truth. I have to.
“Erik and I recently became…involved.” Each word hurts as though cut from my body with a knife. “He invited me into his office. He’s never allowed me into his office before. He said that he wanted to do work, and…” Raoul turns from me to face the fire again. I want to take back the words I’ve said but now I can’t. “Erik let me into the most private part of his soul by allowing me into his office. He’s mentored me, made me a better writer. He’s given me so much.”
“And then he took advantage of you.”
“No,” I say immediately, although with no conviction.
Raoul slams his fist into the mantle of the fireplace.
I flinch.
I’m not afraid of him. Raoul would never hurt me.
But it’s not my safety I’m afraid of.
“Did you have sex with him?” he asks.
I’m trembling. Tears cascade down my cheeks, hot and profuse, curving down to my jaw to shiver on the precipice of falling.
I can’t answer, but I don’t need to. Raoul is looking at me now. He sees what I’m thinking, the words I’m trying not to say.
“My God,” he says.
Now the words are tumbling out of me. “I didn’t plan on it. I’m not that kind of person. It’s just…I don’t do that, I can’t do that. It’s unprofessional. But I did.” The curls falling over my face aren’t enough to hide myself from Raoul. I wish they were. “I understand if you want to fire me and…and if you don’t want anything to do with me again.”
He drops to his knees in front of me, pulling my hands away from my face. He tips my chin up. Forces me to look at him.
Raoul’s grip is tight. “How could you think I’d want to do that?”
“Because of Erik,” I whisper.
“Christine…” His eyes search my face. “Nothing will ever change how I feel about you.”
I don’t get an opportunity to respond. He leans in and kisses me.
His lips are sweet and soft, so unlike the harsh demands Erik communicates to me with his kiss.
But it’s too brief. There’s still too much to be said for us to give in to one another.
He pulls back, gazing at me intently from inches away. “You can tell me that you consented all you want. You can say that this is your fault and blame everything that’s happened on yourself and your relationship with Erik Duke. But I know you better than that, Little Christy. I see the truth in your heart that your mouth won’t speak. You’re Duke’s victim. He terrifies you.”
Raoul’s not wrong. Not entirely.
But if I tell him that Erik entrances me as much as he frightens, will he believe me? Or will he think it’s another part of Erik’s abuse?
“You should probably fire me,” I tell him. It hurts to suggest it. “Regardless of whoever started it, my fraternization is why Erik started making demands. It’s why the whole company is at risk.”
“I don’t believe he wouldn’t have done that anyway,” Raoul said. “The man’s insane.”
“He’s a genius,” I whisper.
Raoul’s brow creases. “He really has you caught in his lies, doesn’t he?”
I can’t respond. Nothing I say will change his mind.
“Do you want to be with me, Christine?” Raoul asks.
Now that’s an easy answer. “Yes. Yes I do.”
“Will you promise to stay away from Erik Duke?”
That is far more difficult.
My jaw drops. There are no words.
I’m sure he intends to liberate me from my contractual obligations with Erik. Maybe he could succeed at it. His lawyers and money are mighty.
But even if he ended that contract, there’s no severing what has grown between myself and Erik now.
When I don’t reply, Raoul stands. He leaves me alone and steps onto his bedroom, wracked by thoughts that have etched misery across his handsome features.
All I can do is collapse on the couch and cry.
Four
Raoul’s balcony has an excellent view. The city looks small from up here—so small that I can imagine my problems are distant and tiny. It’s hard to imagine that there are millions of people in the city, all of them with problems of their own, struggling to get through the day.
From up here, everything looks serene.
Dawn will break soon. I haven’t slept at all, even once I’ve cried myself to a state of physical exhaustion to match my emotional one. And I will soon have to go into the office to face reality.
With my hands gripping the rail, I look down on traffic far below. I can’t hear the cars, but I see them inching along the road and around the corners and vanishing around other buildings. I wonder who is inside those cars. I wonder if they have troubles like I do.
Or perhaps I am the only one suffering in this kind of insanity.
The door whispers open behind me and I know that Raoul has joined me on the balcony. I’m acutely aware of his every movement, the way that his clothes rub together as he walks, the space that he occupies. It feels like the sunlight is dawning over me.
But today, even Raoul’s sunshine cannot warm me. I am cold inside. Frozen to my core.
His chest presses against my back and his arms encircle my body. I’m startled that he touches me so readily. When he left earlier, I thought that it was a rejection of me—the woman who can’t escape Erik Duke. But he is as comfortable touching me as ever.
Raoul’s lips dip to my ear. “We will fix this, Little Christy,” he whispers. “There’s no reason to be afraid.”
I feel like I should deny that I am afraid. I should put on a mask and hide my feelings. But I can’t.
I also can’t bring myself to turn around and face Raoul. Tears make the glittering skyscrapers around me blur. “Everything with Durand-Price is going to go very badly. I can feel it.”
Raoul plants a kiss on the side of my jaw, feather light and soft. I have to close my eyes because the sensation is so overwhelming. He is warm, so warm that I might burn.
He kisses down my neck to the point where the dress meets my shoulder. His fingers skim my back underneath my hair. “I don’t care what’s happened with Duke,” he whispers, voice as heated as his breath on my skin. “It’s not your fault. I meant it when I said that nothing could change the way I fe
el about you. As long as you want to be with me, I’ll be here.”
His fingers toy with the zipper on the back of the dress. My skin is electric where we touch.
I can feel in the rigidity of his muscles that he is thinking about drawing the zipper down, but he hesitates. Raoul knows what he wants. He only questions if I want to.
It’s amazing that he could ask himself that. There’s no doubt in my mind—I know exactly what I want him to do.
I want to be engulfed in his warmth, no matter the cost.
“I do want to be with you,” I tell him. “So much. So very, very much. But you have to understand what that means. Erik will—”
“Don’t talk about him,” Raoul says.
“He scares me.”
“I’ll protect you, Christine.”
I lean into his touch, letting my head fall back on his shoulder. The slight motion makes my zipper come down an inch underneath his fingers. The dress separates effortlessly. Raoul’s breath hitches.
I know now what is going to happen. It feels so inevitable.
And I know I must go through with it even though it will infuriate Erik.
“I want you,” Raoul says. “I’m going to have you.”
“Yes,” I whisper. It comes out sounding a little bit like a prayer.
Raoul tugs the zipper the rest of the way down, and the cool autumn air kisses my shoulder blades and wraps around my body like invisible hands underneath my dress. Goosebumps lift on my flesh.
He brushes his fingers over the places that I feel cold, warming me as the wind cools me in turns. His fingertips brush my ribcage, the soft skin of my side, the bone of my hip. And then the dress is slipping off my shoulders, falling down to my waist, and I am exposed to him.
I’ve never been so grateful to be wearing my nice underwear before. The look that Raoul gives me is deeply rewarding.
“Christine,” he says, voice ragged, as his palms curve around my breasts. The lace of my bra is thin enough that I can feel the brush of his flesh against mine.
It is sweet misery, having even that little fabric between us.
I lean back against the railing. It presses into my spine as I bow backward, permitting Raoul to push the dress down my hips. The material puddles around my feet.
He kneels in front of me, gazing up the lines of my stockings to my belly, my breasts. His eyes are hot.
His hands gather handfuls of my backside, as though he is greedy for the flesh. This is the lust of our teenage years delayed a decade. To me, he is more than a man; he’s a dream come to life, living and breathing and wearing a suit worth thousands of dollars. His eyes tell me that he feels the same about me.
It’s glorious to be his fantasy, especially since he’s mine as well.
“You’re perfect,” he murmurs.
With a smooth gesture, he stands, lips tracing a line up my stomach to my cleavage and collarbone. I am covered in goosebumps.
We are so exposed on his balcony. Nobody can see us, and yet it feels like the whole city will be able to see.
“We can go inside,” Raoul says, sensing my hesitation.
I fear that if I go inside, trapped within the walls of his condominium, I will lose my nerve. I’ll remember that I don’t live in romantic fantasy. I live in reality, and it will all come crashing down on us.
“Not yet,” I say.
He pulls me to one of his deck chairs, laying back on it. He never releases my wrists. I’m forced to lower with him, straddling his hips as he reclines.
I understand what he’s doing—making himself vulnerable to me as he stretches out, giving me control over the pacing. He’s interpreted my shivers as fear. Maybe he’s right. Maybe this will help.
All I know is that the sight of Raoul underneath me, the russet waves of his hair spread behind his head, makes my whole body burn for him.
He has seen me in my lingerie. Now I get to expose him inch by delicious inch, unbuttoning his shirt, spreading it wide to see his chiseled chest and abdominal muscles. He’s well-shaved. I wonder if he knew what we would be doing this night and prepared for it.
My fingers are hesitant on his buckle.
“Do it,” he says, fingers gently encircling my wrists.
He holds me as I loosen his belt, unbutton his slacks. And then he’s there—the full, erect length of him, as long as my hand and thicker than I’d have ever imagined.
I am giddy.
I am…intimidated.
Sliding down his body, I’m unsure of what to do with myself now that I have the opportunity to handle the most mysterious part of Raoul’s body. I know what I want to do. I want to please him. I want to show Raoul my adoration with lips and tongue.
But I have no idea where to begin.
“What do I do?” I ask. I can’t help but let a nervous giggle escape.
Raoul’s suddenly much more serious. “Christine, haven’t you…? I thought you said that you and Duke—”
I lick my lips. “Not like this. We did…other things.”
Uttering Erik’s name has summoned the specter of him to stand between us. My fervor for pleasing Raoul fades quickly.
I can only imagine what Erik would think if he could see me now.
Raoul takes me by the arms, pulling me back up again. He’s sensed my hesitation. “I don’t want that from you, Christine,” he says, rolling us so that I’m beside him on the deck chair. “Tonight’s about you. Healing your body.”
“I’m not broken,” I tell him.
His hand spans over my belly, sliding up my ribcage. “I can see all the cracks. You hide them well, but they’re there.”
I have to close my eyes as he tugs the bra down to expose my breasts. He brushes his thumb over the peak of my nipple.
Though I feel his body shift, it’s still a surprise when he lays a warm, moist kiss on my breast. His mouth travels from one breast to the next. He sucks the nipple into his mouth and pulls it gently into a peak.
My eyes close with the rapture of it.
But within my mind’s eye, I don’t see Raoul hovering over me.
Erik’s face is dark and angry. He is rimmed by the silvery moonlight that touches his hair and turns him into a silhouette, more shadow than man. It’s his mouth that nibbles along my collarbone, his hands brushing through my hair.
My heart races. I open my eyes with a little gasp.
Raoul takes the sound for pleasure, and he captures my lips with his, kissing me long and gently. There’s no mistaking that kiss for Erik’s.
There are flowers in a vase on the table beside us. Raoul plucks a white rose from its brethren and rolls it between his fingers.
“My maid replaces these every time they wilt,” he murmurs, lowering the blossom so that I can smell the pungent petals. “I never see these flowers die. They’re eternally caught in spring, forever young and beautiful.”
“It smells amazing,” I say. The flower is silk against my lips.
He trails it down my chin, touches it to my chest. Goosebumps rise where the flower brushes.
“You’re more beautiful than my eternal flowers, Christine,” Raoul says. “You’re more precious, more fragile, and infinitely more valuable.” He circles the rose around the aching peak of my nipple. I gasp again, and this time, it is from hungry pleasure.
But when I close my eyes, again, it is Erik above me.
He doesn’t hold a rose in his hands, but the pages of his book. They flutter against me in the wind.
There are dark thoughts etched on those pages. The horror of a man obsessed with a woman to the point of madness. The ink is my blood, his blood, mingled together in a story of the most perverse passions.
Raoul is whispering sweet words to me, telling me how he adores me. So many things I’ve waited so long to hear.
It’s Erik’s voice in my mind.
He’s not nearly so kind.
He holds no claim over you. I’ve shaped your mind. I’ve shaped your writing. I possess your soul.
&nb
sp; Something tickles my navel so delicately and I don’t know if it’s a rose or the draft of an unfinished book.
It dips between my legs. My eyes open with shock, and I find Raoul gazing intently at me, drinking in the sight of my rapture. The gentlest motions of that flower against my moist, wanting core makes all my blood pool between my legs.
I’m flooded with need.
“You’re my flower,” Raoul says.
I whimper when he pulls the rose away and smells it. The perfume on it is no longer floral, but feminine.
He kisses me again. We are more urgent now, becoming hungry.
Erik lurks in my mind.
He owns every brush of Raoul’s body against mine. He dominates my mind even as Raoul takes my body.
Our hands clasp over the rose, perhaps a little too tight, squeezed by our eagerness. A thorn pricks my palm. I pull away from Raoul with a gasp.
“Oh,” I whisper.
He takes my hand, inspecting the injury. “My mistake,” he says. “There’s only a little blood. It’ll heal quickly.”
A crimson bead shivers on my palm, sliding toward my wrist.
It is not blood. It is ink.
Raoul is rewriting my life, trying to edit Erik out of it. Healing me, as he said. But the instant I see that drop of blood, I know that there’s no removing Erik from my body. He flows through my very veins.
I don’t want to think such dark things when I’m with Raoul. I clasp my hands behind him, encircle his hip with my leg.
“Now, please,” I say.
He is loving, he is gentle.
Raoul positions himself between my legs. His hardness looks so intimidating between us, with our limbs all tangled in our formalwear, thousands of dollars sundered by passion.
I need him inside of me. I can’t wait any longer to be united with my childhood love, my fantasy, my Raoul.
His finger urges my panties down. I am bared to him.
Slowly, he sinks inside my body.
The touch of the rose and Raoul’s fingertips has left me heated and slick, yet his entrance is difficult. He’s larger than he looks. I’m stretched around him. It’s been too long since I’ve known a man, and it aches somewhere between pleasure and pain.
All He Asks 3 Page 3
